Our grandfathers had to run, run, run. My generation's out of breath. We ain't running no more.

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.

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

The secret of life is to have no fear; it's the only way to function.

Our noses are broad, our lips are thick, our hair is nappy-we are black and beautiful!

What a liberal really wants is to bring about change that will not in any way endanger his position.

An organization which claims to speak for the needs of a community must speak in the tone of that community.

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

Go home and tell your daughters they are beautiful.

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

The time for running has come to an end. You tell them white folk in Mississippi that all the scared niggers are dead!

Loving you has been worse than an addiction to drugs. At least I don't have the drugs c r a w l i n g into my bed at night.

Some mistakes cost everything.

Let you look sometimes for the goodness in me, and judge me not.

We have to be much tougher. We have to be much stronger than we've been.

Death seems to have been a rather late invention in evolution. One can go a long way in evolution before encountering an authentic corpse.

Permanence of instinct must go with permanence of form...The history of the present must teach us the history of the past.

Write what you would love to read. Finish what you begin to write. Your voice is uniquely yours and we are all waiting to hear it.

Show true cost of FICA-double what is shown on paychecks.

Good-Bye is an easy word to say but try saying it to a friend. If I never knew you, I'd be safe, but half as real, never knowing I could feel.

Don't wait to be picked. Pick yourself.