Background Image

...

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.

-Malcolm X

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

And When I Speak,

Malcolm X

...

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.

Views: 3

Topic

More From Malcolm X

That's Not A Chip On My Shoulder, That's Your Foot On My Neck.

I Think The Black Man In America Wants To Be Recognized As A Human Being; And It's Almost Impossible For One Who Has Enslaved Another To Bring Himself To Accept The Person Who Used To Pull His Plow, Who Used To Be An Animal, Subhuman, Who Used To Be Considered As Such By Him-it's Almost Impossible For That Person In His Right Mind To Accept That Person As His Equal.

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.

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.

Give Us Some Separate Territory In This Country Where Our People Can Go And Do Something For Ourselves. And Provide Us With Everything That We Need To Keep That New Territory Going, Until We Are Self-sufficient.

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.

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?

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.

Now, You Integration-minded Negroes Are Trying To Force Yourselves On Your Former Slave Master, Trying To Make Him Accept You In His Drawing Room; You Want To Hang Out With His Women Rather Than The Women Of Your Own Kind.

You Have The Upper Class Negroes Who Are The Modern Day Uncle Toms Or The 20th Century Uncle Toms. They Don't Wear A Handkerchief Anymore. They Wear Top Hats. They're Called Doctor, They're Called - Reverend, But They're Still - They Play The Same Role Today That Uncle Tom Played On The Plantation.

On The Iberian Peninsula In The Spanish-portuguese Area, Southern France That High State Of A Culture Existed There Because Of Africans Known As Moors Had Come There And Brought It There.

You Don't Integrate With A Sinking Ship.

The Press Is So Powerful In Its Image-making Role, It Can Make The Criminal Look Like He's A The Victim And Make The Victim Look Like He's The Criminal. This Is The Press, An Irresponsible Press. It Will Make The Criminal Look Like He's The Victim And Make The Victim Look Like He's The Criminal. If You Aren't Careful, The Newspapers Will Have You Hating The People Who Are Being Oppressed And Loving The People Who Are Doing The Oppressing.

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.

The Black Man In America's Position Is Parallel With That Of The Jews, Especially When The Jews Were In Bondage Under Pharaoh. And At No Time Did Moses In The Bible Ever Try And Integrate The Hebrews Into The Egyptian Society Or Accept Any Hypocritical Offers Made By The Slave Master Of That Day.

Internal Differences Within The Nation Of Islam Forced Me Out Of It. I Did Not Leave Of My Own Free Will. But Now That It Has Happened, I Intend To Make The Most Of It. Now That I Have More Independence Of Action, I Intend To Use A More Flexible Approach Toward Working With Others To Get A Solution To This Problem.

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 Looked On The Television The Other Night And Saw Them Beating A Negro Unmercifully In Mississippi. And This Is The Result Of A Brainwashing Technique, A Certain Power Structure In The American Government Has Paid These Negro Integrationist Leaders To Perpetuate Among Our People. But It's Not A Good Thing, And It Will Never Solve Our Problem.

I Must Say This Concerning The Great Controversy Over Rifles And Shotguns. The Only Thing I've Ever Said Is That In Areas Where The Government Has Proven Itself Either Unwilling Or Unable To Defend The Lives And The Property Of Negroes, It's Time For Negroes To Defend Themselves. Article Number Two Of The Constitutional Amendments Provides You And Me The Right To Own A Rifle Or A Shotgun. It Is Constitutionally Legal To Own A Shotgun Or A Rifle.

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.

Who Taught You To Hate Yourself?

Hating Yourself

An Integrated Cup Of Coffee Isn't Sufficient Pay For Four Hundred Years Of Slave Labor.

Thoughtful White People Know They Are Inferior To Black People.

It's Easy. [black Man] Is - He's Separate Already. The Fact That You Have Harlem, The Fact That You Have The Negro Ghetto And The So-called Negro Slum, He's Already Separate.

...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 The Brotherhood Of Man, All Men, But I Don't Believe In Brotherhood With Anybody Who Doesn't Want Brotherhood With Me. I Believe In Treating People Right, But I'm Not Going To Waste My Time Trying To Treat Somebody Right Who Doesn't Know How To Return The Treatment.

