Killer Mike Quotes

As Frederick Douglas, the famous abolitionist, said: "power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has and it never will." You need the truth, and you also need a demand, and you need to bring that demand into the realm of electoral politics. If you don't do that, it's very hard to get such an entrenched machine to move.

Democracy is not what we hate the most and what we fear the most. We need to stand up.

Marriage equality is a very middle-class issue and voting rights is a very working-class issue. If you do not vote, who are you speaking for? Who will be the next Fannie Lou Hamer? If not you or someone you know, then who?

Get involved in an issue that you're passionate about. It almost doesn't matter what it is ... We give too much of our power away, to the professional politicians, to the lobbyists, to cynicism. And our democracy suffers as a result.

Citizenship has been out of fashion for some decades in our country, but now it is back in fashion. Weekends are for fighting tyranny. And that's why it's going to be really fun to see Democracy Now!

I ran because I became convinced after King was shot and killed, and Martin Luther King was one of the great heroes of my life, that politics is not perfect but it's the best available nonviolent means of changing how we live. If we don't like how we live, we can participate in the perfect most revolutionary act in a democracy, it's called voting.

I did become American citizen in order to vote. I lived in this country for a very long time and I finally reached the point where I thought, I'm often sticking my neck out on various issues as all human beings have a right to do.

Our constitutional democracy demands our participation, not just every four years, but all the time.

My father told me about American democracy. And he said you have to be actively engaged in the political process to make our democracy work. So I've been doing that my entire life. Civil rights movement. The peace movement during the Vietnam conflict. The movement to get an apology and redress for Japanese-Americans.

I'm a person who's always been politically active and passionate about people's rights.

Even though I grew up and I didn't always like getting dragged to the meetings or the rallies or the speeches, I developed a very strong respect for participating in a democratic process.

Each of us should choose which course of action we must take; education, conventional political action, or even peaceful civil disobedience to bring about necessary changes, but let it not be said that we did nothing.

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

I'm realizing this more and more that it's one thing to get involved with your own political beliefs and stand behind you believe in personally.

Silence is not an effective political strategy, and what we do if we silence the public interest, which is so hard to hear anyway, is that we silence ourselves and then we do not have a democracy.

Democracy is a life, and involves continual struggle.

I'm not very comfortable being an actorvist so to get to do something that I believe in is a much more comfortable way for me to be political.

We need to get better at voting and be a voice for the people who do not have one.

Not everyone can march, but everyone can talk. And everyone can reach out, and everyone can vote.

Nobody black or white who really believes in democracy can stand aside now; everybody's got to stand up and be counted.

Our democracy if self-cleansing. If you don't like it, be a candidate, or support a candidate.

Democracy is not simply a political system; it is a moral movement and it springs from adventurous faith in human possibilities.

You do not keep American democracy in suspense. Because, look, too many people have marched and protested and fought and died for this democracy.

Democracy is the only game in town. The problem is [when] people start to believe that it is not a game worth playing.

Look at what I've done my entire life. I have been working on behalf of civil rights, women's rights, human rights for years and I know how challenging it is to change our political system and I have the highest regard for those who have put themselves on the line.