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[Before the Civil Rights Act of 1964], many governments in southern states forced people to segregate by race. Civil rights advocates fought to repeal these state laws, but failed. So they appealed to the federal government, which responded with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But this federal law didn't simply repeal state laws compelling segregation. It also prohibited voluntary segregation. What had been mandatory became forbidden. Neither before nor after the Civil Rights Act were people free to make their own decisions about who they associated with.
Harry BrowneI'm working on a script right about Civil War re-enactors who go back in time to the actual Civil War. It's kind of a big, crazy Back to the Future comedy. So, of course, it's the Civil War - I play the banjo. I was just having a conversation with one of the producers about some of the material and he was like, 'You know, we have to work in a scene where you play the banjo. And I was like I'll get behind that.
Ed HelmsFor black politicians, civil rights organizations and white liberals to support the racist practices of the University of Michigan amounts to no less than a gross betrayal of the civil rights principles of our historic struggle from slavery to the final guarantee of constitutional rights to all Americans. Indeed, it was practices like those of the University of Michigan, but against blacks, that were the focal point of much of the civil rights movement.
Walter E. WilliamsYou have to have a multipronged approach and a significant part of that is educating the public and change the culture so that people are less afraid of Arabs or Muslims, more attuned to civil rights and civil liberties issues that are presented, more aware of the security costs of some of the kinds of choices the Bush administration had made, and more committed to the values that America was founded upon.
David D. ColeMy parents both were doing the Civil Rights Movement, were very involved with the civil rights to Congress. And my friends' parents were as well.
Janis IanWhen you come to Montgomery, you see fifty-nine monuments and memorials, all about the Civil War, all about Confederate leaders and generals. We have lionized these people, and we have romanticized their courage and their commitment and their tenacity, and we have completely eliminated the reality that created the Civil War.
Bryan StevensonEventually [black men] are arrested, whether they've committed any serious crime or not, and branded criminals or felons for life. Upon release, they're ushered into a parallel social universe in which the civil and human rights supposedly won during the Civil Rights Movement no longer apply to them.
Michelle AlexanderIn the Catholic view of things, abortion is a justice issue, not an issue of sexual morality... it is a civil rights issue, arguably the greatest civil rights issue of our time.
George WeigelThe civil rights movement didn't deal with the issue of political disenfranchisement in the Northern cities. It didn't deal with the issues that were happening in places like Detroit, where there was a deep process of deindustrialization going on. So you have this response of angry young people, with a war going on in Vietnam, a poverty program that was insufficient, and police brutality. All these things gave rise to the black power movement. The black power movement was not a separation from the civil rights movement, but a continuation of this whole process of democratization.
Danny GloverCivil disobedience has an honourable history, and when the urgency and moral clarity cross a certain threshold, then I think that civil disobedience is quite understandable, and it has a role to play.
Al GoreWe have less civil liberties than we had on 9/ 1 1 in some significant ways. But we are also, I believe, less safe as a result in many instances of the sacrifice in human rights, civil liberties, and the rule of law that (the Bush) administration has adopted.
David D. ColeWith bad laws and good civil servants it's still possible to govern. But with bad civil servants even the best laws can't help.
Otto von BismarckTo its committed members (the Democratic Party) was still the party of heart, humanity, and justice, but to those removed a few paces it looked like Captain Hookโs crewโambulance-chasing lawyers, rapacious public policy grants persons, civil rights gamesmen, ditzy-brained movie stars, fat-assed civil servant desk squatters, recovering alcoholics, recovering wife-beaters, recovering child-buggers, and so forth and so on, a grotesque line-up of ill-mannered self-pitying, caterwauling freeloaders banging their tin cups on the pavement demanding handouts.
Nicholas von HoffmanOne thing that has gone away from civil discussion in America is this idea that our neighbors are not out to ruin the world. We need to come at it from a civil place.
Alison PillYou get the same equal rights that we do when we have a civil partnership. Heterosexual people get married. We can have civil partnerships.
Elton JohnMany Americans who supported the initial thrust of civil rights, as represented by the Brown v. Board of Education decision and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, later felt betrayed as the original concept of equal individual opportunity evolved toward the concept of equal group results.
Thomas SowellCivil liberty is the status of the man who is guaranteed by law and civil institutions the exclusive employment of all his own powers for his own welfare.
William Graham SumnerI went to live in Barcelona in 1975, when I was twenty. Even before I went there, I knew more about the Spanish Civil War than I did about the Irish Civil War. I liked Barcelona, and then I grew to like a place in the Catalan Pyrenees called the Pillars, especially an area between the village of Flavors and the high mountains around it.
Colm ToibinI was involved in the civil rights movement way back in the late '50s and through the '60s and '70s. I was doing a civil rights musical here in Los Angeles and we sang at one of the rallies where Dr. Martin Luther King spoke, and I remember the thrill I felt when we were introduced to him. To have him shake your hand was an absolutely unforgettable experience. Even before I could vote, I was involved in the political arena.
