Civil Rights Quotes - Page 2

• The Framers of the Bill of Rights did not purport to 'create' rights. Rather, they designed the Bill of Rights to prohibit our Government from infringing rights and liberties presumed to be preexisting.

  William J. Brennan

  Freedom, Rights, Government

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• This is one country. It has become one country because all of us and all the people who came here had an equal chance to develop their talents. We cannot say to ten percent of the population that you can't have that right; that your children cannot have the chance to develop whatever talents they have; that the only way that they are going to get their rights is to go in the street and demonstrate. I think we owe them and we owe ourselves a better country than that.

  John F. Kennedy

  Country, Children, Thinking

  Civil Rights Address, delivered 11 June 1963

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• Through electing officials that will protect the Constitution and commit themselves to the rights of the people and the health of the nation, we will be able to ensure that no group of ideologues and no private sector institution can coopt our rights, take us into senseless wars and steal the nation from its people.

  Harry Belafonte

  War, Rights, People

  17 Copy quote

• The vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men because they are different from other men.

  Lyndon B. Johnson

  Wall, Powerful, Men

  Johnson, Lyndon B. (1967). “Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1966”, p.842, Best Books on

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• I came out of the Civil Rights Movement, and I had a different kind of focus than most people who have just the academic background as their primary training experience

  Bernice Johnson Reagon

  Rights, People, Focus

  9 Copy quote

• I had advocated the establishment of a Negro industrial commission. I had gestured against the growth of monopoly power. I had introduced a few civil rights bills.

  Emanuel Celler

  Rights, Monopoly Power, Growth

  Emanuel Celler (1953). “You Never Leave Brooklyn: The Autobiography of Emanuel Celler”

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• I favor the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and it must be enforced at gunpoint if necessary.

  Ronald Reagan

  Funny, Humorous, Rights

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  I have learned over the years that when one's mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear.

  Rosa Parks

  Inspirational, Positive, Inspiring

  Rosa Parks, Gregory J. Reed (1994). “Quiet Strength: The Faith, the Hope, and the Heart of a Woman who Changed a Nation”, Zondervan

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• My image had always been very heterosexual, very straight. So it was a nice experience for me, a chance to clarify my own feelings about gay and lesbian civil rights.

  Bruce Springsteen

  Nice, Gay, Rights

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• Rarely in my 45 years as a civil rights lawyer have I been so angry about an injustice as I am about what happened to Billy Ray Johnson

  Morris Dees

  Rights, Years, Rays

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• 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.

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• All Americans owe a debt of gratitude to Dr. King for his bravery and commitment to civil rights and nonviolence that changed this nation - and world - for the better.

  Eliot Engel

  Gratitude, Kings, Commitment

  9 Copy quote

• If Willie Nelson had been Rosa Parks, there never would have been a civil rights movement in this country, because he refuses to leave the back of the bus.

  Kinky Friedman

  Country, Hippie, Rights

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• I don't call myself a white supremacist. I'm a civil rights activist concerned about European-American rights.

  David Duke

  Rights, Europe, White

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

  Constance Baker Motley

  Leadership, Kings, Rights

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• Im a child of the Civil Rights Movement.

  Danny Glover

  Children, Rights, Movement

  "On Movies, Money & Politics". Interview with Peter Biskind, www.thenation.com. March 18, 1999.

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  I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Dream, Kings, Children

  Speech at Civil Rights March,Washington, D.C., 28 Aug. 1963

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• At the same time all this was happening, there was a folk song revival movement goingon, so the commercial music industry was actually changed by the Civil Rights Movement.

  Bernice Johnson Reagon

  Song, Commercial Music, Rights

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• I don't say that the supposed Civil Rights development is a myth, but it's a matter of dealing with reality. It's purely peripheral and, in many cases, it's just a facade.

  Norman Granz

  Reality, Rights, Development

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• The civil rights movement wasn't easy for anybody.

  Sammy Davis, Jr.

  Rights, Movement, Easy

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• He didn't even have the satisfaction of being killed for civil rights... it had to be some silly little Communist.

  Jackie Kennedy

  Silly, Rights, Littles

  "The Death of a President". Book by William Manchester, 1967.

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• Anyone who said he wasn't afraid during the civil rights movement was either a liar or without imagination. I was scared all the time. My hands didn't shake but inside I was shaking.

  James L. Farmer, Jr.

  Liars, Lying, Rights

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• When the civil rights battle was won, all the Jews and hippies and artists were middle class white people and all the blacks were still poor. Materially, not much changed.

  Jonathan Lethem

  Hippie, Artist, Rights

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• Martin Luther King Jr. is remembered as our prince of peace, of civil rights. We owe him something major that will keep his memory alive.

  Morgan Freeman

  Kings, Memories, Rights

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• Truth is on the side of the oppressed today, it's against the oppressor.

  Malcolm X

  Truth, Racism, Hajj

  "Malcolm X Speaks". Book by George Breitman, 1965.

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