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It has always been my belief that I, too, will die by violence. I have done all that I can to be prepared.
So early in life, I had learned that if you want something, you had better make some noise.
the ring was the only place a Negro could whip a white man and not be lynched.
All praise is due to Allah that I went to Boston when I did. If I hadn’t, I’d probably still be a brainwashed black Christian.
Shorty felt about the war the same way I and most ghetto Negroes did: “Whitey owns everything. He wants us to go and bleed for him? Let him fight.”
We were in that world of Negroes who are both servants and psychologists, aware that white people are so obsessed with their own importance that they will pay liberally, even dearly, for the impression of being catered to and entertained.
This white man’s Christian religion further deceived and brainwashed this “Negro” to always turn the other cheek, and grin, and scrape, and bow, and be humble, and to sing, and to pray, and to take whatever was dished out by the devilish white man; and to look for his pie in the sky, and for his heaven in the hereafter, while right here on earth the slavemaster white man enjoyed his heaven.
I was going through the hardest thing, also the greatest thing, for any human being to do; to accept that which is already within you, and around you.
I was to learn later that Elijah Muhammad’s tales, like this one of “Yacub,” infuriated the Muslims of the East. While at Mecca, I reminded them that it was their fault, since they themselves hadn’t done enough to make real Islam known in the West. Their silence left a vacuum into which any religious faker could step and mislead our people.
Not even Elijah Muhammad could have been more eloquent than those books were in providing indisputable proof that the collective white man had acted like a devil in virtually every contact he had with the world’s collective non-white man.
That’s why black prisoners become Muslims so fast when Elijah Muhammad’s teachings filter into their cages by way of other Muslim convicts. “The white man is the devil” is a perfect echo of that black convict’s lifelong experience.
When I saw our Brother Hinton, it was all I could do to contain myself. He was only semiconscious. Blood had bathed his head and face and shoulder. I hope I never again have to withstand seeing another case of sheer police brutality like that.
“I’m not anti-American, and I didn’t come here to condemn America—I want to make that very clear!” I told them. “I came here to tell the truth—and if the truth condemns America, then she stands condemned!”
“I’m for truth, no matter who tells it. I’m for justice, no matter who it is for or against. I’m a human being first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.”
the white man is not inherently evil, but America’s racist society influences him to act evilly. The society has produced and nourishes a psychology which brings out the lowest, most base part of human beings.
Saying this, I know I’ll hear “anti-Semitic” from every direction again. Oh, yes! But truth is truth.
“Conservatism” in America’s politics means “Let’s keep the niggers in their place.”
The well-meaning white people, I said, had to combat, actively and directly, the racism in other white people.
Where the really sincere white people have got to do their “proving” of themselves is not among the black victims, but out on the battle lines of where America’s racism really is—and that’s in their own home communities; America’s racism is among their own fellow whites. That’s where the sincere whites who really mean to accomplish something have got to work.
And in the racial climate of this country today, it is anybody’s guess which of the “extremes” in approach to the black man’s problems might personally meet a fatal catastrophe first—“non-violent” Dr. King, or so-called “violent” me.
To speculate about dying doesn’t disturb me as it might some people. I never have felt that I would live to become an old man.
Anyway, now, each day I live as if I am already dead, and I tell you what I would like for you to do. When I am dead—I say it that way because from the things I know, I do not expect to live long enough to read this book in its finished form—I want you to just watch and see if I’m not right in what I say: that the white man, in his press, is going to identify me with “hate.”
I know that societies often have killed the people who have helped to change those societies. And if I can die having brought any light, having exposed any meaningful truth that will help to destroy the racist cancer that is malignant in the body of America—then, all of the credit is due to Allah. Only the mistakes have been mine.
“Yes, I’m an extremist. The black race here in North America is in extremely bad condition. You show me a black man who isn’t an extremist and I’ll show you one who needs psychiatric attention!”
“Whether you use bullets or ballots, you’ve got to aim well; don’t strike at the puppet, strike at the puppeteer.”
It’s a time for martyrs now. And if I’m to be one, it will be in the cause of brotherhood. That’s the only thing that can save this country. I’ve learned it the hard way—but I’ve learned it….”
