Miriam Makeba Quotes

I want to continue to speak out on issues that matter to me. I want to have even more of a voice.

Rights are won only by those who make their voices heard.

My kids have lived experiences that could have never been duplicated otherwise. That's one thing about people who get involved in activism, you live so many experiences that otherwise they wouldn't be there. This is why peoples' lives are so enriched.

The rhythm of being an activist today involves a pretty simple rhythm. You have to open your eyes to the reality before you. You have to look and see.

If you're black living in the community and you want to change things, there are going to be things that happen. That's true of anybody. I mean you could use celebrity as a similar metaphor.

It's got to be the ballot or the bullet. The ballot or the bullet. If you're afraid to use an expression like that, you should get back in the cotton patch, you should get back in the alley.

I feel like I have to have a voice.

When you sit at your desk, if you're lucky, there's a moment when you feel empowered to be someone or something else, to leap into another skin.

If you have an opportunity to use your voice you should use it.

I love the ability to transform because that, for me, is a liberation.

When I sing I don't feel like it's me. I feel I am fabulous, like I'm 10 feet tall. I am the greatest. I am the strongest. I am Samson. I'm whoever I want to be.

We wish to plead our own cause. Too long have others spoken for us.

There is nobody on this planet who was ever liberated by an athlete or an entertainer.

It's important for youth, black youths particularly, to be able to fill in the blanks of themselves so they can know completely who they are, but also all the country to understand what this means: what the civil rights movement does to us as people. It is part of the journey that we must be on in order to become fully evolved human beings.

I feel like I've been known for having long black hair, so when I took all my extensions out and cut my own hair, it was the most freeing thing, I think, I've ever done. That was my 21st year: I cut my hair, I was doing Broadway; I was living in New York, and I was really having a moment of becoming my individual self, and it was amazing.

More having to do whatever anybody said you had to do. I couldn't really do anything on my own. But as I got older and then came to America and then Grace became my name, it somehow freed me. All of a sudden, I can be this other person.

I wore the hijab - a form of dress that comprises a head scarf and usually also clothing that covers the whole body except for the face and hands - for nine years. Put more honestly, I wore the hijab for nine years and spent eight of them trying to take it off.

My earliest memory of freedom was when I was about 14 and I stopped caring what people thought about me! I was so free and in charge! That whole year I was exploring myself, and I was so 'free' that I got sent away to boarding school.

I just want to use my voice and my platform to help people. Whether it be political or therapeutic.

Writing is a form of activism.

Getting to be authentic is so liberating.

I can't afford to be quiet all the time. I learned that.

I was encouraged to use my voice and explore my passions outside of the sport. And when I did that, I was finally able to realize my true self-worth. I was more than that of a gymnast.

I wish when I was 15 that I realized my voice was important and that even my thoughts and my opinions had value. Had I known, I probably would've spoken up more. I probably would've found my activism sooner and become a writer sooner.

'Meenaxi' was a lesson in liberation. It taught me to be a free spirit and understand the pleasure of my work by being different people, just like Meenaxi is.