Anti Racism Activists

"I think there's a few things that we need to be doing. So one is we have to stop treating leaders like superheroes. We are ordinary people attempting to do extraordinary things"

"So we know that young people are the present and the future, but what inspires me are older people who are becoming transformed in the service of this movement. We all know that as you get older, you get a little more entrenched in your ways. It's happening to me, I know that's right. But I'm so inspired when I see people who have a way that they do things, have a way that they think about the world, and they're courageous enough to be open to listening to what the experiences are of so many of us who want to live in world that's just and want to live in a world that's equitable. And I'm also inspired by the actions that I'm seeing older people taking in service of this movement. I'm inspired by seeing older people step into their own power and leadership and say, "I'm not passing a torch, I'm helping you light the fire.""

"People have begun to engage in mutual aid and support for their neighbours. Even if people didn't have much, they were still looking out for each other. Through this, we began to see the ways in which new webs were being constructed."

"I'm extremely gratified that people have heard and are taking ownership of Black Lives Matter. People now know that in their respective industries and countries, they have the responsibility to ensure that Black people are respected, protected and affirmed."

"We know that it's increasingly more important to step up and stand for all Black lives, including queer and trans folks, and the international community have to play a role in this fight. It is fundamentally about all of our human rights; that includes folks on the continent and folks who are queer or trans."

"Black people. I love you. I love us. Our lives matter."

"One thing I just want to underscore is that the world is watching us. We see these rallies in solidarity emerging all across the globe, and I have friends texting me with their images in France and the Netherlands and Costa Rica, and people are showing me that they are showing up in solidarity."

"And so my belief and my view of these protests is that they are different because they are marked by a period that has been deeply personal to millions of Americans and residents of the United States, and that has them more tender or sensitive to what is going on."

"We have millions of people who have lost their jobs and filed for unemployment and are living paycheck to paycheck and hand to mouth, and I believe they are just thoroughly fed up and thoroughly beside themselves with grief and concern and despair because the government does not seem to have a plan of action that is dignified and comprehensive and seeks to address the core concerns that the average American has...."

"People who would normally have been at work now have time to go to a protest or a rally, and have time to think about why they have been struggling so much, and they are thinking, This actually isn’t right and I want to make time, and I have the ability to make time now and make my concerns heard..."

"Thinking about this moment, for me, leading up to this, it felt like we weren’t working fast enough... Our work wasn’t as effective as it needed to be. We’ve received all of the awards. I’m like, ‘Dear God, I don’t want another award, I want this to end.’ I do not care for any more accolades! This to me is common sense. You don’t want to see people dying and being murdered like this."

"Yesterday was the first time I cried for joy (after the protests in early June). Seeing the news clearly display our images and our slogans about defunding police, I was moved to see the people got the message. Because for far too long, we weren’t being heard. Part of why we even had to go to -Twitter and had to go to Facebook and had to use social media was because there was a silence around anti-black racism in our society. It was just a practical means of communicating."

"I probably was the one out of the three of us that was like, ‘Let’s go, let’s get big, let’s get everybody.’ I wasn’t necessarily thinking about organizational structure... I was mostly thinking about building a mass movement that people can be a part of and feel an identity around."

"I've been learning a great deal about interdependence. I've been learning about how to trust your team.... After coming back from a three-month sabbatical... I felt it was really important for my leadership and for my team to also practice stepping back as well as also sometimes stepping in. And what I learned in this process was that we need to acknowledge that different people contribute different strengths, and that in order for our entire team to flourish, we have to allow them to share and allow them to shine.... I saw our team rise up in my absence. They were able to launch new programs, fundraise. And when I came back, I had to give them a lot of gratitude and praise because they showed me that they truly had my back and that they truly had their own backs.... In this process of my sabbatical, I was really reminded of this Southern African philosophy of Ubuntu. I am because you are; you are because I am. And I realized that my own leadership, and the contributions that I'm able to make, is in large part due to the contributions that they make, right? And I have to acknowledge that, and I have to see that, and so my new mantra is, "Keep calm and trust the team." And also, "Keep calm and thank the team.""

"Antiblack racism is not only happening in the United States. It's actually happening all across the globe. And what we need now more than ever is a human rights movement that challenges systemic racism in every single context. ... We need this because the global reality is that black people are subject to all sorts of disparities in most of our most challenging issues of our day. I think about issues like climate change, and how six of the 10 worst impacted nations by climate change are actually on the continent of Africa. People are reeling from all sorts of unnatural disasters, displacing them from their ancestral homes and leaving them without a chance at making a decent living."

