Floyd McKissick

North Carolina · born or raised1922–1991

Civil Rights Activist

Born in Asheville
Died in Soul City
Studied at North Carolina Central University School of Law

Quotations with a citation

If you think that you can take power from somebody, I think that you are whistling Dixie. And I think that if Rockefeller anointed me tomorrow, "Floyd McKissick, be Rockefeller," he wouldn't give me any power by doing it. I think that power is something that you acquire by growth, stage, and skill, development of the mind and ability to use the mind successfully and the ability to deal with all facets of American society, and I think that power comes by having a damn sound analytical mind, and mind that doesn't carry chips on its shoulders, and the ability to have funds to solve problems with.

I think there has to be a recognition to carry the struggle forward in the '70s, you are going to have to have far more skills in the '70s than you had in the '60s, when the premium for rewarding good leadership was courage . . . courage to stand in front of firehoses and let a dog bite them and keep on marching. But, if you use the courage to open the doors, how the hell do you go in and stay in?

Just forget the damn differences, we can't solve them anyway, most of the time and you're always going to have pretty near that five percent difference. Get them together on their common objectives and you slowly detract from their differences.

I believe in civil disobedience and I believe that if you believe the law is wrong, then you disobey that law and you pay the consequences for it.

There has to be a method of opening the doors. So there's no other method except an outward confrontation, and that confrontation has to be had and has to be had in public in order to bring about change.