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| John Brown |
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| "I John Brown am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty, land: will never be purged away; but with Blood. I had as I now think: vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed; it might be done." -- Last Prophecy, Dec. 2, 1859
"I want you to understand that I respect the rights of the poorest and weakest of colored people, oppressed by the slave system, just as much as I do those of the most wealthy and powerful. That is the idea that has moved me, and that alone. We expected no reward except the satisfaction of endeavoring to do for those in distress and greatly oppressed as we would be done by. The cry of distress of the oppressed is my reason, and the only thing that prompted me to come here." -- Court Hearing after the Raid on Harper's Ferry with 17 whites & 5 blacks intended to spark a slave revolt & before his execution, considered to be the catalyst which led to the Civil War.
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| Henry David Thoreau |
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| "I should say that he was an old-fashioned man in respect for the Constitution, and his faith in the permanence of this Union. Slavery he deemed to be wholly opposed to these, and he was its determined foe." -- A Plea for Captain John Brown
"I cannot for an instant recognize that political organization as my government which is the slave's government also..."
"If a thousand men were not to pay their tax-bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood..."
"There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly." -- Civil Disobedience
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| Ralph Waldo Emerson |
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| "Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of our own mind..."
"And so the reliance on Property, including the reliance on governments which protect it, is the want of self-reliance..."
"Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles." -- Self-Reliance
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| Booker T. Washington |
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"During the whole of the Reconstruction period our people throughout the South looked to the Federal Government for everything, very much as a child looks to its mother..."
"The individual who can do something that the world wants will, in the end, make his way regardless of race..."
"When a Negro girl learns to cook, to wash dishes, to sew, to write a book, or a Negro boy learns to groom horses, or grow sweet potatoes, or to produce butter or to build a house, or to be able to practice medicine, as well or better than someone else, they will be rewarded regardless of race or color. In the long run, the world is going to have the best, and any difference in race, religion, or previous history will not long keep the world from what it wants..."
"No man who continues to add something to the material, intellectual, and moral well-being of the place in which he lives is long left without proper reward." -- Up From Slavery
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| Marcus Garvey |
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| "It is obvious, according to the commonest principles of human action, that no man will do as much for you as you will do for yourself."
"The man without a business of his own or without training in performing a particular work is always at a disadvantage in making a living. Great wealth is made out of commerce and industry. The fault with the Negro in business, commercial or industrial, has been his inability to appreciate starting at a given point and climbing steadily, while other races have been willing to start from the lowest down to climb higher up."
"The Negro has always desired to start from the top, hence, he comes down. No success ever came from the top, it is always from the bottom up. He will never be an industrial or commercial factor until he has learned the principles of commercial and industrial success, and these principles are as much open to him as to anybody else."
“There is no force like success, and that is why the individual makes all effort to surround himself throughout life with the evidence of it; as of the individual, so should it be of the nation.”
"Why should not Africa give to the world its black Rockefeller, Carnegie and Henry Ford?"
"Hence, the man who wants to go into business commercially, industrially or agriculturally and win a fortune for himself, to achieve the things he aims at, cannot and should not be a Communist, because Communism robs the individual of his personal initiative and ambition or the result thereof."
"When I am dead wrap the mantle of the Red, Black, & Green around me, for in the new life I shall rise with God's grace & blessing to lead the millions up the heights of triumph with the colors that you well know. Look for me in the whirlwind or the storm, look for me all around you, for with God's grace, I shall come and bring with me countless millions of black slaves who have died in America & the West Indies & the million in Africa to aid you in the fight for Liberty, Freedom and Life."
"One God, One Aim, One Destiny" -- Motto of the U.N.I.A.
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| Malcolm X |
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| "Those who claim to be enemies of the system were on their hands and knees waiting for [Lyndon] Johnson to get elected--because he is supposed to be a man of peace. And at that moment he had trooops invading the Congo and South Vietnam! He even has troops in areas where other imperialists have already withdrawn. Peace Corps to Nigeria, mercenaries to the Congo!" -- Africaine Meeting, Paris
"They promised us jobs and gave us welfare checks instead; we're still jobless, still unemployed; the welfare is taking care of us, making us beggars, robbing us of our dignity, of our manhood." --Prospects for Freedom in 1965
"So don't you run around here trying to make friends with somebody who's depriving you of your rights. They're not your friends, no, they're your enemies. Treat them like that and fight them, and you'll get your freedom; and after you get your freedom, your enemy will respect you. And we'll respect you. And I say that with no hate. I don't have hate in me. I have no hate at all. I don't have any hate. I've got some sense." -- To Mississippi Youth
"Concerning nonviolence: it is criminal to teach a man not to defend himself when he is the constant victim of brutal attacks. It is legal and lawful to own a shotgun or a rifle. We believe in obeying the law." -- A Declaration of Independence
"Kennedy's new approach was pretending to go along with us in our struggle for civil rights. He was another proponent of rights. But I remember the expose that Look magazine did on the Meredith situation in Mississippi. Kennedy and Governor Barnett had made a deal, wherein the Attorney General was going to come down and try to force Meredith into school, and Barnett was going to stand at the door, you know, and say, 'No, you can't come in.' He was going to get in anyway, but it was all arranged in advance and then Barnett was supposed to keep the support of the white racists, because that's who he was upholding, and Kennedy would keep the support of the Negroes, because that's who he'd be upholding. It was a cut-and-dried deal. And it's not a secret; it was written, they write about it. But if that's a deal, how many other deals do you think go down? What you think is on the level is crookeder, brothers and sisters, than a pretzel, which is most crooked." --After his house wa bombed, 1965
"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..."
"It'll be the ballot or the bullet. It'll be liberty or it'll be death. And if you're not ready to pay that price dont use the word freedom in your vocabulary." -- The Ballot or the Bullet
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votebro.com: Robert Broadus, U.S. Senate Candidate from Maryland
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