Revolutionary Black Liberation Leader in the U.S.
1925-1965
We don't care anything about your
atomic bomb; it's useless, because other
countries have atomic bombs. When
two or three different countries have
atomic bombs, nobody can use them.
So it means that the white man today
is without a weapon. If you want some
action you've got to come on down to
Earth, and there's more black people
on Earth than there are white people.
I only got a couple more minutes. The
white man can never win another war
on the ground. His days of war – victory
– his days of battleground victory are
over. Can I prove it? Yes. Take all the
action that's going on this Earth right
now that he's involved in. Tell me
where he's winning – nowhere. Why,
some rice farmers, some rice farmers!
Some rice-eaters ran him out of Korea,
yes they ran him out of Korea. Riceeaters, with nothing but gym shoes and
a rifle and a bowl of rice, took him and
his tanks and his napalm and all that
other action he's supposed to have and
ran him across the Yalu. Why? Because
the day that he can win on the ground
has passed.
Up in French Indochina, those little
peasants, rice-growers, took on the
might of the French army and ran all
the Frenchmen, you remember Dien
Bien Phu! The same thing happened in
Algeria, in Africa.
Excerpt from "Malcolm X Speech "The Ballot or the Bullet" on April 12,1964 at King Solomon Baptist Church in Detroit, Michigan
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