“The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.”

I had already determined to sell my life as dearly as possible if attacked. I felt if I could take one lyncher with me, this would even up the score a little bit.

The doors of churches, hotels, concert halls and reading rooms are alike closed against the Negro as a man, but every place is open to him as a servant.

The emergency no longer existing, lynching gradually disappeared from the West.

The South resented giving the Afro-American his freedom, the ballot box and the Civil Rights Law.

The mob spirit has grown with the increasing intelligence of the Afro-American.

I am only a mouthpiece through which to tell the story of lynching and I have told it so often that I know it by heart. I do not have to embellish; it makes its own way.

A Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every black home.

Brave men do not gather by thousands to torture and murder a single individual, so gagged and bound he cannot make even feeble resistance or defense.

Virtue knows no color line.

In fact, for all kinds of offenses – and, for no offenses – from murders to misdemeanors, men and women are put to death without judge or jury; so that, although the political excuse was no longer necessary, the wholesale murder of human beings went on just the same.

Those who commit the murders write the reports.

The only times an Afro-American who was assaulted got away has been when he had a gun and used it in self-defense.

Somebody must show that the Afro-American race is more sinned against than sinning, and it seems to have fallen upon me to do so.

Our country’s national crime is lynching. It is not the creature of an hour, the sudden outburst of uncontrolled fury, or the unspeakable brutality of an insane mob.

When the white man who is always the aggressor knows he runs as great a risk of biting the dust every time his Afro-American victim does, he will have greater respect for Afro-American life.

The appeal to the white man’s pocket has ever been more effectual than all the appeals ever made to his conscience.

The seed of the idea is developed by both labor and the unconscious, and the struggle that goes on between them.

My wrists are crooked and don’t go all the way back. I’ve been practicing and working on them. You can’t do everything good.

So after a while, if people won’t accept your excuses, you stop looking for them.

Everybody is nothing until you love them.

All kids need is a little help, a little hope and somebody who believes in them.

Teach them the quiet words of kindness, to live beyond themselves.

Nobody is starving on the streets. We’ve always taken care of them. We take care of our own; we always have. It is not the government’s responsibility.

I know when somebody is trying to get something out of me for clicks. And sometimes I feel like giving it to them.