It is difficult to overstate the importance of the Civil Rights Act. — Bobby Scott
Civil rights are civil rights. There are no persons who are not entitled to their civil rights... We have to recognize that we have a long way to go, but we have to go that way together. — Dorothy Height
No Republican questions or disputes civil rights. I have never wavered in my support for civil rights or the civil rights act. — Rand Paul
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
Men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United States and every place subject to its jurisdiction. — Alice Paul
The right of every American to first-class citizenship is the most important issue of our time. — Jackie Robinson
Justice is indivisible. You can't decide who gets civil rights and who doesn't. — Angela Davis
Equal rights for all, special privileges for none — Thomas Jefferson
There is no coloration to rights. Everybody has rights. I don't care who you are, where you come from. You got rights. I got rights. All God's children got rights. — Julian Bond
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. — Lyndon B. Johnson
The civil rights movement didn't begin in Montgomery and it didn't end in the 1960s. It continues on to this very minute. — Julian Bond
the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression. — Thomas Jefferson
Transgender discrimination is the civil rights issue of our time — Joe Biden
The humanity of all Americans is diminished when any group is denied rights granted to others. — Julian Bond
Americans of our own time - minority and majority Americans alike - need the continued guidance that the Voting Rights Act provides. We have come a long way, but more needs to be done. — Elijah Cummings
As far as military necessity will permit, religiously respect the constitutional rights of all. — George B. McClellan
It takes no compromise to give people their rights — Harvey Milk
Human rights is a universal standard. It is a component of every religion and every civilization. — Shirin Ebadi
Sometimes the smallest step in the right direction ends up being the biggest step of your life. Tip top if you must, but take the step.
Civil Rights Act Of 1964 Quotes
Let us close the springs of racial poison. Let us pray for wise and understanding hearts. Let us lay aside irrelevant differences and make our nation whole. — Lyndon B. Johnson
I favor the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and it must be enforced at gunpoint if necessary. — Ronald Reagan
The Court today completes the process of converting Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 from a guarantee that race or sex will not be the basis for often will. — Antonin Scalia
Sometimes there is no next time, no time-outs, no second chances. Sometimes it's now or never.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was vigorously and vociferously opposed by the Southern states. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed it into law nonetheless. — Henry Rollins
I would have voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964. — Ronald Reagan
We've talked more about civil rights after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 than we talked about it before 1964. — Clarence Thomas
Live your life. Take chances. Be crazy. Don't wait. Because right now is the oldest you've ever been and the youngest you'll ever be again.
Many Americans who supported the initial thrust of civil rights, as represented by the Brown v. Board of Education decision and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, later felt betrayed as the original concept of equal individual opportunity evolved toward the concept of equal group results. — Thomas Sowell
I like the idea of amending the 1964 Civil Rights Act to include a ban of discrimination based on sexual orientation. It would be simple. It would be straightforward. — Donald Trump
The passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 represented precisely such a hope - that America had learned from its past and acted to secure a better tomorrow. — Aberjhani
This bill attempts to make sure that President Clinton is not allowed to do by Executive Order what Congress has declined to enact in the past two congressional sessions namely, to treat homosexuals as a special class protected under various titles of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. — Jesse Helms
Civil Rights Movement Quotes
I just couldn't move. History had me glued to the seat. — Claudette Colvin
Freedom, by definition, is people realizing that they are their own leaders. — Diane Nash
There is a source of power in each of us that we don't realize until we take responsibility. — Diane Nash
If things go wrong, don’t go with them.
There is no power in the world that can stop the forward march of free men and women when they are joined in the solidarity of human brotherhood. — Walter Reuther
Jim Crow is alive and it's dressed in a Brooks Brothers suit, my friend, instead of a white robe. — Myrlie Evers-Williams
The tragedy of the civil rights movement is that just as it achieved the beginning of the end of racial segregation, white educated elites became swept up in the glamour of the sexual revolution. — Maggie Gallagher
Listen with curiosity. Speak with honesty. Act with integrity.
