Daring to reach, to climb, to crawl, to scratch, to get back up when you've been knocked down, to push forward - ever forward - to forgive. It means sacrificing everything if necessary, to carve out a place for your own existence. It means living.

To have once been a criminal is no disgrace. To remain a criminal is the disgrace

When I was in prison, I read an article - don't be shocked when I say I was in prison. You're still in prison. That's what America means: prison.

I could see from this, that perhaps if white Americans could accept the Oneness of God, then perhaps, too, they could accept in reality the Oneness of Man - and cease to measure, and hinder, and harm others in terms of their "differences" in color.

Most of the negro leaders who get the support of the power structure end up being against [Reverend] Galamison.

Sitting at the table doesn't make you a diner, unless you eat some of what's on that plate.

It's got to be the ballot or the bullet. The ballot or the bullet. If you're afraid to use an expression like that, you should get back in the cotton patch, you should get back in the alley.