“I don’t know where we go from here because those of us who recognize the injustice are not the problem. Law enforcement, militarized and indifferent to black lives, is the problem.”— Roxane Gay, nytimes.com
“Welling and swelling I bear in the tide. Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear I rise Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise I rise I rise”— Maya Angelou, poets.org
“The concept of reverse racism is flawed, if not absolutely ridiculous. Most, if not all of the negative responses from people of color toward white people, are reactions to the hatred, violence, cruelty and brutality that they were shown by white people for centuries. Much of the foundation of the m…”— Lauryn Hill, sohh.com
“If I go outside and try to hail a cab and he passes me for the white woman standing right there, that racism is still alive and kicking. And we have to change that. And I'm not blaming the white lady, she needed a cab too.”— Queen Latifah, billboard.com
“We can’t affect national narrative, we can’t affect national legislation that comes down and affects local people if local people don’t push back and take a stand about what's happening in local communities,”— Chelsea Fuller, usatoday.com
“Every member of this body — every Republican and every Democrat — wants to see less gun violence," Every member of this body wants a world in which people feel safe regardless of the color of their skin. And that’s not how people are feeling these days.”— Paul Ryan, youtube.com
“What it means is that we are all sick and tired of seeing unarmed people shot by police officers, That young people in African-American communities are harassed by police officers, where police departments are not there to be supportive but are in many cases oppressive, and that’s an issue that has…”— Bernie Sanders, hollywoodreporter.com
“We need a special prosecutor, now. And a prosecutor who can look at these cases of police brutality or police wrongdoing and make real judgments and decide whether people should go to trial.”— Russell Simmons, newsone.com
“The reality is this is a peaceful human rights movement led by incredibly courageous black people. I think we are demanding justice and freedom for our people.”— Opal Tometi, cleveland19.com
“...you can truly grieve for every officer who has been lost in the line of duty in this country and still be troubled by cases of police overreach. Those two ideas are not mutually exclusive. You can have great regard for law enforcement and still want them to be held to high standards.”— John Stewart, thewrap.com
“It seems that it's either pro-cop and anti-black or pro-black and anti-cop, when, in reality, you can be pro-cop and pro-black, which is what we should all be. It is what we should be aiming for.”— Trevor Noah, cc.com
“I wasn’t surprised about what happened in Baltimore, because of what we had seen in Ferguson. I don’t believe in rioting and all, but I know peaceful protesters are very hard to be seen. What I see with Baltimore, Ferguson and other mass protests is what has been given birth is the Black Lives Matte…”— Arthur Reed, a.k.a Silky Slim, ijr.com
“there needs to be a concerted effort to address the systemic racism in our criminal justice system.”— Hillary Clinton, youtube.com
“When you know, we been hurt, been down before, nigga When my pride was low, lookin' at the world like, 'where do we go, nigga?' And we hate Popo, wanna kill us dead in the street for sure, nigga I'm at the preacher's door My knees gettin' weak and my gun might blow but we gon' be alright”— Kendrick Lamar, play.spotify.com
“It is up to us to take a stand and demand that they ‘stop killing us,' We’re going to stand up as a community and fight against anyone who believes that murder or any violent action by those who are sworn to protect us should consistently go unpunished.”— Beyoncé Knowles, beyonce.com
“The Constitution gives you the right, as a white man, to have a rifle in your home. The Constitution gives you the right to protect yourself. Why is it ‘ominous’ when black people even talk of having rifles? Why don’t we have the right to self-defense? Is it because maybe you know we’re going to hav…”— James Baldwin, amazon.com
“Indeed, in America there is a strange and powerful belief that if you stab a black person ten times, the bleeding stops and the healing begins the moment the assailant drops the knife. We believe white dominance to be a fact of the inert past, a delinquent debt that can be made to disappear if only…”— Ta-Nehisi Coates, theatlantic.com
“When people say ‘Black Lives Matter, that doesn’t mean blue lives don’t matter.”— Barack Obama, bustle.com
“First of all, don’t ever start a sentence with, ‘If I were a black father.' If you are a black father, you don’t need to say it and if you aren’t, you should probably just shut the fuck up.”— Seth Meyers, thedailybeast.com