Malcolm X Quotes

ON SELF-ACCEPTANCE
We cannot think of being acceptable to others until we have first proven acceptable to ourselves.
Malcolm X Speaks

ON CHILDHOOD
We were so hungry we were dizzy and we had nowhere to turn. Finally the authorities came in and we children were scattered about in different places as public wards. I happened to become the ward of a white couple who ran a correctional school for white boys. This family liked me in the way they liked their house pets.
The Playboy interview
May 1963

ON HARLEM
That's where I saw in the bars all these men and women with what looked like the easiest life in the world. Plenty of money, big cars, all of it. I could tell they were in the rackets and vice. I hung around these bars whenever I came in town, and I kept my ears open and my mouth shut. And they kept their eyes on me, too. Finally, one day a numbers man told me that he needed a runner, and I never caught the night train back to Boston.
The Playboy interview
May 1963

ON FAITH
A new world order is in the making, and it is up to us to prepare ourselves that we may take our rightful place in it.
Epistle to one of the
Nation of Islam brethren

ON OVERCOMING
At the bottom of the social heap is the black man in the big-city ghetto. He lives night and day with the rats and the cockroaches and drowns himself with alcohol and anesthetizes himself with dope, to try and forget where and what he is. That Negro has given up all hope. He's the hardest one for us to reach, because he's the deepest in the mud. But when you get him, you've got the best kind of Muslim. I look upon myself as a prime example of this category - as graphic an example as you could find of the salvation of the black man.
The Playboy interview,
May 1963

ON HATRED
What I want to know is how the white man, with the blood of black people dripping off his fingers, can have the audacity to be asking black people [why] they hate him?
The Playboy interview,
May 1963

ON BETTY
She's the only person I'd trust with my life.
To Alex Haley

ON REVENGE
We Muslims believe that the white race, which is guilty of having oppressed and exploited and enslaved our people here in America, should and will be the victims of God's divine wrath.
The Playboy interview
May 1963

ON MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
He got the peace prize, and we got the problem.
Interview with Claude Lewis
December 1964

ON CHRISTIANITY
I find it difficult [to believe] that... Christians accuse [Black Muslims] of teaching racial supremacy or... hatred, because their own history and... teachings are filled with it.
Interview with William Kunstler,
March 1960

ON SEGREGATION
Segregation is that which is forced upon inferiors by superiors. Separation is done voluntarily by two equals... The Negro schools in the Negro community are controlled by whites,... the economy of the Negro community is controlled by whites. And since the Negro... community is controlled or regulated by outsiders, it is a segregated community...Muslims who follow the Honorable Elijah Muhammad are as much against segregation as we are against integration. We are against segregation because it is unjust and we are against integration because [it is] a false solution to a real problem.
WUST interview,
May 1963

ON TRUTH
I'm telling it like it is!
The Autobiography of
Malcolm X

ON INTEGRATION
...when you've got some coffee that's too black, which means it's too strong, what do you do? You integrate it with cream... But if you pour too much cream in it, you won't even know you ever had coffee. It used to be hot, it becomes cool. It used to be strong, it becomes weak. It used to wake you up, now it puts you to sleep.
WUST interview
1963

ON NONVIOLENCE
Our religion teaches us to be intelligent. Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone lays a hand on you, send him to the cemetery.
WUST interview
1963

ON EXTREMISM
Yes, I'm an extremist. The black race... is in extremely bad condition.
The Autobiography of
Malcolm X

ON REVOLUTION
People involved in a revolution don't become part of the system; they destroy the system... The Negro revolution is no revolution because it condemns the system and then asks the system it has condemned to accept them...
Interview with A. B. Spellman
May 1964

ON HOLY WAR
The war of Armageddon has already started... God is using his many weapons. He is sending hurricanes so fast that [the blue-eyed devils] can't name them. He is drowning them in floods and causing their cars to crash and their airplanes cannot stay up in the sky. Their boats are sinking because Allah controls all things and he is using all methods to begin to wipe the devils off the planet, [and] the enemy is dying of diseases that have never been so deadly.
The FBI Files

ON MECCA
The holiest and most sacred city on earth. The fountain of truth, love, peace, and brotherhood.
Postcard to Dick Schaap
April 1964

ON HEALING
Here I am, back in Mecca. I am still traveling, trying to broaden my mind, for I've seen too much of the damage narrow-mindedness can make of things, and when I return home to America, I will devote what energies I have to repairing the damage.
Letter to James Farmer

ON EARTHLY REWARDS
Whenever I walk the street and see people ready to get with it, that's my reward.
Interview with Claude Lewis
December 1964

ON RACISM
Once I was, yes. But now I have turned my direction away from anything that's racist.
Interview with Robert Penn Warren
1964