Louis Farrakhan Quotes

Jews who have been guilty of exploiting the black people in America, economically, civically, and otherwise, hide behind - hide their guilt by accusing The Honorable Elijah Muhammad of being anti-Semitic, simply because he teaches our people to go into business for ourselves and take over the economic leadership in our own community.

From the time I entered cabinet, the emphasis was on reforms, but reforms which did not abolish separate development, but reforms which were aimed at changing the very, very dehumanising aspects. Giving greater freedom of movement, giving private property ownership within so-called white South Africa also to blacks. Abolishing the concept of job reservation on the basis of race and colour. Allowing free organisation for trade unions, also black trade unions.

So what you do [under apartheid system] is you convince black people that the reason they are being oppressed is because there are some within their community who just can't behave. And if only they could behave, then everyone else would have more freedoms and liberties, which, of course, is not true.

Portland is often trumpeted as being one of America's coolest, hippest cities. I've been to Portland many times, and I'm always like, "Yeah it's cool and hip, but also, where are all the black people? Why is this city so cool and hip, and also keeping the black people away?"

An American should be able choose to work in a place where he is with his kind of people and not find that at the counters, desk or benches they will be forced to work, side by side, with all types of people of all races; that in the lunchrooms, rest rooms, recreation rooms, they will be compelled by law to mingle with persons and races which all their lives they have by free choice, avoided in social and business intercourse.

They don't let many black people in the governor's mansion in Alabama, unless they're cleaning.

I can only hope that one day soon we'll understand our true economic buying power by investing in our own communities and putting our money into businesses that keep our dollars in our community.

For most Black people there is still poverty and desperation. The Ghettos still exist, and the proportion of Blacks in prison is still much greater than Whites. Today, there is less overt racism, but the economic injustices create an "institutional racism" which exists even while more Blacks are in high places, such as Condoleeza Rice in Bush's Administration and Obama running for President.

I discovered even before I went to jail that apartheid was not run by people who were monolithic in their approach. Some of them didn't even believe in apartheid.

I have nothing against a community that is made up of people who are Polish, or who are Czechoslovakians, or who are French Canadians or who are blacks trying to maintain the ethnic purity of their neighborhoods. This is a natural inclination... Government should not break up a neighborhood on a numerical basis. As soon as the Government does, the white folks flee.

I was born in segregated Birmingham, Alabama. I didn't have a white classmate till we moved to Denver.

Instead of the Negro leaders having the black man begging for a chance to - to dine in white restaurants, the Negro leader should be showing the black man how to do something to strengthen his own economy.

People in apartheid South Africa can tell you that God cursed black people when they cursed Him. And so the hermetic people were condemned to be drawers of water and of wood.

More people are on food stamps today because of Obamas policies than ever in history. I would like to be the best paycheck president in American history. ... And so Im prepared if the NAACP invites me, Ill go to their convention and talk about why the African-American community should demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps.

When I was a kid, some of the guys would try to get me to hate white people for what they've been doing to Negroes, and for a while I tried real hard. But every time I got to hating them, some white guy would come along and mess the whole thing up.

Rivers run through our history and folklore, and link us as a people.... We are a nation rich in rivers.

In a day of footloose movements of people and of mixed marriages in the ancestry of the most desirable elements of the community we preach unabashed the gospel of the pure race.

With all the trouble black people have, they try to forget on weekends. You've got to be good to make them laugh.

When I first started doing comedy, there was no such thing as a room that had black people and white people in it. That didn't exist.

That was exciting to be able to comment on civil rights. I mean, the civil rights movement that young people don't know about today, but Martin Luther King was considered by the establishment press in the early years of the sit-in movement as a dangerous man, and he was the equivalent at that time as Malcolm X. And he was told to stop his demonstrations; they were against the law and all of that. Now that he's sainted and sanctified we've forgotten.

Martin Luther King Jr's agenda was not to help Negroes overcome American apartheid in the south. It was to make America democracy a better place, where everyday people, from poor people who were white and red and yellow and black and brown, would be able to live lives in decency and dignity.

To change history is very slow. The first two times I came to the States - black people didn't have the right to vote.

We're going to do a lot of work on the inner cities, I have great people lined up to help.

Black people cannot and will not become integrated into American society on any terms but those of self-determination and autonomy.