Today's Uncle Tom doesn't wear a handkerchief on his head. This modern, twentieth-century Uncle Thomas now often wears a top hat. He's usually well-dressed and well-educated. He's often the personification of culture and refinement. The twentieth-century Uncle Thomas sometimes speaks with a Yale or Harvard accent. Sometimes he is known as Professor, Doctor, Judge, and Reverend, even Right Reverend Doctor. This twentieth-century Uncle Thomas is a professional Negro -by that I mean his profession is being a Negro for the white man.

[ Negro leaders] never let the white man know exactly what black people are thinking.

I want to be remembered as someone who was sincere. Even if I made mistakes, they were made in sincerity. If I was wrong, I was wrong in sincerity.

You have a race problem that must be solved, or else you will alienate every non-white person on this earth within the next few years, or within the next few months.

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

Just take the negro child. Take the white child. The white child, although it has not committed any of the per - as a person has not committed any of the deeds that has produced the plight that the negro finds himself in, is he guiltless? The only way you can determine that is, take the negro child who's only four-years-old. Can he escape, though he's only four years old, can he escape the stigma of discrimination and segregation? He's only four-years-old.

When I was in prison, I read an article - don't be shocked when I say I was in prison. You're still in prison. That's what America means: prison.