Life is like a ship. There's people dancing on a ship.There's a lot of money on the ship, but I cannot integrate on the ship or get equality on the ship.And I never could. I'm just in the galley working and I never could get up to see the captain of the ship.
I live. I travel. I eat. I pray. These are the things I do. I'd rather be in my condition than be a man with four children in a four-bedroom house, working hard every day to pay for his house, taking his children to school.
I was in a Broadway musical called Big Time Buck Wright.The play didn't make it but I was a success. It lasted six days but I sung four songs and there were critics, seriously, in New York who said that my part was perfect. So I can beat Joe Frazier singing.
I have to be real cool and not savage and radical, because it makes me angry when I think about it when I see the white boys, who are really the number one citizens, the future rulers.
When a man says I cannot, he has made a suggestion to himself. He has weakened his power of accomplishing that which otherwise would have been accomplished.
Since I won't let the critics seal my fate, they keep hollering I'm full of hate. But they don't really hurt me none, 'cause I'm doing good and having fun.
I've got it! I've got it! It'll make front-page headlines around the world. You can have me kidnapped, and then a couple of days before the fight I'll show up again
For the black man to come out superior would be against America's teachings. I have been so great in boxing they had to create an image like Rocky, a white image on the screen, to counteract my image in the ring. America has to have its white images, no matter where it gets them. Jesus, Wonder Woman, Tarzan and Rocky.