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Their words

Quotes on justice

128 quotes from the leaders of Africa and its diaspora.

“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.”
Desmond Tutu South Africa
“If yesterday I fought as an enemy, today you have become a friend and ally with the same national interest, loyalty, rights and duties as myself.”
Robert Mugabe Zimbabwe
“I will treat with the governor only as an equal — never as his subject.”
Queen Nzinga Angola
“We will not be silenced; the women of Africa will claim their rightful place.”
Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti Nigeria
“It is not enough to speak of human rights in the formal sense of freedom of speech, freedom from arrest and that sort of thing. We must also speak of freedom from hunger, freedom from disease, freedom from living under a leaking roof.”
Yoweri Museveni Uganda
“"They said, 'You are a savage and dangerous woman.' I am speaking the truth. And the truth is savage and dangerous."”
Nawal El Saadawi Egypt
“What we did for the Christians, we did to be faithful to Islamic law and out of respect for human rights.”
Emir Abdelkader Algeria
“Government is an institution which prevents injustice other than such as it commits itself.”
Ibn Khaldun Tunisia
“What is this, father Amun? Is it right for a father to ignore his son?”
Ramesses II Egypt
“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
Martin Luther King Jr. United States
“I had decided that I would have to know once and for all what rights I had as a human being and a citizen, even in Montgomery, Alabama.”
Rosa Parks United States
“Truth is powerful and it prevails.”
Sojourner Truth United States
“The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.”
Ida B. Wells United States
“Freedom is never granted; it is won. Justice is never given; it is exacted.”
A. Philip Randolph United States
“I make no claim to lay out any doctrines here. I am neither a messiah nor a prophet. I possess no truths.”
Thomas Sankara Burkina Faso
“Without dignity there is no freedom, without justice there is no dignity and without independence there are no free men.”
Patrice Lumumba DR Congo
“It is never shameful to be poor and to try to borrow to build my country… The shame is to suck the blood of peoples and suck away their rights.”
Gamal Abdel Nasser Egypt
“There can be no real peace and security until there be first justice enjoyed by all the inhabitants of that beautiful land.”
Desmond Tutu South Africa
“The wrongs of the past must now stand forgiven and forgotten.”
Robert Mugabe Zimbabwe
“My country has been turned by the Verwoerd Government into a huge prison.”
Miriam Makeba South Africa
“He left me to deputize for him and embarked on the Atlantic Ocean with his men. That was the last we saw of him and all those who were with him, and so I became king in my own right.”
Mansa Musa Mali
“The constitution contained in the Bill before us is the product of negotiation and compromise. Yet the central tenets of a democratic, just and equitable society remain uncompromised, because freedom is non-negotiable.”
Cyril Ramaphosa South Africa
“It doesn't escape me for one moment that so much joy in my life is thanks to so much pain in someone else's.”
Lupita Nyong'o Kenya
“Every time I stay true to myself, it just always goes right.”
Tems Nigeria
“They are seldom unjust, and have a greater abhorrence of injustice than any other people… There is complete security in their country. Neither traveller nor inhabitant in it has anything to fear from robbers or men of violence.”
Ibn Battuta Morocco
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
Martin Luther King Jr. United States
“We want freedom by any means necessary. We want justice by any means necessary. We want equality by any means necessary.”
Malcolm X United States
“What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim.”
Frederick Douglass United States
“There was one of two things I had a right to, liberty, or death; if I could not have one, I would have de oder; for no man should take me alive.”
Harriet Tubman United States
“The time had just come when I had been pushed as far as I could stand to be pushed, I suppose.”
Rosa Parks United States
“Power, not reason, is the new currency of this Court's decisionmaking.”
Thurgood Marshall United States
“Africa doesn't need strongmen, it needs strong institutions.”
Barack Obama United States
“I ain't got no quarrel with them Vietcong.”
Muhammad Ali United States
“Prisons do not disappear problems, they disappear human beings.”
Angela Davis United States
“…a victory for democracy in Jackson will be a victory for democracy everywhere.”