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

History Is Not Hatred.

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

Revolution Is Based On Land. Land Is The Basis Of All Independence. Land Is The Basis Of Freedom, Justice, And Equality.

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.

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.

A Revolution Is Bloody. Revolution Is Hostile. Revolution Knows No Compromise. Revolution Overturns And Destroys Everything That Gets In Its Way.

I Think As An Intelligent Person You Would Agree That When You Are Teaching Among Oppressed People That They Should Be Relieved Of Their Oppression Not 100 Or 10 Years From Now, But Right Now, You're Going To Find Your Talk Is Going To Fall Upon Sympathetic Ears.

It Has Taken Us That Long To Get The Deaf, Dumb, And Blind Black Men In The Wilderness Of North America To Wake Up And Understand Who They Are.

When You Mentioned Something About Self Improvement, The Implication Is That The Negro Is Something Distinct Or Different, And, Therefore, Needs To Learn How To Improve Himself. Negro Leaders Resent This Being Said, Not Because They Don't Know That It's True, But They're Thinking, They're Looking At It Personally. They Think That The Implication Is Directed Even At Them, And That They, And They Duck This Responsibility.

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.

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.

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

I Mean A Real Police State Just To Get A Token Recognition Of A Law. It Take, It Took, I Think, 15,000 Troops And 6 Million Dollars To Put One Negro In The University Of Mississippi. That's A Police Action, Police State Action.

Because Once The Black Man Becomes The Political Master Of His Own Community, It Means That The Politicians Of That Community Will Also Be Black, Which Also Means That He Then Will Be Sending Black Representation Or Representatives Not Only To Represent Him At The Local Level And At The State Level, But, But Even At The Federal Level.

What The White Man In America Needs To Realize Is There's A New Thinking Among Black People Today Which Makes Them Not Willing To Sit Around And Wait For Five Years To Get This Problem Solved, Much Less A Hundred Years.

The White Man Pays Reverend Martin Luther King So That Martin Luther King Can Keep The Negro Defenseless.

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

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.

I Was With Essien Udom In Nigeria.

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

Any Time A Negro Community Lives Under Fear That Its Churches Are Going To Be Bombed, Then They Have To Realize They're Living In A War Zone.

More So Than Any Other City On The African Continent, The People Of Cairo Look Like The American Negroes In The Sense That We Have All Complexions, We Range In America From The Darkest Black To The Lightest Light, And Here In Cairo It Is The Same Thing; Throughout Egypt, It Is The Same Thing. All Of The Complexions Are Blended Together Here In A Truly Harmonious Society.

My Sincerity Is My Credentials.

I Believe In The Brotherhood Of All Men, But I Don't Believe In Wasting Brotherhood On Anyone Who Doesn't Want To Practice It With Me. Brotherhood Is A Two-way Street.

Brotherhood Of Man

The Honorable Elijah Muhammad Says That The Black Man In America, For The Past 400 Years, Has Been Like A Boy In The White Man's House, Begging The White Man For A Job, For Food, Clothing And Shelter. And Then After The White Man Provides Him With All Of These Things, He Turns Around And Get - Has The Nerve To Get Angry At The White Man When The White Man Tries To Control His Life.

I Was Going Through The Hardest Thing, Also The Greatest Thing, For Any Human Being To Do; To Accept That Which Is Already Within You, And Around You.

The Negro Fought And Bled And Died In Every War The White Man Waged, And He Still Won't Give You Justice. You Nursed His Baby And Cleaned Behind His Wife, And He Still Won't Give You Freedom; You Turned The Other Cheek While He Lynched You And Raped Your Women, But He Still Won't Give You Equality.

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.

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.

You Can't Separate Peace From Freedom Because No One Can Be At Peace Unless He Has His Freedom.

Like Samson, I Am Ready To Pull Down The White Man's Temple, Knowing Full Well That I Will Be Destroyed By The Falling Rubble.

