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We Want Freedom By Any Means Necessary. We Want Justice By Any Means Necessary. We Want Equality By Any Means Necessary. We Don't Feel That In 1964, Living In A Country That Is Supposedly Based Upon Freedom, And Supposedly The Leader Of The Free World, We Don't Think That We Should Have To Sit Around And Wait For Some Segregationist Congressmen And Senators And A President From Texas In Washington, D.c., To Make Up Their Minds That Our People Are Due Now Some Degree Of Civil Rights. No, We Want It Now Or We Don't Think Anybody Should Have It.

-Malcolm X

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We Want Freedom By

Malcolm X

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We Want Freedom By Any Means Necessary. We Want Justice By Any Means Necessary. We Want Equality By Any Means Necessary. We Don't Feel That In 1964, Living In A Country That Is Supposedly Based Upon Freedom, And Supposedly The Leader Of The Free World, We Don't Think That We Should Have To Sit Around And Wait For Some Segregationist Congressmen And Senators And A President From Texas In Washington, D.c., To Make Up Their Minds That Our People Are Due Now Some Degree Of Civil Rights. No, We Want It Now Or We Don't Think Anybody Should Have It.

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America's Most Dangerous And Threatening Black Man Is The One Who Has Been Kept Sealed Up By The Northerner In The Black Ghettos - The Northern White Power Structure's System To Keep Talking Democracy While Keeping The Black Man Out Of Sight Somewhere, Around The Corner.

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.

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

You 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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

[the Man] Thinks He's Being Condemned Because Of His Color But Actually He's Being Condemned Because Of His Deeds, His Conscious Behavior.

My Alma Mater Was Books, A Good Library... I Could Spend The Rest Of My Life Reading, Just Satisfying My Curiosity.

You Know, If Ever There Was A People Who Should Know How To Practice Brotherhood, It Is The American Negro And It Is The People Of Egypt.

The Price Of Freedom Is Death.

Price Of Freedom

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.

I'm Trying To Get At This. That Is, A Man May Know That He Belongs To, Say, A Group - This Group Or That Group - But He Feels Himself Lost Within That Group, Trapped Within His Own Deficiencies And Without Personal Purpose.

When You Hear Me Say "by Any Means Necessary," I Mean Exactly That. I Believe In Anything That Is Necessary To Correct Unjust Conditions-political, Economic, Social, Physical, Anything That Is Necessary.

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.

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

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?

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

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.

My Alma Mater Was Books, A Good Library.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

I'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.'

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

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!

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

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.

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 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.

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.

American Civil Rights Leader, Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos Or Community? Lynching Is A Murder. For The Past Four Hundred Years Our People Have Been Lynched Physically, But Now It's Done Politically. We're Lynched Politically, We're Lynched Economically, We're Lynched Socially, We're Lynched In Every Way That You Can Imagine.

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.

All Of Us Were Mischievous At Some Time Or Another, I More So Than Any Of The Rest. [my Brother] Philbert And I Kept A Battle Going. ... Even In Our Fighting, There Was A Feeling Of Brotherly Union.

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

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

The Most Disrespected Person In America Is The Black Woman. The Most Unprotected Person In America Is The Black Woman. The Most Neglected Person In America Is The Black Woman.

You'd Have Civil War. You'd Have A Race War In This Country.

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.

The Junkie Can Never Start To Cure Himself Until He Recognizes His True Condition.

Education Is An Important Element In The Struggle For Human Rights. It Is The Means To Help Our Children And Thereby Increase Self-respect. Education Is Our Passport To The Future, For Tomorrow Belongs To The People Who Prepare For It Today.

If Africa Wasn't Beautiful The White Man Wouldn't Want It.

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.

The Black Man In North America Was Economically Sick And That Was Evident In One Simple Fact: As A Consumer, He Got Less Than His Share, And As A Producer Gave Least. The Black American Today Shows Us The Perfect Parasite Image - The Black Tick Under The Delusion That He Is Progressing Because He Rides On The Udder Of The Fat, Three-stomached Cow That Is White America.

