If you're born in America with a black skin, you're born in prison, and the masses of black people in America today are beginning to regard our plight or predicament in this society as one of a prison inmate.

[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.

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'm inclined to believe that most Negro leaders, professional Negroes are professional Negroes. Being a Negro is their professional, and being a profe - a leader is their profession. And usually they say exactly what the white man wants - wants to hear them say.

Can you accuse me, if a man is putting a rope around my neck, of being violent, when I violently struggle against this lyncher to try and keep him from putting a rope around my innocent neck? Why, you'd be insane to cause me - to call me violent.

The same rebellion, the same impatience, the same anger that exists in the hearts of the dark people in Africa and Asia is existing in the hearts and minds of 20 million black people in this country who have been just as thoroughly colonized as the people in Africa and Asia.

I might add how in the world can you say, or can anyone say, that it will dignify the American Negro to beg in or wade [?] in or plead in when the people in Hungary didn't beg in? They were freedom fighters. And they fought for their freedom.