Malcolm X People Quotations

If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.

Usually when people are sad, they don't do anything. They just cry over their condition. But when they get angry, they bring about a change.

When we say Afro American, we include everyone in the Western Hemisphere of African descent. South America is America. Central America is America. South America has many people in it of African descent.

I just don't believe that when people are being unjustly oppressed that they should let someone else set rules for them by which they can come out from under that oppression.

The true Islam has shown me that a blanket indictment of all white people is as wrong as when whites make blanket indictments against blacks.

In the Bible, God offered the Pharaoh freedom if he would just let the oppressed people free to go to the land of milk and honey. But the Pharaoh disobeyed, and he was destroyed.

We Muslims believe that the white race, which is guilty of having oppressed and exploited and enslaved our people here in America, should and will be the victims of God's divine wrath.

Whenever I walk the street and see people ready to get with it, that's my reward.

... the young people are the ones who most quickly identify with the struggle and the necessity to eliminate the evil conditions that exist.

I am not an American; I am one of twenty-two million black people who are victims of Americanism.

Muhammad teaches us the knowledge of our own selves, and of our own people. He cleans us up-morally, mentally and spiritually

We do not condemn the preachers as an individual but we condemn what they teach. We urge that the preachers teach the truth, to teach our people the one important guiding rule of conduct - unity of purpose.

If we are extremists, then we are not ashamed of it, for the conditions that our people suffer are extreme, and extreme illness can not be cured with moderate medicine

It isn't the American white man who is a racist, but it's the American political, economic and social atmosphere that automatically nourishes a racist psychology in the white man.

...the collective white man had acted like a devil in virtually every contact he had with the world's collective non-white man.

First, what is a revolution? Sometimes I'm inclined to believe that many of our people are using this word "revolution" loosely, without taking careful consideration [of] what this word actually means, and what its historic characteristics are. When you study the historic nature of revolutions, the motive of a revolution, the objective of a revolution, and the result of a revolution, and the methods used in a revolution, you may change words. You may devise another program. You may change your goal and you may change your mind.

People involved in a revolution don't become part of the system; they destroy the system... The Negro revolution is no revolution because it condemns the system and then asks the system it has condemned to accept them...

[My half-sister] Ella and I always were much closer as basic types; we're dominant people, and [my other half-sister] Mary has always been mild and quiet, almost shy.

Hence I have no mercy or compassion in me for a society that will crush people, and then penalize them for not being able to stand up under the weight.

If you're born in America with a black skin, you're born in prison, and the masses of black people in America today are beginning to regard our plight or predicament in this society as one of a prison inmate.

It is not a case of our people...wanting either separation or integration. The use of these words actually clouds the real picture. The 22 million Afro-Americans don't seek either separation or integration. They seek recognition and respect as human beings.

Thoughtful white people know they are inferior to black people.

No, I’m not an American. I’m one of 22 million black people who are the victims of Americanism. One of the … victims of democracy, nothing but disguised hypocrisy. So I’m not standing here speaking to you as an American, or a patriot, or a flag-saluter, or a flag-waver – no, not I! I’m speaking as a victim of this American system. I don’t see any American dream; I see an American nightmare!

The greatest weapon the colonial powers have used in the past against our people has always been his ability to divide and conquer. If I take my hand and slap you, it might sting you because these digits are separated. But all I have to do to put you back in your place is bring those digits together.

I don't care how nice one is to you, the thing you must always remember is that almost never does he really see you as he sees himself, as he sees his own kind.

We are nonviolent with people who are nonviolent with us.

Any time you find the government involved in a conspiracy to violate the citizenship or the civil rights of a people, then you are wasting your time going to that government expecting redress. Instead, you have to take that government to the World Court and accuse it of genocide and all of the other crimes that it is guilty of today.

People don't realize how a man's whole life can be changed by one book.

Reform is for people who have government connections, revolution is for the people!

I don't favor violence. If we could bring about recognition and respect of our people by peaceful means, well and good. Everybody would like to reach his objectives peacefully. But I'm also a realist. The only people in this country who are asked to be nonviolent are black people.

You're living at a time of extremism, a time of revolution A time where there's got to be a change. People in power have misused it And now there has to be a change and a better world has to be built And the only way is going to be built is with extreme methods And I for one will join with anyone, don't care what color you are As long as you want change this miserable condition that exists on this earth

Just as a tree without roots is dead, a people without history or cultural roots also becomes a dead people.

No religion will ever make me forget the condition of our people in this country...No God, no religion, no nothing will make me forget it until it stops, until it's elimitnated. I want to make that point clear...

It"s good to keep wide-open ears and listen to what everybody else has to say, but when you come to make a decision, you have to weigh all of what you"ve heard on its own, and place it where it belongs, and come to a decision for yourself; you"ll never regret it. But if you form the habit of taking what someone else says about a thing without checking it out for yourself, you"ll find that other people will have you hating your friends and loving your enemies.

When the people who are in power want to ... create an image to justify something that's bad, they use the press. And they'll use the press to create a humanitarian image, for a devil, or a devil image for a humanitarian. They'll take a person who's a victim of the crime, and make it appear he's the criminal, and they'll take the criminal and make it appear that he's the victim of the crime.

One of the first things I think young people, especially nowadays, should learn is how to see for yourself and listen for yourself and think for yourself. Then you can come to an intelligent decision for yourself. If you form the habit of going by what you hear others say about someone, or going by what others think about someone, instead of searching that thing out for yourself and seeing for yourself, you will be walking west when you think you're going east, and you will be walking east when you think you're going west.

If you form the habit of taking what someone else says about a thing without checking it out for yourself, you'll find that other people will have you hating your friends and loving your enemies.