Medgar Evers United States
“I've just proven to the world that you can do it clean, with hard work and determination.”
Usain Bolt Jamaica
“I, the man of color, want only this: That the tool never possess the man. That the enslavement of man by man cease forever.”
Frantz Fanon Martinique / Algeria
“You can put me down as an expert on being a colored American, with 30 years of experience at it.”
Jackie Robinson United States
“People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.”
James Baldwin United States
“Unkindness to anything means an injustice done to that thing.”
George Washington Carver United States
“I wake up every morning in a house that was built by slaves, and I watch my daughters — two beautiful, intelligent, black young women — playing with their dogs on the White House lawn.”
Michelle Obama United States
“Independence is only the prelude to a new and more involved struggle for the right to conduct our own economic and social affairs.”
Kwame Nkrumah Ghana
“Today, citizens, we say: this is our money, returned to us. These are our rights, about which we kept silent, come back to us.”
Gamal Abdel Nasser Egypt
“If ever we look to the past, let us do so for the lesson the past has taught us, namely that oppression and racism are inequities that must never again find scope in our political and social system.”
Robert Mugabe Zimbabwe
“I have not the slightest doubt that these arms will be used against the African women and children.”
Miriam Makeba South Africa
“Almighty God did not create a weak brain for a woman and a highly capable brain for a man.”
Samia Suluhu Hassan Tanzania
“We have to be strict, but it is not a question of money. […] We must look for solutions all together.”
Samuel Eto'o Cameroon
“The schools in Nigeria would rather teach you another man's history than your own.”
Burna Boy Nigeria
“All lives are sacred and must be protected. … I am calling on world leaders to come together and prevent the slaughter of innocent souls. Humanity must prevail.”
Mohamed Salah Egypt
“My generation cannot understand how Africa, with so much wealth beneath our soil, with a generous nature, water and sunshine in abundance, is today the poorest continent.”
Ibrahim Traoré Burkina Faso
“We declare our right on this earth to be a man, to be a human being, to be respected as a human being…”
Malcolm X United States
“The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed.”
Frederick Douglass United States
“Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go ten thousand miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs…?”
Muhammad Ali United States
“The vote is the most powerful nonviolent change agent you have in a democratic society. You must use it because it is not guaranteed. You can lose it.”
John Lewis United States
“The years of change are upon us. In the racial picture things will never be as they once were. History has reached a turning point, here and over the world.”
Medgar Evers United States
“…when we say “All Power to the People,” we mean to convey a sense of deep respect and love for the people, and the idea that the people deserve complete truth and honesty.”
Huey P. Newton United States
“The time was fast approaching when the first should be last and the last should be first.”
Nat Turner United States
“It was not to liberty, that goddess of all, that mothers sacrificed their children: it was to the ambition, the selfishness, the pride of one man.”
Alexandre Dumas France
“Negroes were stirred up long before there was a Communist Party, and they'll stay stirred up long after the party has disappeared — unless Jim Crow has disappeared by then as well.”
Jackie Robinson United States
“Oppressive language does more than represent violence; it is violence; does more than represent the limits of knowledge; it limits knowledge.”
Toni Morrison United States
“The one quality all of them seem to share is an ability to maintain hope for a brighter morning, even during our darkest nights.”
Oprah Winfrey United States
“I want peace. Happiness. Not only for myself. For everybody. If I get it for myself I can't have peace. When everybody has peace then I will have peace.”
Fela Kuti Nigeria
“Democracy is never mob-rule. It is and should remain disciplined rule requiring compliance with the law and social rules.”
Robert Mugabe Zimbabwe
“Knowledge is a natural right of every human being of which no one has the right to deprive him or her under any pretext…”
Muammar Gaddafi Libya
“I ask you and all the leaders of the world: Would you act differently? Would you keep silent and do nothing if you were in our place?”
Miriam Makeba South Africa
“The Rwandan story shows how much power human beings have within them. Whatever power you do have, you might as well use it to tell the truth and do what is right.”
