 Before a group can enter the open society, it must first close ranks. |
| Now we maintain that we cannot be afford to be concerned about 6 percent of the children in this country, black children, who you allow to come into white schools. We have 94 percent who still live in shacks. We are going to be concerned about those 94 percent. |
| It is a call for black people in this country to unite, to recognize their heritage, to build a sense of community. It is a call for black people to define their own goals, to lead their own organizations. |
| No man can given anybody his freedom. |
| Our grandfathers had to run, run, run. My generation's out of breath. We ain't running no more. |
| A man is born free. |
| We are revolutionaries. |
| The first need of a free people is to define their own terms. |
| So that the failures to pass a civil rights bill isn't because of Black Power, isn't because of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee; it's not because of the rebellions that are occurring in the major cities. |
| We had no more courage than Harriet Tubman or Marcus Garvey had in their times. We just had a more vulnerable enemy. |
| I knew that I could vote and that that wasn't a privilege; it was my right. Every time I tried I was shot, killed or jailed, beaten or economically deprived. |
| The philosophers Camus and Sartre raise the question whether or not a man can condemn himself. |
| One of the tragedies of the struggle against racism is that up to now there has been no national organization which could speak to the growing militancy of young black people in the urban ghetto. |
| Black power can be clearly defined for those who do not attach the fears of white America to their questions about it. |
| The knowledge I have now is not the knowledge I had then. |
| I usually say I did the best I could with what I had. I have no major regrets. |
| An organization which claims to be working for the needs of a community - as SNCC does - must work to provide that community with a position of strength from which to make its voice heard. This is the significance of black power beyond the slogan. |
| The secret of life is to have no fear; it's the only way to function. |
| We were aware of the fact that death walks hand in hand with struggle. |
| There is a higher law than the law of government. That's the law of conscience. |
