Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government’s policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one’s own bosom and in the surrounding world. —Martin Luther King Jr., American minister and activist

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Social advance depends as much upon the process through which it is secured as upon the result itself. —Jane Addams

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A racially integrated community is a chronological term timed from the entrance of the first black family to the exit of the last white family. —Saul Alinsky, American community organizer

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I declare to you that woman must not depend upon the protection of man, but must be taught to protect herself, and there I take my stand. —Susan B. Anthony, American suffragist

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As skills and energy became more of a demand, people who didn’t have skills just got left behind, got shuttled to the side. Education didn’t keep up with their promise. Education didn’t prepare them for this new world. Jobs went overseas. —Julian Bond, American civil rights activist and chairman of the NAACP

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People who are poor who are living on the edge of poverty or who are living under poverty are tucked away some place else. I don’t see them; they don’t see me; we don’t interact; we have no relation one to the other; no physical relation. —Julian Bond, American civil rights activist and chairman of the NAACP

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People don’t follow titles, they follow courage. —William Wells Brown, American civil rights activist

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I am only doing now what I have ever done; and ever will continue to do — that is adapting past experience to present reform in the light of high ideals and future objects. —John Burns, British activist

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There is a higher law than the law of government. That’s the law of conscience. —Stokely Carmichael, leader of the SNCC and the Black Panther Party

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Look into any man’s heart you please, and you will always find, in every one, at least one black spot which he has to keep concealed. —Henrik Ibsen, Norwegian playwright

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As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands, and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of the war. —Abraham Lincoln, U.S. president

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I cannot walk through the suburbs in the solitude of the night without thinking that the night pleases us because it suppresses idle details, just as our memory does. —Jorge Luis Borges, Argentine writer

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