Men often hate each other because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don't know each other; they don't know each other because they can not communicate; they can not communicate because they are separated. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
That's what he was saying, the civil rights movement - judge me for my character, not how black my skin is, not how yellow my skin is, how short I am, how tall or fat or thin; It's by my character. — Pam Grier
Even in the civil rights movement, there were so many unbelievable women. They never, ever received the credit that they should have received. They did all of the, and I cannot say it, they did all of the dirty work. Hard work. — John Lewis
John Brown first swam into my vision in the 1960s when I was a political activist in the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement at Chapel Hill, where I went to university. — Russell Banks
Civil Rights Quotes
I don't call myself a white supremacist. I'm a civil rights activist concerned about European-American rights. — David Duke
Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one's thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down. — Frederick Douglass
In Tanganyika we believe that only evil, Godless men would
make the color of a mans skin the criteria for granting him civil
rights. — Julius Nyerere
Do what you feel in your heart to be right, for you’ll be criticized anyways.
When plunder becomes a way of life, men create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it. — Frederic Bastiat
A community is democratic only when the humblest and weakest person can enjoy the highest civil, economic, and social rights that the biggest and most powerful possess. — A. Philip Randolph
I had a right to my own political opinions. I am a Southern woman, born with Revolutionary blood in my veins. Freedom of speech and of thought were my birthright, guaranteed, signed and sealed by the blood of our fathers. — Rose O'Neal Greenhow
Stop being afraid of what could go wrong, and start being excited of what could go right.
To the contrary, the government they devised was defective from the start, requiring several amendments, a civil war and momentous social transformation to attain the system of constitutional government, and its respect for the individual freedoms and human rights, we hold as fundamental today. — Thurgood Marshall
The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant. — John Stuart Mill
It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union.... Men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights and nothing less — Susan B. Anthony
Because I'm a civil rights activist, I am also an animal rights activist. Animals and humans suffer and die alike. Violence causes the same pain, the same spilling of blood, the same stench of death, the same arrogant, cruel and vicious taking of life. We shouldn't be a part of it. — Dick Gregory
Civil Right Movement Quotes
Our involvement in the civil rights movement is what sent us into our involvement against apartheid. — Mary Jane Patterson
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
I do think it's extremely important to acknowledge the gains that were made by the civil rights movement, the black power movement.Institutional transformations happened directly as a result of the movements that people, unnamed people, organized and gave their lives to. — Angela Davis
Knowledge is having the right answer. Intelligence is asking the right questions.
It is not alone that justice is wounded by denying women a part in the making of the civilized world - a more immediate wrong is the way the movement for a fuller, freer life for all human beings is hampered. — Ida Tarbell
There is a strong moralistic strain in the civil rights movement that would remind us that power corrupts, forgetting that the absence of power also corrupts. — Bayard Rustin
We all too often have socialism for the rich and rugged free market capitalism for the poor. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
Anyone who said he wasn't afraid during the civil rights movement was either a liar or without imagination. I was scared all the time. My hands didn't shake but inside I was shaking. — James L. Farmer, Jr.
