Lezley McSpadden (2018)
Almost four years ago to this day, I ran down this very street.
And my son was covered in a sheet.
It broke me. You know?
It brought me down to my knees and made me feel crippled as if I could do nothing else anymore from that moment.
But as time went on and I stayed surrounded by support and motivational people who knew what happened was wrong and didn't give up the fight.
I learned to walk again.
And this is one of my first steps.
Running for Ferguson City Council of 2019.
This is so important to me and I know a lot of people may ask what makes me qualified.
But I'll tell you if a mother had to watch her son lay on the street for four and a half hours
And watch a community be completely disrespected by elected officials that we elected, what would you do?
You would stand up and you would fight too.
I'm not going to give up and when I'm elected, I will be the people's voice and not just the people's choice.
Nina Turner (2017)
When Nina Simone sung that song
Some people didn't want to hear what he was talking about but what she was talking about was the lynching of black folks in this country.
And even though, right now at this moment, there may not be any physical lynching.
But the fact that you would take away workers' opportunities in this great state to be able to make a living wage and to be able to organize.
People are being lynched in their living.
Mississippi, Goddamn
[Nevertheless, she persisted.]
Lauryn Hill (2000)
I always thought that, you know, The Matrix was battling the enemy out there. Picking them out. I'm gunna find those enemies. I'm gunna get that enemy.
Until I realized that until you conquered the enemy in yourself you can't deal with anyone.
In order to be used by God, you have to really be used.
You know, we always want to be used for the glorious jobs.
Let God put me on the stage in front of them people in a Grammy show in a nice dress on let me just praise your name.
But that's not being used. Sometimes in order to be used you also have to be humiliated.
You have to be kicked and beaten.
And in that situation, the person who's kicking and beating he's feeling more pain than you are.
You know love is an incredible thing and we don't know love like we should. We always talk about I have unconditional love.
Unconditional love is - we don't even know it because if a person stops stimulating us, we stop loving them.
You're not interesting to talk to anymore. Goodbye.
But that real love, that love that sometimes is difficult.
Difficult to have; that's that love and that's a confidence builder
[Nevertheless, she persisted.]
Assata Shakur (1996)
The whole liberation of oppressed people in the United States had to do not with climbing of some ladder to success.
Not for asking to be just like Rockefeller or just like DuPont or just like Ford.
Because that would only continue the oppression and exploitation of oppressed people in the United States and specifically African people born and raised in the United States.
Socialism is an integral part building social justice on this planet.
The condition of my people, my history is very much connected with other oppressed people.
And I begin to see that that's the same foot that was on the necks of the Vietnamese people, that was on the necks of all oppressed people all the planet.
That's the same foot that was on my neck and so I began to understand that imperialism has to go.
It is a poison that is killing people all over this world.
The priorities of this planet have to be completely changed and instead of profit, instead of policies that destroy the earth,  that destroy the water that, destroy human beings
I believe a policy that protects people, that makes people live in a community a world community.
That's what I believe. That's my basic political commitment at this moment.
Angela Davis (1972)
First of all, if you're going to talk about a revolutionary situation, you have to have people who are physically able to wage revolution, who are physically able to organize and physically able to do all that is done.
When you talk about a revolution, most people think violence without realizing that the real content of any kind of revolutionary thrust lies and in the principles and the goals that you strive for, not in the way you reach them.
On the other hand, because of the way this society is organized, because of the violence that exists on the surface everywhere, you have to expect that there are going to be such explosions.
You have to expect things like that as reactions.
And that's why when someone asked me about violence, I just stood. I just find it incredible because it what it means the person who's asking this question has absolutely no idea what black people have gone through.
What black people have experienced in this country since the time the first black person was kidnapped from the shores of Africa.
Maya Angelou (1987)
You may write me down in history with your bitter twisted lies
You may trod me in the very dirt, but still like dust I rise.
You can shoot me with your words. You can cut me with your lies. You can kill me with your hatefulness, but just like life...
I rise.
Elisabeth Omilama (2020)
Well, I just want to echo what has already been said.
Because Atlanta has been a city that didn't have a strong civil right direct action movement.
They were always able to talk together at the table and work things out.
And certainly my father, Hosea Williams, was probably one of the most active. And they called him the bull in the china closet.
But these are different days.
Because of the news, we see a man calling his mother, begging for his life
We know that this death rings throughout the collective soul of the people whose young are being killed by the virus called racism 101.
Good people are tired of America writing a bad check to the African-American community.
And I think that we need to write the governor. We need to send letters demanding that Georgia institute a hate crime law because murdering someone due to their race is wrong.
But I also want to remind people that during any march and I've been through many, many of them there are people sent there by- installed to create violence.
These are not the marchers, this is not the intent of a non-violent movement and only love can conquer hate.
So you have people that are put there to cause a negativity that would put a shade on what is otherwise a righteous movement.
Because Martin Luther King said, "Let Righteousness rain run down like a river in a mighty stream." and that's what we need here.
We don't need pat's on the hands for the cops. We need good cops to pull up call out the bad ones. We need good white people to speak up.
If there's no if there's no justice for blacks there's no justice anywhere. So everybody's got a stake in this game. It's not going away.
This is the beginning of a long, long journey, and we have to take it together, non-violently, and with the strategies and tactics of the civil rights movement that unfortunately many of our younger activists don't want to listen to.
But they need to if they want to bring about some real change.
Cincinnati BLM Demonstrators (2016)
Our lives matter!
Black lives matter!
Black Lives Matter
Mitch McConnell (2017)
She was warned, she was given an explanation.
Nevertheless, she persisted.
