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A Race Of People Is Like And Individual Man; Until It Uses Its Own Talent, Takes Pride In Its Own History, Expresses Its Own Culture, Affirms Its Own Selfhood, It Can Never Fulfill Itself.

-Malcolm X

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A Race Of People

Malcolm X

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A Race Of People Is Like And Individual Man; Until It Uses Its Own Talent, Takes Pride In Its Own History, Expresses Its Own Culture, Affirms Its Own Selfhood, It Can Never Fulfill Itself.

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I'm For Truth, No Matter Who Tells It. I'm For Justice, No Matter Who It Is For Or Against. I'm A Human Being, First And Foremost, And As Such I'm For Whoever And Whatever Benefits Humanity As A Whole.

Now, The Black Man Here Was So-called Free By [abe] Lincoln 100 Years Ago. The Black Man In America Has An - Has A Purchasing Power Of 20 Billion Dollars. Now, And He's Educated.

I Think It's Possible For Me To Approach The Whole Problem With A Broader Scope.when You Look At Something Through An, An Organizational Eye, Whether It's A, A Religious Organization, Political Organization, Or A Civic Organization, If You Look At It Only Through The Eye Of That Organization, You See What The Organization Wants You To See. But You Lose Your Ability To Be Objective.

In All Our Deeds, The Proper Value And Respect For Time Determines Success Or Failure.

I Believe That A Psychological, Cultural, And Philosophical Migration Back To Africa Will Solve Our Problem.

We Were Truly All The Same (brothers) - Because Their Belief In One God Had Removed The White From Their Minds, The White From Their Behavior, And The White From Their Attitude.

You Can’t Hate The Roots Of The Tree Without Ending Up Hating The Tree. You Can’t Hate Your Origin Without Ending Up Hating Yourself. You Can’t Hate The Land, Your Motherland, The Place That You Come From, And We Can’t Hate Africa Without Ending Up Hating Ourselves. The Black Man In The Western Hemisphere—north America, Central America, South America, And In The Caribbean—is The Best Example Of How One Can Be Made, Skillfully, To Hate Himself That You Can Find Anywhere On This Earth.

They Came To This Country They, They Were Hungarians, They Were Communists From A Communist Country. And Right Now Those Hungarian Freedom Fighters Can Get Jobs That Student Sit-ins Can't Get. They Can Go And Sleep And Live In Hotels That Martin Luther King Himself Can't Live In.they Are Recognized And Respected Because They Are Fighters, Not Because They Are Sit-iners Or Freedom.

Because The Honorable Elijah Muhammad Makes Black People Brave Enough, Men Enough To Defend Ourselves No Matter What The Odds Are, The White Man Runs Around Here With A Doctrine That Mr. Muhammad Is Advocating The Violence When He Is Actually Telling Negroes To Defend Themselves Against Violent People.

One Of The First Things I Think Young People, Especially Nowadays, Should Learn Is How To See For Yourself And Listen For Yourself And Think For Yourself.

People Don't Realize How A Man's Whole Life Can Be Changed By One Book.

Racism Is A Human Problem And A Crime That Is Absolutely So Ghastly That A Person Who Is Fighting Racism Is Well Within His Rights To Fight Against It By Any Means Necessary Until It Is Eliminated.

What Martin Luther King Is Doing Is Disarming The Black People Of America Of Their God-given Right And Of Their Natural Right.

At The Bottom Of The Social Heap Is The Black Man In The Big-city Ghetto. He Lives Night And Day With The Rats And The Cockroaches And Drowns Himself With Alcohol And Anesthetizes Himself With Dope, To Try And Forget Where And What He Is. That Negro Has Given Up All Hope. He's The Hardest One For Us To Reach, Because He's The Deepest In The Mud. But When You Get Him, You've Got The Best Kind Of Muslim. I Look Upon Myself As A Prime Example Of This Category - As Graphic An Example As You Could Find Of The Salvation Of The Black Man.

The Media's The Most Powerful Entity On Earth. They Have The Power To Make The Innocent Guilty And To Make The Guilty Innocent, And That's Power. Because They Control The Minds Of The Masses.

You're Not Supposed To Be So Blind With Patriotism That You Can't Face Reality. Wrong Is Wrong, No Matter Who Says It.

Whoever Is Standing Up Telling The White Man That His Position Is Unjust And That The Black People Should Not Have To Wait For Any Supreme Court, Congress Or Senate To Legislate, Or Even The President To Issue Any Kind Of - Of A Proclamation To Better The Condition Of Our People, If A N - If He - If A, If A Negro Leader Is Standing Up, Making That Point Clear, Then He's All Right With Us.

If Martin Luther King, Roy Wilkins Or Any Of These Compromising Negros Who Say Exactly What The White Man Wants To Hear Is Interviewed Anywhere In The Country You Don't Get Anybody To Offset What They Say. But Whenever A Black Man Stands Up And Says Something That White People Don't Like Then The First Thing That Man Does Is Run Around To Try And Find Somebody To Say Something To Offset What Has Just Been Said. This Is Natural But It Is Done.

Anytime You Live In A Society Supposedly Based Upon Law And It Doesn't Enforce Its Own Laws Because The Color Of A Man's Skin Happens To Be Wrong, Then I Say Those People Are Justified To Resort To Any Means Necessary To Bring About Justice When The Government Can't Give Them Justice.

