STEVEN BIKO

It becomes more necessary to see the truth as it is if you realize that the only vehicle for change are these people who have lost their personality.

Merely by describing yourself as black you have started on a road towards emancipation, you have committed yourself to fight against all forces that seek to use your blackness as a stamp that marks you out as a subservient being.

Being black is not a matter of pigmentation - being black is a reflection of a mental attitude.

Black man, you are on your own.

Black Consciousness is an attitude of the mind and a way of life, the most positive call to emanate from the black world for a long time.

So as a prelude whites must be made to realise that they are only human, not superior. Same with Blacks. They must be made to realise that they are also human, not inferior.

The basic tenet of black consciousness is that the black man must reject all value systems that seek to make him a foreigner in the country of his birth and reduce his basic human dignity.

You are either alive and proud or you are dead, and when you are dead, you can't care anyway.

In time, we shall be in a position to bestow on South Africa the greatest possible gift - a more human face.

White society will not listen to preaching. They will not listen to their liberals. Liberalism has not grown within white society, and we blacks cannot stand idly by watching the situation. We can only generate a response from white society when we, as blacks, speak with a black voice and say what we want. Now has come the time when we, as blacks, must articulate what we want, and put it across to the white man, and from a position of strength.

The liberal is in fact appeasing his own conscience… Being white, he possesses the natural passport to the exclusive pool of white privilege… Yet, since he identifies with the blacks, he moves around his white circles…with a lighter load, feeing he is not like the rest. However, at the back of his mind is the constant reminder that he is quite comfortable as things stand… Although he does not vote for the Nationalists…he feels secure under the protection offered by the Nationalists and subconsciously shuns the idea of change.

Not only are whites kicking us; they are telling us how to react to being kicked.

The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.

The power of a movement lies in the fact that it can indeed change the habits of people. This change is not the result of force but of dedication, of moral persuasion.

Whites must be made to realize that they are only human, not superior.

We are looking forward to a non-racial, just and egalitarian society in which color, creed and race shall form no point of reference.

Nothing can justify the arrogant assumption that a clique of foreigners has the right to decide on the lives of a majority.

The great powers of the world may have done wonders in giving the world an industrial look, but the great gift still has to come from Africa - giving the world a more human face.

In a bid for change, we have to take off our coats, be prepared to lose our comfort and security, our jobs and positions of prestige, and our families... A struggle without casualties is no struggle.

The revolutionary sees his task as liberation not only of the oppressed but also of the oppressor. Happiness can never truly exist in a state of tension.

The press is largely directed at white society or the so-called electorate whose values are laced with racial prejudice against black people.

Black Consciousness seeks to infuse the black community with a new-found pride in themselves, their efforts, their value systems, their culture, their religion and their outlook to life.

I would describe and I have described myself to people who ask as a freedom fighter.

Apartheid - both petty and grand - is obviously evil. Nothing can justify the arrogant assumption that a clique of foreigners has the right to decide on the lives of a majority.

The black man has become a shell, a shadow of man, completely defeated, drowning in his own misery, a slave, an ox bearing the yoke of oppression with sheepish timidity.