Stokely Carmichael

"We are not going to beg the white man for anything we deserve. We are going to take it."

"Black power means that black people see themselves as a mass base and a potential majority."

"You cannot talk of power in the abstract. Power in the concrete is always national."

"The masses are revolting not because they have been told to revolt, but because they see no way out."

"We must begin to tell the truth. Truth is like a lion; you don't have to defend it."

"History is not something you read about. It's something you participate in."

"Integration is an insidious subterfuge for the maintenance of white supremacy."

"Our negritude, our blackness, is our greatest asset."

"Don't worry about whether or not you're oppressed; if you weren't you wouldn't be asking."

"America will never be destroyed from the outside. It will be destroyed from within."

"The white man is not inherently evil, but America's racist institutions create the beast."

"You cannot discuss power in the abstract. Power must always be discussed in concrete terms."

"What we are talking about is the responsibility of the United States government."

"The people have to liberate themselves, do the best they can with what they have."

"We have to organize ourselves in such a way that we understand that if we are not free, nobody is free."

"You cannot mandate goodness. Goodness is something which has to come from within."

"Independence and not integration is what black people really need."

"Violence is as American as cherry pie."

"It takes a wise man to recognize wisdom when he sees it."

"Consciousness is a prerequisite to liberation."

"The question is not whether we can afford to invest in our communities. The question is whether we can afford not to."

"We are going to stand up and be counted. We are going to define ourselves."

"Freedom is not something that one holds in one's hand and can give to another; it's something people take."

"Before a man can make himself feel better, he's got to wake up and analyze himself."

"You cannot be free if you depend economically on the man who enslaves you."

"Education means to uprise, to wake up."

"The greatest weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed."

"We need black lawyers, black doctors, black businessmen, black judges."

"The system cannot reform itself. You have to force reform."

"Institutional racism is the most vicious of all racism."