100 Quotes About Civil-rights-movement

[FDR] Roosevelt did issue an important executive order in 1941 creating the Fair Employment Practices Committee to combat discrimination in the defense industry, which avoided a threatened march on Washington led by the civil rights leader A. Philip Randolph. With Roosevelt’s death, on April 12 1945, and the assumption of the presidency by Vice President Harry Truman, civil rights leaders hoped that the new leader might be more willing to publicly embrace their cause.

On my application, I wrote: "I know that an education is important and I hope to get one, but human dignity is the most important thing in my life. This is the most important decision in my life -- to decide to give up ALL if necessary for the freedom ride, that justice and freedom might come to the deep south.

I don't know how President Johnson can send troops to Vietnam. I don't see how he can send troops to the Congo. I don't see how we can send troops to Africa, and he can't send troops to Selma, Alabama." -John Lewis

Our history, America’s history, has been so heavily edited. In history classes, we don’t really go into full discussions about the past. People, struggles, and triumphs have been erased. As a result, we now have a generation, my generation, of people who are intelligent but ignorant of and blind to the truth.

I watched as people went to the memorial reading the names. I started at the first entry from 1954. I read each one quietly but out loud to myself, like I’d done with the names of those in the museum. I felt somehow they were getting the message that their sacrifice was known and their voice was heard.

Back then, Black churches were a small piece of peace. Church was a world where, even with its imperfections, the offer of equality and common humanity was the sustenance needed to make it through the rest of the week in a society that deemed them less than human.

People always say that I didn't give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn't true. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in

You don't have to stand up for your rights to get justice, sometimes you can sit for your rights like Rosa Parks.

There was an aura about King that was unforgettable. I seem him now in my mind's eye: collected, peaceful, calm. He was in his element and totally in command of himself and the situation.