It’ll be the ballot or it’ll be the bullet. It’ll be liberty or it’ll be death. And if you’re not ready to pay that price don’t use the word freedom in your vocabulary.

As bad as I was, as much trouble and worry as I caused my mother, I loved her.

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.

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

I think, again, that that does the whole problem a, a disservice. It's not a case of our wanting to mix socially with whites. And when you - and the whites are right in the South when they say that getting a cup of coffee in a restaurant is not going to solve - is all right.

I'm for truth, no matter who tells it. I'm for justice, no matter who it's for or against.

The separating of a section of America for Afro- Americans is similar to expecting a heaven in the sky somewhere after you die.