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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.

-Malcolm X

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Abraham Lincoln Was Interested

Malcolm X

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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.

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My Family Was So Poor We Were Close To Eating The Holes Inside Of Doughnuts.

I Had One Warden Tell Me Since I've Been Out, And I Visited An Inmate In Prison Right Here In New York, Warden Fay Up At Green Haven. I Visited An Inmate In Prison And He Told Me That He Didn't Want Anybody In There Trying To Spread This Religion.

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.

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.

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

The Negro Neighborhood, Which Is Inferior, Is Begging For A Chance To - Integrate Itself Into That Which Is - Is Superior, Which Is Not Going To Happen. It's Going To Cause Trouble.

After Hitler Was Destroyed, There Was The Threat Of Stalin, But It Was Always The World Pressure That Was Upon America That Enabled Black People To Go Forward. It Was Not The Initiative Internally That The Negro Put Forth In America, Nor Was It A Change Of Moral Heart On The Part Of Uncle Sam It Was World Pressure.

Time Is On The Side Of The Oppressed Today, It's Against The Oppressor. Truth Is On The Side Of The Oppressed Today, It's Against The Oppressor. You Don't Need Anything Else.

I Went To A White School Over Here In Mason, Michigan. The White Man Made The Mistake Of Letting Me Read His History Books. He Made The Mistake Of Teaching Me That Patrick Henry Was A Patriot And George Washington - Wasn't Nothing Non-violent About Old Pat Or George Washington.

The Same Rebellion, The Same Impatience, The Same Anger That Exists In The Hearts Of The Dark People In Africa And Asia Is Existing In The Hearts And Minds Of 20 Million Black People In This Country Who Have Been Just As Thoroughly Colonized As The People In Africa And Asia.

I Want To Be Remembered As Someone Who Was Sincere. Even If I Made Mistakes, They Were Made In Sincerity. If I Was Wrong, I Was Wrong In Sincerity.

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.

The Law Of Nature Gives A Man The Right To Defend Himself When He's Attacked. And God's Law Itself Gives A Man The Right To Defend Himself When He's Attacked.so, Peaceful Suffering And Passive Resistance And All Of That Stuff Is All Right Maybe In India Somewhere, Where The People In India Outnumber The Whites - About A Million To One.but Here In America, When You Tell That's Like An Elephant Sitting Down On A - On A Mouse In India With [mahatma] Gandhi.

Passive Resistance

The Common Enemy Is The White Man.

Some Things Are Better Done Than Said.

Power In Defense Of Freedom Is Greater Than Power In Behalf Of Tyranny And Oppression, Because Power, Real Power, Comes From Our Conviction Which Produces Action, Uncompromising Action.

America Is The First Country... That Can Actually Have A Bloodless Revolution.

We Can't Teach What We Don't Know, And We Can't Lead Where We Can't Go

Our Objective Is Complete Freedom, Justice And Equality By Any Means Necessary.

Every Morning When I Wake Up, Now, I Regard It As Having Another Borrowed Day.

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.

As Bad As I Was, As Much Trouble And Worry As I Caused My Mother, I Loved Her.

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.

The White Man Will Keep On Granting Tokenism; A Few Big Negroes Will Get Big Jobs, But The Black Masses Will Catch Hell As Long As They Stay In The White Man's House.

Whenever Any Group Can Vote In A Bloc, And Decide The Outcome Of Elections, And It Fails To Do This, Then That Group Is Politically Sick.

Only A Fool Would Let His Enemy Teach His Children.

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

When The Snakes Out In That Field Begin To Realize That If One Of Their Members Get Out Of Line, It's Going To Be Detrimental To All Of Them, They'll Keep That, Perhaps They'll Then Take The Necessary Steps To Keep Their Fellow Snakes Away From My Chickens Or Away From My Children If The Responsibility Is Placed Upon Them.

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.

For 12 Long Years I Lived Within The Narrow-minded Confines Of The 'straightjacket World' Created By My Strong Belief That Elijah Muhammad Was A Messenger Direct From God Himself, And My Faith In What I Now See To Be A Pseudo-religious Philosophy That He Preaches.... I Shall Never Rest Until I Have Undone The Harm I Did To So Many Well-meaning, Innocent Negroes Who Through My Own Evangelistic Zeal Now Believe In Him Even More Fanatically And More Blindly Than I Did.