Paul Kagame Rwanda
“Freedom and democracy are the foundation of peace in a country… there is no freedom or democracy that is not protected and governed by laws, procedures and regulations.”
Samia Suluhu Hassan Tanzania
“Military coups are wrong, as is any tilted civilian political arrangement that perpetuates injustice.”
Bola Tinubu Nigeria
“There are so many situations where a fight needs to be had. A revolution is needed, and I want to inspire it.”
Burna Boy Nigeria
“You have two choices: to tell the people that they are right to put you on the bench, or to prove them wrong. I needed to prove them wrong.”
Mohamed Salah Egypt
“Any peace not built on justice and on the recognition of the rights of the peoples, would be a structure of sand which would crumble under the first blow.”
Anwar Sadat Egypt
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
Martin Luther King Jr. United States
“Human rights are something you were born with. Human rights are your God-given rights. Human rights are the rights that are recognized by all nations of this earth.”
Malcolm X United States
“I made up my mind that I would not give in any longer to legally-imposed racial segregation.”
Rosa Parks United States
“We have no right to sit silently by while the inevitable seeds are sown for a harvest of disaster to our children, black and white.”
W. E. B. Du Bois United States
“…I would permit no man, no matter what his colour might be, to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.”
Booker T. Washington United States
“In light of the sorry history of discrimination and its devastating impact on the lives of Negroes, bringing the Negro into the mainstream of American life should be a state interest of the highest order.”
Thurgood Marshall United States
“Nobody should be president for life. And your country is better off if you have new blood and new ideas.”
Barack Obama United States
“It is in the light of my consciousness as a Muslim minister and my own personal convictions that I take my stand in rejecting the call to be inducted.”
Muhammad Ali United States
“The Negro has been here in America since 1619, a total of 344 years. He is not going anywhere else; this country is his home.”
Medgar Evers United States
“We must leave racial battle ground and come to economic common ground and moral higher ground.”
Jesse Jackson United States
“America's democracy is not guaranteed. It is only as strong as our willingness to fight for it, to guard it and never take it for granted.”
Kamala Harris United States
“So, too, with survival programs, which are emergency services. In themselves they do not change social conditions, but they are life-saving vehicles until conditions change.”
Huey P. Newton United States
“Nelson Mandela was one of the most influential people in my life. He was my hero, my friend, and also a companion to me in our fight for the people and for world peace.”
Pelé Brazil
“I respectfully remind you sir, that we have been the most patient of all people.”
Jackie Robinson United States
“It's important, therefore, to know who the real enemy is, and to know the function, the very serious function of racism, which is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work.”
Toni Morrison United States
“It is fundamental that nature will drive away those who commit sins against it.”
George Washington Carver United States
“Girls are capable of doing everything men are capable of doing. Sometimes they have more imagination than men.”
Katherine Johnson United States
“Those who led us into debt were gambling, as if they were in a casino. As long as they were winning, there was no problem. Now that they're losing their bets, they demand repayment.”
Thomas Sankara Burkina Faso
“Apart from the Kingdom of the Lord there is not on this earth any nation that is superior to any other… God and history will remember your judgment.”
Haile Selassie Ethiopia
“Having looked the beast of the past in the eye … let us shut the door on the past – not in order to forget it but in order not to allow it to imprison us.”
Desmond Tutu South Africa
“The Preamble says that all nations, small or large, are equal. Are we equal when it comes to the permanent seats? No, we are not equal.”
Muammar Gaddafi Libya
“I am not a politician, but I am a South African who feels and who knows where I come from… I merely sing the truth.”
Miriam Makeba South Africa
“As the first female President in the history of my country, the burden of expectation to deliver gender equality is heavier on my shoulder.”
Samia Suluhu Hassan Tanzania
“We must let the people decide, and then we must respect their decision. That is indeed the true essence of democracy.”
George Weah Liberia
“I want the younger generations and our children to know the truth and have their foundation in the truth as opposed to in the lies of Europeans and colonial masters.”
