Malcolm X Quotes

The lesson this teaches and which every Afro-American should ponder well, is that a Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every black home, and it should be used for that protection which the law refuses to give. When the white man who is always the aggressor knows he runs as great a risk of biting the dust every time his Afro-American victim does, he will have greater respect for Afro-American life. The more the Afro-American yields and cringes and begs, the more he has to do so, the more he is insulted, outraged and lynched.

Malcolm X never renounced and never stepped away from a strong commitment to black nationalism and black self-determination. That's absolutely clear if you do any analysis of his speeches.

If the black man is allowed to separate and go into some land of his own where he can solve his own problems, there won't be any explosion, and the Negroes who want to stay with the white man, let them stay with the white man - but those who want to leave, let them go to The Honorable Elijah Muhammad.

When the whites themselves are attacked, they believe in defending themselves and things of that sort.

I don't trust any white man who teaches Negroes to turn the other cheek or to be nonviolent, which means to be defenseless in the face of a very brutal, criminal enemy. No. That's my yardstick for measuring whites.

It's got to be the ballot or the bullet. The ballot or the bullet. If you're afraid to use an expression like that, you should get back in the cotton patch, you should get back in the alley.

I am convinced that if something isn’t done to give the Negroes a new sense of hope and a sense of protection, there is a danger that we will face the danger that will lead to the worst race rioting we’ve ever seen in this country. I think it’s just at that point.

We want Black power.

If Martin Luther King, Roy Wilkins or any of these compromising Negros who say exactly what the white man wants to hear is interviewed anywhere in the country you don't get anybody to offset what they say. But whenever a black man stands up and says something that white people don't like then the first thing that man does is run around to try and find somebody to say something to offset what has just been said. This is natural but it is done.

If I did see a white man who was willing to go to jail or throw himself in front of a car in behalf of the so-called "negro cause," the test that I'd put to him, I'd ask him, "Do you think negro, when Negroes are being attacked they should defend themselves even at the risk of having to kill the one who's attacking them?" If that white man told me, "Yes," I'd shake his hand.

Martin Luther King has made the Negro in America unnatural.

[Malcolm X] had said a great deal about nonviolence, criticizing nonviolence, and saying that I approved of Negro men and women being bitten by dogs and the fire hoses, and I say, say go on and not defend yourself. I think this kind of response grew out of the build up, all of the talk about my being a sort of polished Uncle Tom.

The Negro does not want love. He wants justice . . . I believe it would be better for the Negro's soul to be seared with hate than dwarfed by self-abasement.

Let the Negro march. Let him make pilgrimages to city hall. Let him go on freedom rides. And above all, make an effort to understand why he must do this. For if his frustration and despair are allowed to continue piling up, millions of Negroes will seek solace and security in black-nationalist ideologies. And this, inevitably, would lead to a frightening racial nightmare.

No, we are not anti-white. But we don't have time for the white man. The white man is on top already, the white man is the boss already... He has first-class citizenship already. So you are wasting your time talking to the white man. We are working on our own people.

Universal Negro Improvement Association

I'm black because I was born this way. I'm proud of it. Thank God I am who I am.

This the American black man knows: his fight here is a fight to the finish. Either he dies or wins. If he wins it will be by no subterfuge or evasion of amalgamation . He will enter modern civilization here in America as a black man on terms of perfect and unlimited equality with any white man, or he will enter not at all. Either extermination root and branch, or absolute equality. There can be no compromise. This is the last great battle of the west.

Our [black people's] path is clear: We refuse to be inferior. We want to be exactly what Allah (God) has desired for us to be and we can't be that in their [white people's] house. We either have to take over their house or go and build a house of our own.

And in the racial climate of this country today, it is anybody's guess which of the 'extremes' in approach to the black man's problems might personally meet a fatal catastrophe first - 'non-violent' Dr. King, or so-called 'violent' me.

I never ever ran from the Ku Klux Klan, and I shouldn't have to run from a black man.

Now the white man's time is over. Tokenism will not help him, and it will doom us. Complete separation will save us - and who knows, it might make God decide to give the white devil a few more years.

They want a race war. We must be peaceful people. They are gonna poke and poke and poke, and our government is going to stand by and let them do it. We must be - we must take the role of Martin Luther King, because I do not believe that Martin Luther King believed in, "Kill all white babies."

If the Negro is to achieve the goal of integration, he must organize himself into a militant and nonviolent mass movement.

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