It Gives [a Man] The Incentive To Develop His Dormant Potential So That When He Becomes A Part Of The Brotherhood Of Islam, And Is Identified Collectively In The Brotherhood Of Islam With The Brothers In Islam, At The Same Time This Also Gives Him The, It Has The Psychological Effect Of Giving Him The Incentive As An Individual To Develop All Of His Dormant Potential To Its Fullest Extent.

Each Of Us Should Make The Most Of Our Lives. We Should Give Life Our Best-let Us Use Our Lives More Wisely To Chase Our Dreams, Find Our True Purpose, And Be As Happy And Successful As Possible.

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.

It Is Only After The Deepest Darkness That The Greatest Light Can Come; It Is Only After Extreme Grief That The Greatest Joy Can Come.

I Think That Any Black Man Who Teaches Black People To Turn The Other Cheek And Suffer Peacefully After They've Been Turning The Cheek And Suffering Peacefully For 400 Years In A Land Of Bondage, Under The Most Cruel, Inhuman And Wicked Slavemaster That Any People Have Ever Been Under, He Is Doing Those People An Injustice, And He's A Traitor To His Own People.

In Order, In Order To Enforce You Can't Force People To Act Right Toward Each Other. You Can't Force, You Cannot Legislate Heart, Conditions And Attitudes.

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.

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.

Right Now, In Every Big City Ghetto, Tens Of Thousands Of Yesterday's And Today's School Dropouts Are Keeping Body And Soul Together By Some Form Of Hustling In The Same Way I Did.

I Just Don't Believe That When People Are Being Unjustly Oppressed That They Should Let Someone Else Set Rules For Them By Which They Can Come Out From Under That Oppression.

Revolution Is Always Based On Land. Revolution Is Never Based On Begging Somebody For An Integrated Cup Of Coffee.

The White Man Knows What A Revolution Is. He Knows That The Black Revolution Is Worldwide In Scope And In Nature. The Black Revolution Is Sweeping Asia, Is Sweeping Africa, Is Rearing Its Head In Latin America. The Cuban Revolution - That's A Revolution. They Overturned The System. Revolution Is In Asia, Revolution Is In Africa, And The White Man Is Screaming Because He Sees Revolution In Latin America. How Do You Think He'll React To You When You Learn What A Real Revolution Is?

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.

Those Who Would Hunt A Man Need To Remember That A Jungle Also Contains Those Who Hunt The Hunters.

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.

Most Of The Negro Leaders Who Get The Support Of The Power Structure End Up Being Against [reverend] Galamison.

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

At This Point I Hadn't Yet Gotten Deep Into The Historic Condition That Negroes In This Country Are Confronted With, But At That Point In My Prison Studies I, I Read, I Studied Islam As A Religion More So Than As I Later Come To Know It In Its Connection With The Plight Or Problem Of Negroes In This Country.

The Thing That Has Made The So-called Negro In America Fail, More Than Any Other Thing, Is Your, My, Lack Of Knowledge Concerning History. We Know Less About History Than Anything Else.

America Needs To Understand Islam, Because This Is The One Religion That Erases From Its Society The Race Problem.

That Morning Was When I First Began To Reappraise The 'white Man.' It Was When I First Began To Perceive That 'white Man,' As Commonly Used, Means Complexion Only Secondarily; Primarily It Described Attitudes And Actions.

I Myself Would Go For Nonviolence If It Was Consistent, If Everybody Was Going To Be Nonviolent All The Time. I'd Say, Okay, Let's Get With It, We'll All Be Nonviolent. But I Don't Go Along With Any Kind Of Nonviolence Unless Everybody's Going To Be Nonviolent. If They Make The Ku Klux Klan Nonviolent, I'll Be Nonviolent. If They Make The White Citizens Council Nonviolent, I'll Be Nonviolent. But As Long As You've Got Somebody Else Not Being Nonviolent, I Don't Want Anybody Coming To Me Talking Any Nonviolent Talk.

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.

It Has Been Nine Years Since The Supreme Court Decision Outlawing Segregated Schools, Yet Less Than Ten Per Cent Of The Negro Students In The South Are In Integrated Schools. That Isn't Integration, That's Tokenism!

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?

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

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

When I'm Born I'm Black, When I Grow Up I'm Black, When I'm In The Sun I'm Black, When I'm Sick I'm Black, When I Die I'm Black, And You...when You're Born You're Pink, When You Grow Up You're White, When You're Cold You're Blue, When You're Sick You're Green, When You Die You're Grey And You Dare Call Me Coloured.