Just As The White Man And Every Other Person On This Earth Has God-given Rights, Natural Rights, Civil Rights, Any Kind Of Rights That You Can Think Of, When It Comes To Defending Himself, Black People - We Should Have The Right To Defend Ourselves Also.

Only Time [jf] Kennedy Made Any, Took Any Action To Even Look Like He Identified With Negroes Was When He Was Forced To. Kennedy Didn't Even Make His Speech Based On This Problem Being A Moral Issue Until Negroes Exploded In Birmingham.

The 22 Million Or 30 Million, Whatever The Case May Be, Afro-americans In The United States Were Still Africans.

To Tell A Woman Not To Talk Too Much Was Like Telling Jesse James Not To Carry A Gun, Or A Hen Not To Cackle.

What Is A Dixiecrat? A Democrat. A Dixiecrat Is Nothing But A Democrat In Disguise.

I Don't Believe In Any Form Of Unjustified Extremism! But When A Man Is Exercising Extremism -- A Human Being Is Exercising Extremism -- In Defense Of Liberty For Human Beings It's No Vice, And When One Is Moderate In The Pursuit Of Justice For Human Beings I Say He Is A Sinner.

I Am And Always Will Be A Muslim. My Religion Is Islam.

Reverend Galamison Is Fighting A Hard Battle Against Great Opposition, And I Admire A Man Who Fights A Hard Battle Against Great Opposition.

This Religion (islam) Recognizes All Men As Brothers. It Accepts All Human Beings As Equals Before God, And As Equal Members In The Human Family Of Mankind.

When You Want A Nation, That's Called Nationalism... Black Nationalism. A Revolutionary Is A Black Nationalist. He Wants A Nation.

No, We Are Not Anti-white. But We Don't Have Time For The White Man. The White Man Is On Top Already, The White Man Is The Boss Already ... He Has First-class Citizenship Already. So You Are Wasting Your Time Talking To The White Man. We Are Working On Our Own People.

Here I Am, Back In Mecca. I Am Still Traveling, Trying To Broaden My Mind, For I've Seen Too Much Of The Damage Narrow-mindedness Can Make Of Things, And When I Return Home To America, I Will Devote What Energies I Have To Repairing The Damage.

When The Whites Themselves Are Attacked, They Believe In Defending Themselves And Things Of That Sort.

Since Integration Is So Slow, And The White Man Knows The Problem Must Be Solved, The Only Thing That He Can Do Tomorrow Is, Is Separate, Because We're Already Separated.

Instead Of Working For White Man And Helping Him Hold Up A Government That Continues To Suppress Us Socially And, And Exploit Us Economically And Oppress Us Politically, Let Us Go And Enter Our Own Territory And Use Our Own Talents To Uplift Ourselves By Our Own Bootstraps. And Then He Will Recognize Us For What We Are.

I Believe It's A Crime For Anyone Who Is Being Brutalized To Continue To Accept That Brutality Without Doing Something To Defend Himself.

The Problem Of The Negro Is So Criminal That Many Individuals And Organizations Are Going To Have To Sacrifice What They Call Their Organizational Principles If Someone Comes Up With A Solution That Will Really Solve The Problem.

White People Whom I Have Met, Who Have Accepted Islam, They Don't Regard Themselves As White But As Human Beings.

Among Negroes We Have Negroes Who Are As White As Some White People. Still There's A Difference.

If This Government Can Send 20 Billion Dollars To Latin America To Some Peasants Who Have Never Fought For This Country Or Worked For This Country Or Have - Or - And Is Sending Hundreds Of Millions Of Dollars To Africa And Asia To Try And Buy Friendship Of People Who Will Never Be Friendly Toward Them, Then They Should Be Even More Quick To Spend Some - Whatever Amount Of Money Is Necessary To Get Inside Of Their House Straight, Before It's Too Late.

A New World Order Is In The Making, And It Is Up To Us To Prepare Ourselves That We May Take Our Rightful Place In It.

If It's Necessary To Form A Black Nationalist Army, We'll Form A Black Nationalist Army. It'll Be Ballot Or The Bullet. It'll Be Liberty Or It'll Be Death.

You Get Your Freedom By Letting Your Enemy Know That You'll Do Anything To Get It. Then You'll Get It. It's The Only Way You'll Get It.

I Am Not A Racist In Any Form Whatsoever. I Don't Believe In Any Form Of Discrimination Or Segregation.

These Negroes Who Go For Integration And Intermarriage Are Linking Up With The Very People Who Lynched Their Fathers, Raped Their Mothers, And Put Their Kid Sisters In The Kitchen To Scrub Floors.

They Cripple The Bird's Wing, And Then Condemn It For Not Flying As Fast As They.

I Think That The Black People In This Country Have The Reached The Point Where They Should Reserve The Right To Do Whatever Is Necessary To See That They Exercise Complete Control Over The Politicians In The Politician, In The Politics Of Their Own Community By Whatever Means Necessary.

I Find It Difficult [to Believe] That... Christians Accuse [black Muslims] Of Teaching Racial Supremacy Or... Hatred, Because Their Own History And... Teachings Are Filled With It.

New York White Youth Were Killing Victims; That Was A 'sociological' Problem. But When Black Youth Killed Somebody, The Power Structure Was Looking To Hang Somebody.

