“A democracy cannot thrive where power remains unchecked and justice is reserved for a select few.”

There’s nothing wrong with a little agitation for what’s right or what’s fair.

Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month or a year, it is the struggle of a lifetime.

Give us a vote! Let us vote! We came here to do our job. We came here to work.

I don’t have any extraordinary gifts. I’m just an average Joe who grew up very poor in rural Alabama.

I believe in freedom of speech, but I also believe that we have an obligation to condemn speech that is racist, bigoted, anti-Semitic, or hateful.

It’s a shame and a disgrace that so few people take part in the political process.

We must be headlights and not taillights.

Never become bitter, and in the process, be happy and just go for it.

When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, you have to speak up. You have to say something; you have to do something.

You cannot be afraid to speak up and speak out for what you believe. You have to have courage, raw courage.

In spite of all of the things, the issues, that we may be confronting today, I’m very hopeful, very optimistic about the future.

To make it hard, to make it difficult almost impossible for people to cast a vote is not in keeping with the democratic process.

Create a society at peace with itself, and lay down the burden of hate and division.

People must understand that people were beaten, arrested, jailed, and some people were murdered, while attempting to register to vote, or to get others to register to vote.

If you’re not hopeful and optimistic, then you just give up. You have to take that long hard look and just believe that if your consistent, you will succeed.

Reading the Martin Luther King story, that little comic book, set me on the path that I’m on today.

It should be the power of our vote, not the size of our bank accounts, that drives our democracy.

Elections belong to the people. It’s their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.

Freedom must be distinguished from democracy, with which it is often confused.

I want people to learn what democracy means.

When our government is spoken of as some menacing, threatening foreign entity, it ignores the fact that, in our democracy, government is us.

If voting made any difference they wouldn’t let us do it.

The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.

An educated, enlightened & informed population is one of the surest ways of promoting the health of a democracy.