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The Black Man Will Inherit The Earth; He Will Resume Control, Taking Back The Position He Held Centuries Ago When The White Devil Was Crawling Around The Caves Of Europe On His All Fours. Before The White Devil Came Into Our Lives We Had A Civilization, We Had A Culture, We Were Living In Silks And Satins. Then He Put Us In Chains And Put Us Aboard The "good Ship Jesus," And We Have Lived In Hell Ever Since.

-Malcolm X

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The Black Man Will

Malcolm X

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The Black Man Will Inherit The Earth; He Will Resume Control, Taking Back The Position He Held Centuries Ago When The White Devil Was Crawling Around The Caves Of Europe On His All Fours. Before The White Devil Came Into Our Lives We Had A Civilization, We Had A Culture, We Were Living In Silks And Satins. Then He Put Us In Chains And Put Us Aboard The "good Ship Jesus," And We Have Lived In Hell Ever Since.

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America Preaches Integration And Practices Segregation.

History Rewards All Research. And History Fails To Record One Single Instance In Which The White Man - As A People - Did Good. They Have Always Been Devils; They Always Will Be Devils, And They Are About To Be Destroyed. The Final Proof That They Are Devils Lies In The Fact That They Are About To Destroy Themselves. Only A Devil - And A Stupid Devil At That - Would Destroy Himself!

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

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

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

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.

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.

Moses Tried To Separate His People From Pharaoh, And When He Tried, The Magicians Tried To Fool The People Into Staying With The Pharaoh, And We Look Upon These Other Organizations That Are Trying To Get Negroes To Integrate With This Doomed White Man As Nothing But Modern-day Magicians, And The Honorable Elijah Muhammad Is A Modern-day Moses Trying To Separate Us From The Modern-day Pharaoh.

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.

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

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

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. Then You Can Come To An Intelligent Decision For Yourself. If You Form The Habit Of Going By What You Hear Others Say About Someone, Or Going By What Others Think About Someone, Instead Of Searching That Thing Out For Yourself And Seeing For Yourself, You Will Be Walking West When You Think You're Going East, And You Will Be Walking East When You Think You're Going West.

That Value System Has Been Handed Right Down In European Society. And Today When You Find Negroes, If They Even Look Like They're Adopting These So-called Middle-class Values, Standards, It's Not That They Are Taking Something From The White Man, But They Are Probably Identifying Again With The Level Or Standard That These Same Whites Have Gotten From Them Back During That Period.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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, For One, Will Join In With Anyone -- I Don't Care What Color You Are -- As Long As You Want To Change This Miserable Condition That Exists On This Earth.

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

I Feel Like A Man Who Has Been Asleep Somewhat And Under Someone Else's Control. I Feel That What I'm Thinking And Saying Is Now For Myself. Before It Was For And By The Guidance Of Elijah Muhammad. Now I Think With My Own Mind, Sir!

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!

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

The Religious Philosophy That They Had Adopted, In My Opinion, Was The Only Thing And Is The Only Thing That Can Remove The White From The Mind Of The White Man And The Negro From The Mind Of The Negro. I Have Seen What Islam Has Done With Our People, Our People Who Had This Feeling Of Negro - And It Had A Psychological Effect Of Putting Them In A Mental Prison.

You Don't Integrate With A Sinking Ship.

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 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.

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

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

It Is A Time For Martyrs Now, And If I Am To Be One, It Will Be For The Cause Of Brotherhood. That's The Only Thing That Can Save This Country.

[ 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 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.

This Is Why Integration Will Not Work. It Assumes That The Two Races, Black And White, Are Equal And Can Be Made To Live As One. This Is Not True.

Black And White

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

If You Have No Critics You'll Likely Have No Success.

Congratulations

If All The White People Who Claim They Don't Hate Us Would Ever Get Together And Do Something To The Whites Who Claim They Hate Us, We'd See Some Action. Talk Is Cheap, If White People Didn't Want To Have A South African Situation ... There'd Be None. If White People In America Didn't Want Segregation, There'd Be None ... It Is The Man Who Allows Him To Lynch Who Is Never Seen.

Integration Is The Method Toward Obtaining That Goal. And What He Negro Leader Has Done Is Gotten Himself Wrapped Up In The Method And Has Forgotten What The Goal Is.

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.

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.

