Andy Stern Quotes

When you are organizing a group of people, the first thing that we do is we talk about the history of what other people have been able to accomplish - people that look like them, workers like them, ordinary people, working people - and we give them the list: these are people like yourself; this is what they were able to do in their community.

Individuals can resist injustice, but only a community can do justice.

An organization which claims to be working for the needs of a community - as SNCC does - must work to provide that community with a position of strength from which to make its voice heard. This is the significance of black power beyond the slogan.

It is time to stop waiting for someone to save us. It is time to face the truth of our situation - that we're all in this together, that we all have a voice - and figure out how to mobilize the hearts and minds of everyone in our workplaces and communities.

If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped transform for the better. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.

A movement is only composed of people moving. To feel its warmth and motion around us is the end as well as the means.

To denigrate the union movement in this way is to denigrate the right and the ability of people who are not rich to organize and to accomplish things together.

And the spirit of revolution will not die while the hearts of these workers continue to beat.

I can't talk fellowship to you who are gathered here. Too much blood has been spilled. I know from my experience it is up to the working people to save themselves. The only way they can save themselves is by a strong working-class movement.

There is nothing stronger than the American labor movement. United, we cannot and we will not be turned aside. We'll work for it, sisters and brothers. We'll stand for it. Together. Each of us. To bring out the best in America. To bring out the best in ourselves, and each other.

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.

Security isn't what I hunger for. I hunger for change. I hunger for connection.

This is true only because the purposes and objectives of the Committee for Industrial Organization find economic, social, political and moral justification in the hearts of the millions who are its members and the millions more who support it.

We all live in the same house, we all must be part of the effort to hold down our little house. When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just... do something about it. Say something. Have the courage. Have the backbone. Get in the way. Walk with the wind. It's all going to work out.

I want to act, if I can, as a bridge for people who read 'Shock Doctrine' or 'No Logo'. People who are sitting out for whatever reasons.

The essence of Ferguson is the spirit of the people, and I'm so happy to see the spirit because I haven't seen it like that since the Civil Rights Movement.

We want to give a voice to all the good people of the South.

No one has a copyright on working-class struggles.

Our greatest strength in our fight for justice is our people - the thousands of men and women who have dedicated their careers, often at great personal sacrifice, to working for justice in America.

'The Story of Us with Morgan Freeman' is a reminder that people across the world are rebelling against norms and forging new paths for the most marginalized people in their own communities.

I think our work as movement leaders isn't just about our own visibility but rather how do we make the whole visible. How do we not just fight for our individual selves but fight for everybody?

The only way you really see change is by helping to create it.

During my years of being close to people engaged in changing the world I have seen fear turn into courage. Sorrow into joy. Funerals into celebration. Because whatever the consequences, people, standing side by side, have expressed who they really are, and that ultimately they believe in the love of the world and each other enough to be that.

The power of the people is much stronger than the people in power.

It means a great deal to those who are oppressed to know that they are not alone. And never let anyone tell you that what you are doing is insignificant.