We Don't Think That We're Begging For Anything. We Think We're Demanding What Is Ours By Right.

Just As A Tree Without Roots Is Dead, A People Without History Or Cultural Roots Also Becomes A Dead People.

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

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.

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.

There Is Nothing In Our Book, The Koran, That Teaches Us To Suffer Peacefully. Our Religion Teaches Us To Be Intelligent.

No Sane Black Man Really Wants Integration! No Sane White Man Really Wants Integration!

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.

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.

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.

It's Almost Impossible To Separate The Actions, Or It's Also, It's Almost Impossible To Separate The Oppression And Exploitation, Criminal Oppression And Criminal Exploitation Of The American Negro From The Color Of The Skin Of The Person Who Is The Oppressor Or The Exploiter.

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.

[my Half-sister] Ella And I Always Were Much Closer As Basic Types; We're Dominant People, And [my Other Half-sister] Mary Has Always Been Mild And Quiet, Almost Shy.

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

Whether We Are Christians Or Muslims Or Nationalists Or Agnostics Or Atheists, We Must First Learn To Forget Our Differences. If We Have Differences, Let Us Differ In The Closet; When We Come Out In Front, Let Us Not Have Anything To Argue About Until We Get Finished Arguing With The Man. If The Late President Kennedy Could Get Together With Khrushchev And Exchange Some Wheat, We Certainly Have More In Common With Each Other Than Kennedy And Khrushchev Had With Each Other.

The Religion Of Islam Actually Restores One's Human Feelings, Human Rights, Human Incentives, Human, His Talent.

Religion Of Islam

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.

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

You Can't Legislate Good Will - That Comes Through Education.

The Government Is Responsible For The Violence, As Long As They Don't Stop It. And If We Have To Get Violent To Protect Ourselves, Then It's The Government That Should Be Charged With The Crime, Because We're Only Upholding A Law That They've Been Unable To Uphold.

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.

Martin Luther King Has Taken Away From The Negro His Gov-given Right To Defend Himself.

I Grew Up In The Country On A Farm It Was Whenever Someone Said Even That A Snake Was Eating The Chickens Or Bothering The Chickens, We'd Kill Snakes. We Never Knew Whether That Was The Snake That Did It.

The Negro Was Taught To Speak The White Man's Tongue, Worship The White God, And Accept The White Man As His Superior.

Stumbling Isn't Falling.

When The Japanese Bombed Pearl Harbor, The United States Struck Back. She Didn't Go And Bomb - She Bombed Any Part Of Japan. She Dropped The Bomb On Hiroshima. Those People In Hiroshima Probably Hadn't Even, Some Of Them; Most Of Them Hadn't Even Killed Anybody.

Renaissance Or The Reawakening Of Europe. And, And This Reawakening Actually Involved An Era During Which The People Of Europe, Who Were Coming Out Of The Dark Ages, Were Then Adopting The Value System Of The People In The East, In The, Of The Oriental Society.

If The Emancipation Proclamation Was Authentic, You Wouldn't Have A Race Problem.

Emancipation Proclamation

The American System Itself Is Incapable. It Is As Incapable Of Producing Freedom For The Afro-american As The System Of A Chicken Is Of Producing A Duck Egg.

Since I Learned The Truth In Mecca, My Dearest Friends Have Come To Include All Kinds - Some Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Agnostics, And Even Atheists! I Have Friends Who Are Called Capitalists, Socialists, And Communists! Some Of My Friends Are Moderates, Conservatives, Extremists - Some Are Even Uncle Toms! My Friends Today Are Black, Brown, Red, Yellow, And White!

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.

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.

America Is A White Man's Country.

The Greatest Miracle Christianity Has Achieved In America Is That The Black Man In White Christian Hands Has Not Grown Violent. It Is A Miracle That Twenty-two Million Black People Have Not Risen Up Against Their Oppressors In Which They Would Have Been Justified By All Moral Criteria And Even By The Democratic Traditions.