The Other Slaves In The Field Never Let That House Slave Knew - Know What They Were Really Thinking. If The House Slave Said, Well One Of These Days All Of Us Will Live In The Plantation, They Said, Uh Huh. They Went Along With Him. But If You Came Up To Them And Said, Let's Go, They Would Be Gone Just Like That.and In, In America You Have The Same Situation.you Have The Vast Masses Who Are Still Slaves.

[people] Earn Extra Money [in Prison] Selling Contraband, Dope, And Things Of That Sort To The Inmates, And So That Really It's An Exploiter.

Instead Of The Negro Leaders Having The Black Man Begging For A Chance To - To Dine In White Restaurants, The Negro Leader Should Be Showing The Black Man How To Do Something To Strengthen His Own Economy.

A Revolution Is Bloody, But America Is In A Unique Position. She's The Only Country In History In A Position Actually To Become Involved In A Bloodless Revolution. The Russian Revolution Was Bloody, Chinese Revolution Was Bloody, French Revolution Was Bloody, Cuban Revolution Was Bloody, And There Was Nothing More Bloody Then The American Revolution. But Today This Country Can Become Involved In A Revolution That Won't Take Bloodshed. All She's Got To Do Is Give The Black Man In This Country Everything That's Due Him, Everything.

[islam] Is Not Measured By The Color Of His Skin.

I Never Will Let Anyone Make, Maneuver Me Into Making A Distinction Between The Mississippi Form Of Discrimination And The New York City Form Of Discrimination. It's, It's Both Discrimination; It's All Discrimination.

Learn To See, Listen, And Think For Yourself.

Think For Yourself

By Any Means Necessary.

The Only Minority In America That's Asking For Integration Is The So-called Negro, Primarily Because He Is Inferior, Not Inherently Inferior, But He's Economically, Socially, Politically Inferior.

I've Never Seen A Sincere White Man, Not When It Comes To Helping Black People. Usually Things Like This Are Done By White People To Benefit Themselves. The White Man's Primary Interest Is Not To Elevate The Thinking Of Black People, Or To Waken Black People, Or White People Either. The White Man Is Interested In The Black Man Only To The Extent That The Black Man Is Of Use To Him. The White Man's Interest Is To Make Money, To Exploit.

Integration Will Not Bring A Man Back From The Grave.

I Am Not An American; I Am One Of Twenty-two Million Black People Who Are Victims Of Americanism.

Times Change So Quickly That If You And I Don't Keep Up With The Times, We'll Find Ourselves With An Umbrella In Our Hand, Over Our Head, When The Sun Is Out. Or We'll Find Ourselves Standing In The Rain, With The Umbrella Inside The Door.

I Am A Muslim And . . . My Religion Makes Me Be Against All Forms Of Racism. It Keeps Me From Judging Any Man By The Color Of His Skin. It Teaches Me To Judge Him By His Deeds And His Conscious Behavior. And It Teaches Me To Be For The Rights Of All Human Beings, But Especially The Afro-american Human Being, Because My Religion Is A Natural Religion, And The First Law Of Nature Is Self-preservation.

It's Hard For Anyone Intelligent To Be Nonviolent. Everything In The Universe Does Something When You Start Playing With His Life, Except The American Negro. He Lays Down And Says, 'beat Me, Daddy.'

I Believe In Recognizing Every Human Being As A Human Being--neither White, Black, Brown, Or Red; And When You Are Dealing With Humanity As A Family There's No Question Of Integration Or Intermarriage. It's Just One Human Being Marrying Another Human Being Or One Human Being Living Around And With Another Human Being.

I Have Been Blessed To Visit The Holy City Of Mecca.

I Think That If Essien Udom Had Something He Didn't Take It Back Far Enough In History To Get At The Proper Understanding Of It.

If You're Black, You Were Born In Jail, In The North As Well As The South. Stop Talking About The South. Long As You South Of The Canadian Border, You're South.

You Have A Race Problem That Must Be Solved, Or Else You Will Alienate Every Non-white Person On This Earth Within The Next Few Years, Or Within The Next Few Months.

The Black People Of America Have Been Victims Of Violence At The Hands Of The White Men For Four Hundred Years, And Following The Ignorant Negro Preachers, We Have Thought That It Was Godlike To Turn The Other Cheek To The Brute That Was Brutalizing Us.

Much Of What I Say Might Sound Like It's Stirring Up Trouble, But It's The Truth!

And When I Speak, I Don't Speak As A Democrat Or A Republican, Nor An American. I Speak As A Victim Of America's So-called Democracy. You And I Have Never Seen Democracy - All We've Seen Is Hypocrisy. When We Open Our Eyes Today And Look Around America, We See America Not Through The Eyes Of Someone Who Has Enjoyed The Fruits Of Americanism. We See America Through The Eyes Of Someone Who Has Been The Victim Of Americanism. We Don't See Any American Dream. We've Experienced Only The American Nightmare.

The Main Part Of The Tree Is The Root, And The Root Is Always Beneath The Ground. It Never Is Brought Out Into The Light.

I Asked Inmate In New York, Warden Fay At That Time If, If It Didn't Make A Better Inmate Out Of The Negroes Who Accepted It And He Said, "yes." So I Asked Him Then What Was It About It That He Considered To Be So Danger, And He, Dangerous, And He Pointed Out That It Was The Cohesiveness That It Produced Among The Inmates. They Stuck Together.

After Four Hundred Years Of Slave Labor, We Have Some Back Pay Coming, A Bill Owed To Us That Must Be Collected.