I Look At The Problem Of The Twenty-two Million Afro-americans As Being A Problem That's So Broad In Scope That It's Almost Impossible For Any Organization To See It In Its Entirety.

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.

I Learned Early That Crying Out In Protest Could Accomplish Things. My Older Brothers And Sister Had Started To School When, Sometimes, They Would Come In And Ask For A Buttered Biscuit Or Something And My Mother, Impatiently, Would Tell Them No. But I Would Cry Out And Make A Fuss Until I Got What I Wanted. I Remember Well How My Mother Asked Me Why I Couldn't Be A Nice Boy Like Wilfred; But I Would Think To Myself That Wilfred, For Being So Nice And Quiet, Often Stayed Hungry. So Early In Life, I Had Learned That If You Want Something, You Had Better Make Some Noise.

There Can Be No Black-white Unity Until There Is First Some Black Unity.

The Black Man In North America Was Sickest Of All Politically. He Let The White Man Divide Him Into Such Foolishness As Considering Himself A Black 'democrat,' A Black 'republican,' A Black 'conservative,' Or A Black 'liberal' ...when A Ten-million Black Vote Bloc Could Be The Deciding Balance Of Power In American Politics, Because The White Man's Vote Is Almost Always Evenly Divided.

The War Of Armageddon Has Already Started... God Is Using His Many Weapons. He Is Sending Hurricanes So Fast That [the Blue-eyed Devils] Can't Name Them. He Is Drowning Them In Floods And Causing Their Cars To Crash And Their Airplanes Cannot Stay Up In The Sky. Their Boats Are Sinking Because Allah Controls All Things And He Is Using All Methods To Begin To Wipe The Devils Off The Planet, [and] The Enemy Is Dying Of Diseases That Have Never Been So Deadly.

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.

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.

As Long As The Factories Are In The Hands Of The Whites, The Housing Is In The Hands Of The Whites, The School System Is In The Hands Of The Whites, You Have A Situation Where The Blacks Are Constantly Begging The Whites Can They Use This Or Can They Use That. That's Not Any Kind Of Equality Of Opportunity, Nor Does It Lend Toward One's Dignity.

[civil Right Leaders]themselves In Their Pronouncements Will Tell You They Need White Allies, They Need White Help, They Need White This.

We Are Fighting For The Right To Live As Free Humans In This Society. In Fact, We Are Actually Fighting For Rights That Are Even Greater Than Civil Rights And That Is Human Rights.

There Is No Better Than Adversity. Every Defeat, Every Heartbreak, Every Loss, Contains Its Own Seed, Its Own Lesson On How To Improve Your Performance The Next Time.

The Black People In This Country Are Taught That Their Religion And The Best Religion Is The Religion Of Islam, And When One Accepts The Religion Of Islam, He's Known As A Muslim.

Religion Of Islam

If The White Man Can Come Here Uneducated And As An Immigrant, And Within 10 Or 15 Years Set Up An Industry That Provides Job Opportunities And Educational Opportunities For Black People, Then If The Black Man, The Black Leadership, Who Has Access To All Of This Money And Has All Of These Degrees Today, Can't Use His Talent And His Know-how To Set Up Business Opportunities, Job Opportunities, Housing Opportunities For The Black People The Same As The White Leaders Have Done For White People, Then These Black Leaders Need To Get Off The Boat.

The Political Philosophy Of Black Nationalism Means That The Black Man Should Control The Politics And The Politicians In His Own Community; No More.

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.

Mankind's History Has Proved From One Era To Another That The True Criterion Of Leadership Is Spiritual. Men Are Attracted By Spirit. By Power, Men Are Forced. Love Is Engendered By Spirit. By Power Anxieties Are Created.

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.'

Here Was One Of The White Man's Most Characteristic Behavior Patterns - Where Black Men Are Concerned. He Loves Himself So Much That He Is Startled If He Discovers That His Victims Don't Share His Vainglorious Self-opinion.

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.

Once Negro Community Recognize It As Such, They Can Adopt The Same Measures Against The Community That Harbors The Criminals Who Are Responsible For This Activity.

