I think organized labor is a necessary part of democracy. Organized labor is the only way to have fair distribution of wealth.

We have two evils to fight, capitalism and racism. We must destroy both racism and capitalism.

I hate the way they portray us in the media. If you see a black family it says they’re looting, if you see a white family it says they’re looking for food.

When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?

In this possibly terminal phase of human existence, democracy and freedom are more than just ideals to be valued – they may be essential to survival.

There’s a lot of fuss on the Left about election irregularities, like, you know, the voting machines were tampered with, they didn’t count the votes right, and so on. That’s all accurate and of some importance, but of far more importance is the fact that elections just don’t take place, not in any meaningful sense of the term ‚election.‘

Workers of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains.

We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

India is a democracy; it is in our DNA.

It’s always going to be a fight for anyone who isn’t an older white man. I want to fight for anyone who doesn’t have a fight.

I always say the strength of democracy lies in criticism. If there is no criticism, that means there is no democracy. And if you want to grow, you must invite criticism. And I want to grow; I want to invite criticism.

Undocumented aliens unfortunately are not protected by the law, and they are tremendously subjected to exploitation. The result is that they would be willing to work for a wage that no person who is welcome in our shores would take.

Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by Jackasses.

To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.

The voting booth joint is a great leveler; the whole neighborhood – rich, poor, old, young, decrepit and spunky – they all turn out in one day.

In the 21st century, the countries that thrive will be the ones where citizens know their voices will be heard because the institutions are transparent.

When the human race neglects its weaker members, when the family neglects its weakest one – it’s the first blow in a suicidal movement. I see the neglect in cities around the country, in poor white children in West Virginia and Virginia and Kentucky – in the big cities, too, for that matter.

Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. I am not unmindful of the fact that violence often brings about momentary results. Nations have frequently won their independence in battle. But in spite of temporary victories, violence never brings permanent peace.

Anything important is never left to the vote of the people. We only get to vote on some man; we never get to vote on what he is to do.

We pledge ourselves to liberate all our people from the continuing bondage of poverty, deprivation, suffering, gender and other discrimination.

In my work and in myself I reflect black people, women and men, as I reflect others. One day even the most self-protective ones will look into the mirror I provide and not be afraid.

While democracy in the long run is the most stable form of government, in the short run, it is among the most fragile.

Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.

When you hear people making hateful comments, stand up to them. Point out what a waste it is to hate, and you could open their eyes.

The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much it is whether we provide enough for those who have little.

If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in government to the utmost.

The man who could go to Africa and rob her of her children, and then sell them into interminable bondage, with no other motive than that which is furnished by dollars and cents, is so much worse than the most depraved murderer that he can never receive pardon at my hand.

Optimism comes less easily today, not because democracy is less vigorous, but because democracy’s enemies have refined their instruments of repression.

Since the world has existed, there has been injustice. But it is one world, the more so as it becomes smaller, more accessible. There is just no question that there is more obligation that those who have should give to those who have nothing.

Trouble brews when we steal from the poor and give to the rich.

Reproductive choice has to be straightened out. There will never be a woman of means without choice anymore. That just seems to me so obvious. The states that changed their abortion laws before Roe are not going to change back. So we have a policy that only affects poor women, and it can never be otherwise.

If you tremble with indignation at every injustice, then you are a comrade of mine.

If you know how to read, you have a complete education about life, then you know how to vote within a democracy. But if you don’t know how to read, you don’t know how to decide. That’s the great thing about our country – we’re a democracy of readers, and we should keep it that way.

On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.

All black Americans have slave names. They have white names; names that the slave master has given to them.

The trouble with our people is as soon as they got out of slavery they didn’t want to give the white man nothing else. But the fact is, you got to give em something. Either your money, your land, your woman or your ass.

Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.

Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.

Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers.

I am the son of a freedom fighter, and a son of a freedom fighter automatically imbibes the value of democracy.

The people made worse off by slavery were those who were enslaved. Their descendants would have been worse off today if born in Africa instead of America. Put differently, the terrible fate of their ancestors benefitted them.

The battle for women’s rights has been largely won.

I think that all people who feel that there is injustice in the world anywhere should learn as much of it as they can bear. That is our duty.

From 1945 to 1974, the Western world – including America – was more socialistic than capitalistic, more pro-labor than pro-business.

Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.

We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.

When I joined the freedom movement in Mississippi in my early 20s, it was to come to the aid of sharecroppers, like my parents, who had been thrown off the land they’d always known – the plantations – because they attempted to exercise their ‚democratic‘ right to vote.

We’ve come a long way from the days where there was state-enforced segregation. But we still have a way to go.

The only thing that white people have that black people need, or should want, is power-and no one holds power forever.

I think we must get rid of slavery, or we must get rid of freedom.

Women should be obscene and not heard.

In Republics, the great danger is, that the majority may not sufficiently respect the rights of the minority.

Women fight for democracy and engage in the world. But they shouldn’t try and be copying men and be masculine; they should anchor on the home and build on those fundamentals.

Black people in America, people from the struggle, immigrants, it’s no generational wealth that we are attached to, so we are tasked to create – in one generation – closing the gap. That’s why we so Doomsday about getting to the check: ‚cause it’s life or death for real.

I have been working for Africans since I was 18, when I got involved with the Nelson Mandela concerts. I got involved with debt cancellation because Desmond Tutu demanded that the world respond to that situation.

Here, sir, the people govern; here they act by their immediate representatives.

Adultery is the application of democracy to love.

There is not Communism or Marxism, but representative democracy and social justice in a well-planned economy.

Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state.

It is unnatural for a majority to rule, for a majority can seldom be organized and united for specific action, and a minority can.