"What inspires me these days are immigrants. Immigrants all over the world who are doing the best that they can to make a living, to survive and also to thrive. Right now there are over 244 million people who aren't living in their country of origin. This is a 40 percent increase since the year 2000. So what this tells me is that the disparities across the globe are only getting worse."

"I was interested in giving folks like black, poor people who’ve been marginalized, brutalized, an opportunity to have more visibility. Before seven years ago, we could barely get the news to talk about police violence, let alone police death."

"That’s what you want; you want your radical demands to become popular...Then they become actionable, and then your elected officials won’t feel as scared to pass something like stopping a $3.5 billion jail because, hey, everybody else is saying the idea of caging thousands of human beings who have mental-health issues isn’t a good idea anymore."

"I absolutely think people are concerned with police brutality. Let me make that absolutely clear. We have been fighting and advocating to stop a war on black lives. And that is how we see it—this is a war on black life. And people understand that this system is filled with all sorts of inequality and injustice, and that implicit bias and just outright racism is embedded in the way that policing is done in this nation—and when you think about it historically, it was founded as a slave patrol."

"The evolution of policing was rooted in that. People recognize that. So their frustration is absolutely about the policing and the criminal-justice system writ large and the racial dimensions of it, and its lethal impact on our communities."

"I am hopeful for black futures. And I say that because we live in a society that's so obsessed with black death. We have images of our death on the TV screen, on our Twitter timelines, on our Facebook timelines, but what if instead we imagine black life? We imagine black people living and thriving. And that -- that inspires me."

"We are trained Marxists. We are super-versed on, sort of, ideological theories."

"Black Lives Matter is our call to action. It is a tool to reimagine a world where black people are free to exist, free to live. It is a tool for our allies to show up differently for us. I grew up in a neighborhood that was heavily policed. I witnessed my brothers and my siblings continuously stopped and frisked by law enforcement. I remember my home being raided. And one of my questions as a child was, why? Why us? Black Lives Matter offers answers to the why. It offers a new vision for young black girls around the world that we deserve to be fought for, that we deserve to call on local governments to show up for us."

"For me, seeking spirituality had a lot to do with trying to seek understanding about my conditions—how these conditions shape me in my everyday life and how I understand them as part of a larger fight, a fight for my life."

"We have to invest in black leadership. That's what I've learned the most in the last few years... What we've seen is thousands of black people showing up for our lives with very little infrastructure and very little support. I think our work as movement leaders isn't just about our own visibility but rather how do we make the whole visible. How do we not just fight for our individual selves but fight for everybody? And I also think leadership looks like everybody in this audience showing up for black lives. It's not just about coming and watching people on a stage, right? It's about how do you become that leader -- whether it's in your workplace, whether it's in your home -- and believe that the movement for black lives isn't just for us, but it's for everybody."

"After the shooting death of Michael Brown Jr. by officer Darren Wilson in 2014, a Freedom Ride to Ferguson, Missouri, came together. Cullors, writing with co-organizer Darnell L. Moore in The Guardian that September, described the bus ride with 40 others in the spirit of the Freedom Rides across the segregated South during the early 1960s as “a tangible example of self-determination in the face of anti-black violence on the part of Ferguson residents and those of us who traveled from across the country to join them.”"

"While we see that a lot of anger and outrage and frustration was sparked by the barbaric murder of George Floyd, it’s also clear to me that we have been sitting in our homes, navigating the pandemic, dealing with loved ones being sick, dealing with a great deal of fear and concern about what the day and the future will hold."

"When I first began interviewing Klan members, oftentimes they would answer the question but they wouldn't turn around and say 'What do you think?' They felt i was inferior. I had nothing to offer in terms of my opinion. But then over time, as the relationship develops, slowly but surely they began asking me questions. That was the first clue that the tide was turning. 'Oh, all of a sudden my opinion matters? Let's see where this is going.'"

"[If he feels disconnected from black millennials]: I've met people like him before and have had confrontations with people like him before, not many. A Klansman hates a white person who 'sells out', so to speak, more so than they hate a black person. Just like the young boy hated me more than he hated some white guy, because he felt that I've sold out my own race. He was very definite that white people could not change. How is he going to advance any agenda in this country, as diverse as it is?"

"I never sat out to convert anybody. I just set out to get that answer to my question: 'How can you hate me if you don't even know me?' And in my quest to have that answered, they couldn't answer it. And some of them ended up converting themselves."

