Bill Ayers Quotes

Students for a Democratic Society was founded in 1961.

I watched a documentary about Freedom Riders. One young woman told her parents, 'I'm going to leave college to ride and represent the future.' I thought, 'Who would do that now?' Who would do that for my son?"

Students for a Democratic Society was also affiliated with the civil rights movement everywhere.

John Brown first swam into my vision in the 1960s when I was a political activist in the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement at Chapel Hill, where I went to university.

If this is about holding meetings, if this is a social movement, where they gather 20, I will get up and gather 200,000 people. Where they gather 100,000, I will bring together 1 million from my party.

I’m not saying that all those who are marching on Washington are Communists. I’m saying that a lot of fine Negro citizens have been misled in this country and are being used by the Communists to exploit them.

People have to carry on with their lives, so only so much direct action can take place. Anti-nuclear activism may look dormant from appearances, but it’s there, like magma. It’s still brewing, and the next trigger might be another big protest or political change,

I want to see young people in America feel the spirit of the 1960s and find a way to get in the way. To find a way to get in trouble. Good trouble, necessary trouble.

Let the grassroots turn on the hate because that's the only thing that will make them do their duty.

My movement is 'Rose Army.'

I think there's a weapon of cynicism to say, 'Protest doesn't work. Organizing doesn't work. Y'all are a bunch of hippies. You know, it doesn't do anything,' because, frankly, it's said out of fear, because it is a potent force for political change.

Young women and men who joined the far-left groups did so for the best of reasons. They wanted to change the world. Many fought against the stifling atmosphere in many groups.

At university, my generation were ready to fight, but we didn't really have anything to fight for.

In 2011, when I established the activist group Scholarism, I could have not imagined that a year later, 100,000 people would take to the street and occupy for a week to urge the government to withdraw the national education curriculum.

Sometimes it feels as if I major in activism and minor in university.

When I went to college, I majored in anti-war demonstrations, you know? I mean, really!

The great thing about 2017 is that, because of the terrible political state that we're in and that America is in, young people are so vocal at the moment about so many issues, from racism to LGBT rights to beyond. I feel like - especially when I look at my fan-base - people are so vocal about their opinions and so vocal about spreading love. That's really important, and I think it's really amazing that people are talking about that. I just want that to keep happening.

I was involved with the anti-apartheid movement through my work as an artist and also through my political commitment.

I said, "Suppose communists come out against cancer, do we have to automatically come out for cancer?'" I can't take back that I'm against the poll tax, that I'm against lynching, that I'm for peace.

[Students for a Democratic Society] was on many campuses and it was a powerful organization. It was founded by Tom Hayden, who passed away very recently. It was one of the founders of SDS and that chief writer of the Port Huron Statement, which is still worth reading. It's kind of the Bernie Sanders campaign document in a funny way.

I grew up at a time where I think most people had a social and political conscience. Some of the biggest changes in our country's political history happened at the time I was growing up, so I was raised to be a part of those things and to participate and I will continue to do that as much as I can.

It transmitted because on the campuses, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was recruiting, was organizing. Students for a Democratic Society was founded at Michigan just a couple years before I got there. So, there was a kind of a churning of political awareness. It was just beginning.

It's the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen; by people who waited three hours and four hours, many for the very first time in their lives, because they believed that this time must be different, that their voice could be that difference.

I am of the generation of segregation. Black Lives Matter is post. I said today, and I will say all the time, "If Nina [Simone] were here, she'd have her Black Lives Matter [T-shirt] on." I think they're great kids. They don't need me or anybody else to tell them what to do.

I also think it's crucial to convey that the [Black] Movement largely succeeded because of the unwavering dedication of young people willing to risk their comfort, their safety, their lives.