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When The People Who Are In Power Want To Use Again, Create An Image, To Justify Something That's Bad, They Use The Press. And They'll Use The Press To Create A Humanitarian Image, For A Devil, Or A Devil Image For A Humanitarian. They'll Take A Person Who's A Victim Of The Crime, And Make It Appear He's The Criminal, And They'll Take The Criminal And Make It Appear That He's The Victim Of The Crime.

-Malcolm X

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When The People Who

Malcolm X

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When The People Who Are In Power Want To Use Again, Create An Image, To Justify Something That's Bad, They Use The Press. And They'll Use The Press To Create A Humanitarian Image, For A Devil, Or A Devil Image For A Humanitarian. They'll Take A Person Who's A Victim Of The Crime, And Make It Appear He's The Criminal, And They'll Take The Criminal And Make It Appear That He's The Victim Of The Crime.

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

Betraying Friends

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

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.

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

[ 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.

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

Thoughtful White People Know They Are Inferior To Black People.

Now, The Black Man Here Was So-called Free By [abe] Lincoln 100 Years Ago. The Black Man In America Has An - Has A Purchasing Power Of 20 Billion Dollars. Now, And He's Educated.

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.

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.

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

When You Want A Nation, That's Called Nationalism... Black Nationalism. A Revolutionary Is A Black Nationalist. He Wants A Nation.

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.

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.

We May Disagree On Methods [with Martin Luther King], But We Don't Have To Argue All Day On Methods.

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

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

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.

Education Is Our Passport To The Future.

First Day Of School

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

Today We Have A Modern Belshazzar And A Modern Pharaoh Sitting In Washington D.c.

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.

Only Those Who Have Already Experienced A Revolution Within Themselves Can Reach Out Effectively To Help Others.

The Price Of Freedom Is Death.

Price Of Freedom

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

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

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.

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

A Race Of People Is Like And Individual Man; Until It Uses Its Own Talent, Takes Pride In Its Own History, Expresses Its Own Culture, Affirms Its Own Selfhood, It Can Never Fulfill Itself.

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.

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.

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

A Man Who Stands For Nothing Will Fall For Anything.

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.

The Only Thing Power Respects, Is Power.

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.

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.

No President Ever Had More Power Than [franklin Delano] Roosevelt.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

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

The White Man Is Going To Keep You Integration-minded Negroes Cooped Up Here In America, And When You Discover That The White Man Is A Trickster, A Devil, That He Has No Intentions Of Integrating, Then You Negroes Will Run Wild.

Because The Honorable Elijah Muhammad Makes Black People Brave Enough, Men Enough To Defend Ourselves No Matter What The Odds Are, The White Man Runs Around Here With A Doctrine That Mr. Muhammad Is Advocating The Violence When He Is Actually Telling Negroes To Defend Themselves Against Violent People.

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

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

The Honorable Elijah Muhammad Says That If The - What Should Happen Is The Black Man Himself Should Learn How To Develop Himself, In The Same Sense That The White Man Has Developed Himself. Then They Can Both Come Together And Recognize Each Other As Equals.

I Might Add How In The World Can You Say, Or Can Anyone Say, That It Will Dignify The American Negro To Beg In Or Wade [?] In Or Plead In When The People In Hungary Didn't Beg In? They Were Freedom Fighters. And They Fought For Their Freedom.

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

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

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.

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.

I Will Be Happy To Give My Life To See Some Of These White Devils Die.

Who Taught You To Hate Yourself?

Hating Yourself

Essien Udom Is A Nigerian. At Present He's A Professor At Ibadan University.

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.

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

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.

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.

The Other Slaves In The Field Never Let That House Slave Knew - Know What They Were Really Thinking. If The House Slave Said, Well One Of These Days All Of Us Will Live In The Plantation, They Said, Uh Huh. They Went Along With Him. But If You Came Up To Them And Said, Let's Go, They Would Be Gone Just Like That.and In, In America You Have The Same Situation.you Have The Vast Masses Who Are Still Slaves.

I'm Not A Republican, Nor A Democrat, Nor An American, And Got Sense Enough To Know It.

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.

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

If A Dog Is Biting A Black Man, The Black Man Should Kill The Dog, Whether The Dog Is A Police Dog Or A Hound Dog Or Any Kind Of Dog. If A Dog Is Fixed On A Black Man When That Black Man Is Doing Nothing But Trying To Take Advantage Of What The Government Says Is Supposed To Be His, Then That Black Man Should Kill That Dog Or Any Two-legged Dog Who Sets The Dog On Him.

If The Black Man Is Allowed To Separate And Go Into Some Land Of His Own Where He Can Solve His Own Problems, There Won't Be Any Explosion, And The Negroes Who Want To Stay With The White Man, Let Them Stay With The White Man - But Those Who Want To Leave, Let Them Go To The Honorable Elijah Muhammad.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

We Would Do The Same Thing That America Did When The Jap[an] - When, When Pearl Harbor Was Attacked. America Defended Itself. They Said Praise The Lord, But They Passed The Ammunition.

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

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.

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 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.

We Are Nonviolent With People Who Are Nonviolent With Us.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

Among Negroes We Have Negroes Who Are As White As Some White People. Still There's A Difference.

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

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

...what We Need To Do In The Community, And In The City, And In The State. We Need To Stop Airing Our Differences In Front Of The White Man. Put The White Man Out Of Our Meetings, Number One, And Then Sit Down And Talk Shop With Each Other. [that's] All You Gotta Do.

Yes, I'm An Extremist. The Black Race Here In North America Is In Extremely Bad Condition. You Show Me A Black Man Who Isn't An Extremist And I'll Show You One Who Needs Psychiatric Attention.

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

Be Nonviolent Only With Those Who Are Nonviolent To You. And When You Can Bring Me A Nonviolent Racist, Bring Me A Nonviolent Segregationist, Then I'll Get Nonviolent. But Don't Teach Me To Be Nonviolent Until You Teach Some Of Those Crackers To Be Nonviolent.

You Don't Have A Revolution In Which You Love Your Enemy, And You Don't Have A Revolution In Which You Are Begging The System Of Exploitation To Integrate You Into It. Revolutions Overturn Systems. Revolutions Destroy Systems.

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.

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

If 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.

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

If This Government Can Send 20 Billion Dollars To Latin America To Some Peasants Who Have Never Fought For This Country Or Worked For This Country Or Have - Or - And Is Sending Hundreds Of Millions Of Dollars To Africa And Asia To Try And Buy Friendship Of People Who Will Never Be Friendly Toward Them, Then They Should Be Even More Quick To Spend Some - Whatever Amount Of Money Is Necessary To Get Inside Of Their House Straight, Before It's Too Late.

During The Past Eleven Days Here In The Muslim World, I Have Eaten From The Same Plate, Drunk From The Same Glass, And Slept On The Same Rug - While Praying To The Same God - With Fellow Muslims, Whose Eyes Were The Bluest Of Blue, Whose Hair Was The Blondest Of Blond, And Whose Skin Was The Whitest Of White. And In The Words And In The Deeds Of The White Muslims, I Felt The Same Sincerity That I Felt Among The Black African Muslims Of Nigeria, Sudan And Ghana.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Since Integration Is So Slow, And The White Man Knows The Problem Must Be Solved, The Only Thing That He Can Do Tomorrow Is, Is Separate, Because We're Already Separated.

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.

We Don't Go For Segregation. We Go For Separation. Separation Is When You Have Your Own. You Control Your Own Economy; You Control Your Own Politics; You Control Your Own Society; You Control Your Own Everything.

Whenever Any Black Man In America Shows Signs Of An Uncompromising Attitude, Against The Injustices That He Experiences Daily, And Shows No Tendency Whatsoever To Compromise With It, Then The American Press [characterizes Him] As A Radical, As An Extremist Someone Who's Irresponsible, Or As A Rabble Rouser Or Someone Who Doesn't Rationalize In Dealing With The Problem.

A Man Who Believes In Freedom Will Do Anything Under The Sun To Acquire, Or Preserve His Freedom.

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.

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.

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.

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

I Don’t Feel That I Am A Visitor In Ghana Or In Any Part Of Africa. I Feel That I Am At Home.

All Of The Civil Rights Problems During The Past Years Have Created A Situation Where America Right Now Is Moving Toward A Police State. You Can't Have Anything Otherwise. So That's Your Supposition.

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?

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.

I Used The Word 'negro' And I Was Firmly Corrected

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Ten Guards And The Warden Couldn't Have Torn Me Out Of Those Books. Months Passed Without Even Thinking About Being Imprisoned....i Had Never Been So Truly Free In My Life.

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

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.

[negro] Should Realize That He Is Living In A War Zone, And He Is At War With An Enemy That Is As Vicious And Criminal And Inhuman As Any War-making Country Has Ever Been.

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!

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

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.

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

Religion Of Islam

I Saw All Races, All Colors, Blue Eyed Blonds To Black Skinned Africans In True Brotherhood! In Unity! Living As One! Worshiping As One! No Segregationists, No Liberals; They Would Not Have Known How To Interpret The Meaning Of Those Words

Nonviolence Is His, Is His Method. Well, My Objective Is The Same As [martin Luther] King's.

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.

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

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

Growing Is The Result Of Learning.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Not Long Ago, An English Writer Telephoned Me From London, Asking Questions. One Was "what's Your Alma Mater?" I Told Him, "books." You Will Never Catch Me With A Free Fifteen Minutes In Which I'm Not Studying Something I Feel Might Be Able To Help The Black Man.

Asking Questions

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.

America Preaches Integration And Practices Segregation.

I Think That Abraham Lincoln Probably Did More To Trick Negroes Than Any Other Man In History.

Learn To See, Listen, And Think For Yourself.

Think For Yourself

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

You Spend So Much Time Barking Up The Civil-rights Tree, You Don't Even Know There's A Human-rights Tree On The Same Floor.

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

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.

I Don't Care How Nice One Is To You, The Thing You Must Always Remember Is That Almost Never Does He Really See You As He Sees Himself, As He Sees His Own Kind.

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

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?

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.

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

What I Want To Know Is How The White Man, With The Blood Of Black People Dripping Off His Fingers, Can Have The Audacity To Be Asking Black People [why] They Hate Him?

At The Bottom Of The Social Heap Is The Black Man In The Big-city Ghetto. He Lives Night And Day With The Rats And The Cockroaches And Drowns Himself With Alcohol And Anesthetizes Himself With Dope, To Try And Forget Where And What He Is. That Negro Has Given Up All Hope. He's The Hardest One For Us To Reach, Because He's The Deepest In The Mud. But When You Get Him, You've Got The Best Kind Of Muslim. I Look Upon Myself As A Prime Example Of This Category - As Graphic An Example As You Could Find Of The Salvation Of The Black Man.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

Asking Questions

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

But They Don't Use Law-they Use Law For Their Interests. They Don't Go By Law, International, Federal, Local-nothing! They Go By Whatever Is Expedient To Protect The Interests That Are At Stake.

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

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

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

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

The Most Unprotected Person In America Is The Black Woman.

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.

All Over This World People Are Standing Up For Freedom.

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

The Chinese In This Country Aren't Asking For Integration.

My Faith In God Is Such That I Am Not Afraid.

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

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.

Nonviolence Is Fine As Long As It Works.

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.

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

There Are Many White People In This Country Who Realize That The System Itself - As It Is Constructed - Is Not So Constructed That It Can Produce Freedom And Equality For The Negro, And The System Has To Be Changed.

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

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

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.

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.

[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.

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.

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.

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