African American Quotes - Page 26

• As an ambiguously non-white actor, I've been able to play light-skinned African American guys, Latinos, and I don't think that I've ever had to play some kind of ethnic stereotype or something that was typed specifically for a person of color.

  Daniel Sunjata

  Thinking, Light, Color

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• As we women know, there are so many other hurdles that we have to cross that I would love it if we could stop having the race conversation so that we can get women further on. You know, a female president now that we have an African American president. Maybe we can get an Asian female, a gay person?

  Octavia Spencer

  Gay, Race, President

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• Black History is enjoying the life of our ancestors who paved the way for every African-American. No matter what color you are, the history of Blacks affected everyone; that's why we should cherish and respect Black history. Black history changed America and is continuing to change and shape our country. Black history is about everyone coming together to better themselves and America. Black history is being comfortable in your own skin no matter what color you are. Black history makes me proud of where I came from and where I am going in life.

  Bernice Mosby

  Country, America, Color

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• I was well known to African Americans before Bill Clinton discovered me. He was like Christopher Columbus riding up on something he didn't understand.

  Sister Souljah

  Riding, Bills, Columbus

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• Don't think you are going to go on forever because you are not and begin to plan something that will compensate as you reduce your capacities to leap or turn on this or that or the other, begin thinking of something else.

  Katherine Dunham

  Thinking, Forever, Words Of Wisdom

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• Each one should remember there is a chance for him.

  Booker T. Washington

  Words Of Wisdom, Chance, Remember

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• Human beings cannot be willed and molded into non-existence.

  Angela Davis

  Words Of Wisdom, Existence, Humans

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• If you're going to get in the ring and try to take the belt, you have to prepare to get hit.

  Stanley Crouch

  Words Of Wisdom, Trying, Belts

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• In the past the great majority of minority voters, in Ohio and other places that means African American voters, cast a large percentage of their votes during the early voting process.

  John Lewis

  Mean, Past, Ohio

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• The lives of most men are patchwork quilts. Or at best one matching outfit with a closet and laundry bag full of incongruous accumulations. A lifetime of training for just ten seconds.

  Jesse Owens

  Quilts, Men, Words Of Wisdom

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• The point is, you have an ethnic heritage and you have a human heritage. Your human heritage includes everything of human value.

  Stanley Crouch

  Words Of Wisdom, Heritage, Humans

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• Selfishness is the most constant of human motives. Patriotism, humanity, or the love of God may lead to sporadic outbursts sweep away the heaped-up wrongs of centuries; but they languish at times, while the love of self works on ceaselessly, unwearyingly,burrowing always at the very root of life, and heaping up fresh wrongs for other centuries to sweep away.

  Charles W. Chesnutt

  Roots, Self, Humanity

  Charles W. Chesnutt (2008). “The Portable Charles W. Chesnutt”, p.382, Penguin

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• I think there's a lot of things that occur within the African-American community, that we would prefer to stay within the African-American community - that we get a little nervous when you start having scenes or dialogue that we know is going to be viewed and heard on a national or global scale.

  Gabrielle Union

  Thinking, Community, Littles

  "'Daddy's Little Girls' Actress Gabrielle Union". "News & Notes" with Michel Martin, www.npr.org. February 9, 2007.

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• The notion that black folks have nothing to learn from scholarship that may reflect racial or racist biases is dangerous. It promotes closed-mindedness and a narrow understanding of knowledge to hold that "race" is such an overwhelming concept that it negates the validity of any insights contained in a work that may have some racist or sexist aspects.

  Bell Hooks

  Race, Racism, Understanding

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• At the heart of all that civilization has meant and developed is 'community' - the mutually cooperative and voluntary venture of man to assume a semblance of responsibility for his brother.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Brother, Responsibility, Heart

  Martin Luther King (Jr.), Alex Ayres (1993). “The Wisdom of Martin Luther King, Jr”, Plume

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• Schooling is what happens inside the wall of the school, some of which is educational. Education happens everywhere, and it happens from the moment a child is born-some say before-until it dies.

  Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot

  Education, Children, Wall

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• Let me just say, at once: I am not now nor have I ever been a white man. And, leaving aside the joys of unearned privilege, this leaves me feeling pretty good.

  June Jordan

  Men, White, Joy

  June Jordan (2009). “Some of Us Did Not Die: New and Selected Essays”, p.129, Basic Books

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• I am a colored woman or a Negro woman. Either one is OK. People dislike those words now. Today these use this term African American. It wouldn't occur to me to use that. I prefer to think of myself as an American, that's all!

  Annie Elizabeth Delany

  Thinking, People, Today

  Sarah Louise Delany, Annie Elizabeth Delany, Amy Hill Hearth (1993). “Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years”, p.75, Kodansha America

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• Remember that everyone's life is measured by the power that individual has to make the world better-this is all life is.

  Booker T. Washington

  World, Remember, Life Is

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• The North has no interest in the particular Negro, but talks of justice for the whole. The South has not interest, and pretends none, in the mass of Negroes but is very much concerned about the individual.

  Zora Neale Hurston

  Justice, Race Relations, Individual

  Zora Neale Hurston, Alice Walker (1979). “I Love Myself when I Am Laughing ... and Then Again when I Am Looking Mean and Impressive: A Zora Neale Hurston Reader”, p.157, Feminist Press at CUNY

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• I was born black and female.

  Lorraine Hansberry

  Black, Female, Born

  Lorraine Hansberry (2012). “Les Blancs: The Collected Last Plays: The Drinking Gourd/What Use Are Flowers?”, p.8, Vintage

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• Today masses of black women in the U.S. refuse to acknowledge that they have much to gain by feminist struggle. They fear feminism. They have stood in place so long that they are afraid to move. They fear change. They fear losing what little they have.

  Bell Hooks

  Struggle, Moving, Long

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• There's a place in me that can really relate to being the underdog. I'm always fighting to overcome the obstacle. I can really understand what's that about.

  Halle Berry

  Fighting, Challenges, Underdog

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• I don't see black people as victims even though we are exploited. Victims are flat, one- dimensional characters, someone rolled over by a steamroller so you have a cardboard person. We are far more resilient and more rounded than that. I will go on showing there's more to us than our being victimized. Victims are dead.

  Kristin Hunter

  Character, People, Black

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• ... black women have always found that in the social order of things we're the least likely to be believed--by anyone.

  Joycelyn Elders

  Order, Black, Social

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