America Is Subsidizing What Is Left Of The Prestige And Strength Of The Once Mighty Britain. The Sun Has Set Forever On That Monocled, Pith-helmeted Resident Colonialist, Sipping Tea With His Delicate Lady In The Non-white Colonies Being Systematically Robbed Of Every Valuable Resource. Britain's Superfluous Royalty And Nobility Now Exist By Charging Tourists To Inspect The Once Baronial Castles, And By Selling Memoirs, Perfumes, Autographs, Titles, And Even Themselves.

When I Was In Prison, I Read An Article - Don't Be Shocked When I Say I Was In Prison. You're Still In Prison. That's What America Means: Prison.

Now The Goal Of Dr. Martin Luther King Is To Give Negroes A Chance To Sit In A Segregated Restaurant Beside The Same White Man Who Has Brutalized Them For Four Hundred Years.

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.

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.

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.

Hatred And Anger Are Powerless When Met With Kindness.

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

We Cannot Think Of Uniting With Others, Until After We Have First United Among Ourselves... One Can't Unite Bananas With Scattered Leaves.

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

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.

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.

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.

I Admire A Man Who Fights A Battle Against Opposition, And If There Wasn't Something About [reverend] Galamison That The People, I Notice That The Power Structure Is Against Galamison.

It’s Just Like When You’ve Got Some Coffee That’s Too Black, Which Means It’s Too Strong. What You Do? You Integrate It With Cream; You Make It Weak. If You Pour Too Much Cream In, You Won’t Even Know You Ever Had Coffee. It Used To Be Hot, It Becomes Cool. It Used To Be Strong, It Becomes Weak. It Used To Wake You Up, Now It’ll Put You To Sleep.

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 Don't Know - Too Much About Robert Williams Tactics, But If He Was Trying To Defend Himself, He Was Within His God-given Rights And Within - And He Was Also Within His Natural Right, Because First Law Of Nature Is Self-preservation.

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

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

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

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.

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.

Culture Is An Indispensable Weapon In The Freedom Struggle.

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.

Most Of Those Negroes Have Been Given Those Jobs By The White Political Machine, And They Serve No Other Function Other Than To, As Window Dressing.

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

It Would Be The Easiest Thing In The World For The White Man To Destroy All Black Muslims.

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

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

The Honorable Elijah Muhammad Teaches Us To Get Away From The Devil As Soon And As Fast As We Can.

I Know That Societies Often Have Killed People Who Have Helped To Change Those Societies. And If I Can Die Having Brought Any Light, Having Exposed Any Meaningful Truth That Will Help Destroy The Racist Cancer That Is Malignant In The Body Of America, Then, All Credit Is Due To Allah. Only The Mistakes Have Been Mine.

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.

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.

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

Thoughtful White People Know They Are Inferior To Black People.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Those Type Of Whites Who Are Always Going To Jail With Negroes Are The Ones Who Tell Negroes To Be Loving And Be Kind And Be Patient And Be Nonviolent And Turn The Other Cheek.

By Any Means Necessary.

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.

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.

I Admire The, The Stand Of China And The Stand Of Mao Tse- Tung, But I Can't Admire With Respect The Stand Of, Of Nehru In India. I Just Can't Do It.

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

The Greatest Weapon The Colonial Powers Have Used In The Past Against Our People Has Always Been His Ability To Divide And Conquer. If I Take My Hand And Slap You, It Might Sting You Because These Digits Are Separated. But All I Have To Do To Put You Back In Your Place Is Bring Those Digits Together.

Sitting At The Table Doesn't Make You A Diner, Unless You Eat Some Of What's On That Plate.

What It Means To Be An American

No Black Person Married To A White Person Can Speak For Me!

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.

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

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.

The Mother Is The First Teacher Of The Child. The Message She Gives That Child, That Child Gives To The World.

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.

Only The Mistakes Were Mine.

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.

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

You Have, You Can Only Answer It This Way: By Turning It Around. Can The Negro - Who Is The Victim Of The System - Escape The Collective Stigma That Is Placed Upon All Negroes In This Country?

Learn To See, Listen, And Think For Yourself.

Think For Yourself

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

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

I Believe In Human Beings, And That All Human Beings Should Be Respected As Such, Regardless Of Their Color.

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 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.

Everybody Has A God And Believes That His God Will Deliver Him And Protect Him From His Enemies!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

God Is More Lasting Than The White Man.

Armed With The Knowledge Of Our Past, We Can With Confidence Charter A Course For Our Future. Culture Is An Indispensable Weapon In The Freedom Struggle. We Must Take Hold Of It And Forge The Future With The Past.