African American

Usually When People Are Sad, They Don't Do Anything. They Just Cry Over Their Condition. But When They Get Angry, They Bring About A Change.

Let's Cool It, Brothers.

In Stating That The Idea Of A Separate State Is Not Practical, I'm Also Stating That The Idea Of Integration, Forced Integration, As They've Been Making An Effort To Do In This Country For The Past Years, Is Also Just As Impractical.

Can You Accuse Me, If A Man Is Putting A Rope Around My Neck, Of Being Violent, When I Violently Struggle Against This Lyncher To Try And Keep Him From Putting A Rope Around My Innocent Neck? Why, You'd Be Insane To Cause Me - To Call Me Violent.

Negroes Just Can't Judge Each Other According To Color, Because We Are All Colors, All Complexions.

I Could Turn Around As Wyatt Walker Said To Me About, Not You Personally, But About The Whole Black Muslim Movement. That If You Go Outside Of New York City, Dr. [martin Luther] King Is Known To 90 Percent Of The Negroes In The United States And Is Respected And, And Is Identified More Or Less With Him, At Least As A Hero Of One Kind Or Another. That The Black Muslim, Outside Of One Or Two Communities Like New York, Are Unknown.

The Goal Of Martin Luther King Is To Get The Negroes To Forgive The People The People Who Have Brutalized Them For Four Hundred Years, By Lulling Them To Sleep And Making Them Forget What Those Whites Have Done To Them, But The Masses Of Black People Today Don't Go For What Martin Luther King Is Putting Down.

I Believe In Islam. I Am A Muslim And There Is Nothing Wrong With Being A Muslim, Nothing Wrong With The Religion Of Islam. It Just Teaches Us To Believe In Allah As The God.

Religion Of Islam

When You Go To A Church And You See The Pastor Of That Church With A Philosophy And A Program That's Designed To Bring Black People Together And Elevate Black People, Join That Church. Join That Church. If You See Where The Naacp Is Preaching And Practicing That Which Is Designed To Make Black Nationalism Materialize, Join The Naacp. Join Any Kind Of Organization, Civic, Religious, Fraternal, Political, Or Otherwise That's Based On Lifting The Black Man Up And Making Him Master Of His Own Community.

The Problem [ Of The Twenty-two Million Afro-americans] Is So Broad That It's Going To Take The Inner Working Of All Organizations.

I Don't Encourage Any Act Of Murder Nor Do I Glorify In Anybody's Death, But I Do Think That When The White Public Uses Its Press To Magnify The Fact That There Are The Lives Of White Hostages At Stake, They Don't Say "hostages," Every Paper Says "white Hostages." They Give Me The Impression That They Attach More Importance To A White Hostage And A White Death, Than They Do The Death Of A Human Being, Despite The Color Of His Skin.

To Have Once Been A Criminal Is No Disgrace. To Remain A Criminal Is The Disgrace

Only A Fool Would Let His Enemy Teach His Children.

The White Man Is By Nature A Devil And Must Be Destroyed.

It Is The Attitude Of The American White Man That Is Making Him Stand Condemned Today Before The Eyes Of The Entire Dark World And Even Before The Eyes Of The Europeans. It Is His Attitude, His Haughty, Holier-than-thou Attitude.

In Harlem, For Instance, All Of The Stores Are Owned By White People, All Of The Buildings Are Owned By White People. The Black People Are Just There - Paying Rent, Buying The Groceries; But They Don't Own The Stores, Clothing Stores, Food Stores, Any Kind Of Stores; Don't Even Own The Homes That They Live In. They Are All Owned By Outsiders, And For These Run-down Apartment Dwellings, The Black Man In Harlem Pays More Money Than The Man Down In The Rich Park Avenue Section.

When The People Who Are In Power Want To Use Again, Create An Image, To Justify Something That's Bad, They Use The Press. And They'll Use The Press To Create A Humanitarian Image, For A Devil, Or A Devil Image For A Humanitarian. They'll Take A Person Who's A Victim Of The Crime, And Make It Appear He's The Criminal, And They'll Take The Criminal And Make It Appear That He's The Victim Of The Crime.

It"s Good To Keep Wide-open Ears And Listen To What Everybody Else Has To Say, But When You Come To Make A Decision, You Have To Weigh All Of What You"ve Heard On Its Own, And Place It Where It Belongs, And Come To A Decision For Yourself; You"ll Never Regret It. But If You Form The Habit Of Taking What Someone Else Says About A Thing Without Checking It Out For Yourself, You"ll Find That Other People Will Have You Hating Your Friends And Loving Your Enemies.

America Preaches Integration And Practices Segregation.

I Don't Think You Can Having An Opportunity To Ride Either On The Front Or The Back Or In The Middle Of Someone Else's Bus Doesn't Dignify You.

I Remember One Thing That Marred This Time For Me; The Movie "gone With The Wind." When It Played In Mason [mi], I Was The Only Negro In The Theater, And When Butterfly Mcqueen Went Into Her Act, I Felt Like Crawling Under The Rug.

I Think That The Negro Should Reserve The Right To Execute.

I'm Inclined To Believe That Most Negro Leaders, Professional Negroes Are Professional Negroes. Being A Negro Is Their Professional, And Being A Profe - A Leader Is Their Profession. And Usually They Say Exactly What The White Man Wants - Wants To Hear Them Say.

