They [prisons] are not designed to rehabilitate the - the inmate, though the, the public propaganda is that this is their function.

If the ballot doesn't work, we'll try something else. But let us try the ballot.

I'm with an old family" was the euphemism used to dignify the professions of white folks' cooks and maids who talked so affectedly among their own kind in Roxbury [Massachusetts] that you couldn't even understand them.

If the black man is allowed to separate and go into some land of his own where he can solve his own problems, there won't be any explosion, and the Negroes who want to stay with the white man, let them stay with the white man - but those who want to leave, let them go to The Honorable Elijah Muhammad.

We don't think that we're begging for anything. We think we're demanding what is ours by right.

If I can't run my neighborhood you won't want me in your neighborhood.

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