Social Justice Quotes

"Democracy for an insignificant minority, democracy for the rich—that is the democracy of capitalist society" "There is a big difference between charity and change" "I tell my students, 'When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else'" "Racism will disappear when it's no longer profitable and no longer psychologically useful. When that happens, it'll be gone" "If you can only be tall because somebody's on their knees, then you have a serious problem. And my feeling is, white people have a very, very serious problem" "Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world would do this, it would change the earth." "The identity of the Negro in this country is a social and political and moral crucifixion which you would find very difficult to gaze at." "Women have been called queens for a long time, but the kingdom given them isn't worth ruling." "The true republic: men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights and nothing less" "We ask only for justice and equal rights—the right to vote the right to labor the right to serve as jurors and then the judgment of our peers" "You can't comfort the afflicted with afflicting the comfortable " "An authentic faith, which is never comfortable or completely personal, always involves a deep desire to change the world." "There are truths we have to grapple with. For instance, women and girls have always been second-class citizens around the world. This isn't something we just started struggling with, it's the reality that we all were born into." "The times talk to us of so much poverty in the world and this is a scandal. Poverty in the world is a scandal. In a world where there is so much wealth, so many resources to feed everyone, it is unfathomable that there are so many hungry children, so many children without education, so many poor persons." "Too often we participate in the globalization of indifference. May we strive instead to live global solidarity." "There is so much indifference in the face of suffering. May we overcome indifference with concrete acts of charity." "We cannot sleep peacefully while babies are dying of hunger and the elderly are without medical assistance." "The goal of education should be to enable people to become active and engaged citizens, questioning and organizing against injustices." "We cannot be content to sit back and watch as some are subjugated by domination and violence because we are all part of one human family" "We are all and should be treated as equals"