Be loud, be pretty and keep their black-hatin' asses in their chairs

Emmett Till and I were about the same age. A week after he was murdered... I stood on a corner with a gang of boys, looking at pictures of him in the black newspapers and magazines. In one, he was laughing and happy. In the other, his head was swollen and bashed in, his eyes bulging out of their sockets, and his mouth twisted and broken... I couldn't get Emmett Till out of my mind, until one evening I thought of a way to get back at white people for his death.

I'm not trying to get power over white. I'm involved in a freedom struggle. Not a power struggle.

You could be the world's best garbage man, the world's best model; it don't matter what you do if you're the best.

I calculate that I took 20,000 punches, but I earned millions and kept a lot of it. I may talk slow, but my mind is OK.

I am so mean I've handcuffed lightnin' and thrown thunder in jail.

Black people we've been taught that we will never be free, until some will have to die, some will have to give up wealth, their loved ones, and their health, So, what I'm doin' is for myself and for justice for black people, runnin' will kill it all, it'll make me a coward.