50 Racial Justice Quotes To Inspire Sorely Needed Change

Jessica Sager

February 2, 2023 at 4:10 AM·12 min read

Pay attention to these profound words and get inspired to fight against racism.

Many people wish to speak out, whether privately or publicly, about racial justice, but may feel they don't have the right words to express what they're feeling. Here are 50 racial justice quotes, racism quotes, Black Lives Matter quotes and quotes about racism from the likes of President Barack Obama, Will Smith, Oprah Winfrey, Colin Kaepernick, Beyoncé and more to inspire you to do the necessary work to fight racism.

Racial Justice Quotes

1. "A riot is the language of the unheard."
— Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

2. "It’s important for us to also understand that the phrase 'Black Lives Matter' simply refers to the notion that there’s a specific vulnerability for African Americans that needs to be addressed. It's not meant to suggest that other lives don’t matter. It’s to suggest that other folks aren’t experiencing this particular vulnerability."
— President Barack Obama

3. "It's up to all of us — Black, white, everyone — no matter how well-meaning we think we might be, to do the honest, uncomfortable work of rooting it out."
— Michelle Obama

4. "You can't separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom."
— Malcolm X

5. "Struggle is a never-ending process. Freedom is never really won, you earn it and win it in every generation."
— Coretta Scott King

6. "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor."
— Desmond Tutu

7. "Racism is not getting worse, it's getting filmed."
— Will Smith

8. "In a racist society it is not enough to be non-racist, we must be anti-racist."
— Angela Davis

9. "White feelings should never be held in higher regard than black lives."
— Rachel Cargle

10. "It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have."
— James Baldwin

11. "Protest is not the end of progress, it is the beginning ... I stand with Minneapolis. I believe in us. Change is gonna come."
— Lizzo

12. "People don't realize what's really going on in this country. There are a lot things that are going on that are unjust. People aren't being held accountable for. And that's something that needs to change. That's something that this country stands for: freedom, liberty and justice for all."
— Colin Kaepernick

13. "The beauty of anti-racism is that you don't have to pretend to be free of racism to be an anti-racist. Anti-racism is the commitment to fight racism wherever you find it, including in yourself. And it's the only way forward."
— Ijeoma Oluo

14. "No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite."
— Nelson Mandela

15. "If I take your race away, and there you are, all strung out. And all you got is your little self, and what is that? What are you without racism? Are you any good? Are you still strong? Are you still smart? Do you still like yourself? I mean, these are the questions. Part of it is, 'Yes, the victim. How terrible it's been for black people.' I'm not a victim. I refuse to be one ... if you can only be tall because somebody is on their knees, then you have a serious problem. And my feeling is that white people have a very, very serious problem, and they should start thinking about what they can do about it. Take me out of it."
— Toni Morrison

Related: Martin Luther King Jr. Quotes

16. "It belongs to the very substance of nonviolence never to destroy or damage another person's feeling of self-worth, even an opponent's."
— Bernard Haring

17. "The one place where a man ought to get a square deal is in a courtroom, be he any color of the rainbow, but people have a way of carrying their resentments right into a jury box. As you grow older, you'll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something, and don't you forget it — whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, that white man is trash."
— Harper Lee

18. "We don't want to see Targets burning. We want to see the system that sets up for systemic racism burned to the ground."
— Killer Mike

19. "As long as people can be judged by the color of their skin, the problem is not solved."
— Oprah Winfrey

20. "Enough is enough! What will it take? A civil war? A new president? Violent riots? It's tired. I'm tired. The country is tired! You don't put fear in people when you do this, you just show how coward[ly] you are – and how America is really not the land of the free."
— Cardi B

21. "It is never too late to give up your prejudices."
— Henry David Thoreau

22. "It is white people's responsibility to be less fragile; people of color don’t need to twist themselves into knots trying to navigate us as painlessly as possible."
— Robin DiAngelo

23. "We have a right to protest for what is right. That's all we can do. There are people hurting, there are people suffering, so we have an obligation, a mandate, to do something."
— Rep. John Lewis

24. "George Floyd's murder is not only an outrage. It is the latest manifestation of a system that callously devalues the lives of Black people. Our struggle is and always has been about justice — not justice on paper, but real justice in the real lives of real people."
— Sen. Bernie Sanders

