I am sure that you will agree that if you put a man in prison illegally and unjustly, one who has not committed a crime and after putting him there you keep him in solitary confinement, it is doubly cruel. Now if you let him out of solitary confinement into the regular prison yard, you can call that progress if you want, but the man was not supposed to be put in prison in the first place.

Now we have 20 million black people in America who are begging for some king of recognition as human beings and the average white man today thinks that we are making progress. He can not justify the fact that he made us slaves in the first place, which was contrary not only to man's law, contrary not only to God's law, but also contrary to to natures law. I do not call that progress until we have gotten everything we originally had. If a man robs a bank he can not jump up and say: "Well, I;m sorry I've been a robber." He has to make restitution. Here you have 20 million black people who have worked for nothing for 310 years and then for the past hundred years we have been deprived of practically everything a human being needs to exist and keep his morale up. I just can not bring myself to accept the few strides that we have made as any kind of progress (interupted)-- Malcolm

Where Is The Negro Headed "Open Mind" NBC Television Sunday October 15, 1961a