Malcolm X
Malcolm X
Malcolm X, born Malcolm Little and later also known as el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz, was an African-American Muslim minister and human rights activist. To his admirers he was a courageous advocate for the rights of blacks, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its crimes against black Americans; detractors accused him of preaching racism and violence. He has been called one of the greatest and most influential African Americans in history...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionReligious Leader
Date of Birth19 May 1925
CityOmaha, NE
CountryUnited States of America
Only the mistakes were mine.
Look at yourselves. Some of you teenagers, students. How do you think I feel and I belong to a generation ahead of you - how do you think I feel to have to tell you, 'We, my generation, sat around like a knot on a wall while the whole world was fighting for its hum an rights - and you've got to be born into a society where you still have that same fight.' What did we do, who preceded you ? I'll tell you what we did. Nothing. And don't you make the same mistake we made....
I know that societies often have killed 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 destroy the racist cancer that is malignant in the body of America, then, all credit is due to Allah. Only the mistakes have been mine.
I'm sorry to say that the subject I most disliked was mathematics. I have thought about it. I think the reason was that mathematics leaves no room for argument. If you made a mistake, that was all there was to it.
Our people have made the mistake of confusing the methods with the objectives. As long as we agree on objectives, we should never fall out with each other just because we believe in different methods, or tactics, or strategy. We have to keep in mind at all times that we are not fighting for separation. We are fighting for recognition as free humans in this society.
We black men have a hard enough time in our own struggle for justice, and already have enough enemies as it is, to make the drastic mistake of attacking each other and adding more weight to an already unbearable load.
The greatest mistake of the movement has been trying to organize a sleeping people around specific goals. You have to wake the people up first, then you'll get action.
I want to be remembered as someone who was sincere. Even if I made mistakes, they were made in sincerity. If I was wrong, I was wrong in sincerity.
The white man made the mistake of letting me read his history books. He made the mistake of teaching me that Patrick Henry was a patriot and George Washington - wasn't nothing non-violent about old Pat or George Washington.
Nobody should teach the black man in America to turn the other cheek, unless someone is teaching the white man in America to turn the other cheek.
In the past, the greatest weapon the white man has had has been his ability to divide and conquer. If I take my hand and slap you, you don't even feel it. It might sting you because these digits are separated. But all I have to do to put you back in your place is bring those digits together.
My black brothers and sisters - of all religious beliefs, or of no religious beliefs - we all have in common the greatest binding tie we could have. We are all black people!
Good education, housing and jobs are imperatives for the Negroes, and I shall support them in their fight to win these objectives, but I shall tell the Negroes that while these are necessary, they cannot solve the main Negro problem.
Power doesn't back up in the face of a smile, or in the face of a threat of some kind of nonviolent loving action. It's not the nature of power to back up in the face of anything but some more power.