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

Education is an important element in the struggle for human rights. It is the means to help our children and thereby increase self-respect. Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today.

When you mentioned something about self improvement, the implication is that the negro is something distinct or different, and, therefore, needs to learn how to improve himself. Negro leaders resent this being said, not because they don't know that it's true, but they're thinking, they're looking at it personally. They think that the implication is directed even at them, and that they, and they duck this responsibility.

If this government can send 20 billion dollars to Latin America to some peasants who have never fought for this country or worked for this country or have - or - and is sending hundreds of millions of dollars to Africa and Asia to try and buy friendship of people who will never be friendly toward them, then they should be even more quick to spend some - whatever amount of money is necessary to get inside of their house straight, before it's too late.

I believe it's a crime for anyone who is being brutalized to continue to accept that brutality without doing something to defend himself.

The cornerstones of this country's operation are economic and political strength and power. The black man doesn't have the economic strength - and it will take time for him to build it. But right now the American black man has the political strength and power to change his destiny overnight.

Policies change, and programs change, according to time.But objective never changes. You might change your method of achieving the objective, but the objective never changes. Our objective is complete freedom, complete justice, complete equality, by any means necessary