African-American human rights activist (1925-1965)
If we bring up religion we'll have differences; we'll have arguments; and we'll never be able to get together.
MALCOLM X
speech at the Congress for Racial Equality in Detroit, Michigan, Apr. 12, 1964
Well, I am one who doesn't believe in deluding myself. I'm not going to sit at your table and watch you eat, with nothing on my plate, and call myself a diner.
MALCOLM X
speech at Cory Methodist Church, Cleveland, Ohio, "The Ballot or the Bullet", Apr. 3, 1964
We are African, and we happened to be in America. We're not American. We are people who formerly were Africans who were kidnapped and brought to America. Our forefathers weren't the Pilgrims. We didn't land on Plymouth Rock. The rock was landed on us.
MALCOLM X
speech at founding rally of the Organization of Afro-American Unity, Jun. 28, 1964
It has always been my belief that I, too, will die by violence. I have done all that I can to be prepared.
MALCOLM X
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
Be nonviolent only with those who are nonviolent to you. And when you can bring me a nonviolent racist, bring me a nonviolent segregationist, then I'll get nonviolent. But don't teach me to be nonviolent until you teach some of those crackers to be nonviolent.
MALCOLM X
speech at founding rally of the Organization of Afro-American Unity, Jun. 28, 1964
Children have a lesson adults should learn, to not be ashamed of failing, but to get up and try again. Most of us adults are so afraid, so cautious, so 'safe,' and therefore so shrinking and rigid and afraid that it is why so many humans fail. Most middle-aged adults have resigned themselves to failure.
MALCOLM X
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
I believe in recognizing every human being as a human being, neither white, black, brown nor red. When you are dealing with humanity as one family, there's no question of integration or intermarriage. It's just one human being marrying another human being, or one human being living around and with another human being.
MALCOLM X
interview, The Pierre Berton Show, January 19, 1965