Activist Quotes

I detect the activist returning with a vengence.

E.A. Bucchianeri

Don’t be a witness. Be an activist.

DaShanne Stokes

16 days of activism? I don't know about you folks, but I'm an activist every single day.

Christina Engela

If you join the rat race — you're in the race of rats.

Stay awake. Spread awareness. Take action.

Life is not what you alone make it. Life is the input of everyone who touched your life and every experience that entered it. We are all part of one another.

What can we learn from women like Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday that we may not be able to learn from Ida B. Wells, Anna Julia Cooper, and Mary Church Terrell? If we were beginning to appreciate the blasphemies of fictionalized blues women - especially their outrageous politics of sexuality - and the knowledge that might be gleaned from their lives about the possibilities of transforming gender relations within black communities, perhaps we also could benefit from a look at the artistic contributions of the original blues women.

Angela Y. Davis

I'm all for fighting tyranny and oppression.

E.A. Bucchianeri

The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naïve and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who likes his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair.

If your not annoying somebody, you're not alive.

Margaret Atwood

It is exhausting living in a population where people don't speak up if what they witness doesn't directly threaten them.

David Wojnarowicz

I know that you cannot live on hope alone, but without it, life is not worth living. And you...And you...And you...Gotta give em hope.

Sometimes, people call my way of speaking ranting. Why are you always ranting and screaming, they ask. But here’s the thing…the reason why I rant is because I am a voice for many women that cannot speak out to heads of state, UN officials, and those that influence systems of oppression. And so I rant. And I will not stop ranting until my mission of equality of all girls is achieved.

What I mean when I talk about sovereignty is that "we have a different way of being". Those of us who are organising around the idea of sovereignty are not asking for inclusion within the capitalist system. We're not asking for the so-called benefits of a capitalist system, which is always based on exclusions because it is based on privatising what was once communal and shared. We're saying no to being incorporated. We're saying yes to a completely different way of being, to a society based on commonality and plurality, not the fundamentalism of markets, religion, and the gender binary. We're not pushing to get in. Why should we want to enmesh ourselves in an economy and a political system that is driving the planet and our species toward destruction?

Sendolo Diamina

Activism begins with you, Democracy begins with you, get out there, get active! Tag, you're it

The headlines are never in the news! And so, what I am saying is the news is never on the headlines

Sahndra Fon Dufe

The Lone Star of Africa Land of the free, on your beach and sacred forests loves flourished. You, Liberia, you my love to echo, the scream of freedom, holding tight and will never let go. O beautiful land, The Lone star for decades has survived wars and tribalism the elders who keep the ancestral treasures that resulted in Vandalism. When will morning break for great leaders to stand for what is right Mother Liberia?

Henry Johnson Jr

As a human rights activist it is concerning to me that those committing atrocities against vulnerable people view these atrocities as 'progress', and assert with pride and conviction that they are 'Christians' and that they are doing 'God's will'.

Christina Engela

The problem will never be diversity, the challenging of tradition or the one person that questions the way life should be. The person that shows the world that this is wrong, there is a perspective you didn't consider, this is worth fighting for and being different is a blessing, will always be the solution for change.

Shannon L. Alder

Strength of character comes from being hit by stray verbal stones, while protecting discarded ciphers in the snow.

Shannon L. Alder

Only until all human beings begin to recognize themselves as human beings will prejudice be gone forever. People ask me what race I am, but there is no such thing as race. I just answer: "I’m a member of the human race.

Amelia Boynton Robinson

The goal for most people should not be to feel better, but to get better at feeling.

Shannon L. Alder

I could not feel, smell, see, hear, or taste the world around me. If I had allowed myself to experience these things in all their intensity, I might have lost my mind. If I had allowed myself to cry, I might never have been able to stop. So I survived, but I never felt joy, never felt safe.

It is not what you leave to your children that matters, but what you leave in them.

Shannon L. Alder

In order to master compassion, you have to spend time getting to know monsters. When you can do that you will see that there are no monsters, only people that acted like monsters because no one gave them the time or compassion to hear their story.

Shannon L. Alder

Before you call yourself a Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu or any other theology, learn to be human first.

Shannon L. Alder

If you had the option to pray for me or fight with me, you better choose the fight.

Darnell Lamont Walker

Our wishes become real and solid if we work on their formation. If it matters to you, make energy become matter.

Patricia Robin Woodruff

For a man who makes his salvation perfect through suffering, is more of a saint and a loving hero of nature.

Auliq-Ice

If you can't tell from my rap lyrics already, yes I am a feminist. And when I'm saying "hoe" or "bitch" I am actually referring to men. ...That sounded bad, in someway. But at the end of the day, I'm sick of rappers using "bitches" and "hoes" as terms towards women. Feminists are NOT a hate group. Feminists are not all female. Nor has it got an anti-male agenda. It's about equality! I've had a weird, special bond with women since I was a kid. And it's just a shame really that I'm gay.

scott mcgoldrick

The 1970s-80s social movement called U.S. third world feminism functioned as a central locus of possibility, an insurgent social movement that shattered the construction of any one ideology as the single most correct site where truth can be represented. Indeed, without making this kind of metamove, any 'liberation' or social movement eventually becomes destined to repeat the oppressive authoritarianism from which it is attempting to free itself, and become trapped inside a drive for truth that ends only in producing its own brand of dominations. What U.S. third world feminism thus demanded was a new subjectivity, a political revision that denied any one ideology as the final answer, while instead positing a tactical subjectivity with the capactiy to de- and recenter, given the forms of power to be moved. These dynamics are what were required in the shift from enacting a hegemonic oppositional theory and practice to engaging in the differential form of social movement, as performed by U.S. feminists of color during the post-World War II period of great social transformation. p. 58-59.

