Malcolm X Quotes

It'll be the ballot or the bullet. It'll be liberty or it'll be death

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.

People have a right to violence, to rebel, to fight back.

To declaim freedom verses seems like a poem within a poem; freedom requires guns, it requires arms, but no feet.

In 1965, I marched for equality.

Since governments take the right of death over people, it is not astonishing that people should sometimes take the right of death over governments.

Among free men there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet.

The revolution can only defend itself by attacking.

The Ballot or the Bullet

Although we resolutely supported the armed struggle against Batista's tyranny, we were, on principle, opposed to any terrorist action that could cause the death of innocent people.

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.

We have dedicated our lives, our blood, to the freedom and liberation of our people, and nothing, no force can stop us from achieving our goal. If it is necessary to destroy the United States of America, then let us destroy it with a smile on our faces.

In a revolution one wins or dies, if it is a real one

We will preach the truth to a new generation: The doorway to all freedoms is framed with muskets. It's time the apologists step aside and let freedom's followers lead the way.

[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.

We must raise and train an army of fighters for freedom.

I think the Montgomery bus boycott initiated an era of self-determination.

In my political philosophy I think that there sometimes is room for violence.

For my part I prefer fifty thousand rifles to five million votes.

A second way that oppressed people sometimes deal with oppression is to resort to physical violence and corroding hatred.

The bomb-throwers have discredited the cause of freedom, in whose name they threw the bombs.

Cut word lines — Cut music lines — Smash the control images — Smash the control machine — Burn the books — Kill the priests — Kill! Kill! Kill!

I knew that when the great guiding spirit cleaves humanity into two antagonistic halves, I would be with the people. I know this, I see it printed in the night sky that I, eclectic dissembler of doctrine and psychoanalyst of dogma, howling like one possessed, will assault the barricades or the trenches , will take my bloodstained weapon, and consumed with fury, slaughter any enemy who falls into my hands.

We fight, we dare, we end our hunger for justice.