The black people of America have been victims of violence at the hands of the white men for four hundred years, and following the ignorant Negro preachers, we have thought that it was godlike to turn the other cheek to the brute that was brutalizing us.
Malcolm XIt's almost impossible to separate the actions, or it's also, it's almost impossible to separate the oppression and exploitation, criminal oppression and criminal exploitation of the American negro from the color of the skin of the person who is the oppressor or the exploiter.
Malcolm XYou can't hate your origin and not end up hating yourself. You can't hate Africa and not hate yourself.
Malcolm XIf 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.
Malcolm XIf integration will get [black man] that [respect as the human being], all right. If segregation will get him that, all right. If separation will get him that, all right.But after he gets integration and he still doesn't have this dignity and this recognition as a human being, then his problem is still not solved.
Malcolm X