Joan Baez Quotes

I was always a politician from the day the civil rights people chose me as their protest singer.

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.

Be prepared to organize nonviolent workshops - a teach-in around what is happening in America today. Organize your teachers and schoolmates, and be prepared to engage in some action.

One thing that I'd just remind young people of is that when John Lewis, who's a member of Congress today, defied George Wallace and led the march from Selma to Montgomery, he was 23 years old. Martin Luther King was the old man in the bunch, and he was 35, so young people need to know that they've always been an important part of our society, have always been at the forefront of pushing for a more just America, and we can't be successful without the impatience, the vigor that young people bring to the fight for social justice.

I'm an activist; I have to be angry all the time. That's what we do!

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.

I really liked the Seattle movement.

What drew me to both study and activism was the formative experience of the civil rights movement.

Being part of social movements like Black Lives Matter or organizations like NAACP, or any group representing a cause, gives you more resources, knowledge, and power. They can help you use your voice.

If I wanted to change the world, the last thing I would do is write a play.

When I was in high school, people would ask me what I wanted to do, and I would always say I wanted to 'lead marches and give speeches.'

As a daughter of a former NAACP chapter president, I know all too well how everyday people can change lives and create progress so many others consider 'impossible.'

I talk to people in the ACLU office in New York all the time. I'm able to participate in the debate and to campaign for reform. I'm just the first to come forward in the manner that I did and succeed.

If you understand the Black Lives Matter movement, there's no central leadership of the movement. This is an organic, grassroots movement all around America.

Activism is the rent I pay for living on this planet.

My take is that there's two ways to approach history. You sit in your armchair and you watch it on the news and you return to your PlayStation. Or you get out in the streets and you make it. Like, when those Supreme Court justices, you know, legalize desegregation, it wasn't due to their infinite wisdom. It's because people whose names you do not read about in history books, people whose faces you will never see, were the ones who struggled and sacrificed, sometimes gave their lives, to make this country a more equal one. When, it's like those people don't make history, it's us.

There's still a place for marching for instance with the Black Lives Matter movement, we've seen the importance of causing a scene, being on the streets and making your demands and your voice heard.

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.

I think my experience at the University of Chicago, working in the civil rights movement, working in the peace movement, working with community organizations, did a lot to influence the politics that I have.

Being politically active is "more about doing things, not just standing for some platform or being involved in some political party."

What is accurately portrayed is the rich humanity not just of Martin Luther King but of the movement, which was a multiracial movement. You had blacks and whites coming together and sacrificing, organizing and mobilizing the world. That's the first time we've had collective action put at the center of any kind of portrayal of Martin King on the screen.

When I was 16, the guest speaker was King. And I was completely overwhelmed because I had been studying nonviolence, talking about it, reading about it, but here it was happening, here it was people boycotting the buses and people on the streets and taking risks, which I think was the key.

We blacks had problems in the '60s and we solved them by marching. We've still got problems - let's march.

A hashtag is not helping... A hashtag is not a movement. A hashtag does not make you Dr. King. A hashtag does not change anything. It's a hashtag.

Where progress has been made, wherever any kind of injustice has been overturned, it’s been because people acted as citizens, and not as politicians. They didn’t just moan. They worked, they acted, they organized, they rioted if necessary to bring their situation to the attention of people in power. And that’s what we have to do today.