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I'm often loose with my tongue. I may have said something about the NAACP being un-American or Communist, but I meant no harm by it.

I think the NAACP isn't recognized enough for all of the work it does, especially in the field of law. They may have faded from view over the last couple of decades, but they are fighting the good fight.

I would rather be the candidate of the NAACP than the NRA.

I think segregation is bad, I think it's wrong, it's immoral. I'd fight against it with every breath in my body, but you don't need to sit next to a white person to learn how to read and write. The NAACP needs to say that.

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.

Your life has to consist of more than 'Black people should unite.' You hope they do, but not twenty-four hours a day.

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

I regard the Klan, the Anglo-Saxon clubs and White American societies, as far as the Negro is concerned, as better friends of the race than all other groups of hypocritical whites put together.

Like any group that has endured much, African Americans have created a strong and mutually reinforcing sense of group identity. That's not a bad thing in and of itself.

Having a Republican candidate speak at the NAACP convention is like trying to build a house starting at the roof. If you don't have a foundation, the roof isn't going to stand.