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

Only A Fool Would Let His Enemy Teach His Children.

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.

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

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.

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

African American

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.

For The White Man To Ask The Black Man If He Hates Him Is Just Like The Rapist Asking The Raped, Or The Wolf Asking The Sheep, 'do You Hate Me?' The White Man Is In No Moral Position To Accuse Anyone Else Of Hate! Why, When All Of My Ancestors Are Snake-bitten, And I'm Snake-bitten, And I Warn My Children To Avoid Snakes, What Does That Snake Sound Like Accusing Me Of Hate-teaching?

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.

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

You Have To Be Very Careful Introducing The Truth To The Black Man, Who Has Never Previously Heard The Truth About Himself. The Black Brother Is So Brainwashed That He May Reject The Truth When He First Hears It. You Have To Drop A Little Bit On Him At A Time, And Wait A While To Let That Sink In Before Advancing To The Next Step

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.

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.

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

Muhammad Teaches Us The Knowledge Of Our Own Selves, And Of Our Own People. He Cleans Us Up-morally, Mentally And Spiritually

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

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

... 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.

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

They Came Up With A Civil Rights Bill In 1964, Supposedly To Solve Our Problem, And After The Bill Was Signed, Three Civil Rights Workers Were Murdered In Cold Blood. And The Fbi Head, Hoover, Admits That They Know Who Did It, They've Known Ever Since It Happened, And They've Done Nothing About It. Civil Rights Bill Down The Drain.

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.

To Say It Is Not Practical, One Has To Also Admit That Integration Is Not Practical.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

Anytime You Have To Rely Upon Your Enemy For A Job You're In Bad Shape.

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.

I Am For Violence If Non-violence Means We Continue Postponing A Solution To The American Black Man's Problem Just To Avoid Violence.

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

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

I Think That The Problem Of The American Negro Goes Beyond The Principle Of Any Organization Whether It's A Religious, Political, Or Otherwise.

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

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

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.

The Common Enemy Is The White Man.

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.

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.

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

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.

[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.

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.

It's Easy To Become A Satellite Today Without Even Being Aware Of It. This Country Can Seduce God. Yes, It Has That Seductive Power; The Power Of The Dollar.

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

The Only Possible Way Out For The White Man Is To Give Us Negroes Some Land Of Our Own; Let Us Get Out, Get Away From His Wicked Reign And Go For Ourselves.

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

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.

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

That Is A Lie. I'm Not For Wanton Violence, I'm For Justice.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Read Absolutely Everything You Get Your Hands On Because You'll Never Know Where You'll Get An Idea From.

As I Say, If We Bring Up Religion We'll Have Differences; We'll Have Arguments; And We'll Never Be Able To Get Together.

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.

That's Where Dr. [martin Luther] King Is Mixed Up. His Goals Should Be The Solution Of The Problem Of The Black Man In America.

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

I Believe When A Negro Church Is Bombed, That A White Church Should Be Bombed.

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

A Segregated School System Produces Children Who, When They Graduate, They Do With Crippled Minds.

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

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.

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

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.

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

I 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.

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

The Only Time The White Man Is Brotherly Toward You Is When He Can Use You, When He Can Exploit You, When He Will Oppress You, When You Will Submit To Him.

22 Million African-americans - That's What We Are - Africans Who Are In America.

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

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

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.

America Is Such A Paradoxical Society, Hypocritically Paradoxical, That If You Don't Have Some Humor, You'll Crack Up.

It’ll Be The Ballot Or It’ll Be The Bullet. It’ll Be Liberty Or It’ll Be Death. And If You’re Not Ready To Pay That Price Don’t Use The Word Freedom In Your Vocabulary.

We Do Not Condemn The Preachers As An Individual But We Condemn What They Teach. We Urge That The Preachers Teach The Truth, To Teach Our People The One Important Guiding Rule Of Conduct - Unity Of Purpose.

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

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

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

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.

