Progressive Activism Quotes

The poor are the very lifeblood of the left, attracting activists, supporting among the intelligentsia, and - perhaps most important - allowing the left to indulge in self-congratulation as people who 'care.' But, if they really cared, they would want to know what the facts are and what the actual consequences of their various nostrums are.

Like a lot of people, I had this naive hope that Barack Obama would fix everything quickly. You know, the culture of celebrity in this country leads us away from democratic ways of thinking and into this hero worship. And so of course, one man cannot swoop in and fix everything on his own. It's much more complicated and difficult than that, and progressives in this country since then have had to come to terms with the fact that we need to do more than actually get out of our house and vote. It's an ongoing process to turn the tide.

I think the activism of the 1960s had a very definite civilizing effect on the whole society in all kinds of ways. So lots of things that by now are almost taken for granted were heretical in the 1960s. We had anti-sodomy laws until not many years ago.

We can only live the changes we wish to see: we cannot think our way to humanity. Every one of us, every group, must become the model of that which we desire to create. We must break the obsolete social and economic systems that divide the world between the over-privileged and the under-privileged. Each of us, whether government leader or protester, business executive or worker, professor or student, share a common guilt.

We need more radicalism among us before we can speak as becomes a suffering, oppressed, and persecuted people.

What I was trying to say in that bit, without saying it out loud, is that there were things - you're right, everything is very politicized these days, literally down to what kind of coffee you drink - that I used to fight with people about. And by the way, not just people like Republicans and Christians, but liberal friends of mine and very radical left-wing types, and alternative, indie types.

Let us have a fair field! This is all we ask, and we will be content with nothing less. The finger of evolution, which touches everything, is laid tenderly upon women. They have on their side all the elements of progress, and its spirit stirs within them. They are fighting, not for themselves alone, but for the future of humanity. Let them have a fair field!

In America, we have to really be working on two fronts right now. Immediately, we have to be rising in resistance and protecting our Muslim brothers and sisters [and] every marginalized person under threat and siege. At the same time, we have to be planning and envisioning where we're going. How we build moments and movements, how we come up with the vision we want of a progressive left - that's what comes in after.

Ajamu Baraka comes out of the tradition of the African-American intellectuals, the people who really been standing up for African-American rights and economic rights and workers rights.

A lot of people felt defeated and hopeless by Trump's election. But I feel his election should energize people to resist apathy, ignorance, sexism, xenophobia, and racism.

The gay rights movement of recent years has been an inspiring victory for humanity and it is in the tradition of the civil rights movement when I was a young boy in the South, the women's suffrage movement when my mother was a young woman in Tennessee, the abolition movement much farther back, and the anti-apartheid movement when I was in the House of Representatives. All of these movements have one thing in common: the opposition to progress was rooted in an outdated understanding of morality.

The Left needs causes like fish need water

I feel so proud to see young people standing up against the injustice to stand up and say that "All lives matter." They're following in the footsteps of those who came before them.

I suppose that the first organized effort that might be considered something of civil rights was the Young Negroes' Cooperative League. Now, this offers certain contradictions at this point, perhaps, because it was stimulated by the writings of George Schayler who, at this point, is considered an arch-conservative, I understand.

... we should be miserable but for the consciousness that we have done all in our power to help forward every measure for the freedom and equality of the races and the sexes.

Income and wealth inequality have reached obscene levels, the threat of climate change is more frightening than ever, and the billionaire class is now allowed to spend unlimited amounts of money to buy the candidate they want. And it is up to us to stand up and fight back. If we stand together, there is no limit to what we can accomplish.

Everything we did in the 1960s was designed to fission, to weaken faith in and conformity to the 1950s social order. Our precise surgical target was the Judeo-Christian power monolith, which has imposed a guilty, inhibited, grim, anti-body, anti-life repression on Western civilization.

I would love to have the endorsement of every progressive organization in America. We're very proud to have received recently the endorsement of MoveOn.org. We've received the endorsement Democracy for America. These are grassroots organizations representing millions of workers.

Progressive bloggers should not only write on behalf of the members of America's underclass but also empower them to join the discussion.

The reality of politics is, if Trump is the president tonight, every progressive group in America will be able to mobilize in a way tomorrow that they may not necessarily have been able to mobilize yesterday.

I watched a documentary about Freedom Riders. One young woman told her parents, 'I'm going to leave college to ride and represent the future.' I thought, 'Who would do that now?' Who would do that for my son?"

It is important to remember all true change begins at the margins and moves toward the center. This does not make the climate change movement marginal, it makes it muscular, organic, with a true movement toward the center.

The feminist women's organization NOW has endorsed Carol Moseley-Braun for president. Once again NOW has shown it is so far behind the times it should change its name to THEN.

Jim Hightower, Ann Richards - there are quite a few intelligent regular Texans.

I can think of few important movements for reform in which success was won by any method other than that of an energetic minority presenting the indifferent majority with a fait accompli, which was then accepted.