Those were the days: when was America greatest? When was life in the US best?

And one day we must ask the question, ‘Why are there forty million poor people in America? And when you begin to ask that question, you are raising questions about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth.’ When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy. And I’m simply saying that more and more, we’ve got to begin to ask questions about the whole society…

I imagine you already know that I am much more socialistic in my economic theory than capitalistic. [T]oday capitalism has outlived its usefulness. It has brought about a system that takes necessities from the masses to give luxuries to the classes

That doesn't only apply on the race issue, it applies on the class question. You know, sometimes a class system can be as vicious and evil as a system based on racial injustice

Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all God’s children.

[A]fter Selma and the voting rights bill, we moved into a new era, which must be the era of revolution. We must recognize that we can’t solve our problem now until there is a radical redistribution of economic and political power

True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth with righteous indignation. It will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, "This is not just."

These are revolutionary times. All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression, and out of the wounds of a frail world, new systems of justice and equality are being born. The shirtless and barefoot people of the land are rising up as never before. [..] We in the West must support these revolutions. It is a sad fact that because of comfort, complacency, a morbid fear of communism, and our proneness to adjust to injustice, the Western nations that initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world have now become the arch antirevolutionaries. This has driven many to feel that only Marxism has a revolutionary spirit.

[W]e must honestly face the fact that the movement must address itself to the question of restructuring the whole of American society. There are forty million poor people here, and one day we must ask the question, "Why are there forty million poor people in America?" And when you begin to ask that question, you are raising a question about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth. When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy. [..]

We are called upon to help the discouraged beggars in life's marketplace. But one day we must come to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. It means that questions must be raised. And you see, my friends, when you deal with this you begin to ask the question, "Who owns the oil?" You begin to ask the question, "Who owns the iron ore?" You begin to ask the question, "Why is it that people have to pay water bills in a world that's two-thirds water?" These are words that must be said.

In a sense, you could say we are engaged in a class struggle, yes. It will be a long and difficult struggle, for our program calls for a redistribution of economic power

There must be better distribution of wealth and maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism.

I am not going to allow anybody to put me in the bind of making me say, every time I said there must be better distribution of wealth and maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism, [that] I am saying that we must be communist or Marxist

Rioting is the language of the unheard.

Why does white America delude itself, and how does it rationalize the evil it retains?

The majority of white Americans consider themselves sincerely committed to justice for the Negro. They believe that American society is essentially hospitable to fair play and to steady growth toward a middle-class Utopia embodying racial harmony. But unfortunately this is a fantasy of self-deception and comfortable vanity.”

I look at MLK as someone who saw injustice, sometimes unspeakable injustice perpetrated against his race,


His political ideology was not as important to me

I Gone are the days of the indiscriminate lynchings.

Racism is no longer an institution or systemic.

How delightful is it when you twist words into a completely different meaning and not even very cleverly done?

Me thinks your head is actually unhinged.