I favor the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and it must be enforced at gunpoint if necessary.
- Ronald Reagan
It was civil disobedience that won them their civil rights.
- Tariq Ali
Statehood for the District of Columbia is the most important civil rights and social justice issue in America today.
- Jesse Jackson
A lot of things happened in a lot of places. And to see how well it was handled in Atlanta. There are a lot of reasons for Atlanta being a special town in the Civil Rights era.
- Ivan Allen
They don't have special rights because we have civil rights laws that protect them. The laws work both ways.
- Tom Allen
We support President Truman's civil rights program.
- Eugenie Anderson
Religious institutions that use government power in support of themselves and force their views on persons of other faiths, or of no faith, undermine all our civil rights. Moreover, state support of an established religion tends to make the clergy unresponsive to their own people, and leads to corruption within religion itself. Erecting the 'wall of separation between church and state,' therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society.
- Thomas Jefferson
Neither Pagan nor Mahamedan nor Jew ought to be excluded from the civil rights of the Commonwealth because of his religion. -quoting John Locke's argument.
- Thomas Jefferson
Our civil rights have no dependence upon our religious opinions more than our opinions in physics or geometry.
- Thomas Jefferson
I do not believe that defending traditional marriage between one man and one woman excludes anybody or usurps anybody's civil rights and denies anybody their civil rights.
- Alan Autry
It is an honor to be awarded with such a high rating from an organization as well respected as the NAACP. I am pleased that the oldest and largest civil rights organization in the nation, has recognized my voting record.
- Joe Baca
National security trumps a lot. It can trampke civil rights. It can denude personal liberties. But it cannot and never will triumph over political gamesmanship. - Kelly Paul
- David Baldacci
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
Let me go over this again on the reclaiming the civil rights movement. People of faith that believe that you have an equal right to justice - that is the essence. And if it's not the essence, then we've been sold a pack of lies. The essence is everyone deserves a shot - the content of character, not the color of skin.
- Glenn Beck
Civil Rights opened the windows. When you open the windows, it does not mean that everybody will get through. We must create our own opportunities.
- Mary Frances Berry
Senator John Stennis:
The civil rights movement did more to free the white man that the black man.... It freed my soul.
- Joe Biden
During the 60's, I was, in fact, very concerned about the civil rights movement.
- Joe Biden
Health care is not a privilege. It's a right. It's a right as fundamental as civil rights. It's a right as fundamental as giving every child a chance to get a public education.
- Rod Blagojevich
A little less complaint and whining, and a little more dogged work and manly striving, would do us more credit than a thousand civil rights bills.
- W E B Du Bois
[Button] If Gay and Lesbian people are given civil rights, soon everyone will want them
- James Howe
I think the legacy of the civil rights movement is that now whites are more open to being represented by people of color or people who are women or, again, non-traditional candidates.
- Carol Moseley Braun
The really important victory of the civil rights movement was that it made racism unpopular, whereas a generation ago at the turn of the last century, you had to embrace racism to get elected to anything.
- Carol Moseley Braun
If by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people-their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights and their civil liberties-someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal", then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal.
- John F Kennedy
For the gay establishment, the death of right and wrong began when gaining civil rights ceased to be enough.
- Tammy Bruce
The Democrats co-opted the credit for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But if you go back and look at the history, a larger percentage of Republicans voted for that than did Democrats. But a Democrat president signed it, so they co-opted credit for having passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
- Herman Cain
Half a century ago, the amazing courage of Rosa Parks, the visionary leadership of Martin Luther King, and the inspirational actions of the civil rights movement led politicians to write equality into the law and make real the promise of America for all her citizens.
- David Cameron
I maintain that every civil rights bill in this country was passed for white people, not for black people.
- Stokely Carmichael
So that the failures to pass a civil rights bill isn't because of Black Power, isn't because of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee; it's not because of the rebellions that are occurring in the major cities.
- Stokely Carmichael
There has been only a civil rights movement, whose tone of voice was adapted to an audience of liberal whites.
- Stokely Carmichael
When the civil rights battle was won, all the Jews and hippies and artists were middle class white people and all the blacks were still poor. Materially, not much changed.
- Jonathan Lethem
The arts and a belief in the values of the civil rights movement, in the overwhelming virtue of diversity, these were our religion. My parents worshipped those ideals.
- Jonathan Lethem
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
And my mother fought hard for civil rights so that instead of a mop, I could hold this microphone.
- Julian Castro
I had advocated the establishment of a Negro industrial commission. I had gestured against the growth of monopoly power. I had introduced a few civil rights bills.
