200 Fred Hampton Quotes from Nobody Turn Us Around
Fred Hampton was a revolutionist who worked for social change during the civil rights movement of the 1960s. These Fred Hampton Quotes will show you many ways how he inspired his community.
Fred Hampton Quotes
Here is a collection of the most famous Fred Hampton quotes to inspire you. Fred Hampton was the leading voice of the Black Panther Party.
1. “We know that political power doesn’t flow from the sleeve of a dashiki. We know that political power flows from the barrel of a gun.”
2. “We understood that politics is nothing but war without bloodshed and war is nothing but politics with bloodshed.”
3. “Why don’t you live for the people. Why don’t you struggle for the people. Why don’t you die for the people.”
4. “The people have to have the power: it belongs to the people.”
5. “Power anywhere where there’s people!”
6. With no education, you have neocolonialism instead of colonialism, like you’ve got in Africa now and like you’ve got in Haiti. So what we’re talking about is there has to be an educational program. That’s very important.”
7. “I am the people, I’m not the pig. You got to make a distinction. And the people are going to have to attack the pigs.
The people are going to have to stand up against the pigs. That’s what the Panthers is doing, that’s what the Panthers are doing all over the world.”
8. “Everything would be alright if everything was put back in the hands of the people, and we’re going to have to put it back in the hands of the people.”
9. “They talked us into buying candy bars, and throwing the candy away, and eating the wrapper.”
10. “Socialism is the people. If you’re afraid of socialism, you’re afraid of yourself.”
11. “We got to face some facts. That the masses are poor, that the masses belong to what you call the lower class,
and when I talk about the masses, I’m talking about the white masses, I’m talking about the black masses, and the brown masses, and the yellow masses, too.
12. “We’re gonna fight reactionary pigs with international proletarian revolution. That’s what it has to be.”
13. “We’re gonna have to start getting out there with the people, and that’s difficult. Sometimes, we think we’re better than the people so it’s gonna take a lot of hard work.”
14. “We say we’re not going to fight capitalism with black capitalism, but we’re going to fight it with socialism. We’re going to fight their reactions with all of us people getting together and having an international proletarian revolution.”
15. “And how do they fool you? Because they pick the leaders they want. And they put those people up there and portray them as being your leaders when, in fact, they’re leaders of nobody.”
16. “We say primarily that the priority of this struggle is class. That Marx and Lenin and Che Guevara and Mao Tse-Tung, and anybody else who ever said or knew or practiced anything about revolution, always said that a revolution is a class struggle.”
17. “I have a lot of respect for Martin Luther King. I think he was one of the greatest orators that the country ever produced. Fred Hampton I’m not afraid to say I’m at war with the pigs.”
18. “I went down to the prison in Menard, thinking we were the vanguard, but down there, I got down on my knees and listened and learned from the people”
19. “We understood that politics is nothing but war without bloodshed and war is nothing but politics with bloodshed.”
20. “There’s no reason for the establishment to fear me. But it has every right to fear the people collectively – I am one with the people.”
21. “My fear was not of death itself, but a death without meaning.”
22. “Black Power is giving power to people who have not had the power to determine their destiny.”
23. “By surrendering my life to the revolution, I found eternal life.”
24. “My fear was not of death itself, but a death without meaning. I wanted my death to be something the people could relate to, a basis for further mobilization of the community.”
25. “I would like to add I’m innocent. I am not guilty.”
26. “The racist dog policemen must withdraw immediately from our communities, cease their wanton murder and brutality and torture of black people, or face the wrath of the armed people.”
27. “I do not expect the white media to create positive black male images.”
28. “Revolutionary suicide does not mean that I and my comrades have a death wish; it means just the opposite.”
29. “I think the time is right for organizing and to give Blacks more political – the progressive Blacks, you have to make a distinction – participation, more Blacks in more authoritative positions, in more electoral political positions. But we want the right ones.”
30. “Let us go on outdoing ourselves; a revolutionary man always transcends himself or otherwise he is not a revolutionary man, so we always do what we ask of ourselves or more than what we know we can do.”
31. “The rest of the Third World people are seeing, that the country can make a real change. No changing or trading one master for another. The only real change would be to socialize the means of production and this is what’s happening in Jamaica.”
