Background Image

...

By Looking Upon Themselves As Human Beings, Their Whiteness To Them Isn't The Yardstick Of Perfection Or Honor Or Anything Else. And, Therefore, This Creates Within Them An Attitude That Is Different From The Attitude Of The White That You Meet Here In America, And It Was In Mecca That I Realized That White Is Actually An Attitude More So Than It's A Color.

-Malcolm X

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

By Looking Upon Themselves

Malcolm X

...

By Looking Upon Themselves As Human Beings, Their Whiteness To Them Isn't The Yardstick Of Perfection Or Honor Or Anything Else. And, Therefore, This Creates Within Them An Attitude That Is Different From The Attitude Of The White That You Meet Here In America, And It Was In Mecca That I Realized That White Is Actually An Attitude More So Than It's A Color.

Views: 8

Topic

More From Malcolm X

I Have More Respect For A Man Who Lets Me Know Where He Stands, Even If He's Wrong, Than The One Who Comes Up Like An Angel And Is Nothing But A Devil.

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.

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.

We Won't Organize Any Black Man To Be A Democrat Or A Republican Because Both Of Them Have Sold Us Out. Both Of Them Have Sold Us Out; Both Parties Have Sold Us Out. Both Parties Are Racist, And The Democratic Party Is More Racist Than The Republican Party.

We Declare Our Right On This Earth...to Be A Human Being, To Be Respected As A Human Being, To Be Given The Rights Of A Human Being In This Society, On This Earth, In This Day, Which We Intend To Bring Into Existence By Any Means Necessary.

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.

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.

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

Religion Of Islam

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.

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.

Learn To See, Listen, And Think For Yourself.

Think For Yourself

Well, The White Race In America Is The Same Way. As Individuals It Is Impossible For Them To Escape The Collective Crime Committed Against The Negroes In This Country, Collectively.

First I Might Say That When A Person, When A Man Separates From His Wife, At The Out Start It's A Physical Separation But It's Not A Psychological Separation. He Still Thinks Of Her In, In Probably Warm Terms. And, But After The Physical Separation Has Taken, Existed For A Period Of Time, It Becomes A Psychological Separation As Well As Physical. And He Can Then Look At Her More Objectively. My Split Or Separation From The Black Muslim Movement At First Was Only A Physical Separation, But My Heart Was Still There And It Was Impossible For Me To, For Me To Look At It Objectively.

Stumbling Isn't Falling.

I Am A Muslim, Because It's A Religion That Teaches You An Eye For An Eye And A Tooth For A Tooth. It Teaches You To Respect Everybody, And Treat Everybody Right. But It Also Teaches You If Someone Steps On Your Toe, Chop Off Their Foot. And I Carry My Religious Axe With Me All The Time.

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

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.

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

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.

I Think You'll Find Also That If The Negro Ever Realizes That He Should Begin To Fight For Real For His Freedom, There Are Many Whites Who Will Fight On His Side With Him.

Any Time You Put Too Many Sparks Around A Powder Keg, The Thing Is Going To Explode, And If The Things That Explodes Is Still Inside The House, Then The House Will Be Destroyed.

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.

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.

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.

The Ability To Read Awoke Inside Of Me Some Long Dormant Craving To Be Mentally Alive.

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

In My Recent Travels Into African Countries And Others, I Was Impressed By The Importance Of Having A Working Unity Among All Peoples, Black As Well As White.

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.

Jews Who Have Been Guilty Of Exploiting The Black People In America, Economically, Civically, And Otherwise, Hide Behind - Hide Their Guilt By Accusing The Honorable Elijah Muhammad Of Being Anti-semitic, Simply Because He Teaches Our People To Go Into Business For Ourselves And Take Over The Economic Leadership In Our Own Community.

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.

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.

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

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.'

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

White Is An Attitude.

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

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

My Suspicious Nature Is That There's Something That [ Reverend ] Galamison, About Galamison That Must Have Some Good In It Or Some Right In It.

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

The White Man Is A Devil. If He Is Not A Devil, Let Him Prove It!

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?

Why Am I As I Am? To Understand That Of Any Person, His Whole Life, From Birth Must Be Reviewed. All Of Our Experiences Fuse Into Our Personality. Everything That Ever Happened To Us Is An Ingredient.

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]

If I May Add, For Instance, [martin Luther] King And These Others Will Say That They Are Fighting For The Negro To Have Equal Job Opportunity. How Can People, A Group Of People, Such As Our People, Who Own No Factories, Have Equal Job Opportunities Competing Against The Race That Owns The Factories?the Only Way The Two Can Have Equal Job Opportunities Is If Black People Have Factories As, As Well As White People Have Factories.