- Emanuel Celler
Somebody who was born in this country who visited China would later face difficulty getting back in to the USA. We have to keep in mind that the struggles of the Chinese against these exclusion laws really laid down the foundations of civil rights law.
- Iris Chang
It was very clear to me in 1965, in Mississippi, that, as a lawyer, I could get people into schools, desegregate the schools, but if they were kicked off the plantations - and if they didn't have food, didn't have jobs, didn't have health care, didn't have the means to exercise those civil rights, we were not going to have success.
- Marian Wright Edelman
The liberals in the House strongly resemble liberals I have known through the last two decades in the civil rights conflict. When it comes time to show on which side they will be counted, they excuse themselves.
- Shirley Chisholm
If Willie Nelson had been Rosa Parks, there never would have been a civil rights movement in this country, because he refuses to leave the back of the bus.
- Kinky Friedman
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
My friends in the Congress, I have known Coretta King since I went south during the civil rights movement as a lawyer. She was a vibrant, consistent, totally dedicated partner with her husband.
- John Conyers
It is distressing to me that we live in an age in which we still must fight to protect our civil rights as Americans, in which a hate crime perpetrated against someone based their sexual orientation can go unpunished, and in which discrimination is being written into our laws.
- John Conyers
Mrs. Parks was a shy, soft spoken woman who was uncomfortable being revered as a symbol of the civil rights movement. She only hoped to inspire young people to achieve great things.
- Jim Costa
The civil rights movement would experience many important victories, but Rosa Parks will always be remembered as its catalyst.
- Jim Costa
Rosa Parks will be remembered for her lasting contributions to society. Her legacy lives on in the continued struggle for civil rights around the world. She will be missed.
- Jim Costa
It was to carry the American democratic journey beyond these failings that Black citizens and civil rights workers risked unemployment, violence and death.
- Elijah Cummings
I believe public education is the new civil rights battle and I support charter schools.
- Andrew Cuomo
The civil rights movement wasn't easy for anybody.
- Sammy Davis Jr
Rarely in my 45 years as a civil rights lawyer have I been so angry about an injustice as I am about what happened to Billy Ray Johnson.
- Morris Dees
God bless mood equalizers. and all moods are created equal. i am the fucking civil rights movement of moods
- John Green
I don't call myself a white supremacist. I'm a civil rights activist concerned about European-American rights.
- David Duke
In college, I got interested in news because the world was coming apart. The civil rights movement, the antiwar movement, the women's right movement. That focused my radio ambitions toward news.
- Bob Edwards
All Americans owe a debt of gratitude to Dr. King for his bravery and commitment to civil rights and nonviolence that changed this nation - and world - for the better.
- Eliot Engel
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 human rights community has focused very narrowly on political and civil rights for many decades, and with reason, but now we have to ask how can we broaden the view.
- Paul Farmer
Martin Luther King Jr. is remembered as our prince of peace, of civil rights. We owe him something major that will keep his memory alive.
- Morgan Freeman
another tradition to politics, a tradition (of politics) that stretched from the days of the country's founding to the glory of the civil rights movement, a tradition based on the simple idea that we have a stake in one another, and that what binds us together is greater than what drives us apart, and that if enough people believe in the truth of that proposition and act on it, then we might not solve every problem, but we can get something meaningful done.
- Barack Obama
I 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 Obama
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
I don't think the riots derailed the civil rights movement.
- Henry Louis Gates
Since the ousting and capture of Saddam Hussein by U.S. forces, civil rights and personal freedoms have been restored in Iraq, as well as equal rights to all, not just to Saddam's entourage of terrorists.
- Jim Gerlach
I'm a child of the Civil Rights Movement.
- Danny Glover
I don't say that the supposed Civil Rights development is a myth, but it's a matter of dealing with reality. It's purely peripheral and, in many cases, it's just a facade.
- Norman Granz
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was hailed for legally prohibiting racial discrimination in the private sector, but in effect, the legislation encouraged it. By allowing "racial minorities" to file lawsuits against employers for perceived bigotry, business owners began to view non-whites as riskier labor investments. Employers now had a legal incentive to discriminate.
- Daniel Greenup
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
We grew up as kids watching those movies and we were exposed to themes of civil rights, unfairness, bigotry and fathers struggling against the kind of mob of the town, so you remember how you felt as a kid being taken seriously, that you are part of the human drama.
- Rachel Griffiths
Eyes is the attempt to tell the story of the Civil Rights movement and to create an emotional, intellectual constituency. But what do you do after that? The black community doesn't have institutions that pick up such moments and preserve them.
- Henry Hampton
The law regards man as man, and takes no account of his surroundings or of his color when his civil rights as guaranteed by the supreme law of the land are involved.
