social justice quotes

Those who invest in South Africa should not think they are doing us a favor; they are here for what they get out of our cheap and abundant labor, and they should know that they are buttressing one of the most vicious systems.

I have been to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and I have witnessed the racially segregated roads and housing that reminded me so much of the conditions we experienced in South Africa under the racist system of Apartheid.

In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination – and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past – are real and must be addressed.

Discrimination is a hellhound that gnaws at Negroes in every waking moment of their lives to remind them that the lie of their inferiority is accepted as truth in the society dominating them.

I say to you quite frankly that the time for racial discrimination is over.

Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what stings is justice.

To like an individual because he’s black is just as insulting as to dislike him because he isn’t white.

Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.

Justice and power must be brought together, so that whatever is just may be powerful, and whatever is powerful may be just.

What is black empowerment when it seems to benefit not the vast majority but an elite that tends to be recycled?

I was born realizing the flaws in the criminal justice system.

At the Carter Center we work with victims of oppression, and we give support to human rights heroes.

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.

Today, Negroes play on every big league club and in every minor league. With millions of other Negroes in other walks of life, we are willing to stand up and be counted for what we believe in. In baseball or out, we are no longer willing to wait until Judgment Day for equality – we want it here on earth as well as in Heaven.

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

Black Power is giving power to people who have not had power to determine their destiny.

It would make everything I worked for meaningless if baseball is integrated but political parties were segregated.

I cannot salute the flag; I know that I am a black man in a white world. In 1972, in 1947, at my birth in 1919, I know that I never had it made.

If I had been white with the things I did, they never would have allowed me to get out of baseball.

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

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

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.

Above all, always be capable of feeling deeply any injustice committed against anyone, anywhere in the world. This is the most beautiful quality in a revolutionary.

Africa is a continent in flames. And deep down, if we really accepted that Africans were equal to us, we would all do more to put the fire out. We’re standing around with watering cans, when what we really need is the fire brigade.

My son Emilio is running for Congress to continue the fight for social justice.

I personally have always been in favor of people who are gay being permitted to marry legally – and I still feel that way.

Palestinians have no wealth or power.

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

Wealthy men can’t live in an island that is encircled by poverty. We all breathe the same air. We must give a chance to everyone, at least a basic chance.

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

It has always been a mystery to me how men can feel themselves honoured by the humiliation of their fellow beings.

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?

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

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.

There’s not an American in this country free until every one of us is free.

Generally speaking, men are held in great esteem in all parts of the world, so why shouldn’t women have their share? Soldiers and war heroes are honored and commemorated, explorers are granted immortal fame, martyrs are revered, but how many people look upon women too as soldiers?

Gay marriage is going to happen. It must.

I do not expect the white media to create positive black male images.

But while they prate of economic laws, men and women are starving. We must lay hold of the fact that economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings.

Slavery takes hold of few, but many take hold of slavery.

I used to always fight for human rights. I still fight for Leonard Peltier, who’s spent 35 years in jail for a crime he didn’t commit.

I cannot possibly believe that I have it made while so many black brothers and sisters are hungry, inadequately housed, insufficiently clothed, denied their dignity as they live in slums or barely exist on welfare.

When the rich wage war, it’s the poor who die.

Until the great mass of the people shall be filled with the sense of responsibility for each other’s welfare, social justice can never be attained.

To deprive a man of his natural liberty and to deny to him the ordinary amenities of life is worse then starving the body; it is starvation of the soul, the dweller in the body.

I had had a continuing smoldering fury about the treatment of Jews in Germany.

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.

The right of every American to first-class citizenship is the most important issue of our time.

When rich people fight wars with one another, poor people are the ones to die.

In the land of my birth I cannot vote, whereas a young person of eighteen can vote. And why? Because he or she possesses that wonderful biological attribute – a white skin.

We will never see a day when women of means are not able to get a safe abortion in this country.

I am a strong believer that without justice, there is no peace. No lasting peace, anyway.

We’ve never advocated violence; violence is inflicted upon us. But we do believe in self-defense for ourselves and for black people.

Any unarmed people are slaves, or are subject to slavery at any given moment.

I should tie myself to no particular system of society other than of socialism.

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

My protest about the post exchange seating bore some results. More seats were allocated for blacks, but there were still separate sections for blacks and for whites. At least I had made my men realize that something could be accomplished by speaking out, and I hoped they would be less resigned to unjust conditions.

We have talked long enough in this country about equal rights. It is time now to write the next chapter – and to write it in the books of law.

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

You cannot talk about race without talking about privilege. And when people start talking about privilege, they get paralyzed by shame.