Top 184 Quotes & Sayings by Al Sharpton - Page 3

We may switch presidents, but we`re just going to switch legs and keep on marching.

Senator [Jeff] Sessions says people, cities sign these decrees because they don`t want to be sued by the justice department, as if he is, in some ways, questioning whether the things that are in these decrees are necessary and warranted.

When you're dealing with boycotts, you don't need everyone. You just need enough to be effective.

John Lewis we all know was beaten terribly, almost to an inch of his life, opened doors that will never be closed, although there are forces that are attempting to close those doors.

I can't see how an unarmed man rejecting a drug deal ended up dead.

I cannot imagine where we would have been without BET. Many like me who operate in black America can only get our balanced story told nationally on BET talk shows.

I`m very cautious about what appears to be things put in place that will begin to roll back some of the progress that I believe we`ve made.

I`m very cautious and very concerned about what I have initially seen, but I also believe we`ve got to organize like we have never organized before.We talk about it, but realistically, we`ve got to organize at the grassroots level.

I wanted to say to Governor Dean, don't be hard on yourself about hooting and hollering. If I had spent the money you did and got 18 percent, I'd still be in Iowa hooting and hollering.

We've got to look toward two years from now [January 2017] to at least provide some balance in congress.

I haven't done the things I've done to be in a sitcom.

This is not just an agreement for the police department, this is an agreement that gets the police department working with the community and the community understanding its role as it continues to work with the police department.

As I ran for president, I hoped that one child would come out of the ghetto like I did, could look at me walk across the stage with governors and senators and know they didn't have to be a drug dealer, they didn't have to be a hoodlum, they didn't have to be a gangster. They could stand up from a broken home, on welfare, and they could run for president of the United States.

Let me just say that we are under the consent decree. There are people in our city [Baltimore] along with the police department and advocates who believe that this is absolutely the right thing to do.

They tried to say that being gay is a sin, and I said that adultery is a sin. Adultery is responsible for breaking up more marriages, but do we put that in the Constitution? It’s absurd.

John Lewis is an icon in our society.

My dad challenged every president from President [Dwight] Eisenhower and Vice President [Richard] Nixon to President [J.F] Kennedy, Vice President [Lindon] Johnson to President Johnson and Vice President [Hubert] Humphrey. It`s challenging the administrations to do the right thing.

It is time to bring down the volume and bring up the program.

Any use of the names of Eric Garner and Michael Brown, in connection with any violence or killing of police, is reprehensible and against the pursuit of justice in both cases.

If I use the media, even with tricks, to publicize a black youth being shot in the back in Teaneck, New Jersey... then I should be praised for it, and it's more of a comment on them than me that it would take tricks to make them cover the loss of life.

Crime is going down everywhere but in the New York City Police Department.

I feel that it is our moral obligation to stand and to be courageous with these families, and particularly Cindy, that have become the conscience of this nation.

We won`t back down! We won`t be trumped!

I do believe that the party has a bunch of elephants running around in donkey clothes.

We blacks had problems in the '60s and we solved them by marching. We've still got problems - let's march.

I always go by instinct and then wrestle with where by instinct brought me.

First and foremost, that I will, obviously, be the president of all the people, as opposed to one segment. When you look at some of the appointments, there`s great concern because does it really represent all the people, and somehow figuring out how to bring the nation together.

It`s a difficult thing for a city to be sued by the department of justice and to be told that your police department is systematically failing to serve the people of the state or the city.

I think first of all, the United States has got to adopt a policy of befriending and creating allies around the world.

When the civil rights community raised a lot of concerns around the nomination of Mr. Sessions, Senator Sessions, one of the things was that he`s on record of saying things intrusive, like voting rights,that he doesn`t believe the federal government should interfere with local policing, almost like states` rights kind of rhetoric.

We`re going to continue to move forward and fight. I just think that, unfortunately, the president-elect [Donald Trump] has chosen to address every issue.

