Banned Books

My alma mater was books, a good library… I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity.

— Malcolm X

Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.

— James Baldwin

I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept.

— Angela Davis

There are two things I’ve got a right to, and these are, Death or Liberty – one or the other I mean to have. No one will take me back alive; I shall fight for my liberty, and when the time has come for me to go, the Lord will let them, kill me.

— Harriet Tubman

Black Power is giving power to people who have not had power to determine their destiny.

— Huey Newton

The rulers of this country have always considered their property more important than our lives.

— Assata Shakur

Stumbling is not falling.

— Malcolm X

I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.

— James Baldwin

You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world. And you have to do it all the time.

— Angela Davis

I have heard their groans and sighs, and seen their tears, and I would give every drop of blood in my veins to free them.

— Harriet Tubman

You can jail a Revolutionary, but you can’t jail the Revolution.

— Huey Newton

Only the strong go crazy. The weak just go along.

— Assata Shakur

Without education, you’re not going anywhere in this world.

— Malcolm X

The purpose of education…is to create in a person the ability to look at the world for himself, to make his own decisions.

— James Baldwin

Sometimes we have to do the work even though we don’t yet see a glimmer on the horizon that it’s actually going to be possible.

— Angela Davis

..and I prayed to God to make me strong and able to fight, and that’s what I’ve always prayed for ever since.

— Harriet Tubman

If you stop struggling, then you stop life.

— Huey Newton

No one is going to give you the education you need to overthrow them. Nobody is going to teach you your true history, teach you your true heroes if they know that that knowledge will help set you free.

— Assata Shakur

People don’t realize how a man’s whole life can be changed by one book.

— Malcolm X

Those who say it can’t be done are usually interrupted by others doing it.

— James Baldwin

We must always attempt to lift as we climb.

— Angela Davis

I was the conductor of the Underground Railroad for eight years, and I can say what most conductors can’t say — I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger.

— Harriet Tubman

There’s no reason for the establishment to fear me. But it has every right to fear the people collectively — I am one with the people.

— Huey Newton

Dreams and reality are opposites. Action synthesizes them.

— Assata Shakur