Power never takes a back step only in the face of more power.

I can't turn around without hearing about some 'civil rights advance's White people seem to think the black man ought to be shouting 'hallelujah's Four hundred years the white man has had his foot-long knife in the black man's back — and now the white man starts to wiggle the knife out, maybe six inches! The black man's supposed to be grateful? Why, if the white man jerked the knife out, it's still going to leave a scar!

I just don't believe that when people are being unjustly oppressed that they should let someone else set rules for them by which they can come out from under that oppression.

I went to a white school over here in Mason, Michigan. The white man made the mistake of letting me read his history books. He made the mistake of teaching me that Patrick Henry was a patriot and George Washington - wasn't nothing non-violent about old Pat or George Washington.

It has always been my belief that I, too, will die by violence. I have done all that I can to be prepared.

We don't think that we're begging for anything. We think we're demanding what is ours by right. And all we're asking for is an opportunity to do something for ourselves, rather than to sit around as a beggar, begging for jobs and begging for education from - for someone else for the rest of our lives.

Most of [ the Negro leaders] who - who, whose existence or whose position of leadership depends upon the - on the subsidy or crumbs for - the crumbs from the white man's table, will only say what that white man wants to hear. When they get behind the door they talk a different language.