Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Quotes

If Barack Obama now, or some black person in the future, should become president, neither Jesse Jackson nor Al Sharpton would be out of a job. A black president can't end black misery; a black president can't be a civil rights leader or primarily a crusader for racial justice.

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.

By 'Freedom' for Negroes, I meant and still mean, full economic, political and Social equality with American citizens, in thought, expression and action, with no discrimination based on race or color.

Today, Negroes play on every big league club and in every minor league. With millions of other Negroes in other walks of life, we are willing to stand up and be counted for what we believe in. In baseball or out, we are no longer willing to wait until Judgment Day for equality - we want it here on earth as well as in Heaven.

Saying I want to pay women a fair wage is doing something and saying young black people deserve not to be called super predators but to be engaged from an economic standpoint that gives them an equal opportunity says doing something.I'm tired of talking.

As a result of America's efforts to realize the ideals of equality and freedom, blacks in America are now the freest and richest black people anywhere on the face of the earth including all of the nations that are ruled by blacks.

The black situation has changed. They finally realized they're Americans.

Electing a black president was probably the only coup America could pull off.

Just because a black man is running the RNC doesn't mean black folks are going to, 'Oh, OK, I will be a Republican.' Just as with the election of President Obama. All the problems and concerns that are very important to African Americans don't get solved overnight.

We talk about freedoms for African-Americans but unless you have more than one option politically, how free are you?

Obama was elected in a flourish of promise that many in the African-American community believed would help not only to symbolize African-American progress since the Civil War and Civil Rights Acts but that his presidency would result in doors opening in the halls of power as had never been seen before by black America.

Republicans think that the NAACP is the only voice in the black community. It is a voice in the black community. But it's not the only voice.

The Negro needs a Nation and a country of his own, where he can best show evidence of his ability in the art of human progress. Scattered as an unmixed and unrecognized part of alien nations and civilizations is but to demonstrate his imbecility, and point him out as an unworthy derelict, fit neither for the society of Greek, Jew nor Gentile.

The right to vote with no ifs, ands, or buts, that's the key. When the Negroes get that, they'll have every politician, north and south, east and west, kissing their ass, begging for their support.

Black power means Black dignity

What really exercises my mind is not this hypothetical day on which some other Negro ‘first’ will become the first Negro president. What I am really curious about is just what kind of country he’ll be President of.

If someone had told me in 1963 that in 50 years we would see a Black man in the white house, I would have said “You’re crazy! You are not living in the real world.”

In the Fifties, there were certain places we couldn't ride on the bus, and now there is a possibility of a black man being in the White House. You have to feel good about it.

The solution of this country's problems lies in black hands.

I've always said that: 'We as black people, if you want respect, you have to give each other respect.' You can't demand respect from white people and the cops if we don't respect each other.

Barack Obama's victories in 2008 and 2012 were dismissed by some of his critics as merely symbolic for African Americans. But there is nothing 'mere' about symbols.

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

The cornerstones of this country's operation are economic and political strength and power. The black man doesn't have the economic strength - and it will take time for him to build it. But right now the American black man has the political strength and power to change his destiny overnight.

The Honorable Elijah Muhammad said Allah God has come to fight the battle of justice for the Black man and woman of America and it is He who is plaguing America with the disasters of unusual rain, hail, snow, and soon earthquakes. So if the Black man and woman and the Native Americans, or Indians, are not in the equation of those running for the high office of the Presidency of the United States, if we are not in the equation for justice, then none of these candidates can save America from the Wrath of Allah (God).

[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.