— President Abraham Lincoln
26. "Until the philosophy which hold one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned —everywhere is war."
— Bob Marley
27. "You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist."
— Indira Gandhi
Related: Taylor Swift, Kim Kardashian West, LeBron James and More Demand Justice for the Murder of Ahmaud Arbery
28. "Prejudices are the props of civilization."
— André Gide
29. "We've come a long way in our thinking, but also in our moral decay. I can't imagine Dr. King watching the Real Housewives or Jersey Shore."
— Samuel L. Jackson
30. "For years, with every horrific murder of an innocent Black man, woman or child, I have always tried to find the right words to express my condolences and outrage, but the privilege I am afforded by the color of my skin has often left me feeling like this is not a fight I can truly take on as my own. Not today, not anymore... Even though I will never know the pain and suffering they have endured, or what it feels like to try to survive in a world plagued by systemic racism, I know I can use my own voice to help amplify those voices that have been muffled for too long."
— Kim Kardashian-West
31. "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness."
— Mark Twain
32. "We all decry prejudice, yet are all prejudiced."
— Herbert Spencer
33. "I love blackness, it is stunning, majestic, inspiring but it is also not here to serve non-black people when it suits them via sports, music, hairstyles, entertainment etc. It should be respected in the workplace and shouldn’t be ignored when it’s crying out in fear of being killed.? You really want that utopian ideal of what our world could be? You want to be proudly and ACTIVELY anti-racist, more than fearing being called a racist? I want that for you too.? If so, then do the work, educate yourself and others stand by us loudly, consistently, FOREVER."
— Clara Amfo
Related: What Blackout Tuesday is About
34. "If you want to make peace, you don't talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies."
— Moshe Dayan
35. "I think police brutality is probably extremely severe in America, but racism is alive everywhere. Everywhere."
— Rihanna
Related: Quotes for Black History Month
36. "Defining freedom cannot amount to simply substituting it with inclusion. Countering the criminalization of Black girls requires fundamentally altering the relationship between Black girls and the institutions of power that have worked to reinforce their subjugation. History has taught us that civil rights are but one component of a larger movement for this type of social transformation. Civil rights may be at the core of equal justice movements, and they may elevate an equity agenda that protects our children from racial and gender discrimination, but they do not have the capacity to fully redistribute power and eradicate racial inequity. There is only one practice that can do that. Love."
— Monique Morris
37. "Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd."
— Bertrand Russell
38. "If you're calling for an end to unrest, but not calling out police brutality, not calling for health care as a human right, not calling for an end to housing discrimination, all you're asking for is the continuation of quiet oppression."
— Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
39. "At the heart of racism is the religious assertion that God made a creative mistake when He brought some people into being."
— Friedrich Otto Hertz
40. "No matter how big a nation is, it is no stronger than its weakest people, and as long as you keep a person down, some part of you has to be down there to hold him down, so it means you cannot soar as you might otherwise."
— Marian Anderson
41. "I look at an ant and I see myself: a native South African, endowed by nature with a strength much greater than my size so I might cope with the weight of a racism that crushes my spirit."
— Miriam Makiba
42. "If now isn’t a good time for the truth, I don't see when we'll get to it."
— Nikki Giovanni
43. "Ideologies separate us. Dreams and anguish bring us together."
— Eugene Ionesco
44. "We need justice for George Floyd. We all witnessed his murder in broad daylight. We're broken and we're disgusted, we cannot normalize this pain. No more senseless killings of human beings. No more seeing people of color as less than human. We can no longer look away."
— Beyoncé
45. "We got to face some facts. That the masses are poor, that the masses belong to what you call the lower class, and when I talk about the masses, I’m talking about the white masses, I'm talking about the black masses, and the brown masses, and the yellow masses, too. We've got to face the fact that some people say you fight fire best with fire, but we say you put fire out best with water. We say you don't fight racism with racism. We're gonna fight racism with solidarity."
— Fred Hampton
46. "I see and feel everyone's pain, outrage and frustration. I stand with those who are calling out the ingrained racism and violence toward people of color in our country. We have had enough."
— Michael Jordan
Related: Everything You Need To Know About the Black American Heritage Flag, Including Its History and What It Symbolizes
iStock
47. "We don't know when these protests will subside. We hope and pray that no one else will be killed. But we also know that very little will change. The anger and the frustration we see playing out once again in our streets is just a reminder of how little we’ve grown as a country from our original sin of slavery. This is our pandemic. It infects all of us, and in 400 years we've yet to find a vaccine."
— George Clooney
48. "People say I talk so slow today. That's no surprise. I calculated I've taken 29,000 punches. But I earned $57 million and I saved half of it. So I took a few hard knocks. Do you know how many black men are killed every year by guns and knives without a penny to their names? I may talk slow, but my mind is OK."
— Muhammad Ali
49. "No matter how much money you have, no matter how famous you are, no matter how many people admire you, being black in America is tough. And we got a long way to go for us as a society and for us as African Americans until we feel equal in America."
— LeBron James
50. "If you think about that unease that you felt watching that Target being looted, try to imagine how it must feel for black Americans when they watch themselves being looted every single day,. Because that is fundamentally what is happening in America. Police in America are looting black bodies. And I know someone might think that's an extreme phrase, but it's not."
— Trevor Noah
Want more inspiration to fight racial injustice? Read the books, watch the movies and shows and listen to the talks in this anti-racism starter pack.

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50 Racial Justice Quotes To Inspire Sorely Needed Change

Racial Justice Quotes