“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.”

I usually say I did the best I could with what I had. I have no major regrets.

If a white man wants to lynch me, that’s his problem. If he’s got the power to lynch me, that’s my problem. Racism is not a question of attitude; it’s a question of power.

Before a group can enter the open society, it must first close ranks.

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.

I maintain that every civil rights bill in this country was passed for white people, not for black people.

Capitalism is a stupid system, a backward system.

I also know that while I am black I am a human being, and therefore I have the right to go into any public place. White people didn’t know that.Every time I tried to go into a place they stopped me

Leaders in Africa are so corrupt that we are certain if we put dogs in uniforms and put guns on their shoulders, we’d be hard put to distinguish them.

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.

Now, then, in order to understand white supremacy we must dismiss the fallacious notion that white people can give anybody their freedom.

There is a higher law than the law of government. That’s the law of conscience.

We were aware of the fact that death walks hand in hand with struggle.

One does not fight to influence change and then leave the change to someone else to bring about.

No man can given anybody his freedom.

Go home and tell your daughters they are beautiful.

There has been only a civil rights movement, whose tone of voice was adapted to an audience of liberal whites.

We as a people, as a state, and as a community, have too much promise, too much potential, and too much at stake to go any other way than forward. We are too strong in our hearts, too innovative in our minds, and too firm in our beliefs to retreat from our goals.

Where I grew up, in Des Moines, Iowa, there is hardly any downtown economic activity now. Everybody shops in malls – you don’t find a sense of community in malls.

So I taught myself web design, and then in 1999 some friends of mine decided to start a company called Xanga.com, which was a very early kind of social network slash blogging community.

If I stop today at a protest and I read a speech, it is a speech that remains in that moment, and whoever captures it does, and whoever doesn’t, doesn’t, and just keeps walking. It is very sterile, and it can seem even inaccessible and boring for a community.

When you’re buying a pair of TOMS, if you don’t feel like you’re part of a community, then I’ve failed.

I am aware that one should always make room for renewal in politics. A democracy is the healthier for the turnover of the depth of talent there is in its community.

From the lifetime of its founder, Islam was the state, and the identity of religion and government is indelibly stamped on the memories and awareness of the faithful from their own sacred writings, history, and experience.

A leader can create a company, but a community creates a movement.