- John Marshall Harlan
Civil rights are more important today than they ever have been in our country. There is so much divisiveness today.
- David Harris
When and under what conditions is the black man to have a free ballot? When is he in fact to have those full civil rights which have so long been his in law?
- Benjamin Harrison
The issue of civil rights was too much for the establishment to handle. One of the chapters of history that's least studied by historians is the 300 to 500 riots in the U.S. between 1965 and 1970.
- Tom Hayden
There is no contradiction between effective law enforcement and respect for civil and human rights. Dr. King did not stir us to move for our civil rights to have them taken away in these kinds of fashions.
- Dorothy Height
The greatest movement for social justice our country has ever known is the civil rights movement and it was totally rooted in a love ethic.
- Bell Hooks
When I wrote the song, The Way It Is, I wanted to move people to take a stand on civil rights in this country.
- Bruce Hornsby
The civil rights movement in the United States was about the same thing, about equality of treatment for all sections of the people, and that is precisely what our movement was about.
- John Hume
There are those who say to you - we are rushing this issue of civil rights. I say we are 172 years late.
- Hubert H Humphrey
You can't rise as a class. You have to rise individually. It's what many of the civil rights-era people don't understand.
- Alphonso Jackson
I got out of the Army - in my world - I came to New York, for instance, when the civil rights movement was just beginning, and that created a certain energy, a certain rumble, a certain impetus for black actors.
- James Earl Jones
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
There are severe limitations on civil rights. In the international arena, Iran is turning into an isolated country, and the international community is becoming more hostile toward it.
- Moshe Katsav
He didn't even have the satisfaction of being killed for civil rights. it had to be some silly little Communist.
- Jackie Kennedy
We could in fact transport a person, say a kid who didn't know what it was like to be in a civil rights march. We could actually take you into that experience, so that you could better appreciate what happened and why it happened.
- Dexter S King
Marriage is sacred and protected and has nothing to do with violating our civil rights.
- Jack Kingston
I'm trying to be a singer, not a civil rights leader.
- Adam Lambert
One of the biggest issues that we face is that we have people who have their own particular concerns, whether it's on abortion, birth control, divorce and remarriage, civil rights or social justice.
- William P Leahy
As a southerner born after the epic events of the civil rights movement, I've always wondered how on earth people of good will could have conceivably lived with Jim Crow - with the daily degradations, the lynchings in plain sight, and, as the movement gathered force, with the fire hoses and the police dogs and the billy clubs.
- Jon Meacham
Mrs. Parks' act of brave defiance rocked the foundation of American society and inspired generations of civil rights leaders and created a sense of hope for every American facing legal discrimination in this country.
- Kendrick Meek
Nothing could be more insulting to me than the concept of civil rights. It means perpetual second-class citizenship for me and my kind.
- James Meredith
When it came to political power, blacks need not apply. Add to this steaming stew the growing tensions over the Vietnam War and the movement for civil rights, and you had plenty of elements to fire the imagination of a novice journalist.
- Andrea Mitchell
The photographs were never about me. They were always about the people who were laying their lives on the line for basic civil rights. I look back and I can't believe there was ever a time in this country when ANY citizen could not vote. The times were appalling.
- Charles Moore
Sidney Poitier became a star in part by helping black and white Americans negotiate their new relationship in the post-Civil Rights era.
- Wesley Morris
By 1962, King had become, by the media's reckoning, the new civil rights leader.
- Constance Baker Motley
We are on the lookout for criminal and terrorist activity but we do not - nor will we ever - monitor ideology or political beliefs. We take seriously our responsibility to protect the civil rights and liberties of the American people, including subjecting our activities to rigorous oversight from numerous internal and external sources.
- Janet Napolitano
Confirming John Roberts would endanger much of the progress made by the nation in civil rights over the past half century.
- Ralph Neas
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
Our government just won't enforce civil rights laws. The laws will be ignored.
- Major R Owens
It was the best route to get folks to understand segregation fast. Civil rights and women's rights had a clear history. Making the transition to rights for people with disabilities became easier because we had the history of the other two.
- Major R Owens
The nation's government has just handed me the bill that grants us our civil rights. I am receiving it before you, certain that I am accepting this on behalf of all Argentinean women, and I can feel my hands tremble with joy as they grasp the laurel proclaiming victory.
- Evita Peron
There's a very big gulf between the black civil rights leadership in America and the black middle class in America. The black middle class are conservative. Many of those minorities can be persuaded to be members of the Republican Party.
- Pete Du Pont
What drew me to both study and activism was the formative experience of the civil rights movement.
- David E Price
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
When I started graduate school I was interested in the culture of the Civil Rights Movement.
