“We are going to do for blacks exactly what blacks did for the revolution. By which I mean: nothing” Unsourced: popularly attributed to Che Guevara, but no documented speech, writing or interview contains it (Wikiquote: “Unclear origin, no sources”; PolitiFact, 2013).
⚠ The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Che Guevara. Use the credit shown above instead.
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? We couldn’t verify where this wording comes from, so there’s no rights status to give. Safe to present as an unverified or anonymous line — just don’t assert a specific author or source.
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In context
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Provenance
What the record shows
Primary source
None located: no speech, book, letter or interview
Claimed setting
“A 1959 speech or press conference”, per unsourced internet claims reported by PolitiFact
Wikiquote
Disputed: “Unclear origin, no sources”
Fact-check
PolitiFact, 17 April 2013: no original source found
We’re going to do for blacks exactly what blacks did for the revolution. By which I mean: nothing.
Unsourced
This is the wording PolitiFact quoted and Wikiquote’s talk page lists as unsourced. Wikiquote’s main page gives a shorter version without “exactly”, and a 2012 congressional press release ends it with “the Cuban revolution”. No version has a documented source.
Wikiquote ↗ puts “We are going to do for blacks what blacks did for the revolution. By which I mean: nothing.” in its Disputed section with the note “Unclear origin, no sources.”
The Wikiquote talk page ↗ lists the “exactly what blacks did” wording under “Unsourced”. The note opening that section, dated 11 January 2009, asks for “a reliable and precise source”.
PolitiFact (17 April 2013) ↗ checked a Marco Rubio claim and reported that some online sources date the line to a 1959 speech or press conference. PolitiFact “was unable to find an original source or context for the quote.”
Quote Investigator ↗ has no article on Guevara: searching the site for his name returns “Nothing Found.”
No documented work contains this wording and no author is known, so it has no source text and no publication date to judge copyright by. quotle.info makes no claim about its copyright status.
Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.
Fact-check
Why it gets pinned on Che
The line is usually offered as proof of Guevara’s attitude to race, and it gets repeated as if it were documented. None of the places that repeat it cite a source.
✕
Common citation“A 1959 speech or press conference” No record
This is the setting most often claimed online. PolitiFact ↗ looked for it and found no original source or context. It also said the line could not be fully evaluated without that context.
✕
Political press release, 2012Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart Unsourced
A press release dated 18 January 2012 ↗ quotes it as “We’re going to do for blacks exactly what blacks did for the Cuban revolution. By which I mean: nothing!” and calls it Guevara’s “own words.” It names no speech, date or document.
✕
Video commentaryPragerU (Gloria Álvarez) Unsourced
The PragerU video page ↗ presents the line with only “he said” and gives no date or source.
✓Neither the claimed 1959 speech or press conference nor any other source has been produced. Wikiquote ↗ and PolitiFact ↗ both treat it as unsourced, and whoever wrote it is unknown.
Context
Why it matters
The line comes up whenever Guevara’s views on race are argued over. In 2013 Senator Marco Rubio’s office included it in the material it sent PolitiFact ↗ to back his claim that Guevara wrote “extensively” about white superiority. PolitiFact rated that claim Mostly False. It found the documented evidence was a passage in The Motorcycle Diaries, not this quote.
PolitiFact also asked historians about the quote. Jonathan Brown of the University of Texas said that “Blacks did do plenty for the revolution,” and noted that Afro-Cuban troops, bodyguards and advisers served with Guevara. UCLA’s Mark Sawyer had offered a reading of the line in a blog post, but he told PolitiFact he was unsure where it came from.
PolitiFact “was unable to find an original source or context for the quote.”
The real evidence is a different text
Guevara’s attitudes toward Black people can be documented from his own published writing, chiefly a Motorcycle Diaries passage that biographer Jon Lee Anderson told PolitiFact reflected “white, especially Argentine, arrogance and condescension.” Using an unsourced one-liner in place of that documented text weakens the argument it is meant to support.
Explore
Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
Ernesto “Che” Guevara was an Argentine-born physician, author and guerrilla leader, and a key figure of the Cuban Revolution. His speeches, essays and letters are widely published and archived, but this line has not been traced to any of them. Its real author is unknown.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Best available record
No primary source located. Listed as disputed (“Unclear origin, no sources”) in Wikiquote, “Che Guevara,” Disputed section, https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Che_Guevara; see also Amy Sherman, “Did Ché Guevara Write ‘Extensively’ about the Superiority of White Europeans? Rubio Says Yes,” PolitiFact, April 17, 2013.
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘We are going to do for blacks exactly what blacks did for the revolution. By which I mean: nothing’?” Last verified 2 Nov 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/we-are-going-to-do-for-blacks-exactly-what-blacks-did-for/