Respect Me, Or Put Me To Death.

At The Same Time Reverend Galamison Policy Is Intelligent Enough Where He Can't Be Used To Attack Me.

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.

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!

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

We Cannot Think Of Being Acceptable To Others Until We Have First Proven Acceptable To Ourselves.

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.

Look At Yourselves. Some Of You Teenagers, Students. How Do You Think I Feel And I Belong To A Generation Ahead Of You - How Do You Think I Feel To Have To Tell You, 'we, My Generation, Sat Around Like A Knot On A Wall While The Whole World Was Fighting For Its Hum An Rights - And You've Got To Be Born Into A Society Where You Still Have That Same Fight.' What Did We Do, Who Preceded You ? I'll Tell You What We Did. Nothing. And Don't You Make The Same Mistake We Made.

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.

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.

Any Time You Demonstrate Against Segregation And A Man Has The Audacity To Put A Police Dog On You, Kill That Dog, Kill Him, I'm Telling You, Kill That Dog. I Say It If They Put Me In Jail Tomorrow, Kill That Dog. Then You'll Put A Stop To It.

What Mr. Muhammad Says Is, They Should Take Their Navy And Their - Merchant Fleet And Ship Us Back Where They Got Us.and That's Not Deportation, That's - Returning Stolen Property To Its Proper Owner.now, Since The Government Doesn't Want To Do That, Then They - And They Have Already Proven That They Can't Bring About Peaceful Relations On An Integrated Basis In This Country, 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Police Violence

Police Brutality

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.

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

Asking Questions

The Honorable Elijah Muhammad Says That The Way To Solve This Problem Is For The White Man To Give Us Some Territory Of Our Own. And Then Our People - We Have Technical Know-how, We Have Agricultural Know-how. We Have Been Working For The White Man In His Business. In Every Phase Of His Government We Work.

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

The Goal - Is The Dignity Of The Black Man In America. He Wants Respect As The Human Being. He Wants Recognition As A Human Being.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

By Explaining The Difference Between Segregation And Separation. Segregation Is That Which Is Forced Upon An Inferior By A Superior. Separation Is Done Voluntarily By Two Equals. If I Have Children And They Live In My House, I Care For Them, They're Dependent Upon Me. And Their Dependence Upon Me Puts Me In A Position To Regulate Their Lives, Control Their Lives, Tell Them Where To Go, Where They Can't Go. That's A Form Of Segregation.

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

Betraying Friends

I Think That The Best Thing That A Person Can Be Is Sincere.

Stumbling Is Not Falling.

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 Don't Advocate Violence; But If A Man Steps On My Toes, I'll Step On His.

Ralph Bunche, Who Is An Internationally Recognized And Respected Diplomat, Can't Stay In A Hotel In Georgia, Which Means That No Matter What The Accomplishment, The Intellectual, The Academic, Or Professional Level Of A Negro Is, Collectively He Stands Condemned.

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.

[ Uncle Sam] Is Not Sending 20 Billion Dollars To South America Because He Loves Those People Down Here. He's Sending It - Sending It To Them Because He Needs Their Friendship, He Needs Their Allegion - Their Allegiance.

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.

The Death Of Over 120 White People Is A Very Beautiful Thing.

The Thing That You Have To Understand About Those Of Us In The Black Muslim Movement Was That All Of Us Believed 100 Percent In The Divinity Of Elijah Muhammad. We Believed In Him. We Actually Believed That God, In Detroit By The Way, That God Had Taught Him And All Of That. I Always Believed That He Believed In Himself. And I Was Shocked When I Found Out That He Himself Didn't Believe It.

If Not Now Then When, If Not Me Then Who?

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 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.

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.

Revolutions Are Never Waged Singing "we Shall Overcome." Revolutions Are Based Upon Bloodshed.

History Is A People's Memory, And Without A Memory, Man Is Demoted To The Lower Animals.

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.

Only In This Form Of Separation The Black Man Is Exploited. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad Says That We Should Be Separate, All Right, But In This Separate State Or Separate Existence, The Black Man Should Be Given The Opportunity And The Incentive To Do For Himself What The White Man Has Done For Himself.

Martin Luther King Has Made The Negro In America Unnatural.

The Only Way We'll Get Freedom For Ourselves Is To Identify Ourselves With Every Oppressed People In The World. We Are Blood Brothers To The People Of Brazil, Venezuela, Haiti, Cuba -- Yes Cuba Too.

