“On that same plantation, there was the field Negro. The field Negroes — those were the masses. There were always more Negroes in the field than there were Negroes in the house. The Negro in the field caught hell. He ate leftovers. In the house they ate high up on the hog. The Negro in the field didn't get anything but what was left of the insides of the hog.”

— Malcolm X

Malcolm X Speaks (1965)

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Malcolm X 180

American human rights activist 1925–1965

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“The field Negro was beaten from morning to night; he lived in a shack, in a hut; he wore old, castoff clothes. He hated his master. I say he hated his master. He was intelligent. That house Negro loved his master, but that field Negro — remember, they were in the majority, and they hated the master. When the house caught on fire, he didn't try to put it out; that field Negro prayed for a wind, for a breeze. When the master got sick, the field Negro prayed that he'd die. If someone came to the field Negro and said, "Let's separate, let's run," he didn't say, "Where we going?"”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

He'd say, "Any place is better than here."
Speech (9 November 1963). p. 11.
Malcolm X Speaks (1965)

“If you're afraid of black nationalism, you're afraid of revolution. And if you love revolution, you love black nationalism. To understand this, you have to go back to what the young brother here referred to as the house Negro and the field Negro back during slavery. There were two kinds of slaves, the house Negro and the field Negro. The house Negroes — they lived in the house with master, they dressed pretty good, they ate good because they ate his food — what he left. They lived in the attic or the basement, but still they lived near the master; and they loved the master more than the master loved himself. They would give their life to save the master's house — quicker than the master would. If the master said, "We got a good house here," the house Negro would say, "Yeah, we got a good house here." Whenever the master said "we," he said "we."”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

That's how you can tell a house Negro.
Malcolm X Speaks (1965)

“In Cuba, there is no fear of a racial war. Men are more than whites, mulattos or Negroes. Cubans are more than whites, mulattos or Negroes. On the field of battle, dying for Cuba, the souls of whites and Negroes have risen together into the air.”

José Martí (1853–1895) Poet, writer, Cuban nationalist leader

My Race (1893)

“This modern house Negro loves his master. He wants to live near him. He'll pay three times as much as the house is worth just to live near his master, and then brag about "I'm the only Negro out here." "I'm the only one on my job." "I'm the only one in this school." You're nothing but a house Negro. And if someone comes to you right now and says, "Let's separate," you say the same thing that the house Negro said on the plantation. "What you mean, separate? From America, this good white man? Where you going to get a better job than you get here?"”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

I mean, this is what you say. "I ain't left nothing in Africa," that's what you say. Why, you left your mind in Africa.
Malcolm X Speaks (1965)

“The most ordinary Negro is a distinct gentleman, but it takes extraordinary training and opportunity to make the average white man anything but a hog.”

W.E.B. Du Bois (1868–1963) American sociologist, historian, activist and writer

Interview with Ralph McGill, quoted in The Atlantic Monthly (November 1965)

“Negroes
Sweet and docile,
Meek, humble, and kind:
Beware the day
They change their minds!

Wind
In the cotton fields,
Gentle breeze:
Beware the hour
It uproots trees!”

Langston Hughes (1902–1967) American writer and social activist

“I found it very offensive to my people. It makes the Negro childlike and innocent and is in the old plantation hallelujah shouter tradition… the same old story, the negro singing his way to glory.”

Paul Robeson (1898–1976) American singer and actor

Regarding the film Tales of Manhattan, as quoted in Paul Robeson (1989) by Martin Duberman, " The Discovery of Africa", p. 259

“In the cotton States, after the war…the Jew came down in force, set up shop on the plantation, supplied all the negro's wants on credit, and at the end of the season was proprietor of the negro's share of the present crop and of part of his share of the next one. Before long, the whites detested the Jew, and it is doubtful if the negro loved him.”

Mark Twain book Concerning the Jews

Concerning the Jews (Harper's Magazine, Sept. 1899)

“Haiti is a purely Negro Republic, and offers a good illustration of what the Negro accomplishes if left to himself, even though given all the advantages of easy access to European civilization. The republic of Santo Domingo occupies the other part of the same island; its hybrid population has more Spanish and less Negro blood but it is not by any means civilized.”

Madison Grant (1865–1937) American lawyer, eugenicist, and conservationist

The Conquest of a Continent (1933)

“The mass of ignorant Negroes still breed carelessly and disastrously, so that the increase among Negroes, even more than the increase among whites, is from that portion of the population least intelligent and fit, and least able to rear their children properly.”

Margaret Sanger (1879–1966) American birth control activist, educator and nurse

W.E.B. DuBois, Birth Control Review, June 1932. Quoted by Sanger in her proposal for the "Negro Project."
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Malcolm X 180

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