“Black Consciousness is in essence the realization by the black man of the need to rally together with his brothers around the cause of their oppression.”

“He pointed toward the silhouettes on the side of the [bathrooms] instead--black cutout man, black cutout woman. The man had his legs apart, the woman had hers together. Pretty much the story of the human race in sign language.”

“Yet even so the darkness thickened, until it covered his eyes and filled his nose and stopped his ears, so he could not see or smell or hear or run, and the grey cliffs were gone and the dead horse was gone and his brother was gone and all was black and still and black and cold and black and dead and black…”

“We shall be free only together, black and white. We shall survive only together, black and white. We can be human only together, black and white.”

“What had begun as a movement to free all black people from racist oppression became a movement with its primary goal the establishment of black male patriarchy.”

“The history of progress is written in the blood of men and women who have dared to espouse an unpopular cause, as, for instance, the black man's right to his body, or woman's right to her soul.”