32. “The first lesson a revolutionary must learn is that he is a doomed man.”
33. “We’re not metaphysicians, we’re not idealists, we’re dialectical materialists. And we deal with what reality is, whether we like it or not.”
34. “We’re gonna have to do more than talk. We’re gonna have to do more than listen. We’re gonna have to do more than learn. We’re gonna have to start practicing.”
35. “We’re gonna have to start getting out there with the people and that’s difficult. Sometimes we think we’re better than the people so it’s gonna take a lot of hard work.”
36. “We say that we will work with anybody and form a coalition with anybody that has revolution on their mind.”
Fred Hampton Children Quotes
37. “A lot of people think the Breakfast for Children program is charity. But what does it do? It takes the people from a stage to another stage. Any program that’s revolutionary is an advancing program. Revolution is change.”
38. “I don”t know if I like communism, and I don”t know if I like socialism. But I know that the Breakfast for Children Program feeds my kids. And if you put your hands on that Breakfast for Children Program . . .”
39. “We have Breakfast for Children because we teach the people, through practice, through observation and participation, that people can be there, free.”
40. “That we might be in school now, might think we’re on the mountain top, but we’re gonna come down to the valley, because people in the valley, commitment’s in the valley, oppression’s in the valley, aggression, repression, fascism, all exists in the valley.”
41. “Without education, people will accept anything. Without education, what you’ll have is neo-colonialism instead of colonialism like you have now. Without education, people don’t know why they’re doing what they’re doing, you know what I mean?”
42. “We have to start making mistakes, and you learn through making mistakes.”
43. “We do not support people who are anarchistic, opportunistic, adventuristic, and Custeristic.”
44. “We know that political power doesn’t flow from the sleeve of a dashiki. We know that political power flows from the barrel of a gun.”
45. “In plain proletarian worker’s language, it takes two to tango.”
46. “Socialism is the people! You afraid of yourself. If you afraid of socialism, you afraid of yourself.”
47. “The only reason they get mad at the Black Panther Party when you do it is for the simple reason that we’re political.”
48. “We’re not gonna fight capitalism with Black capitalism. We’re gonna fight capitalism with socialism. Socialism is the people. If you’re afraid of socialism, you’re afraid of yourself.”
49. “I don”t know if I like communism, and I don”t know if I like socialism. But I know that the Breakfast for Children Program feeds my kids.”
50. “You can’t build a revolution with no education.”
51. “I have a lot of respect for Martin Luther King. I think he was one of the greatest orators that the country ever produced.”
52. “Without education, what you’ll have is neo-colonialism instead of colonialism like you have now.”
53. “Without education, people don’t know why they’re doing what they’re doing, you know what I mean?”
54. “You might run a liberator like Eldridge Cleaver out of the country, but you can’t run liberation out of the country.”
55. “So we’re going to see about Bobby regardless of what these people think we should do, because school is not important and work is not important. Nothing’s more important than stopping fascism, because fascism will stop us all.”
56. “The masses belong to what you call the lower class, and when I talk about the masses, I’m talking about the white masses, I’m talking about the black masses, and the brown masses, and the yellow masses, too.”
57. “Nothing is more important than stopping fascism, because fascism is gonna stop us all.”
58. “A lot of people get the word revolution mixed up and they think revolution’s a bad word. Revolution is nothing but like having a sore on your body and then you put something on that sore to cure that infection.”
59. “Everything would be alright if everything was put back in the hands of the people, and we’re going to have to put it back in the hands of the people.”
60. “We understand that racism is an excuse used for capitalism, and we know that racism is just – it’s a byproduct of capitalism.”
61. “Nothing is more important than stopping fascism, because fascism is gonna stop us all.”
62. “We say it’s no longer a question of violence or non-violence. We say it’s a question of resistance to fascism or non-existence within fascism.”
63. “You’re gonna have to keep on saying that – I am the proletariat, I am the people. I am not the pig. You’ve got to make a distinction.”
64. “We’re not metaphysicians, we’re not idealists, we’re dialectical materialists. And we deal with what reality is, whether we like it or not.”
Fred Hampton Black Power Quotes
65. “Black people need peace. White people need some peace. And we are going to have to fight.”
