It is hard for anyone under twenty to realise that death has already assigned them a number, which is going to come up one day.

Everything now, we must assume, is in our hands; we have no right to assume otherwise. If we do not falter in our duty now, we may be able, handful that we are, to end the racial nightmare, and achieve our country, and change the history of the world.

An identity would seem to be arrived at by the way in which the person faces and uses his experience.

It is a very grave matter to be forced to imitate a people for whom you know-which is the price of your performance and survival-you do not exist. It is hard to imitate a people whose existence appears, mainly, to be made tolerable by their bottomless gratitude that they are not, thank heaven, you.

The power of the white world is threatened whenever a black man refuses to accept the white world's definitions.

It is impossible to pretend that you are not heir to, and therefore, however inadequately or unwillingly, responsible to, and for, the time and place that give you life -- without becoming, at very best, a dangerously disoriented human being.

For nothing is more unbearable, once one has it, than freedom.