His masterโs pain was his pain. And it hurt him more for his master to be sick than for him to be sick himself. When the house started burning down, that type of Negro would fight harder to put the masterโs house out than the master himself would. But then you had another Negro out in the field. The house Negro was in the minority. The massesโthe field Negroes were the masses. They were in the majority. When the master got sick, they prayed that heโd die. If his house caught on fire, they'd pray for a wind to come along and fan the breeze.
Malcolm XUsually when people are sad, they don't do anything. They just cry over their condition. But when they get angry, they bring about a change.
Malcolm XOnce the white man let the Negro get an education, the Negro began to want what the white man has. But he let Negroes get an education and now they are demanding integration; they want to have exactly what he has. And the white man is not going to give it to them!
Malcolm XThe American system itself is incapable. It is as incapable of producing freedom for the Afro-American as the system of a chicken is of producing a duck egg.
Malcolm XAs long as Negro leader is making the white man think that our people are satisfied to sit in his house and wait for him to correct these conditions, he is - he is misrepresenting the thinking of the black masses, and he's doing the white man a disservice because he's making the white man be more complacent than he would be if he knew the dangerous situation that is building up right inside his own house.
Malcolm X