I Am Not A Republican, Nor A Democrat, Nor An American, And Got Sense Enough To Know It. I Am One Of The 22 Million Black Victims Of The Democrats, And One Of The 22 Million Black Victims Of The Republicans, And One Of The 22 Million Black Victims Of Americanism... You And I Have Never Seen Democracy; All We've Seen Is Hypocracy... If You Go To Jail, So What? If You're Black, You Were Born In Jail. 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.

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.

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.

My Contention Is That If You Trace It Back, It Was The People Of The East Who Brought Them Out Of The Dark Ages, Who Brought About The Period, Or Ushered In Or Initiated The Atmosphere That Brought Into Europe The Period Known As The Renaissance.

They Call Me "a Teacher, A Fomenter Of Violence." I Would Say Point Blank, "that Is A Lie. I'm Not For Wanton Violence, I'm For Justice."

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

Whenever You're Going After Something That Belongs To You, Anyone Who's Depriving You Of The Right To Have It Is A Criminal. Understand That. Whenever You Are Going After Something That Is Yours, You Are Within Your Legal Rights To Lay Claim To It. And Anyone Who Puts Forth Any Effort To Deprive You Of That Which Is Yours, Is Breaking The Law, Is A Criminal.

Policies Change, And Programs Change, According To Time.but Objective Never Changes. You Might Change Your Method Of Achieving The Objective, But The Objective Never Changes. Our Objective Is Complete Freedom, Complete Justice, Complete Equality, By Any Means Necessary

We're Primarily Interested In Solving The Problem Of 20 Million Black People. And If Integration Is Going To Solve The Problem Tomorrow, Then Let's Integrate. But Since The Supreme Court Issued Its Desegregation Decision Seven Years Ago, And You Only Have About Six Or Seven Percent Integration Now, On An Educational Level, That Means That The Black Man Trying To Use Integration As A Means Of Solving His Problem Will Be Another 100 Years Just Getting Integration On An Educational Level.

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.

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.

If You Stick A Knife Nine Inches Into My Back And Pull It Out Three Inches, That Is Not Progress.

This Is A God-given Right Of Any Man.anytime You Have A Man Who Is Getting Lynched, And What Are His People Supposed To Do? Sit Around And Forgive The Lyncher Or Wait On The United States Government To Go In And Get The Lyncher, Like The United States Government Did In The Case Of, Of Charles Mack Parker, And The Fbi Found Who Were The Guilty Lynchers, And Right To This Day, The Fbi, The Highest Law Enforcement Body In The Land, Has Yet To Bring The Lynchers Of Mack Parker To Justice?

Nobody Can Give You Freedom. Nobody Can Give You Equality Or Justice Or Anything. If You're A Man, You Take It.

Everybody Shall Be Accepted No Matter What They Stand For, You Are Not Always Going To Agree On Their Faith.

Why Should [uncle Sam] Send 20 Billion Dollars Down There [south America], Which Is Going To Go Down The Drain Every Time You Have A Racial In - Incident In This Country?

[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.

I Don't Have Any Hate. I've Got Some Sense. I'm Not Going To Let Anybody Who Hates Me Tell Me To Love Him. I'm Not That Way-out.

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.

The Separating Of A Section Of America For Afro- Americans Is Similar To Expecting A Heaven In The Sky Somewhere After You Die.

If You Don't Stand For Something You Will Fall For Anything.

Eleanor Roosevelt Could Easily Have Told Negroes The Deceitful Maneuvering Of The United States Government That Was Going On Behind The Scenes. She Never Did It. In My Opinion She Was Just Another White Woman Whose Profession Was To Make It Appear That She Was On The Negro's Side. You Have A Lot Of Whites Who Are In This Category. Therefore, They Have Made Negro Loving A Profession.

Behind The Scenes

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.

Just Like Pharaoh Couldn't Get A Solution To His Problem Until He Talked To Moses, Or Nebuchadnezzar Or Belshazzar Couldn't Get A Solution To His Problem Until He Talked To Daniel, The White Man In America Today Will Never Understand The Race Problem Or Come Anywhere Near Getting A Solution To The Race Problem Until He Talks To The Honorable Elijah Muhammad.

I Remember One Night At Muzdalifa With Nothing But The Sky Overhead I Lay Awake Amid Sleeping Muslim Brothers And I Learned That Pilgrims From Every Land--every Color, And Class, And Rank; High Officials And The Beggar Alike--all Snored In The Same Language.

