Michael Dyson Quotes

Unlike mainstream civil rights groups, which merely sought integration of blacks into the existing order, SNCC sought structural changes in American society itself.

So, what we do as individuals matters. It adds up.

Collectively, we activists are essential to advancing U.S. policy to help empower marginalized people to lift themselves and their communities out of poverty for good.

Turmoil is everywhere, and the whole world is waiting for solutions to come from the top down. That's not how it works - community change from the bottom up makes a real difference.

It is not one government or another that can solve all of the problems. It's you.

If you believe in making change from the bottom up, if you believe the measure of change is how many people's lives are better, you know it's hard, and some people think it's boring.

It takes time for people to understand how, as an individual, I can have an impact on the way that society works.

For the people of Baltimore, I don't criticize rioting, because I understand it. But after the fires die down, organize, strategize, and mobilize.

Small acts by millions of people - imagine the impact of that. If someone changes one thing, they're likely to change two things, and then three things. Then they're likely to demand that from their leadership.

The issue of redistribution of resources and wealth needs to resolved systemically, but in the meantime but there are individual spots you can occupy. There are things that you can do on a daily basis that will make a difference in moving the needle in individual lives. When we look at the mentoring of young black kids, for instance, the number-one mentor group is white women. I think after that maybe it's black women, and then white men, and then black men. We can make all kinds of arguments about that.

Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world.

We the people are the change makers.

If everyone is a changemaker, there's no way a problem can outrun a solution

You don't manage a social wrong. You should be ending it.

We need to create the institutions that will support the society we want to live in. The only answer is collective action.

I try to tell each group that it is not alone, and that the very people who are disheartened by the absence of a national movement are themselves proof of the potential for such a movement.

If our history has taught us anything, it is that action for change directed against the external conditions of our oppressions is not enough.

We got rid of colonialism, we got rid of slavery, and we got rid of apartheid everyone thought each one of them was impossible. Let's take the next impossible, do it with joy and get it finished with and create a world free from poverty. Let us create the world of our choice.

Small groups of people can have a really huge impact.

It's not my victory, it's yours and yours and yours. If a gay can win, it means there is hope that the system can work for all minorities if we fight. We've given them hope.

In the late '60s, people were saying we need power to, not power over. Power to do, accomplish, create, not power over other people.

An authentic faith always implies a deep desire to change the world.

I am still fighting to make the world a better place and you can, too.

I like what they're doing. I think they're doing a good job, and I know that a lot of people are upset by them. These are great young men and women, and they're bold, and they are saying to America, "Something's going to change." I'm very proud of them.

Fighting by itself doesn't interest me anymore. I want to help people, the black people and I need any kind of media to spread my thought: God, charity, peace.