Protest Quotes

“All his life Snufkin had longed to pull down notices that asked him not to do things he liked to do.”
― Tove Jansson, Moominsummer Madness

“Many of our white brothers misunderstand this fact because many of them fail to interpret correctly the nature of the Negro Revolution. Some believe that it is the work of skilled agitators who have the power to raise or lower the floodgates at will. Such a movement, maneuverable by a talented few, would not be a genuine revolution. This Revolution is genuine because it was born from the same womb that always gives birth to massive social upheavals--the womb of intolerable conditions and unendurable situations. In this time and circumstance, no leader or set of leaders could have acted as ringmasters, whipping a whole race out of purring contentment into leonine courage and action. If such credit is to be given to any single group, it might well go to the segregationists, who, with their callous and cynical code, helped to arouse and ignite the righteous wrath of the Negro.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., Why We Can't Wait

“Concentrated power can be always wielded in the interest of the few and at the expense of the many. Government in its last analysis is this power reduced to a science. Governments never lead; they follow progress. When the prison, stake or scaffold can no longer silence the voice of the protesting minority, progress moves on a step, but not until then.”
― Lucy Parsons

“The purpose of protest is to provoke a response. Trouble is some people prefer to address the appropriateness of the protest not the issue.”
― Jeffrey G. Duarte

“Every single person actually has the power to protest racist and antiracist policies, to advance them, or, in some small way, to stall them.”
― Ibram X. Kendi, How to Be an Antiracist

“Most of us who were cooperatively bringing out the Masses were agreed upon that. Some channel of protest must be safeguarded for those who had not been stampeded into dumb obeisance to the world's war-makers.”
― Art Young, Art Young: His Life and Times

“Near Fort Jackson, South Carolina, the first "GI coffeehouse" was set up, a place where soldiers could get coffee and doughnuts, find antiwar literature, and talk freely with others. It was called the UFO, and lasted for several years before it was declared a "public nuisance" and closed by court action. But other GI coffeehouses sprang up in half a dozen other places across the country. An antiwar "bookstore" was opened near Fort Devens, Massachusetts, and another one at the Newport, Rhode Island, naval base.
Underground newspapers sprang up at military bases across the country; by 1970 more than fifty were circulating. Among them: About Face in Los Angeles; Fed Up! in Tacoma, Washington; Short Times
at Fort Jackson; Vietnam GI in Chicago; Grafiti in Heidelberg, Germany; Bragg Briefs in North Carolina; Last Harass at Fort Gordon, Georgia; Helping Hand at Mountain Home Air Base, Idaho. These newspapers printed antiwar articles, gave news about the harassment of GIs and practical advice on the legal rights of servicemen, told how to resist military domination.”
― Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States: 1492 - Present

“It's easy for most to look back in time and praise those who fought for the rights of others. The protests of history are much easier to accept than protests of the present. History doesn't require anything from us. It doesn't even require us to know it. The present? It requires our all.”
― Dave Connis, Suggested Reading

“O woman
who is not separate from us
who is chained beaten strangled
this song is for you

O woman
who is not separate from the homeland
who is oppressed silenced persecuted
this fury is for you

O woman
who rages against this regime
who marches resists protests
this prayer is for you

O woman
whose wild tresses
are tied with a noose
this cry is for you
we rise together for you

O Mahsa
from your blood
poppies will grow
this revolution is for you”
― Kamand Kojouri

“Protesting problems doesn’t really bring solutions. It just brings more problems.

We reap what we sow.

If we want to reap happiness, we must sow happiness. And that happiness inspires, strengthens others and builds bridges.

If we want solutions, we have to think about solutions and be detached from the problem.

Otherwise, [if we focus on the problem] we take the problem with us, [keep it active,] and poison the future.

If we want to reap love, we must love. With no ifs and buts.
And, we need to do it OURSELVES instead of asking others to do it.

This is freedom. This is empowerment.
This is our own solution from the problem, from our sorrow, frrom our pain.

And the more people detach themselves from the unwanted, and walk the path of love, and [focus on] the joy of the wanted, the more solutions we achieve for the world.”
― Elke Heinrich

“I remember when we went into Kezar Stadium on the march (April 15, 1967, San Francisco) playing that song—I felt like I was part of some surrealistic dream. We were riding along in this truck. The band was playing. It was like a misty kind of rain. It was early in the morning. The streets were lined with people hanging out of windows and everything. And we were going up the street. I was just stoned out of my head on LSD, everything kind of like vibrating and I was looking around and you could see soldiers and people sneering and you see pictures of napalmed children and signs saying “End the War” and we were playing this joyous incredible music and people were dancing all around the truck just dancing and throwing flowers up in the air and everything and we were singing, “Whoopee, we’re all gonna die!” And it was like we were sort of heading off to these beautiful pastoral gas chambers, we were all going to parade ourselves into these gas chambers and then they were going to wipe us out…
I mean, if you gotta go, you might as well go out dancing and singing.”
― Country Joe McDonald

“It's 1963: we're in the year of prophetic fulfillment. The last revival meeting is at hand, where the sons took up the cross of the fathers. White sons went forth to the dirt roads of Georgia and Alabama to prove to their fathers that the melting pot could still melt. "Negro" sons went forth to the Woolworths and Grants and Greyhounds of America to prove to their fathers that they could eat and sit and ride as well in the front as in the back, as well seated as standing.”
― Kathleen Collins, Whatever Happened to Interracial Love?

