Left: Protester was arrested at a demonstration in front of the Supreme Court on May 29, 1968
Right: Officers arrest a protester on May 31, 2020 in Philadelphia [16]
"People don't have any mercy. They tear you limb from limb, in the name of love. Then, when you're dead, when they've killed you by what they made you go through, they say you didn't have any character. They weep big, bitter tears—not for you. For themselves, because they've lost their toy."
James Baldwin [17]
"Time and again, racist ideas have not been cooked up from the boiling pot of ignorance and hate. Time and again, powerful and brilliant men and women have produced racist ideas in order to justify the racist policies of their era, in order to redirect the blame for their era’s racial disparities away from those policies and onto Black people."
Ibram X. Kendi [18]
Left: Officers responded to a riot in 1964 with excessive force, including the use of batons
Right: Officer knocked a protester to the ground on May 31, 2020, in Washington, DC.
[19] [20]
BLM Protesters [21]
"Until the killing of black men, black mothers’ sons, becomes as important to the rest of the country as the killing of a white mother's son, we who believe in freedom cannot rest."
Ella Baker (1964) [22]
"What the people want is simple. They want an America as good as its promise."
Barbara C. Jordan (1977) [23]
"Hate begets hate; violence begets violence; toughness begets a greater toughness. We must meet the forces of hate with the power of love...Our aim must never be to defeat or humiliate the white man, but to win his friendship and understanding."
MLK (1958) [24]
Protestors celebrating as an automotive store burns during the protests of Michael Brown’s shooting, 2014 [25]
Policemen yelling at media and demonstrators to stay back during an arrest,
August 19th, 2014 [26]
"We believe in law and order. We are not advocating violence. We want to love our enemies. If I am stopped, our work will not stop, for what we are doing is right."
MLK (1956) [27]
"Segregation...not only harms one physically but injures one spiritually...It scars the soul...It is a system which forever stares the segregated in the face, saying 'You are less than...''You are not equal to...'"
MLK [28]
Greensboro Lunch Counter Sit-in: North Carolina, 1960 [29]
MLK’s March on Washington, August 1963 [30]
"Sixty-five years have passed, and I still remember the face of young Emmett Till. ... Despite real progress, I can't help but think of young Emmett today as I watch video after video after video of unarmed Black Americans being killed, and falsely accused. My heart breaks for these men and women, their families and the country that let them down—again. My fellow Americans, this is a special moment in our history. Just as people of all faiths and no faiths, and all backgrounds, creeds and colors banded together decades ago to fight for equality and justice in a peaceful, orderly, nonviolent fashion, we must do so again."
John Lewis (2020) [31]