The social issues outside of football are not as defined as they were earlier, when integration took place and certain rights were legislated. The Civil Rights movement is over. Individuals can buy homes wherever they want, travel first class wherever they want, eat wherever they want. — Jim Brown
You could not be in the civil rights movement without having an appreciation for everybody's rights. That these rights are not divisible - not something men have and women don't and so on. — Julian Bond
Silver rights aren't as dramatic and captivating as civil rights. The movement isn't good TV and it's boring or inaccessible to many people. The forums were created to spread awareness, dialogue, and community to forge new partnerships and ideas. — John Hope Bryant
Equal Rights Amendment Quotes
I always feel the movement is a sort of mosaic. Each of us puts in one little stone, and then you get a great mosaic at the end. — Alice Paul
Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex. — Alice Paul
The civil rights of none, shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience be in any manner, or on any pretext infringed. — James Madison
History has shown us that, on extraordinarily rare occasions, it becomes necessary for the federal government to intervene on behalf of individuals whose 14th Amendment rights to legal due process and equal protection may be violated by a state. — Michael K. Simpson
My greatest disappointment in all the projects I worked on during the White House years was the failure of the Equal Rights Amendment to be ratified. ... Why all the controversy and why such difficulty in giving women the protection of the Constitution that should have been theirs long ago? — Rosalynn Carter
I believe the equal rights amendment is a necessity of life for all citizens. The cabinet sometimes felt that I shouldn't be so outspoken. — Betty Ford
The Equal Rights Amendment would "turn holy wedlock into holy deadlock." — William Rehnquist
When I started law school I was shocked to learn that our legal system traditionally had the man as the head and master of the family. As late as the '70s and '80s when we were fighting for the Equal Rights Amendment, states like Louisiana still had a head and master law. — Patricia Ireland
We are going to fight to pass the long over-due Equal Rights Amendment. — Bernie Sanders
I'll do anything to pass the ERA [Equal Rights Amendment], even if it means wearing babydoll nightgowns and padded bras, if that will make people less afraid. — Joan Hackett
Voting Rights Act Quotes
Nothing is more disgusting than the crowing about liberty by slaves, as most men are, and the flippant mistaking for freedom of some paper preamble like a Declaration of Independence, or the statute right to vote, by those who have never dared to think or to act. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
It's time for Congress to act, restore the Voting Rights Act, and take action to prevent voter disenfranchisem ent. As your next Congresswoman, I will stand up to the extremists in the Republican Party to ensure civil rights are protected for everyone. — Alma Adams
This right to vote is the basic right without which all others are meaningless. It gives people, people as individuals, control over their own destinies. — Lyndon B. Johnson
At times history and fate meet at a single time in a single place to shape a turning point in man's unending search for freedom. — Lyndon B. Johnson
Every American citizen must have an equal right to vote. There is no reason which can excuse the denial of that right. There is no duty which weighs more heavily on us than the duty we have
to ensure that right. — Lyndon B. Johnson
there were some Labourists saying that other things must be dealt with before women got the vote. It was humanly natural that they, as men, should say so. Our business as women was to recognize this and act accordingly. — Christabel Pankhurst
Racial discrimination in elections in Texas is no mere historical artifact. To the contrary, Texas has been found in violation of the Voting Rights Act in every redistricting cycle from and after 1970. — Ruth Bader Ginsburg
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was indeed a vital instrument of democracy, ensuring the integrity and reliability of a democratic process that we as a Country hold so dear. — Charles Rangel
If the right wing has their way and state's rights control voting rights, they would remove protections that make it difficult for seniors to vote. It would be harder for students to vote on campus. These are attempts to suppress acts of voting. — Jesse Jackson
Parts of the Voting Rights Act are due to expire next year if Congress doesn't extend them, including the section that guarantees that voting rights will be protected by the federal government. — Marty Meehan
Look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
One in three young African American men is currently under the control of the criminal justice system in prison, in jail, on probation, or on parole - yet mass incarceration tends to be categorized as a criminal justice issue as opposed to a racial justice or civil rights issue (or crisis). — Michelle Alexander
I see America through the eyes of the victim. I don’t see any American dream; I see an American nightmare. — Malcolm X
Maya Angelou, the famous African American poet, historian, and civil rights activist who is hailed be many as one of the great voices of contemporary literature, believes a struggle only makes a person stronger. — Michael N. Castle