God has a way of picking a “nobody” and turning their world upside down, in order to create a “somebody” that will remove the obstacles they encountered out of the pathway for others.

Shannon L. Alder

Dignity is never silent. It has a voice, heart and soul. Truth and courage is its foundation. It will stand against the masses and speak the truth. Because every great person has always done what others found fear in doing.

Shannon L. Alder

During the flames of controversy, opinions, mass disputes, conflict, and world news, sometimes the most precious, refreshing, peaceful words to hear amidst all the chaos are simply and humbly 'I don't know.

New concepts should be introduced by the power of imagery.

Oh external worshiper, know that worship without heart is motions. Oh seeker of knowledge, know that knowledge without purification is a dangerous weapon of the ego. Oh activist, know that work without orientation of heart is fruitless. Oh lover, know that love without God is pain.

Disobedience to rigid laws is a revolutionary act.

Lailah Gifty Akita

We often fear that the Revolution needed is too big for what we can give.Too much change is required inside, outside.And we are too small.But all that is required is that you step into the truth of your life. And speak it, write it, paint it, dance it.That you shine your light on your truth, for the world to see.And as hundreds, then thousands, then millions do this – each sparking the courage of yet more – Suddenly we have a world alight with truth.

Without Christ a people may always have the freedom to do, but never the power to complete.

You just need to be a flea against injustice. Enough committed fleas biting strategically can make even the biggest dog uncomfortable and transform even the biggest nation.

Marian Wright Edelman

[We're] going to change the world. One day they'll write about us. You'll see.

Viola Gregg Liuzzo

Gospel music is nothing but singing of good tidings -- spreading the good news. It will last as long as any music because it is sung straight from the human heart.

Mahalia Jackson

Are you going to cater to the whims and prejudices of people who have no intelligent knowledge of what they condemn?

Susan B. Anthony Collection

Borders are scratched across the hearts of men, by strangers with a calm, judicial pen, and when the borders bleed we watch with dread the lines of ink along the map turn red.

Let my silence grow with noise as pregnant mothers grow with life. Let my silence permeate these walls as sunlight permeates a home. Let the silence rise from unwatered graves and craters left by bombs. Let the silence rise from empty bellies and surge from broken hearts. The silence of the hidden and forgotten. The silence of the abused and tortured. The silence of the persecuted and imprisoned. The silence of the hanged and massacred. Loud as all the sounds can be, let my silence be loud so the hungry may eat my words and the poor may wear my words. Loud as all the sounds can be, let my silence be loud so I may resurrect the dead and give voice to the oppressed. My silence speaks.

There comes a time in your life when you can no longer put off choosing. You have to choose one path or the other. You can live safe and be protected by people just like you, or you can stand up and be a leader for what is right. Always, remember this: People never remember the crowd; they remember the one person that had the courage to say and do what no one would do.

Shannon L. Alder

Real women fight for something, other than their own emotions.

Shannon L. Alder

Our work is not about transcending this world to get to a better place; our work is to be fully present here; to heal ourselves, and our planet in the spirit of service and compassion.

To sum it up, succuss is merely a small act of courageousness.

Kierra C.T. Banks

Truth is not fully explosive, but purely electric. You don't blow the world up with the truth; you shock it into motion.

All men are created equal. Now matter how hard they try, they can never erase those words. That is what America is about.

They want us to be afraid. They want us to be afraid of leaving our homes. They want us to barricade our doors and hide our children. Their aim is to make us fear life itself! They want us to hate. They want us to hate 'the other'. They want us to practice aggression and perfect antagonism. Their aim is to divide us all! They want us to be inhuman. They want us to throw out our kindness. They want us to bury our love and burn our hope. Their aim is to take all our light! They think their bricked walls will separate us. They think their damned bombs will defeat us. They are so ignorant they don’t understand that my soul and your soul are old friends. They are so ignorant they don’t understand that when they cut you I bleed. They are so ignorant they don’t understand that we will never be afraid, we will never hate and we will never be silent for life is ours!

Hide yourself in God, so when a man wants to find you he will have to go there first.

Shannon L. Alder

Always seek justice, but love only mercy. To love justice and hate mercy is but a doorway to more injustice.

To really change the world, we have to help people change the way they see things. Global betterment is a mental process, not one that requires huge sums of money or a high level of authority. Change has to be psychological. So if you want to see real change, stay persistent in educating humanity on how similar we all are than different. Don't only strive to be the change you want to see in the world, but also help all those around you see the world through commonalities of the heart so that they would want to change with you. This is how humanity will evolve to become better. This is how you can change the world. The language of the heart is mankind's main common language.

Any war that requires the suspension of reason as a necessity for support is a bad war.

Beauty is not who you are on the outside, it is the wisdom and time you gave away to save another struggling soul like you.

Shannon L. Alder