Human Rights Defender Quotes

The white race is doomed not because it's white but because of its misdeeds.

In all our deeds, the proper value and respect for time determines success or failure.

To say it is not practical, one has to also admit that integration is not practical.

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.

I believe that it would be almost impossible to find anywhere in America a black man who has lived further down in the mud of human society than I have; or a black man who has been any more ignorant than I have; or a black man who has suffered more anguish during his life than I have. But it is only after the deepest darkness that the greatest joy can come; it is only after slavery and prison that the sweetest appreciation of freedom can come.

Sometimes you have to pick the gun up to put the Gun down.

I don't believe in any form of unjustified extremism! But when a man is exercising extremism -- a human being is exercising extremism -- in defense of liberty for human beings it's no vice, and when one is moderate in the pursuit of justice for human beings I say he is a sinner.

To tell a woman not to talk too much was like telling Jesse James not to carry a gun, or a hen not to cackle.

We have to keep in mind at all times that we are not fighting for integration, nor are we fighting for separation. We are fighting for recognition as free humans in this society.

I believe in the brotherhood of man, all men, but I don't believe in brotherhood with anybody who doesn't want brotherhood with me. I believe in treating people right, but I'm not going to waste my time trying to treat somebody right who doesn't know how to return the treatment.

You don't stick a knife in a man's back nine inches and then pull it out six inches and say you're making progress.

If you turn the other cheek, you can be enslaved for 1,000 years.

And just because you have colleges and universities doesn't mean you have education.

I am for violence if non-violence means we continue postponing a solution to the American black man's problem just to avoid violence.

Just as a tree without roots is dead, a people without history or cultural roots also becomes a dead people.

We are nonviolent with people who are nonviolent with us.

Since integration is so slow, and the white man knows the problem must be solved, the only thing that he can do tomorrow is, is separate, because we're already separated.

It gives [a man] the incentive to develop his dormant potential so that when he becomes a part of the brotherhood of Islam, and is identified collectively in the brotherhood of Islam with the brothers in Islam, at the same time this also gives him the, it has the psychological effect of giving him the incentive as an individual to develop all of his dormant potential to its fullest extent.

I think, again, that that does the whole problem a, a disservice. It's not a case of our wanting to mix socially with whites. And when you - and the whites are right in the South when they say that getting a cup of coffee in a restaurant is not going to solve - is all right.

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.

Read absolutely everything you get your hands on because you'll never know where you'll get an idea from.

I don't mean go out and get violent; but at the same time you should never be nonviolent unless you run into some nonviolence. I'm nonviolent with those who are nonviolent with me. But when you drop that violence on me, then you've made me go insane, and I'm not responsible for what I do.

The only time the white man is brotherly toward you is when he can use you, when he can exploit you, when he will oppress you, when you will submit to him.

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.

If you're not ready to die for it, put the word 'freedom' out of your vocabulary.

The only difference between [America] and South Africa, South Africa preaches separation and practices separation, America preaches integration and practices segregation. This is the only difference, they don't practice what they preach, whereas South Africa practices and preaches the same thing.

I might add how in the world can you say, or can anyone say, that it will dignify the American Negro to beg in or wade [?] in or plead in when the people in Hungary didn't beg in? They were freedom fighters. And they fought for their freedom.

We reject segregation even more militantly than you say you do! We want separation, which is not the same! The Honorable Elijah Muhammad teaches us that segregation is when your life and liberty are controlled, regulated, by someone else. To segregate means to control. Segregation is that which is forced upon inferiors by superiors. But separation is that which is done voluntarily, by two equals - for the good of both!

While I was in prison, I was indulging in all types of vice, right within the prison. And I never was ostracized as much by the penal authorities while I was participating in all of the evils of the prison, as they tried to ostracize me after I became a Muslim.

You can always chase a dream but it will not count if you never catch it.

The problem facing our people here in America is bigger than all other personal or organizational differences. Therefore, as leaders, we must stop worrying about the threat that we seem to think we pose to each other's personal prestige, and concentrate our united efforts toward solving the unending hurt that is being done daily to our people here in America.

One day, may we all meet together in the light of understanding.

What you and I need to do is learn to forget our differences. When we come together, we don't come together as Baptists or Methodists. You don't catch hell 'cause you're a Baptist, and you don't catch hell 'cause you're a Methodist... You don't catch hell because you're a Democrat or a Republican. You don't catch hell because you're a Mason or an Elk. And you sure don't catch hell 'cause you're an American; 'cause if you was an American, you wouldn't catch no hell. You catch hell 'cause you're a Black man. You catch hell, all of us catch hell, for the same reason.

The religion of Islam actually restores one's human feelings, human rights, human incentives, human, his talent.

If [politician] is not fulfilling his function, they then can set up the machinery to remove him from that position by whatever means necessary.

You're not supposed to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who says it.

I will be happy to give my life to see some of these white devils die.

Much of what I say might sound bitter, but it's the truth. Much of what I say might sound like it's stirring up trouble, but it's the truth. Much of what I say might sound like its hate, but it's the truth

The only persons who really changed history are those who changed men's thinking about themselves.

I am a Muslim, because it's a religion that teaches you an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. It teaches you to respect everybody, and treat everybody right. But it also teaches you if someone steps on your toe, chop off their foot. And I carry my religious axe with me all the time.

I admire the, the stand of China and the stand of Mao Tse- tung, but I can't admire with respect the stand of, of Nehru in India. I just can't do it.

White people whom I have met, who have accepted Islam, they don't regard themselves as white but as human beings.

I am not an American; I am one of twenty-two million black people who are victims of Americanism.

Without education, you are not going anywhere in this world.

I just don't believe that when people are being unjustly oppressed that they should let someone else set rules for them by which they can come out from under that oppression.

I don't advocate violence; but if a man steps on my toes, I'll step on his.

If he [Uncle Sam] can't do this [integration], then they will - it will alienate them. And all of the hundreds of millions of dollars or billions of dollars that he has sent abroad trying to buy the friendship of the dark world will go right down the drain.

Revolutions are never peaceful.

You're going to have a racial explosion, and a racial explosion is more dangerous than an atomic explosion. It's going to explode because black people are dissatisfied; they're dissatisfied not only with the white man, but they're dissatisfied with these Negroes who have been sitting around here posing as leaders and spokesmen for black people and actually making the problem worse instead of making the problem better.

White is an attitude.

My father didn't know his last name. My father got his last name from his grandfather, and his grandfather got it from his grandfather who got it from the slavemaster.

Reverend Galamison is fighting a hard battle against great opposition, and I admire a man who fights a hard battle against great opposition.

I don't even call it violence when it's in self defense; I call it intelligence.

The Government is responsible for what is happening to black people in America.

What does a black man look like begging for a cup of coffee in a white restaurant, and doesn't have a job to back up his - to pay for it when, when - when he does get the coffee? It's putting the cart before the horse.

One of the main things that I read about it that appealed to me was in Islam a man is honored as a human being and not measured by the color of his skin.

For tommorow belongsto those that prepare for it today.

In fact, once he is motivated no one can change more completely than the man who has been at the bottom. I call myself the best example of that.

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.

That's not our problem, that's America's problem. If the average American knew the trouble that Uncle Sam is in all over this earth, they could see that it - we are closer toward getting a separate territory in this country than the integrationists are toward getting integration.