Malcom X Day

Some quotes from the late, great civil rights leader, Malcolm 'X' Little. Born May 19th 1925, and was assassinated by Nation of Islam followers on February 21st 1965. He was only 29 years old. Both hated and loved by many, his legacy will continue on for decades and centuries to come. While he began is civil rights career espousing violence, and standing opposed to much of what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stood for, he later changed his message when he realized the damage being done due to his message. When he was killed, he was a icon of virtue and freedom for all to look up to. Both black and white people should carry his legacy and message on. Today, I, a white male father, will be telling my kids about Malcolm X for the first time. They are young, but they will understand some of his story.

Official Malcolm X website.

QUOTES BY MALCOLM X

"A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything."

"We are nonviolent with people who are nonviolent with us."

"Don't be in a hurry to condemn because he doesn't do what you do or think as you think or as fast. There was a time when you didn't know what you know today."

"My alma mater was books, a good library... I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity."

"Stumbling is not falling."

"There is no better than adversity. Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance next time."

"They put your mind right in a bag, and take it wherever they want."

"We didn't land on Plymouth Rock, Plymouth Rock landed on us."

"Concerning nonviolence, it is criminal to teach a man not to defend himself when he is the constant victim of brutal attacks."

"A race of people is like an individual man; until it uses its own talent, takes pride in its own history, expresses its own culture, affirms its own selfhood, it can never fulfill itself."

"I for one believe that if you give people a thorough understanding of what confronts them and the basic causes that produce it, they'll create their own program, and when the people create a program, you get action."

"If you're not ready to die for it, put the word 'freedom' out of your vocabulary."

"I feel like a man who has been asleep somewhat and under someone else's control. I feel that what I'm thinking and saying is now for myself. Before it was for and by the guidance of Elijah Muhammad. Now I think with my own mind, sir!"

"The thing that you have to understand about those of us in the Black Muslim movement was that all of us believed 100 percent in the divinity of Elijah Muhammad. We believed in him. We actually believed that God, in Detroit by the way, that God had taught him and all of that. I always believed that he believed in himself. And I was shocked when I found out that he himself didn't believe it."

"I believe that there will ultimately be a clash between the oppressed and those that do the oppressing. I believe that there will be a clash between those who want freedom, justice and equality for everyone and those who want to continue the systems of exploitation."

"It is a time for martyrs now, and if I am to be one, it will be for the cause of brotherhood. That's the only thing that can save this country."
-- February 19, 1965 (2 days before he was murdered by Nation of Islam followers)

"Without education, you're not going anywhere in this world."

"...I shall never rest until I have undone the harm I did to so many well-meaning, innocent Negroes who through my own evangelistic zeal now believe in him even more fanatically and more blindly than I did."
-- on those he encouraged to follow Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad

"When a person places the proper value on freedom, there is nothing under the sun that he will not do to acquire that freedom. Whenever you hear a man saying he wants freedom, but in the next breath he is going to tell you what he won't do to get it, or what he doesn't believe in doing in order to get it, he doesn't believe in freedom. A man who believes in freedom will do anything under the sun to acquire . . . or preserve his freedom."

"You don't have to be a man to fight for freedom. All you have to do is to be an intelligent human being."

"Dr. King wants the same thing I want. Freedom."

"I want Dr. King to know that I didn't come to Selma to make his job difficult. I really did come thinking I could make it easier. If the white people realize what the alternative is, perhaps they will be more willing to hear Dr. King."
-- in a conversation with Mrs. Coretta Scott King.

"I am not a racist. I am against every form of racism and segregation, every form of discrimination. I believe in human beings, and that all human beings should be respected as such, regardless of their color."