Black Liberation Quotes

“I will never say that progress is being made.
If you stick a knife in my back nine inches and pull it out six inches, there's no progress.
If you pull it all the way out that's not progress. The progress is healing the wound that's below, that the blow made. And they haven't even begun to pull the knife out, much less pull, heal the wound...

They won't even admit the knife is there.”
― Malcolm X

“We are not ready to fight because we love fighting. We are ready to fight because we are worth fighting for.”
― Zoé Samudzi, As Black As Resistance: Finding the Conditions for Liberation

“I'm not quite sure what freedom is, but i know damn well what it ain't. How have we gotten so silly, i wonder.”
― Assata Shakur, Assata: An Autobiography

“Animal' is a category that we shove certain bodies into when we want to justify violence against them, which is why animal liberation should concern all who are minoritized. As long as animals are oppressed, as long as 'animal' means something degrading, we will never be set free.”
― Aph Ko, Aphro-ism: Essays on Pop Culture, Feminism, and Black Veganism from Two Sisters

“The freedom movement was expansive. It was about transforming the entire country. It was not simply about acquiring civil rights within a framework that itself would not change.”
― Angela Y. Davis, Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine and the Foundations of a Movement

“... all over the world the institution of the prison serves as a place to warehouse people who represent major social problems... prison serves as an institution that consolidates the state's inability and refusal to address the most pressing social problems of this era.”
― Angela Y. Davis, Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine and the Foundations of a Movement

“In Yuri's early years of activism, [Mae] Mallory served as an important political mentor. Not only did Mallory have a visible leadership role, usually reserved for men, she also, remarked Yuri, 'taught me how to be a good Movement person. She was always on time, responsible & reliable, accurate in giving out information, and she wanted other people to be the same.”
― Diane C. Fujino, Heartbeat of Struggle: The Revolutionary Life of Yuri Kochiyama

“Activists from all over the world--the known & the unknown--would find their way to the Kochiyamas' Fri & Sat night open houses. 'People were everywhere, eating, talking, laughing, spilling out into the hallway [outside their apt]. People were even int he bathroom. You couldn't close the front door bc there were so many people inside,' recalled Herman Ferguson. The Kochiyamas' apt also became a central meeting place for the Movement.”
― Diane C. Fujino, Heartbeat of Struggle: The Revolutionary Life of Yuri Kochiyama

“I became acquainted very early with the widespread presence of an unfortunate syndrome among some Black male activists--namely to confuse their political activity with an assertion of their maleness.”
― Angela Davis

“Black revolutionaries do not drop from the moon. We are created by our conditions. Shaped by our oppression. We are being manufactured in droves in the ghetto streets, places like attica, san quentin, bedford hills, leavenworth, and sing sing. They are turning out thousands of us. Many jobless Black veterans and welfare mothers are joining our ranks. Brothers and sisters from all walks of life, who are tired of suffering passively, make up the BLA.”
― Assata Shakur, Assata: An Autobiography