- Bernice Johnson Reagon
I think the Civil Rights Movement changed that trajectory for me. The first thing I did was leave school. I was suspended for my participation in Movement demonstrations in my hometown, December, 1961.
- Bernice Johnson Reagon
I came out of the Civil Rights Movement, and I had a different kind of focus than most people who have just the academic background as their primary training experience.
- Bernice Johnson Reagon
At the same time all this was happening, there was a folk song revival movement goingon, so the commercial music industry was actually changed by the Civil Rights Movement.
- Bernice Johnson Reagon
My parents demonstrated against the Vietnam war, they were into the civil rights movement, the feminist movement, they started the first vegetarian restaurant in Pittsburgh.
- Justin Sane
The successes of the LGBT civil rights movement and the more prominent role openly gay people are playing in the public eye has actually turned up the temperature in middle schools and high schools for queer kids.
- Dan Savage
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
I feel that my father's greatest legacy was the people he inspired to get involved in public service and their communities, to join the Peace Corps, to go into space. And really that generation transformed this country in civil rights, social justice, the economy and everything.
- Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg
I think one of my father's great legacies is the people that he inspired and the generation that he inspired transformed America through civil rights, women's rights, equal justice, and they've passed that on to their children and grandchildren.
- Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg
It is difficult to overstate the importance of the Civil Rights Act.
- Bobby Scott
....we ain't doing civil rights here. We just telling stories like they really happen.
- Kathryn Stockett
It was a particularly interesting and exciting time, and the European political and artistic establishment was turned on by the Civil Rights Movement and the artistic revolution that was becoming a part of jazz.
- Archie Shepp
All civil rights and the right to hold office were to be extended to persons of any Christian denomination.
- Roger Sherman
Rosa Parks was a woman of strength, conviction, and morality. Her action on December 1, 1955, to defy the law made her a leading figure in our nation's civil rights history.
- John Shimkus
Now. 1973. Exactly." He tipped back in his chair, his arms folded across his chest. "So much changed in the sixties, the war, the rights of women, civil rights, the vote, protest against the war. On and on. I was getting my Ph.D. in Chicago and you were in college but that time was upheaval with a purpose. Now we've drawn back into our shells, wondering what we have done and what do we believe.? And is there any purpose to our lives?
- Susan Richards Shreve
I think people instinctively know that their job is to give service and that they are part of a community. It had a great impact on me when my father walked the picket lines and I walked with him during the civil rights movement.
- Russell Simmons
Well, it's the last step of the civil rights movement: You know, wrap your hands around some money, right?
- Russell Simmons
My image had always been very heterosexual, very straight. So it was a nice experience for me, a chance to clarify my own feelings about gay and lesbian civil rights.
- Bruce Springsteen
If the events of September 11, 2001, have proven anything, it's that the terrorists can attack us, but they can't take away what makes us American - our freedom, our liberty, our civil rights. No, only Attorney General John Ashcroft can do that.
- Jon Stewart
I, like many members of my generation, was concerned with segregation and the repeated violation of civil rights.
- Joseph Stiglitz
I came at age in the '60s, and initially my hopes and dreams were invested in politics and the movements of the time - the anti-war movement, the civil rights movement. I worked on Bobby Kennedy's campaign for president as a teenager in California and the night he was killed.
- David Talbot
We've talked more about civil rights after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 than we talked about it before 1964.
- Clarence Thomas
Each state, so that it does not abridge the great fundamental rights belonging, under the Constitution, to all citizens, may grant or withhold such civil rights as it pleases; all that is required is that, in this respect, its laws shall be impartial.
- Lyman Trumbull
The bill neither confers nor abridges the rights of anyone but simply declares that in civil rights there shall be equality among all classes of citizens and that all alike shall be subject to the same punishment.
- Lyman Trumbull
No one is immune from the larger events of his or her time - the Depression, World War II, civil rights, Vietnam, the spring of 1989 in China. These events intrude upon our lives and radically affect our directions.
- Paul Tsongas
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
People don't think about the fact that when Barack Obama's parents had him - it was illegal for them to be married in several states in this country. So if we start making it okay that certain people can marry and other people can't, it's a slippery slope of civil rights. Who knows who is going to be allowed to marry or not marry next.
- Kerry Washington
I think as a whole America is dealing with the issue of homophobia. We got to be really honest about whether we believe in civil rights for all people or not. As Black people we need to remember the moment that we say it's okay to disenfranchise one segment of society, we're opening the door to move backward on ourselves.
- Kerry Washington
The South resented giving the Afro-American his freedom, the ballot box and the Civil Rights Law.
- Ida B Wells
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
Civil rights leaders are involved in helping poor people. That's what I've been doing all my life.