Burna Boy Nigeria
“Colorism is the daughter of racism in a world that rewards lighter skin over darker skin.”
Lupita Nyong'o Kenya
“We need to sit together and speak about it to make sure it is the first and last time.”
Didier Drogba Côte d'Ivoire
“Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love.”
Martin Luther King Jr. United States
“We need to expand the civil-rights struggle to a higher level — to the level of human rights.”
Malcolm X United States
“I felt that it was not right to be deprived of freedom when we were living in the Home of the Brave and Land of the Free.”
Rosa Parks United States
“The true miracle was not the birth of the Constitution, but its life, a life nurtured through two turbulent centuries of our own making.”
Thurgood Marshall United States
“He wants the public schools and colleges desegregated so that his children can receive the best education that Mississippi has to offer.”
Medgar Evers United States
“Get up, stand up, stand up for your rights.”
Bob Marley Jamaica
“17 million Negroes cannot do as you suggest and wait for the hearts of men to change. We want to enjoy now the rights that we feel we are entitled to as Americans.”
Jackie Robinson United States
“A State in the grip of neo-colonialism is not master of its own destiny.”
Kwame Nkrumah Ghana
“That until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned… the dream of lasting peace and world citizenship and the rule of international morality will remain but a fleeting illusion.”
Haile Selassie Ethiopia
“Colonization should be punished. The countries that harmed other peoples during the colonial era should pay compensation for the damage and suffering inflicted under their colonial rule.”
Muammar Gaddafi Libya
“The level of vaccine inequity that we see is appalling… We tend to forget that nobody is safe until everyone is safe.”
Samia Suluhu Hassan Tanzania
“Let there be no more wars or bloodshed between Arabs and Israelis. Let there be no more suffering or denial of rights. Let there be no more despair or loss of faith.”
Anwar Sadat Egypt
“We return. We return from fighting. We return fighting.”
W. E. B. Du Bois United States
“Selma shows us that America is not the project of any one person. Because the single-most powerful word in our democracy is the word “We.””
Barack Obama United States
“When you see something that is not right, not just, not fair, you have a moral obligation to say something, to do something.”
John Lewis United States
“…we are in a righteous struggle. We are living in a great day, a momentous day, a glorious day…”
Medgar Evers United States
“We're not often taught their stories. But as Americans, we all stand on their shoulders.”
Kamala Harris United States
“I am far from all those ideas, from this Front National. … Extremes are never good.”
Zinedine Zidane France / Algeria
“I cannot stand and sing the anthem. I cannot salute the flag; I know that I am a black man in a white world.”
Jackie Robinson United States
“Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.”
James Baldwin United States
“There is no true social revolution without the liberation of women. May my eyes never see… a society where half the people are held in silence.”
Thomas Sankara Burkina Faso
“We shall bring about not the peace of rifles and bayonets, but the peace of hearts and goodwill.”
Patrice Lumumba DR Congo
“My humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up, in yours. We belong in a bundle of life. We say, 'A person is a person through other persons.'”
Desmond Tutu South Africa
“I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality.”
Martin Luther King Jr. United States
“I would unite with anybody to do right; and with nobody to do wrong.”
Frederick Douglass United States
“We claim for ourselves every single right that belongs to a freeborn American, political, civil, and social; and until we get these rights we will never cease to protest and assail the ears of America.”
W. E. B. Du Bois United States
“The legal system can force open doors and sometimes even knock down walls. But it cannot build bridges. That job belongs to you and me.”
Thurgood Marshall United States
“We want freedom. We want power to determine the destiny of our Black community.”
Huey P. Newton United States
“You can be kind and true and fair and generous and just, and even merciful, occasionally. But to be that thing time after time, you have to really have courage.”
Maya Angelou United States
“It comes as a great shock around the age of 5, 6, or 7 to discover that the flag to which you have pledged allegiance, along with everybody else, has not pledged allegiance to you.”
James Baldwin United States