Angela Davis Quotes: ‘The Legacy of Angela Davis’

•  “The process of empowerment cannot be simplistically defined in accordance with our own particular class interests. We must learn to lift as we climb.” – Angela Davis
• . “We have to talk about liberating minds as well as liberating society.” – Angela Davis
•  “I think that has to do with my awareness that in a sense we all have a certain measure of responsibility to those who have made it possible for us to take advantage of the opportunities.”  – Angela Davis
• “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.”  – Angela Davis
•  “To understand how any society functions you must understand the relationship between the men and the women.” – Angela Davis
• “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.” – Angela Davis
•  “You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world. And you have to do it all the time.”  – Angela Davis

Angela Davis Quotes About “Education”

• “Optimism is an absolute necessity, even if it’s only optimism of the will, as Gramsci said, and pessimism of the intellect.” – Angela Davis
• “I never tire of urging people to remember that it wasn’t a single individual or two who created that movement, that, as a matter of fact, it was largely women within collective contexts, Black women, poor Black women who were maids, washerwomen, and cooks.” – Angela Davis
• “Human beings cannot be willed and molded into non-existence.” – Angela Davis
• “When Black women stand up— as they did during the Montgomery Bus Boycott—as they did during the Black liberation era, earth-shaking changes occur.” – Angela Davis
• “The struggle against racism must be an ongoing theme of the anti-rape movement, which must not only defend women of color, but the many victims of the racist manipulation of the rape charge as well.” – Angela Davis
• “Trans women have to fight to be included within the category ‘woman’ in a way that is not dissimilar from the earlier struggles of Black women and women of color who were assigned the gender female at birth.” – Angela Davis
• “Human beings cannot be willed and molded into non-existence.” – Angela Davis

Angela Davis Quotes About ‘Leadership’

• “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.” – Angela Davis
•  “You can never stop and as older people, we have to learn how to take leadership from the youth and I guess I would say that this is what I’m attempting to do right now.” – Angela Davis
•  “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.” – Angela Davis
• “I never saw myself as an individual who had any particular leadership powers.”  – Angela Davis
• “Leadership emerges from within, empowering others to rise.” – Angela Davis
•  “Leadership weaves individual voices into a harmonious symphony.” – Angela Davis
• “Leadership inspires, uplifts, and blazes trails for others to follow.” – Angela Davis

Angela Davis Quotes About ‘Justice’

• “Justice is indivisible. You can’t decide who gets civil rights and who doesn’t.” – Angela Davis
• “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.” – Angela Davis
• “I don’t think it’s necessary to feel guilty. Because I know that I’m still doing the work that is going to help more sisters and brothers to challenge the whole criminal justice system, and I’m trying to use whatever knowledge I was able to acquire to continue to do the work in our communities that will move us forward.” – Angela Davis
• “we have accumulated a wealth of historical experience which confirms our belief that the scales of American justice are out of balance.” – Angela Davis
• “We are never assured of justice without a fight.” – Angela Davis
• “I have a hard time accepting diversity as a synonym for justice. Diversity is a corporate strategy.” – Angela Davis
• “Racism cannot be separated from capitalism.” – Angela Davis