Grassroots Movements Quotes

To reason with goverments, as they have existed for ages, is to argue with brutes. It is only from the nations themselves that reforms can be expected

When ordinary people wake up, elites begin to tremble in their boots.

What matters most is not who is sitting in the White House, but "who is sitting in" - and who is marching outside the White House, pushing for change.

The world will be solved by millions of small things.

Institutions don't change the world in fundamental ways. The way the world changes is heart to heart to heart by individuals, not by institutions.

Marriage equality is a very middle-class issue and voting rights is a very working-class issue. If you do not vote, who are you speaking for? Who will be the next Fannie Lou Hamer? If not you or someone you know, then who?

Don't let complexity stop you. Be activists. Take on the big inequities. It will be one of the great experiences of your lives.

Social reforms are never carried out by the weakness of the strong; but always by the strength of the weak.

Don't mourn, Organise

I think politicians do great things in the world, but I don't think they're the only ones who can. I don't like all the rhetoric and the finger pointing.

One of the things that's very important, when you're an activist and an organizer like me, is to understand that when things happen of that nature, some people become immobilized and other people begin to find solutions. And Detroit is the kind of city where we begin to find solutions.

If you look not just at the Arab Spring, but at what I call the 'Youth Spring' that has started in Europe, young people are starting to find a voice, and they are not looking to the traditional media to reflect that.

I think it's really important that we get rid of the idea that protest will create change.

The NGO-ization of politics threatens to turn resistance into a well-mannered, reasonable, salaried, 9-to-5 job. With a few perks thrown in. Real resistance has real consequences. And no salary.

My take is that there's two ways to approach history. You sit in your armchair and you watch it on the news and you return to your PlayStation. Or you get out in the streets and you make it. Like, when those Supreme Court justices, you know, legalize desegregation, it wasn't due to their infinite wisdom. It's because people whose names you do not read about in history books, people whose faces you will never see, were the ones who struggled and sacrificed, sometimes gave their lives, to make this country a more equal one. When, it's like those people don't make history, it's us.

There are Tea Parties, and I would say plural, in California.

Once again, he who ignores the problems of revolutionary strategy would do better not to talk about revolutions at all.

If civil disobedience is the way to go about change, than I think a lot of people will be going to San Francisco

I have great respect for people who are in the front lines and the trenches of trying to enact social change. I am far lazier than that.

I began to realise that we are all oppressed which is why I would like to do something about it, though I'm not sure where my place is.

One does not fight to influence change and then leave the change to someone else to bring about.

People have to be atomized and segregated and alone. They're not supposed to organize, because then they might be something beyond spectators of action. They might actually be participants if many people with limited resources could get together to enter the political arena. That's really threatening.

Political leaders will only undertake bold climate initiatives if they know the American people want it.

I was very active. I was always all over the place trying to do a million things, just into this activity. If you asked me when I was 14 what I wanted to be: "Activist, first, is my occupation. I am an activist."

I'll always push for what I believe in. That's what you're supposed to do. If you're an American, you're supposed to be part of the political process, especially if you've been denied it.