Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Quotes

Black Power is a call for black people in this country to unite, to recognize their heritage, to build a sense of community. It is a call for black people to define their own goals, to lead their own organizations.

Our leader will not be a white man with a Black heart, nor a Black man with a white heart, but a Black man with a Black heart.

To demand these God-given rights is to seek black power

Though we are dark-skinned, we are men, and have souls.

In all my interviews with Mr. Lincoln, I was impressed with his entire freedom from popular prejudice against the colored race. He was the first great man that I talked with in the United States freely, who in no single instance reminded me of the difference between himself and myself.

Up you mighty race!

We want Black power.

If white America is ready to extend complete democratic rights to colored people, there will be no race, no racial tension and no racial prejudice on either side, but we can be sure that any movement 'back to normalcy' in race relations will be bitterly resisted by colored people. It is now up to white America to make its choice...

We have been saying "Freedom" for six years. What we are going to start saying now is "Black Power". We have begged the President. We've begged the federal government. That's all we've been doing, begging and begging. From now on, when they ask you what you want, you know what to tell them.

Don't terrorize. Organize. Don't burn. Give kids a chance to learn ... The real answer to race problems in this country is education. Not burning and killing. Be ready. Be qualified. Own something. Be somebody. That's Black Power.

If our people are to fight their way up out of bondage we must arm them with the sword and the shield and the buckler of pride.

The world has made being black a crime .... I hope to make it a virtue.

Universal Negro Improvement Association

Where is the black man's Government? Where is his King and his Kingdom? Where is his President, his country, and his ambassador, his army, his navy, his men of big affairs? I could not find them, and then I declared, "I will help to make them.

Everybody has asked the question… “What shall we do with the Negro?” I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us. Do nothing with us! If the apples will not remain on the tree of their own strength, if they are wormeaten at the core, if they are early ripe and disposed to fall, let them fall! I am not for tying or fastening them on the tree in any way, except by nature's plan, and if they will not stay there, let them fall. And if the Negro cannot stand on his own legs, let him fall also. All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone!

His aim is to place the Negroes on equality with the white man—to have him eat at the same table, sit in the same pew, and vote at the same ballot box. He would appear to forget altogether the Creator himself made a distinction when he established the immovable barrier of color between the races.

Civil Rights: What black folks are given in the U.S. on the installment plan, as in civil-rights bills. Not to be confused with human rights, which are the dignity, stature, humanity, respect, and freedom belonging to all people by right of their birth.

Individuals who have been wronged by unlawful racial discrimination should be made whole; but under our Constitution there can be no such thing as either a creditor or a debtor race. That concept is alien to the Constitution's focus upon the individual. ...To pursue the concept of racial entitlement - even for the most admirable and benign of purposes - is to reinforce and preserve for future mischief the way of thinking that produced race slavery, race privilege and race hatred. In the eyes of government, we are just one race here. It is American

The destiny of the colored American... is the destiny of America.

Africans took a lot of pride in the election of Obama, because it proved wrong those who believe in racist assumptions, that a black man could not live up to a white man.

Intelligent white Southerners are ready to see Negroes as useful members of the community

In order to get beyond racism, we must first take account of race.... And in order to treat some persons equally, we must treat them differently..

I identify... with the ideas that Malcolm X stood for.

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.

The black man continues on his way. He plods wearily no longer-he is striding freedom road with the knowledge that if he hasn't got the world in a jug, at least he has the stopper in his hand.