- Andrew Young
- Ronald Reagan
It was civil disobedience that won them their civil rights.
- Tariq Ali
Statehood for the District of Columbia is the most important civil rights and social justice issue in America today.
- Jesse Jackson
A lot of things happened in a lot of places. And to see how well it was handled in Atlanta. There are a lot of reasons for Atlanta being a special town in the Civil Rights era.
- Ivan Allen
They don't have special rights because we have civil rights laws that protect them. The laws work both ways.
- Tom Allen
We support President Truman's civil rights program.
- Eugenie Anderson
Religious institutions that use government power in support of themselves and force their views on persons of other faiths, or of no faith, undermine all our civil rights. Moreover, state support of an established religion tends to make the clergy unresponsive to their own people, and leads to corruption within religion itself. Erecting the 'wall of separation between church and state,' therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society.
- Thomas Jefferson
Neither Pagan nor Mahamedan nor Jew ought to be excluded from the civil rights of the Commonwealth because of his religion. -quoting John Locke's argument.
- Thomas Jefferson
Our civil rights have no dependence upon our religious opinions more than our opinions in physics or geometry.
- Thomas Jefferson
I do not believe that defending traditional marriage between one man and one woman excludes anybody or usurps anybody's civil rights and denies anybody their civil rights.
- Alan Autry
It is an honor to be awarded with such a high rating from an organization as well respected as the NAACP. I am pleased that the oldest and largest civil rights organization in the nation, has recognized my voting record.
- Joe Baca
National security trumps a lot. It can trampke civil rights. It can denude personal liberties. But it cannot and never will triumph over political gamesmanship. - Kelly Paul
- David Baldacci
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
Let me go over this again on the reclaiming the civil rights movement. People of faith that believe that you have an equal right to justice - that is the essence. And if it's not the essence, then we've been sold a pack of lies. The essence is everyone deserves a shot - the content of character, not the color of skin.
- Glenn Beck
Civil Rights opened the windows. When you open the windows, it does not mean that everybody will get through. We must create our own opportunities.
- Mary Frances Berry
Senator John Stennis:
The civil rights movement did more to free the white man that the black man.... It freed my soul.
- Joe Biden
During the 60's, I was, in fact, very concerned about the civil rights movement.
- Joe Biden
Health care is not a privilege. It's a right. It's a right as fundamental as civil rights. It's a right as fundamental as giving every child a chance to get a public education.
- Rod Blagojevich
A little less complaint and whining, and a little more dogged work and manly striving, would do us more credit than a thousand civil rights bills.
- W E B Du Bois
[Button] If Gay and Lesbian people are given civil rights, soon everyone will want them
- James Howe
I think the legacy of the civil rights movement is that now whites are more open to being represented by people of color or people who are women or, again, non-traditional candidates.
- Carol Moseley Braun
The really important victory of the civil rights movement was that it made racism unpopular, whereas a generation ago at the turn of the last century, you had to embrace racism to get elected to anything.
- Carol Moseley Braun
If by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people-their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights and their civil liberties-someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal", then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal.
- John F Kennedy
For the gay establishment, the death of right and wrong began when gaining civil rights ceased to be enough.
- Tammy Bruce
The Democrats co-opted the credit for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But if you go back and look at the history, a larger percentage of Republicans voted for that than did Democrats. But a Democrat president signed it, so they co-opted credit for having passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
- Herman Cain
Half a century ago, the amazing courage of Rosa Parks, the visionary leadership of Martin Luther King, and the inspirational actions of the civil rights movement led politicians to write equality into the law and make real the promise of America for all her citizens.
- David Cameron
I maintain that every civil rights bill in this country was passed for white people, not for black people.
- Stokely Carmichael
So that the failures to pass a civil rights bill isn't because of Black Power, isn't because of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee; it's not because of the rebellions that are occurring in the major cities.
- Stokely Carmichael
There has been only a civil rights movement, whose tone of voice was adapted to an audience of liberal whites.
- Stokely Carmichael
When the civil rights battle was won, all the Jews and hippies and artists were middle class white people and all the blacks were still poor. Materially, not much changed.
- Jonathan Lethem
The arts and a belief in the values of the civil rights movement, in the overwhelming virtue of diversity, these were our religion. My parents worshipped those ideals.
- Jonathan Lethem
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
And my mother fought hard for civil rights so that instead of a mop, I could hold this microphone.
- Julian Castro
I had advocated the establishment of a Negro industrial commission. I had gestured against the growth of monopoly power. I had introduced a few civil rights bills.
- Emanuel Celler
Somebody who was born in this country who visited China would later face difficulty getting back in to the USA. We have to keep in mind that the struggles of the Chinese against these exclusion laws really laid down the foundations of civil rights law.
