Will Smith Quotes

I began to realise that we are all oppressed which is why I would like to do something about it, though I'm not sure where my place is.

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

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.

My organization, National Action Network (NAN), was on the ground talking and meeting with people in Ferguson, just as we did in Staten Island following Eric Garner's death.

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

There's still injustice happening in my world. I sing my songs at concerts and I'm so grateful that the people are ready to hear them.

I'm not going to let Donald Trump take away from our community, something that Fannie Lou Hamer shed blood to give us. Something that Ella Jo Baker braved conditions in the South and sweatshops in Harlem to give us.

I heard Dr. King speaking on the radio, and it seemed like he was saying, "John Robert Lewis, you too can make a contribution. You can get involved!"

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.

Don't let complexity stop you. Be activists. Take on the big inequities. It will be one of the great experiences of your lives.

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.

Often those who are denied rights are least empowered to bring about the changes they seek.

This is Not Another Revolution. This is a Civil Rights Movement

I am a woman with a calling for social struggle and public service.

Collectively, we activists are essential to advancing U.S. policy to help empower marginalized people to lift themselves and their communities out of poverty for good.

I tend to focus on young people and on giving a voice to groups of people who don't normally get their voices heard.

The common people who marched for the right to vote must now march for the right to breathe.

As I grew older and got into the late teens and early 20s, I wanted to be a voice of the people. You know, getting locked up all the time and going through so much oppression and seeing it all around myself, I wanted to be a voice for it.

My music is made for the people who are willing to stand up to change this world themselves.

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?

If there is no struggle, there is no progress....This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.

Make a career of humanity. Commit yourself to the struggle for equal rights.

While acting is what I do for a living, activism is what I do to stay alive.

It was simply this: silence is not a neutral position, whatever your intentions. Silence automatically supports the status quo. When you are a presence that lacks a voice, you create an empty space that another voice - a dominating voice that knows no boundaries - is only too happy to fill.

The bottom line is that you only have the rights you fight for.