Afros Quotes

• The further jazz moves away from the stark blue continuum and the collective realities of Afro-American and American life, the more it moves into academic concert-hall lifelessness, which can be replicated by any middle class showing off its music lessons.

  Amiri Baraka

  Moving, Reality, Blue

  Imamu Amiri Baraka (1984). “Daggers and javelins: essays, 1974-1979”, William Morrow & Co

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• In Italy, I had an Afro, and a lot of the kids came up and felt my hair. It really was funny. I wish I had understood Italian.

  Sugar Ray Leonard

  Sports, Kids, Italian

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• Somebody must show that the Afro-American race is more sinned against than sinning, and it seems to have fallen upon me to do so.

  Ida B. Wells

  Race, Fallen, Shows

  Ida B. Wells-Barnett (2014). “On Lynchings”, p.3, Courier Corporation

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• The only times an Afro-American who was assaulted got away has been when he had a gun and used it in self-defense.

  Ida B. Wells

  Gun, Self, Defense

  Ida B. Wells (2014). “The Light of Truth: Writings of an Anti-Lynching Crusader”, p.71, Penguin

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• Since the age of 12, all my musical thinking has been influenced by Afro-American music.

  Alexis Korner

  Thinking, Musical, Age

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• The Afro-American is not a bestial race.

  Ida B. Wells

  Race

  Ida B. Wells-Barnett (2014). “On Lynchings”, p.3, Courier Corporation

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• The South resented giving the Afro-American his freedom, the ballot box and the Civil Rights Law.

  Ida B. Wells

  Law, Rights, Giving

  Ida B. Wells-Barnett (2014). “On Lynchings”, p.16, Courier Corporation

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• I might be a Cuban American, but I'm also an Afro-Cuban American.

  Jon Secada

  Might, Cuban

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• The mob spirit has grown with the increasing intelligence of the Afro-American.

  Ida B. Wells

  Spirit

  Ida B. Wells-Barnett (2009). “Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases: Easyread Large Bold Edition”, p.21, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• When I have my Afro and walk down the street, there's no doubt that I'm black. With this [straightened] hair, if I talk about being black on air, viewers write and say, "You're black?!" I feel [straightening your hair] is giving up a sense of your identity. Let's be honest: It's an effort to look Anglo-Saxon.

  Jami Floyd

  Giving Up, Writing, Hair

  "Your Race, Your Looks". Glamour's Women, Race and Beauty panel, www.glamour.com. February 3, 2008.

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• I see other black women imitate my style, which is no style at all, but just letting our hair be itself. They call it the Afro Look.

  Miriam Makeba

  Hair, Black, Style

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• The Afro-American experience is the only real culture that America has. Basically, every American tries to walk, talk, dress and behave like African Americans.

  Hugh Masekela

  Real, America, Trying

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• The common goal of 22 million Afro-Americans is respect as human beings, the God-given right to be a human being. Our common goal is to obtain the human rights America has been denying us. We can never get civil rights in America until our human rights are first restored. We will never be recognized as citizens there until we are first recognized as humans.

  Malcolm X

  America, Rights, Justice

  "Racism: the Cancer that is Destroying America", Egyptian Gazette, August 25, 1964.

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• The miscegenation laws of the South only operate against the legitimate union of the races; they leave the white man free to seduce all the colored girls he can, but it is death to the colored man who yields to the force and advances of a similar attraction in white women. White men lynch the offending Afro-American, not because he is a despoiler of virtue, but because he succumbs to the smiles of white women.

  Ida B. Wells

  Girl, Men, Yield

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• The dream is not a map. A poem is not the territory. The dreamer reclines in a barbershop carpeted with Afro turf. In the dark some soul yells. It hurts to walk barefoot on cowrie shells.

  Harryette Mullen

  Dream, Hurt, Dark

  Harryette Mullen (2002). “Sleeping with the Dictionary”, p.39, Univ of California Press

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• I had the afro when I was in high school. I had the flattop during a short period in the early '90s. And I've had different variations of dreadlocks. I'll admit to those!

  Tim Meadows

  School, Different, Variation

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• If you are serious about American culture and you are serious about Afro-American culture, you are in a lot of pain. You are not - you are not smiling about it.

  Wynton Marsalis

  Pain, Culture, Serious

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• There is a theorem that colloquially translates, You cannot comb the hair on a bowling ball. ... Clearly, none of these mathematicians had Afros, because to comb an Afro is to pick it straight away from the scalp. If bowling balls had Afros, then yes, they could be combed without violation of mathematical theorems.

  Neil deGrasse Tyson

  Science, Hair, Balls

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• For the Afro-American in the 1920's being a 'New Negro' was being 'Modern'. And being an 'New Negro' meant, largely, not being an 'Old Negro', disassociating oneself from the symbols and legacy of slavery - being urbane, assertive militant.

  Nathan Huggins

  Legacy, Slavery, Modern

  Nathan Irvin Huggins (1995). “Revelations: American History, American Myths”, Oxford University Press, USA

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• Even his hair was bigger—a massive globe of blue-black frizz so thick that his lobster-claw horns appeared to be drowning as they tried to swim their way to the surface. “Is that why they named you Aphros?” Leo asked as they glided down the path from the cave. “Because of the Afro?” Aphros scowled. “What do you mean?” “Nothing,” Leo said quickly.

  Rick Riordan

  Mean, Hair, Blue

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• We are not only a Latin American nation, we are an Afro-American nation also.

  Fidel Castro

  Latin, Nations, Latin American

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• Afro-Caribbean influences are in me as a creative being the same way Spanish influences were in Picasso's work. I think the notion of labels - "black dancer, black choreographer" -is a ploy to divide and conquer, and to limit.

  Garth Fagan

  Dance, Thinking, Creative

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• I am a Muslim and . . . my religion makes me be against all forms of racism. It keeps me from judging any man by the color of his skin. It teaches me to judge him by his deeds and his conscious behavior. And it teaches me to be for the rights of all human beings, but especially the Afro-American human being, because my religion is a natural religion, and the first law of nature is self-preservation.

  Malcolm X

  Men, Rights, Self

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• Music really influenced me when I was growing up. I did go through a Jimi Hendrix phase. My hair was naturally quite afro, and I wore low-slung jeans with very high heels. Siouxsie and the Banshees had a lot to answer for. I was in a top hat with peacock feathers and thigh-high black boots. I was 17 -- old enough to know better.

  Helen McCrory

  Growing Up, Hair, High Heels

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• The Afro-American is not a bestial race. If this work can contribute in any way towards proving this, and at the same time arouse the conscience of the American people to a demand for justice to every citizen, and punishment by law for the lawless, I shall feel I have done my race a service. Other considerations are of minor importance.

  Ida B. Wells

  Race, Law, Punishment

  Ida B. Wells-Barnett (2009). “Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases: Easyread Super Large 20pt Edition”, p.2, ReadHowYouWant.com

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