There is a certain ecstasy in wanting things you can’t get.

Racism is a much more clandestine, much more hidden kind of phenomenon, but at the same time it’s perhaps far more terrible than it’s ever been

We have to talk about liberating minds as well as liberating society

I grew up in the southern United States in a city which at that time during the late ’40’s and early ’50’s was the most segregated city in the country, and in a sense learning how to oppose the status quo was a question of survival

My idea of philosophy is that if it is not relevant to human problems, if it does not tell us how we can go about eradicating some of the misery in this world, then it is not worth the name of philosophy. I think Socrates made a very profound statement when he asserted that the raison d’etre of philosophy is to teach us proper living. In this day and age ‘proper living’ means liberation from the urgent problems of poverty, economic necessity and indoctrination, mental oppression

There is an unbroken line of police violence in the United States that takes us all the way back to the days of slavery, the aftermath of slavery, the development of the Ku Klux Klan. There is so much history of this racist violence that simply to bring one person to justice is not going to disturb the whole racist edifice

Prisons do not disappear social problems, they disappear human beings. Homelessness, unemployment, drug addiction, mental illness, and illiteracy are only a few of the problems that disappear from public view when the human beings contending with them are relegated to cages

Radical simply means ‘grasping things at the root.

Had it not been for slavery, the death penalty would have likely been abolished in America. Slavery became a haven for the death penalty

The work of the political activist inevitably involves a certain tension between the requirement that position be taken on current issues as they arise and the desire that one’s contributions will somehow survive the ravages of time

Well of course there’s been a great deal of progress over the last 40 years. We don’t have laws that segregate black people within the society any

Progressive art can assist people to learn what’s at work in the society in which they live

I think we have to really focus on the issues much more than we may have in the past. I think we have to seek to create coalitional strategies that go beyond racial lines. We need to bring black communities, Chicano communities, Puerto Rican communities, Asian American communities together

It is important not only to have the awareness and to feel impelled to become involved, it’s important that there be a forum out there to which one can relate, an organization- a movement

No march, movement, or agenda that defines manhood in the narrowest terms and seeks to make women lesser partners in this quest for equality can be considered a positive step

Well for one, the 13th amendment to the constitution of the US which abolished slavery – did not abolish slavery for those convicted of a crime

To understand how any society functions you must understand the relationship between the men and the women

When Bush says democracy, I often wonder what he’s referring to

I decided to teach because I think that any person who studies philosophy has to be involved actively.

My name became known because I was, one might say accidentally the target of state repression and because so many people throughout the country and other parts of the world organized around the demand for my freedom

As soon as my trial was over, we tried to use the energy that had developed around my case to create another organization, which we called the National Alliance against Racist and Political Repression

Now, if we look at the way in which the labor movement itself has evolved over the last couple of decades, we see increasing numbers of black people who are in the leadership of the labor movement and this is true today

First of all, I didn’t suggest that we should simply get rid of all prisons

Walls turned sideways are bridges

I’m a feminist so I believe in inhabiting contradictions. I believe in making contradictions productive, not in having to choose one side or the other side. As opposed to choosing either or, choosing both

Jails and prisons are designed to break human beings, to convert the population into specimens in a zoo – obedient to our keepers, but dangerous to each other.

In a racist society, it is not enough to be non-racist, we must be anti-racist

The work of the political activist inevitably involves a certain tension between the requirement that position be taken on current issues as they arise and the desire that one’s contributions will somehow survive the ravages of time

It’s true that it is within the realm of cultural politics that young people tend to work through political issues, which I think is good, although it’s not going to solve the problems

The idea of freedom is inspiring. But what does it mean? If you are free in a political sense but have no food, what’s that? The freedom to starve?

I think the importance of doing activist work is precisely because it allows you to give back and to consider yourself not as a single individual who may have achieved whatever but to be a part of an ongoing historical movement

We know the road to freedom has always been stalked by death

It is in collectivities that we find reservoirs of hope and optimism

We have to talk about liberating minds as well as liberating society

Freedom is a constant struggle

The work of the political activist inevitably involves a certain tension between the requirement that position be taken on current issues as they arise and the desire that one’s contributions will somehow survive the ravages of time

I’m no longer interested in being perceived as anything other than what I am

It’s in the act of having to do things that you don’t want to that you learn something about moving past the self. Past the ego

The only way to deal with racism is to confront it

We live in a society of an imposed forgetfulness, a society that depends on public amnesia

I’m no longer accepting the things I cannot change… I’m changing the things I cannot accept

We have to talk about liberating minds as well as liberating society

In a racist society, it is not enough to be non-racist, we must be anti-racist

I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept

You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world. And you have to do it all the time

As a black woman, my politics and political affiliation are bound up with and flow from participation in my people’s struggle for liberation, and with the fight of oppressed people all over the world against American imperialism

Poor people, people of color – especially are much more likely to be found in prison than in institutions of higher education

It is essential to resist the depiction of history as the work of heroic individuals

My idea of philosophy is that if it is not relevant to human problems, if it does not tell us how we can go about eradicating some of the misery in this world, then it is not worth the name of philosophy. I think Socrates made a very profound statement when he asserted that the raison d’etre of philosophy is to teach us proper living. In this day and age ‘proper living’ means liberation from the urgent problems of poverty, economic necessity and indoctrination, mental oppression

Racism cannot be separated from capitalism.

The process of empowerment cannot be simplistically defined in accordance with our own particular class interests. We must learn to lift as we climb

Revolution is a serious thing, the most serious thing about a revolutionarys life. When one commits oneself to the struggle, it must be for a lifetime