To Me, The Thing That Is Worse Than Death Is Betrayal. You See, I Could Conceive Death, But I Could Not Conceive Betrayal.

... Any County's Moral Strength, Or Its Moral Weakness, Is Quickly Measurable By The Street Attire And Attitude Of Its Women - Especially Its Young Women. Wherever ... Spiritual Values Have Been Submerged, If Not Destroyed, By An Emphasis Upon ... Material Things, Invariably The Women Reflect It.

I Don't Think That Anyone Has Been Really Created More By The White Press Than The Civil Right Leaders.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Let's Cool It, Brothers.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

I Might Say This, That The Problem Of The, The Solution For The Afro-american Is Two-fold - Long-range And Short-range.

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.

When We Send Our Children To School, They Learn Nothing About Us Other Than We Used To Be Cotton Pickers. Why, Your Grandfather Was Nat Turner; Your Grandfather Was Toussaint L'ouverture; Your Grandfather Was Hannibal. It Was Your Grandfather's Hands Who Forged Civilization And It Was Your Grandmother's Hands Who Rocked The Cradle Of Civilization. But The Textbooks Tell Our Children Nothing.

Growing Is The Result Of Learning.

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.

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

African American

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

The Most Unprotected Person In America Is The Black Woman.

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.

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

Let's Cool It Brothers . . . Spoken To His Assassins, Three Men Who Stabbed Him 16 Times.

Any Time You Know You're Within The Law, Within Your Legal Rights, Within Your Moral Rights, In Accord With Justice, Then Die For What You Believe In. But Don't Die Alone. Let Your Dying Be Reciprocal. This Is What Is Meant By Equality. What's Good For The Goose Is Good For The Gander.

A Man Without Any History Is Like A Tree Without Roots

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!

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.

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.

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

I Have Gone Through The Process Of Re-evaluating, Giving A Personal Re-evaluation To Everything That I Ever Believed And That I Did Believe While I Was A, A Member And A Minister.

[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.

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.

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.

I Say That The Negro, When He Is, When, When They Cease To Look At Him As A Negro And Realize That He's A Human Being, Then They Will Realize That He Is Just As Capable And Has The Right To Do Anything That Any Other Human Being On This Earth Has A Right To Do To Defend Himself.

Speaking Like This Doesn't Mean That We're Anti-white, But It Does Mean We're Anti-exploitation, We're Anti-degradation, We're Anti-oppression.

Sometimes You Have To Pick The Gun Up To Put The Gun Down.

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.

Adam Clayton Powell's Entire Political Career Has To Be Looked At In The Entire Context Of The American History And The History Of, And The Position Of The Afro- American Or Negro In American History. [he] Has Done A Remarkable Job In Fighting For Rights Of Black People In This Country. On The Other Hand, He Probably Hasn't Done As Much As He Could Or As Much As He Should Because He Is The Most Independent Negro Politician In This Country.

All You Have To Do Is Go Back To Slavery - Days, And There Were Two Types Of Slaves, The House Slave And The Field Slave. The House Slave Was The One Who Believed In The Master, Who Had Confidence In The Master And Usually Was Very Friendly With The Master. And Usually He Was Also Used By The Master To Try And Keep The Other Slaves Pacified.

I Could See From This, That Perhaps If White Americans Could Accept The Oneness Of God, Then Perhaps, Too, They Could Accept In Reality The Oneness Of Man - And Cease To Measure, And Hinder, And Harm Others In Terms Of Their "differences" In Color.

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.

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.

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

Children Have A Lesson Adults Should Learn, To Not Be Ashamed Of Failing, But To Get Up And Try Again. Most Of Us Adults Are So Afraid, So Cautious, So 'safe,' And Therefore So Shrinking And Rigid And Afraid That It Is Why So Many Humans Fail. Most Middle-aged Adults Have Resigned Themselves To Failure.

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.

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.

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.

When You Expand The Civil-rights Struggle To The Level Of Human Rights, You Can Then Take The Case Of The Black Man In This Country Before The Nations In The Un. You Can Take It Before The General Assembly. You Can Take Uncle Sam Before A World Court. But The Only Level You Can Do It On Is The Level Of Human Rights. Civil Rights Keeps You Under His Restrictions, Under His Jurisdiction. Civil Rights Keeps You In His Pocket.

If You're Not Careful, The Newspapers Will Have You Hating The People Who Are Being Oppressed, And Loving The People Who Are Doing The Oppressing.

