Opal Tometi Quotes

I've been in movement work since I was 16 years old. Black Lives Matter becomes an important part of the story, but it's not the only part of the story.

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.

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.

The only politics in this country that's relevant to black people today is the politics of revolution... none other.

I was drawn to the power of the African American religious tradition to spur social change. Out of necessity, the black church had to minister to the whole person. Out of necessity, the black church rarely had the luxury of separating individual salvation from collective salvation. It had to serve as the center of the community’s political, economic and social as well as spiritual life; it understood in an intimate way the Biblical call to feed the hungry and clothe the naked and challenge powers and principalities

The center of gravity has shifted from the courts to community action.

I'm not quite sure precisely when social and political activism became a visible brand of my DNA, but it seems to me that I was born into it. It is hard to be born into the experience in the world of poverty and not develop some instinct for survival and resistance to those things that oppress you.

We have to, as a progressive movement, organize climate justice and reproductive rights and racial justice. We've got to do this. We can't continue to organize in silos.

The Black Lives Matter movement has spawned all kinds of activism.

The Black Lives Matter movement has to, by its very nature, be intersectional because of the complexities of who black people are in this country and throughout the world.

Activism in the street is truth-telling, and organizing is talking to people for a specific goal.

Whether or not you call it Black Lives Matter, whether or not you put a hashtag in front of it, whether or not you call it the Movement for Black Lives, all of that is irrelevant. Because there was resistance before Black Lives Matter, and there will be resistance after Black Lives Matter.

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.

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.

Antiracism is not "my" campaign. I have been doing antiracism organizing, activism, educating and writing for 20 years, in one form or another, but it's not a personal crusade. My work is part of a larger tradition, and larger effort, involving mostly people of color, and of course some white allies as well.

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.

Do one of three things. One, go find a wailing wall and feel sorry for yourselves. Two, go psycho and start bombing - but this will only swing people to the right. Three, learn a lesson. Go home, organize, build power and at the next convention, you be the delegates.

To those who say "Sufism is apolitical" or "no politics," I respond: "No politics is politics." Look at the very old African Sufi tradition, the Asian Sufi tradition, or the North African Sufi tradition. Then you get it and understand what Sufism is all about wisdom, courage and resistance.

John McCutcheon is not only one of the best musicians in the USA, but also a great singer, songwriter, and song leader. And not just incidentally, he is committed to helping hard-working people everywhere to organize and push this world in a better direction.

If Occupy Wall Street can see their way to more collaboration with the union movement, then there will be a great deal of political action possible.

My early years as a political activist were dominated by the poll tax.

We must always refill and ensure there is a critical mass of leaders and activists committed to nonviolence and racial and economic justice who will keep seeding and building transforming movements.

The peace and justice movement has to expand and not run away from the plight of gang members.

I grew up in a strongly socialist family. While I was at school, I worked in party politics and with organizations like the Anti-Nazi League. Everywhere I saw it, I fought prejudice.

We need not only one Cesar Chavez; we need a thousand Cesar Chavezes.