- Iris Chang
It was very clear to me in 1965, in Mississippi, that, as a lawyer, I could get people into schools, desegregate the schools, but if they were kicked off the plantations - and if they didn't have food, didn't have jobs, didn't have health care, didn't have the means to exercise those civil rights, we were not going to have success.
- Marian Wright Edelman
The liberals in the House strongly resemble liberals I have known through the last two decades in the civil rights conflict. When it comes time to show on which side they will be counted, they excuse themselves.
- Shirley Chisholm
If Willie Nelson had been Rosa Parks, there never would have been a civil rights movement in this country, because he refuses to leave the back of the bus.
- Kinky Friedman
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
My friends in the Congress, I have known Coretta King since I went south during the civil rights movement as a lawyer. She was a vibrant, consistent, totally dedicated partner with her husband.
- John Conyers
It is distressing to me that we live in an age in which we still must fight to protect our civil rights as Americans, in which a hate crime perpetrated against someone based their sexual orientation can go unpunished, and in which discrimination is being written into our laws.
- John Conyers
Mrs. Parks was a shy, soft spoken woman who was uncomfortable being revered as a symbol of the civil rights movement. She only hoped to inspire young people to achieve great things.
- Jim Costa
The civil rights movement would experience many important victories, but Rosa Parks will always be remembered as its catalyst.
- Jim Costa
Rosa Parks will be remembered for her lasting contributions to society. Her legacy lives on in the continued struggle for civil rights around the world. She will be missed.
- Jim Costa
It was to carry the American democratic journey beyond these failings that Black citizens and civil rights workers risked unemployment, violence and death.
- Elijah Cummings
I believe public education is the new civil rights battle and I support charter schools.
- Andrew Cuomo
The civil rights movement wasn't easy for anybody.
- Sammy Davis Jr
Rarely in my 45 years as a civil rights lawyer have I been so angry about an injustice as I am about what happened to Billy Ray Johnson.
- Morris Dees
God bless mood equalizers. and all moods are created equal. i am the fucking civil rights movement of moods
- John Green
I don't call myself a white supremacist. I'm a civil rights activist concerned about European-American rights.
- David Duke
In college, I got interested in news because the world was coming apart. The civil rights movement, the antiwar movement, the women's right movement. That focused my radio ambitions toward news.
- Bob Edwards
All Americans owe a debt of gratitude to Dr. King for his bravery and commitment to civil rights and nonviolence that changed this nation - and world - for the better.
- Eliot Engel
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 human rights community has focused very narrowly on political and civil rights for many decades, and with reason, but now we have to ask how can we broaden the view.
- Paul Farmer
Martin Luther King Jr. is remembered as our prince of peace, of civil rights. We owe him something major that will keep his memory alive.
- Morgan Freeman
another tradition to politics, a tradition (of politics) that stretched from the days of the country's founding to the glory of the civil rights movement, a tradition based on the simple idea that we have a stake in one another, and that what binds us together is greater than what drives us apart, and that if enough people believe in the truth of that proposition and act on it, then we might not solve every problem, but we can get something meaningful done.
- Barack Obama
I 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 Obama
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
I don't think the riots derailed the civil rights movement.
- Henry Louis Gates
Since the ousting and capture of Saddam Hussein by U.S. forces, civil rights and personal freedoms have been restored in Iraq, as well as equal rights to all, not just to Saddam's entourage of terrorists.
- Jim Gerlach
I'm a child of the Civil Rights Movement.
- Danny Glover
I don't say that the supposed Civil Rights development is a myth, but it's a matter of dealing with reality. It's purely peripheral and, in many cases, it's just a facade.
- Norman Granz
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was hailed for legally prohibiting racial discrimination in the private sector, but in effect, the legislation encouraged it. By allowing "racial minorities" to file lawsuits against employers for perceived bigotry, business owners began to view non-whites as riskier labor investments. Employers now had a legal incentive to discriminate.
- Daniel Greenup
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
We grew up as kids watching those movies and we were exposed to themes of civil rights, unfairness, bigotry and fathers struggling against the kind of mob of the town, so you remember how you felt as a kid being taken seriously, that you are part of the human drama.
- Rachel Griffiths
Eyes is the attempt to tell the story of the Civil Rights movement and to create an emotional, intellectual constituency. But what do you do after that? The black community doesn't have institutions that pick up such moments and preserve them.
- Henry Hampton
The law regards man as man, and takes no account of his surroundings or of his color when his civil rights as guaranteed by the supreme law of the land are involved.
- John Marshall Harlan
Civil rights are more important today than they ever have been in our country. There is so much divisiveness today.
