The main part of the tree is the root, and the root is always beneath the ground. It never is brought out into the light.

[Civil right leaders]themselves in their pronouncements will tell you they need white allies, they need white help, they need white this.

My beliefs are now one hundred percent against racism and segregation in any form and I also believe that we don't judge a person by the color of his skin but rather by his deeds.

That's not a chip on my shoulder, that's your foot on my neck.

When you aren't affiliated with anything, and then you look at something, you look at it with your eye to the best of your ability.

We won't organize any black man to be a Democrat or a Republican because both of them have sold us out. Both of them have sold us out; both parties have sold us out. Both parties are racist, and the Democratic Party is more racist than the Republican Party.

When we send our children to school, they learn nothing about us other than we used to be cotton pickers. Why, your grandfather was Nat Turner; your grandfather was Toussaint L'Ouverture; your grandfather was Hannibal. It was your grandfather's hands who forged civilization and it was your grandmother's hands who rocked the cradle of civilization. But the textbooks tell our children nothing.