A. Philip Randolph Quotes

Americans have a tendency to exalt the concept of a popular uprising.

We are on the threshold of a significant breakthrough, and the greatest weapon is the mass demonstration.

Two's company and three's a crowd, but seven can be an uprising. And the seven can become 70 or 700 or 7000 very quickly if the sense of being wronged is felt broadly and truly enough.

All great movements are popular movements. They are the volcanic eruptions of human passions and emotions, stirred into activity by the ruthless Goddess of Distress or by the torch of the spoken word cast into the midst of the people.

America won't be saved because one or 10 people stand up. It will be saved because millions of us stand up.

Nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change.

This is a movement. This is not Trump. This is not anything. This is a movement. Remember, it is a movement. We used to say silent majority. It's not a silent majority, it's really a noisy majority.

Up to now, America has not been a good milieu for the rise of a mass movement. What starts out here as a mass movement ends up as a racket, a cult, or a corporation.

At the time I was arrested I had no idea it would turn into this. It was just a day like any other day. The only thing that made it significant was that the masses of the people joined in.

The revolution is like a vessel filled with the pulsating heartbeat of millions of working people.

I grew up with protests, marches, demonstrations, struggle. But I come from a clan of community workers.

The power of protest depends not only on how many turn out, but also on what legislative, judicial, and civil society institutions exist to enact the will of those marching in the streets.

If a huge number of people call for change, the government will have to react. If you want to avoid uprisings, or demonstrations, you need to respond to the people's desperate need for change.

When people come together in large numbers they become aware of their strength.

It is not leaders who make movements; it is movements that make leaders.

Government doesn’t always work the way its supposed to. Sometimes you have to use brute force, bring people together …

Only the people can build world history.

We are at the point where we can mobilize all of this righteous indignation into a powerful mass movement.

You cannot do anything without rousing the masses to action.

I believe that social change has almost reached critical mass. So many people have undergone personal transformation that their effect on society is having a geometric - not arithmetic - impact. This coalescence of energies brings about meeting, networking, and a sophistication in communications that is unprecedented in history.

Civil disobedience's main goal typically is to try to arouse and inspire others to join and do something. Well, sometimes that is a good tactic, sometimes not.

There is that much to be done that no select or small portion of people can do; only the greater mass of the Irish nation will ensure the achievement of a Socialist Republic, and this can only be done by hard work and sacrifice.

No one can stop a mass gathering of the people.

No one can create a movement. No one can create a Gandhi.

Mass civil disobedience can use rage as a constructive and creative force.