An organization which claims to be working for the needs of a community - as SNCC does - must work to provide that community with a position of strength from which to make its voice heard. This is the significance of black power beyond the slogan

Our noses are broad, our lips are thick, our hair is nappy-we are black and beautiful!

The first need of a free people is to define their own terms.

The time for running has come to an end. You tell them white folk in Mississippi that all the scared niggers are dead!

There is a higher law than the law of government. That's the law of conscience.

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.

Now, then, in order to understand white supremacy we must dismiss the fallacious notion that white people can give anybody their freedom.