Our people have demonstrated undying love. The white man doesn’t want us to know that, but we don’t take the white man’s interpretations here. If you’re walking down the street and you have undying love for your brother and a policeman shoots him and you try to kill that policeman with a brick, a bottle, a stick—anything you have in your hand—that is undying love. When you reach the stage of undying love, one forgets what is called “reason.” If you see a policeman hitting your mama, you ain’t got time for no reason, you’re going to try to kill him. And if we saw every black woman as our mother, then we would begin to understand this concept of undying love. If we saw every black man as our brother, then we would begin to understand this concept of undying love. And if we saw every black woman as our sister, then we would understand this concept of undying love. It is that concept, first and most important, that we must try to achieve.

Undying love does not mean only that you’re willing to die for your people, it also means you’re willing to kill for your people—which is more important. And please don’t get excited with the word “kill,” because all of the young men in here are asked to kill for this country. When they send you to Vietnam they don’t send you just to die, they send you to kill. And if you can kill for a country that’s done what it has to us for all these years, it should certainly be easy for you to kill for your people.

— Stokely speaks by Stokely Carmichael (Page 148)