10 Years Ago The Black Man Knew What His Condition Was. And Today, Because Of The World Revolution That's Taking Place All Over This Earth, The Black Man Would Be Fighting For What He Knows Is His By Right, But The Movement On The Part Of [martin Luther] King And The Others Had Done Nothing But Slow Down The Militancy That Is Inherent In The Nature Of The Black Man.

If You Are In A Country That Is Progressive, The Woman Is Progressive. If You're In A Country That Reflects The Consciousness Toward The Importance Of Education, It's Because The Woman Is Aware Of The Importance Of Education. But In Every Backward Country You'll Find The Women Are Backward, And In Every Country Where Education Is Not Stressed Its Because The Women Don't Have Education.

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.

Well, My Contention Is That The Political System Of This Country Is So Designed Criminally To Prevent This, That If The Black Man Even Started In That Direction, Which Is A Mature Step And It's The Only Way To Really Solve This Problem And To Prove That He Is The Intellectual Equal Of Others, Why, The Racists And The Segregationists Would Fight That Harder Than They're Fighting The Present Efforts To Integrate.

Liberty Or Death Was What Brought About The Freedom Of Whites In This Country From The English.

As Long As You Are Convinced You Have Never Done Anything, You Can Never Do Anything.

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

How Can You Thank A Man For Giving You What's Already Yours?

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.

Not A Physical Migration, But A Cultural, Psychological, Philosophical Migration Back To Africa, Which Means The Restoring Our Common Bond Will Give Us The Spiritual Strength And The Incentive To Strengthen Our Political And Social And Economic Position Right Here In America, And To Fight For The Things That Are Ours By Right Here On This Continent.

We Believe In One God. We Believe Muhammad Is The Apostle Of God.

They [prisons] Are Not Designed To Rehabilitate The - The Inmate, Though The, The Public Propaganda Is That This Is Their Function.

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

Segregation Is That Which Is Forced Upon An Inferior By A Superior. Separation Is Done Voluntarily By Two Equals.

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

When You Live In A Poor Neighborhood, You Are Living In An Area Where You Have Poor Schools. When You Have Poor Schools, You Have Poor Teachers. When You Have Poor Teachers, You Get A Poor Education. When You Get A Poor Education, You Can Only Work In A Poor-paying Job. And That Poor-paying Job Enables You To Live Again In A Poor Neighborhood. So, It's A Very Vicious Cycle.

I Have Often Reflected Upon The New Vistas That Reading Has Opened To Me. I Knew Right There In Prison That Reading Had Changed Forever The Course Of My Life. As I See It Today, The Ability To Read Awoke Inside Me Some Long Dormant Craving To Be Mentally Alive.

When You Are Equal With Another Person, The Problem Of Integration Doesn't Even Arise.

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.

In My 39 Years On This Earth, The Holy City Of Makka Had Been The First Time I Had Ever Stood Before The Creator Of All And Felt Like A Complete Human Being

In America You Have The Mouse Now Trying To Sit Down On The Elephant, Thinking That He's Going Somewhere. And It's - And It's Absurd.

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.

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

I Think There Are Plenty Of Good People In America, But There Are Also Plenty Of Bad People In America And The Bad Ones Are The Ones Who Seem To Have All The Power And Be In These Positions To Block Things That You And I Need.

You Catch Any White Man Off Guard In Here Right Now, You Catch Him Off Guard And Ask Him What He Is, He Doesn't Say He's An American. He Either Tells You He's Irish, Or He's Italian, Or He's German, If You Catch Him Off Guard And He Doesn't Know What You're Up To. And Even Though He Was Born Here, He'll Tell You He's Italian. Well, If He's Italian, You And I Are African Even Though We Were Born Here.

Without Education, You Are Not Going Anywhere In This World.

I Myself Have Never Been Concerned With Whether We Are Considered Known Or Unknown. It's No Problem Of Ours.

When The Muslims Deliver The Indictment Of The American System, It Is Not The White Man Per Se That Is Being Doomed.

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.

Not A State Within A State, But The Honorable Elijah Muhammad Is, Is Saying That The Black Man, Since The White Man, Has Found It Impossible To Bring About Integration, Other Than Toke On A Ta - Other Than On A Token Basis, And Which Proves That The, The Two Of Us, The Ex-slave And The Master, Can't Live In The Same House As Equals.

The Zionist Argument To Justify Israel's Present Occupation Of Arab Palestine Has No Intelligent Or Legal Basis In History.

Martin Luther King Has Made The Negro In America Unnatural.

