How can you thank a man for giving you what's already yours?

I look at the problem of the twenty-two million Afro-Americans as being a problem that's so broad in scope that it's almost impossible for any organization to see it in its entirety.

Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetery.

American civil rights leader, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? Lynching is a murder. For the past four hundred years our people have been lynched physically, but now it's done politically. We're lynched politically, we're lynched economically, we're lynched socially, we're lynched in every way that you can imagine.

We can't teach what we don't know, and we can't lead where we can't go

In America you have the mouse now trying to sit down on the elephant, thinking that he's going somewhere. And it's - and it's absurd.

In order, in order to enforce you can't force people to act right toward each other. You can't force, you cannot legislate heart, conditions and attitudes.