If The Government Can't Get The Black Man Justice, Then It's Time For The Black Man To Get Some Justice For Himself.

If I Go Home And Someone, And My Child Has Blood Running Down Her Leg And Someone Tells Me That A Snake Bit Her, I'm Going Out And Kill The Snake. And When I Find The Snake, I'm Not Going To Look And See If He Has Blood On His Jaws.

No One Should Advocate Any Peaceful Suffering To Black People, Unless The Black - White Man Is Going To Practice The Same Kind Of Peaceful Suffering.

I Might Add, The Whites Who Came Here Only Say 50 Years Ago As Immigrants Have Come Into This Country, They Have Set Up Businesses. They've Developed These Businesses Into An Industry.

Either You Are A Citizen Or You Are Not A Citizen At All. If You Are Citizen, You Are Free; If Youre Not A Citizen You Are A Slave.

You Can't Hate The Roots Of A Tree And Not Hate The Tree.

We Who Follow The Honorable Elijah Muhammad Feel That When You Try And Pass Integration Laws Here In America, Forcing White People To Pretend That They Are Accepting Black People, What You Are Doing Is Making White People Act In A Hypocritical Way.

I Go For Mao Tse-tung Much More Than, Than Nehru Because I Think That Nehru Brought His Country Up In A Beggar's Role.

America's Greatest Crime Against The Black Man Was Not Slavery Or Lynching, But That He Was Taught To Wear A Mask Of Self-hate And Self-doubt.

America Just Reaped What It Had Been Sowing.

... The Young People Are The Ones Who Most Quickly Identify With The Struggle And The Necessity To Eliminate The Evil Conditions That Exist.

If He [uncle Sam] Can't Do This [integration], Then They Will - It Will Alienate Them. And All Of The Hundreds Of Millions Of Dollars Or Billions Of Dollars That He Has Sent Abroad Trying To Buy The Friendship Of The Dark World Will Go Right Down The Drain.

If You're Not Ready To Die For It, Put The Word 'freedom' Out Of Your Vocabulary.

If The So-called 'christianity' Now Being Practiced In America Displays The Best That World Christianity Has Left To Offer - No One In His Right Mind Should Need Any Much Greater Proof That Very Close At Hand Is The End Of Christianity.

The White Man Has Created A Devil, To Bring Chaos Upon This Earth.

Reform Is For People Who Have Government Connections, Revolution Is For The People!

If Someone Puts Their Hands On You Make Sure They Never Put Their Hands On Anybody Else Again.

Police Violence

Police Brutality

I'm Not Going To Sit At Your Table And Watch You Eat, With Nothing On My Plate, And Call Myself A Diner. Sitting At The Table Doesn't Make You A Diner.

African American

Today We Have A Modern Belshazzar And A Modern Pharaoh Sitting In Washington D.c.

You Can't Hate Your Origin And Not End Up Hating Yourself. You Can't Hate Africa And Not Hate Yourself.

I Was In Prison And I Was An Atheist. I Didn't Believe In Anything.

If The Ballot Doesn't Work, We'll Try Something Else. But Let Us Try The Ballot.

As Long As Negro Leader Is Making The White Man Think That Our People Are Satisfied To Sit In His House And Wait For Him To Correct These Conditions, He Is - He Is Misrepresenting The Thinking Of The Black Masses, And He's Doing The White Man A Disservice Because He's Making The White Man Be More Complacent Than He Would Be If He Knew The Dangerous Situation That Is Building Up Right Inside His Own House.

Dangerous Situations

There Were Always More Negroes In The Field Than There Was Negroes In The House. The Negro In The Field Caught Hell. He Ate Leftovers. In The House They Ate High Up On The Hog. The Negro In The Field Didn't Get Nothing But What Was Left Of The Insides Of The Hog. They Call 'em "chitt'lin'" Nowadays. In Those Days They Called Them What They Were: Guts. That's What You Were -- A Gut-eater. And Some Of You All Still Gut-eaters.

You're Living At A Time Of Extremism, A Time Of Revolution A Time Where There's Got To Be A Change. People In Power Have Misused It And Now There Has To Be A Change And A Better World Has To Be Built And The Only Way Is Going To Be Built Is With Extreme Methods And I For One Will Join With Anyone, Don't Care What Color You Are As Long As You Want Change This Miserable Condition That Exists On This Earth

Only The Mistakes Were Mine.

I Do Not Pretend To Be A Divine Man, But I Do Believe In Divine Guidance, Divine Power, And In The Fulfillment Of Divine Prophecy. I Am Not Educated, Nor Am I An Expert In Any Particular Field But I Am Sincere, And My Sincerity Is My Credentials.

Divine Guidance

If A White Man Puts His Arm Around Me Voluntarily, That's Brotherhood.

True Islam Taught Me That It Takes All Of The Religious, Political, Economic, Psychological, And Racial Ingredients, Or Characteristics, To Make The Human Family And The Human Society Complete.

I Don't Think That The Objective Of The American Negro Is White Middle-class Values Because What Are White Middle-class Values?

Once The White Man Let The Negro Get An Education, The Negro Began To Want What The White Man Has. But He Let Negroes Get An Education And Now They Are Demanding Integration; They Want To Have Exactly What He Has. And The White Man Is Not Going To Give It To Them!

