#activism

My ministry's always been one of social activism. I think a responsible minister must be at some levels involved in the social order. ↗

— Al Sharpton

#always #been #i #i think #involved

In the past, when gays were very flamboyant as drag queens or as leather queens or whatever, that just amused people. And most of the people that come and watch the gay Halloween parade, where all those excesses are on display, those are straight families, and they think it's funny. But what people don't think is so funny is when two middle-aged lawyers who are married to each other move in next door to you and your wife and they have adopted a Korean girl and they want to send her to school with your children and they want to socialize with you and share a drink over the backyard fence. That creeps people out, especially Christians. So, I don't think gay marriage is a conservative issue. I think it's a radical issue. ↗

— Edmund White

#gay #glbt #hate #love #marriage

New and stirring things are belittled because if they are not belittled the humiliating question arises 'Why then are you not taking part in them? ↗

— H.G. Wells

#change #participation #change

You do it for yourself. You don’t expect to change the world. You don’t even expect to influence your family or your friends. You do it because you can’t not do it and be who you are. Or who you’re meant to be. ↗

— Martin Sheen

#inspiration #change

If a policy is wrongheaded feckless and corrupt I take it personally and consider it a moral obligation to sound off and not shut up until it's fixed. ↗

— David H. Hackworth

#change #citizenship #policy #change

The path towards peace is not for the righteous, the ethical, the active and the compassionate to shit on the malicious, the complacent, the violent and the ignorant. The path towards peace is to be peaceful. ↗

— Ilyas Kassam

#change #compassion #meditation #peace #peaceful

Poets can't march in protest or do that sort of thing. I feel that's against the rules, and pointless. If mankind wants a great big final bang, that's what it'll get. One should never protest against anything unless it's going to have an effect. None of those marches do. One should either be silent or go straight to the top. ↗

— Robert Graves

#apocalypse #change #poets #protest #change

Violence never really deals with the basic evil of the situation. Violence may murder the murderer, but it doesn’t murder murder. Violence may murder the liar, but it doesn’t murder lie; it doesn’t establish truth. Violence may even murder the dishonest man, but it doesn’t murder dishonesty. Violence may go to the point of murdering the hater, but it doesn’t murder hate. It may increase hate. It is always a descending spiral leading nowhere. This is the ultimate weakness of violence: It multiplies evil and violence in the universe. It doesn’t solve any problems. ↗

— Martin Luther King Jr.

#civil-rights-movement #equal-rights #martin-luther-king-jr #reform #violence

[A]lthough the principle of equality has always been self-evident, it has never been self-executing. ↗

— Barack Obama

#activism #civil-rights #equality #equality

A critical element in nearly all effective social movements is leadership. For it is through smart, persistent, and authoritative leaders that a movement generates the appropriate concepts and language that captures the frustration, anger, or fear of the group's members and places responsibility where it is warranted. ↗

— David E. Wilkins

#hank-adams #leadership #social-movements #anger