Megan Rapinoe Quotes

I actually see a lot of the pain and destruction, like Black Lives Matter, in the long-term as positive because it shows that we're moving forward; we're evolving and moving and challenging the frontiers.

With Black Lives Matter, we knew from the very beginning that it wasn't just going to live online. We were like, 'We're creating this thing and then it's also going to live with black folks on the street and protests and organizations.' It was very important for us to use the hashtag as a way to have a larger conversation and as an organizing tool.

I am for violence if non-violence means we continue postponing a solution to the American black man's problem just to avoid violence.

Ferguson shows the power of social media. This could have not been a story. Or it could have just been a local story. Or it could have been something that we saw only from a distance, through the usual filters. Instead, it gathered steam.

Black Lives Matter has already demonstrated that it has the power to shift the societal landscape by bringing awareness to age-old issues that have plagued us as a people.

You know I think with Black Lives Matter, it is extremely special and important. I definitely feel that.

Colin Kaepernick is one of the leaders in the movement for black lives. His role as an athlete and activist is not only motivating but inspiring.

We actually know that all lives do matter. And we believe it is so much so that we had to create Black Lives Matter.

The Ahmaud Arbery video was the final straw for me in being silent. That shook me to the core like nothing has in the past. Something flipped inside of me to be more vocal and stand up for racial equality and make sure we get a hold on that and change the face of this world and get it to a better place.

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.

We have not always agreed, but I have said repeatedly and publicly many times that Al Sharpton has never counseled violence, but he gets blamed for a whole lot of that.

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.

We've begun to put fear into those whites who think they can do anything they want to a black person and get away with it.

Unlike earlier black-power movements that tried to fight or segregate for self-preservation, Black Lives Matter aligns with the dead, continues the mourning, and refuses the forgetting in front of all of us.

What drew me to both study and activism was the formative experience of the civil rights movement.

A boycott is directed against a policy and the institutions which support that policy either actively or tacitly. Its aim is not to reject, but to bring about change.

Obviously the transgender movement has not progressed in the way that the gay and lesbian movement has. But I'm an activist - that's just the kind of person I am.

My policing was nothing but activism - it had to be.

We have a tendency to sugar coat the Civil Rights movement by showing arm in arm and everyone singing 'Kumbaya'. We don't really always show the resistance from the government, the resistance from the status quo, from the majority to silence the movement.

We will not allow this day of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial to go without somebody going to jail.

The relationship between violence and nonviolence in this country is interesting. The fact of the matter is, you know, people do respond to riots. The 1968 Housing Act was in large response to riots that broke out after Dr. Martin Luther King was killed. They cited these as an actual inspiration.

The people in power will not disappear voluntarily, giving flowers to the cops just isn't going to work. This thinking is fostered by the establishment; they like nothing better than love and nonviolence.

Direct action means resort to non-constitutional methods that can take any form which many suit the conditions under which we live. We cannot eliminate any methods.

At some point, Twitter hash tags are not enough. Eventually, you have to stand up.

We are living, once again, at a time of extraordinary political engagements. Politics is a mass obsession. Progressive movements are growing and resisting with tremendous courage. And yet, we know from history that "no" is not enough. Now, there are some "yeses" out there that are emerging. And they're actually getting a lot bolder quickly. Where climate activists used to talk about changing light bulbs, now we're pushing for 100 percent of our energy to come from the sun, wind and waves, and to do it fast. Movements catalyzed by police violence against black bodies are calling for an end to militarized police, mass incarceration and even for reparations for slavery. Students are not just opposing tuition increases, but from Chile to Canada to the UK, they are calling for free tuition and debt cancellation. And yet, this still doesn't add up to the kind of holistic and universalist vision of a different world than our predecessors had. So why is that?