Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is in an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob, and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.

Cannot the nation that has absorbed ten million foreigners into its political life without catastrophe absorb ten million Negro Americans into that same political life at less cost than their unjust and illegal exclusion will involve?

The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line.

If a man calls me a nigger, he is calling me something I am not. The nigger exists only in his own mind; therefore his mind is the nigger. I must feel sorry for such a man.

Because my mouth Is wide with laughter, You do not hear My inner cry? Because my feet Are gay with dancing, You do not know I die?

The white Christian church never raised to the heights of Christ. It stayed within the limit of culture.

When blacks are unemployed, they are considered lazy and apathetic. When whites are unemployed, it's considered a depression.

We used to be "shiftless and lazy," now we're "fearsome and awesome." I think the black man should take pride in that.

Discrimination is a hellhound that gnaws at Negroes in every waking moment of their lives to remind them that the lie of their inferiority is accepted as truth in the society dominating them.

If our black face, King, displeases your ministers, Ethiopians do not like the white ones on their males.