Gary L. Francione Quotes

No matter what the issues are, it has to be handled at the grassroots. When you take part in something, even though that movement may lose, the juices start flowing and you feel you count. You count. Well, that's pretty important.

In any grass-roots campaign, building an ongoing base of support is as important as winning the ultimate goal.

Use your voice on the local level where it has the potential to be more widely heard.

Grass-roots work is not flashy, and rarely celebrated on the national media level, but that is where change begins.

We have to get back down to basics. We have to start organizing at the neighborhood level to get people educated to vote.

Once I learned about grassroots organizing, I got so enamored with it because I thought 'Wow this is the way you do it!'

We are intent on building a movement. The next step is grassroots town meetings. We must keep alive the dialogue around the covenants.

My own view - and I'm very open to hearing other perspectives - is that this movement-building needs to begin at home, in local communities. It isn't about trying to launch a brand new national party overnight. It's about people in communities coming together across lines of difference, bringing with them their movements, their families, and coming together and saying, "How can we together build a movement of movements here at home? What would that look like? What do we want to do right here in our communities?"

The people are learning that you cannot leave decisions only to leaders. Local groups have to create the political will for change, rather than waiting for others to do things for them. That is where positive, and sustainable, change begins.

What we have ignored is what citizens can do and the importance of real involvement of the people versus just having somebody in Washington make a rule.

I had this epiphany that I like the interaction with people. I wanted to make things happen at a grassroots level.

Real, sustainable community change requires the initiative and engagement of community members.

Political development should start at the grassroots.

I love TV, I love writing, but I love movements more.

Activists are generally doers - rather than watching television and thinking about the world they will put there energies into doing something 'active' to change the (political) situation.

Change will not come from above, it will come from below, from the small and medium size businesspeople. They do dare to show their faces. They applaud us and help us financially.

I love being a part of something that is grassroots, and you can see the actual changes, the effect of what people do.

Real people do real things. A collective of a whole bunch of people who do things in their own locale, in their own neighborhoods - the sum is bigger than the parts, and the parts will grow.

If our society is to address social issues, it will be done at the local level or not at all.

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

Your job is to inspire people from your neighborhood to get out.

The way to change the world is through individual responsibility and taking local action in your own community.

We value doing things grassroots, even at this level. That means no real high ticket prices or meet-and-greets and all that kind of stuff.

Be informed, ask questions, band together with your community, and fight at the local level. And make sure you take your local elections as seriously as the national ones.

I think we sometimes forget that we have so many other places to create change. My dad taught me this, but the political is one spot to make change. But so is writing a book.