Marian Wright Edelman Quotes

The walls, the bars, the guns and the guards can never encircle or hold down the idea of the people.

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.

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.

Injustice has exhausted people but also pushed them to organize and fight back in very sophisticated ways.

It's about people rising up in Ferguson and in Egypt and in Occupy Wall Street and in every place where a community has had enough and decides to make change happen. It's not about praising one charismatic leader but celebrating thousands of them... 'Black Messiah' is not one man. It's a feeling that, collectively, we are all that leader.

In Chile, they had penas, where the community would come together to sing and plan how they were going to overthrow the government. There's a real hopefulness in that community style of organizing.

Protest and anger practically always derives from hope, and the shouting out against injustice is always in the hope of those injustices being somewhat corrected and a little more justice established.

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

The world needs anger. The world often continues to allow evil because it isn't angry enough.

I wish for you all, each of you, to have your own motive for indignation. This is precious. When something outrages you as I was outraged by Nazism, then people become militant, strong, and involved.

An oppressed people will always rise.

My fellow revolutionaries, liberation is a noble cause. We must fight to obtain it.

Disobey the rules; ask for more; leave your wretchedness behind; organize with your brothers and sisters; never accept the hand of fate.

For we went, changing our country more often than our shoes In the class war, despairing When there was only injustice and no resistance

I want a prepared, organized, orderly and resistless revolution.

Rebellion is the necessary result of injustice. It may not always achieve its purpose, or be intended to do so, but a conviction of injustice endured must precede articulate rebellion. Nor is it always certain that injustice will be followed by rebellion – it would be very much better for the world if this was the case. But where the victims of aggression or custom are ignorant and disunited, the opportunities for reasoned and effective revolt are practically reduced to nothing…

I'll continue fighting as long as these social injustices exist.

Without rebellion, mankind would stagnate, and injustice would be irremediable.

It was imperative to make common cause with the oppressed in order to secure a new system opposed to the ambitions and governing habits of the oppressors.

The Black Panther Party stood up and said that we don't care what anybody says. We don't think fighting fire with fire is best; we think you fight fire with water best.

I would have felt ashamed if I had not been part of the resistance and part of fighting back against the forces of the state.

Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.

It takes all sorts of people to come together to fight tyranny. It's not about one race anymore.

The imperialists see extremists everywhere. It's not that we are extremists. It's that the world is waking up. It's waking up all over, and people are standing up.

We might not be back. I might be in jail. I might be anywhere. But when I leave, you'll remember I said, with the last words on my lips, that I am a revolutionary. And you're going to have to keep on saying that. You're going to have to say that I am a proletariat; I am the people.