Civil Rights Leaders Quotes:

In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

source: "The Trumpet of Conscience". Martin Luther King, Jr.'s steeler lecture at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, November 17, 1957.

topic: Friendship, Wisdom, Clever, Sounds Of Silence, Meaningful Friendship

Civil rights leaders are involved in helping poor people. That's what I've been doing all my life.

- Andrew Young

topic: Life, Rights, People, Civil Rights Leaders, Poor People

Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?'

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

source: Martin Luther King Jr. (1963). “Strength to Love”

topic: Inspirational, Friendship, Positive, Social Entrepreneurship, Making A Difference In The World

We must remember that intelligence is not enough. Intelligence plus character-that is the goal of true education. The complete education gives one not only power of concentration, but worthy objectives upon which to concentrate.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

topic: Education, Character, Goal, Good Character, Inspirational Character

Hate is too great a burden to bear. It injures the hater more than it injures the hated.

- Coretta Scott King

source: "Understanding Cultural Diversity in Today's Complex World". Book by Leo Parvis, p. 54, 2010.

topic: Inspirational, Inspiring, Forgiveness, Importunate, Love And Hate

The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

topic: Education, Teacher, Character, Inspirational Character, Inspirational Education

Being a Negro in America means trying to smile when you want to cry. It means trying to hold on to physical life amid psychological death. It means the pain of watching your children grow up with clouds of inferiority in their mental skies. It means having their legs off, and then being condemned for being a cripple.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

topic: Children, Growing Up, Pain, Civil Rights Leaders, Cripples

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

topic: Opportunity, Issues, Rights, Moral Issues, Equal Rights

The sad truth is that the civil rights movement cannot be reborn until we identify the causes of black suffering, some of them self-inflicted. Why can't black leaders organize rallies around responsible sexuality, birth within marriage, parents reading to their children and students staying in school and doing homework?

- Henry Louis Gates

source: Henry Louis Gates Jr. (2012). “The Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Reader”, p.546, Basic Books

topic: Children, Reading, School, Stay In School, Civil Right Movement

Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

topic: Inspirational, Witty, Truth, Kings And Love, Knowledge And Ignorance

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

topic: Inspirational, Motivational, Inspiring, Love And Hate, Darfur

Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

topic: Motivational, Change, Positive, Faith And Family, Hope And Faith

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

source: Strength to Love (1963) ch. 3

topic: Inspirational, Life, Motivational, Inspirational Addiction Recovery, Inspirational Adversity

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

topic: Kings, Rights, Leader, Social Change, Civil Rights Leaders

By 1962, King had become, by the media's reckoning, the new civil rights leader.

- Constance Baker Motley

topic: Kings, Rights, Media, Reckoning, Civil Rights Leaders

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

topic: Rights, Parent, Movement, Civil Right Movement, Civil Rights Leaders

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

topic: Leadership, Kings, Real, Civil Right Movement, Civil Rights Leaders

Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

topic: People, Understanding, Frustrated, Moderates, Stumbling Blocks

American civil rights leader, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? Lynching is a murder. For the past four hundred years our people have been lynched physically, but now it's done politically. We're lynched politically, we're lynched economically, we're lynched socially, we're lynched in every way that you can imagine.

- Malcolm X

topic: Past, Rights, Lynching, Civil Rights Leaders

Missing from the national conversation are voices of pro-immigration reformers and civil rights leaders, who can speak on behalf of those who have no voice.

- Andrew Lam

source: "‘Birds of Paradise Lost’: A Conversation With Author Andrew Lam". Interview with Anna Challet, www.huffingtonpost.com. March 5, 2013.

topic: Voice, Rights, Leader, Civil Rights Leaders

I must personally say that I do question the sincerity and nonviolent intentions of some civil rights leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Mr. James Farmer, and others, who are known to have left-wing associations.

- Jerry Falwell

topic: Kings, Rights, Wings, Dr Martin Luther King, Civil Rights Leaders

I'm trying to be a singer, not a civil rights leader.

- Adam Lambert

topic: Rights, Leader, Trying, Civil Rights Leaders

Well, I was always a bit of a political junkie. Even as a kid I would read biographies of presidents and of civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King and Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington.

- John Legend

topic: Kings, Kids, Rights, Civil Rights Leaders