Despite My Firm Convictions, I Have Always Been A Man Who Tries To Face Facts, And To Accept The Reality Of Life As New Experience And New Knowledge Unfolds. I Have Always Kept An Open Mind, A Flexibility That Must Go Hand In Hand With Every Form Of The Intelligent Search For Truth.

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

There Was No Racism; There Was No Problem [in Mecca].

[ Negro Leaders] Never Let The White Man Know Exactly What Black People Are Thinking.

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.

If Violence Is Wrong In America, Violence Is Wrong Abroad. If It Is Wrong To Be Violent Defending Black Women And Black Children And Black Babies And Black Men, Then It Is Wrong For America To Draft Us And Make Us Violent Abroad In Defense Of Her. And If It Is Right For America To Draft Us, And Teach Us How To Be Violent In Defense Of Her, Then It Is Right For You And Me To Do Whatever Is Necessary To Defend Our Own People Right Here In This Country.

Any Group, Any Group That Can't Work With All Other Groups, If They Are Genuinely Interested In Solving The Problems Of The Negro Collectively Why, I Don't Think That That Group Is Really Sincerely Motivated Toward Reaching A Solution.

Learn To See, Listen, And Think For Yourself.

Think For Yourself

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.

When I Said [ I Would Work With Any Organization] I Would Make The, The Reservation That I Would Work With Any Organization As Long As It Didn't Make Us Compromise Our Religious Principles.

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.

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.

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

These Were African-arab-asian Values. The Only Section Of Europe That Had A High Value System During The Dark Ages Was The, Were Those On The Iberian Peninsula In The Spanish-portuguese Area, Southern France.

The Honorable Elijah Muhammad Says Number One, [negro] Must Know - Have A Knowledge Of Himself. And This Gives Him Confidence In Himself. He - He Has Been Brainwashed By The Educational System That Exists Here In America To The Point Where He Feels He Was A Savage In The Jungle When He Was - Before He Was Brought Here. And This Destroys His Morale.

Anytime Anyone Is Enslaved Or In Any Way Deprived Of His Liberty, That Person, As A Human Being, As Far As I'm Concerned He Is Justified To Resort To Whatever Methods Necessary To Bring About His Liberty Again.

The Common Goal Of 22 Million Afro-americans Is Respect As Human Beings, The God-given Right To Be A Human Being. Our Common Goal Is To Obtain The Human Rights America Has Been Denying Us. We Can Never Get Civil Rights In America Until Our Human Rights Are First Restored. We Will Never Be Recognized As Citizens There Until We Are First Recognized As Humans.

That's Not Our Problem, That's America's Problem. If The Average American Knew The Trouble That Uncle Sam Is In All Over This Earth, They Could See That It - We Are Closer Toward Getting A Separate Territory In This Country Than The Integrationists Are Toward Getting Integration.

You Can Cuss Out Colonialism, Imperialism, And All Other Kinds Of Ism, But It's Hard For You To Cuss That Dollarism. When They Drop Those Dollars On You, Your Soul Goes.

I Believe In Recognizing Every Human Being As A Human Being - Neither White, Black, Brown, Or Red.

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

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

A Man Who Stands For Nothing Will Fall For Anything.

The American Negro Has Been Entirely Brainwashed From Ever Seeing Or Thinking Of Himself, As He Should, As A Part Of The Non-white Peoples Of The World.

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

And What Makes The Whites Who Have These Middle-class Values Have Those Values? Where Did They Get It? They Didn't Have These Same Values Four Hundred Years, Five Hundred Years Ago.

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.

Any Time You See Someone More Successful Than You Are, They Are Doing Something You Aren't.

Imagine That -- A Country That's Supposed To Be A Democracy, Supposed To Be For Freedom And All Of That Kind Of Stuff When They Want To Draft You And Put You In The Army And Send You To Saigon To Fight For Them -- And Then You've Got To Turn Around And All Night Long Discuss How You're Going To Just Get A Right To Register And Vote Without Being Murdered. Why, That's The Most Hypocritical Government Since The World Began!

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.

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.

And Just Because You Have Colleges And Universities Doesn't Mean You Have Education.

