Bobby Seale Quotes

Bring on your tear gas, bring on your grenades, your new supplies of Mace, your state troopers and even your national guards. But let the record show we ain't going to be turned around.

One, a mass movement from within, which, as you know, is constantly being put down brutally but which, again, regroups and moves forward as is happening right now as we are speaking.

The people in power will not disappear voluntarily, giving flowers to the cops just isn't going to work. This thinking is fostered by the establishment; they like nothing better than love and nonviolence.

I'm not a hero. The Hongkongers who confronted tear gas in the streets are the heroes.

Protesting is fundamentally submissive.

Come on, fire bullets at me. I am prepared to die for the sake of the people.

Who are we to judge the people of Ecuador? We cannot condemn people when they take to the streets.

We are poor and our allies are few, but we have our bodies and justice as our tools.

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will.

Oppression costs the oppressor too much if the oppressed stand up and protest.

Never Tire of Protesting

MLK, Jr. taught me how to say no to segregation, and I can hear him saying now... when you straighten up your back, no man can ride you. He said stand up straight and say no to racial discrimination.

Even when folks are hitting you over the head, you can't stop marching. Even when they're turning the hoses on you, you can't stop.

As the blowback against those who stand up for what is right thickens, I feel it is necessary to push forward with a relentless determination.

We have to speak truth to power.

Any time you do something - a protest - you know there's going to be backlash.

It's always important, when we experience injustice in this nation, that people in power understand that we will not take that injustice quietly.

Freedom is a part of protest as well.

I think of protest as confrontation and disruption, as the end of silence.

Fear is the greatest form of oppression. The best way to rise up in protest is to live your life to its fullest!

Wherever I found resistance to oppression, whether in Africa, in Latin America, certainly here in America in the South, I joined that resistance. I took part in the labor movement, in social movements, in the church community. I felt that it was the honorable thing to do and still do.

Never befriend the oppressed unless you are prepared to take on the oppressor.

We who have the final word can speak softly or angrily. We can seek to challenge and annoy, as we need not stay docile and quiet.

I saw courage both in the Vietnam War and in the struggle to stop it. I learned that patriotism includes protest, not just military service.

Social paralysis is strong and stands firmly in the way of change on the ground level. As allies, we have to prepare ourselves to step into the fire when necessary, even - and especially - when said fire is merely a still-lit cigarette tossed carelessly onto the street.