African American Quotes - Page 28

• The blues style - moody or rollicking or boastful or bashful - developed in the Delta around 1900 and was, for a time, exclusively African-American. That isn't the case anymore.

  Tim Cahill

  Style, Cases, Delta

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• As CNN saw our growth in African-American viewership, they affirmed a fundamental truth of news coverage - people will watch you if they see themselves in what you report. It doesn't hurt if the people doing the reporting look like them, too.

  Soledad O'Brien

  Hurt, Cnn, People

  Soledad O'Brien, Rose Marie Arce (2009). “Latino in America”, p.7, Penguin

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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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• I'm African American / I'm African / I'm black as the moon.

  Kendrick Lamar

  Moon, Black

  "The Blacker The Berry". Song by Kendrick Lamar, Jefferey Campbell, Zale Epstein, Alexander Izquierdo, Brent Kolatalo, Stephen Kozmeniuk, Ken Lewis and Matthew Samuels, February 9, 2015.

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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, Black, Culture

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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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• 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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• 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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• You take a look at the history of African Americans in the US. There's been about thirty years of relative freedom. There was a decade after the Civil War and before north/south compact essentially recriminalized black life. During the Second World War there was a need for free labor so there was a freeing up of the labor force. Blacks benefitted from it.

  Noam Chomsky

  War, Labor Force, Years

  "Noam Chomsky on America's Economic Suicide". Interview with Laura Flanders, www.alternet.org. May 4, 2012.

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• The suggestion of denying any measure of their full political rights to such a great group of our population as the colored people is one which, however it might be received in some other quarters, could not possibly be permitted by one who feels a responsibility for living up to the traditions and maintaining the principles of the Republican Party. Our Constitution guarantees equal rights to all our citizens, without discrimination on account of race or color. I have taken my oath to support that Constitution.

  Calvin Coolidge

  Taken, Party, Responsibility

  Letter to Charles F. Gardner, August 9, 1924.

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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, Different

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

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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

  Age, Culture, Imagine

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

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• It is fitting that the Government of the United States should assume the obligation of the establishment and maintenance of a first-class university for the education of colored menand I wish to put in this caveatthat the colored race today, all of them, would be better off if they all had university education.... Of course, the basis of education of the colored people is in the primary schools and in industrial schools.... In those schools must be introduced teachers from such university institutions as this.

  William Howard Taft

  Education, Teacher, School

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• I say 'Merry Christmas' to people I don't know, or to people I know are Christians. I say 'Happy Hanukkah' to people I know to be or suspect to be Jewish. And I don't say 'Happy Kwanzaa,' because I think African Americans get enough insults all year round.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Christian, Merry Christmas, Thinking

  "Christmas with Christopher Hitchens". Interview With Gregg Lagambina, www.avclub.com. December 20, 2007.

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• Society wants to categorize everything, but to me it's all African-American music.

  Johnny Otis

  Want, African American Music, American Music

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• If you come to me and say, 'Hey look I'm a racist,' or 'I discriminate against blacks,' or 'I don't like you because you're African American,' I respect that. I can respect you more by doing that. But don't smile in my face, shake my hand, and then you don't really respect me, or want me to be around, or come to your games as the owner of the Clippers.

  Magic Johnson

  Reality, Hands, Games

  "Magic Johnson says Donald Sterling should sell Clippers" by Matt Moore, www.cbssports.com. April 27, 2014.

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• Chairman Priebus set out on an early and historic political outreach plan which called for investing resources early to build the RNC network well before Election Day. And although the elections are still eight months away, all indications are that the money has been well spent. Our message is getting out to the Hispanic, Asian and African American communities. If we can continue to implement this plan, we will be able to save the country from further policy damages at the hand of President Obama and the Democrats.

  Matt Schlapp

  Country, Opportunity, Eight

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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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• In 2008, the Democrats made a great effort among African-American voters, and they did increase their turnout considerably, and among Latino voters.

  Judy Woodruff

  Effort, American Voters, Increase

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• Had middle class black women begun a movement in which they had labeled themselves "oppressed," no one would have taken them seriously.

  Bell Hooks

  Taken, Class, Black

  bell hooks (2014). “Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center”, p.7, Routledge

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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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• 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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• The writer in me can look as far as an African-American woman and stop. Often that writer looks through the African-American woman. Race is a layer of being, but not a culmination.

  Thylias Moss

  Race, Looks, Layers

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• The hearts of Afro-American women are too warm and too large for race hatred. Long suffering has so chastened them that they are developing a special sense of sympathy for all who suffer and fail of justice.

  Fannie Barrier Williams

  Heart, Compassion, Race

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• ... social evils are dangerously contagious. The fixed policy of persecution and injustice against a class of women who are weak and defenseless will be necessarily hurtful to the cause of all women.

  Fannie Barrier Williams

  Class, Racism, Evil

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