Truth is on the side of the oppressed today, it's against the oppressor.

[White men] has the audacity to call himself even the "Leader of the Free World" while he has a country that can't even give the basic human rights to over twenty-two million of its citizens. This is aud-, this is, this takes audacity; this takes nerve. So it is this attitude today that's causing the Americans to be condemned.

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.

The 22 million or 30 million, whatever the case may be, Afro-Americans in the United States were still Africans.

To say it is not practical, one has to also admit that integration is not practical.

To the same degree that your understanding of and attitude toward Afrika become positive, you'll find that your understanding of and your attitude toward yourself will also become positive.

[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.