Black Panther Party Quotes

The American people in general, and the black people in particular, must take careful note of the racist California legislature aimed at keeping black people disarmed and powerless Black people have begged, prayed, petitioned, demonstrated, and everything else to get the racist power structure of America to right the wrongs which have historically been perpetuated against black people. The time has come for black people to arm themselves against this terror before it is too late.

No Colored man can read an account of the recent lynching in Gainesville without being ashamed of his people. Without resistance they let a white mob whom they outnumbered two to one, torture, harry and murder. In the last analysis lynching of Negroes is going to stop when the cowardly mob is faced by effective guns in the hands of people determined to sell their souls dearly.

We've never advocated violence; violence is inflicted upon us. But we do believe in self-defense for ourselves and for black people.

Everybody remember, Black Lives Matter.

I mean we just simply can't stand for the systemic racism, social injustice and police brutality against the black community anymore. And it's really about standing up for what's right versus what's wrong.

I am often asked what it is like to be on the 'front line.' But I do not use the term 'front line' to describe us, the protesters. Because everywhere in America, wherever we are, our blackness puts us in close proximity to police violence.

There is civil disobedience against the military machine, protest against police brutality directed especially at people of color.

I am for violence if non-violence means we continue postponing a solution to the American black man's problem just to avoid violence.

The man does not beat your head because you got a Cadillac or because you got a Ford; he beats you because you're black!

We've begun to put fear into those whites who think they can do anything they want to a black person and get away with it.

Following Michael Brown's death, I went to Ferguson and met with his parents. I stood with them as they tried to hold their heads high and deal with both their immense loss and the larger issues of police-community relations.

Unlike earlier black-power movements that tried to fight or segregate for self-preservation, Black Lives Matter aligns with the dead, continues the mourning, and refuses the forgetting in front of all of us.

By the time I was at college, I became very alert to the question of racial discrimination, and I remember one of my first writing attempts had to do with a lynching.

I started my political career facing lynch mobs.

The only times an Afro-American who was assaulted got away has been when he had a gun and used it in self-defense.

Kissinger's orchestration of political and military and diplomatic cover for apartheid in South Africa presents us with a morally repulsive record and includes the appalling consequences of the destabilization of Angola

It is not about a war against a country, or a war against a religion but rather about the struggle against terrorist violence. As such I do not exclude the use of repressive police and military measures.

Abolish lynching

There was no need to send Negro troops to Cuba …. It is criminal.

The New York City Police should take machine guns to the Gay Pride Parade and mow them down.

[On urban unrest:] The only way to get respect is to be willing to use violence.

So don’t follow me up and down your market. or your little chop suey ass will be a target. So pay your respects to the black fist or we’ll burn your store right down to a crisp.

When governments state that certain events have not happened, and yet we have the victims before us to testify that they did, government loses its credibility, and it loses its authority. We see before us today governments that lack natural authority and have to make up for that by the use of force. They do not have the support of the people because they are not trusted by the people. We hear many fine words seeking national unity, cooperation and harmony, yet, almost in the same breath orders are given to military units to shoot civilians, protesters are rounded up, many disappear, many are tortured. No government which governs by the use of force can survive except by force. There is no going back because force begets force and the perpetrators of crimes live in fear that they might become victims in their turn.

We are tired of being lynched physically in Mississippi, and we are tired of being lynched spiritually and economically in the North.

We cannot have a situation where people decide to sit in places not allowed and when police remove them they say no. We can’t have that. That is a revolt to the system. Some are crying that they were beaten. Yes you will be thoroughly beaten. When the police say move, you move. If you don’t move, you invite the police to use force.