“I am prepared to oppose a Jim Crow army till I rot in jail.”

Justice is never given; it is exacted.

We seek the right to play our part in advancing the cause of national defense and national unity. But certainly, there can be no true national unity where one-tenth of the population is denied their basic rights as American citizens.

Lincoln was the spokesman of the rising capitalist class of the North, who viewed the emancipation of Negro slaves as indispensable to the development and triumph of the manufacturers and bankers of the industrial North, East and West over the slave-holder of the South.

I personally pledge myself to openly counsel, aid, and abet youth, both black and white, to quarantine any Jim Crow conscription system.

The Negro was a political football between his former slave master and Northern political adventurers.

If someone tried to deprive you of your rights, you’ve got to resist it. You’ve got to resent it. You’ve got to fight against it.

Since almost all Negroes are workers, live on wages, and suffer from the high cost of food, clothing and shelter, it is obvious that the Republican and Democratic Parties are opposed to their interests.

Freedom is never given; it is won.

I don’t ever remember a single day of hopelessness. I knew from the history of the labor movement, especially of the black people, that it was an undertaking of great trial. That, live or die, I had to stick with it, and we had to win.

I suggest that ten thousand Negroes march on Washington, D.C., the capital of the Nation, with the slogan, ‘We loyal Negro American citizens demand the right to work and fight for our country.’

Men cannot win freedom unless they win equality. They cannot win equality unless they win freedom.

Loyalty is meaningless; it depends on what one is loyal to.

Justice is never given; it is exacted and the struggle must be continuous for freedom is never a final fact, but a continuing evolving process to higher and higher levels of human, social, economic, political and religious relationship.

Negroes are in no mood to shoulder guns for democracy abroad while they are denied democracy here at home.

Freedom is never granted; it is won.

Lincoln merely nominally freed the bodies of Negroes. But Debs would free the bodies and minds of Negroes.

Jefferson thought schools would produce free men: we prove him right by putting dropouts in jail.

I haunted streets, whorehouses, police stations, courtrooms, theater stages, jails, saloons, slums, madhouses, fires, murders, riots, banquet halls and bookshops.

And unless you think there is a serious chance you’re going to jail, don’t listen to your lawyer.

The effect of Welfarism on freedom will be felt later on – after its beneficiaries have become its victims, after dependence on government has turned into bondage and it is too late to unlock the jail.

Of course it can be said of jails, too, that they try – by punishing the troublesome – to deter others. No doubt, in certain instances this deterrence actually works. But generally speaking it fails conspicuously.

I went to jail at 16 for stealing tires off Cadillacs. When I got out I said, Never again.

We black and they white. They got things and we ain’t. They do things and we can’t. It’s just like livin’ in jail.

Goddamnit, look! We live here and they live there.