Sign in with your pod

Famous quotes

Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,158,269 quotes Who coined it · How we decide

EnglishItalianoPolskiעבריתFrançaisPortuguêsفارسیEspañol中文РусскийDeutschالعربيةहिन्दी日本語ΕλληνικάLatina

Stokely Carmichael

88 quotes

• “They Head Start, Upward Lift, Bootstrap, and Upward Bound us into white society, 'cause they don’t want to face the real problem which is a man is poor for one reason and one reason only: 'cause he does not have money -- period. If you want to get rid of poverty, you give people money -- period.”

  Stokely Carmichael (1941–1998) first seen 1966 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Black Power" Speech at University of California, Berkeley (October 29, 1966)

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

  Stokely Carmichael (1941–1998) first seen 1966 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: addressing a crowd alongside Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and others during the March Against Fear (1966), Link

• “Dr. King’s policy was, if you are nonviolent, if you suffer, your opponent will see your suffering and will be moved to change his heart. That’s very good. He only made one fallacious assumption. In order for nonviolence to work, your opponent must have a conscience. The United States has none.”

  Stokely Carmichael (1941–1998) first seen 1967 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: The Black Power Mixtape (1967-1975)

• “The death of Che Guevara places a responsibility on all revolutionaries of the World to redouble their decision to fight on to the final defeat of Imperialism. That is why in essence Che Guevara is not dead, his ideas are with us.”

  Stokely Carmichael (1941–1998) first seen 1967 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: in (1967), as quoted in Andrew Sinclair's Viva Che!: The Strange Death and Life of Che Guevara

• “The position of women in the [civil-rights] movement is prone.”

  Stokely Carmichael (1941–1998) first seen 1964 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Recorded in: Allegedly said during an irreverent comedy monologue at a party after SNCC's Waveland conference in Nov 1964. See Greenberg, Cheryl Lynn, "SNCC: Born of the Sit-Ins, Dedicated to Action-Remembrances of Mary Elizabeth Ki…

• “Programs do not come out of the minds of any one person or two people such as ourselves, but out of day-to-day work, out of interaction between organizers and the communities in which they work.”

  Stokely Carmichael (1941–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Also quoted by: Charles V. Hamilton

• “Black Power means that black people see themselves as part of a new force, sometimes called the “Third World”; that we see our struggle as closely related to liberation struggles around the world. We must hook up with these struggles.”

  Stokely Carmichael (1941–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Also quoted by: Charles V. Hamilton

• “Black people in this country form a colony, and it is not in the interest of the colonial power to liberate them. Black people are legal citizens of the United States with, for the most part, the same legal rights as other citizens. Yet they stand as colonial subjects in relation to the white society. Thus institutional racism has another name: colonialism. [...] Black people in the United States have a colonial relationship to the larger society, a relationship characterized by institutional racism. That colonial status operates in three areas—political, economic, social.”

  Stokely Carmichael (1941–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Also quoted by: Charles V. Hamilton

• “The operation of political and economic colonialism in this country has had social repercussions which date back to slavery but did not by any means end with the Emancipation Proclamation. Perhaps the most vicious result of colonialism—in Africa and this country—was that it purposefully, maliciously and with reckless abandon relegated the black man to a subordinated, inferior status in the society. The individual was considered and treated as a lowly animal, not to be housed properly, or given adequate medical services, and by no means a decent education.”

  Stokely Carmichael (1941–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Also quoted by: Charles V. Hamilton

• “Woodrow Wilson proclaimed that this country entered World War I “to make the world safe for democracy.” This was the very same President who issued executive orders segregating most of the eating and rest-room facilities for federal employees. [...] Obviously, black people were not included in Woodrow Wilson’s defense perimeter. Whatever the life of blacks might have been under German rule, this country clearly did not fight Germany for the improvement of the status of black people—under the saved democracy—in this land.”

  Stokely Carmichael (1941–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Also quoted by: Charles V. Hamilton

• “The social effects of colonialism are to degrade and to dehumanize the subjected black man.”

  Stokely Carmichael (1941–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Also quoted by: Charles V. Hamilton

• “Racist assumptions of white superiority have been so deeply engrained into the fiber of the society that they infuse the entire functioning of the national subconscious. They are taken for granted and frequently not even recognized.”

  Stokely Carmichael (1941–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Also quoted by: Charles V. Hamilton

• “The time is long overdue for the black community to redefine itself, set forth new values and goals, and organize around them.”

  Stokely Carmichael (1941–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Also quoted by: Charles V. Hamilton

• “To black Africans, the word “Uhuru” means “freedom,” but they had to fight the white colonizers for the right to use the term.”

