Racial Justice Quotes

The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.

I don’t believe in Black majority rule ever—not even in 1000 years.

The history of American democracy, to say the least, has been checkered. Our nation was founded at a time when people of African descent were held in bondage. After slavery was abolished, they were forced to endure legal discrimination for another 100 years.

He [liberal white person] may stand with you through thin, but not thick; when the chips are down, you'll find that as fixed in him as his bone structure is his sometimes subconscious conviction that he's better than anybody black.

Race? It is a feeling, not a reality. Ninety-five per cent, at least. Nothing will ever make me believe that biologically pure races can be shown to exist today.... National pride has no need of the delirium of race.

Because The Honorable Elijah Muhammad makes black people brave enough, men enough to defend ourselves no matter what the odds are, the white man runs around here with a doctrine that Mr. Muhammad is advocating the violence when he is actually telling Negroes to defend themselves against violent people.

Race has no place in American life or law.

I'm a black American, I am proud of my race. I am proud of who I am. I have a lot of pride and dignity.

The black radical agenda, which pushes us closer to freedom and the agenda to which I subscribe, calls for an eradication of white supremacy and an adoption of values and traditions endowed from the black experience.

I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice.

Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Whenever men or women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must - at that moment - become the center of the universe.

The effort we make in trying to get white people to let us alone or invest in us is looking pretty futile…. I am a reluctant separatist

Intelligent white Southerners are ready to see Negroes as useful members of the community

I was told before leaving England that after living in slave countries, all my opinions would be altered; the only alteration I am aware of is forming a much higher estimate of the negro character. It is impossible to see a negro and not feel kindly towards him.

I do think it's a real problem when we have 'Black Lives Matter' making statements that are really radical, that are absolutely false.

At this moment, then, the Negroes must begin to do the very thing which they have been taught that they cannot do.

If Lincoln were alive today, he'd be turning over in his grave.

The history of black America was from slavery, oppression, civil rights, and you felt kind of isolated as an entity in our country.

I believe all Southern liberals come from the same starting point--race. Once you figure out they are lying to you about race, you start to question everything.

These Negroes who go for integration and intermarriage are linking up with the very people who lynched their fathers, raped their mothers, and put their kid sisters in the kitchen to scrub floors.

I'm proud of our court. It knocks back a lot of the propaganda the Communists put out about the way America treats her Negroes.

A notorious Negro agitator.

Civil Rights: What black folks are given in the U.S. on the installment plan, as in civil-rights bills. Not to be confused with human rights, which are the dignity, stature, humanity, respect, and freedom belonging to all people by right of their birth.

My honest opinion is that blacks have to fight much harder for their individuality than whites do.

Womanists is what black feminists used to call themselves. Very much so. They were not the same thing. And also the relationship with men. Historically, black women have always sheltered their men because they were out there, and they were the ones that were most likely to be killed.