Simone Campbell Quotes

Sometimes things need to get really bad before they can ever get better. Really bad can become untenable if enough people get sick of it. That was a big thing about why I ended up taking part in that rally [against police brutality] and ended up voicing my opinion and declaring what side I was standing on.

It's the people who are doing the nonviolent organizing at the grassroots that make me think there's still hope.

We need people to be alert and thinking for themselves and connected to each other and connected to that sense of hope and empowerment and radical chutzpah that the founding generation had and intended us to have.

We are intent on building a movement. The next step is grassroots town meetings. We must keep alive the dialogue around the covenants.

The great news is that that sort of group of people and that sort of sensibility is beginning to become more active again. And I think partly it just has to do with the time. It has to do with the culture of resistance. The necessity is for us to pull together and to speak up and to make work and be visible.

We just have to convince other people that they have power. This is what they can do by participating to make change, not only in their community, but many times changing in their own lives. Once they participate, they get their sense of power.

It's not enough to raise awareness. You have to give people solutions, and you have to invite them to get involved in whatever way they can, whether that's doing volunteer work or taking a portion of their salary and figuring out where they want that money to go. You have to find ways to inspire people to get involved.

These people in Mississippi State, they are not "down"; all they need is a chance. And I am determined to give my part not for what the Movement can do for me, but what I can do for the Movement to bring about a change in the State of Mississippi.

Prior to the internet, the last technology that had any real effect on the way people sat down and talked together was the table

I don't want to sound like some old person pining for how things used to be, because I'm not. But walking down the street, for example, used to be a public activity; you'd see the other people.

We the people are the change makers.

The so-called resistance is very broad and we don't agree on everything, but there's a moment of opportunity when people are paying attention. It's time for us to really get serious about political education and about our own moral education in this moment, and to seize this opportunity to organize and be in deep dialogue with a whole lot of people who never even thought about being politically engaged or active before. There's real hope there and real opportunity.

Perseverance is my biggest lesson. When I started to get involved in environmental protection some years ago, my people did not take it seriously and they never considered it important. But today, people look at what I do and they truly recognize those efforts, and eventually they join you as "environmental activists" too!

There are many issues, as everyone knows, in the United States on which public opinion leans very much to the left of elite policy, but that's because public opinion hasn't been turned into a political force.

My kids have lived experiences that could have never been duplicated otherwise. That's one thing about people who get involved in activism, you live so many experiences that otherwise they wouldn't be there. This is why peoples' lives are so enriched.

If people were silent, nothing would change.

Right now everyone is able to have a real voice and have it be nice and loud. Being loud is a really important thing right now. It's an amazing thing to watch. It's important because making noise makes change.

Everyone can make a real difference. Your voice is needed in a global movement that can change their world.

History is instructive. And what it suggests to people is that even if they do little things, if they walk on the picket line, if they join a vigil, if they write a letter to their local newspaper. Anything they do, however small, becomes part of a much, much larger sort of flow of energy. And when enough people do enough things, however small they are, then change takes place.

When millions of people stand up and fight...they win.

I'm somebody who works within Cambodia, with Cambodians. I work alongside the artists and society to work from within, so that is the focus, and from that I hope everybody who believes in democracy, in certain freedoms, will get louder, will grow their voices.

Where progress has been made, wherever any kind of injustice has been overturned, it’s been because people acted as citizens, and not as politicians. They didn’t just moan. They worked, they acted, they organized, they rioted if necessary to bring their situation to the attention of people in power. And that’s what we have to do today.

You cannot build a grass-roots campaign unless you are connecting with people.

I spend as little time with lawmakers as possible. Many are great. And more than you expect want real change. But they're not going to do anything till we, the outsiders, force them to adopt it.