One Thing That The White Man Can Never Give The Black Man Is Self Respect. The Black Man In The Ghettos, Have To Start Self Correcting His Own Material Moral, And Spiritual Defects, And Evil. The Black Man Need To Start His Own Program To Get Rid Of Drunkenness, Drug Addiction And Prostitution. The Black Man In America Has To Lift Up His Own Sense Of Values.

You Don't Stick A Knife In A Man's Back Nine Inches And Then Pull It Out Six Inches And Say You're Making Progress.

I Had Blind Faith In Him. My Faith In Elijah Muhammad Was More Blind And More Uncompromising Than Any Faith That Any Man Has Ever Had For Another Man. And So I Didn't Try And See Him As He Actually Was.

The Greatest Mistake Of The Movement Has Been Trying To Organize A Sleeping People Around Specific Goals. You Have To Wake The People Up First, Then You'll Get Action.

I'm A Field Negro. The Masses Are The Field Negroes. When They See This Man's House On Fire, You Don't Hear These Little Negroes Talking About 'our Government Is In Trouble'. They Say, 'the Government Is In Trouble.'

For One To Control One's Thoughts And Feelings Means One Can Actually Control One's Atmosphere And All Who Walk Into Its Sphere Of Influence.

Most Of These Other Negro Leaders Who Are Supposedly Integrationists Aren't That Intelligent [like Reverend Galamison].

How Can A Negro Say America Is His Nation? He Was Brought Here In Chains; He Was Put In Slavery An Worked Like A Mule For Three Hundred Years; He Was Separated From His Land, His Culture, His God, His Language!

He [liberal White Person] May Stand With You Through Thin, But Not Thick; When The Chips Are Down, You'll Find That As Fixed In Him As His Bone Structure Is His Sometimes Subconscious Conviction That He's Better Than Anybody Black.

Any Number Of My Former Brothers Felt They Would Make Heroes Of Themselves In The Nation Of Islam If They Killed Me. ...i Knew That No One Would Kill You Quicker Than Muslim If He Felt That's What Allah Wanted Him To Do.

You Don't Integrate With A Sinking Ship.

I Think The Only Way One Can Really Determine Whether Extremism In The Defense Of Liberty Is Justified, Is Not To Approach It As An American Or A European Or An African Or An Asian, But As A Human Being. If We Look Upon It As Different Types, Immediately We Begin To Think In Terms Of Extremism Being Good For One And Bad For Another, Or Bad For One And Good For Another. But If We Look Upon It, If We Look Upon Ourselves As Human Beings, I Doubt That Anyone Will Deny That Extremism In Defense Of Liberty, The Liberty Of Any Human Being, Is No Vice.

Even As A Muslim Minister In The Muslim Movement, I Have Always Said That I Would Work With Any Organization.

Who Taught You To Hate The Color Of Your Skin? Who Taught You To Hate The Texture Of Your Hair? Who Taught You To Hate The Shape Of Your Nose And The Shape Of Your Lips? Who Taught You To Hate Yourself From The Top Of Your Head To The Soles Of Your Feet?

Any Negro Who Occupies A Position That Was Given To Him By The White Man, If You Analyze His Function, His Function Never Enables Him To Really Take A Firm, Uncompromising, Militant Stand On Problems That Confront Our People.

The Prison Systems In This Country Actually Are Exploitative And They Are Not In Any Way Rehabilitative.

It Takes Heart To Be A Guerrilla Warrior Because You’re On Your Own. In Conventional Warfare You Have Tanks And A Whole Lot Of Other People With You To Back You Up - Planes Over Your Head And All That Kind Of Stuff. But A Guerrilla Is On His Own. All You Have Is A Rifle, Some Sneakers And A Bowl Of Rice, And That’s All You Need - And A Lot Of Heart.

If You Are Not Willing To Pay The Price For Freedom, You Don't Deserve Freedom.

The Constitution Of The United States Of America Clearly Affirms The Right Of Every American Citizen To Bear Arms. And As Americans, We Will Not Give Up A Single Right Guaranteed Under The Constitution.

A Revolution Is Bloody. Revolution Is Hostile. Revolution Knows No Compromise. Revolution Overturns And Destroys Everything That Gets In Its Way. And You, Sitting Around Here Like A Knot On The Wall, Saying, “i’m Going To Love These Folks No Matter How Much They Hate Me.” No, You Need A Revolution. Whoever Heard Of A Revolution Where They Lock Arms, As Reverend Cleage Was Pointing Out Beautifully, Singing “we Shall Overcome”? Just Tell Me. You Don’t Do That In A Revolution. You Don’t Do Any Singing; You’re Too Busy Swinging.

If You Form The Habit Of Taking What Someone Else Says About A Thing Without Checking It Out For Yourself, You'll Find That Other People Will Have You Hating Your Friends And Loving Your Enemies.

White Individuals That Have Been Going To Jail. Segregation Still Exists; Discrimination Still Exists. A Few Isolated White People Whose Individual Acts Are Designed To Eliminate This, That Or, Or The Next Thing But, Yet, It Is Never Eliminated Is In No Way Impressive To Me.

You're Going To Have A Racial Explosion, And A Racial Explosion Is More Dangerous Than An Atomic Explosion. It's Going To Explode Because Black People Are Dissatisfied; They're Dissatisfied Not Only With The White Man, But They're Dissatisfied With These Negroes Who Have Been Sitting Around Here Posing As Leaders And Spokesmen For Black People And Actually Making The Problem Worse Instead Of Making The Problem Better.

