Human Rights Activist Quotes

“The British Empire was so vast and so powerful, the sun would never set on it. This is how big it was, yet these 13 little scrawny states, tired of taxation without representation, tired of being exploited and oppressed and degraded, told that big British Empire, liberty or death.”

“I learned early that crying out in protest could accomplish things. My older brothers and sister had started to school when, sometimes, they would come in and ask for a buttered biscuit or something and my mother, impatiently, would tell them no. But I would cry out and make a fuss until I got what I wanted. I remember well how my mother asked me why I couldn't be a nice boy like Wilfred; but I would think to myself that Wilfred, for being so nice and quiet, often stayed hungry. So early in life, I had learned that if you want something, you had better make some noise.”

“I am a Muslim and . . . my religion makes me be against all forms of racism. It keeps me from judging any man by the color of his skin. It teaches me to judge him by his deeds and his conscious behavior. And it teaches me to be for the rights of all human beings, but especially the Afro-American human being, because my religion is a natural religion, and the first law of nature is self-preservation.”

“As I say, if we bring up religion we'll have differences; we'll have arguments; and we'll never be able to get together.”

“I'm with an old family" was the euphemism used to dignify the professions of white folks' cooks and maids who talked so affectedly among their own kind in Roxbury [Massachusetts] that you couldn't even understand them.”

“I think there are plenty of good people in America, but there are also plenty of bad people in America and the bad ones are the ones who seem to have all the power and be in these positions to block things that you and I need.”

“That morning was when I first began to reappraise the 'white man.' It was when I first began to perceive that 'white man,' as commonly used, means complexion only secondarily; primarily it described attitudes and actions.”

“I can't turn around without hearing about some 'civil rights advance's White people seem to think the black man ought to be shouting 'hallelujah's Four hundred years the white man has had his foot-long knife in the black man's back — and now the white man starts to wiggle the knife out, maybe six inches! The black man's supposed to be grateful? Why, if the white man jerked the knife out, it's still going to leave a scar!”

“The ability to read awoke inside of me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive.”

“America is subsidizing what is left of the prestige and strength of the once mighty Britain. The sun has set forever on that monocled, pith-helmeted resident colonialist, sipping tea with his delicate lady in the non-white colonies being systematically robbed of every valuable resource. Britain's superfluous royalty and nobility now exist by charging tourists to inspect the once baronial castles, and by selling memoirs, perfumes, autographs, titles, and even themselves.”

“Much of what I say might sound like it's stirring up trouble, but it's the truth!”

“The Negro is nothing but an ex-slave who is now trying to get himself integrated into the slave master's house.”

“To me, the thing that is worse than death is betrayal.”

“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.”

“Usually when people are sad, they don't do anything. They just cry over their condition. But when they get angry, they bring about a change.”

“Whereas the only real solution to the race problem in this country is a solution that involves individual self improvement and collective self improvement in, whereas our own, wherein our own people are concerned.”

“I was going through the hardest thing, also the greatest thing, for any human being to do; to accept that which is already within you, and around you.”

“Once he [Negro] realizes that [he is at war ], then he can defend himself.”

“At this point I hadn't yet gotten deep into the historic condition that negroes in this country are confronted with, but at that point in my prison studies I, I read, I studied Islam as a religion more so than as I later come to know it in its connection with the plight or problem of Negroes in this country.”

“The future belongs to those who prepare for it today.”

“The junkie can never start to cure himself until he recognizes his true condition.”

“I myself have never been concerned with whether we are considered known or unknown. It's no problem of ours.”

“The goal - is the dignity of the black man in America. He wants respect as the human being. He wants recognition as a human being.”

“I don't think you can having an opportunity to ride either on the front or the back or in the middle of someone else's bus doesn't dignify you.”

“Stumbling is not falling.”