Civil Rights Leaders Quotes

• In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Friendship, Wisdom, Kings

  "The Trumpet of Conscience". Martin Luther King, Jr.'s steeler lecture at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, November 17, 1957.

  432 Copy quote

  Show source

• Civil rights leaders are involved in helping poor people. That's what I've been doing all my life.

  Andrew Young

  Life, Rights, People

  7 Copy quote

• Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?'

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  Martin Luther King Jr. (1963). “Strength to Love”

  425 Copy quote

  Show source

• Intelligence plus character-that is the goal of true education.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Education, Character, School

  Martin Luther King (1992). “The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr”, p.124, Univ of California Press

  52 Copy quote

  Show source

• Hate is too great a burden to bear.

  Coretta Scott King

  Hater, Famous Love, Inspirational Love

  "Understanding Cultural Diversity in Today's Complex World‎" by Leo Parvis, (p. 54), 2006.

  93 Copy quote

  Show source

• The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Education, Teacher, Teaching

  Martin Luther King (1992). “The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr”, p.124, Univ of California Press

  127 Copy quote

  Show source

• Being a Negro in America means trying to smile when you want to cry. It means trying to hold on to physical life amid psychological death. It means the pain of watching your children grow up with clouds of inferiority in their mental skies. It means having their legs off, and then being condemned for being a cripple.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Children, Growing Up, Pain

  8 Copy quote

• We are confronted primarily with a moral issue... whether all Americans are to be afforded equal rights and equal opportunities, whether we are going to treat our fellow Americans as we want to be treated.

  John F. Kennedy

  Opportunity, Rights, Issues

  Civil Rights Address, delivered 11 June 1963

  42 Copy quote

  Show source

• The sad truth is that the civil rights movement cannot be reborn until we identify the causes of black suffering, some of them self-inflicted. Why can't black leaders organize rallies around responsible sexuality, birth within marriage, parents reading to their children and students staying in school and doing homework?

  Henry Louis Gates

  Children, Reading, School

  Henry Louis Gates Jr. (2012). “The Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Reader”, p.546, Basic Books

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Inspirational, Witty, Kings

  Strength to Love (1963) ch. 4

  176 Copy quote

  Show source

• Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  181 Copy quote

  Show source
• 

  Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Inspirational, Motivational, Change

  Atlanta Magazine, April 2008.

  232 Copy quote

  Show source
• 

  The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  Strength to Love (1963) ch. 3

  1360 Copy quote

  Show source

• What are you doing for others?

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Kings, Helping Others, Volunteer

  Jim Haskins, James Haskins, Martin Luther King (Jr.) (1992). “I have a dream: the life and words of Martin Luther King, Jr”, Millbrook Pr

  26 Copy quote

  Show source

• As a civil rights leader, Mrs. King's vision of racial peace and nonviolent social change was a fortifying staple in advancing the civil rights movement.

  James T. Walsh

  Change, Kings, Rights

  8 Copy quote

• By 1962, King had become, by the media's reckoning, the new civil rights leader.

  Constance Baker Motley

  Leadership, Kings, Rights

  7 Copy quote

• My parents both were doing the Civil Rights Movement, were very involved with the civil rights to Congress. And my friends' parents were as well.

  Janis Ian

  Rights, Parent, Movement

  "Janis Ian's Controversial 'Society's Child'". "News and Notes" with Tony Cox, www.npr.org. March 2, 2009.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Half a century ago, the amazing courage of Rosa Parks, the visionary leadership of Martin Luther King, and the inspirational actions of the civil rights movement led politicians to write equality into the law and make real the promise of America for all her citizens.

  David Cameron

  Leadership, Kings, Real

  8 Copy quote

• Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Kings, Ill Will, People

  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2011). “Why We Can't Wait”, p.62, Beacon Press

  61 Copy quote

  Show source

• American civil rights leader, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? Lynching is a murder. For the past four hundred years our people have been lynched physically, but now it's done politically. We're lynched politically, we're lynched economically, we're lynched socially, we're lynched in every way that you can imagine.

  Malcolm X

  Past, Rights, Lynching

  48 Copy quote

• Missing from the national conversation are voices of pro-immigration reformers and civil rights leaders, who can speak on behalf of those who have no voice.

  Andrew Lam

  Voice, Rights, Leader

  "‘Birds of Paradise Lost’: A Conversation With Author Andrew Lam". Interview with Anna Challet, www.huffingtonpost.com. March 5, 2013.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I must personally say that I do question the sincerity and nonviolent intentions of some civil rights leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Mr. James Farmer, and others, who are known to have left wing associations.

  Jerry Falwell

  Kings, Rights, Wings

  "Ministers and Marches". Jerry Falwell's sermon in Lynchburg, Virginia, 1965.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I'm trying to be a singer, not a civil rights leader.

  Adam Lambert

  Rights, Leader, Trying

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Well, I was always a bit of a political junkie. Even as a kid I would read biographies of presidents and of civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King and Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington.

  John Legend

  Kings, Kids, Rights

  4 Copy quote