Quotes from Stokely Carmichael

We are revolutionaries.

I maintain that every civil rights bill in this country was passed for white people, not for black people.

We had no more courage than Harriet Tubman or Marcus Garvey had in their times. We just had a more vulnerable enemy.

We were aware of the fact that death walks hand in hand with struggle.

If a white man wants to lynch me, that's his problem. If he's got the power to lynch me, that's my problem. Racism is not a question of attitude; it's a question of power.

I ain't going to jail no more. The only way we gonna stop them white men from whuppin' us is to take over. What we gonna start sayin' now is Black Power!

I place my own hope for the United States in the growth of belief among the unqualified that they are in fact qualified: they can articulate and be responsible and hold power

Black Power can be clearly defined for those who do not attach the fears of white America to their questions about it.

Go home and tell your daughters they are beautiful.

Now we maintain that we cannot be afford to be concerned about 6 percent of the children in this country, black children, who you allow to come into white schools. We have 94 percent who still live in shacks. We are going to be concerned about those 94 percent.

Capitalism is a stupid system, a backward system.

The philosophers Camus and Sartre raise the question whether or not a man can condemn himself.

There has been only a civil rights movement, whose tone of voice was adapted to an audience of liberal whites.

The time for running has come to an end. You tell them white folk in Mississippi that all the scared niggers are dead!

I also know that while I am black I am a human being, and therefore I have the right to go into any public place. White people didn't know that.Every time I tried to go into a place they stopped me

I knew that I could vote and that that wasn't a privilege; it was my right. Every time I tried I was shot, killed or jailed, beaten or economically deprived.

Before a group can enter the open society, it must first close ranks.

Our grandfathers had to run, run, run. My generation's out of breath. We ain't running no more.

The secret of life is to have no fear it's the only way to function.

There is a higher law than the law of government. That's the law of conscience.

I usually say I did the best I could with what I had. I have no major regrets.

Dr. King's policy was that nonviolence would achieve the gains for black people in the United States. His major assumption was that if you are nonviolent, if you suffer, your opponent will see your suffering and will be moved to change his heart. That's very good. He only made one fallacious assumption: In order for nonviolence to work, your opponent must have a conscience. The United States has none.

If a white man wants to lynch me, that's his problem. If he's got the power to lynch me, that's my problem. Racism is not a question of attitude; it's a question of power. Racism gets its power from capitalism. Thus, if you're anti-racist, whether you know it or not, you must be anti-capitalist. The power for racism, the power for sexism, comes from capitalism, not an attitude.

There is a higher law than the law of government. That's the law of conscience.