- David Harris
When and under what conditions is the black man to have a free ballot? When is he in fact to have those full civil rights which have so long been his in law?
- Benjamin Harrison
The issue of civil rights was too much for the establishment to handle. One of the chapters of history that's least studied by historians is the 300 to 500 riots in the U.S. between 1965 and 1970.
- Tom Hayden
There is no contradiction between effective law enforcement and respect for civil and human rights. Dr. King did not stir us to move for our civil rights to have them taken away in these kinds of fashions.
- Dorothy Height
The greatest movement for social justice our country has ever known is the civil rights movement and it was totally rooted in a love ethic.
- Bell Hooks
When I wrote the song, The Way It Is, I wanted to move people to take a stand on civil rights in this country.
- Bruce Hornsby
The civil rights movement in the United States was about the same thing, about equality of treatment for all sections of the people, and that is precisely what our movement was about.
- John Hume
There are those who say to you - we are rushing this issue of civil rights. I say we are 172 years late.
- Hubert H Humphrey
You can't rise as a class. You have to rise individually. It's what many of the civil rights-era people don't understand.
- Alphonso Jackson
I got out of the Army - in my world - I came to New York, for instance, when the civil rights movement was just beginning, and that created a certain energy, a certain rumble, a certain impetus for black actors.
- James Earl Jones
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
There are severe limitations on civil rights. In the international arena, Iran is turning into an isolated country, and the international community is becoming more hostile toward it.
- Moshe Katsav
He didn't even have the satisfaction of being killed for civil rights. it had to be some silly little Communist.
- Jackie Kennedy
We could in fact transport a person, say a kid who didn't know what it was like to be in a civil rights march. We could actually take you into that experience, so that you could better appreciate what happened and why it happened.
- Dexter S King
Marriage is sacred and protected and has nothing to do with violating our civil rights.
- Jack Kingston
I'm trying to be a singer, not a civil rights leader.
- Adam Lambert
One of the biggest issues that we face is that we have people who have their own particular concerns, whether it's on abortion, birth control, divorce and remarriage, civil rights or social justice.
- William P Leahy
As a southerner born after the epic events of the civil rights movement, I've always wondered how on earth people of good will could have conceivably lived with Jim Crow - with the daily degradations, the lynchings in plain sight, and, as the movement gathered force, with the fire hoses and the police dogs and the billy clubs.
- Jon Meacham
Mrs. Parks' act of brave defiance rocked the foundation of American society and inspired generations of civil rights leaders and created a sense of hope for every American facing legal discrimination in this country.
- Kendrick Meek
Nothing could be more insulting to me than the concept of civil rights. It means perpetual second-class citizenship for me and my kind.
- James Meredith
When it came to political power, blacks need not apply. Add to this steaming stew the growing tensions over the Vietnam War and the movement for civil rights, and you had plenty of elements to fire the imagination of a novice journalist.
- Andrea Mitchell
The photographs were never about me. They were always about the people who were laying their lives on the line for basic civil rights. I look back and I can't believe there was ever a time in this country when ANY citizen could not vote. The times were appalling.
- Charles Moore
Sidney Poitier became a star in part by helping black and white Americans negotiate their new relationship in the post-Civil Rights era.
- Wesley Morris
By 1962, King had become, by the media's reckoning, the new civil rights leader.
- Constance Baker Motley
We are on the lookout for criminal and terrorist activity but we do not - nor will we ever - monitor ideology or political beliefs. We take seriously our responsibility to protect the civil rights and liberties of the American people, including subjecting our activities to rigorous oversight from numerous internal and external sources.
- Janet Napolitano
Confirming John Roberts would endanger much of the progress made by the nation in civil rights over the past half century.
- Ralph Neas
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
Our government just won't enforce civil rights laws. The laws will be ignored.
- Major R Owens
It was the best route to get folks to understand segregation fast. Civil rights and women's rights had a clear history. Making the transition to rights for people with disabilities became easier because we had the history of the other two.
- Major R Owens
The nation's government has just handed me the bill that grants us our civil rights. I am receiving it before you, certain that I am accepting this on behalf of all Argentinean women, and I can feel my hands tremble with joy as they grasp the laurel proclaiming victory.
- Evita Peron
There's a very big gulf between the black civil rights leadership in America and the black middle class in America. The black middle class are conservative. Many of those minorities can be persuaded to be members of the Republican Party.
- Pete Du Pont
What drew me to both study and activism was the formative experience of the civil rights movement.
- David E Price
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
When I started graduate school I was interested in the culture of the Civil Rights Movement.
