Look at the Civil Rights Movement. Look at any kind of fight for change. People had to keep fighting and taking their rights. Rights are never given to you. They have to be fought for and they have to be taken.
Interpretation
Change requires persistent effort and cannot be handed over voluntarily.
This quote emphasizes that rights and freedoms are not simply granted by those in power; rather, individuals and communities must actively struggle and advocate for their rights. It draws on the historical context of the Civil Rights Movement, illustrating that significant societal changes often come through persistent action and unwavering determination.
In practice
During a speech about social justice, a speaker might highlight this quote to emphasize the need for activism.
As the world is getting smaller, it becomes more and more important that we learn each other's dance moves, that we meet each other, we get to know each other, we are able to figure out a way to cross borders, to understand each other, to understand people's hopes and dreams, what makes them laugh and cry.
If you can laugh with somebody and relate to somebody, it becomes harder to dehumanize them. I think that most of what we are constantly bombarded with in terms of media leads you to a creation of 'the Other' and a dehumanization of 'the Other,' and it's very much an us-versus-them conversation.
We ought to approach this challenge [of global warming] with a sense of profound joy and gratitude: that we are the generation about which, a thousand years from now, philharmonic orchestras and poets and singers will celebrate by saying, they were the ones that found it within themselves to solve this crisis and lay the basis for a bright and optimistic human future.
I became vegan because I saw footage of what really goes on in the slaughterhouses and on the dairy farms.
I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.
'Middle class' used to be synonymous with secure, with steady, with boring, because middle-class people were people who were pretty much safe from the time they first started work on through retirement and until their deaths. No longer.
As people of color, it took a whole generation in many ways to get us out of the kitchen, and it's gonna take us the same whole generation to get us back into the kitchen and have ownership of restaurants, hotels and stuff like that.
As more and more women, men and young people raise their voices and become active in local government, and more local leaders take action for the safety of women and girls, change happens.
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