From a 1965 Interview

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One White man named Lincoln who supposedly fought the Civil War to solve the race problem and the problem is still here. Then another white man called Kennedy came along running for President and told Negroes what all he was going to do for them if they voted for him. And, they voted for him, 80%. He’s been in office for what is now 3 years and the problem is still here.

When police dogs were biting Black women and Black children and Black babies in Birmingham, Alabama, Kennedy talked about what he couldn’t do because no federal law had been violated. And, as soon as the Negroes exploded and began to protect themselves and got the best of the crackers in Birmingham, then Kennedy sent for the troops. He didn’t have any new law. He sent for the troops when the Negroes erupted that he had at the time when the whites were erupting.

So, we are within our rights with justification when we express doubt concerning the ability of the White man to solve the problem. And also, when we express doubt concerning his integrity, his sincerity, because you will have to confess the problem has been around for a long time and the White man has been saying the same things about it for the past hundred years, [meaning] there’s no closer a solution than there was a hundred years ago.

“ Hence I have no mercy or compassion in me for a society that will crush people, and then penalize them for not being able to stand up under the weight.

“ I don’t favor violence. If we could bring about recognition and respect of our people by peaceful means, well and good. Everybody would like to reach his objectives peacefully. But I’m also a realist. The only people in this country who are asked to be nonviolent are Black people. I’ve never heard anybody go to the Ku Klux Klan and teach them nonviolence, or to the [John] Birch Society and other right-wing elements. Nonviolence is only preached to Black Americans, and I don’t go along with anyone who wants to teach our people nonviolence until someone at the same time is teaching our enemy to be nonviolent. I believe we should protect ourselves by any means necessary when we are attacked by racists….

“ If I have a cup of coffee that is too strong for me because it is too black, I weaken it by pouring cream into it. I integrate it with cream. If I keep pouring enough cream in the coffee, pretty soon the entire flavor of the coffee is changed; the very nature of the coffee is changed. If enough cream is poured in, eventually you don’t even know that I had coffee in this cup. This is what happened with the March on Washington. The whites didn’t integrate it; they infiltrated it. Whites joined it; they engulfed it; they became so much a part of it, it lost its original flavor. It ceased to be a black march; it ceased to be militant; it ceased to be angry; it ceased to be impatient. In fact, it ceased to be a march.

“ They cripple the bird’s wing, and then condemn it for not flying as fast as they.