Best African American Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings Page 6

“Warren Moon and Doug Williams really didn't run that much. That's the negative stereotype when it comes to African-American quarterbacks, that most of us just run. Those guys threw it around. I like to think I can throw it around a little bit.”

Author:Kobe Bryant

“I was repeatedly told that there isn't an African American woman who can open a show on Broadway. I said, 'Well, how do we know? How do we know if we don't do it?' I said, 'I think you're wrong.'”

Ifs Thinking Knows Wells Said Shows Know How African American Broadway American Woman African American Women

Author:Lynn Nottage

“African American women in particular have incredible buying power. Statistically, we go to the movies more than anyone. We have made Tyler Perrys career. His films open with $25 million almost consistently.”

Made Film Careers Millions Particular Incredibles African American Buying Consistently American Woman African American Women Buying Power

Author:Lynn Nottage

“I visited New York in '63, intending to move there, but I noticed that what I valued about jazz was being discarded. I ran into `out-to-lunch' free jazz, and the notion that groove was old-fashioned. All around the United States, I could see jazz becoming linear, a horn-player's world. It made me realize that we were not jazz musicians; we were territory musicians in love with all forms of African-American music. All of the musicians I loved were territory musicians, deeply into blues and gospel as well as jazz.”

“I early conceived a liking for, and sought every opportunity to relieve the sufferings of others.”

Suffering Opportunity African American Treatment Physicians Alleviate Suffering Of Others

Author:Rebecca Lee Crumpler

“Everyone says we have our first African American president. Has there ever been a Jewish president? An Italian president? They don't say a damn thing about that. You think we're still fighting the Civil War or something. If you want to mention it in passing, OK. But don't dwell on it.”

Ifs Thinking Want Firsts Stills War Fighting President Passing Passings African American Damn Civil War Italian American President Damn Things

Author:Monte Irvin

“The interesting thing about the African-American experience in this country is that we are sort of a mongrel of people. I mean we're all kind of mixed up.”

People Kind Mean Country Interesting All Kinds African American Interesting Things

Author:Barack Obama

“I'm less interested in how we label ourselves. I'm more interested in how we treat each other. And if we're treating each other right, then I can be African-American, I can be multi-racial, I can be you name it, what matters is, am I showing people respect, am I caring for one, for other people.”

People Ifs I Can Matter Names Treats Caring African American Labels Be You What Matters

Author:Barack Obama

“No matter where you're from - you can be Native American, Italian, Jewish, Latino, African-American - whatever you are, we're all distant relatives.”

Matter African American Native Italian Native American Latino

Author:Nas

“It's really important to have life strategies and part of that is sort of knowing where you want to go so you can have a map that helps you to get there. And the traditional way tells us oh we get into school and someone else advises us, helps us, but that often does not work for African Americans female and male. Because what works for the dominant culture often does not work for us.”

Way Want Doe Important Helping School Culture Knowing Female Strategy Males Traditional African American Maps Dominant Advise Dominant Culture Females And Males

Author:Bell Hooks

“You should always respect what you are and your culture because if your art is going to mean anything, that is where it comes from.”

Ifs Should Mean Art Culture Respect Art Is Painter African American Self Respect

Author:Romare Bearden

“In every conceivable manner, the family is link to our past, bridge to our future.”

“In the early 1970s in Atlanta, I attended what had formerly been an all-white school but had become a black school after integration and white flight. Perhaps because of this, the teachers created a curriculum that included a focus on African American literature and history year-round, not just in February.”

Years School Literature Black White Focus Teacher Rounds Flight African American Integration Curriculum February Atlanta American Literature

Author:Natasha Trethewey

“African Americans know about racism, but I don't think we really know the causes. I decided it's first of all a family problem.”

Thinking Knows Firsts Problem Causes Racism Decided African American Family Problems

Author:Bebe Moore Campbell

“Most of the more celebrated names among African-American authors, poets, and artists are known to the world because of their association with specific cultural arts movements.”

World Art Artist Names Known Movement Poet African American Association American Author

Author:Aberjhani

“During the Great Depression, African Americans were faced with problems that were not unlike those experienced by the most disadvantaged groups in society. The Great Depression had a leveling effect, and all groups really experienced hard times: poor whites, poor blacks.”

Hard Problem Poor Groups Effects African American Hard Times Great Depression Disadvantaged

Author:William Julius Wilson

“No one would stand for it [being the fool in the media] in a minute if you took any other group -Native Americans, African Americans, Hispanics, women - but somehow it's okay to do that with hillbillies.”

Ifs Groups Minutes Media Fool Okay African American Native Native American

Author:John Shelton Reed

“I am an African-American in America. That will never change. But I don't have to be defined by thatWe always try to find similarities in life, no matter what it is so they're going to try to put you in a box with other African-American quarterbacks - Vick, Newton, Randall Cunningham, Warren MoonThat's the goal. Just to go out and not try to prove anybody wrong but just let your talents speak for themselves.”