  Stokely Carmichael (1941–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Also quoted by: Charles V. Hamilton

• “Today, the American educational system continues to reinforce the entrenched values of the society through the use of words. Few people in this country question that this is “the land of the free and the home of the brave.” They have had these words drummed into them from childhood. Few people question that this is the “Great Society” or that this country is fighting “Communist aggression” around the world. We mouth these things over and over, and they become truisms not to be questioned. In a similar way, black people have been saddled with epithets.”

  Stokely Carmichael (1941–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Also quoted by: Charles V. Hamilton

• “There is a terminology and ethos peculiar to the black community of which black people are beginning to be no longer ashamed. Black communities are the only large segments of this society where people refer to each other as brother—soul-brother, soul-sister. Some people may look upon this as ersatz, as make-believe, but it is not that. It is real. It is a growing sense of community. It is a growing realization that black Americans have a common bond not only among themselves, but with their African brothers.”

  Stokely Carmichael (1941–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Also quoted by: Charles V. Hamilton

• “Reorientation means an emphasis on the dignity of man, not on the sanctity of property. It means the creation of a society where human misery and poverty are repugnant to that society, not an indication of laziness or lack of The creation of new values means the establishment of a society based, as Killens expresses it in Black Man’s Burden, on “free people,” not “free enterprise”. To do this means to modernize—indeed, to civilize—this country.”

  Stokely Carmichael (1941–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Also quoted by: Charles V. Hamilton

• “The two major political parties in this country have become non-viable entities for the legitimate representation of the real needs of masses—especially blacks—in this country.”

  Stokely Carmichael (1941–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Also quoted by: Charles V. Hamilton

• “It does not mean merely putting black faces into office. Black visibility is not Black Power. Most of the black politicians around the country today are not examples of Black Power. The power must be that of a community, and emanate from there. The black politicians must start from there. The black politicians must stop being representatives of “downtown” machines, whatever the cost might be in terms of lost patronage and holiday handouts.”

  Stokely Carmichael (1941–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Also quoted by: Charles V. Hamilton

• “There can be no social order without social justice.”

  Stokely Carmichael (1941–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Also quoted by: Charles V. Hamilton

• “Black people have not suffered as individuals but as members of a group; therefore, their liberation lies in group action. This is why SNCC—and the concept of Black Power—affirms that helping individual black people to solve their problems on an individual basis does little to alleviate the mass of black people.”

  Stokely Carmichael (1941–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Also quoted by: Charles V. Hamilton

• “Political relations are based on self-interest: benefits to be gained and losses to be avoided. For the most part, man’s politics is determined by his evaluation of material good and evil. Politics results from a conflict of interests, not of consciences.”

  Stokely Carmichael (1941–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Also quoted by: Charles V. Hamilton

• “Before one begins to talk coalition, one should establish clearly the premises on which that coalition will be based. All parties to the coalition must perceive a mutually beneficial goal based on the conception of each party of his own self-interest. One party must not blindly assume that what is good for one is automatically—without question—good for the other.”

  Stokely Carmichael (1941–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Also quoted by: Charles V. Hamilton

• “The law” became a convenient tool to be used by illegal masters when black people sought to move.”

  Stokely Carmichael (1941–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Also quoted by: Charles V. Hamilton

• “Law is the agent of those in political power; it is the product of those powerful enough to define right and wrong and to have that definition legitimized by “law.” This is not to say that “might makes right,” but it is to say that Might makes Law.”

  Stokely Carmichael (1941–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Also quoted by: Charles V. Hamilton

• “Lowndes was a truly totalitarian society—the epitome of the tight, insulated police state.”

  Stokely Carmichael (1941–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Also quoted by: Charles V. Hamilton

• “What the master giveth, the master can take away.”

  Stokely Carmichael (1941–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Also quoted by: Charles V. Hamilton

• “The black people should create rather than imitate—create new forms which are politically inclusive rather than imitate old racist forms which are politically exclusive.”

  Stokely Carmichael (1941–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Also quoted by: Charles V. Hamilton

• “This country is known by its cities: those amazing aggregations of people and housing, offices and factories, which constitute the heart of our civilization, the nerve center of our collective being.”

  Stokely Carmichael (1941–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Also quoted by: Charles V. Hamilton

• “The basic story of education in Central emerges as one of inefficiency, inferiority and mass deterioration. It is a system which typifies colonialism and the colonist’s attitude.”

