I think the reasons for not selecting persons like the Reverend Borders and John Wesley Dobbs were, in my book rather obvious reasons: because they were people who were basically oriented in the direction of the established method of not confronting the power structure, but trying to elicit concessions by various and sundry means of, well, let's call it accommodating leadership.

I had been friendly with people who were in the Communist party and all the rest of the Left forces, which were oriented in the direction of mass action.

Martin [Luther King] wasn't one to buck forces too much.

I've never credited myself with a professional life. But, basically, it has been that.

In order to see where we are going, we not only must remember where we have been, but we must understand where we have been.

I think you can find some rationales for that if we look at the background out of which he came. Martin [Luther King] had come out of a highly competitive, black, middle-class background.

Oppressed people, whatever their level of formal education, have the ability to understand and interpret the world around them, to see the world for what it is, and move to transform it.