John Carlos Quotes

Quotes about:

• The bottom line is, if you stay home, your message stays home with you. If you stand for justice and equality, you have an obligation to find the biggest possible megaphone to let your feelings be known. Don't let your message be buried and don't bury yourself.

  John Carlos

  Home, Justice, Feelings

  61 Copy quote

• How can you ask someone to live in the world and not have something to say about injustice?

  John Carlos

  World, Injustice, Asks

  John Carlos, Dave Zirin (2011). “The John Carlos Story: The Sports Moment that Changed the World”, p.1, Haymarket Books

  83 Copy quote

• It stands for diversity. It stands for vision and strength. It stands for belief in the right things. That's what I think it stands for.

  John Carlos

  Thinking, Diversity, Vision

  44 Copy quote

• In life, there's the beginning and the end. The beginning don't matter. The end don't matter. All that matters is what you do in between – whether you're prepared to do what it takes to make change. There has to be physical and material sacrifice. When all the dust settles and we're getting ready to play down for the ninth inning, the greatest reward is to know that you did your job when you were here on the planet.

  John Carlos

  Jobs, Sacrifice, Dust

  79 Copy quote

• The beginning don't matter. The end don't matter. All that matters is what you do in between...the greatest reward is to know that you did your job when you were here on the planet.

  John Carlos

  Jobs, Rewards, Matter

  41 Copy quote

• I'm a man that has a vision as to how this world can be, and I've gathered myself through all the ordeals that I had to make me a well-rounded person and still fight for justice.

  John Carlos

  Fighting, Men, Justice

  Source: www.pbs.org

  29 Copy quote

• Let's start with the black glove. We felt it necessary being the fact that the Olympic Games, for the first time ever [in 1968], had been televised worldwide. The second thing is the fact that it was in Technicolor. Never had the games been shown in color before.We wanted it to be understood that we were representing America, but we were representing Black America in particular, so that's why we put the black glove on.

  John Carlos

  Color, Games, America

  Source: www.pbs.org

  25 Copy quote

• Becoming involved in sports and traveling the world and seeing how people of color were treated around the world, and America being such a great nation, probably the greatest nation in the world, I think that the thing that would destroy this nation more than anything is the inequality that we have amongst people of color.

  John Carlos

  Sports, Thinking, Color

  Source: www.pbs.org

  24 Copy quote

• The black socks [on me at Olympics in 1968] emphasized the fact that we had so many Blacks and people of color here in the United States, the greatest country in the world, that was running around in poverty every day, so we wanted to illustrate the fact that these individuals did not have shoes and they had to walk 20 miles to and from school every day with no shoes in the greatest country in the world.

  John Carlos

  Running, Country, School

  Source: www.pbs.org

  23 Copy quote

• We wanted to bring attention to the fact that we had so many deals taking place that we could have made change for the better for all people, and we felt that we would be a catalyst to bring this to attention to society.

  John Carlos

  People, Would Be, Attention

  Source: www.pbs.org

  19 Copy quote

• I think the Olympic Games have been married to political statements. If I go back to Berlin in 1936, it was very politically orientated then, just with the Nazis.

  John Carlos

  Thinking, Games, Political

  Source: www.pbs.org

  17 Copy quote

• The beads around my neck [at Olympics in 1968] indicated that there were so many Blacks throughout the history of this country that have been maimed and killed by way of hangings.

  John Carlos

  Country, Olympics, Way

  Source: www.pbs.org

  11 Copy quote

• Peter [Norman] never denounced us, he never turned his back on us, he never walked away from us, he never said one thing against what he stood for in Mexico City, and that was freedom, justice and equality for all God's people.

  John Carlos

  Cities, People, Justice

  Source: www.pbs.org

  7 Copy quote

• If you look at the Olympic Games as a whole, if we would say we didn't want to interject politics into the games, then why are we using nation's flags? Why don't we use one Olympic flag to encompass all the Olympians, as opposed to being separatists in terms of China versus Russia or Russia versus the United States? Why don't we just say man versus man?

  John Carlos

  Men, Russia, Games

  Source: www.pbs.org

  11 Copy quote

• Like I tell everyone, I say the bottom line to my life is that I've gone through torments in my life, but it made me stronger. I haven't lost my mind, I haven't become a dope fiend, I'm not a drug pusher, I'm not a stick-up man.

  John Carlos

  Dope, Men, Drug

  Source: www.pbs.org

  16 Copy quote

• I think it's something that we said collectively, in terms of the fact that we was getting ready to face probably the biggest storms of our life, and we had to stand strong for what we believe in and carry on the legacy we just laid down for society.

  John Carlos

  Strong, Believe, Thinking

  Source: www.pbs.org

  9 Copy quote

• Rosie Grier was the springboard to the return of my life.

  John Carlos

  Return, Rosie, Springboards

  Source: www.pbs.org

  5 Copy quote

• I think society had to grow up to the mentality of Peter Norman.

  John Carlos

  Growing Up, Thinking, Peter

  Source: www.pbs.org

  8 Copy quote

• It was like when we went to Mexico City [Olympics in 1968] it was sun and shining and bright. When we came home it was chaotic and storms everywhere. I think the most devastating thing was to make the adjustment as to why so many individuals that you grew up with in the sport thought it necessary to turn their backs and walk away from you.

  John Carlos

  Sports, Home, Thinking

  Source: www.pbs.org

  9 Copy quote

• The government did a lot of things to us in terms of sending pictures to my house. If I had to go to a school to give a speech and the sorority wanted to sign a song, they would send [a person] to my house and tell my wife that I had sex with this woman or that woman.It got to the point where my wife didn't know what to believe anymore, and the fact that I didn't have a job, I couldn't support my bills, the fact that I was getting ready to go through maybe a mental setback in terms of depression, we just had a tremendous amount of things on us.

  John Carlos

  Song, Jobs, Sex

  Source: www.pbs.org

  6 Copy quote

• [Sport officials] blocked their support of us. But those individuals [ Muhammad Ali, the Jim Browns, the Bill Russells, Kareem Abdul Jabbar ] were old enough, they were wise enough, and they knew their history and this is why they came out in support of us, because they knew that we had our finger on the right move.

  John Carlos

  Sports, Wise, Moving

  Source: www.pbs.org

  10 Copy quote

• As a kid growing up and seeing so much strife taking place in society, and particularly on Blacks and people of color, I had an opportunity as a young man to witness the change that was taking place in Harlem, the exodus of white folks leaving Harlem, which I thought was a very cohesive situation. But they felt that they needed to leave.

  John Carlos

  Growing Up, Kids, Opportunity

  Source: www.pbs.org

  6 Copy quote

• I'm sure there was people in Australia that told Peter Norman that hey, man, you shouldn't have done what you did, you shouldn't have gotten involved in those individuals, it wasn't your business.

  John Carlos

  Men, Australia, People

  Source: www.pbs.org

  9 Copy quote

• Fortunately for me, I was able to see the newspaper and saw that they were hiring in a new program called the Cedar Program, and I recall going to one of my Olympic buddies and saying, "Hey, man, this might be a shot in the arm for us. Let's go down and apply for these Cedar jobs."I took a job as a gardener caretaker.

  John Carlos

  Jobs, Men, Cedars

  Source: www.pbs.org

  7 Copy quote

• It took some time for us to realize that [people] didn't particularly say they didn't like us or have the love for us that they had in the past, nor the respect. I think they chose to leave based on the fact that they felt a reprisal for being associated or having a friendship with John Carlos or Tommie Smith, or Peter Norman, for that matter.

  John Carlos

  Past, Thinking, People

  Source: www.pbs.org

  4 Copy quote

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