Civil Rights Quotes - Page 19

• Your sect [the Jews] by its sufferings has furnished a remarkable proof of the universal point of religious insolence, inherent in every sect, disclaimed by all while feeble and practised by all when in power. Our laws have applied the only antidote to this vice, protecting our religions, as they do our civil rights, by putting all on equal footing. But more remains to be done.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Rights, Law

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• I gained a great appreciation for what I would call the collective achievement of the country. I began thinking of America as a much more just and humane place than I would have thought if I'd been covering the civil rights struggle.

  Charles Kuralt

  Country, Appreciation, Struggle

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• The marriage-equality issue should be recognized for what it truly is - a civil rights issue that must be approved to assure that every citizen is treated equally under the law.

  Bruce Springsteen

  Issues, Rights, Law

  "Bruce Springsteen voices support for gay marriage in New Jersey" by Gil Kaufman, www.mtv.com. December 9, 2009.

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• It's not often that you get to read something that just feels very original for a star but also something that feels like it's more than just a movie or entertainment. Even though the riots were one of the most pivotal riots in civil rights history, especially for the LGBT community, I knew surprisingly very little about them. You don't learn about Stonewall in schools. It's a bit gross really! So it certainly felt like something that was quite important.

  Jeremy Irvine

  Stars, School, Rights

  Source: www.justjared.com

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• On human rights, civil rights and environmental quality, I consider myself to be very liberal. On the management of government, on openness of government, on strengthening individual liberties and local levels of government, I consider myself a conservative. And I don't see that the two attitudes are incompatible.

  Jimmy Carter

  Attitude, Rights, Government

  Jimmy Carter (1998). “Conversations with Carter”, p.51, Lynne Rienner Publishers

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• The great paradox of the civil rights revolution is that instead of enforcing and expanding equality before the law, the revolution created differential rights based on race, gender and, any day now, sexual orientation. The great liberal revolution, centuries in the making, that brought forth equality in law has been overthrown. In its place we see rising a new feudal legal order of status-based rights.

  Paul Craig Roberts

  Rights, Race, Order

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• The environment is the most important, the most fundamental, civil-rights issue.... Four out of every five toxic-waste dumps in America is in a black neighborhood.

  Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

  Rights, Toxic Waste, America

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• Civil rights used to be about treating everyone the same. But today some people are so used to special treatment that equal treatment is considered to be discrimination.

  Thomas Sowell

  Rights, Equal Treatment, People

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• The sad and tragic fact is that the civil rights movement, despite its honorable and courageous past, has over the years degenerated into a demagogic hustle, promoting the mindless racism they once fought against.

  Thomas Sowell

  Past, Rights, Years

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• I think one of the tragedies of the civil rights movement was because the civil rights movement became so court-focused, I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing, and activities on the ground, that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power throughout which you bring about redistributive change. And in some ways, we still suffer from that.

  Barack Obama

  Thinking, Rights, Track

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• The elites hate to acknowledge it, but when large numbers of ordinary people are moved to action, it changes the narrow political world where the elites call the shots. Inside accounts reveal the extent to which Johnson and Nixon's conduct of the Vietnam War was constrained by the huge anti-war movement. It was the civil rights movement, not compelling arguments, that convinced members of Congress to end legal racial discrimination.

  Dean Baker

  Hate, War, People

  "Won’t You Please Come to Chicago?" by Dean Baker, www.huffingtonpost.com. March 18, 2010.

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• Many heroic things happened during slavery. And remember that there was a national movement away from it even at the time. The era of Reconstruction and then the subsequent dismantling of Reconstruction sent us in a tailspin. Then we had the Civil Rights movement. Now we have our first non-white president. We have a pattern of moving apart and then coming back together throughout the history of this country. Each time, we come closer.

  Wynton Marsalis

  Country, Moving, Rights

  Interview with Vickie Karp, www.huffingtonpost.com. January 18, 2009.

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• When you're fighting for civil rights, it's sometimes two steps forward and one step back. Civil rights are an evolution; and you have to bring people along.

