Malcolm X Quotes

And what would help minority workers are the same things that would help white workers: the opportunity to earn a living wage, the education and training that lead to such jobs, labor laws and tax laws that restore some balance to the distribution of the nation's wealth.

No poor, rural, weak, or black person should ever again have to bear the additional burden of being deprived of the opportunity for an education, a job, or simple justice.

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.

Good education, housing and jobs are imperatives for the Negroes, and I shall support them in their fight to win these objectives, but I shall tell the Negroes that while these are necessary, they cannot solve the main Negro problem.

As part of the realization of the aim to eradicate racism in our country, we must strive to create and strengthen a black capitalist class… because we come from among the black oppressed, many among us feel embarrassed to state this goal as nakedly as we should.

The Negro claims, as a matter of simple justice, his full share in America's economic and social life. He sees adequate employment opportunities as a chief means of attaining this goal

We demand that Negroes be employed on the basis of their skill and intelligence in all branches of our federal service in every public and private industry …. We demand equal education opportunities with equal access for the Negro student to all public tax-supported institutions. We demand the democratic right to vote without poll-taxes, white primaries and other devices which keep the majority of Southern Negroes a voteless group with no voice either in the selection of their representatives or a check on unjust public policies. We demand an end to segregation in transportation, in housing, in health and recreational facilities and in all other social service. We demand Negro and minority group representation on all administrative agencies so that these groups may help to determine policies for all people.

We would have every arbitrary barrier thrown down. We would have every path laid open to women as freely as to men. If you ask me what offices they may fill, I reply -- any. I do not care what case you put; let them be sea captains, if you will.

It is to the eternal credit of the administrative officers of the WPA that discrimination on various projects because of race has been kept to a minimum and that in almost every community Negroes have been given a chance to participate in the work program. In the South, as might have been expected, this participation has been limited, and differential wages on the basis of race have been more or less effectively established; but in the northern communities, particularly in the urban centers, the Negro has been afforded his first real opportunity for employment in white-collar occupations

Providing employment for the swelling Negro ghetto population will require ...opening suburban residential areas to Negroes and encouraging them to move closer to industrial centers.

Everybody in America must have a sense that he can get a job and a have a decent standard of living.

If not for food stamps, Medicaid, and various job programs, I would never have gone on to be the first in my family to go to college, the first black woman to represent my ward on the Cleveland City Council, and, ultimately, a State Senator.

Everyone in the street where I grew up was given the same message: You can be anything; you can do anything. That wasn't extraordinary; that was ordinary for us. My folks didn't believe in black exceptionalism. There's nothing exceptional about 'You can have that, too' - except when it comes to justice. You can't have that.

As we look ahead to our very diverse future, BAJI plans to continue to be at the forefront, uniting black communities to attain racial, social, and economic justice for all.

I believe what Martin Luther King Jr. believed. You remember what the title of the March on Washington was? "Jobs and Freedom." What King understood is that you have to deal with the economic issues as well as the political issues and the civil rights issues.

When you think of 244 years of slavery and 81 years of that finally you are going to be allowed to be part of the pool from which people choose jobs. That's not a substantive kind of move, but it was very important.

If I may add, for instance, [Martin Luther] King and these others will say that they are fighting for the Negro to have equal job opportunity. How can people, a group of people, such as our people, who own no factories, have equal job opportunities competing against the race that owns the factories?The only way the two can have equal job opportunities is if black people have factories as, as well as white people have factories.

If the white man can come here uneducated and as an immigrant, and within 10 or 15 years set up an industry that provides job opportunities and educational opportunities for black people, then if the black man, the black leadership, who has access to all of this money and has all of these degrees today, can't use his talent and his know-how to set up business opportunities, job opportunities, housing opportunities for the black people the same as the white leaders have done for white people, then these black leaders need to get off the boat.

Why should not Africa give to the world its Black Rockefeller, Rothschild and Henry Ford? Now is the opportunity. Now is the chance for every Negro to make every effort toward a commercial, industrial standard that will make us comparable with the successful business men of other races.

I would like to flood South Africa with black personages of all sorts of persuasions: writers, educators, businessmen, you name it. If you are black and have any clout at all, I would like to see you go to South Africa and look for yourself and come back and try to use the tools that you have at your command to try and help the brothers down there.

Giving people equal access to enjoying the benefits of America is the biggest problem that we're not making any progress in resolving.

Chile needs to unite behind the goals of reducing poverty and creating more equal opportunities so that everyone can benefit from what the country has to offer.

Every bank should give an economic opportunity to one woman, one dalit or one tribal person to become entrepreneurs. This will create many job opportunities. So this is the basis of my economic philosophy.

Jobs have already started to surge. Since my election, Ford announced it will abandon its plans to build a new factory in Mexico and will instead invest $700 million in Michigan, creating many, many jobs. Fiat/Chrysler announced it will invest $1 billion in Ohio and Michigan creating 2,000 American jobs.

You cannot say you've achieved equality until EVERYONE is equal and has equal opportunities!