But Zora had other needs. She needed to know, for instance, what the end of the world was like—“whether it was sort of tucked under like the hem of a dress,” as she once wrote, or if it was just “a sharp drop-off into nothingness.” One
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“the numbers game was referred to by the white racketeers as “nigger pool.”
― The Autobiography of Malcolm X
― The Autobiography of Malcolm X
“many white people simply stopped in their tracks to watch me pass. The drape and the cut of a zoot suit showed to the best advantage if you were tall—and I was over six feet. My conk was fire-red. I was really a clown, but my ignorance made me think I was “sharp.” My knob-toed, orange-colored “kick-up” shoes were nothing but Florsheims, the ghetto’s Cadillac of shoes in those days. (Some shoe companies made these ridiculous styles for sale only in the black ghettoes where ignorant Negroes like me would pay the big-name price for something that we associated with being rich.)”
― The Autobiography of Malcolm X
― The Autobiography of Malcolm X
“The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and you spend twenty years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn’t shaped properly so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Somebody says you have no art, so you dredge that up. Somebody says you have no kingdoms, so you dredge that up. None of this is necessary. There will always be one more thing.”
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“there seemed to be a higher code of ethics and sisterliness among those prostitutes than among numerous ladies of the church who have more men for kicks than the prostitutes have for pay.”
― The Autobiography of Malcolm X
― The Autobiography of Malcolm X
“Since most New Yorkers had never heard of Lansing, I would name Detroit. Gradually, I began to be called “Detroit Red”—and it stuck.”
― The Autobiography of Malcolm X
― The Autobiography of Malcolm X
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