The White Man Supports Reverend Martin Luther King, Subsidizes Reverend Martin Luther King, So That Reverend Martin Luther King Can Continue To Teach The Negroes To Be Defenseless - That's What You Mean By Nonviolent - Be Defenseless In The Face Of One Of The Most Cruel Beasts That Has Ever Taken People Into Captivity - That's This American White Man, And They Have Proved It Throughout The Country By The Police Dogs And The Police Clubs.

We May Disagree On Methods [with Martin Luther King], But We Don't Have To Argue All Day On Methods.

White Is An Attitude.

Soon Now, As The Negro Awakens A Little More And Sees The Vise That He's In, Sees The Bag That He's In, Sees The Real Game That He's In, Then The Negro's Going To Develop A New Tactic.

Just Because A Cat Has Kittens In The Oven, That Doesn't Make Them Biscuits.

I Don't Even Call It Violence When It's In Self Defense; I Call It Intelligence.

I Was An Atheist, I Was Open-minded, And I Began To Read In That Direction, In The Direction Of Islam, And Everything That I Read About It Appealed To Me.

Our People Have Made The Mistake Of Confusing The Methods With The Objectives. As Long As We Agree On Objectives, We Should Never Fall Out With Each Other Just Because We Believe In Different Methods, Or Tactics, Or Strategy. We Have To Keep In Mind At All Times That We Are Not Fighting For Separation. We Are Fighting For Recognition As Free Humans In This Society.

It Takes Two To Tango; When I Go, You Go.

In The Past, Yes, I Have Made Sweeping Indictments Of All White People. I Never Will Be Guilty Of That Again - As I Know Now That Some White People Are Truly Sincere, That Some Truly Are Capable Of Being Brotherly Toward A Black Man. The True Islam Has Shown Me That A Blanket Indictment Of All White People Is As Wrong As When Whites Made Blanket Indictments Against Blacks.

Ten Guards And The Warden Couldn't Have Torn Me Out Of Those Books. Months Passed Without Even Thinking About Being Imprisoned....i Had Never Been So Truly Free In My Life.

And In The Racial Climate Of This Country Today, It Is Anybody's Guess Which Of The 'extremes' In Approach To The Black Man's Problems Might Personally Meet A Fatal Catastrophe First - 'non-violent' Dr. King, Or So-called 'violent' Me.

When You Have To Pass A Law To Make A Man Let Me Have A House, Or You Have To Pass A Law To Make A Man Let Me Go To School, Or You Have To Pass A Law To Make A Man Let Me Walk Down The Street, You Have To Enforce That Law And You'd Have To Be Living Actually In A Police State. It Would Take A Police State In This Country.

I Believe That It Would Be Almost Impossible To Find Anywhere In America A Black Man Who Has Lived Further Down In The Mud Of Human Society Than I Have; Or A Black Man Who Has Been Any More Ignorant Than I Have; Or A Black Man Who Has Suffered More Anguish During His Life Than I Have. But It Is Only After The Deepest Darkness That The Greatest Joy Can Come; It Is Only After Slavery And Prison That The Sweetest Appreciation Of Freedom Can Come.

We're All In The Same Boat And We All Are Going To Catch The Same Hell From The Same Man.

Betty's A Good Muslim Woman And Wife. I Don't Imagine Many Other Women Might Put Up With The Way I Am. Awakening This Brainwashed Black Man And Telling This Arrogant, Devilish White Man The Truth About Himself, Betty Understands, Is A Full-time Job

When A Man Understands Who He Is, Who God Is, Who The Devil Is... Then He Can Pick Himself Up Out Of The Gutter; He Can Clean Himself Up And Stand Up Like A Man Should Before His God.

Until The Image Of The Black Man In The Mind Of The Black Man Has Been Changed, There Will Always Be Delinquency, Parental And Juvenile. The Idea Is Not To Change The Attitude Of The White Man To The Black Man But To Change The Attitude Of The Black Man To Himself.

An English Writer Telephoned Me From London, Asking Questions. One Was, ‘what’s Your Alma Mater?’ I Told Him, ‘books.

Asking Questions

I Think, Again, That That Does The Whole Problem A, A Disservice. It's Not A Case Of Our Wanting To Mix Socially With Whites. And When You - And The Whites Are Right In The South When They Say That Getting A Cup Of Coffee In A Restaurant Is Not Going To Solve - Is All Right.

My Alma Mater Was Books, A Good Library.

Just As Plagues Were Visited On Pharaoh So Will Pestilences And Disasters Be Visited On The White Man. Why, It Has Already Started: God Has Begun To Send Them Heat When They Expect Cold; He Sends Them Cold When They Expect Heat. Their Crops Are Dying, Their Children Are Being Born With All Kinds Of Deformities, The Rivers And Lakes Are Coming Out Of The Belly Of The Earth To Wash Them Away.

Respect Me, Or Put Me To Death.

A Cat That's Inside Of Your House That Is Angry And Dissatisfied And Hostile Is More Dangerous To You Than A Full-grown Lion Is On The Outside.

If Christianity Had Asserted Itself In Germany, Six Million Jews Would Have Lived.

Abraham Lincoln Was Interested In, In Saving The Union. Well, Most Negroes Have Been Tricked Into Thinking That Lincoln Was A Negro Lover Whose Primary Aim Was To Free Them, And He Died Because He Freed Them.

