...I always said if I lived to get grown and had a chance, I was going to try to get something for my mother and I was going to do... something for the black man of the South if it would cost my life; I was determined to see that things were changed.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We have got to stop the nervous Nellies and the Toms from going to the Man's place. I don't believe in killing, but a good whippin...g behind the bushes wouldn't hurt them.... These bourgeoisie Negroes aren't helping. It's the ghetto Negroes who are leading the way.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
... some of my people could have been left [in Africa] and are living there. And I can't understand them and they don't know me an...d I don't know them because all we had was taken away from us. And I became kind of angry; I felt the anger of why this had to happen to us. We were so stripped and robbed of our background, we wind up with nothing.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is only when we speak what is right that we stand a chance at night of being blown to bits in our homes. Can we call this a fre...e country, when I am afraid to go to sleep in my own home in Mississippi?... I might not live two hours after I get back home, but I want to be a part of setting the Negro free in Mississippi.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
With the people, for the people, by the people. I crack up when I hear it; I say, with the handful, for the handful, by the handfu...l, 'cause that's what really happens.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Peoples need a victory so bad. We've been working here since '62 and we haven't got nothing, except a helluva lot of heartaches.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Our foreparents were mostly brought from West Africa.... We were brought to America and our foreparents were sold; white people bo...ught them; white people changed their names ... my maiden name is supposed to be Townsend, but really, what is my maiden name? What is my name?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »