Great Throughts Treasury

"I believe it?s a crime for anyone who is being brutalized to continue to accept that brutality without doing something to defend himself."

"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 can?t turn around without hearing about some ?civil rights advance?! White people seem to think the black ought to be shouting ?hallelujah?! 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!"

"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."

"I do not bear a person does not carry a time because it shows me that he does not estimate the time"

"I changed the course of my life reading a radical change and I did not I aim from behind to win any certificates to improve the central, but I wanted to live intellectually."

"I don?t mean go out and get violent; but at the same time you should never be nonviolent unless you run into some nonviolence. I?m nonviolent with those who are nonviolent with me. But when you drop that violence on me, then you?ve made me go insane, and I?m not responsible for what I do. And that?s the way every Negro should get. 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."

"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."

"I don't even call it violence when it's in self-defense; I call it intelligence."

"I don't believe in any form of unjustified extremism! But when a man is exercising extremism ? a human being is exercising extremism ? in defense of liberty for human beings it's no vice, and when one is moderate in the pursuit of justice for human beings I say he is a sinner."

"I don?t usually deal with those big words because I don?t usually deal with big people. I deal with small people. I find you can get a whole lot of small people and whip hell out of a whole lot of big people. They haven?t got anything to lose, and they?ve got everything to gain. And they?ll let you know in a minute: ?It takes two to tango; when I go, you go.?"

"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!"

"I don't see any American dream; I see an American nightmare."

"I don't advocate violence; but if a man steps on my toes, I'll step on his."

"I for one believe that if you give people a thorough understanding of what confronts them and the basic causes that produce it, they'll create their own program, and when the people create a program, you get action."

"I have always felt? that the black ?leader? whom white men consider to be ?responsible? is invariably the black ?leader? who never gets any results."

"I have more respect for a man who lets me know where he stands, even if he's wrong. Than the one who comes up like an angel and is nothing but a devil."

"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."

"I have often reflected upon the new vistas that reading 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. I certainly wasn?t seeking any degree, the way a college confers a status symbol upon its students. My home made education gave me, with every additional book that I read, a little bit more sensitivity to the deafness, dumbness, and blindness that was afflicting the black race in America. 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."

"I have thought a thousand times, I guess, about how I so narrowly escaped death twice that day. That's why I believe that everything is written."

"I just don't believe that when people are being unjustly oppressed that they should let someone else set rules for them by which they can come out from under that oppression."

"I imagine that one of the biggest troubles with colleges is there are too many distractions, too much panty-raiding, fraternities, and boola-boola and all of that."

"I learned early that crying out in protest could accomplish things."

"I hesitated, with the platter in mid-air; then I passed it along to the inmate waiting next to me. He began serving himself; abruptly, he stopped. I remember him turning, looking surprised at me."

"I learned early that the right does not give those acquiescence, though one has to happen some noise if you wanted to get something."

"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."

"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."

"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"

"I respect the right of every human being to believe what he believes is right, wait to be treated similarly."

"I see America through the eyes of the victim. I don't see any American dream--I see an American nightmare."

"I tell sincere white people, 'Work in conjunction with us- each of us working among our own kind.' Let sincere white individuals find all other white people they can who feel as they do- and let them form their own all-white groups, to work trying to convert other white people who are thinking and acting so racist. Let sincere whites go and teach non-violence to white people!We will completely respect our white co-workers. They will deserve every credit. We will give them every credit. We will meanwhile be working among our own kind, in our own black communities- showing and teaching black men in ways that only other black men can- that the black man has got to help himself. Working separately, the sincere white people and sincere black people actually will be working together.In our mutual sincerity we might be able to show a road to the salvation of America's very soul. ? Malcolm X"

"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 think that an objective reader may see how in the society to which I was exposed as a black youth here in America, for me to wind up in a prison was really just about inevitable. It happens to so many thousands of black youth."

"I told the Englishman that my alma mater was books, a good library. Every time I catch a plane, I have with me a book that I want to read ? and that's a lot of books these days. If I weren't out here every day battling the white man, I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity ? because you can hardly mention anything I'm not curious about."

"I want Dr. King to know that I didn't come to Selma to make his job difficult. I really did come thinking I could make it easier. If the white people realize what the alternative is, perhaps they will be more willing to hear Dr. King."

"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."

"I was going through the hardest thing, also the greatest thing, for any human being to do; to accept that which is already within you, and around you."

"I Used the Word 'Negro' and I was Firmly Corrected."

"I?m not here to argue or discuss anything that we differ about, because it?s time for us to submerge our differences and realize that it is best for us to first see that we have the same problem, a common problem, a problem that will make you catch hell whether you?re a Baptist, or a Methodist, or a Muslim, or a nationalist. Whether you?re educated or illiterate, whether you live on the boulevard or in the alley, you?re going to catch hell just like I am. We?re all in the same boat and we all are going to catch the same hell from the same man. He just happens to be a white man. All of us have suffered here, in this country, political oppression at the hands of the white man, economic exploitation at the hands of the white man, and social degradation at the hands of the white man."

"I?m no politician. I?m not even a student of politics. I?m not a Republican, nor a Democrat, nor an American, and got sense enough to know it. I?m one of the 22 million black victims of the Democrats, one of the 22 million black victims of the Republicans, and one of the 22 million black victims of Americanism. And when I speak, I don?t speak as a Democrat, or a Republican, or an American. I speak as a victim of America?s so-called democracy. You and I have never seen democracy; all we?ve seen is hypocrisy. When we open our eyes today and look around America, we see America not through the eyes of someone who have who has enjoyed the fruits of Americanism, we see through the eyes of someone who has been the victim of Americanism. We don?t see any American dream; we?ve experienced only the American nightmare. We haven?t benefited from Americas democracy; we?ve only suffered from America?s hypocrisy. And the generation that?s coming up now can see it and are not afraid to say it."

"I want to say before I go on that I have never previously told anyone my sordid past in detail. I haven't done it now to sound as though I might be proud of how bad, how evil, I was."

"I was going to have a long time in prison to think about that."

"If a man is with God, God was with him and sent him when needed signs of it."

"If I hadn't been arrested right when I was, I could have been dead another way. Sophia's husband's friend had told her husband about me. And the husband had arrived that morning, and had gone to the apartment with a gun, looking for me. He was at the apartment just about when they took me to the precinct."

"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."

"If it doesn't take senators and congressmen and presidential proclamations to give freedom to the white man, it is not necessary for legislation or proclamation or Supreme Court decisions to give freedom to the Black man. You let that white man know, if this is a country of freedom, let it be a country of freedom; and if it's not a country of freedom, change it."

"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 someone puts their hands on you make sure they never put their hands on anybody else again."

"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."

"If the master's house caught on fire, the house Negro would fight harder to put the blaze out than the master would. If the master got sick, the house Negro would say, "What's the matter, boss, we sick?" We sick! He identified himself with his master, more than his master identified with himself. And if you came to the house Negro and said, "Let's run away, let's escape, let's separate," the house Negro would look at you and say, "Man, you crazy. What you mean, separate? Where is there a better house than this? Where can I wear better clothes than this? Where can I eat better food than this?" That was that house Negro. In those days he was called a "house nigger." And that's what we call them today, because we've still got some house niggers running around here."