Huey P. Newton QUOTES

1 " Youths are passed through schools that don’t teach. Then forced to search for jobs that don’t exist and finally left stranded to stare at the glamorous lives advertised around them. "

― Huey P. Newton

2 " The first lesson a revolutionary must learn is that he is a doomed man. "

― Huey P. Newton

3 " My fear was not of death itself, but a death without meaning. "

― Huey P. Newton

4 " I do not expect the white media to create positive black male images. "

― Huey P. Newton

5 " To us power is, first of all, the ability to define phenomena, and secondly the ability to make these phenomena act in a desired manner. "

― Huey P. Newton , The Huey P. Newton Reader

6 " Laws should be made to serve the people. People should not be made to serve the laws. "

― Huey P. Newton , To Die for the People: The Writings of Huey P. Newton

7 " I do not think that life will change for the better without an assault on the Establishment, which goes on exploiting the wretched of the earth. This belief lies at the heart of the concept of revolutionary suicide. Thus it is better to oppose the forces that would drive me to self-murder than to endure them. Although I risk the likelihood of death, there is at least the possibility, if not the probability, of changing intolerable conditions. This possibility is important, because much in human existence is based upon hope without any real understanding of the odds. Indeed, we are all—Black and white alike—ill in the same way, mortally ill. But before we die, how shall we live? I say with hope and dignity; and if premature death is the result, that death has a meaning reactionary suicide can never have. It is the price of self-respect.

Revolutionary suicide does not mean that I and my comrades have a death wish; it means just the opposite. We have such a strong desire to live with hope and human dignity that existence without them is impossible. When reactionary forces crush us, we must move against these forces, even at the risk of death. We will have to be driven out with a stick. "

― Huey P. Newton , Revolutionary Suicide

8 " Existence is violent, I exist, therefore I'm violent. . . in that way. "

― Huey P. Newton

9 " If you stop struggling, then you stop life. "

― Huey P. Newton

10 " Sometimes if you want to get rid of the gun, you have to pick the gun up. "

― Huey P. Newton

11 " I dissuade Party members from putting down people who do not understand. Even people who are unenlightened and seemingly bourgeois should be answered in a polite way. Things should be explained to them as fully as possible. I was turned off by a person who did not want to talk to me because I was not important enough. Maurice just wanted to preach to the converted, who already agreed with him. I try to be cordial, because that way you win people over. You cannot win them over by drawing the line of demarcation, saying you are on this side and I am on the other; that shows a lack of consciousness. After the Black Panther Party was formed, I nearly fell into this error. I could not understand why people were blind to what I saw so clearly. Then I realized that their understanding had to be developed. "

― Huey P. Newton

12 " I always carried lawbooks in my car. Sometimes, when a policeman was harassing a citizen, I would stand off a little and read the relevant portions of the penal code in a loud voice to all within hearing distance. In doing this, we were helping to educate those who gathered to observe these incidents. If the policeman arrested the citizen and took him to the station, we would follow and immediately post bail. Many community people could not believe at first that we had only their interest at heart. Nobody had ever given them any support or assistance when the police harassed them, but here we were, proud Black men, armed with guns and a knowledge of the law. Many citizens came right out of jail and into the Party, and the statistics of murder and brutality by policemen in our communities fell sharply. "

― Huey P. Newton , Revolutionary Suicide

13 " ‎"revolutionary suicide does not mean that i and my comrades have a death wish; it means just the opposite. we have such a strong desire to live with hope and human dignity that existence without them is impossible. when reactionary forces crush us, we must move against these forces, even at the risk of death. "

― Huey P. Newton , Revolutionary Suicide

14 " Whatever your personal opinions and your insecurities about homosexuality and the various liberation movements among homosexuals and women (and I speak of the homosexuals and women as oppressed groups), we should try to unite with them in a revolutionary fashion.
I say ”whatever your insecurities are” because as we very well know, sometimes our first instinct is to want to hit a homosexual in the mouth, and want a woman to be quiet. We want to hit a homosexual in the mouth because we are afraid that we might be homosexual; and we want to hit the women or shut her up because we are afraid that she might castrate us, or take the nuts that we might not have to start with.
We must gain security in ourselves and therefore have respect and feelings for all oppressed people. "

― Huey P. Newton

15 " As we all know, sometimes our first instinct is to want to hit a homosexual in the mouth and want a woman to be quiet. We want to hit a homosexual in the mouth because we're afraid we might be homosexual; and we want to hit the woman or shut her up because we're afraid that she might castrate us. The remedy is to gain security in ourselves and therefore have respect and feelings for all oppressed people. "

― Huey P. Newton

16 " My opinion is that the term “God” belongs to the realm of concepts, that it is dependent upon man for its existence. If God does not exist unless man exists, then man must be here to produce God. It "

― Huey P. Newton , Revolutionary Suicide

17 " Eldridge misunderstood the white radical movement. He exploited their alienation and encouraged young whites to think of themselves as “bad” Blacks, thus driving them ever further away from their own community. At the same time, he seduced young Blacks into picturing themselves as bohemian expatriates from middle-class “Babylon” (as he poetically but mistakenly analogized superindustrial America). So we became temporarily alien to the Black community, while the white radicals were plunged deeper into their peculiar identity crisis. Cleaver’s genius for political and cultural schizophrenia infected us all, Black and white, and the opportunity was missed for youth of both races to express and make concrete their authentic underlying solidarity and love. This still remains to be done. "

― Huey P. Newton , Revolutionary Suicide

18 " Marriage, family, and debt; in a sense, another kind of slavery. "

― Huey P. Newton , Revolutionary Suicide

19 " All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere
I turned someone tried to tell me what it was. I accepted their
answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even
self-contradictory. I was naïve. I was looking for myself and
asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I,
could answer. It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone
else appears to have been born with: That I am nobody but
myself. RALPH ELLISON, The Invisible Man "

― Huey P. Newton , Revolutionary Suicide

20 " That is often the way of the oppressor. He cannot understand the simple fact that people want to be free. So, when a man resists oppression, they pass it off by calling him “crazy” or “insane. "

― Huey P. Newton , Revolutionary Suicide

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