Top 75 Quotes & Sayings by Opal Tometi - Page 2

I have always felt like I want to change the course of history.

There was a time when my uncle was in an immigration detention center, and members of our community would take turns visiting him each weekend. That instilled in me the value of taking care of each other even if the systems aren't working in your favor.

I am the executive director of the Black Alliance for Just Immigration, which is the country's only national immigrant rights organization for black immigrants and African Americans. Being the daughter of Nigerian immigrants really drove me to do this type of work.

Without networks like the Black Immigration Network, organizations like Haitian Women for Haitian Refugees would not get the support and resources and amplification that their voices that they need and deserve.

I think the two-party system isn't working for us. And it hasn't worked for us for generations - let's be very, very honest about that.

I challenge us all to have the courage of our convictions to fight for a fair, justice and inclusive society.

My parents being from Nigeria deeply informs all my social justice and human rights work.

Being in the immigrant rights space, I've heard a lot of transactional talk with questions like, 'When will black people show up for immigrants?'

For the U.S., a nation that boasts of being the land of the free, it does not live up to its ideal.

If people take the fight for justice seriously in their own country and with partners and immigrants in their community and folks in the international community, I believe that we will see human rights for all people affirmed.

Let's demonstrate, illustrate, the ways in which our communities are being undermined time and time again, and make sure that the broader public and those in power choose to stand with us.

I often think of Audre Lorde and her saying that we don't live and we don't fight for one specific struggle.

Our communities are reeling from poverty, from unemployment, from discrimination of all sorts and different interactions that they're having with the law enforcement, and education system, and so on.

I was in awe of previous black liberation struggle leaders - Sojourner Truth, Ida B. Wells. I wanted to be part of something bigger than myself. Black Lives Matter has been that.

The reality is that anti-black racism is a global phenomenon, and it looks different in each context, but if you look at the outcomes, if you listen and look at the experiences, you will see that it's clear, and it's happening across the globe.