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 Same Thing That Uncle Tom Did On The Plantation Before [abe] Lincoln Issued The So-called Emancipation Proclamation.i Have No Thinking On The Matter. But He's Teaching The Black People To Suffer Peacefully, Patiently, Until The White Man Makes Up His Mind That You're A Human Being The Same As He.

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

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

Anytime You Tell A Man To Turn The Other Cheek Or To Be Nonviolent In The Face Of A Violent Enemy, You're Making That Man Defenseless. You're Robbing Him Of His God-given Right To Defend Himself.

Our Success In America Will Involve Two Circles: Black Nationalism And Islam–it Will Take Bn [black Nationalism] To Make Our People Conscious Of Doing For Self & Then Islam Will Provide The Spiritual Guidance. Bn [black Nationalism] Will Link Us To Africa And Islam Will Link Us Spiritually To Africa, Arabia & Asia.

There Can Be No Black-white Unity Until There Is First Some Black Unity... We Cannot Think Of Uniting With Others, Until After We Have First United Among Ourselves. We Cannot Think Of Being Acceptable To Others Until We Have First Proven Acceptable To Ourselves.

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.

They're Not Leading Our People Toward Any Kind Of Independence, But They're Using Their Positions And Their Education And Their Talent To Exploit Our People Worse Than The Slave Master Did During Slavery.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

You 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 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.

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

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 A White Man Puts His Arm Around Me Voluntarily, That's Brotherhood. But If You - If You Hold A Gun On Him And Make Him Embrace Me And Pretend To Be Friendly Or Brotherly Toward Me, Then That's Not Brotherhood, That's Hypocrisy. And What America Is Trying To Do Is Pass Laws To Force Whites To Pretend That They Want Negroes Into Their Schools Or Into - In Their Places Of Employment.

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.

After I Made My Tour In The Middle, Into The Middle-east And Africa And Visited Mecca And Other Places, I Think That The Separation [ From The Black Muslim Movement] Became Psychological As Well As Physical, So That I Could Look At It More Objectively And - And Separate That Which Was Good From That Which Was Bad.

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.

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.

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.

Thoughtful White People Know They Are Inferior To Black People.

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.

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

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

America Has Allowed White People To Kill And Brutalize Those They Don't Like.

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.

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.

The Only Way The Two Can Have Equal Job Opportunities Is If Black People Have Factories As, As Well As White People Have Factories.

My Father Didn't Know His Real Name. My Father Got His Name From His Grandfather And He Got His Name From His Grandfather And He Got It From The Slave Master.

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

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.

I Think That Nehru Probably Was A Good Man, Although I Didn't Go For It. I Don't Go For Anybody Who Is Passive. I Don't Go For Anybody Who Advocates Passivism Or Peaceful Suffering In Any Form Whatsoever. I Don't Go For It.

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

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.

[people] Have A Fear Of The, The Muslim Movement And The Muslim Religion Because It Has A Tendency To Make The People Who Accept It Stick Together.

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

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.

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

If You Read The Story Of Slavery And See The Part That The Uncle Tom Played In The Plantation, And Then You See How The White Man Today Has Changed His Tactics, But He Still Occupies The Same Position, In That Same Context You Find Uncle Tom. He Has Changed His Tactics But He Still Occupies The Same Position.

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.

In This Country, These Negro Leaders Have Negroes Sittin' - Sitting Down, Thinking That That - There's Dignity Towards Sitting In.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

The Negro Is Nothing But An Ex-slave Who Is Now Trying To Get Himself Integrated Into The Slave Master's House.

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

You Are Either Free Or Not Free

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

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

Our Accent Will Be Upon Youth: We Need New Ideas, New Methods, New Approaches. We Will Call Upon Young Students Of Political Science Throughout The Nation To Help Us. We Will Encourage These Young Students To Launch Their Own Independent Study, And Then Give Us Their Analysis And Their Suggestions. We Are Completely Disenchanted With The Old, Adult, Established Politicians. We Want To See Some New Faces -- More Militant Faces.

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.

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Langston Hughes

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