Politics and Government

Read about these famous African-American's riveting theories on politics and government.

Anytime you see white men suppose to fight each other an you not white, well you know you got trouble, because they blah-blah loud about Democrat or Republican an they huffing an puff about democracy someplace else but relentless, see, the deal come down evil on somebody don have no shirt an tie, somebody don live in no whiteman house no whiteman country.
June Jordan

Before you have a government, you must have the people. Without the people there can be no government. The government must be, therefore, an expression of the will of the people.
Marcus Garvey, Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey

Capital punishment turns the state into a murderer. But imprisonment turns the state into a gay dungeon-master.
Jesse Jackson

Capitalism without capital is just an ism.
Jesse Jackson

Deliberation and debate is the way you stir the soul of our democracy.
Jesse Jackson

Deliberation and debate is the way you stir the soul of our democracy.
Jesse Jackson

Does that negate that horror to say, ?Well, at least Hitler's not alive now??
Spike Lee

Effective action is always unjust.
Maya Angelou

Everyone wants Russia to be a prosperous, democratic state that is fully integrated.
Condoleezza Rice, Remarks By Secretary Of State Condoleezza Rice and

George Bush has met more foreign heads of state than I have. But a substantial number of them were dead.
Jesse Jackson

George Bush has met more foreign heads of state than I have. But a substantial number of them were dead.
Jesse Jackson

I am a radical.
Carter G. Woodson

I don't really view communism as a bad thing.
Whoopi Goldberg

I swear to the Lord, I still can't see, Why Democracy means, Everybody but me.
Langston Hughes

I've been struck by the upside-down priorities of the juvenile justice system. We are willing to spend the least amount of money to keep a kid at home, more to put him in a foster home and the most to institutionalize him.
Marian Wright Edelman

In our so-called democracy we are accustomed to give the majority what they want rather than educate them to understand what is best for them.
Carter G. Woodson

In politics, an organized minority is a political majority.
Jesse Jackson#

In politics, an organized minority is a political majority.
Jesse Jackson

It is impossible for capitalism to survive, primarily because the system of capitalism needs some blood to suck. Capitalism used to be like an eagle, but now it's more like a vulture. It used to be strong enough to go and suck anybody's blood whether they were strong or not. But now it has become more cowardly, like the vulture, and it can only suck the blood of the helpless. As the nations of the world free themselves, the capitalism has less victims, less to suck, and it becomes weaker and weaker. It's only a matter of time in my opinion before it will collapse completely.
Malcolm X

Liberalism seems to be related to the distance people are from the problem.
Whitney Young, Jr.

Marxist-Leninism per se was really a latter development: not until 1968 that we really considered the Red Book required reading.
Bobby Seale

My constituency is the desperate, the damned, the disinherited, the disrespected and the despised.
Jesse Jackson, 1984 Democratic National Convention Address

My constituency is the desperate, the damned, the disinherited, the disrespected and the despised.
Jesse Jackson, 1984 Democratic National Convention Address

Nationhood is the highest ideal of all peoples.
Marcus Garvey

Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

One of the greatest casualties of the war in Vietnam is the Great Society... shot down on the battlefield of Vietnam.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

People who don't vote have no line of credit with people who are elected and thus pose no threat to those who act against our interests.
Marian Wright Edelman

Point me to a weak nation and I will show you a people oppressed, abused, taken advantage of by others. Show me a weak race and I will show you a people reduced to serfdom, peonage and slavery. Show me a well organized nation, and I will show you a people and a nation respected by the world.
Marcus Garvey

Punish France, ignore Germany, and forgive Russia.
Condoleezza Rice, 'Punish France' ? In Europe, Condoleezza Rice's re

Radical simply means grasping things at the root.
Angela Davis

Small nations are like indecently dressed women. They tempt the evil-minded.
Julius K. Nyerere

The imperialistic or capitalistic system occupies areas. It occupies Vietnam now. They occupy them by sending soldiers there, by sending policeman there. The policemen or soldiers are only a gun in the establishments hand. They make the racist secure in his racism. The gun in the establishment's hand makes the establishment secure in its exploitation.
Huey Newton, Huey Newton Interview

The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous.
Frederick Douglass, Speech, Washington, D.C.

The political readjustment of the world means that those who are not sufficiently able, not sufficiently prepared, will be at the mercy of the organized classes for another one or two hundred years.
Marcus Garvey, The Philosophy & Opinions of Marcus Garvey

The United States does have, in fact, productive relations with Russia.
Condoleezza Rice, Russia Presses Condoleezza Rice On Democracy

The world does not count races and nations that have nothing.
Marcus Garvey

There is also the danger in our culture that because a person is called upon to give public statements and is acclaimed by the establishment, such a person gets to the point of believing that he is the movement.
Ella Baker

There's ignorance in people who just don't know that we have a national child emergency. And there are a lot of people who are conveniently ignorant--they don't want to know.
Marian Wright Edelman

They still have some money, and they have needs to supply. They must begin immediately to pool their earnings and organize industries to participate in supplying social and economic demands.
Carter G. Woodson

We are living in a time of unbearable dissonance between promise and performance; between good politics and good policy; between professed and practiced family values; between racial creed and racial deed; between calls for community and rampant individualism and greed; and between our capacity to prevent and alleviate human deprivation and disease and our political and spiritual will to do so.
Marian Wright Edelman

We are moving from one state of organization to another, and we shall continue until we have thoroughly lifted ourselves in the organization of GOVERNMENT.
Marcus Garvey

We cannot improve on the system of government handed down to us by the founders of the Republic, but we can find new ways to implement that system and realize our destiny.
Barbara Jordan, Democratic National Convention

We want to be in control of our lives. Whether we are jungle fighters, craftsmen, company men, gamesmen, we want to be in control. And when the government erodes that control, we are not comfortable.
Barbara Jordan

What the people want is very simple - they want an America as good as its promise.
Barbara Jordan

What this country needs is more unemployed politicians.
Angela Davis

You show me a capitalist, and I'll show you a bloodsucker.
Malcolm X