Marcus Garvey Quotes

All I demand for the black man is, that the white people shall take their heels off his neck, and let him have a chance to rise by his own efforts.

Until racial justice and freedom is a reality in this land, our union will remain profoundly imperfect.... The Negro is going to get justice or this society will be ripped apart.

We beg you to save young America from the blight of race prejudice. Do not bind the children within the narrow circles of your own lives.

If you're white and you're wrong, then you're wrong; if you're black and you're wrong, you're wrong. People are people. Black, blue, pink, green - God make no rules about color; only society make rules where my people suffer, and that why we must have redemption and redemption now.

We can never completely fulfill the promise of this treasured republic if we are blinded by color.

Look back, to slavery, to suffrage, to integration and one thing is clear. Fashions in bigotry come and go. The right thing lasts.

The Afro-American is not a bestial race.

If white America is ready to extend complete democratic rights to colored people, there will be no race, no racial tension and no racial prejudice on either side, but we can be sure that any movement 'back to normalcy' in race relations will be bitterly resisted by colored people. It is now up to white America to make its choice...

Unless we bring in blacks as full partners, my country won’t be fit for my grandchildren.

Abraham Lincoln, 1809-1865, 16th President of the United States (Republican, IL)One man's rights should not be sacrificed for another's prejudices. ...

In this state there are 200 thousand able intelligent, honorable negroes, not an inferior race, mind you, who are ready to protect their liberty. The matter is in your own hands.

Today, Americans of all races stand side by side in Vietnam and Berlin. They died side by side in Korea. Surely they can work and eat and travel side by side in their own country.

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.

The Negro people of America... have cut our forests, tilled our fields, built our railroads, fought our battles, and in all of their trials they have manifested a simple faith, a grateful heart, a cheerful spirit, and an undivided loyalty. Now they have come to the place where their faith can no longer feed on the bread of repression and violence. They ask for the bread of liberty, of public equality, and public responsibility. It must not be denied them.

Civil Rights: What black folks are given in the U.S. on the installment plan, as in civil-rights bills. Not to be confused with human rights, which are the dignity, stature, humanity, respect, and freedom belonging to all people by right of their birth.

One hundred years of delay have passed since President Lincoln freed the slaves, yet their heirs, their grandsons, are not fully free. They are not yet freed from the bonds of injustice. They are not yet freed from social and economic oppression. And this nation, for all its hopes and all its boasts, will not be fully free until all its citizens are free.

Negroes must be free in order to be equal, and they must be equal in order to be free... Men cannot win freedom unless they win equality. They cannot win equality unless they win freedom.

What I remember about race relations in the 1990s is that you showed your awareness by saying you didn't see race, that you were colour-blind.

The struggle of African Americans is everybody's struggle.

Libertarianism is the enemy of all racism.

I believe that we have to be so race-conscious in this day and age.

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit together at the table of brotherhood.

I think segregation is bad, I think it's wrong, it's immoral. I'd fight against it with every breath in my body, but you don't need to sit next to a white person to learn how to read and write. The NAACP needs to say that.

Few whites are ready to actively promote civil rights for blacks.

In Russia I felt for the first time like a full human being. No color prejudice like in Mississippi, no color prejudice like in Washington. It was the first time I felt like a human being.