66. “Before you go to bed tonight, say, ‘I am a revolutionary.’ Make that the last words in case you don’t wake up.”
67. “We’re going to have to struggle relentlessly to bring about some peace, because the people that we’re asking for peace, are a bunch of megalomaniac warmongers, and they don’t even understand what peace means.”
68. “The people have to have the power: it belongs to the people.”
69. “People have to be armed to have power, you see.”
70. “We’re gonna fight racism with solidarity. We say you don’t fight capitalism with no black capitalism; you fight capitalism with socialism.”
71. “You have to understand that people have to pay the price for peace. You dare to struggle, you dare to win. If you dare not struggle, then goddammit you don’t deserve to win.”
72. “We know that political power doesn’t flow from the sleeve of a dashiki. We know that political power flows from the barrel of a gun.”
73. “We understand that racism is an excuse used for capitalism, and we know that racism is just – it’s a byproduct of capitalism.”
74. “We have to start learning, and you learn through practice. We have to start making mistakes, and you learn through making mistakes.”
75. “They talked us into buying candy bars and throwing the candy away and eating the wrapper.”
76. “I was born in a bourgeois community and had some of the better things in life, but I found that more people were starving than people were eating.”
77. “More people that didn’t have clothes than did have clothes, and I just happened to be one of the few. So I decided that I wouldn’t stop doing what I’m doing until all those people are free.”
78. “And you’re going to have to keep on saying that. You’re going to have to say that I am a proletariat; I am the people.”
Fred Hampton Political Views Quotes
79. “You can kill a revolutionary but you can’t kill revolution, you can jail a liberator but you can’t jail liberation.”
80. “Any program that’s revolutionary is an advancing program. Revolution is change.”
81. “You can’t build a revolution with no education. Jomo Kenyatta did this in Africa, and because the people were not educated, he became as much an oppressor as the people he overthrew.”
82. “A revolution is a class struggle.”
83. “You can’t build a revolution with no education.”
84. “I’m not afraid to say I’m at war with the pigs.”
85. “When you leave here, leave here saying the last words, before you go to bed tonight, say, ‘I am a revolutionary.’ Make that the last words in case you don’t wake up.”
86. “Revolution is nothing but like having a sore on your body and then you put something on that sore to cure that infection.”
87. “You can jail a revolutionary, but you can’t jail the revolution.”
88. “We don’t need no culture except revolutionary culture. What we mean by that is a culture that will free you.”
89. “I believe I’m going to die doing the things I was born to do. I believe I’m going to die high off the people. I believe I’m going to die a revolutionary in the international revolutionary proletarian struggle.”
90. “Any program that’s revolutionary is an advancing program. Revolution is change.”
91. “No matter how nice it might be on the mountain top, we’ve got a commitment, so we’re going back. We got to go back to the valley.”
92. “They talked us into buying candy bars, and throwing the candy away, and eating the wrapper.”
93. “Then somebody might believe it and you might, you know, end up in—what they call it—revolutionary happy hunting grounds.”
94. “We’ve got to face the fact that some people say you fight fire best with fire, but we say you put fire out best with water. We say you don’t fight racism with racism.”
95. “We’re gonna fight racism with solidarity. We say you don’t fight capitalism with no black capitalism; you fight capitalism with socialism.”
96. “We say it’s no longer a question of violence or non-violence. We say it’s a question of resistance to fascism or non-existence within fascism.”
97. “We’re gonna organize and dedicate ourselves to revolutionary political power and teach ourselves the specific needs of resisting the power structure, arm ourselves, and we’re gonna fight reactionary pigs with the international proletarian revolution. That’s what it has to be.”
98. “If you ever think about me, and you ain’t gonna do no revolutionary act, forget about me. I don’t want myself on your mind if you’re not going to work for the people.”
99. “I might be anywhere. But when I leave, you’ll remember I said, with the last words on my lips, that I am a revolutionary.”
100. “Changing your name is not gonna change our set of arrangements. The only thing that’s gonna change our set of arrangements is what’s gotten us into this set of arrangements. And that’s the oppressor.”
Inspiring Fred Hampton Quotes
101. “If you ever think about me, and you ain’t gonna do no revolutionary act, forget about me.”