The Klan had used fear, intimidation and murder to brutally oppress over African-Americans who sought justice and equality and it sought to respond to the young workers of the civil rights movement in Mississippi in the same way. — Charles Rangel
And when the time is right, I hope that African Americans will again look to the party of emancipation, civil liberty, and individual freedom. — Rand Paul
There's good reason to be excited. You have the first woman running who is qualified, and a very attractive African-American who has demonstrated crossover appeal. I got involved in politics 40 years ago during the civil rights movement, so yes, it's an exciting thing. — Joe Biden
I deeply understand the history of civil rights and the horrendous impact that relentless and systemic discrimination and the denial of voting rights has had on our African-American brothers and sisters. I have witnessed it. — Jeff Sessions
Civil Rights Leaders Quotes
You didn't see me on television, you didn't see news stories about me. The kind of role that I tried to play was to pick up pieces or put together pieces out of which I hoped organization might come. My theory is, strong people don't need strong leaders. — Ella Baker
We are confronted primarily with a moral issue... whether all Americans are to be afforded equal rights and equal opportunities, whether we are going to treat our fellow Americans as we want to be treated. — John F. Kennedy
Neither my great-grandfather an NAACP founder, my grandfather Dr. Martin Luther King, Sr. an NAACP leader, my father Rev. A. D. Williams King, nor my uncle Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. embraced the homosexual agenda that the current NAACP is attempting to label as a civil rights agenda. — Alveda King
I'm trying to be a singer, not a civil rights leader. — Adam Lambert
As a civil rights leader, Mrs. King's vision of racial peace and nonviolent social change was a fortifying staple in advancing the civil rights movement. — James T. Walsh
By 1962, King had become, by the media's reckoning, the new civil rights leader. — Constance Baker Motley
Civil rights leaders are involved in helping poor people. That's what I've been doing all my life. — Andrew Young
My parents both were doing the Civil Rights Movement, were very involved with the civil rights to Congress. And my friends' parents were as well. — Janis Ian
In my lifetime, we have lost a President, a Civil Rights leader and a Presidential candidate - all to gun violence. — Marianne Williamson
[Civil right leaders]themselves in their pronouncements will tell you they need white allies, they need white help, they need white this. — Malcolm X
Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us. — William O. Douglas
Race to race, the Republicans are putting up candidates that are quite far out of the mainstream in terms of should we have passed the Civil Rights Act or does Social Security need to exist. — Tim Kaine
Secession, like any other REVOLUTIONARY ACT, may be morally justified by the extremity of oppression; but to call it a constitutional right is confounding the meaning of terms. — Andrew Jackson
It is the West that has liberated women, racial minorities, religious minorities, and gays and lesbians, recognizing and defending their rights. The notions of freedom and human rights were present at the dawn of Western civilization, as ideals at least, but have gradually come to fruition through supreme acts of self-criticism. — Ibn Warraq
Civil libertarians have raised concerns that some of the Patriot Act's provisions infringe on Constitutional rights. Those concerns are not supported by the facts. — Roger Wicker
I say further that for this great legislative body to ignore the Constitution and the fundamental concepts of our governmental system is to act in a manner which could ultimately destroy the freedom of all American citizens, including the freedoms of the very persons whose feelings and whose liberties are the major subject of this legislation. — Barry Goldwater
I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I can not remember when I did not so think, and feel. And yet I have never understood that the Presidency conferred upon me an unrestricted right to act officially upon this judgment and feeling. — Abraham Lincoln
Contrary to the claims of the supporters of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the sponsors of H.Res. 676, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not improve race relations or enhance freedom. Instead, the forced integration dictated by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 increased racial tensions while diminishing individual liberty. — Ron Paul
Obama was elected in a flourish of promise that many in the African-American community believed would help not only to symbolize African-American progress since the Civil War and Civil Rights Acts but that his presidency would result in doors opening in the halls of power as had never been seen before by black America. — Douglas Wilder
A hastily written "Civil Rights Act" was rushed through Congress. President Andrew Johnson immediately vetoed it, noting that the right to confer citizenship rested with the several states, and that "the tendency of the bill is to resuscitate the spirit of rebellion". — Eustace Mullins