Anybody Who Rapes, And Plunders, And Enslaves, And Steals, And Drops Hell Bombs On People... Anybody Who Does These Things Is Nothing But A Devil.

I Imagine That One Of The Biggest Troubles With Colleges Is There Are Too Many Distractions, Too Much Panty-raiding, Fraternities, And Boola-boola And All Of That.

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.

Any Way, Any Form Necessary To Defend Himself; Negro Should Reserve The Right To Do That Just The Same As Others Have The Right To Do It.

A Man Without Any History Is Like A Tree Without Roots

The White Man Is Too Intelligent To Let Someone Else Come And Gain Control Of The Economy Of His Community. But You Will Let Anyone Come In And Take Control Of The Economy Of Your Community, Control The Housing, Control The Education, Control The Jobs, Control The Businesses, Under The Pre-text That You Want To Integrate. No, You Outta Your Mind.

Only The Whites In The South Aren't Hypocritical About It. You Don't Find Any More Inter - There Is Just As Much Social Intermixing In The South As There - Between The Races As There Is In The North. Only They - In The South They Let You Know - Where They Stand, And In The North They Take A Hypocritical Approach Or Attitude Or Reaction.

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.

The Black Man In Africa Had Mastered The Arts And Sciences. He Knew The Course Of The Stars In The Universe Before The Man Up In Europe Knew That The Earth Wasn't Flat.

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

If Integration Will Get [black Man] That [respect As The Human Being], All Right. If Segregation Will Get Him That, All Right. If Separation Will Get Him That, All Right.but After He Gets Integration And He Still Doesn't Have This Dignity And This Recognition As A Human Being, Then His Problem Is Still Not Solved.

The True Islam Has Shown Me That A Blanket Indictment Of All White People Is As Wrong As When Whites Make Blanket Indictments Against Blacks.

I Have Read Where Abraham Lincoln Said He Wasn't Interested In Freeing The Slaves.

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.

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.

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.

We Don't Think That We're Begging For Anything. We Think We're Demanding What Is Ours By Right. And All We're Asking For Is An Opportunity To Do Something For Ourselves, Rather Than To Sit Around As A Beggar, Begging For Jobs And Begging For Education From - For Someone Else For The Rest Of Our Lives.

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.

Be Peaceful, Be Courteous, Obey The Law, Respect Everyone; But If Someone Puts His Hand On You, Send Him To The Cemetery.

There Seems In Most Countries To Be Either One Extreme Or The Other. Truly A Paradise Could Exist Wherever Material Progress And Spiritual Values Could Be Properly Balanced.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Hence I Have No Mercy Or Compassion In Me For A Society That Will Crush People, And Then Penalize Them For Not Being Able To Stand Up Under The Weight.

We Didn't Land On Plymouth Rock, Plymouth Rock Landed On Us".

The Problem Facing Our People Here In America Is Bigger Than All Other Personal Or Organizational Differences. Therefore, As Leaders, We Must Stop Worrying About The Threat That We Seem To Think We Pose To Each Other's Personal Prestige, And Concentrate Our United Efforts Toward Solving The Unending Hurt That Is Being Done Daily To Our People Here In America.

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.

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

You Don't Have To Be A Man To Fight For Freedom. All You Have To Do Is To Be An Intelligent Human Being.

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

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

When 'i' Replaced With 'we', Even The Illness Becomes Wellness.

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 Negro Revolution Is Controlled By Foxy White Liberals, By The Government Itself. But The Black Revolution Is Controlled Only By God.

Daring To Reach, To Climb, To Crawl, To Scratch, To Get Back Up When You've Been Knocked Down, To Push Forward - Ever Forward - To Forgive. It Means Sacrificing Everything If Necessary, To Carve Out A Place For Your Own Existence. It Means Living.

Sacrificing Everything

It Is Not A Case Of Our People...wanting Either Separation Or Integration. The Use Of These Words Actually Clouds The Real Picture. The 22 Million Afro-americans Don't Seek Either Separation Or Integration. They Seek Recognition And Respect As Human Beings.

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.

