Stokely Carmichael Quotes

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.

Change only takes place through action, not through meditation and prayer.

Activists set the agenda for the practitioners.

I have great respect for people who are in the front lines and the trenches of trying to enact social change. I am far lazier than that.

There is a point in fighting. There is a point in struggle. Not wholesale revolution, maybe, that might not be possible, an absolutely just society, but there are plenty of spaces and places where it's worth putting up a fight.

Activism is something that no one can fake. You get angry. You cry. But you never throw in your towel, because that anger is what is propelling you to further action.

Even if it doesn't work, there is something healthy and invigorating about direct action

Activism, to me, I don't know if it really works. It may work for somebody else, but it does not work for me.

Activism could be defined as activities engaged in by individuals to change there of others situation.

You don't need role models to be part of a social movement as long as you care about the issues.

Activism in the street is truth-telling, and organizing is talking to people for a specific goal.

Individuals bearing witness cannot do the work of social movements, but they can break a corrosive and demoralizing silence.

In this country, the only way a minority can get anything done is to make a little noise.

The big dividing line is not and has never been between those who advocate more or less militant forms of resistance, or between mainstream and grassroots activists. The dividing line is between those who do something and those who do nothing.

True resistance begins with people confronting pain... and wanting to do something to change it.

You'd think one day we'd learn. You don't get anything unless you fight for it, united and with visible numbers. If ACT UP taught us anything, it taught us that.

The big companies are like steel and activists are like heat. Activists soften the steel, and then I can bend it into pretty grillwork and make reforms.

I don't kid myself in thinking that I'm on the front lines. I know the people who are on the front lines. I mean there are people in some freakin' significant places making on-the-ground social front line change. I've marched. I've put feet on the ground for what I believe and what I'm against with no compromise. And there are people who are risking a whole hell of a lot more than me to make change, that's for damn sure.

By themselves, they are not enough; we also need to engage in political action.

If you aren't an activist you're an inactivist.

Do not think that one has to be sad in order to be militant, even though the thing one is fighting is abominable.

It's useful for activists just to be out there to keep you mindful and not get complacent, even if ultimately you think some of their criticism is misguided.

You know, I was a community activist, so I'm used to standing out in front of an elected official's office and protesting.

Yet what you need is not marches, demonstrations, rallies or wide associations, all of them are important. What you need is direct action. The sooner people understand that, the sooner we'll begin to change things.

Activists are generally doers - rather than watching television and thinking about the world they will put there energies into doing something 'active' to change the (political) situation.