We Black Men Have A Hard Enough Time In Our Own Struggle For Justice, And Already Have Enough Enemies As It Is, To Make The Drastic Mistake Of Attacking Each Other And Adding More Weight To An Already Unbearable Load.

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.

We Have A Common Enemy. We Have This In Common: We Have A Common Oppressor, A Common Exploiter, And A Common Discriminator. But Once We All Realize That We Have This Common Enemy, Then We Unite On The Basis Of What We Have In Common. And What We Have Foremost In Common Is That Enemy - The White Man. He's An Enemy To All Of Us. I Know Some Of You All Think That Some Of Them Aren't Enemies. Time Will Tell.

Don't You Run Around Here Trying To Make Friends With Somebody Who's Depriving You Of Your Rights. They're Not Your Friends, No, They're Your Enemies. Treat Them Like That.

The Messenger Has Seen God. He Was With Allah And Was Given Divine Patience With The Devil. He Is Willing To Wait For Allah To Deal With This Devil. Well, Sir, The Rest Of Us Black Muslims Have Not Seen God, We Don't Have This Gift Of Divine Patience With The Devil. The Younger Black Muslims Want To See Some Action.

Where The Really Sincere White People Have Got To Do Their 'proving' Of Themselves Is Not Among The Black Victims, But Out On The Battle Lines Of Where America's Racism Really Is - And That's In Their Own Home Communities.

The White Race Is Doomed Not Because It's White But Because Of Its Misdeeds.

One Of The Things That Made The Black Muslim Movement Grow Was Its Emphasis Upon Things African. This Was The Secret To The Growth Of The Black Muslim Movement. African Blood, African Origin, African Culture, African Ties. And You'd Be Surprised - We Discovered That Deep Within The Subconscious Of The Black Man In This Country, He Is Still More African Than He Is American.

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

We, The Black Masses, Don't Want These Leaders Who Seek Our Support Coming To Us Representing A Certain Political Party. They Must Come To Us Today As Black Leaders Representing The Welfare Of Black People. We Won't Follow Any Leader Today Who Comes On The Basis Of Political Party. Both Parties (democrat And Republican) Are Controlled By The Same People Who Have Abused Our Rights, And Who Have Deceived Us With False Promises Every Time An Election Rolls Around.

The Government Has Departments To Deal With The Special Interest Groups That Make Themselves Heard And Felt. A Department Of Agriculture Cares For The Farmers' Needs. There Is A Department Of Health, Education And Welfare. There Is A Department Of The Interior - In Which The Indians Are Included. Is The Farmer, The Doctor, The Indian, The Greatest Problem In America Today? No - It Is The Black Man! There Ought To Be A Pentagon-sized Washington Department Dealing With Every Segment Of The Black Man's Problems.

Since The Main Problem That American, The Afro- Americans Have Is A Lack Of Cultural Identity. It Is Necessary To Teach [people] That They Had Some Type Of Identity, Culture, Civilization Before They Were Brought Here.

No, I’m Not An American. I’m One Of The 22 Million Black People Who Are The Victims Of Americanism. One Of The … Victims Of Democracy, Nothing But Disguised Hypocrisy. So, I’m Not Standing Here Speaking To You As An American, Or A Patriot, Or A Flag-saluter, Or A Flag-waver - No, Not I. I’m Speaking As A Victim Of This American System. And I See America Through The Eyes Of The Victim. I Don’t See Any American Dream; I See An American Nightmare.

Once You Change Your Philosophy, You Change Your Thought Pattern. Once You Change Your Thought Pattern, You Change Your Attitude. Once You Change Your Attitude, It Changes Your Behavior Pattern And Then You Go On Into Some Action. As Long As You Gotta Sit-down Philosophy, You’ll Have A Sit-down Thought Pattern, And As Long As You Think That Old Sit-down Thought You’ll Be In Some Kind Of Sit-down Action.

During The Whole Month That Negroes Were Being Beaten By Police And Washed Down The Sewer With Water Hoses, Kennedy And - And King Was In Jail Begging For The Federal Government To Intervene, Kennedy's Reply Was, "no Federal Statutes Have Been Violated." And It Was Only When The Negroes Erupted That Kennedy Come On The Television With All His Old Pretty Words.

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.

I Was With Essien Udom In Nigeria.

