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Nothing human can be alien to me

I am not going to sit at your table
and watch you eat, with nothing on my plate.
Time has run out.
This is the most explosive year,
the most explosive issue,
freedom for everybody,
or freedom for nobody.

The ballot or the bullet.
Liberty or death.
I am for freedom by any means necessary.
We must fight until we overcome.

I have cherished the ideal
of a democratic and free society
in which all persons live together
in harmony and with equal opportunities.
It is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.
I have fought against white domination,
and I have fought against black domination.
I have walked that long road to freedom.
I dare not linger,
for my long walk is not ended.

I am a human being,
nothing human can be alien to me.
The most important thing is to be present.
Bring your whole self all the time.
Each being, each life,
is the mirror of our own.

I am proud and grateful to God
to be human.
We are not strangers,
not aliens,
but witnesses,
guardians,
inheritors of courage.

The ballot or the bullet.
Liberty or death.
I am prepared to die.
I am a human being.
Nothing human can be alien to me.

Sources

  1. http://www.edchange.org/multicultural/speeches/malcolm_x_ballot.html
  2. https://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/mandela/mandelaspeech.html
  3. https://medium.com/@timothylwilliams/i-am-a-human-being-a-speech-by-dr-508eb62c6f4f