A Negro just can't be whipped by somebody white and return with his head up in the neighborhood, especially in those days, when sports and, to a lesser extent show business, were the only fields open to Negroes, and when the ring was the only place a Negro could whip a white man and not be lynched.

Any negro who occupies a position that was given to him by the white man, if you analyze his function, his function never enables him to really take a firm, uncompromising, militant stand on problems that confront our people.

Any way, any form necessary to defend himself; Negro should reserve the right to do that just the same as others have the right to do it.

My father didn't know his real name. My father got his name from his grandfather and he got his name from his grandfather and he got it from the slave master.

If the Emancipation Proclamation was authentic, you wouldn't have a race problem.

The separating of a section of America for Afro- Americans is similar to expecting a heaven in the sky somewhere after you die.

The ability to read awoke inside of me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive.