Just as a tree without roots is dead, a people without history or cultural roots also becomes a dead people.

The common goal of 22 million Afro-Americans is respect as human beings, the God-given right to be a human being. Our common goal is to obtain the human rights America has been denying us. We can never get civil rights in America until our human rights are first restored. We will never be recognized as citizens there until we are first recognized as humans.

No black person married to a white person can speak for me!

If I may add, for instance, [Martin Luther] King and these others will say that they are fighting for the Negro to have equal job opportunity. How can people, a group of people, such as our people, who own no factories, have equal job opportunities competing against the race that owns the factories?The only way the two can have equal job opportunities is if black people have factories as, as well as white people have factories.

You don't stick a knife in a man's back nine inches and then pull it out six inches and say you're making progress ... No matter how much respect, no matter how much recognition, whites show towards me, as far as I am concerned, as long as it is not shown to everyone of our people in this country, it doesn't exist for me.

[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.

The greatest weapon the colonial powers have used in the past against our people has always been his ability to divide and conquer. If I take my hand and slap you, it might sting you because these digits are separated. But all I have to do to put you back in your place is bring those digits together.