Social Movements Quotes

• History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Sad, Wisdom, Bad Relationship

  Martin Luther King (Jr.), Alex Ayres (1993). “The Wisdom of Martin Luther King, Jr”, Plume

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• Never depend upon institutions or government to solve any problem. All social movements are founded by, guided by, motivated and seen through by the passion of individuals.

  Margaret Mead

  Freedom, Passion, Government

  Attributed to Margaret Mead in Michael S. Matthews, Ph.D. and Jaime A. Castellano, Ed.D. "Talent Development for English Language Learners: Identifying and Developing Potential", November 15, 2013.

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• The essence of trade unionism is social uplift. The labor movement has been the haven for the dispossessed, the despised, the neglected, the downtrodden, the poor.

  A. Philip Randolph

  Uplifting, Labour Movement, Essence

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• A social movement that only moves people is merely a revolt. A movement that changes both people and institutions is a revolution.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Moving, People, Movement

  Martin Luther King (Jr.), Alex Ayres (1993). “The Wisdom of Martin Luther King, Jr”, Plume

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• The great thing about social movements is everybody gets to be a part of them.

  Jim Wallis

  Movement, Social, Great Things

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• Radical thought has inspired many of the great political and social reform movements in American history, from ending slavery to establishing the minimum wage.

  Carl Bernstein

  Political, Reform, Movement

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• Individual struggles merge into larger social movements.

  Henry Giroux

  Struggle, Movement, Individual

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• Major social movements eventually fade into the landscape not because they have diminished but because they have become a permanent part of our perceptions and experience.

  Freda Adler

  Perception, Experience, Movement

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• Every important social movement reconfigures the world in the imagination. What was obscure comes forward, lies are revealed, memory shaken, new delineations drawn over the old maps: it is from this new way of seeing the present that hope emerges for the future...Let us begin to imagine the worlds we would like to inhabit, the long lives we will share, and the many futures in our hands.

  Susan Griffin

  Memories, Lying, Hands

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• There has never been a successful social movement for any minority without the support of the majority.

  Hudson Taylor

  Successful, Support, Majority

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• Social movements are at once the symptoms and the instruments of progress. Ignore them and statesmanship is irrelevant; fail to use them and it is weak.

  Walter Lippmann

  Progress, Use, Movement

  Walter Lippmann (1914). “A Preface to Politics”

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• History is the product of vast, amorphous and indecipherable social movements.

  Leo Tolstoy

  Movement, Social, Products

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• Any social movement that seeks to benefit only its own members I think is a shallow movement and probably doomed to failure.

  Cleve Jones

  Thinking, Movement, Benefits

  Source: www.bilerico.com

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• Storytelling may be what most distinguishes social movements from interest groups.

  Marshall Ganz

  Groups, Stories, Movement

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• Feminism, unlike almost every other social movement, is not a struggle against a distinct oppressor - it's not the ruling class or the occupiers or the colonizers - it's against a deeply held set of beliefs and assumptions that we women, far too often, hold ourselves.

  Kavita Ramdas

  Motivation, Struggle, Inspiration

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• Cults, or related social movements such as the Taliban in Afghanistan, result in massive military expenses.

  Keith Henson

  Military, Movement, Social

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• Individuals bearing witness cannot do the work of social movements, but they can break a corrosive and demoralizing silence.

  Ellen Willis

  Silence, Movement, Individual

  "Three Elegies for Susan Sontag". "New Politics", Vol. X, No. 3, 2005.

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• Where there is a sufficient social movement of self-reliant communities, there can be political change. There must be political change.

  Jerry Brown

  Self, Community, Political

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• There will be no equity without solidarity. There will be no justice without a social movement.

  Joia Mukherjee

  Justice, Movement, Social

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• As I review the great history of our nation, community organizers have been at the center of so many of our great social movements.

  Cory Booker

  Community, Movement, Progressive

  "A Great American Tradition: Community Organizing" by Cory Booker, www.huffingtonpost.com. September 10, 2008.

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• What I feel now is connected to people. I feel connected and I feel a lot of love for people. I feel the possibility of what building social movements and what working together in struggle creates. Whatever that energy is, it feels a lot better than what I felt when I was younger - which was worthless and disconnected and isolated and alone.

  Eve Ensler

  Struggle, People, Working Together

  Interview with Chantal Pierrat, www.marandapleasantmedia.com. 2013.

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• If you can reach just 10 percent of the population, you can begin to reach a tipping point; that's where true social movements take place - it's a numbers game. And when you reach that number, the truth becomes obvious and empires of injustice crumble and fall.

  Louie Psihoyos

  Fall, Games, Numbers

  "Oscar- winning Director Louie Psihoyos: RACING Our Own EXTINCTION". Interview with Maranda Pleasant, www.marandapleasantmedia.com.

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• I think what drives me is a sense of, well, who is going to do it if you don't do it? I think that one of the things that we've seen over time, especially with progressive social movements, is most of them - it's surprising to people - are sort of driven by that.

  Eugene Puryear

  Thinking, People, Movement

  Source: www.slate.com

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• Very important thing to keep in mind, that when justice comes and when injustices are remedied, they’re not remedied by the initiative of the national government or the politicians. They only respond to the power of social movements.

  Howard Zinn

  Government, Justice, Mind

  Howard Zinn (2012). “Howard Zinn Speaks: Collected Speeches, 1963-2009”, p.293, Haymarket Books

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• Open source is a development methodology; free software is a social movement.

  Richard Stallman

  Movement, Development, Social

  Richard Stallman (2002). “Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman”, p.43, Lulu.com

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