The most disrespected person in America is the black woman. The most unprotected person in America is the black woman. The most neglected person in America is the black woman.

It's hard for anyone intelligent to be nonviolent. Everything in the universe does something when you start playing with his life, except the American Negro. He lays down and says, 'Beat me, daddy.'

Anytime there's a fire in a negro community and it's burning out of control, you send any one of them, send Whitney Young in to put it out.

Just because a cat has kittens in the oven, that doesn't make them biscuits.

I have often reflected upon the new vistas that reading has opened to me. I knew right there in prison that reading had changed forever the course of my life. As I see it today, the ability to read awoke inside me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive.

Wyatt [ Walker] doesn't say that as much as Whitney Young does.

I believe in human rights for everyone, and none of us is qualified to judge each other and that none of us should therefore have that authority.