African-American human rights activist (1925-1965)
One of the first things I think young people, especially nowadays, should learn is how to see for yourself and listen for yourself and think for yourself. Then you can come to an intelligent decision for yourself. If you form the habit of going by what you hear others say about someone, or going by what others think about someone, instead of searching that thing out for yourself and seeing for yourself, you will be walking west when you think you're going east, and you will be walking east when you think you're going west.
MALCOLM X
Advice to the Youth of Mississippi, Dec. 31, 1964
Any time you know you're within the law, within your legal rights, within your moral rights, in accord with justice, then die for what you believe in. But don't die alone. Let your dying be reciprocal. This is what is meant by equality. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
MALCOLM X
speech at Cory Methodist Church, Cleveland, Ohio, "The Ballot or the Bullet", Apr. 3, 1964
Whenever you're going after something that belongs to you, anyone who's depriving you of the right to have it is a criminal. Understand that. Whenever you are going after something that is yours, you are within your legal rights to lay claim to it. And anyone who puts forth any effort to deprive you of that which is yours, is breaking the law, is a criminal.
MALCOLM X
speech at Cory Methodist Church, Cleveland, Ohio, "The Ballot or the Bullet", Apr. 3, 1964
The ability to read awoke inside of me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive.
MALCOLM X
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
I don't even consider myself an American. If you and I were Americans, there'd be no problem. Those Honkies that just got off the boat, they're already Americans; Polacks are already Americans; the Italian refugees are already Americans. Everything that came out of Europe, every blue-eyed thing, is already an American. And as long as you and I have been over here, we aren't Americans yet.
MALCOLM X
speech at Cory Methodist Church, Cleveland, Ohio, "The Ballot or the Bullet", Apr. 3, 1964
Never let them be brainwashed into thinking that whenever they take steps to see that they're in a position to defend themselves that they're being unlawful. The only time you're being unlawful is when you break the law. It's lawful to have something to defend yourself. Why, I heard President Johnson either today or yesterday, I guess it was today, talking about how quick this country would go to war to defend itself. Why, what kind of a fool do you look like, living in a country that will go to war at the drop of a hat to defend itself, and here you've got to stand up in the face of vicious police dogs and blue-eyed crackers waiting for somebody to tell you what to do to defend yourself!
MALCOLM X
speech at founding rally of the Organization of Afro-American Unity, Jun. 28, 1964
If the white man doesn't want us to be anti-him, let him stop oppressing and exploiting and degrading us.
MALCOLM X
speech at Cory Methodist Church, Cleveland, Ohio, "The Ballot or the Bullet", Apr. 3, 1964
You get freedom by letting your enemy know that you'll do anything to get your freedom; then you'll get it. It's the only way you'll get it.
MALCOLM X
Advice to the Youth of Mississippi, Dec. 31, 1964
Louise Little, my mother, who was born in Grenada, in the British West Indies, looked like a white woman. Her father was white. She had straight black hair, and her accent did not sound like a Negro's. Of this white father of hers, I know nothing except her shame about it. I remember hearing her say she was glad that she had never seen him. It was, of course, because of him that I got my reddish-brown "mariny" color of skin, and my hair of the same color. I was the lightest child in our family. (Out in the world later on, in Boston and New York, I was among the millions of Negroes who were insane enough to feel that it was some kind of status symbol to be light-complexioned--that one was actually fortunate to be born thus. But, still later, I learned to hate every drop of that white rapist's blood that is in me.)
MALCOLM X
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
Don't let anybody tell you anything about the odds are against you. If they draft you, they send you to Korea and make you face 800 million Chinese. If you can be brave over there, you can be brave right here. These odds aren't as great as those odds. And if you fight here, you will at least know what you're fighting for.
MALCOLM X
speech at Cory Methodist Church, Cleveland, Ohio, "The Ballot or the Bullet", Apr. 3, 1964
A revolution is bloody, but America is in a unique position. She's the only country in history in a position actually to become involved in a bloodless revolution. The Russian revolution was bloody, Chinese revolution was bloody, French revolution was bloody, Cuban revolution was bloody, and there was nothing more bloody then the American Revolution. But today this country can become involved in a revolution that won't take bloodshed. All she's got to do is give the black man in this country everything that's due him, everything.
MALCOLM X
speech at the Congress for Racial Equality in Detroit, Michigan, Apr. 12, 1964
I have more respect for a man who lets me know where he stands, even if he's wrong, than the one who comes up like an angel and is nothing but a devil.
MALCOLM X
Oxford Union Debate, Dec. 3, 1964
Of all our studies, history is best qualified to reward our research. And when you see that you've got problems, all you have to do is examine the historic method used all over the world by others who have problems similar to yours. And once you see how they got theirs straight, then you know how you can get yours straight.
MALCOLM X
Message to the Grass Roots, Nov. 10, 1963
We have a common enemy. We have this in common: We have a common oppressor, a common exploiter, and a common discriminator. But once we all realize that we have this common enemy, then we unite on the basis of what we have in common. And what we have foremost in common is that enemy -- the white man. He's an enemy to all of us. I know some of you all think that some of them aren't enemies. Time will tell.
MALCOLM X
Message to the Grass Roots, Nov. 10, 1963
Early in my life, I had learned that if you want something, you had better make some noise.
MALCOLM X
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
If you form the habit of taking what someone else says about a thing without checking it out for yourself, you'll find that other people will have you hating your friends and loving your enemies.
MALCOLM X
Advice to the Youth of Mississippi, Dec. 31, 1964
Look at the American Revolution in 1776. That revolution was for what? For land. Why did they want land? Independence. How was it carried out? Bloodshed. Number one, it was based on land, the basis of independence. And the only way they could get it was bloodshed. The French Revolution -- what was it based on? The land-less against the landlord. What was it for? Land. How did they get it? Bloodshed. Was no love lost; was no compromise; was no negotiation. I'm telling you, you don't know what a revolution is. 'Cause when you find out what it is, you'll get back in the alley; you'll get out of the way. The Russian Revolution -- what was it based on? Land. The land-less against the landlord. How did they bring it about? Bloodshed. You haven't got a revolution that doesn't involve bloodshed. And you're afraid to bleed. I said, you're afraid to bleed.
MALCOLM X
Message to the Grass Roots, Nov. 10, 1963
There were always more Negroes in the field than there was Negroes in the house. The Negro in the field caught hell. He ate leftovers. In the house they ate high up on the hog. The Negro in the field didn't get nothing but what was left of the insides of the hog. They call 'em "chitt'lin'" nowadays. In those days they called them what they were: guts. That's what you were -- a gut-eater. And some of you all still gut-eaters.
MALCOLM X
Message to the Grass Roots, Nov. 10, 1963
There can be no black-white unity until there is first some black unity.
MALCOLM X
A Declaration of Independence, Mar. 12, 1964
When you expand the civil-rights struggle to the level of human rights, you can then take the case of the black man in this country before the nations in the UN. You can take it before the General Assembly. You can take Uncle Sam before a world court. But the only level you can do it on is the level of human rights. Civil rights keeps you under his restrictions, under his jurisdiction. Civil rights keeps you in his pocket.
MALCOLM X
speech at Cory Methodist Church, Cleveland, Ohio, "The Ballot or the Bullet", Apr. 3, 1964