February 21, 1968



Being a man is the continuing battle of one's life and one loses a bit of manhood with every stale compromise to the authority of any power in which one does not believe.



No slave should die a natural death. There is a point where caution ends and cowardice begins.



For every day I am imprisoned, I will refuse both food and water.



My hunger is for the liberation of my people.



My thirst is for the ending of oppression.



I am a political prisoner, jailed for my beliefs (that Black people must be free). The government has taken a position true to its fascist nature — those they cannot convert, they must silence. This government has become the enemy of mankind.



This can no longer alter our path to freedom. For our people, death has been the only known exit from slavery and oppression. We must open others.



Our will to live must no longer supersede our will to fight, for our fighting will determine if our race shall live. To desire freedom is not enough. We must move from resistance to aggression, from revolt to revolution.



For every Orangeburg, there must be 10 Detroits.



For every Max Stanford and Huey Newton, there must be 10 racist cops.



And for every Black death there must be a Dien Bien Phu.



Brothers and sisters, as well as all oppressed people, you must prepare yourselves both mentally and physically, for the major confrontation is yet to come. You must fight. It is the people who in the final analysis make and determine history, not leaders or systems. The laws to govern you must be made by you.



May the deaths of '68 signal the beginning of the end of this country. I do what I must out of the love for my people. My will is to fight. Resistance is not enough. Aggression is the order of the day.