Dolores Huerta Quotes

The biggest hurdle that our communities have is cynicism - saying it's a done deal, who cares; there's no point to voting. If we can get somebody to care, it's a huge victory for the movement and the causes we're trying to advance.

Public service and community organizing and movement building is such a part of my DNA that it's really hard to separate it.

We are intent on building a movement. The next step is grassroots town meetings. We must keep alive the dialogue around the covenants.

I'm very cautious and very concerned about what I have initially seen, but I also believe we've got to organize like we have never organized before.We talk about it, but realistically, we've got to organize at the grassroots level.

My own view - and I'm very open to hearing other perspectives - is that this movement-building needs to begin at home, in local communities. It isn't about trying to launch a brand new national party overnight. It's about people in communities coming together across lines of difference, bringing with them their movements, their families, and coming together and saying, "How can we together build a movement of movements here at home? What would that look like? What do we want to do right here in our communities?"

Changes and progress very rarely are gifts from above. They come out of struggles from below.

I often tell people I don't care whether they join the NAACP or some other group, but you better join something.

My foundations support people in the country who care about an open society. It's their work that I'm supporting. So it's not me doing it. But I can empower them. I can support them, and I can help them.

Real, sustainable community change requires the initiative and engagement of community members.

We need to take responsibility and educate people. That's why black folks don't like me. I always say it's our responsibility to make safe neighborhoods. It's our job to get them cleaned up.

The electoral system is not where change starts - it usually starts in communities and from the bottom up - but it is where change can be stopped.

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.

Where there is a sufficient social movement of self-reliant communities, there can be political change. There must be political change.

Kids are meeting in coffee shops and basements figuring out what's unsustainable in their communities. That's the future.

Turmoil is everywhere, and the whole world is waiting for solutions to come from the top down. That's not how it works - community change from the bottom up makes a real difference.

If our society is to address social issues, it will be done at the local level or not at all.

Movements aren’t built on leadership but on the movement itself — of individuals taking that first step from inertia to action, as if passing through a doorway

If you believe in making change from the bottom up, if you believe the measure of change is how many people's lives are better, you know it's hard, and some people think it's boring.

The leaders come up from the volunteers that do the work, and it's amazing because then they do these incredible things in their community that they never thought they had the power to make that happen.

I think, in terms of activism associated with my films, be it 'Salaam Baalak Trust' or 'Maisha,' taking the idea of cinema as a way to change people, I feel heartened. I am glad that we have impacted thousands of lives.

I've done community organizing my whole life and I think to myself, as an organizer, we don't wait for people to come to us and say, 'Help us organize something.' We go out into the community, and we bring the skills to a group of people to organize themselves.

I believe the people of Compton are ready for change. They've spoken. Their voice has clearly been heard that they don't want to go backward. They want to go forward.

I believe activism is the true source of change in the world. Pushing to change social structures in communities that you are a part of is critical for making real lasting change.

I think the reality is that there's a role for everybody to play in the work of social justice and that we have to organize everybody. That means that Silicon Valley has to be organized, the fashion industry has to be organized, the formerly incarcerated have to be organized, the teachers.

When I was 19 or 20, the way I was an activist was by regularly meeting with groups, going to protests, and being there on the ground.