The most explosive year. As they nourish these dis satisfactions, it can only lead to one thing, an explosion; and now we have the type of black man on the scene in America today. Everything that came out of Europe, every blue-eyed thing, is already an American. One of the 22 million black people who are the victims of democracy, nothing but disguised hypocrisy. And I see America through the eyes of the victim. And when you see them coming up with that kind of conspiracy, let them know your eyes are open.
The ballot or the bullet. They get all the Negro vote, and after they get it, the Negro gets nothing in return. And it shows that the Southern section of the country, the states that are most heavily concentrated with Negroes, are the ones that have senators and congressmen standing up filibustering and doing all other kinds of trickery to keep the Negro from being able to vote.
This is pitiful. These senators and congressmen actually violate the constitutional amendments that guarantee the people of that particular state or county the right to vote. And the Constitution itself has within it the machinery to expel any representative from a state where the voting rights of the people are violated. A vote for a Democrat is a vote for a Dixiecrat.
It means when Negroes become too heavily concentrated in a certain area, and begin to gain too much political power, the white man comes along and changes the district lines. The same government that you go abroad to fight for and die for is the government that is in a conspiracy to deprive you of your voting rights, deprive you of your economic opportunities, deprive you of decent housing, deprive you of decent education. And you should drop it in their lap. This government has failed the Negro.
This so-called democracy has failed the Negro. And all these white liberals have definitely failed the Negro. So, where do we go from here? First, we need some friends. We need some new allies.
The entire civil-rights struggle needs a new interpretation, a broader interpretation. We need to look at this civil-rights thing from another angle—from the inside as well as from the outside. To those of us whose philosophy is black nationalism, the only way you can get involved in the civil-rights struggle is give it a new interpretation. That old interpretation excluded us.
It kept us out. You can take it before the General Assembly. You can take Uncle Sam before a world court. But the only level you can do it on is the level of human rights. Civil rights keeps you under his restrictions, under his jurisdiction.
The same man that was colonizing our people in Kenya was colonizing our people in the Congo. They realized all over the world where the dark man was being oppressed, he was being oppressed by the white man; where the dark man was being exploited, he was being exploited by the white man.
So they got together under this basis — that they had a common enemy. So what we have to do is what they did. They agreed to stop quarreling among themselves. If you do, everybody calls you uncouth, unrefined, uncivilized, savage. And then when you come out on the street, you pose a common front, a united front. And this is what we need to do in the community, and in the city, and in the state. We need to stop airing our differences in front of the white man. Put the white man out of our meetings, number one, and then sit down and talk shop with each other.
I would like to make a few comments concerning the difference between the black revolution and the Negro revolution. Are they both the same?
What is the difference between a black revolution and a Negro revolution? First, what is a revolution? When you study the historic nature of revolutions, the motive of a revolution, the objective of a revolution, and the result of a revolution, and the methods used in a revolution, you may change words.
You may devise another program. You may change your goal and you may change your mind. Look at the American Revolution in That revolution was for what?
For land. Why did they want land? How was it carried out? Number one, it was based on land, the basis of independence. And the only way they could get it was bloodshed. The French Revolution — what was it based on? The land-less against the landlord. What was it for?
How did they get it? Was no love lost; was no compromise; was no negotiation. The Russian Revolution — what was it based on? How did they bring it about? He sent you to Germany, you bled. He sent you to the South Pacific to fight the Japanese, you bled.
You bleed for white people. You bleed when the white man says bleed; you bite when the white man says bite; and you bark when the white man says bark. How are you going to be nonviolent in Mississippi, as violent as you were in Korea? If violence is wrong in America, violence is wrong abroad. And if it is right for America to draft us, and teach us how to be violent in defense of her, then it is right for you and me to do whatever is necessary to defend our own people right here in this country.
The Chinese Revolution — they wanted land. They threw the British out, along with the Uncle Tom Chinese. Yeah, they did. They set a good example. And within ten years that little girl become a full-grown woman. No more Toms in China. Of all our studies, history is best qualified to reward our research.
And once you see how they got theirs straight, then you know how you can get yours straight. They were the ones who brought it to the fore. The Mau Mau, they were revolutionaries. They believed in scorched earth. They knocked everything aside that got in their way, and their revolution also was based on land, a desire for land.
In Algeria, the northern part of Africa, a revolution took place. The Algerians were revolutionists; they wanted land. France offered to let them be integrated into France. They told France: to hell with France. They wanted some land, not some France. And they engaged in a bloody battle.
The only revolution based on loving your enemy is the Negro revolution. The only revolution in which the goal is a desegregated lunch counter, a desegregated theater, a desegregated park, and a desegregated public toilet; you can sit down next to white folks on the toilet. Revolution is based on land. Land is the basis of all independence. Land is the basis of freedom, justice, and equality. The white man knows what a revolution is. He knows that the black revolution is world-wide in scope and in nature.