We Must Establish All Over The Country Schools Of Our Own To Train Our Own Children To Become Scientists, To Become Mathematicians. We Must Realize The Need For Adult Education And For Job Retraining Programs That Will Emphasize A Changing Society In Which Automation Plays The Key Role. We Intend To Use The Tools Of Education To Help Raise Our People To An Unprecedented Level Of Excellence And Self Respect Through Their Own Efforts.

If The Various Groups In America Had Been Less Selfish And Had Permitted Different Representatives From The Groups To Travel Into Foreign Countries, And Broaden Their Own Scope, And Come Back And Educate The Movements They Represented, Not Only Would This Have Made The Groups To Which They Belonged More Enlightened And More Worldly In The International Sense, But It Also Would Have Given The Independent African States Abroad A Better Understanding Of The Groups In The United States, And What They Stand For, What They Represent.

We Need More Light About Each Other. Light Creates Understanding, Understanding Creates Love, Love Creates Patience, And Patience Creates Unity.

The Whites Of The Younger Generation, In The Colleges And Universities, Will See The Handwriting On The Wall And Many Of Them Will Turn To The Spiritual Path Of Truth.

...what We Need To Do In The Community, And In The City, And In The State. We Need To Stop Airing Our Differences In Front Of The White Man. Put The White Man Out Of Our Meetings, Number One, And Then Sit Down And Talk Shop With Each Other. [that's] All You Gotta Do.

I'm Sorry To Say That The Subject I Most Disliked Was Mathematics. I Have Thought About It. I Think The Reason Was That Mathematics Leaves No Room For Argument. If You Made A Mistake, That Was All There Was To It.

As Long As A White Man Does It, It's Alright, A Black Man Is Supposed To Have No Feelings. But When A Black Man Strikes Back He's An Extremist, He's Supposed To Sit Passively And Have No Feelings, Be Nonviolent, And Love His Enemy No Matter What Kind Of Attack, Verbal Or Otherwise, He's Supposed To Take It. But If He Stands Up In Any Way And Tries To Defend Himself, Then He's An Extremist.

The Same As In A German Neighborhood, The Stores Are Run By Germans, And In A Chinese Neighborhood They're Run By Chinese. In The Negro Neighborhood The Businesses Should Be Owned And Operated By Negroes And, Thereby, They Would Be Creating Employment For Negroes.

When You Have Your Own Bus, Then You Have Dignity. When You Have Your Own School, You Have Dignity. When You Have Your Own Country, You Have Dignity.when You Have Something Of Your Own, You Have Dignity. But Whenever You Are Begging For A Chance To Participate In That Which Belongs To Someone Else, Or Use That Which Belongs To Someone Else, On An Equal Basis With The Owner, That's Not Dignity. That's Ignorance.

They Don't Stand For Anything Different In South Africa Than America Stands For. The Only Difference Is Over There They Preach As Well As Practice Apartheid. America Preaches Freedom And Practices Slavery.

How Can You Thank A Man For Giving You What's Already Yours? How Then Can You Thank Him For Giving You Only Part Of What's Already Yours?

The White Devil's Time Is Up.

The Cornerstones Of This Country's Operation Are Economic And Political Strength And Power. The Black Man Doesn't Have The Economic Strength - And It Will Take Time For Him To Build It. But Right Now The American Black Man Has The Political Strength And Power To Change His Destiny Overnight.

The Mental Flexibility Of The Wise Man Permits Him To Keep An Open Mind And Enables Him To Readjust Himself Whenever It Becomes Necessary For A Change.

Education Is Our Passport To The Future.

First Day Of School

Not Long Ago, An English Writer Telephoned Me From London, Asking Questions. One Was "what's Your Alma Mater?" I Told Him, "books." You Will Never Catch Me With A Free Fifteen Minutes In Which I'm Not Studying Something I Feel Might Be Able To Help The Black Man.

Asking Questions

Power Never Takes A Back Step Only In The Face Of More Power.

You Don't Do Anything To Further Your Stay Aboard A Ship That You See Is Going To Go Down To The Bottom Of The Ocean.

I Can't Turn Around Without Hearing About Some 'civil Rights Advance's White People Seem To Think The Black Man Ought To Be Shouting 'hallelujah's Four Hundred Years The White Man Has Had His Foot-long Knife In The Black Man's Back — And Now The White Man Starts To Wiggle The Knife Out, Maybe Six Inches! The Black Man's Supposed To Be Grateful? Why, If The White Man Jerked The Knife Out, It's Still Going To Leave A Scar!

Better Jobs And Housing Are Only Temporary Solutions. They Are Aspects Of Tokenism And Don't Go To The Heart Of The Problem.

While I Was In Prison, I Was Indulging In All Types Of Vice, Right Within The Prison. And I Never Was Ostracized As Much By The Penal Authorities While I Was Participating In All Of The Evils Of The Prison, As They Tried To Ostracize Me After I Became A Muslim.

The Economic Philosophy Of Black Nationalism Only Means That Our People Need To Be Re-educated Into The Importance Of Controlling The Economy Of The Community In Which We Live, Which Means That We Won't Have To Constantly Be Involved In Picketing And Boycotting Other People In Other Communities In Order To Get Jobs.

Those Who Stay Here Can Help Those Who Go Back, And Those Who Go Back Can Help Those Who Stay Here In The Same Way That When Jews Go To Israel, The Jews In America Help Those In Israel And The Jews In Israel Help Those In America.

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