When I'm born I'm black, when I grow up I'm black, when I'm in the sun I'm black, when I'm sick I'm black, when I die I'm black, and you...when you're born you're pink, when you grow up you're white, when you're cold you're blue, when you're sick you're green, when you die you're grey and you dare call me coloured.

At the bottom of the social heap is the black man in the big-city ghetto. He lives night and day with the rats and the cockroaches and drowns himself with alcohol and anesthetizes himself with dope, to try and forget where and what he is. That Negro has given up all hope. He's the hardest one for us to reach, because he's the deepest in the mud. But when you get him, you've got the best kind of Muslim. I look upon myself as a prime example of this category - as graphic an example as you could find of the salvation of the black man.

They came to this country they, they were Hungarians, they were Communists from a Communist country. And right now those Hungarian freedom fighters can get jobs that student sit-ins can't get. They can go and sleep and live in hotels that Martin Luther King himself can't live in.They are recognized and respected because they are fighters, not because they are sit-iners or freedom.

The only time the white man is brotherly toward you is when he can use you, when he can exploit you, when he will oppress you, when you will submit to him.

I Used the Word 'Negro' and I was Firmly Corrected

The day that the black man takes an uncompromising step and realizes that he's within his rights, when his own freedom is being jeopardized, to use any means necessary to bring about his freedom or put a halt to that injustice, I don't think he'll be by himself.

When 'I' replaced with 'We', even the illness becomes wellness.