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

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.

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

I'm For Truth, No Matter Who Tells It. I'm For Justice, No Matter Who It's For Or Against.

[black Nationalism] Is Not Designed To Make The Black Man Reevaluate The White Man--you Know Him Already--but To Make The Black Man Re-evaluate Himself. Don't Change The White Man's Mind; You Can't Change His Mind. And That Whole Thing About Appealing To The Moral Conscience Of America--america's Conscience Is Bankrupt.

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 Have Rarely Talked To Anyone About My Mother, For I Believe That I Am Capable Of Killing A Person, Without Hesitation, Who Happened To Make The Wrong Kind Of Remark About My Mother. So I Purposely Don't Make Any Opening For Some Fool To Step Into.

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.

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.

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

It Took The United States Army To Get One Negro Into The University Of Mississippi; It Took Troops To Get A Few Negroes In The White Schools At Little Rock And Another Dozen Places In The South.

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

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.

We Must Control The Politics And The Politicians Of Our Community. They Must No Longer Take Orders From Outside Forces. We Will Organize, And Sweep Out Of Office All Negro Politicians Who Are Puppets For The Outside Forces.

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

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.

A Ballot Is Like A Bullet. You Don't Throw Your Ballots Until You See A Target, And If That Target Is Not Within Your Reach, Keep Your Ballot In Your Pocket.

How Could There Be Any Difference Between The Messenger And Me? I Am His Slave, His Servant, His Son. He Is The Leader, The Only Spokesman For The Black Muslims.

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.

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.

I'm For Truth, No Matter Who Tells It.

[at A Young Age] I Had Learned Enough About Women To Know Not To Pressure Them When They're Thinking Something Out; They'll Tell You When They're Ready.

[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 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.

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

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.

What You Did To One, You Did To All. So They Couldn't Have That Type Of Religion Being Taught In The Prison.

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

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.

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

The People Listening Very Closely To What The Muslims Have Always Declared. They'll Find That In Every Declaration There's The Fact That, The Same As, As Moses Told Pharaoh, "you're Doomed If You Don't Do So And So," Or As Daniel Told, I Think It Was Balthazar Or Nebuchadnezzar, "you Are Doomed If You Don't Do So And So."

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.

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

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

Truth Is On The Side Of The Oppressed Today, It's Against The Oppressor.

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

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.

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.

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.

Who Taught You To Hate Yourself?

Hating Yourself

Concerning Non-violence: It Is Criminal To Teach A Man Not To Defend Himself When He Is The Constant Victim Of Brutal Attacks.

It's Liberty Or It's Death. It's Freedom For Everybody Or Freedom For Nobody.

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

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.

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.

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 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.

Wrong Is Wrong, No Matter Who Does It Or Who Says It.

Its The Hinge That Squeaks That Gets The Grease

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

The British Empire Was So Vast And So Powerful, The Sun Would Never Set On It. This Is How Big It Was, Yet These 13 Little Scrawny States, Tired Of Taxation Without Representation, Tired Of Being Exploited And Oppressed And Degraded, Told That Big British Empire, Liberty Or Death.

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."

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.

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.

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 Chinese In This Country Aren't Asking For Integration.

If I Can't Run My Neighborhood You Won't Want Me In Your Neighborhood.

We Have To Keep In Mind At All Times That We Are Not Fighting For Integration, Nor Are We Fighting For Separation. We Are Fighting For Recognition As Free Humans In This Society.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

If You're Born In America With A Black Skin, You're Born In Prison, And The Masses Of Black People In America Today Are Beginning To Regard Our Plight Or Predicament In This Society As One Of A Prison Inmate.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

They Tell Us We Are All Citizens, That We Were Born In This Country. Well, A Cat Can Have Kittens In The Oven, But That Doesn't Make Them Biscuits!

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.

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.

It Is Incorrect To Classify The Revolt Of The Negro As Simply A Radical Conflict Of Black Against White Or As A Purely American Problem. Rather, We Are Today Seeing A Global Rebellion Of The Oppressed Against The Oppressor, The Exploited Against The Exploiter.

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.

You And I Have Never Seen Democracy; All We've Seen Is Hypocrisy.

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.

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.

You Are Either Free Or Not Free

It Is Only After Slavery And Prison That The Sweetest Appreciation Of Freedom Can Come.

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.

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.

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 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.

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Constance Baker Motley

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