“Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced.” – James Baldwin
June 12, 2020
“Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced.” – James Baldwin
“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word ‘love’ here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace – not in the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” – James Baldwin, “The Fire Next Time”
“Well, if one really wishes to know how justice is administered in a country, one does not question the policemen, the lawyers, the judges, or the protected members of the middle class. One goes to the unprotected – those, precisely, who need the law’s protection most! – and listens to their testimony. Ask any Mexican, any Puerto Rican, any black man, any poor person – ask the wretched how they fare in the halls of justice, and then you will know, not whether or not the country is just, but whether or not it has any love for justice, or any concept of it. It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.” – James Baldwin
“I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hate so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.” – James Baldwin, “The Fire Next Time”
“We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was ‘well timed’ in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word ‘Wait!’ It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This ‘Wait’ has almost always meant ‘Never.’ We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that ‘justice too long delayed is justice denied.’ “ – Martin Luther King, Jr., “Letter From A Birmingham Jail”
Gearing Up stands in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. We renew our commitment to listen, learn, speak out, and take action against the forces of racism and injustice. Change comes from within.
Please click here or visit https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/ to sign petitions, text or call your representatives, donate, or learn more.
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