102. “Let me just say: Peace to you, if you’re willing to fight for it.”
103. “I’m not going to die slipping on no ice.”
104. “If you walk through life and don’t help anybody, you haven’t had much of a life.”
105. “If you dare to struggle, you dare to win. If you dare not struggle, then damn it, you don’t deserve to win.”
106. “I’m not afraid to say I’m at war with the pigs.”
107. “We’ve got to face the fact that some people say you fight fire best with fire, but we say you put fire out best with water.”
108. “You don’t miss the water ‘til the well runs dry.”
109. “You have to understand that people have to pay the price for peace. You dare to struggle, you dare to win. If you dare not struggle, then goddammit you don’t deserve to win.”
110. “I believe I’m going to die doing the things I was born to do. I believe I’m going to die high off the people.”
112. “Changing your name is not gonna change our set of arrangements.”
113. “We deal with what reality is, whether we like it or not.”
114. “You have to understand that people have to pay a price for peace.”
115. “As long as you keep the beat, we’ll keep on going.”
116. “If you’re asked to commit and you say I don’t want to make that commitment only because of the simple reason that I’m too young to die, what you did is, you’re dead already.”
117. “Why don’t you live for the people? Why don’t you struggle for the people? Why don’t you die for the people?”
118. “Survival is not a simple matter or something to be taken for granted.”
119. “Existence is violent, I exist, therefore, I’m violent….in that way.”
120. “If you stop struggling, then you stop life.”
121. ” While life will always be filled with sound and fury, it can be more than a tale signifying nothing.”
122. “I wanted freedom and possessions meant nonfreedom to me.”
123. “There is an old African saying, ‘I am we’. If you met an African in ancient times and them who he was, he would reply, ‘I am we’. This is revolutionary suicide: I, we, all of us are the one and the multitude.”
124. “I wanted most of all to before from the life of a servant forced to take those low-paying jobs and looked at with scorn by white bosses.”
125. “I began to read. What I discovered in books led me to think to question, to explore, and finally redirect my life.”
126. “I know sociologically that words, the power of the word, words stigmatize people.”
127. “We have such a strong desire to live with hope and human dignity that existence without them is impossible….even at the risk of death.”
128. “I knew how to influence people, but it’s really just one vote.”
129. ” The revolution has always been in the hands of the young. The young always inherit the revolution.”
130. “Misfortune is a test of people’s fidelity. Those who protest at injustice are people of true merit.”
131. “One of the first things any black child must learn is how to fight well.”
132. “My fear was not death itself, but a death without meaning.”
133. “It’s better to oppose the forces that would drive me to self-murder than to endure them.”
134. “I have the people behind me and the people are my strength.”
135. “The nature of a panther is that he never attacks. But if anyone attacks or backs into a corner, the panther comes up to wipe that aggressor or that attacker out.”
136. “I think what motivates people is not great hate, but great love for other people.”
137. “There will be no prison which can hold our movement down.”
138. “What I’m really trying to say is that I believed an armed insurrection could work. After I was shot and went to prison, that ended that illusion. I had time to think.”
139. “I’m not ruling. I never ruled. I have one vote and I’m the leader of the party… I always had more influence than that one vote. I’ll admit that.”
Fred Hampton Quotes on Activism
140. “The first lesson a revolutionary must learn is that he is a doomed man.”
141. “Laws should be made to serve the people. People should not be made to serve the laws.”
142. We have such a strong desire to live with hope and human dignity that existence without them is impossible.”
143. “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.”
144. “I do not expect the white media to create positive black male images.”
145. “My fear was not of death itself, but a death without meaning.”
146. “Revolutionary suicide does not mean that i and my comrades have a death wish.”
147. We have such a strong desire to live with hope and human dignity that existence without them is impossible.
148. When reactionary forces crush us, we must move against these forces, even at the risk of death.”
149. “Existence is violent, I exist, therefore I’m violent. . . in that way.”
150. “If you stop struggling, then you stop life.”
151. “Sometimes if you want to get rid of the gun, you have to pick the gun up.”
152. “Whatever your personal opinions and your insecurities we should try to unite with them in a revolutionary fashion.”
153. “Sometimes our first instinct is to want to hit a homosexual in the mouth and want a woman to be quiet. The remedy is to gain security in ourselves and have respect and feelings for all oppressed people.”
