Al Sharpton Quotes

I'm not trying to get power over white. I'm involved in a freedom struggle. Not a power struggle.

Since being in India, I am more convinced than ever before that the method of nonviolent resistance is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for justice and human dignity.

I'm a child of the Civil Rights Movement.

You know, my friends, there comes a time when people get tired of being trampled over by the iron feet of oppression.

The day that the black man takes an uncompromising step and realizes that he's within his rights, when his own freedom is being jeopardized, to use any means necessary to bring about his freedom or put a halt to that injustice, I don't think he'll be by himself.

I'm not going to sit around and be peace and love with somebody's boot on my neck.

You can't put civil rights on the ballot.

A lot of prophets have gone to jail.

I have suffered as much as Martin Luther King. Only I didn't get the bullet. And I would have taken the bullet if I could have.

The history of progress is written in the blood of men and women who have dared to espouse an unpopular cause, as, for instance, the black man's right to his body, or woman's right to her soul.

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.

Some of the most moving experiences I've had are just in black churches in the South, during the Civil Rights Movement, where people were getting beaten, killed, really struggling for the most elementary rights.

Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself.

The civil rights movement wasn't easy for anybody.

During the 60's, I was, in fact, very concerned about the civil rights movement.

My parents both were doing the Civil Rights Movement, were very involved with the civil rights to Congress. And my friends' parents were as well.

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.

I cannot sit by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

Please tell the Attorney General that we have been cooling off for 350 years. If we cool off any more, we’ll be in the deep freeze. The Freedom Rides will go on.

We demand that Negroes be employed on the basis of their skill and intelligence in all branches of our federal service in every public and private industry …. We demand equal education opportunities with equal access for the Negro student to all public tax-supported institutions. We demand the democratic right to vote without poll-taxes, white primaries and other devices which keep the majority of Southern Negroes a voteless group with no voice either in the selection of their representatives or a check on unjust public policies. We demand an end to segregation in transportation, in housing, in health and recreational facilities and in all other social service. We demand Negro and minority group representation on all administrative agencies so that these groups may help to determine policies for all people.

Let me say as I've always said, and I will always continue to say, that riots are socially destructive and self-defeating. I'm still convinced that nonviolence is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom and justice. I feel that violence will only create more social problems than they will solve. That in a real sense it is impracticable for the Negro to even think of mounting a violent revolution in the United States. So I will continue to condemn riots, and continue to say to my brothers and sisters that this is not the way. And continue to affirm that there is another way.

The civil rights fight was a very important fight.

If I were a Negro, I'd be fighting, as Martin Luther King fought, for human recognition and justice. I'd rather go down with my flag flying. If you're weak or crippled, or you can't speak out or fight back in some way, then people don't hesitate to treat you badly.

As a political weapon, it has helped me for 30 years defend the rights of American blacks and third-world people all over the world, to defend them with protest songs. To move the audience to make them conscious of what has been done to my people around the world.

Wilberforce, because of his faith, stood up for African slaves. Bonhoeffer, because of his faith, stood up for Jews. That's Christianity to me.