When I said [ I would work with any organization] I would make the, the reservation that I would work with any organization as long as it didn't make us compromise our religious principles.

Ten guards and the warden couldn't have torn me out of those books. Months passed without even thinking about being imprisoned....I had never been so truly free in my life.

One of my brothers read a lot. His head was forever in some book.

We do not condemn the preachers as an individual but we condemn what they teach. We urge that the preachers teach the truth, to teach our people the one important guiding rule of conduct - unity of purpose.

The mother is the first teacher of the child. The message she gives that child, that child gives to the world.

The number one thing that has to be done, [black men] has to be retaught, be given - he has to be reeducated and made to know that he's a man, like anyone else, and then he can stand on his own two feet, like others have done.

The goal - is the dignity of the black man in America. He wants respect as the human being. He wants recognition as a human being.