I'll Say Nothing Against Him. At One Time The Whites In The United States Called Him A Racialist, And Extremist, And A Communist. Then The Black Muslims Came Along And The Whites Thanked The Lord For Martin Luther King.

It's Got To Be The Ballot Or The Bullet. The Ballot Or The Bullet. If You're Afraid To Use An Expression Like That, You Should Get Back In The Cotton Patch, You Should Get Back In The Alley.

...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 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. Those Of You Who Are Christian Probably Believe In The Same God, Because I Think You Believe In The God Who Created The Universe. That's The One We Believe In, The One Who Created Universe - The Only Difference Being You Call Him God And We Call Him Allah. The Jews Call Him Jehovah. If You Could Understand Hebrew, You Would Probably Call Him Jehovah Too. If You Could Understand Arabic, You Would Probably Call Him Allah.

Ignorance Of Each Other Is What Has Made Unity Impossible In The Past. Therefore We Need Enlightenment. We Need More Light About Each Other. Light Creates Understanding, Understanding Creates Love, Love Creates Patience, And Patience Creates Unity. Once We Have More Knowledge (light) About Each Other, We Will Stop Condemning Each Other And A United Front Will Be Brought About.

In Order For A Man To Really Understand Himself He Must Be Part Of A Nation; He Must Have Some Land Of His Own, A God Of His Own, A Language Of His Own. Most Of All He Must Have Love And Devotion For His Own Kind.

Who Taught You To Hate Yourself?

Hating Yourself

When We Say Afro American, We Include Everyone In The Western Hemisphere Of African Descent. South America Is America. Central America Is America. South America Has Many People In It Of African Descent.

My Alma Mater Was Books, A Good Library.

God Now Is About To Establish A Kingdom On This Earth Based Upon Brotherhood And Peace, And The White Man Is Against Brotherhood And The White Man Is Against Peace. His History On This Earth Has Proved That.

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.

Always That "if" Was There, Which Meant That The One Who Was Doomed Could Avoid The Doom If He Would Change His Way Of Behaving.

The White People Who Are Guilty Of White Supremacy Are Trying To Hide Their Own Guilt By Accusing The Honorable Elijah Muhammad Of Teaching Black Supremacy When He Tries To Uplift The Mentality, The Social, Mental And Economic Condition Of The Black People In America.

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.

The Young Whites, And Blacks, Too, Are The Only Hope That America Has, The Rest Of Us Have Always Been Living In A Lie.

Now The White Man's Time Is Over. Tokenism Will Not Help Him, And It Will Doom Us. Complete Separation Will Save Us - And Who Knows, It Might Make God Decide To Give The White Devil A Few More Years.

The Black Man In America Is The Same As The Jews Were In Bondage Under Pharaoh. We Are Strangers In A Land That Is Not Ours. We Are Rejected By This Type Of Modern Pharaoh Or Pharohnic Society.

It Is The System Itself That, That Is Incapable Of Producing Freedom For The Twenty-two Million Afro-americans. Just Like A Chicken Can't Lay A Duck Egg, A Chicken Can't Lay A Duck Egg, Because The System Of The Chicken Isn't Constructed In The Way To Produce A Duck Egg. And Just As That Chicken System Can't Produce, Is Not Capable To, Of Producing A Duck Egg, The Political And Economic System Of This Country Is Absolutely Incapable Of Producing Freedom And Justice And Equality And Human Dignity For The Twenty-two Million Afro-americans.

The Short-range Involves The Long-range. Immediate Steps Have To Be Taken To Reeducate Our People Into The, A More Real View Of Political, Economic, And Social Conditions In This Country, And Our Ability In, In A Self- Improvement Program To Gain Control Politically Over Every Community In Which We Predominate, And Also Over The Economy Of That Same Community As Here In Harlem. Instead Of All The Stores In Harlem Being Owned By White People, They Should Be Owned And Operated By Black People.

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

The White Man Is Not Inherently Evil, But America's Racist Society Influences Him To Act Evilly. The Society Has Produced And Nourishes A Psychology Which Brings Out The Lowest, Most Base Part Of Human Beings.

When A Person Places The Proper Value On Freedom, There Is Nothing Under The Sun That He Will Not Do To Acquire That Freedom. Whenever You Hear A Man Saying He Wants Freedom, But In The Next Breath He Is Going To Tell You What He Won't Do To Get It, Or What He Doesn't Believe In Doing In Order To Get It, He Doesn't Believe In Freedom. A Man Who Believes In Freedom Will Do Anything Under The Sun To Acquire... Or Preserve His Freedom.