George TakeiEvery person with a pulse has a responsibility to stand in solidarity with the Muslim community that is on the front lines fighting against groups like ISIS, both militarily and ideologically, every day, and now on the front line of standing up for civil liberties and civil rights to make America great. [They] are the best insurance for the safety of all Americans.
Van JonesThe psychedelic issue is a civil rights and civil liberties issue. It is an issue concerned with the most basic of human freedoms: religious practice and the privacy of the individual mind.
Terence McKennaGo for civil engineering, because civil engineering is the branch of engineering which teaches you the most about managing people. Managing people is a skill which is very, very useful and applies almost regardless of what you do.
John Harvey-JonesCivil disobedience presupposes willing obedience of our self-imposed rules, and without it civil disobedience would be a cruel joke.
Mahatma GandhiMy childhood was marked by the great fear of nuclear holocaust. We practiced our Civil Defense Drills, lining up in hallways, curled to the floor, but we knew we'd die or, worse, survive only to suffer radiation and slow death.
Julianna BaggottMen are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetitesโฆin proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.
Edmund BurkeThe great and good ends proposed by the Illuminati, as the ultimate objects of their union, are the overthrow of religion, government, and human society civil and domestic.
Timothy Dwight IVOn human rights, civil rights and environmental quality, I consider myself to be very liberal. On the management of government, on openness of government, on strengthening individual liberties and local levels of government, I consider myself a conservative. And I don't see that the two attitudes are incompatible.
Jimmy CarterThe foreign policy, you have to know how to pick and choose. There's no way, if Saddam [Hussein] had not had weapons of mass destruction, I would have gone, because I don't believe that the U.S. should be involved directly in civil wars.
John KasichWe need to focus on killing the bad guys, not getting stuck in Middle Eastern civil wars that don't keep America safe.
Ted CruzI propose that the government should get out of the business of marrying people and, instead, only give legal status to civil unions.
Tony CampoloI have written 13 books, full of my ideas about a variety of issues - from black women, to hip-hop culture, to the civil rights struggle. Even when I address such figures as Tupac Shakur and Bill Cosby, my ideas are quite evident.
Michael Eric DysonPolitical freedom is, or ought to be, the best guaranty for the safety and continuance of spiritual, mental, and civil freedom. It is the combination of numbers to secure the liberty to each one.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton[If you understood the natural rights of mankind,] [y]ou would be convinced that natural liberty is a gift of the beneficent Creator to the whole human race, and that civil liberty is founded in that, and cannot be wrested from any people without the most manifest violation of justice.
Alexander HamiltonEvery society, all government, and every kind of civil compact therefore, is or ought to be, calculated for the general good and safety of the community.
George MasonThe Law given from Sinai was a civil and municipal as well as a moral and religious code.
John Quincy AdamsYou reached your level, you don't want any more. We asked ten years ago, we were askin' with the Panthers, we were askin' in the Civil Rights Movement. Now those who were askin' are all dead or in jail, wo what are we gonna do? And we shouldn't be angry!?
Tupac ShakurIndividual believers are not to usurp the role of civil government and judge people who are offensive.
Max AndersBe civil to all; serviceable to many; familiar with few; friend to one; enemy to none.
Benjamin FranklinThis [EURO] was never a hate group, the European American Unity and Rights Organization was an organization in its charter is dedicated to true civil rights and stopping discrimination against people, that the best qualified people should be engaged and that every people have the right to preserve their heritage, their freedom and their values.
David DukeI gained a great appreciation for what I would call the collective achievement of the country. I began thinking of America as a much more just and humane place than I would have thought if I'd been covering the civil rights struggle.
Charles KuraltTruth and reason are eternal. They have prevailed. And they will eternally prevail; however, in times and places they may be overborne for a while by violence, military, civil, or ecclesiastical.
Thomas JeffersonIf you create enough space in Egypt, civil society will revive itself, and then will you have all of these secular forces, liberals, nationalists and others, compete with the Islamists. And then you will see the Islamists reduced to their size.
Hisham MelhemIn the process of helping some (perhaps most) people to more utility and justice, the state imposes on civil society a system of interdictions and commands.
Anthony de JasayAmerica's humanitarian concern for foreign victims of natural disasters or civil strife is being abused by President Bush when he extends legal status to foreigners in the US when there is no reason that they could not go home safely.
Dan J. SteinI don't like calling myself a "feminist" only because I don't think I've done anything active enough to call myself one. It'd be like calling myself a civil rights activist just because I'm not racist.
Bo BurnhamI support people if they are called to be active and protesting, resisting, working for restoration or, for more just political conversation. I also support everyone in listening to each other. We're at a very interesting and disturbing time in terms of our civil discourse. And yet always, in disturbance, things are shook up and that shaking can lead to deeper maturity and a deeper discourse. May it be so.
Gangaji