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The road toward equality of freedom is not easy, and great cost and danger march alongside us. We are committed to peaceful and nonviolent change, and that is important for all to understand - though all change is unsettling. Still, even in the turbulence of protest and struggle is greater hope for the future, as men learn to claim and achieve for themselves the rights formerly petitioned from others.

Robert Kennedy#17

FreedomEqualityNonviolenceProtest

About this quote

What does it mean?
Equality requires difficult nonviolent struggle but offers hope for future rights.
In plain terms
Freedom takes hard work and danger but protest brings hope.
What can you take from it?
Nonviolent struggle is essential for achieving freedom.

Where it applies

  • civil rights movements
  • social justice
  • political reform

Putting it to work

  • peaceful protest
  • advocacy
  • community organizing

Questions to consider

  • Is change always unsettling?
  • How do you sustain hope in struggle?

Another view

Nonviolent change can take generations to achieve.

More from Robert Kennedy

  1. The essential humanity of men can be protected and preserved only where government must answer - not just to the wealthy, not just to those of a particular rel…

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  2. All do not develop in the same manner, or at the same pace. Nations, like men, often march to the beat of different drummers, and the precise solutions of the …

    Permalink to quote #18
  3. This is a Day of Affirmation, a celebration of liberty. We stand here in the name of freedom. At the heart of that Western freedom and democracy is the belief …

    Permalink to quote #15

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