Any Time The Negro Becomes Involved In Mature Political Action, Then The Resistance Of The Politicians Who Benefit From The Exploited Political System As It Now Stands Will Be Forced To Put, Exercise More Violent Action To Deprive The Negro Of His Mature Political Action.

If We Are Extremists, Then We Are Not Ashamed Of It, For The Conditions That Our People Suffer Are Extreme, And Extreme Illness Can Not Be Cured With Moderate Medicine

What Does A Black Man Look Like Begging For A Cup Of Coffee In A White Restaurant, And Doesn't Have A Job To Back Up His - To Pay For It When, When - When He Does Get The Coffee? It's Putting The Cart Before The Horse.

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.

Don't Be In A Hurry To Condemn Because He Doesn't Do What You Do Or Think As You Think Or As Fast. There Was A Time When You Didn't Know What You Know Today.

I Had Begun To Read Books And Things And, In Fact, One Of The Persons Who Started Me Thinking Seriously Was An Atheist That I, Another Negro Inmate Whom I'd Heard In A Discussion With White Inmates And Who Was Able To Hold His Own At All Levels. And He Impressed Me With His Knowledge, And I Began To Listen Very Carefully To Some Of The Things He Said.

Do Something For Yourself, And Then You Will Be Recognized By The Entire World As A Man Who Has Done For Himself What Others Have Done For Themselves.

Much Of What I Say Might Sound Bitter, But It's The Truth. Much Of What I Say Might Sound Like It's Stirring Up Trouble, But It's The Truth. Much Of What I Say Might Sound Like Its Hate, But It's The Truth

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

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.

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

Whenever I Walk The Street And See People Ready To Get With It, That's My Reward.

Brothers And Sisters, Friends And Enemies: I Just Can't Believe Everyone In Here Is A Friend, And I Don't Want To Leave Anybody Out.

Most Of [ The Negro Leaders] Who - Who, Whose Existence Or Whose Position Of Leadership Depends Upon The - On The Subsidy Or Crumbs For - The Crumbs From The White Man's Table, Will Only Say What That White Man Wants To Hear. When They Get Behind The Door They Talk A Different Language.

Why Must I Run Against A Negro? We Have Had Enough Of Negroes Running Against And Fighting With Each Other. The Better Bet Is That We Would Put A Muslim Candidate In The Field Against A Devil, Somebody Who Is Against All We Stand For.

When I Am Dead--i Say It That Way Because From The Things I Know, I Do Not Expect To Live Long Enough To Read This Book In Its Finished Form--i Want You To Just Watch And See If I'm Not Right In What I Say: That The White Man, In His Press, Is Going To Identify Me With "hate". He Will Make Use Of Me Dead, As He Has Made Use Of Me Alive, As A Convenient Symbol, Of "hatred"--and That Will Help Him Escape Facing The Truth That All I Have Been Doing Is Holding Up A Mirror To Reflect, To Show, The History Of Unspeakable Crimes That His Race Has Committed Against My Race.

Anytime There's A Fire In A Negro Community And It's Burning Out Of Control, You Send Any One Of Them, Send Whitney Young In To Put It Out.

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.

I Believe That There Will Be Ultimately Be A Clash Between The Oppressed And Those Who Do The Oppressing. I Believe That There Will Be A Clash Between Those Who Want Freedom, Justice And Equality For Everyone And Those Who Want To Continue The System Of Exploitation. I Believe That There Will Be That Kind Of Clash, But I Don't Think It Will Be Based On The Color Of The Skin.

Because The Average Negro Organization, Especially, Can't See The Problem In Its Entirety. They Can't Even See That The Problem Is So Big That Their Own Organization As Such, By Itself, Can Never Come To A, Can Never Come Up With A Solution.

After You Get Your Freedom, Your Enemy Will Respect You.

When You Aren't Affiliated With Anything, And Then You Look At Something, You Look At It With Your Eye To The Best Of Your Ability.

Only The Mistakes Were Mine.

A Negro Just Can't Be Whipped By Somebody White And Return With His Head Up In The Neighborhood, Especially In Those Days, When Sports And, To A Lesser Extent Show Business, Were The Only Fields Open To Negroes, And When The Ring Was The Only Place A Negro Could Whip A White Man And Not Be Lynched.

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

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