Julian Bond Quotes

The humanity of all Americans is diminished when any group is denied rights granted to others.

Griffin Bell later apologized to me for that decision.

People see America through particular lenses, either their profession, their race or their gender. So the party that speaks to our racial perceptions and offers solutions to the racial difficulties which we face is the party that's going to be rewarded with our votes.

Ever since I've become chairman, there have been profiles of me in People, George, The Washington Post, The Detroit News, and all of them could have been written by the same person

You must place interest in principle above interest on principal.

People don't just show up and lie down in the middle of the street some place out of nothing. Somebody said meet me there, let's get together, and let's do this thing. The interesting thing is that we don't know who all of the leaders of these groups are, but we know that they're out there, and we know a new group of leadership is being created. It shows you that leadership can come from anywhere.

The First Amendment means everything to me.

As skills and energy became more of a demand, people who didn't have skills just got left behind, got shuttled to the side. Education didn't keep up with their promise. Education didn't prepare them for this new world. Jobs went overseas.

Unlike mainstream civil rights groups, which merely sought integration of blacks into the existing order, SNCC sought structural changes in American society itself.

I don't think of myself as a Negro. I'm a Southerner. I just like the Southern way of life.

Marriage is a civil right. If you don't want gay people to marry in your church, good for you. But you can't say they can't marry in your city.

Good things don't come to those who wait. They come to those who agitate!

Obama is to the Tea Party as the moon is to werewolves.

If your Bible tells you that gay people ought not be married in your church, don't tell them they can't be married at city hall. Marriage is a civil rite as well a civil right, and we can't let religious bigotry close the door to justice to anyone.

It takes people who have a widespread series of experiences to develop future leaders. It takes people who aren't afraid to challenge and move forward.

You could not be in the civil rights movement without having an appreciation for everybody's rights. That these rights are not divisible - not something men have and women don't and so on.

Violence is black children going to school for 12 years and receiving 6 years' worth of education.

There is no coloration to rights. Everybody has rights. I don't care who you are, where you come from. You got rights. I got rights. All God's children got rights.

You know, I come from six generations of college graduates.

We know that if whites and nonwhites vote in the same percentages as they did in 2000, Bush will be re-defeated by 3 million votes.

Black reporters are as capable of racism as anyone else.

I tell young people to prepare themselves as best they can for a world that grows more challenging every day-get the best education they can, and couple that education with real-life experience in social justice work.

Discrimination is discrimination no matter who the victim is, and it is always wrong. There are no special rights in America, despite the attempts by many to divide blacks and the gay community with the argument that the latter are seeking some imaginary special rights at the expense of blacks.

I now teach at American University and the University of Virginia

I do think that some of us began to realize that this was going to be a long struggle that was going to go on for decades, and you'd have to knuckle down. A lot of people in our generation did that. They didn't drop out and run away

The Republican Party would have the American flag and the swastika flying side by side.

The war in Iraq has as much to do with terrorism as the administration has to do with compassion.

Working in a situation with men and women, and seeing women take on roles equal to the roles taken by men made you understand that, "Hey, these people can do things too." And I think it made me and other people in the movement realize that we're living in a community of equals. And that among those equals, they have equal rights. And we ought to respect their rights if they respected ours.

As legal slavery passed, we entered into a permanent period of unemployment and underemployment from which we have yet to emerge.

I've appeared on a weekly syndicated television show since 1980

I was a Georgia state legislator for a great many years

The president of the branch in Atlanta was a pastor of a church, the Reverend Sam Williams, a wonderful guy. He was middle-class and fairly militant for the time and place.

There's this big debate that goes on in America about what rights are: Civil rights, human rights, what they are? it's an artificial debate. Because everybody has rights. Everybody has rights - I don't care who you are, what you do, where you come from, how you were born, what your race or creed or color is. You have rights. Everybody's got rights.

Any time someone carries a picket sign in front of the White House, that is the First Amendment in action

The civil rights movement didn't begin in Montgomery and it didn't end in the 1960s. It continues on to this very minute.

Many are attracted to social service - the rewards are immediate, the gratification quick. But if we have social justice, we won't need social service.