The March on Washington was a March for Jobs and Freedom. There are still too many people who are unemployed or underemployed in America - they're black, white, Latino, Native American and Asian American.
John LewisRead
I remember back in the 1960s - late '50s, really - reading a comic book called 'Martin Luther King Jr. and the Montgomery Story.' Fourteen pages. It sold for 10 cents. And this little book inspired me to attend non-violence workshops, to study about Gandhi, about Thoreau, to study Martin Luther King, Jr., to study civil disobedience.
Interpretation
This quote reflects how a simple story can inspire significant personal and social change through non-violent action.
John Lewis shares a personal anecdote about how a comic book he encountered inspired him to engage deeply with ideas of non-violence and civil disobedience, leading to a lifelong commitment to social justice. This illustrates the powerful impact that literature and stories can have on individuals, motivating them to pursue important causes and instigate change in society.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech on the power of education and its ability to drive social change.
The March on Washington was a March for Jobs and Freedom. There are still too many people who are unemployed or underemployed in America - they're black, white, Latino, Native American and Asian American.
The scars and stains of racism are still deeply embedded in the American society.
Customs, traditions, laws should be flexible, within good reason, if that is what it takes to make our democracy work.
I say to people today, 'You must be prepared if you believe in something. If you believe in something, you have to go for it. As individuals, we may not live to see the end.'
We need someone who is going to stand up, speak up, and speak out for the people who need help, for the people who have been discriminated against.
If it hadn't been for that march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Bloody Sunday, there would be no Barack Obama as President of the United States of America.
We know what the birth of a revolution looks like: A student stands before a tank. A fruit seller sets himself on fire. A line of monks link arms in a human chain. Crowds surge, soldiers fire, gusts of rage pull down the monuments of tyrants, and maybe, sometimes, justice rises from the flames.
The time has come to choose a new direction of global development, to opt for a new civilization.
It will be the people with the greatest love, not the most information, who will influence us to change.
One who returns to a place sees it with new eyes. Although the place may not have changed, the viewer inevitably has. For the first time things invisible before become suddenly visible.
If we can forgive what’s been done to us... If we can forgive what we’ve done to others... If we can leave all of our stories behind. Our being villains or victims. Only then can we maybe rescue the world.
You never know when it is going to happen, when you will experience a moment that dramatically transforms your life. When you look back, often years later, you may see how a brief conversation or an insight you read somewhere, changed the entire course of your life.
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