“But I think people, especially white people, have to come to understand that the language of the ghetto is a language of its own, and as the party – whose members for the most part come from the ghetto – seeks to talk to the people, it must speak the people’s language.”

The Black Panther Party were not revenge nationalists.

My father was a master carpenter and builder. Architectural design, engineering design, mechanical design, three-dimensional views, that was my shtick, my forte.

I have quite a few good friends in Philadelphia who were police officers.

The first point was we wanted power to determine our own destiny in our own black community. And what we had done is, we wanted to write a program that was straightforward to the people. We didn’t want to give a long dissertation.

The people have now come to realize that the only way to deal with the oppressor is to deal on our own terms and this was done.

To develop political and economic power in a capitalist society, you need capital.

You don’t fight racism with racism, the best way to fight racism is with solidarity.

I am not a hoodlum. I’m a community organizer.

There’s nothing wrong with being a cop. There’s nothing wrong with being a white person. It’s about where your heart is…We’ve got to get everyone beyond the xenophobic isolationism.

Our position was: If you don’t attack us, there won’t be any violence; if you bring violence to us, we will defend ourselves.

We don’t hate nobody because of their color. We hate oppression!

I’d have no trouble being the barbecue kingpin of America. I’d just add it to all the other things I am: jazz musician, carpenter, architect, engineer and revolutionary.

Electoral politics was always an objective of the Black Panther party, so Barack Obama is a part of what we dreamed and struggled and died for.

The Black Panther party of Self-Defense is a revolutionary party.

We’re hip to the fact that Superman never saved no black people. You got that?

I think the American Dream should be about a greater progressive legislation that allows for what I call a necessary future world of cooperational humanism.