Quotes About Empowerment

The panel was selected from the voting rolls, and, since candidates running for office seldom represent the interests of Black and poor people, Blacks and the poor don't vote. But failing to vote means they don't sit on juries.

He told the jury that i was hiding the fact that i had big fat arms like the woman who was shown robbing the bank, that i was concealing my arms because i had not worn a sleeveless dress in kourt (the trial was held in the middle of January). As he was talking, i politely rolled up my sleeves right there in the kourtroom, exposing my very thin arms.

I have been locked by the lawless. Handcuffed by the haters. Gagged by the greedy. And, if i know any thing at all, it's that a wall is just a wall and nothing more at all. It can be broken down.

were alive and we were excited and we believed that we were going to be free someday.

Wear your scars like jewelry cause they were bought with blood.

I decided on Assata Olugbala Shakur. Assata means "She who struggles," Olugbala means "Love for the people," and i took the name Shakur out of respect for Zayd and Zayd's family. Shakur means "the thankful.

Just because you believe in self-defense doesn't mean you let yourself be sucked into defending yourself on the enemy's terms.

To win we have got to wear down our oppressors, little by little, and at the same time, strengthen our forces, slowly but surely.

Something has been happening to me, a change that has been a long time coming. I want to be real. Am I the only bad-doing, hand-to-mouth, barely-making-it Black woman there? The struggle I've been going through and the struggle I've been seeing is too hard to lie about and I don't even want to try. I want to help free the ghetto, not run away from it, leaving my people behind. I don't want to style and profile in front of nobody.

Judge Bachman

Our desire to be free has got to manifest itself in everything we are and do. We have accepted too much of a negative lifestyle and a negative culture and have to consciously act to rid ourselves of that negative influence.

a wall is just a wall and nothing more at all. It can be broken down.

After a while, people just think oppression is the normal state of things. But to become free, you have to be acutely aware of being a slave.

and, if i know any thing at all, it's that a wall is just a wall and nothing more at all. It can be broken down

Nobody is going to give you the education you need to overthrow them.

Revolution is about change, and the first place the change begins is in yourself

Je suis féministe parce que je suis Algérienne

How shall I find the strength to tear off my veil unless I have to use it to bandage the running sore nearby from which words exude?

You may not control life's circumstances, but getting to be the author of your life means getting to control what you do with them.

a spiritual gift as a unique, God-given ability for service.

Life would move on with or without me, and I didn't need to change myself in order to be beautiful, or happy, or worthly of love. I already was.

Black women sharing close ties with each other, politically or emotionally, are not the enemies of Black men.

It's a struggle but that's why we exist, so that another generation of Lesbians of color will not have to invent themselves, or their history, all over again.

When we create out of our experiences, as feminists of color, women of color, we have to develop those structures that will present and circulate our culture.