154. “Sometimes our first instinct is to want to hit a homosexual in the mouth, and want a woman to be quiet because we are afraid that she might castrate us, or take the nuts that we might not have to start with.”
155. “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.”
156. “My opinion is that the term “God” belongs to the realm of concepts, that it is dependent upon man for its existence.
157. “If God does not exist unless man exists, then man must be here to produce God.”
Quotes on Equality
158. “We must gain security in ourselves and therefore have respect and feelings for all oppressed people.”
159. “We became temporarily alien to the Black community, while the white radicals were plunged deeper into their peculiar identity crisis.”
160. “Marriage, family, and debt; in a sense, another kind of slavery.”
161. “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.”
162. “I was naïve, I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions only I could answer.”
163. “It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization that I am nobody but myself.”
164. “While life will always be filled with sound and fury, it can be more than a tale signifying nothing.”
165. “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”
166. “Even people who are unenlightened and seemingly bourgeois should be answered politely.”
167. “It is better to oppose the forces that would drive me to self-murder than to endure them. Although”
168. “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.”
169. “I knew right there in prison that reading had changed forever the course of my life.”
170. “Richard saw nonpossessive love as pure love, the only love, and possessive love as a mockery of pure love. Nonpossessive love did not enslave or constrain the love object.”
171. “This country especially does not know what to do with its young Black men.”
172. “It is better to oppose the forces that would drive me to self-murder than to endure them.”
173. “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.”
174. “The first lesson a revolutionary must learn is that he is a doomed man.”
175. “The task is to transform society; only the people can do that – not heroes, not celebrities, not stars.”
176. “You can only die once, so do not die a thousand times worrying about it.”
177. “You can kill my body, and you can take my life but you can never kill my soul. My soul will live forever!”
Fred Hampton Quotes about Racism
178. “I do not expect the white media to create positive black male images.”
179. “Black men and women who refuse to live under oppression are dangerous to white society because they become symbols of hope to their brothers and sisters, inspiring them to follow their example.
180. “…the remedy is to gain security in ourselves and therefore have respect and feelings for all oppressed people.”
181. “The racist policemen must withdraw immediately from our communities and cease their wanton murder and brutality and torture of black people, or face the wrath of the armed people.”
182. “Marriage, family, and debt in a sense is another kind of slavery.”
183. “Time is money to poor people. If this is a democracy, obviously it is a bourgeois democracy limited to the middle and upper classes.”
184. “The policemen or soldiers are only a gun in the establishment’s hand. They make the racist secure in his racism.”
185. “IQ tests are routinely used as weapons against Black people in particular and minority groups and poor people generally. The tests results are used to justify the prejudice that we are inferior and unintelligent.”
186. “Black power is giving power to people who have not had the power to determine their destiny.”
187. “We’ve never advocated violence; violence is inflicted upon us. But we do believe in self-defense for ourselves and for the black people.”
188. “Any unarmed people are slaves, or are subject to slavery at any given moment.”
189. “I do not doubt that the revolution will triumph. The people of the world will prevail, seize power, seize the means of production, wipe out racism, capitalism.”
190.”People who work hard and struggle and suffer much are victims of greed and indifference, losers. This insane reversal of values presses heavily on the black community.”
191. “To die for the racists is lighter than a feather, but to die for the people is heavier than any mountain and deeper than any sea.”
192. “The revolution has always been in the hands of the young. The young always inherit the revolution.”
193. “It should make laws to serve the people. People should not be made to serve the laws.”
194. “The task is to transform society; only the people can do that – not heroes, not celebrities, not stars.”
195. “You can jail a Revolutionary, but you can’t jail the Revolution.”
196. “You can kill my body, and you can take my life but you can never kill my soul. My soul will live forever!”
197. “Sometimes if you want to get rid of the gun, you have to pick the gun up.”
198. “I think what motivates people is not great hate, but great love for other people.”
199. “Black men and women who refuse to live under oppression are dangerous to white society because they become symbols of hope to their brothers and sisters, inspiring them to follow their example.”
200. “We have two evils to fight, capitalism and racism. We must destroy both racism and capitalism.”
CSN Team
