Freedom

Be inspired by these quotes from outstanding Blacks who have given so much of themselves in the name of freedom.

Action, self-reliance, the vision of self and the future have been the only means by which the oppressed have seen and realised the light of their own freedom.
Marcus Garvey, The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey

Bit by bit . . . she had claimed herself. Freeing yourself was one thing; claiming ownership of that freed self was another.
Toni Morrison, Beloved

Every student of Political Science, every student of Economics knows, that the race can only be saved through a solid industrial foundation. That the race can only be saved through political independence. Take away industry from a race; take away political freedom from a race, and you have a group of slaves.
Marcus Garvey, The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey

For in the end, freedom is a personal and lonely battle; and one faces down fears of today so that those of tomorrow might be engaged.
Alice Walker

For over three hundred years the white man has been our oppressor, and he naturally is not going to liberate us to the higher freedom?the truer liberty?the truer Democracy. We have to liberate ourselves.
Marcus Garvey, The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey

Freedom is a hard-bought thing and millions are in chains, but they strain toward the new day drawing near.
Paul Robeson

Freedom is never given; it is won.
Philip Randolph

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.
Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter From Birmingham Jail

Freedom is to come to the Negro, not as a bequest, but as a conquest.
Carter G. Woodson

Freedom to many means immediate betterment, as if by magic. Unless I can meet at least some of these aspirations, my support will wane and my head will roll just as surely as the tickbird follows the rhino.
Julius K. Nyerere

From the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire, let freedom ring. From the mighty mountains of New York, let freedom ring. From the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania, let freedom ring. But not only that: Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

I believe in a religion that believes in freedom. Any time I have to accept a religion that won't let me fight a battle for my people, I say to hell with that religion.
Malcolm X

I believe that it would be almost impossible to find anywhere in America a black man who has lived further down in the mud of human society than I have; or a black man who has been any more ignorant than I have; or a black man who has suffered more anguish during his life than I have. But it is only after the deepest darkness that the greatest joy can come; it is only after slavery and prison that the sweetest appreciation of freedom can come.
Malcolm X

I had crossed the line. I was free; but there was no one to welcome me to the land of freedom. I was a stranger in a strange land.
Harriet Tubman

I had spent many years pursuing excellence, because that is what classical music is all about... Now it was dedicated to freedom, and that was far more important.
Nina Simone

I have no religion in the formal sense of the word .... I have no race except that which is forced upon me. I have no country except that to which I'm obliged to belong. I have no traditions. I'm free. I have only the future.
Richard Wright, Pagan Spain

I know no national boundary where the Negro is concerned. The whole world is my province until Africa is free.
Marcus Garvey, The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey

I looked at my hands, to see if I was de same person now I was free. Dere was such a glory ober eberything, de sun came like gold trou de trees, and ober de fields, and I felt like I was in heaven.
Harriet Tubman

I tire so of hearing people say, let things take their course. Tomorrow is another day. I do not need my freedom when I'm dead. I cannot live on tomorrow's bread.
Langston Hughes, Freedom

If you're not ready to die for it, put the word ''freedom'' out of your vocabulary.
Malcolm X

Justice is never given; it is exacted and the struggle must be continuous for freedom is never a final fact, but a continuing evolving process to higher and higher levels of human, social, economic, political and religious relationship.
Philip Randolph

No man may make another free.
Zora Neale Hurston

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

Nobody's free until everybody's free.
Fannie Lou Hamer

Power in defense of freedom is greater than power in behalf of tyranny, because the power of a just cause is based on conviction, and leads to resolute and uncompromising action.
Malcolm X

The day that the black man takes an uncompromising step and realizes that he's within his rights, when his own freedom is being jeopardized, to use any means necessary to bring about his freedom or put a halt to that injustice, I don't think he'll be by himself.
Malcolm X

The first need of a free people is to define their own terms.
Stokely Carmichael

The Negro's great stumbling block in the drive toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice.
Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from a Birmingham Jail

The only way we'll get freedom for ourselves is to identify ourselves with every oppressed people in the world. We are blood brothers to the people of Brazil, Venezuelan Haiti and Cuba.
Malcolm X

To be free . . . to walk the good American earth as equal citizens, to live without fear, to enjoy the fruits of our toil, to give our children every opportunity in life--that dream which we have held so long in our hearts is today the destiny that we hold in our hands.
Paul Robeson

We know the road to freedom has always been stalked by death.
Angela Davis

Whatever my individual desires were to be free, I was not alone. There were many others who felt the same way.
Rosa Park

When a person places the proper value on freedom, there is nothing under the sun that he will not do to acquire that freedom. Whenever you hear a man saying he wants freedom, but in the next breath he is going to tell you what he won't do to get it, or what he doesn't believe in doing in order to get it, he doesn't believe in freedom. A man who believes in freedom will do anything under the sun to acquire... or preserve his freedom.
Malcolm X

When I discover who I am, I'll be free.
Ralph Ellison

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

You don't have to be a man to fight for freedom. All you have to do is to be an intelligent human being.
Malcolm X