Forget The Methods Or The Differences In Methods. As Long As We Agree That The Thing That The Afro-american Wants And Needs Is Recognition And Respect As A Human Being.

I Believe In Human Rights For Everyone, And None Of Us Is Qualified To Judge Each Other And That None Of Us Should Therefore Have That Authority.

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.

Sitting At The Table Doesn’t Make You A Diner, Unless You Eat Some Of What’s On That Plate. Being Here In America Doesn’t Make You An American. Being Born Here In America Doesn’t Make You An American.

There Has To Be Something Wrong When A Man Or A Woman Leaves His Own People And Marries Somebody Of Another Kind.

Until The White Man In America Sits Down And Talks With The Honorable Elijah Muhammad, He Won't Even Know What The Race Problem - What Makes The Race Problem What It Is.

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

We're Not Americans, We're Africans Who Happen To Be In America. We Were Kidnapped And Brought Here Against Our Will From Africa. We Didn't Land On Plymouth Rock - That Rock Landed On Us.

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.

When I Was In Mecca I Noticed That Their, They Had No Color Problem. That They Had People There Whose Eyes Were Blue And People There Whose Eyes Were Black, People Whose Skin Was White, People Whose Skin Was Black, People Whose Hair Was Blond, People Whose Hair Was Black, From The Whitest White Person To The Blackest Black Person.

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.

God Is Going To Punish The White Man For His Misdeeds Toward Black People.

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.

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.

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.

It Is Only The Negro Leadership, The Bourgeois, Hand-picked, Handful Of Negroes Who Think That They're Going To Get Some Kind Of Respect, Recognition, Or Protection From The Government.

Don't Be Bitter. Remember Lot's Wife When They Kill Me, And They Surely Will. You Have To Use All Of Your Energy To Do What It Is You Have To Do. [to His Wife Betty Shabazz]

They Asked If I Knew What 'conscientious Objector' Meant. I Told Them That When The White Man Asked Me To Go Off Somewhere And Fight And Maybe Die To Preserve The Way The White Man Treated The Black Man In America, Then My Conscience Made Me Object.

Just Take The Negro Child. Take The White Child. The White Child, Although It Has Not Committed Any Of The Per - As A Person Has Not Committed Any Of The Deeds That Has Produced The Plight That The Negro Finds Himself In, Is He Guiltless? The Only Way You Can Determine That Is, Take The Negro Child Who's Only Four-years-old. Can He Escape, Though He's Only Four Years Old, Can He Escape The Stigma Of Discrimination And Segregation? He's Only Four-years-old.

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.

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

If I Did See A White Man Who Was Willing To Go To Jail Or Throw Himself In Front Of A Car In Behalf Of The So-called "negro Cause," The Test That I'd Put To Him, I'd Ask Him, "do You Think Negro, When Negroes Are Being Attacked They Should Defend Themselves Even At The Risk Of Having To Kill The One Who's Attacking Them?" If That White Man Told Me, "yes," I'd Shake His Hand.

You Negroes Are Not Willing To Admit It Yet, But Integration Will Not Work. Why, It Is Against The White Man's Nature To Integrate You Into His House.

Only A Man Who Is Ashamed Of What He Is Will Marry Out Of His Race.

Of All Our Studies, History Is Best Qualified To Reward Our Research. And When You See That You've Got Problems, All You Have To Do Is Examine The Historic Method Used All Over The World By Others Who Have Problems Similar To Yours. And Once You See How They Got Theirs Straight, Then You Know How You Can Get Yours Straight.

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.

One Day, May We All Meet Together In The Light Of Understanding.

America Just Reaped What It Had Been Sowing.

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.

No Religion Will Ever Make Me Forget The Condition Of Our People In This Country...no God, No Religion, No Nothing Will Make Me Forget It Until It Stops, Until It's Elimitnated. I Want To Make That Point Clear.

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

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

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.

To Me, The Thing That Is Worse Than Death Is Betrayal.

Betraying Friends

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

Trending Author

Melina Mercouri

Mordecai Richler

Neville Marriner

Herman Melville

Joseph Pulitzer

Category