John Lewis Quotes

It is our hope that when people read "March" - Book One, Book Two, and Book Three - that they will understand that another generation of people, especially young people, were deeply inspired by the work of Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr. and many others.

When I was 16, the guest speaker was King. And I was completely overwhelmed because I had been studying nonviolence, talking about it, reading about it, but here it was happening, here it was people boycotting the buses and people on the streets and taking risks, which I think was the key.

Martin [Luther King] wasn't one to buck forces too much.

I think, along with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks will go down as one of the two most well-known and remembered figures out of the Civil Rights Movement.

If Rosa Parks had not refused to move to the back of the bus, you and I might never have heard of Dr. Martin Luther King.

I remember back in the 1960s - late '50s, really - reading a comic book called 'Martin Luther King Jr. and the Montgomery Story.' Fourteen pages. It sold for 10 cents. And this little book inspired me to attend non-violence workshops, to study about Gandhi, about Thoreau, to study Martin Luther King, Jr., to study civil disobedience.

There were these great women in Montgomery, [Rosa Louise] Parks was among them. Jo Ann Robinson [who organized the bus boycott] was among them. It's always these ordinary women and men of grace who have been waiting and seething and planning to change things that are unjust that bring movement.

What is accurately portrayed is the rich humanity not just of Martin Luther King but of the movement, which was a multiracial movement. You had blacks and whites coming together and sacrificing, organizing and mobilizing the world. That's the first time we've had collective action put at the center of any kind of portrayal of Martin King on the screen.

I heard of Martin Luther King Jr. when I was 15 years old. I heard of Rosa Parks. And I met Dr. King in 1958 at the age of 18. I met Rosa Parks ... But to pick up a fun comic book - some people used to call them "funny books" - to pick this little book up, it sold for 10 cents, 12 pages or 14 pages? 14 pages I digested. And it inspired me. And I said to myself, "If the people of Montgomery can do this, maybe I can do something. Maybe I can make a contribution."

[Rosa Louise] Parks used to say, "Everybody looks at me because I sat down once in Montgomery, but the real hero is a woman named Septima Clark."She created the Citizenship Schools [where civil-rights activists taught basic literacy and political education classes].

I think the Montgomery bus boycott initiated an era of self-determination.

Either Malcolm X or Martin [Luther King] could have played the role of a unifier, but it was - Malcolm as long as he remained within the Nation of Islam, talking to the converted, he did not represent a fundamental threat to the American government.

That was exciting to be able to comment on civil rights. I mean, the civil rights movement that young people don't know about today, but Martin Luther King was considered by the establishment press in the early years of the sit-in movement as a dangerous man, and he was the equivalent at that time as Malcolm X. And he was told to stop his demonstrations; they were against the law and all of that. Now that he's sainted and sanctified we've forgotten.

My resisting being mistreated on the bus did not begin with that particular arrest…I did a lot of walking in Montgomery.

I want to play Martin Luther King. That is absolutely a role and a character who is important to the landscape of the world that I really want to play.

If the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s civil rights movement made demands that altered the course of American lives and backed up those demands with the willingness to give up your life in service of your civil rights, with Black Lives Matter, a more internalized change is being asked for: recognition.

The civil rights movement wasn't easy for anybody.

I grew up in the sixties watching B.B. King and Tito Puente and Miles Davis and Coltrane, everybody, Marvin Gaye, Jimi. And at the same time, with my left eye I was watching Dolores Huerta, Cesar Chavez, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Mother Teresa.

The civil rights movement would experience many important victories, but Rosa Parks will always be remembered as its catalyst.

The greatest movement for social justice our country has ever known is the civil rights movement and it was totally rooted in a love ethic.

Rosa Parks showed us all that one little person can make a whole bunch of noise without so much as a whisper.

The Civil Rights Movement is in transition from protest to politics, and in politics compromise is necessary.

I want to see young people in America feel the spirit of the 1960s and find a way to get in the way. To find a way to get in trouble. Good trouble, necessary trouble.

We come to Selma to be renewed. We come to be inspired. We come to be reminded that we must do the work that justice and equality calls us to do.

The action of Rosa Parks, the words and leadership of Dr. King inspired me. I was deeply inspired. I wanted to do something.