Malcolm X Quotes

Malcolm X, born Malcolm Little, also known as Detroit Red and Al-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Omaha, Nebraska, May 19, 1925 – February 21, 1965 in New York City) was a Black Muslim Minister and National Spokesman for the Nation of Islam. He was also founder of the Muslim Mosque, Inc. and the Organization of Afro-American Unity.

During his life, Malcolm went from being a drug dealer and burglar[1] to one of the most prominent black nationalist leaders in the United States; he was considered by some as a martyr of Islam and a champion of equality. As a militant leader, Malcolm X advocated black pride, economic self-reliance, and identity politics. He ultimately rose to become a world-renowned African American/Pan-Africanist and human rights activist.

Following a pilgrimage to Mecca in 1964, Malcolm converted to orthodox Islam. Less than a year later he was assassinated in Washington Heights on the first day of National Brotherhood Week. Although three members of the Nation of Islam were convicted of his assassination (one of whom confessed), there are several conspiracy theories positing the involvement of elements of the United States Government.


Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you're a man, you take it.


You can't separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom.

I am not a racist.... In the past I permitted myself to be used...to make sweeping indictments of all white people, the entire white race and these generalizations have caused injuries to some whites who perhaps did not deserve to be hurt.

Because of the spiritual enlightenment which I was blessed to receive as a result of my recent pilgrimage to the Holy city of Mecca, I no longer subscribe to sweeping indictments of any one race. I am now striving to live the life of a true...Muslim. I must repeat that I am not a racist nor do I subscribe to the tenants of racism. I can state in all sincerity that I wish nothing but freedom, justice and equality, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all people."

For 12 long years I lived within the narrow-minded confines of the 'straightjacket world' created by my strong belief that Elijah Muhammad was a messenger direct from God Himself, and my faith in what I now see to be a pseudo-religious philosophy that he preaches.... I shall never rest until I have undone the harm I did to so many well-meaning, innocent Negroes who through my own evangelistic zeal now believe in him even more fanatically and more blindly than I did."

"I had blind faith in him. My faith in Elijah Muhammad was more blind and more uncompromising than any faith that any man has ever had for another man. And so I didn't try and see him as he actually was."


"The thing that you have to understand about those of us in the Black Muslim movement was that all of us believed 100 percent in the divinity of Elijah Muhammad. We believed in him. We actually believed that God, in Detroit by the way, that God had taught him and all of that. I always believed that he believed in himself. And I was shocked when I found out that he himself didn't believe it. And when that shock reached me, then I began to look everywhere else and try to get a better understanding of the things that confront all of us so that we can get together in some kind of way to offset them."

-Malcolm X