Celinda Lake Quotes

We have to realize we are building a movement.

I'm incredibly impressed by people who organize to achieve a goal, and believe that they can make a difference and then go ahead and do just that. I think it's incredible.

Every moment is an organizing opportunity, every person a potential activist, every minute a chance to change the world.

You can tell people of the need to struggle, but when the powerless start to see that they really can make a difference, nothing can quench the fire.

The great thing about social movements is everybody gets to be a part of them.

There's nothing quite as powerful as people feeling they can have impact and make a difference. When you've got that going for you, I think it's a very powerful way to implement change.

You know, there's a lot of activism that doesn't deal with empowerment, and you have to empower yourself in order to be relevant to any type of struggle.

We are at the point where we can mobilize all of this righteous indignation into a powerful mass movement.

Collective action is a means of power, a means by which individuals can more fully realize their individual values.

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

The organizer dedicated to changing the life of a particular community must first rub raw the resentments of the people of the community.

All of the great social justice advances that we ever had in this country have come not from people with big titles and not from people at the top, but just from everyday people getting together saying 'Enough is enough. I'm going to change this, and I'm going to get involved, and I am going to be engaged.'

The first step in community organization is community disorganization.

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.

Activism is a way for useless people to feel important, even if the consequences of their activism are counterproductive for those they claim to be helping and damaging to the fabric of society as a whole.

Causes was founded with the mission of empowering anyone to change the world. Our model is based upon the belief that everyone has the power to have an outsized impact on the world by banding together with other like-minded individuals, taking direct action, and inspiring their friends and their friends' friends to join in.

Every day you meet a delegation going to some convention to try and change the way of somebody else's life.

I don't know how to change the world but I know if I keep talking about how dirty it is out here, somebody gon clean it up.

In the words of Frederick Douglas, power concedes nothing without a demand; it never has and it never will. We must be that demand. We are the ones we've been waiting for.

Leaders may inspire, but only when the people decide to act does the leader's vision become a movement.

My kids have lived experiences that could have never been duplicated otherwise. That's one thing about people who get involved in activism, you live so many experiences that otherwise they wouldn't be there. This is why peoples' lives are so enriched.

The rhythm of being an activist today involves a pretty simple rhythm. You have to open your eyes to the reality before you. You have to look and see.

If you give up on the idea that your voice can make a difference, then other voices will fill the void

When we organize with one another, when we get involved, when we stand up and speak out together, we can create a power no government can suppress.