It is a call for black people in this country to unite, to recognize their heritage, to build a sense of community. It is a call for black people to define their own goals, to lead their own organizations.

Seems to me that the institutions that function in this country are clearly racist, and that they're built upon racism.

If a white man wants to lynch me, that’s his problem. If he’s got the power to lynch me, that’s my problem. Racism is not a question of attitude; it’s a question of power.

I also know that while I am black I am a human being, and therefore I have the right to go into any public place. White people didn't know that.Every time I tried to go into a place they stopped me

One of the tragedies of the struggle against racism is that up to now there has been no national organization which could speak to the growing militancy of young black people in the urban ghetto.

There has been only a civil rights movement, whose tone of voice was adapted to an audience of liberal whites.

What a liberal really wants is to bring about change that will not in any way endanger his position.