African American Culture Quotes

• I try to find the core values that are so fundamental that they transcend ethnic identity. That doesn't mean I run from it. I embrace African-American culture and I love it and embrace it, but it is a part of a human identity. So I'm always trying to make a larger human statement.

  Wynton Marsalis

  Running, Mean, Always Trying

  "Wynton Marsalis gives spirited take on jazz with 'Abyssinian Mass'". Interview with Jeremy D. Goodwin, www.bostonglobe.com. October 24, 2013.

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• I'd like to state that Spike Lee is not saying that African American culture is just for black people alone to enjoy and cherish. Culture is for everybody.

  Spike Lee

  People, African American, Black

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• Coming up in the African-American culture, we were taught that we belonged to the universe and society was wrong in the way it dealt with us. We had to learn to express and affirm values not from the winning position.

  Bernice Johnson Reagon

  Winning, African American, Culture

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• People ask me if I miss the States. I miss African Americans. But not the U.S. government or all the things they put me through. I miss African American culture, our speech, dance and cooking.

  Assata Shakur

  Government, People, Missing

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• Mrs. James, my fifth-grade teacher, introduced us to some of the great literature of African American culture. I won my first blue ribbon reciting the vernacular poems of Paul Lawrence Dunbar, in particular "Little Brown Baby."

  Michael Eric Dyson

  Baby, Teacher, Blue

  Source: www.motherjones.com

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• To make an absolutely gross generalization, I think a lot of people feel like if you're mixed, more often than not you're quote unquote white. So if you're mixed, you embrace the mainstream culture more than the African-American culture.

  Keegan-Michael Key

  Thinking, White, Mainstream Culture

  "Key & Peele: 'That’s what Obama should say'". Interview with Willa Paskin, www.salon.com. October 7, 2012.

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• The treatment of African and African American culture in our education was no different from their treatment in Tarzan movies.

  Ishmael Reed

  Education, Race, African American

  Ishmael Reed (1995). “Airing Dirty Laundry”, Perseus Books

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• There's a thing called the 'One Drop' theory in African-American culture, which is if you have one drop of black blood in you, you're black.

  Keegan-Michael Key

  Blood, African American, Black

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• I love my own culture. I love my African-American culture very deeply, and I know it deserves to be honored. You have to be aware that people are suffering unjustly, and given our own history we have a duty to stand for the people who are being treated like our parents and grandparents and children were treated.

  Alice Walker

  Children, People, Grandparent

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• In the long, nonillustrious history of white people pilfering African American culture, have I just perpetrated that? I'm motivated by a love for the music and by a love of the performances, and I really hope I haven't done anything bad.

  Moby

  White, Long, People

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• When I got near teen age, I was so happy with my friends and the African American culture that I couldn't imagine not being part of it.

  Johnny Otis

  African American, Age, Culture

  "Influential R & B singer, musician" by Randy Lewis, articles.latimes.com. January 19, 2012.

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