Mary Daly Quotes

I have a big passion about civil rights for everyone - whoever is being downtrodden at the moment, it doesn't matter: racial discrimination or sexual orientation or gender. Whatever it is, I'm there. I think I was a born civil rights activist. I can't stand the smashing of a community. It's not fair and it's not right.

The history of progress is written in the blood of men and women who have dared to espouse an unpopular cause, as, for instance, the black man's right to his body, or woman's right to her soul.

I believe the time has come for equal rights for everyone in this country, even for white people.

I've always felt very strongly about human rights for blacks, women, and gays. Our Constitution is about equality for all - that's got to mean something to all of us.

This is beautiful indeed; the colored people have given this to the head of the government, and that government once sanctioned laws that would not permit its people to learn enough to enable them to read this book.

One ought to be against racism and sexism because they are wrong, not because one is black or one is female.

For as long as I can remember, I've always been interested in issues of social justice, political freedom, and civil rights.

Where I come from, if you see your family and friends' civil rights being taken away, you speak up and do everything you can to keep that from happening!

All I did was ask for rights. I didn't attack anyone. I didn't harass anyone. I didn't oppose the system or the country or the authority. All I said is, 'Why can't I drive?'

Civil rights are more important today than they ever have been in our country. There is so much divisiveness today.

I believe the equal rights amendment is a necessity of life for all citizens. The cabinet sometimes felt that I shouldn't be so outspoken.

Let me go over this again on the reclaiming the civil rights movement. People of faith that believe that you have an equal right to justice - that is the essence. And if it's not the essence, then we've been sold a pack of lies. The essence is everyone deserves a shot - the content of character, not the color of skin.

I think as a whole America is dealing with the issue of homophobia. We got to be really honest about whether we believe in civil rights for all people or not. As Black people we need to remember the moment that we say it's okay to disenfranchise one segment of society, we're opening the door to move backward on ourselves.

Women are born, living their lives, and dying without the justice which they have been waiting for since the time of the caveman.

There are those who say to you we are rushing this issue of civil rights. I say we are 172 years too late.

The rights of all of us are diminished when the rights of any one of us are threatened.

America is a dirty rag if it will not protect all of its citizens.

A riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice, equality and humanity. And so in a real sense our nation’s summers of riots are caused by our nation’s winters of delay. And as long as America postpones justice, we stand in the position of having these recurrences of violence and riots over and over again. Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention.

The law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me.

Is Justice to be established by subjecting half of mankind to the will of the other half? Justice, Sir, is blind to colors, and weighs in equal scales the rights of all men whether white or black…. An opportunity is now presented, if not to diminish, at least to prevent the growth of a sin that sits heavy on the soul of every one of us.

I cannot sit by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

…Anything less than full equality is not enough. If we compromise on that principle our soul is dead

Civil Rights: What black folks are given in the U.S. on the installment plan, as in civil-rights bills. Not to be confused with human rights, which are the dignity, stature, humanity, respect, and freedom belonging to all people by right of their birth.

This is not a question of expediency, but of right. In antebellum days the proposition was not, “Are the blacks good enough to be free?” but, “Have they the right?” So today the question is not, “Will outrages result from freeing humanity?” but, “Has it the right to life, the means of life, the opportunities of happiness?”

One hundred years of delay have passed since President Lincoln freed the slaves, yet their heirs, their grandsons, are not fully free. They are not yet freed from the bonds of injustice. They are not yet freed from social and economic oppression. And this nation, for all its hopes and all its boasts, will not be fully free until all its citizens are free.