Quotes About Justice

I object, your honor! This trial is a travesty. It's a travesty of a mockery of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of a sham.

I think you should defend to the death their right to march, and then go down and meet them with baseball bats.

The law cannot forgive, for the law has not been wronged, only broken; only persons can be wronged. The law can pardon, but it can only pardon what it has the power to punish.

As a rule it was the pleasure haters that became unjust.

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

As long as a white man does it, it's alright, a black man is supposed to have no feelings. But when a black man strikes back he's an extremist, he's supposed to sit passively and have no feelings, be nonviolent, and love his enemy no matter what kind of attack, verbal or otherwise, he's supposed to take it. But if he stands up in any way and tries to defend himself, then he's an extremist.

We assert that in those areas where the government is either unable or unwilling to protect the lives and property of our people, that our peopie are within our rights to protect themselves by whatever means necessary.

Don't you run around here trying to make friends with somebody who's depriving you of your rights. They're not your friends, no, they're your enemies. Treat them like that.

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.

You spend so much time barking up the civil-rights tree, you don't even know there's a human-rights tree on the same floor.

Whenever you're going after something that belongs to you, anyone who's depriving you of the right to have it is a criminal. Understand that. Whenever you are going after something that is yours, you are within your legal rights to lay claim to it. And anyone who puts forth any effort to deprive you of that which is yours, is breaking the law, is a criminal.

When you expand the civil-rights struggle to the level of human rights, you can then take the case of the black man in this country before the nations in the UN. You can take it before the General Assembly. You can take Uncle Sam before a world court. But the only level you can do it on is the level of human rights. Civil rights keeps you under his restrictions, under his jurisdiction. Civil rights keeps you in his pocket.

Any time you know you're within the law, within your legal rights, within your moral rights, in accord with justice, then die for what you believe in. But don't die alone. Let your dying be reciprocal. This is what is meant by equality. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

If the white man doesn't want us to be anti-him, let him stop oppressing and exploiting and degrading us.

I don't think it is fair to tell our people to be nonviolent unless someone is out there making the Klan and the Citizens Council and these other groups also be nonviolent.

I'm for truth, no matter who tells it.

They call me "a teacher, a fomenter of violence." I would say point blank, "That is a lie. I'm not for wanton violence, I'm for justice."

Soon now, as the Negro awakens a little more and sees the vise that he's in, sees the bag that he's in, sees the real game that he's in, then the Negro's going to develop a new tactic.

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.

The question tonight, as I understand it, is "The Negro Revolt, and Where Do We Go From Here? or What Next?" In my little humble way of understanding it, it points toward either the ballot or the bullet.

Anytime you live in a society supposedly based upon law and it doesn't enforce its own laws because the color of a man's skin happens to be wrong, then I say those people are justified to resort to any means necessary to bring about justice when the government can't give them justice.

Any kind of action that you are ever involved in that's designed to protect the lives and property of our mistreated people in this country, we're with you 1,000 percent. And if you don't feel you're qualified to do it, we have some brothers who will slip in ... and help train you and show you how to equip yourself and let you know how to deal with the man who deals with you.

Well, I am one who doesn't believe in deluding myself. I'm not going to sit at your table and watch you eat, with nothing on my plate, and call myself a diner.

Be nonviolent only with those who are nonviolent to you. And when you can bring me a nonviolent racist, bring me a nonviolent segregationist, then I'll get nonviolent. But don't teach me to be nonviolent until you teach some of those crackers to be nonviolent.