Rosa Parks Quotes

The history of progress is written in the blood of men and women who have dared to espouse an unpopular cause, as, for instance, the black man's right to his body, or woman's right to her soul.

Any kind of civil rights oppression is wrong.

Negro intellectuals have come to realize that they must carry on the fight, in concert with others, to make America true to her own ideals of equality and democracy.

You can only appreciate freedom when you find yourself in a position to fight for someone else's freedom and not worry about your own.

If it wasn't for so many brave people standing up, speaking out, and fighting for equal rights, we might not have all of the luxuries of freedom that we have today. So many unsung people fought for us to be able to live together in harmony no matter how different we are from one another.

Discrimination will impair democracy.

As long as people use tactics to oppress or restrict other people from being free, there is work to be done.

We are redeemed one man at a time. There is no family pass ticket or park hopping pass to life. One ticket - one at a time. Man doesn't vanquish hatred or bigotry. The target keeps moving. From the blacks to the Irish; atheists to Christians. But as always there are a few leaders: Ben Franklin, John Quincy Adams, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Abraham Lincoln, Fredrick Douglas, Booker T Washington, Ghandi and Martin Luther King. They know that the march toward freedom never ends, man must be ever vigilant and pray less with his lips and more with his legs.

If I can sit down for freedom, you can stand up for children.

As long as one people sit on another and are deaf to their cry, so long will understanding and peace elude all of us.

At 12, I knew that the point of being human was to spend one's life fighting social injustice.

I am the result of a loving upbringing in a peaceful country, with wonderful parents and siblings, a very long-term relationship, stability, support - but a feeling that life isn't always just and that there is injustice for people and we should do something about it.

You know, my friends, there comes a time when people get tired of being trampled over by the iron feet of oppression.

My parents really raised me with the value that it's important to give back, and I've always gravitated towards non-profits and charities that work with children.

I am yet too young to understand that God is any respecter of persons. I believe that to have interfered as I have done...in behalf of His despised poor, was not wrong, but right. Now, if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children, and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments, I submit: so let it be done!

I'm not going to sit around and be peace and love with somebody's boot on my neck.

We call for the end of bigotry as we know it. The end of racism as we know it. The end of child abuse in the family as we know it. The end of sexism as we know it. The end of homophobia as we know it. We stand for freedom as we have yet to know it. And we will not be denied.

I have defended democracy, human rights, and brotherhood between peoples. And I'll keep doing so for as long as I live.

They say that this country is free, and they say that this country is equal, but it is not equal if it's 'sometimes'...We need change now. We demand actions now.

I cannot afford to believe that freedom from intolerance is the right of only one particular group. And I cannot afford to choose between the fronts upon which I must battle these forces of discrimination, wherever they appear to destroy me. And when they appear to destroy me, it will not be long before they appear to destroy you.

I feel now that the time is come when even a woman or a child who can speak a word for freedom and humanity is bound to speak... I hope every woman who can write will not be silent.

You never completely have your rights, one person, until you all have your rights.

There has been great progress made in the world, but the fact that we're still fighting against discrimination means we've gone backwards and that's a shame.

As I got more into gay rights, I got more into equal pay, and you just see that it's all connected. You can't really speak out on one thing and not another without it not being the full picture.

We have tolerance, respect, and equality in our written laws but not in the hearts of some of our people.