The black revolution is sweeping Asia, sweeping Africa, is rearing its head in Latin America. They overturned the system. Revolution is in Asia. Revolution is in Africa. And the white man is screaming because he sees revolution in Latin America. A revolution is bloody. Revolution is hostile. Revolution knows no compromise.
Revolution overturns and destroys everything that gets in its way. Just tell me. A revolutionary wants land so he can set up his own nation, an independent nation. When the white man became involved in a revolution in this country against England, what was it for?
He wanted this land so he could set up another white nation. The American Revolution was white nationalism. So as you can see, brothers and sisters, today — this afternoon it is not our intention to discuss religion.
We're going to forget religion. If we bring up religion we'll be in an argument. And the best way to keep away from arguments and differences, as I said earlier, put your religion at home, in the closet, keep it between you and your God.
Because if it hasn't done anything more for you than it has, you need to forget it anyway. Whether you are a Christian or a Muslim or a nationalist, we all have the same problem.
They don't hang you because you're a Baptist; they hang you 'cause you're black. They attack me 'cause I'm black. They attacked all of us for the same reason. All of us catch hell from the same enemy. We're all in the same bag, in the same boat. We suffer political oppression, economic exploitation and social degradation. All of 'em from the same enemy. The government has failed us. You can't deny that. Any time you're living in the 20th century, , and you walking around here singing "We Shall Overcome," the government has failed you.
You can't sing up on freedom. But you can swing up on some freedom. But singing didn't help him to become the heavyweight champion of the world. Swinging helped him. So this government has failed us. The government itself has failed us. And the white liberals who have been posing as our friends have failed us.
And once we see that all of these other sources to which we've turned have failed, we stop turning to them and turn to ourselves. We need a self-help program, a do-it-yourself philosophy, a do-it-right-now philosophy, a it's-already-too-late philosophy. This is what you and I need to get with. And the only time — the only way we're going to solve our problem is with a self-help program. Before we can get a self-help program started, we have to have a self-help philosophy.
Black nationalism is a self-help philosophy. What's so good about it — you can stay right in the church where you are and still take black nationalism as your philosophy. You can stay in any kind of civic organization that you belong to and still take black nationalism as your philosophy. You can be an atheist and still take black nationalism as your philosophy. This is a philosophy that eliminates the necessity for division and argument, 'cause if you're black, you should be thinking black.
And if you're black and you not thinking black at this late date, well, I'm sorry for you. Once you change your philosophy, you change your thought pattern. Once you change your thought pattern you change your attitude. Once you change your attitude it changes your behavior pattern. And then you go on into some action. As long as you got a sit-down philosophy you'll have a sit-down thought pattern. And as long as you think that old sit-down thought, you'll be in some kind of sit-down action.
They'll have you sitting in everywhere. It's not so good to refer to what you're going to do as a sit-in. That right there castrates you. Right there it brings you down. What goes with it? What — think of the image of someone sitting. An old woman can sit. An old man can sit. A chump can sit, a coward can sit, anything can sit.
Well, you and I been sitting long enough and it's time for us today to start doing some standing and some fighting to back that up. When we look at other parts of this Earth upon which we live, we find that black, brown, red and yellow people in Africa and Asia are getting their independence. They're not getting it by singing, 'We Shall Overcome.
It is nationalism that brought about the independence of the people in Asia. Every nation in Asia gained its independence through the philosophy of nationalism. Every nation on the African continent that has gotten its independence brought it about through the philosophy of nationalism. And it will take black nationalism to bring about the freedom of 22 million Afro-Americans, here in this country, where we have suffered colonialism for the past years. America is just as much a colonial power as England ever was.
America is just as much a colonial power as France ever was. In fact, America is more so a colonial power than they, because she is a hypocritical colonial power behind it.
Why, that's colonization. Second-class citizenship is nothing but 20th slavery. How you gonna to tell me you're a second-class citizen?
They don't have second-class citizenship in any other government on this Earth. They just have slaves and people who are free! Well, this country is a hypocrite! They try and make you think they set you free by calling you a second-class citizen. No, you're nothing but a 20th century slave. Just as it took nationalism to remove colonialism from Asia and Africa, it'll take black nationalism today to remove colonialism from the backs and the minds of twenty-two million Afro-Americans here in this country.
And looks like it might be the year of the ballot or the bullet. Why does it look like it might be the year of the ballot or the bullet? Because Negroes have listened to the trickery and the lies and the false promises of the white man now for too long, and they're fed up. They've become disenchanted.
They've become disillusioned. They've become dissatisfied. And all of this has built up frustrations in the black community that makes the black community throughout America today more explosive than all of the atomic bombs the Russians can ever invent.
