Quotes from Malcolm X

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.

Let's just face truth. Facts! Whether or not the white man of the world is able to face truth, and facts, about the true reasons for his troubles—that's what essentially will determine whether or not he will now survive.

S]ociety has produced and nourishes a psychology which brings out the lowest, most base part of human beings.

And concerning anything in this society involved in helping Negroes, the federal government shows an inability to function. But it can function in South Vietnam, in the Congo, in Berlin, and in other places where it has no business. But it can't function in Mississippi.

You don't have a revolution in which you love your enemy. And you don't have a revolution in which you are begging the system of exploitation to integrate you into it. Revolutions overturn systems. Revolutions destroy systems.

Our unity shocked them and we should continue to shock the white man by working together." (Set the Night on Fire)

The greatest single reason for [the] Christian church's failure . . . is its failure to combat racism.

In the United States, it is our weakness to confuse the numerical strength of an organization and the publicity attached to leaders with the germinating forces that sow the seeds of social upheaval in our community.

In the hectic pace of the world today, there is no time for meditation, or for deep thought. A prisoner has time that he can put to good use. I'd put prison second to college as the best place for a man to go if he needs to do some thinking. If he's motivated, in prison he can change his life.

If something is yours by right, then fight for it or shut up.

I would rather have a mule I can depend upon than a race horse that I can't depend upon.

How is the black man going to get 'civil rights' before he first wins his human rights?

It has hindered where it might have helped; it has been evasive when it was morally bound to be forthright; it has separated believers on the basis of color, although it has declared its mission to be a universal brotherhood under Jesus Christ. Christian love is the white man's love for himself and for his race.

I'm speaking from personal experience when I say of any black man who conks today, or any white-wigged black woman, that if they gave the brains in their heads just half as much attention as they do their hair, they would be a thousand times better off.

If you are born in America with a black skin, you're in prison

Either you are a citizen or you are not a citizen at all. If you are citizen, you are free; if you're not a citizen you are a slave.

Sometimes a fruit falls from a tree and rolls so far away from its roots that it's no longer of the tree. The hard fall, and long journey, bruises the fruit so much that it totally changes it. Its the same way for some of our people. This is why some cant be awakened regardless of how much truth you present to them. This journey has totally brainwashed them to such a degree that they're no longer of the original tree.

No man in our time aroused fear and hatred in the white man as did Malcolm, because in him the white man sensed an implacable foe who could not be had for any price—a man unreservedly committed to the cause of liberating the black man in American society rather than integrating the black man into that society.

It showed me how any country's moral strength, or its moral weakness, is quickly measurable by the street attire and attitude of its women—especially its young women.

Under the pitiful misapprehension that it would make them better, these Hill Negroes were breaking their backs trying to imitate white people.

I'm for truth, no matter who tells it. I'm for justice, no matter who it is for or against.

I had heard for years of Muslim hospitality, but one couldn't quite imagine such warmth.

Always, every now and then, I had given her a hard time, just to keep her in line. Every once in a while a woman seems to need, in fact wants this too.

If you stick a knife in my back nine inches and pull it out six inches, there's no progress. If you pull it all the way out that's not progress. Progress is healing the wound that the blow made. And they haven't even pulled the knife out much less heal the wound.