  Stokely Carmichael (1941–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Also quoted by: Charles V. Hamilton

• “There can be no doubt that in today’s world a thorough and comprehensive education is an absolute necessity. Yet it is obvious from the data that a not even minimum education is being received in most ghetto schools. White decision-makers have been running those schools with injustice, indifference and inadequacy for too long; the result has been an educationally crippled black child turned out onto the labor market equipped to do little more than stand in welfare lines to receive his miserable dole.”

  Stokely Carmichael (1941–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Also quoted by: Charles V. Hamilton

• “Those of us who survive must indeed be a tough people.”

  Stokely Carmichael (1941–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Also quoted by: Charles V. Hamilton

• “This country, with its pervasive institutional racism, has itself created socially undesirable conditions; it merely perpetuates those conditions when it lays the blame on people who, through whatever means at their disposal, seek to strike out at the conditions.”

  Stokely Carmichael (1941–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Also quoted by: Charles V. Hamilton

• “Herein lies the match that will continue to ignite the dynamite in the ghettos: the ineptness of decision-makers, the anachronistic institutions, the inability to think boldly and above all the unwillingness to innovate. [...] And when the dynamite does go off, pious pronouncements of patience should not go forth. Blame should not be placed on “outside agitators” or on “Communist influence” or on advocates of Black Power. That dynamite was placed there by white racism and it was ignited by white racist indifference and unwillingness to act justly.”

  Stokely Carmichael (1941–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Also quoted by: Charles V. Hamilton

• “We are aware that it has become commonplace to pinpoint and describe the ills of our urban ghettos. The social, political and economic problems are so acute that even a casual observer cannot fail to see that something is wrong. While description is plentiful, however, there remains a blatant timidity about what to do to solve the problems. Neither rain nor endless “definitive,” costly reports nor stop-gap measures will even approach a solution to the explosive situation in the nation’s ghettos.”

  Stokely Carmichael (1941–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Also quoted by: Charles V. Hamilton

• “If political institutions do not meet the needs of the people, if the people finally believe that those institutions do not express their own values, then those institutions must be discarded. It is wasteful and inefficient, not to mention unjust, to continue imposing old forms and ways of doing things on a people who no longer view those forms and ways as functional.”

  Stokely Carmichael (1941–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

  Also quoted by: Charles V. Hamilton

• “In dialectics, we know everything contains positive and negative attributes. Reforms can be used to advance Revolution or to forestall Revolution. Dialectics inform us that when the negative dominates the positive in reform it becomes an obstacle on the road to freedom; it must give way to Revolution.”

  Stokely Carmichael (1941–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “We say, “If we do not learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it.” We must precisely state that what we repeat is not history but our errors under ever-changing material conditions. History does not repeat itself; it cannot. Nothing can. The first law of the universe is everything changes, all the time. Only those who see history as events and not as a process can make this error.”

  Stokely Carmichael (1941–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “It is only mass struggle that advances us and only when the masses advance do we advance.”

  Stokely Carmichael (1941–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Revolutionaries do not take to the path of spilling blood easily.”

  Stokely Carmichael (1941–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Imperialism, trying to preserve itself in the face of the oppressed masses’ anticolonial struggle, presented neocolonialism to the masses. Neocolonialism means powerless visibility. You see an African president, but the entire country is controlled by France or Belgium or England—its former colonial master.”

  Stokely Carmichael (1941–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The U.S.A. is a settler-colony; only the indigenous people are its just owners.”

  Stokely Carmichael (1941–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Authors make errors, history, does not!”

  Stokely Carmichael (1941–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “One of the strategies of racism is to confuse the victims into believing all their victories should be awarded to the oppressor.”

  Stokely Carmichael (1941–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “Capitalism does not lie some of the time, it lies all of the time.”

  Stokely Carmichael (1941–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The capitalist press simply records history, it never makes it; only the masses make history!”

  Stokely Carmichael (1941–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The capitalist press supports reform movements which forestall Revolution; these reform movements come to depend on the press and even tailor their activities to fit headlines. The capitalist press wants to intoxicate the masses with this reform movement. Intoxicated reform “leaders” believe that political power grows out of the lens of press cameras, and the more lenses, the more power. Just political power comes only from the organized masses.”

  Stokely Carmichael (1941–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “History is. We cannot make it otherwise.”

  Stokely Carmichael (1941–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The universal law of human nature: Where there is oppression there is resistance, and “where oppression grows, resistance grows.”

  Stokely Carmichael (1941–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

• “The task of imperialism is to divide and rule, isolate and dominate.”

  Stokely Carmichael (1941–1998) said by 1998 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source

More