Intro
Malcolm X: ...as long as we sit around here trying to pray to the white man’s God and go to the white man’s church and into the white man’s school, we’ll be brainwashed by the white man, the educational system, and we’ll continue to look down upon ourselves and we’ll continue to be a beggar to him, because we’ll continue to think that he’s superior to us... Instead of the Negro leaders having the black man begging for a chance to dine in white restaurants, the Negro leader should be showing the black man how to do something to strengthen his own economy, to give himself an independent economy or to provide job opportunities for himself, not begging for a cup of coffee in a white man’s restaurant

Eleanor Fischer: Dr. King’s goals are quite different from yours. He believes in integration—

Malcolm X: Well—

Eleanor Fischer:—complete integration in society. Right?

Malcolm X: No, well that’s where Dr. King is mixed up. His goals should be the solution of the problem of the black man in America, now. Not integration. Integration is the method toward obtaining that goal. And what the Negro leader has done is gotten himself wrapped up in the method and has forgotten what the goal is. The goal is the dignity of the black man in America. He wants respect as a human being. He wants recognition as a human being. Now, if integration will get him that, all right. If segregation will get him that, all right. If separation will get him that, all right. But after he gets integration and he still doesn’t have this dignity and this recognition as a human being, then his problem is still not solved

Eleanor Fischer: Well, isn’t this exactly what Dr. King is looking towards, and that is the day when the Negro will be treated with dignity? Wasn’t this, after all, a result of the Montgomery bus boycott?

Malcolm X: No, because I don’t think you can— having an opportunity to ride either on the front or the back or in the middle of someone else’s bus doesn’t dignify you. When you have your own bus, then you have dignity. When you have your own school, you have dignity. When you have your own country, you have dignity. When you have something of your own, you have dignity. But whenever you are begging for a chance to participate in that which belongs to someone else, or use that which belongs to someone else, on an equal basis with the owner, that’s not dignity. That’s ignorance