- Bernice Johnson Reagon
I think the Civil Rights Movement changed that trajectory for me. The first thing I did was leave school. I was suspended for my participation in Movement demonstrations in my hometown, December, 1961.
- Bernice Johnson Reagon
I came out of the Civil Rights Movement, and I had a different kind of focus than most people who have just the academic background as their primary training experience.
- Bernice Johnson Reagon
At the same time all this was happening, there was a folk song revival movement goingon, so the commercial music industry was actually changed by the Civil Rights Movement.
- Bernice Johnson Reagon
My parents demonstrated against the Vietnam war, they were into the civil rights movement, the feminist movement, they started the first vegetarian restaurant in Pittsburgh.
- Justin Sane
The successes of the LGBT civil rights movement and the more prominent role openly gay people are playing in the public eye has actually turned up the temperature in middle schools and high schools for queer kids.
- Dan Savage
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
I feel that my father's greatest legacy was the people he inspired to get involved in public service and their communities, to join the Peace Corps, to go into space. And really that generation transformed this country in civil rights, social justice, the economy and everything.
- Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg
I think one of my father's great legacies is the people that he inspired and the generation that he inspired transformed America through civil rights, women's rights, equal justice, and they've passed that on to their children and grandchildren.
- Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg
It is difficult to overstate the importance of the Civil Rights Act.
- Bobby Scott
....we ain't doing civil rights here. We just telling stories like they really happen.
- Kathryn Stockett
It was a particularly interesting and exciting time, and the European political and artistic establishment was turned on by the Civil Rights Movement and the artistic revolution that was becoming a part of jazz.
- Archie Shepp
All civil rights and the right to hold office were to be extended to persons of any Christian denomination.
- Roger Sherman
Rosa Parks was a woman of strength, conviction, and morality. Her action on December 1, 1955, to defy the law made her a leading figure in our nation's civil rights history.
- John Shimkus
Now. 1973. Exactly." He tipped back in his chair, his arms folded across his chest. "So much changed in the sixties, the war, the rights of women, civil rights, the vote, protest against the war. On and on. I was getting my Ph.D. in Chicago and you were in college but that time was upheaval with a purpose. Now we've drawn back into our shells, wondering what we have done and what do we believe.? And is there any purpose to our lives?
- Susan Richards Shreve
I think people instinctively know that their job is to give service and that they are part of a community. It had a great impact on me when my father walked the picket lines and I walked with him during the civil rights movement.
- Russell Simmons
Well, it's the last step of the civil rights movement: You know, wrap your hands around some money, right?
- Russell Simmons
My image had always been very heterosexual, very straight. So it was a nice experience for me, a chance to clarify my own feelings about gay and lesbian civil rights.
- Bruce Springsteen
If the events of September 11, 2001, have proven anything, it's that the terrorists can attack us, but they can't take away what makes us American - our freedom, our liberty, our civil rights. No, only Attorney General John Ashcroft can do that.
- Jon Stewart
I, like many members of my generation, was concerned with segregation and the repeated violation of civil rights.
- Joseph Stiglitz
I came at age in the '60s, and initially my hopes and dreams were invested in politics and the movements of the time - the anti-war movement, the civil rights movement. I worked on Bobby Kennedy's campaign for president as a teenager in California and the night he was killed.
- David Talbot
We've talked more about civil rights after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 than we talked about it before 1964.
- Clarence Thomas
Each state, so that it does not abridge the great fundamental rights belonging, under the Constitution, to all citizens, may grant or withhold such civil rights as it pleases; all that is required is that, in this respect, its laws shall be impartial.
- Lyman Trumbull
The bill neither confers nor abridges the rights of anyone but simply declares that in civil rights there shall be equality among all classes of citizens and that all alike shall be subject to the same punishment.
- Lyman Trumbull
No one is immune from the larger events of his or her time - the Depression, World War II, civil rights, Vietnam, the spring of 1989 in China. These events intrude upon our lives and radically affect our directions.
- Paul Tsongas
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
People don't think about the fact that when Barack Obama's parents had him - it was illegal for them to be married in several states in this country. So if we start making it okay that certain people can marry and other people can't, it's a slippery slope of civil rights. Who knows who is going to be allowed to marry or not marry next.
- Kerry Washington
I think as a whole America is dealing with the issue of homophobia. We got to be really honest about whether we believe in civil rights for all people or not. As Black people we need to remember the moment that we say it's okay to disenfranchise one segment of society, we're opening the door to move backward on ourselves.
- Kerry Washington
The South resented giving the Afro-American his freedom, the ballot box and the Civil Rights Law.
- Ida B Wells
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
Civil rights leaders are involved in helping poor people. That's what I've been doing all my life.
- Andrew Young
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