This thing called Patriot Act, through which we abdicated a lot of our civil rights to defend the country against terrorism, it's a four-year story. — Neil Young
It is time enough, for the rightful purposes of civil government, for its officers to interfere [in the propagation of religious teachings] when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order. — Thomas Jefferson
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
In the South, prior to the Civil Rights movement and the 1964 Civil Rights Act, democracy was the rule. The majority of people were white, and the white majority had little or no respect for any rights which the black minority had relative to property, or even to their own lives. The majority - the mob and occasionally the lynch mob - ruled. — Neal Boortz
Let me be clear: I support the Civil Rights Act because I overwhelmingly agree with the intent of the legislation, which was to stop discrimination in the public sphere and halt the abhorrent practice of segregation and Jim Crow laws. — Rand Paul
I rise today in support of Bill C-38, the Civil Marriage Act. I rise in support of a Canada in which liberties are safeguarded, rights are protected and the people of this land are treated as equals under the law. — Paul Martin
The most significant civil rights problem is voting. Each citizen's right to vote is fundamental to all the other rights of citizenship and the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960 make it the responsibility of the Department of Justice to protect that right. — Robert Kennedy
I see a lot of individual action when it comes to environmental questions really as a form of politics as a way of communicating with political leaders, much in the same way that acts of civil disobedience during the civil rights' movement were really acts of political communication, trying to get laws changed rather than based on the thought that the individual action would really change the practices of segregation. — Dale Jamieson
Persistence. Change doesn't happen overnight. You have to stay with it. Rosa Parks helped start the Civil Rights movement in earnest in 1955. Then it was nearly a decade until the Civil Rights Act was passed. — Kabir Sehgal
Don't overlook the significance of your smallest opportunities for civilized behavior throughout each day. The future has no bigger moments than we experience right now. The world changes for the better with every act of kindness, and for the worse with every act of cruelty. The future is nothing grander than the very next moment, and it arrives solely from the present. — Bo Lozoff
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 laid the foundation for the Voting Rights Act of 1965, but it also addressed nearly every other aspect of daily life in a would-be free democratic society. — Aberjhani
Quotas are a perfectly logical, if diabolical, extension of the regulation of private property courtesy of the Civil Rights Act, whereby in an attempt to shape American society in politically pleasing ways, people have been coerced into liking, hiring or renting against their will or better judgment. — Ilana Mercer
We come humbly to say to the men in the forefront of our government that the civil rights issue is not an Ephemeral, evanescent domestic issue that can be kicked about by reactionary guardians of the status quo; it is rather an eternal moral issue which may well determine the destiny of our nation in the ideological struggle with communism. The hour is late. The clock of destiny is ticking out. We must act now, before it is too late. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
I have been a long and strong supporter of civil rights in my whole career. I led the fight to get the voting rights act re-enacted. I have been a strong supporter of affirmative action. I believe in it strongly. — Dick Gephardt
This is nothing new. We saw this with the Social Security Act, the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Right Act - constitutional challenges were brought to all three of these monumental pieces of legislation. — Sayings
Well, there’s 10 - there’s 10 different - there’s 10 different titles, you know, to the Civil Rights Act, and nine out of 10 deal with public institutions. And I’m absolutely in favor of one deals with private institutions, and had I been around, I would have tried to modify that. — Rand Paul
Most codes extend their definitions of treason to acts not really against one's country. They do not distinguish between acts against the government, and acts against the oppressions of the government. The latter are virtues, yet have furnished more victims to the executioner than the former. Real treasons are rare; oppressions frequent. The unsuccessful strugglers against tyranny have been the chief martyrs of treason laws in all countries. — Thomas Jefferson
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the most sweeping civil rights legislation of its day, and included women's rights as part of its reforms. Ironically, the section on women's rights was added by a senator from Virginia who opposed the whole thing and was said to be sure that if he stuck something about womens' rights into it, it would never pass. The bill passed anyway, though, much to the chagrin of a certain wiener from Virginia. — Adam Selzer
The Civil Rights for Musicians Act is about economic justice for African American artists. It's about what's right. And it's about time. — Dionne Warwick
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