Individuals do not create rebellions; conditions do.
I say violence is necessary. Violence is a part of America’s culture. It is as American as cherry pie. Americans taught the black people to be violent. We will use that violence to rid ourselves of oppression if necessary. We will be free, by any means necessary.
When you understand your obligations to God then you can understand your obligations to society.
But black people fall for that same argument, and they go around talking about law breakers. We did not make the laws in this country. We are neither morally nor legally confined to those laws. Those laws that keep them up, keep us down.
In terms of the revolution, I believe that the revolution will be a revolution of dispossessed people in this country: that’s the Mexican American, the Puerto Rican American, the American Indian, and black people.
This is a very unforgiving country when you show this country its warts, when you hold the mirror up. If you happen not to share their beliefs, they’ll kill you.
Everybody in the black community must organize, and then we decide whether we will have alliance with other people or not, but not until we are organized.
Being a man is the continuing battle for one’s life. One loses a bit of manhood with every stale compromise to the authority of any power in which one does not believe.
See, it’s no in between: you’re either free or you’re a slave.
There’s no such thing as second class citizenship. That’s like telling me you can be a little bit pregnant.
I say violence is necessary. It is as American as cherry pie.
The poverty program was not designed to eliminate poverty.
If America don’t come around, we’re gonna’ burn it down.
Attack those concepts such as ‘third world.’ Think about it. If we look at it in terms of numbers, then people of color are the majority in this world. We should be the ‘first world.’
There has to be a social commitment, a social consciousness that joins men together. On the basis of their coming together, they do not transgress against themselves and they do not transgress against others.
I consider myself neither legally nor morally bound to obey the laws made by a body in which I have no representation.
The first responsibility of the Muslim is as teacher. That is his job, to teach. His first school, his first classroom is within the household. His first student is himself. He masters himself and then he begins to convey the knowledge that he has acquired to the family. The people who are closest to him.
You must begin to define yourself. You must begin to define your Black heritage.
You cannot legislate an attitude.
We talking about revolution because that’s the era that you’re caught in.
An old African leader says about leadership, he says that leadership should never be shared; it should always remain in the hands of the dispossessed people. We will lead the revolution.
Black people must address itself to the causes of poverty. That’s oppression in this country.
The man does not beat your head because you got a Cadillac or because you got a Ford; he beats you because you’re black!
One of the lies that we tell ourselves is that we’re making progress; but Huey’s chair’s empty.
They cannot divide us by saying that you’re middle class or you’re lower class.
