The American Negro never can be blamed for his racial animosities - he is only reacting to four hundred years of the conscious racism of the American whites.

I think as an intelligent person you would agree that when you are teaching among oppressed people that they should be relieved of their oppression not 100 or 10 years from now, but right now, you're going to find your talk is going to fall upon sympathetic ears.

He [liberal white person] may stand with you through thin, but not thick; when the chips are down, you'll find that as fixed in him as his bone structure is his sometimes subconscious conviction that he's better than anybody black.

Sitting at the table doesn’t make you a diner, unless you eat some of what’s on that plate. Being here in America doesn’t make you an American. Being born here in America doesn’t make you an American.

And just because you have colleges and universities doesn't mean you have education.

The only possible way out for the white man is to give us Negroes some land of our own; let us get out, get away from his wicked reign and go for ourselves.

If not now then when, if not me then who?