Country quotes
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"Many of them who belong to these countries that were former colonial powers have racist attitudes, but their racist attitude is never displayed to the degree that the America's attitude of racism is displayed. Never."
"The cornerstones of this country's operation are economic and political strength and power. The black man doesn't have the economic strength - and it will take time for him to build it. But right now the American black man has the political strength and power to change his destiny overnight."
"I grew up in the country on a farm it was whenever someone said even that a snake was eating the chickens or bothering the chickens, we'd kill snakes. We never knew whether that was the snake that did it."
"Why should [Uncle Sam] send 20 billion dollars down there [South America], which is going to go down the drain every time you have a racial in - incident in this country?"
"In this country, these Negro leaders have Negroes sittin' - sitting down, thinking that that - there's dignity towards sitting in."
"There are many white people in this country who realize that the system itself - as it is constructed - is not so constructed that it can produce freedom and equality for the negro, and the system has to be changed."
"Liberty or death was what brought about the freedom of whites in this country from the English."
"Well, my contention is that the political system of this country is so designed criminally to prevent this, that if the black man even started in that direction, which is a mature step and it's the only way to really solve this problem and to prove that he is the intellectual equal of others, why, the racists and the segregationists would fight that harder than they're fighting the present efforts to integrate."
"You'd have civil war. You'd have a race war in this country."
"America is the first country... that can actually have a bloodless revolution."
"That's not our problem, that's America's problem. If the average American knew the trouble that Uncle Sam is in all over this earth, they could see that it - we are closer toward getting a separate territory in this country than the integrationists are toward getting integration."
"It is the system itself that, that is incapable of producing freedom for the twenty-two million Afro-Americans. Just like a chicken can't lay a duck egg, a chicken can't lay a duck egg, because the system of the chicken isn't constructed in the way to produce a duck egg. And just as that chicken system can't produce, is not capable to, of producing a duck egg, the political and economic system of this country is absolutely incapable of producing freedom and justice and equality and human dignity for the twenty-two million Afro-Americans."
"In stating that the idea of a separate state is not practical, I'm also stating that the idea of integration, forced integration, as they've been making an effort to do in this country for the past years, is also just as impractical."
"You don't stick a knife in a man's back nine inches and then pull it out six inches and say you're making progress ... No matter how much respect, no matter how much recognition, whites show towards me, as far as I am concerned, as long as it is not shown to everyone of our people in this country, it doesn't exist for me."
"Adam Clayton Powell's entire political career has to be looked at in the entire context of the American history and the history of, and the position of the Afro- American or negro in American history. [He] has done a remarkable job in fighting for rights of black people in this country. On the other hand, he probably hasn't done as much as he could or as much as he should because he is the most independent negro politician in this country."
"When you have to pass a law to make a man let me have a house, or you have to pass a law to make a man let me go to school, or you have to pass a law to make a man let me walk down the street, you have to enforce that law and you'd have to be living actually in a police state. It would take a police state in this country."
"I go for Mao Tse-tung much more than, than Nehru because I think that Nehru brought his country up in a beggar's role."
"Give us some separate territory in this country where our people can go and do something for ourselves. And provide us with everything that we need to keep that new territory going, until we are self-sufficient."
"I think that the black people in this country have the reached the point where they should reserve the right to do whatever is necessary to see that they exercise complete control over the politicians in the politician, in the politics of their own community by whatever means necessary."
"We want freedom by any means necessary. We want justice by any means necessary. We want equality by any means necessary. We don't feel that in 1964, living in a country that is supposedly based upon freedom, and supposedly the leader of the free world, we don't think that we should have to sit around and wait for some segregationist congressmen and senators and a President from Texas in Washington, D.C., to make up their minds that our people are due now some degree of civil rights. No, we want it now or we don't think anybody should have it."