“Do not be discouraged by what you see. Rather, be discouraged if you refuse to rise up against what you see.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“Evil will never find a place where the manifestation of itself will not raise up a greater good. And to be that ‘greater good’ is the manifestation of our greatest self.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“In my free time I am changing the world.”
― Steven Magee

“I am a believer in justice
I am a supporter of chance
I know how people turn myths
Into facts that learn to dance”
― Aida Mandic, A Maniac Did

“Racial and Ethnic Slurs, a thing of the past
Social Media helped to spur revolts very fast
Equality, Peace, and Justice are Three Amigos
That will allow Love to Conquer Selfish Egos”
― Aida Mandic, A Candid Aim

“Fascist logic: Destroying property to stop murder is wrong. Murdering to protect property is right.

(8/26/2020 on Twitter)”
― Nick Estes

“There is no form of protest against racism that is acceptable to racists.

(9/10/2020 on Twitter)”
― Bernice A. King

“a “strike,” which means a resistance on the part of the oppressed toward the oppressor—a protest, as it were”
― Lucy Parsons

“At the same time there is reason to think that Gandhi, who after all was born in 1869, did not understand the nature of totalitarianism and saw everything in terms of his own struggle against the British government. The important point here is not so much that the British treated him forbearingly as that he was always able to command publicity. As can be seen from the phrase quoted above, he believed in ‘arousing the world’, which is only possible if the world gets a chance to hear what you are doing. It is difficult to see how Gandhi’s methods could be applied in a country where opponents of the regime disappear in the middle of the night and are never heard of again. Without a free press and the right of assembly, it is impossible not merely to appeal to outside opinion, but to bring a mass movement into being, or even to make your intentions known to your adversary. Is there a Gandhi in Russia at this moment? And if there is, what is he accomplishing? The Russian masses could only practise civil disobedience if the same idea happened to occur to all of them simultaneously, and even then, to judge by the history of the Ukraine famine, it would make no difference.”
― George Orwell, Reflections on Gandhi

“Q: How do you assess the current political and social crisis in Colombia, the popular protests and the police repression unleashed by the government of Iván Duque?

I value the political awakening of society and I hope that these protests are not in vain and bring changes...This is something unprecedented in our country, never before were there massive marches that lasted more than a month and also in the middle of a pandemic. There is a very complex crisis and a government that does not listen, closes in on dialogue and its only option is force. I am very concerned about the violation of Human Rights by the forces of the State… It is very serious, inadmissible in a democracy

(Interview on Irancartoon.com)”
― Elena Ospina Mejia

“Hey baton!
Can you play my cock's role? Of course not;
I forgot
Your head hasn't any hole”
― Sobhan Ganji, The Thinnest Condom

“I am not going to lay down in front of a bulldozer and protest the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) construction, as that is so dangerous! Instead, I will develop the science to shut down the known biologically toxic project in Hawaii.”
― Steven Magee

“The spectacle of that gathering [a NSW Teachers' Federation protest in the late 1980s], the might of its unified purpose, the feeling of solidarity and strength, resonated with me in a way that has shaped my beliefs and my actions ever since. Union power is this simple act of solidarity - of people realising what we have in common, and deciding both to stick together and to act.”
― Sally McManus

“I have friends who speak out – as is necessary –
with subtle and unsubtle force.
But I am from this place and a great deal
has been going wrong for some time now.”
― M.L. Smoker, Another Attempt at Rescue

“In South Africa when comrades are hungry they break, vandalize and destroy everything. When citizens or communities are angry they break, vandalize and destroy everything.”
― De philosopher DJ Kyos

“Trust your leaders where mistakes are almost never made
And they're afraid that I'm afraid”
― Phil Ochs, The War is Over

“That free time is one of the biggest barriers to activism was, in a way, proven in the summer of 2020, as the protests over George Floyd and the slew of other Black lives lost became the most attended protests in American history. Up to twenty-six million Americans participated, a number that would be unthinkable were it not for the converging COVID-19 epidemic and the unprecedented amount of free time that accompanied it.”
― Jack Lowery, It Was Vulgar and It Was Beautiful: How AIDS Activists Used Art to Fight a Pandemic

“To those who have said, "Be patient and wait," we must say that we cannot be patient. We do not want our freedom gradually, but we want to be free now.”
― Brad Meltzer; John Lewis