Malcolm X Quotes

Any time you demonstrate against segregation and a man has the audacity to put a police dog on you, kill that dog, kill him, I'm telling you, kill that dog. I say it if they put me in jail tomorrow, kill that dog. Then you'll put a stop to it.

I love cops. I think you have to walk in their shoes to understand, you know when they use violence, Michael Brown in Ferguson, a classic case.

[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 white man supports Reverend Martin Luther King, subsidizes Reverend Martin Luther King, so that Reverend Martin Luther King can continue to teach the Negroes to be defenseless - that's what you mean by nonviolent - be defenseless in the face of one of the most cruel beasts that has ever taken people into captivity - that's this American white man, and they have proved it throughout the country by the police dogs and the police clubs.

In the South in the 1960’s you lived in a state of terrorism if your skin was black.

Southern trees bear a strange fruit, Blood on the leaves and blood at the root, Black body swinging in the Southern breeze, Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees. Pastoral scene of the gallant South, The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth, Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh, Then the sudden smell of burning flesh! Here is fruit for the crows to pluck, For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck, For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop, Here is a strange and bitter crop.

Get those goddamned niggers! And get those goddamned white niggers.

The idea that cops need to intimidate people of color, to violate our rights in order to protect people of color is like some Islamist societies’ saying the only way to protect women is to keep them under Sharia law.

We've never advocated violence; violence is inflicted upon us. But we do believe in self-defense for ourselves and for black people.

I had felt for a long time that, if I was ever told to get up so a white person could sit, that I would refuse to do so.

I've been harassed by police my whole life and seen people who looked like me treated like animals at the hands of law enforcement.

I am not an American; I am one of twenty-two million black people who are victims of Americanism.

A hundred years ago the American white men used to put on a white sheet and use a bloodhound against Negroes. Today they have taken off the white sheet and put on police uniforms and traded in the bloodhounds for police dogs, and they're still doing the same thing.

I think that the response to the OJ Simpson trial was based on a kind of sensibility that emerged out of the many campaigns to defend black communities against police violence.

Malcolm X made it very clear that if somebody goes after you - whether it's cops or not - you have to defend yourself. But he was not an advocate for violence the way the Black Panthers were.

If a Negro got legs he ought to use them. Sit down too long, somebody will figure out a way to tie them up.

Are you looking for a Negro who won't fight back?

I will not accept racism at all. It's unacceptable. If someone throws a banana at me in the street, I will go to jail, because I will kill them.

The white man is a devil. If he is not a devil, let him prove it!

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

If on Judgement Day I were summoned by St. Peter to give testimony to the used-to-be sheriff's act of kindness, I would be unable to say anything in his behalf. His confidence that my uncle and every other Black man who heard of the Klan's coming ride would scurry under their houses to hide in chicken droppings was too humiliating to hear. Without waiting for Momma's thanks, he rode out of the yard, sure that things were as they should be and that he was a gentle squire, saving those deserving serfs from the laws of the land, which he condoned.

It's getting almost so bad a colored man hasn't got any country.

I will not take 'but' for an answer. Negroes have been looking at democracy's 'but' too long.

A people who have suffered so much for so long at the hands of a racist society must draw the line somewhere.