"Kwame Rose: Why do I have to get along with them?"

"Davis: My end goal is to bring people together. Bring white supremacists together with their nemesis. Unless we learn how to get along with one another, this country is about to..."

"Davis: Because they are our fellow Americans. We all have to live in this country together. We do. Otherwise we're going to end up self-destructing."

"I would hope that by the time I'm gone, things like this will not be as prevalent. But if they are, perhaps this film will encourage others to do the same and do a better job that I've been able to do."

"[On his collection of Ku Klux Klan robes and memorabilia]: People always say to me 'Daryl, how can you have this stuff? Why don't you burn it?' Well, no. As shameful as it is, this is a part of American history. You don't burn our history regardless. The good, the bad, the ugly. And the Ku Klux Klan is as American as baseball, apple pie and Chevrolet."

"How can you hate me when you don't even know me? Throughout my life, I've been looking for an answer to that. Well, who better to ask than someone who would join an organization whose whole premise is hating people who do not look like them? So I began seeking out members of the Ku Klux Klan."

"[On why he prefers to meet Ku Klux Klan members face to face]: They can't know the real me through e-mail or through Facebook. Just sitting across from somebody, meeting somebody, getting that sense of them, that's the key right there."

"Let's say you and 20 other people have this group that is anti-racist and all you do is talk about how bad racism is. What good is that group doing? All you do is preaching to the choir. If you and I agree, I'm not accomplishing anything by trying to convince you of what you already know. The way you resolve that is you invite somebody to the table who disagrees with you so you understand why they have that point of view. Then, perhaps, you will figure out a solution to disuade their fears."

"Always keep the lines of communication open with your adversaries regardless of what the topic is. When two enemies are talking they are not fighting. They might be yelling and screaming and shouting an beating their fists on the table, but at least they're talking. They're not fighting."

"If you have an adversary, someone with an opposing point of view, regardless of how extreme it may be, and believe me I've heard things that cut me to the bone, but give that person a platform. Allow them to air their views. And when you do things like that there is an excellent chance that people will reciprocate."

"The lesson learned is: ignorance breeds fear. If you don't keep that fear in check, that fear will breed hatred. If you don't keep hatred in check, it will breed destruction."

"I am a musician, not a psychologist or sociologist. If I can do that, anybody in here can do that. Take the time to sit down and talk with your adversaries. You will learn something and they will learn something from you. When two enemies are talking, they are not fighting. They are talking. It's when the talking ceases that the ground becomes fertile for violence. So keep the conversation going."

"What I have come to find to be the greatest and most effective and successful weapon that we can use, known to man, to combat such adversaries as ignorance, racism, hatred, violence, is also the least expensive weapon, and the one that is the least used by Americans. That weapon is called communication."

"Generally, because most people see themselves as valuing social justice, most people also see themselves as acting justly in their lives. In response to questions about how they practice social justice, many would say that they treat everyone the same without regard to differences; because they do this, their actions are aligned with their values."

"The sinner must feel far worse before he ever has a right to feel any better."

"You would be better off, frankly, to use the name of Jesus Christ or God in an occasional curse word than to live an ongoing, hypocritical life that blasphemes His name from beginning to end."

"You hear people say, “Well, I’m an agnostic.” Really? You shouldn’t be proud to be an agnostic because the Latin equivalent is ignoramus. It’s the same word. I’ve never heard anybody say, “I’m personally an ignoramus.” But if you don’t know, you don’t know. That’s what an ignoramus is. If you have an open mind close it, would you please, before you destroy yourself. Close it."

"The world will accept you changing your style for them, but pretty soon they’re going to demand that you change your substance. They’re going to demand that you – well, they liked the fact that you’ve taken their method, but they're going to demand you change your message."

"You go to Japan. Japan had 250 missionary boards at one time, ministering in Japan. All kinds of Christian institutions, Christian ministries all over, and it is a totally Pagan culture. On the other hand, you go to China and you're going to find several hundred million Christians in a country where Christians were massacred. Why is that? Because that's a purifying process. Hypocrites all abandon religion; they're not going to be phony for something that costs them their life."

"[P]eople who say, “I am an agnostic,” proudly. From the Greek, “one who doesn’t know.” They do, “I’m an agnostic.” You hear people say that. You know what the Latin word for “agnostic” is? Ignoramus. You hear anybody say, “I am an ignoramus”? Really?"