1. “If we do not know how to meaningfully talk about racism, our actions will move in misleading directions.” ― Angela Davis
2. “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.” ― Angela Davis
3. “I try never to take myself for granted as somebody who should be out there speaking. Rather, I’m doing it only because I feel there’s something important that needs to be conveyed.” ― Angela Davis
4. “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
5. “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
6. “To understand how any society functions you must understand the relationship between the men and the women.” ― Angela Davis
7. “I don’t think we have any alternative other than remaining optimistic. Optimism is an absolute necessity, even if it’s only optimism of the will, as Gramsci said, and pessimism of the intellect.” ― Angela Davis
8. “I’m no longer accepting the things I cannot change… I’m changing the things I cannot accept.” ― Angela Davis
9. “Sometimes we have to do the work even though we don’t yet see a glimmer on the horizon that it’s actually going to be possible.” ― Angela Davis
10. “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.” ― Angela Davis
11. “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
12. “I never saw myself as an individual who had any particular leadership powers.” ― Angela Davis
13. “We know the road to freedom has always been stalked by death.” ― Angela Davis
14. “The struggle for an abolitionist democracy is aspiring to create the institutions that will truly allow for a democratic society.” ― Angela Davis
15. “Progressive art can assist people to learn what’s at work in the society in which they live.” ― Angela Davis
16. “I sank deep into the moment, husbanding this delight, hoarding it. For I knew it would be short-lived. Work. Struggle. Confrontation lay before us like a rock-strewn road. We would walk it … But first the grass, the sun…and the people.” ― Angela Davis
17. “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 longer.” ― Angela Davis
18. “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
19. “Revolution is a serious thing, the most serious thing about a revolutionary’s life. When one commits oneself to the struggle, it must be for a lifetime.” ― Angela Davis
20. “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
21. “We have to talk about liberating minds as well as liberating society.” ― Angela Davis
22. “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
23. “It is in collectivities that we find reservoirs of hope and optimism.” ― Angela Davis
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