Quotes from Malcolm X

Human history's greatest crime was the traffic in black flesh when the devil white man went into Africa and murdered and kidnapped to bring to the West in chains, in slave ships, millions of black men, women, and children, who were worked and beaten and tortured as slaves.

Here was a man, who had come from the lower depths which they still inhabited, who had triumphed over his own criminality and his own ignorance to become a forceful leader and spokesman, an uncompromising champion of his people.

As a man, Malcolm X had the physical

And that was how, after twelve years of never thinking for as much as five minutes about myself, I became able finally to muster the nerve, and the strength, to start facing the facts, to think for myself.

Indeed, how can white society atone for enslaving, for raping, for unmanning, for otherwise brutalizing millions of human beings, for centuries? What atonement would the God of Justice demand for the robbery of the black people's labor, their lives, their true identities, their culture, their history--and even their human dignity?

I would become so choked up that sometimes I would walk in the streets until late into the night. Sometimes I would speak to no one for hours, thinking to myself about what the white man had done to our poor people here in America.

If I can die having brought any light, having exposed any meaningful truth that will help to destroy the racist cancer that is malignant in the body of America—then, all of the credit is due to Allah. Only the mistakes have been mine.

You will never catch me with a free fifteen minutes in which I'm not studying something I feel might be able to help the black man.

All of our experiences fuse into our personality. Everything that ever happened to us is an ingredient.

The next day I was in my car driving along the freeway when at a red light another car pulled alongside. A white woman was driving and on the passenger's side, next to me, was a white man. Malcolm X! he called out--and when I looked, he stuck his hand out of his car, across at me, grinning. Do you mind shaking hands with a white man? Imagine that! Just as the traffic light turned green, I told him, I don't mind shaking hands with human beings. Are you one?

You see, most whites, even when they credit a Negro with some intelligence, will still feel that all he can talk about is the race issue; most whites never feel that Negroes can contribute anything to other areas of thought, and ideas. You just notice how rarely you will ever hear whites asking any Negroes what they think about the problem of world health, or the space race to land men on the moon.

There were tens of thousands of pilgrims, from all over the world. They were of all colors, from blue-eyed blonds to black-skinned Africans. But we were all participating in the same ritual, displaying a spirit of unity and brotherhood that my experiences in America had led me to believe never could exist between the white and the non-white.

Lucky Thompson and Milt Jackson

I'm for truth, no matter who tells it. I'm for justice, no matter who it is for or against. I'm a human being first and foremost, and as such I'm for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.

Here was one of the white man's most characteristic behavior patterns- where black men are concerned. He loves himself so much that he is startled if he discovers that his victims don't share his vainglorious self-opinion.

They called me 'the angriest Negro in America.' I wouldn't deny that charge. I spoke exactly as I felt. 'I believe in anger. The Bible says there is a time for anger.

the greatest enemy a man can have...is fear

That morning was the start of a radical alteration in my whole outlook about "white" men.

We suffer political oppression, economic exploitation and social degradation. All of 'em from the same enemy. The government has failed us. You can't deny that. Any time you're living in the 20th century, 1964, and you walking around here singing We Shall Overcome, the government has failed you. This is part of what's wrong with you, you do too much singing. Today it's time to stop singing and start swinging.

He contended that if the leaders of the established civil rights organizations persisted, the social struggle would end in bloodshed because he was certain the white man would never concede full integration.

The ability to read awoke inside of me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive." ? Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X

And when I speak, I don't speak as a Democrat or a Republican, nor an American. I speak as a victim of America's so-called democracy. You and I have never seen democracy – all we've seen is hypocrisy.

He told me that all whites knew they were devils—"especially Masons.

The more hate was permitted to lash out when there were ways it could have been checked, the more bold the hate became