Malcolm X Quotes

I believe you should tell the story of injustices, of inequalities, of bad conditions, so that the people as a whole in this country really face the problems that people who are pushed to the point of striking know all about, but others know practically nothing about.

As we come to know the seriousness of the situation, the war, the racism, the poverty in our world, we come to realize that things will not be changed simply by words or demonstrations. Rather, it's a question of living one's life in a drastically different way.

I've written 18 books, mostly dealing with issues of social justice, ending racism, feminism, and cultural criticism.

Now in speaking like this, it doesn't mean that we're anti-white, but it does mean we're anti-exploitation, we're anti-degradation, we're anti-oppression. And if the white man doesn't want us to be anti-him, let him stop oppressing and exploiting and degrading us.

The fight against racism must be seen as a revolutionary one.

I'm not a docile, complacent person when it comes to racial aggressions.

If I wanted to fight to make a better world racially, I wouldn't be in the music business. You dig, if I were going to be a freedom fighter music is the wrong field.

The camera could be a very powerful instrument against discrimination, against poverty, against racism.

If you're outraged at conditions, then you can't possibly be free or happy until you devote all your time to changing them and do nothing but that. But you can't change anything if you want to hold onto a good job, a good way of life and avoid sacrifice.

As long as we give room for domination and the dominators, there will be worries and worried people. Poverty and pestilence will live eternally in the country.

We were born into an unjust system; we are not prepared to grow old in it.

That was exciting to be able to comment on civil rights. I mean, the civil rights movement that young people don't know about today, but Martin Luther King was considered by the establishment press in the early years of the sit-in movement as a dangerous man, and he was the equivalent at that time as Malcolm X. And he was told to stop his demonstrations; they were against the law and all of that. Now that he's sainted and sanctified we've forgotten.

The way they are treating my people in the South, the government can go to hell!

They say that this country is free, and they say that this country is equal, but it is not equal if it's 'sometimes'...We need change now. We demand actions now.

For some reason, I seem to be bothered whenever I see acts of injustice and assaults on people's civil liberties. I imagine what I write in the future will follow in that vein. Whether it's fiction or non-fiction.

Civil rights happened because youth got involved. The youth stood up and helped to break the pattern that their parents had got accustomed to living. The next generation has to take that stand for whatever it is, socially, that they are involved in.

Awareness in our society has flipped all types of injustice on its head.

Whoever is content with the world, and who profits from its lack of justice, does not want to change it.

If a policy is wrongheaded, feckless and corrupt, I take it personally and consider it a moral obligation to sound off and not shut up until it's fixed.

We cannot reform institutional racism or systemic policies if we are not actively engaged. It's not enough to simply complain about injustice; the only way to prevent future injustice is to create the society we would like to see, one where we are all equal under the law.

Look at the Civil Rights Movement. Look at any kind of fight for change. People had to keep fighting and taking their rights. Rights are never given to you. They have to be fought for and they have to be taken.

No other offense has ever been visited with such severe penalties as seeking to help the oppressed.

You can't comfort the afflicted with afflicting the comfortable.

I will never regret not denouncing apartheid.

For a black male, the sound of the blues is pre-Civil Rights. It's oppression.