14 Inspiring Quotes About Justice and Equality From Civil Rights Icons Past and Present

Updated on Feb. 6, 2022: This piece has been updated to reflect the exoneration of Muhammad Aziz and the late Khalil Islam on Nov. 18, 2021.

Malcolm X was shot and killed 56 years ago, on Feb. 21, while addressing a crowd in New York City’s Audubon Ballroom. His death sent shockwaves across the country, and three people were quickly arrested — including Muhammad A. Aziz (then Norman 3X Butler) and Khalil Islam (then Thomas 15X Johnson). The men always maintained their innocence but were wrongly convicted. Represented by the Innocence Project and civil rights attorney David Shanies, they were finally exonerated on Nov. 18, 2021.

On the same tragic day of Malcolm X’s assassination, a young Black organizer from Alabama named John Lewis turned 25. Only a few months later, Lewis would make history by leading protesters across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, and would himself become a civil rights icon. 

Their struggles — and the struggles of countless Black Americans — helped advance justice and equality in the United States. But, despite this progress in voting rights and desegregation, the fight for fair and equal treatment of Black people across this country continues today.

At the Innocence Project, we work daily to advance justice and equality for all because as Martin Luther King, Jr., famously said “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” And through our work to free the innocent, prevent wrongful conviction, and hold the system accountable, we strive to bend that arc closer to justice.