Just As Uncle Tom, Back During Slavery Used To Keep The Negroes From Resisting The Bloodhound Or Resisting The Ku Klux Klan By Teaching Them To Love Their Enemies Or Pray For Those Who Use Them Despitefully, Today Martin Luther King Is Just A Twentieth-century Or Modern Uncle Tom Or Religious Uncle Tom, Who Is Doing The Same Thing Today To Keep Negroes Defenseless In The Face Of Attack That Uncle Tom Did On The Plantation To Keep Those Negroes Defenseless In The Face Of The Attack Of The Klan In That Day.

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.

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.

Education Is Our Passport To The Future.

First Day Of School

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.

Any Form Of Integration, Forced Integration, Any - Any - Any Effort To Force Integration Upon Whites Is Actually Hypocritical.

It Has Always Been My Belief That I, Too, Will Die By Violence. I Have Done All That I Can To Be Prepared.

[jf] Kennedy Was A Deceitful Man. He Was A Cold-blooded Politician Whose Purpose Was To Get Elected.

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.

A Hundred Years Ago The American White Men Used To Put On A White Sheet And Use A Bloodhound Against Negroes. Today They Have Taken Off The White Sheet And Put On Police Uniforms And Traded In The Bloodhounds For Police Dogs, And They're Still Doing The Same Thing.

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

I Refer To A Negro Politician As A Negro Who Is Selected By Negroes And Who Is Backed By Negroes.

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.

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.

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.

If You Stick A Knife Nine Inches Into My Back And Pull It Out Three Inches, That Is Not Progress. Even If You Pull It All The Way Out, That Is Not Progress. Progress Is Healing The Wound, And America Hasn't Even Begun To Pull Out The Knife.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I'm With An Old Family" Was The Euphemism Used To Dignify The Professions Of White Folks' Cooks And Maids Who Talked So Affectedly Among Their Own Kind In Roxbury [massachusetts] That You Couldn't Even Understand Them.

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.

There Were Tens Of Thousands Of Pilgrims, From All Over The World. They Were Of All Colors, From Blue-eyed Blonds To Black-skinned Africans. But We Were All Participating In The Same Ritual, Displaying A Spirit Of Unity And Brotherhood That My Experiences In America Had Led Me To Believe Never Could Exist Between The White And Non-white.

Whereas The Only Real Solution To The Race Problem In This Country Is A Solution That Involves Individual Self Improvement And Collective Self Improvement In, Whereas Our Own, Wherein Our Own People Are Concerned.

Education Is The Passport To The Future, For Tomorrow Belongs To Those Who Prepare For It Today.

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

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

Today's Uncle Tom Doesn't Wear A Handkerchief On His Head. This Modern, Twentieth-century Uncle Thomas Now Often Wears A Top Hat. He's Usually Well-dressed And Well-educated. He's Often The Personification Of Culture And Refinement. The Twentieth-century Uncle Thomas Sometimes Speaks With A Yale Or Harvard Accent. Sometimes He Is Known As Professor, Doctor, Judge, And Reverend, Even Right Reverend Doctor. This Twentieth-century Uncle Thomas Is A Professional Negro -by That I Mean His Profession Is Being A Negro For The White Man.

Wyatt Walker Can Walk Through Harlem. No One Would Know Him.

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.

I Live Like A Man Who's Dead Already! I Have No Fear Whatsoever Of Anybody Or Anything

In My Opinion, Mature Political Action Is The Type Of Action That That Involves A Program Of Re-education And Information That Will Enable The Black People In The Black Community To See The Fruits That They Should Be Receiving From The Politicians Who Are Over Them And, Thereby, They Are Then Able To Determine Whether Or Not The Politician Is Really Fulfilling His Function.

The Honorable Elijah Muhammad Is Teaching The Black Man, You're A Human Man.all You Have To Do Is Dignify Yourself. You Don't Have To Wait For Any White Man To Recognize You. Recognize Yourself. Love Each Other. Practice Harmony And Brotherhood Among Your Own Kind.

Here You Have 22 Million Afro-americans, Black People Today, Catching More Hell Than Patrick Henry Ever Saw. And I'm Here To Tell You, In Case You Don't Know It, That You Got A New - You Got A New Generation Of Black People In This Country, Who Don't Care Anything Whatsoever About Odds. They Don't Want To Hear You Old Uncle Tom Handkerchief Heads Talking About The Odds.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

The White Devil's Time Is Up.

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.

Most Of The, Or I Should Say Many Of The Negro Leaders Actually Suffer Themselves From An Inferiority Complex Even Though They Say They Don't.

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.

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

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

All Over This World People Are Standing Up For Freedom.

Trending Author

Category