We’re talking about in the Proposition 8 case fundamental rights, civil rights. I offer no apology for the position I took in Prop. 8.
Kamala HarrisThe advance of technology is based on making it fit in so that you don’t really even notice it, so it’s part of everyday life.
Bill GatesThrowing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.
Ruth Bader GinsburgI 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.
Jackie RobinsonI think the whole stigma of ‚black movies‘ is slowly being lost. When you look at movies like ’12 Years A Slave,‘ to ‚The Butler,‘ to ‚The Best Man,‘ to ‚Ride Along,‘ to even ‚Think Like a Man‘ from last year – these movies are just good movies.
Kevin HartWe’ve come a long way from the days where there was state-enforced segregation. But we still have a way to go.
Ruth Bader GinsburgI look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
Martin Luther King, Jr.To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.
James BaldwinI favor the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and it must be enforced at gunpoint if necessary.
Ronald ReaganThe name Muhammad is the most common name in the world. In all the countries around the world – Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon – there are more Muhammads than anything else. When I joined the Nation of Islam and became a Muslim, they gave me the most famous name because I was the champ.
Muhammad AliI had practiced with the team, and the first scheduled game was with the University of Missouri. They made it quite clear to the Army that they would not play a team with a black player on it. Instead of telling me the truth, the Army gave me leave to go home.
Jackie RobinsonOur Declaration of Independence was held sacred by all and thought to include all; but now, to aid in making the bondage of the Negro universal and eternal, it is assailed, sneered at, construed, hawked at, and torn, till, if its framers could rise from their graves, they could not at all recognize it.
Abraham LincolnBe nice to whites, they need you to rediscover their humanity.
Desmond TutuI have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit together at the table of brotherhood.
Martin Luther King, Jr.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.
Martin Luther King, Jr.The ideals and principles for which Dr King fought have never been forgotten and are as relevant today as they were 40 years ago.
George LucasInjustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
Martin Luther King, Jr.No one has been barred on account of his race from fighting or dying for America, there are no white or colored signs on the foxholes or graveyards of battle.
John F. KennedyThe Nation of Islam’s main focus was teaching black pride and self-awareness. Why should we keep trying to force ourselves into white restaurants and schools when white people didn’t want us? Why not clean up our own neighborhoods and schools instead of trying to move out of them and into white people’s neighborhoods?
Muhammad AliNothing can be more abhorrent to democracy than to imprison a person or keep him in prison because he is unpopular. This is really the test of civilization.
Winston ChurchillOnly when Christ comes again will the little white children of Alabama walk hand in hand with little black children.
Billy GrahamToday, 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.
Jackie RobinsonJesus never said a word about homosexuality. In all of his teachings about multiple things – he never said that gay people should be condemned. I personally think it is very fine for gay people to be married in civil ceremonies.
Jimmy CarterMe don’t dip on nobody’s side. Me don’t dip on the black man’s side, not the white man’s side. Me dip on God’s side, the one who create me and cause me to come from black and white.
Bob MarleyI think there are a whole host of things that are civil rights, and then there are other things – such as traditional marriage – that, I think, express a community’s concern and regard for a particular institution.
Barack ObamaMy family was a poor farming family, and we lived under absolute segregation.
Alice WalkerWe 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.
Lyndon B. JohnsonTo be more childlike, you don’t have to give up being an adult. The fully integrated person is capable of being both an adult and a child simultaneously. Recapture the childlike feelings of wide-eyed excitement, spontaneous appreciation, cutting loose, and being full of awe and wonder at this magnificent universe.
Wayne DyerFrom the beginning, Mandela and Tambo was besieged with clients. We were not the only African lawyers in South Africa, but we were the only firm of African lawyers. For Africans, we were the firm of first choice and last resort.
Nelson MandelaI say to you quite frankly that the time for racial discrimination is over.
Jimmy CarterIt may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important.
Martin Luther King, Jr.Religion and philosophy are to be preserved distinct. We are not to introduce divine revelations into philosophy, nor philosophical opinions into religion.
Isaac NewtonWe still have many neighborhoods that are racially identified. We still have many schools that even though the days of state-enforced segregation are gone, segregation because of geographical boundaries remains.
Ruth Bader GinsburgI always knew from that moment, from the time I found myself at home in that little segregated library in the South, all the way up until I walked up the steps of the New York City library, I always felt, in any town, if I can get to a library, I’ll be OK. It really helped me as a child, and that never left me.
Maya AngelouThere was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools and she was bused to school every day. That little girl was me.
Kamala HarrisIt doesn’t matter how long my hair is or what colour my skin is or whether I’m a woman or a man.
John LennonTrayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago.
Barack ObamaThe average family spends 30 hours in front of a television, and they say they don’t have the time to have a balanced, integrated life.
Stephen CoveyI have done one thing that I think is a contribution: I helped Buddhist science and modern science combine. No other Buddhist has done that. Other lamas, I don’t think they ever pay attention to modern science. Since my childhood, I have a keen interest.
Dalai LamaHere’s the thing. We do a movie with a predominantly black cast, and it’s put in a category of being a black film. When other movies are done with a predominantly white cast, we don’t call them a white film. I’m trying to remove the stigma off things they call black films.
Kevin HartThe black press, some liberal sportswriters, and even a few politicians were banging away at those Jim Crow barriers in baseball. I never expected the walls to come tumbling down in my lifetime.
Jackie RobinsonBe nice to the whites, they need you to rediscover their humanity.
Desmond TutuBlack Power is giving power to people who have not had power to determine their destiny.
Huey NewtonIt’s hard to wrap my head around the fact that there are people who can’t or won’t see what Black Lives Matter is trying to accomplish.
The WeekndI know I got it made while the masses of black people are catchin‘ hell, but as long as they ain’t free, I ain’t free.
Muhammad AliIn so many ways, segregation shaped me, and education liberated me.
Maya AngelouMy 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.
Jackie RobinsonAs a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.
James MadisonI believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I am not in favor of gay marriage. But when you start playing around with constitutions, just to prohibit somebody who cares about another person, it just seems to me that’s not what America’s about. Usually, our constitutions expand liberties, they don’t contract them.
Barack ObamaTo deny people their human rights is to challenge their very humanity.
Nelson MandelaA calling is you feel – you look out and see the need – maybe it’s the need for the poor, to help poor people. Maybe it’s the need to get involved in the race problem, as Martin Luther King was – felt called.
Billy GrahamSome day, following the example of the United States of America, there will be a United States of Europe.
George WashingtonThe term ‚globalisation‘ is conventionally used to refer to the specific form of investor-rights integration designed by wealth and power, for their own interests.
Noam ChomskyFor 500 years, since European explorers came, Latin American countries had been separated from one another. They had very limited relations. Integration is a prerequisite for independence.
Noam ChomskyIf I were a Negro, I’d be fighting, as Martin Luther King fought, for human recognition and justice. I’d rather go down with my flag flying. If you’re weak or crippled, or you can’t speak out or fight back in some way, then people don’t hesitate to treat you badly.
Abraham MaslowIn 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.
Barack ObamaI grew up in the South under segregation. So, I know what terrorism feels like – when your father could be taken out in the middle of the night and lynched just because he didn’t look like he was in an obeying frame of mind when a white person said something he must do. I mean, that’s terrorism, too.
Alice WalkerI 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.
Desmond TutuI don’t think marriage is a civil right, but I think that being able to transfer property is a civil right.
Barack ObamaI was the first tenured woman at Columbia. That was 1972; every law school was looking for its woman. Why? Because Stan Pottinger, who was then head of the office for civil rights of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, was enforcing the Nixon government contract program.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg