black and beautiful
Sorry about the delay in posting this one. Took me a while to find the transcript for it. It’s a speech of his less commonly referenced but I think one of the most powerful:
Click to view[Audio: English; Caption: Auto-mediocre]
Transcript:
“I’ve come here tonight and plead with you. Believe in yourself and believe that you’re somebody. As I said to a group last night, nobody else can do this for us. No document can do this for us. No Lincolnian emancipation proclamation can do this for us; no Ken[nedy]sonian or Johnsonian civil rights bill can do this for us. If the Negro is to be free he must move down into the inner resources of his own soul and sign, with a pen and ink of self-asserted manhood, his own Emancipation Proclamation.
Don’t let anybody take your manhood. Be proud of our heritage; as somebody said earlier tonight, we don’t have anything to be ashamed of. Somebody told a lie one day. They couched it in language. They made everything black, ugly and evil. Look in your dictionary and see the synonyms of the word “black.” It’s always something degrading and low and sinister. Look at the word “white.” It’s always some pure, high and (?). But I want to get the language right tonight. I want to get the language so right that everybody here will cry out, “Yes I’m Black! I’m proud of it! I’m Black and beautiful!”
Originally published at What's that you said?. You can comment here or there.