  Gloria Allred

  Fighting, Rights, Two

  Source: dot429.com

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• If I were an Arab-American, I would insist on being profiled. This is not the time for civil rights. There are larger issues for Americans.

  Jack Nicholson

  Rights, Issues, Ifs

  Source: www.esquire.com

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• I would have to say all of the civil rights acts, because there were three, and even, say, the Immigration Act, which I think also is a civil rights act, maybe on a global perspective, that he cared very, very much about it.

  Lynda Bird Johnson Robb

  Thinking, Rights, Perspective

  "How the Civil Rights Act pioneered anti-discrimination laws in America". “PBS NewsHour" with Gwen Ifill, www.pbs.org. April 10, 2014.

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• The tyranny of the many would be when one body takes over the rights of others, and then exercises its power to change the laws in its favor.

  Voltaire

  Exercise, Rights, Law

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• Are you kidding me? It's insane that civil rights are being denied people in this day and age. It's embarrassing, and it's heartbreaking. It goes without saying that I'm completely in support of gay marriage. In 10 years we'll be ashamed that this was an issue.

  Chris Evans

  Gay, Rights, Years

  "Chris Evans On Gay Marriage: ‘In 10 Years We’ll Be Ashamed That This Was An Issue’". www.huffingtonpost.com. April 21, 2012.

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• When and under what conditions is the black man to have a free ballot? When is he in fact to have those full civil rights which have so long been his in law?

  Benjamin Harrison

  Men, Rights, Law

  Benjamin Harrison (1893). “Public Papers and Addresses of Benjamin Harrison: Twenty -third President of the United States. March 4, 1889, to March 4, 1893”

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• Up until, really, Roosevelt, African-Americans largely voted ninety per cent Republican. That was the political origins, that's what their political voice was in the Republican party. During that history, that last sixty or seventy years of history, the Republican party effectively walked away from the community. They were afraid to really embrace civil rights even though they embraced civil rights legislation. And so it's not enough to just to put it on paper, you gotta actually show up and be in the community, and understand what that struggle was really about.

  Michael Steele

  Party, Struggle, Rights

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• Question: Does it frost Jackson, Jesse Jackson, that someone like Obama, who fits the stereotype blacks once labeled as an Oreo -- a black on the outside, a white on the inside -- that an Oreo should be the beneficiary of the long civil rights struggle which Jesse Jackson spent his lifetime fighting for?

  John McLaughlin

  Struggle, Fighting, Rights

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• It is difficult to overstate the importance of the Civil Rights Act.

  Bobby Scott

  Hippie, Rights, Importance

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• They don't have special rights because we have civil rights laws that protect them. The laws work both ways.

  Tom Allen

  Hippie, Rights, Law

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• [Democrats] are not handling the John Lewis flap the right way, clearly. John Lewis is a hero and a civil rights hero.

  Jason Chaffetz

  Hero, Rights, Way

  Source: abcnews.go.com

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• Civil rights, as we may remember, are reducible to three primary heads; the right of personal security; the right of personal liberty; and the right of private property. In a state of slavery, the two last are wholly abolished, the person of the slave being at the absolute disposal of his master; and property, what he is incapable, in that state, either of acquiring, or holding, in his own use. Hence, it will appear how perfectly irreconcilable a state of slavery is to the principles of a democracy, which form the basis and foundation of our government.

  St. George Tucker

  Two, Rights, Government

  St. George Tucker (1990). “A Dissertation on Slavery: With a Proposal for the Gradual Abolition of it in the State of Virginia”

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• Just five days now before Donald Trump becomes president of the United States after the most intense week yet of this transition.It began with an early Monday morning tweet taking on Meryl Streep.. By Saturday morning, the target was civil rights legend John Lewis. In between, the president-elect sparred with the press, said intelligence officials were acting like Nazis, called Hillary Clinton guilty as hell, counterpunching just like in the campaign.

  Donald Trump

  Monday, Morning, Rights

  Source: abcnews.go.com

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