H. Rap Brown

There is no such thing as a black middle class.

We talking about revolution because that’s the era that you’re caught in.

Black people must address itself to the causes of poverty. That’s oppression in this country.

One of the lies that we tell ourselves is that we’re making progress; but Huey’s chair’s empty.

In terms of the revolution, I believe that the revolution will be a revolution of dispossessed people in this country: that’s the Mexican American, the Puerto Rican American, the American Indian, and black people.

The poverty program was not designed to eliminate poverty.

The man does not beat your head because you got a Cadillac or because you got a Ford; he beats you because you’re black!

So black people all across this country are uniting. They must unite, and they must organize themselves.

See, it’s no in between: you’re either free or you’re a slave.

There’s no such thing as second class citizenship. That’s like telling me you can be a little bit pregnant.

See, justice is a joke in this country, and it stinks of its hypocricy.

The only thing that’s going to free Huey is gun powder.

And understand: class differences will not save you.

Class structures are a luxury that we cannot afford.

I say violence is necessary. It is as American as cherry pie.

No such thing as a Dixiecrat.

If America don’t come around, we’re gonna’ burn it down.

You see, the poverty program for the last five years have been buy-off programs.

You’ve got to stop dividing yourselves. You got to organize.

Everybody in the black community must organize, and then we decide whether we will have alliance with other people or not, but not until we are organized.

An old African leader says about leadership, he says that leadership should never be shared; it should always remain in the hands of the dispossessed people. We will lead the revolution.

But black people fall for that same argument, and they go around talking about law breakers. We did not make the laws in this country. We are neither morally nor legally confined to those laws. Those laws that keep them up, keep us down.

We happen to be the vanguard of that revolutionary struggle because we are the most dispossessed.

They cannot divide us by saying that you’re middle class or you’re lower class.

The only politics in this country that’s relevant to black people today is the politics of revolution… none other.

Yes, politics IS war without bloodshed; and war is an extension of those politics.