Ella Baker Quotes

I think at the time, my radicalization was not through growing up Chinese, but through the role that the black people were playing at the beginning of World War II, when they had started the "Double V for Victory" movement - for democracy at home as well as abroad.

If the Negro is to achieve the goal of integration, he must organize himself into a militant and nonviolent mass movement.

I want to be identified with the negro; until he gets his rights, we shall never have ours.

Yet and still, Peter Norman took into account that the aboriginals were suffering just as much in Australia as Blacks in the United States were suffering.

10 years ago the black man knew what his condition was. And today, because of the world revolution that's taking place all over this earth, the black man would be fighting for what he knows is his by right, but the movement on the part of [Martin Luther] King and the others had done nothing but slow down the militancy that is inherent in the nature of the black man.

I do think it's extremely important to acknowledge the gains that were made by the civil rights movement, the black power movement.Institutional transformations happened directly as a result of the movements that people, unnamed people, organized and gave their lives to.

There is a magnificent new militancy within the Negro community all across this nation. And I welcome this as a marvelous development. The Negro of America is saying he's determined to be free and he is militant enough to stand up.

From the Cooperative League, I suppose, with the Depression lingering as long as it did, the next step in terms of, as you call it, professional relationship, was to go to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People [NAACP]. I went there as an assistant field secretary, and so forth. So, I suppose that was the first organized step.

Has he paid his dues? Is he black enough? John Lewis and I were out there marching and organizing sit-ins back in the '60s so that his children and my children would not have to do it. We would have been failures if had to do the same things we did.

I think you'll find also that if the negro ever realizes that he should begin to fight for real for his freedom, there are many whites who will fight on his side with him.

I was proud to march beside some of the most notable Civil Rights activists, such as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rev. Jesse Jackson, and Joseph L. Rauh, Jr., from Selma to Montgomery.

The civil rights movement was based on faith. Many of us who were participants in this movement saw our involvement as an extension of our faith. We saw ourselves doing the work of the Almighty. Segregation and racial discrimination were not in keeping with our faith, so we had to do something.

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

The legal difference between the sit-ins and the Freedom Riders was significant.

I think if we go back and check our record, the Negro has proven beyond a doubt that we have been more than patient in seeking our rights as American citizens.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was a revolutionary, simple and plain.

My father joined the NAACP when he was 12, in the '50s. He was part of the organizing efforts that led to some of the first sit-ins in North Carolina.

Rosa Parks was primed, she had the Civil Rights Movement behind her, she didn't just decide to sit on the bus, it was strategic.

I feel so proud to see young people standing up against the injustice to stand up and say that "All lives matter." They're following in the footsteps of those who came before them.

I have never seen white people who would sit, who would, who would approach a solution to their own problems nonviolently or passively. It's only when they are so-called "fighting for the rights of Negroes" that they nonviolently, passively, and lovingly, you know, approach the situation.

I came back to Louisville after the Olympics with my shiny gold medal. Went into a luncheonette where black folks couldn't eat. Thought I'd put them on the spot. I sat down and asked for a meal. The Olympic champion wearing his gold medal. They said, "We don't serve niggers here." I said, "That's okay, I don't eat 'em." But they put me out in the street. So I went down to the river, the Ohio River, and threw my gold medal in it.

Civil rights used to be about treating everyone the same. But today some people are so used to special treatment that equal treatment is considered to be discrimination.

Not only Negroes and Jews, but also women are part of a great revolt of which one can only approve.

Black Power alone is no more insurance against social injustice than white power.

If I wanted to fight to make a better world racially, I wouldn't be in the music business. You dig, if I were going to be a freedom fighter music is the wrong field.