Whenever you got a racial powder keg sitting in your lap, you're in more trouble than if you had an atomic powder keg sitting in your lap. When a racial powder keg goes off, it doesn't care who it knocks out the way.
Understand this, it's dangerous. And in , this seems to be the year. Because what can the white man use, now, to fool us? After he put down that March on Washington — and you see all through that now, he tricked you, had you marching down to Washington.
Had you marching back and forth between the feet of a dead man named Lincoln and another dead man named George Washington, singing, "We Shall Overcome. He made a chump out of you. He made a fool out of you. He made you think you were going somewhere and you end up going nowhere but between Lincoln and Washington.
So today our people are disillusioned. And in their frustrations they want action. And in you'll see this young black man, this new generation, asking for the ballot or the bullet. That old Uncle Tom action is outdated. The young generation don't want to hear anything about "the odds are against us. When this country here was first being founded, there were thirteen colonies.
The whites were colonized. They were fed up with this taxation without representation. So some of them stood up and said, "Liberty or death! The white man made the mistake of letting me read his history books. They didn't care about the odds. Why, they faced the wrath of the entire British Empire.
And in those days, they used to say that the British Empire was so vast and so powerful that the sun would never set on it. This is how big it was, yet these thirteen little scrawny states, tired of taxation without representation, tired of being exploited and oppressed and degraded, told that big British Empire, "Liberty or death. And I'm here to tell you in case you don't know it — that you got a new, you got a new generation of black people in this country who don't care anything whatsoever about odds.
They don't want to hear you ol' Uncle Tom, handkerchief-heads talking about the odds. If they're going to draft these young black men, and send them over to Korea or to South Vietnam to face million Chinese… [laughter, applause] If you're not afraid of those odds, you shouldn't be afraid of these odds. Why is America — why does this loom to be such an explosive political year? Because this is the year of politics. This is the year when all of the white politicians are going to come into the Negro community.
You never see them until election time. You can't find them until election time. And as they make these false promises they're going to feed our frustrations, and this will only serve to make matters worse. I'm no politician. I'm not even a student of politics.
I'm not a Republican, nor a Democrat, nor an American — and got sense enough to know it. I'm one of the 22 million black victims of the Democrats. One of the 22 million black victims of the Republicans and one of the 22 million black victims of Americanism. I speak as a victim of America's so-called democracy.
You and I have never seen democracy — all we've seen is hypocrisy. When we open our eyes today and look around America, we see America not through the eyes of someone who has enjoyed the fruits of Americanism. We see America through the eyes of someone who has been the victim of Americanism. We don't see any American dream. We've experienced only the American nightmare. We haven't benefited from America's democracy. We've only suffered from America's hypocrisy. And the generation that's coming up now can see it.
And are not afraid to say it. If you go to jail, so what? If you're black, you were born in jail. If you black you were born in jail, in the North as well as the South. Stop talking about the South.
As long as you south of the Canadian border, you South. Twenty-two million black victims of Americanism are waking up and they are gaining a new political consciousness, becoming politically mature. And as they become — develop this political maturity, they're able to see the recent trends in these political elections. They see that the whites are so evenly divided that every time they vote, the race is so close they have to go back and count the votes all over again.
Which means that any block, any minority that has a block of votes that stick together is in a strategic position. Either way you go, that's who gets it. You're in a position to determine who'll go to the White House and who'll stay in the doghouse. You're the one who has that power. You can keep Johnson in Washington D. You're the one who put the present Democratic administration in Washington, D.
The whites were evenly divided. It was the fact that you threw 80 percent of your votes behind the Democrats that put the Democrats in the White House. When you see this, you can see that the Negro vote is the key factor. And despite the fact that you are in a position to be the determining factor, what do you get out of it? The Democrats have been in Washington, D. They've been down there four years. And they're — all other legislation they wanted to bring up they've brought it up, and gotten it out of the way, and now they bring up you.
And now they bring up you! You put them first and they put you last. Because you're a chump! In Washington, D. Only are Republican. In the Senate there are 67 Democrats. Only 33 are Republicans.
The party that you backed controls two-thirds of the House of Representatives and the Senate and still they can't keep their promise to you. Any time you throw your weight behind a political party that controls two-thirds of the government, and that party can't keep the promise that it made to you during election-time, and you're dumb enough to walk around continuing to identify yourself with that party, you're not only a chump but you're a traitor to your race.
What kind of alibi do come up with? They try and pass the buck to the Dixiecrats. Now, back during the days when you were blind, deaf and dumb, ignorant, politically immature, naturally you went along with that. But today, as your eyes come open, and you develop political maturity, you're able to see and think for yourself, and you can see that a Dixiecrat is nothing but a Democrat — in disguise.
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