Jackie Robinson Quotes

Protest and anger practically always derives from hope, and the shouting out against injustice is always in the hope of those injustices being somewhat corrected and a little more justice established.

We will have demonstrations until the injustices that have caused them are eliminated.

I'll continue fighting as long as these social injustices exist.

Lost rights are never regained by appeals to the conscience of the usurpers, but by relentless struggle....goa ts are used for sacrificial offerings and not lions.

I did not want to be mistreated, I did not want to be deprived of a seat that I had paid for. It was just time… there was opportunity for me to take a stand to express the way I felt about being treated in that manner. I had not planned to get arrested. I had plenty to do without having to end up in jail. But when I had to face that decision, I didn't hesitate to do so because I felt that we had endured that too long. The more we gave in, the more we complied with that kind of treatment, the more oppressive it became.

But you know, the system almost destroyed itself while it was goin' on trying to destroy us.

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 wasn't easy for anybody.

Desegregation is a joke.

I ain’t got no quarrel with the Viet Cong. No Viet Cong ever called me nigger.

These are the times for real choices and not false ones. We are at the moment when our lives must be placed on the line if our nation is to survive its own folly. Every man of humane convictions must decide on the protest that best suits his convictions, but we must all protest

He apologizes for injustice …. Belittles the emasculating effects of caste distinctions…. He should be unceasingly and firmly opposed.

I did not get on the bus to get arrested I got on the bus to go home.

Martin Luther King told American Blacks not to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.

You may hiss as much as you please, but women will get their rights anyway. You can’t stop us, neither

The civil rights fight was a very important fight.

I think history repeats itself. There's a constant conversation between the oppressed and the oppressor. No matter what your field is, whether it's gender equality, the Time's Up movement, or diversity casting, it's always going to be a back-and-forth battle.

MLK, Jr. taught me how to say no to segregation, and I can hear him saying now... when you straighten up your back, no man can ride you. He said stand up straight and say no to racial discrimination.

I know we have to have people of good conscience who stand up against oppression. I know we have to have people who understand that social justice belongs to us all. And that wakes me up every morning, and that makes me fight even harder.

It's always important, when we experience injustice in this nation, that people in power understand that we will not take that injustice quietly.

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.

it is immoral for powerless people to accept this powerlessness. They may not succeed in getting power but they can fight for it, and if enough fight for it, it makes it very difficult for the people with the big sticks.

The answer to injustice is not to silence the critic but to end the injustice.

When you say I want to talk about racial justice, that's not the same as saying I want to do something about racial justice.

Shall we longer bear these cruelties which have been heaped upon us for the last ten years in the face of heaven, and in open violation of the constitution and law of these United States and of this state? God forbid! I will not bear it. If they take away my rights, I will fight for them manfully and righteously until I am used up. We have done nothing against the rights of others.