There are now that 20 consent decrees in place like the one in Baltimore that are helping put broken police departments on a path to reform. And this is long work. Baltimore is just embarking down this road.

We must become the United States of America that represents every community, that represents every individual. And we will ultimately become a stronger nation, but right now we are a divided nation.

The GOP's freak out over Donald Trump. Just two months to Iowa, can anyone stop him?

A war of words escalated between the president-elect and a civil rights icon. Donald Trump fired back at democratic Congressman John Lewis after Lewis said he did not see Trump as a legitimate president.

If a cop sees a person running out of a store with a gun he's seeing a crime. He's not seeing a person standing.

People have a right to be nervous and fearful. They heard what Trump said during the campaign and are wondering if he`ll follow through on his promises.

One of the things that`s offensive is saying in the fifth district there`s nothing going on. This is a very vast district. The congressman happens to represent me. And while there are always more things that we can do in every community, this is a very diverse district with all kinds of wonderful things.

The unfortunate part is there`s not enough balance in the legislative chambers, and particularly the senate that has to do that confirmation for there to be enough pushback.

People in the age of [President] Obama don't dress like they did in the age of [Lyndon] Johnson. That's for sure.

People working at the arenas are not just depending on one or two concerts. I think it gives a symbolic boost, as well as those shows do bring down some monetary investments in the city.

I`m deeply concerned about Jeff Sessions, who has clearly expressed opposition to the use of consent decrees and has advanced a lot of this states` rights rhetoric.

I`m not as concerned about what Mr. [Jeff] Sessions expressed, except for the fact that he did say that, you know, these things would be enforced.

I've never seen an effective boycott that didn't work.

The Democratic Party hasn't whipped anybody into a frenzy. The assumption is that the people that are marching and protesting and standing up against this don't have enough sense to stand up for their own interests.

So we want to make sure that happens is that we build a relationship with the police department and the community that results in better policing and better cooperation with the community.

I think that what we want to do as we continue to move forward is look at the various points that have been made.We`re looking forward to the appointment of a monitor so that we can continue to do some of the things that we`ve been doing.

President Obama telling Americans not to panic in the wake of the Paris terror attacks.

John Lewis being attacked as "talk, talk, talk" by president-elect [Donald] Trump because he said he didn`t consider him a legitimate president.

We cannot move forward or will not move forward if we are divided.

I think drugs affect poor people and people of color more than anyone.

I need to hear something about how he`s going to bring people together in the spirit, hopefully, of Martin Luther King Jr., and if that`s not heard, then we`ve got to constantly challenge him.

We just have to hope and pray that this man [Donald Trump] is changed in terms of how he views the world community.

Jeff Sessions, the person who`s likely to become our next attorney general, is striking a very different tone from our current attorney general, Loretta Lynch, who announced a consent decree with the city of Baltimore.

I remember the president-elect [Donald Trump] saying that I`m going to do something to dramatically, positively change communities, particularly in urban areas, and I think we`ve got to hold his feet to the fire to all those issues as well as all the issues that you addressed, you and many others addressed yesterday as it relates to criminal justice, as it relates to voting oppression.

I have the right to express myself. Once we get through expressing, do we really move forward in society.

It does not appear, nor is there any reason to believe that [ Jeff Sessions] will put policing reform front and center in the way that this justice department has, and that will mean that we cast aside eight years of hard work, blood, sweat and tears that have gone into bringing cities and mayors and communities to the table to address what truly is a national crisis.

When we look back at the last years of justice department, some of the most important work that will define its legacy is the work that was done to address the problem of policing reform. Almost two dozen investigations across the country over the last eight years into - not just Baltimore, but Chicago and Baltimore and New Orleans.

I think you don't support people based on one or two cases of situations. You deal with their balance over the long run.

I think everybody understood what happened, why this consent decree came about after the Freddie Gray situation. There was tension on both sides.