Luvvie Ajayi Quotes

I refuse to be silenced.

There will be no prison which can hold our movement down.

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

Silence is complicity. Speak now or surrender your ground.

An oppressed people will always rise.

If you have an opportunity to use your voice you should use it.

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will.

Power Concedes Nothing

When the prison, stake or scaffold can no longer silence the voice of the protesting minority, progress moves on a step, but not until then.

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.

Get up. Stand up. Speak up. Do something.

You don't have to be a professional athlete to be heard - the most powerful tool you have is your voice.

You gotta call it out first; it always has to be called out when we need social change, but this is how social change happens: you call it out. People had to call out child labor. People had to call out, 'Hey time's up; we need to vote. We live in this country.' People had to call out 'time's up' on enslaving people, you know.

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.

I'm not sure I'm trying to communicate a message. I'm just trying to be part of the movement away from the unacceptable present.

Power is never so overwhelming that there's no room for resistance.

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.

The man dies in all who keep silent in the face of tyranny.

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.

When the men are silent, it is our duty to raise our voices in behalf of our ideals.

Speaking out is important for me because everyone should be treated equally.

The walls, the bars, the guns and the guards can never encircle or hold down the idea of the people.

I have always looked on disobedience toward the oppressive as the only way to use the miracle of having been born.

Then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Writing is powerful. Whether it's a little girl hiding from the Nazis in an attic, or Amnesty International writing letters on behalf of political prisoners, the power of telling stories is usually what causes change.