Trying Matter America Speak Goal Talent Prove No Matter What Boxes Defined African American Never Change Newton Similarity Quarterback Cunninghams

Author:Robert Griffin III

“There's no doubt that many of the mainstream white institutions tend to be cosmetic and symbolic when it comes to including African-Americans, whereas we black folk tend to be much more sensitive about embracing others, and we have a long history of that.”

Long Black White Doubt Institutions Including Folks African American Sensitive No Doubt Mainstream Symbolic Cosmetics

Author:Cornel West

“One thing that sticks in my mind is that jazz means freedom and openness. It's a music that, although it developed out of the African American experience, speaks more about the human experience than the experience of a particular people.”

People Mind Humans Mean Speak One Thing Particular Sticks Jazz African American Openness Human Experience

Author:Herbie Hancock

“I have been amazed by the Anglo-Saxon's lack of curiosity about the internal lives and emotions of the Negroes, and for that matter, any non-Anglo-Saxon peoples within our borders, above the class of unskilled labor.”

Has Beens Matter Emotion Class Labor Curiosity African American Borders Internals Amazed Anglo Saxon

Book:I Love Myself when I Am Laughing ... and Then Again when I Am Looking Mean and Impressive: A Zora Neale Hurston Reader

Source: I Love Myself when I Am Laughing ... and Then Again when I Am Looking Mean and Impressive: A Zora Neale Hurston Reader

“I do not share the gloomy thought that Negroes in America are doomed to be stomped out bodaciously, nor even shackled to the bottom of things. Of course some of them will be tromped out, and some will always be at the bottom, keeping company with other bottom-folks.”

America Courses Company Share Bottom Folks African American Doomed My Thoughts Gloomy

Author:Zora Neale Hurston

“I maintain that I have been a Negro three times--a Negro baby, a Negro girl and a Negro woman. Still, if you have received no clear cut impression of what the Negro in America is like, then you are in the same place with me. There is no The Negro here. Our lives are so diversified, internal attitudes so varied, appearances and capabilities so different, that there is no possible classification so catholic that it will cover us all, except My people! My people!”

“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.”

Whole Individual Interest Justice Particular Mass Concerned Relation South African American Race Relations

Book:I Love Myself when I Am Laughing ... and Then Again when I Am Looking Mean and Impressive: A Zora Neale Hurston Reader

Source: I Love Myself when I Am Laughing ... and Then Again when I Am Looking Mean and Impressive: A Zora Neale Hurston Reader

“Like a lot of Black women, I have always had to invent the power my freedom requires.”

Black Freedom Power African American Black Women African American Women

Book:Some of Us Did Not Die: New and Selected Essays

Source: Some of Us Did Not Die: New and Selected Essays

“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.”

Men Feelings Joy White Let Me Leaving Privilege African American White Man Leaving Me African American Women Feeling Pretty

Book:Some of Us Did Not Die: New and Selected Essays

Source: Some of Us Did Not Die: New and Selected Essays

“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.”

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

Different Culture Race Education African American Treatment American Culture African American Culture Tarzan Movie

Book:Airing Dirty Laundry

Source: Airing Dirty Laundry

“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.”

“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.”

People Thinking Knows Years Enough Christian Rounds African American Insult Suspects Merry Merry Christmas Hanukkah Kwanzaa

Author:Christopher Hitchens

“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.”

Ifs Want Looks I Can Hands Reality Faces Games Justice Like You Ethics Ideology Hey African American Shakes Owners Racist Want Me Free Speech Civility Respect Me I Don't Like You

Author:Magic Johnson

“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!”

People Thinking Use Today Term African American Dislike African American Women

Book:Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years

Source: Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years

“Journalists become candidates for cardiac arrest when they see or hear an African American disagreeing with an African American. We would become inauthentic if we did not have disagreements with this president.”

Ifs President African American Journalist Candidates Disagreement Cardiac Cardiac Arrest

Author:John Conyers

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

Order Found Social Black African American Black Women Social Order African American Women

Author:Joycelyn Elders

“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.”

May Understanding Black Race Dangerous Racism Concepts Aspect Notion Folks Insight African American Racist Overwhelming Scholarship Validity Sexist

Author:Bell Hooks

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

Black Class Taken Middle Movement Oppression African American Middle Class Oppressed Black Women African American Women

Book:Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center

Source: Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center

“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.”

Littles Long Today Moving Black Struggle Feminism Mass Losing Gains Feminist Refuse African American Acknowledge Black Women Social Change African American Women

Author:Bell Hooks

“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.”

People Persons Character Black Goes On Victim African American Flats Black People Resilient

Author:Kristin Hunter

“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.”

Looks Race African American Layers American Woman African American Women Culmination

Author:Thylias Moss

“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.”

Heart Long Suffering Justice Race Compassion Failing Special Hatred Warm African American Developing American Woman African American Women Afros Long Suffering

Author:Fannie Barrier Williams

“... 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.”

Evil Social Causes Class Policy Racism Weak Injustice African American Fixed Persecution Contagious Hurtful Defenseless African American Women Social Evils

Author:Fannie Barrier Williams

“[Michael] Brown's mom, Lesley McSpadden, is the latest African American mother whose tear-streaked face forces the nation to remember the name of yet another unarmed black teenager gunned down under questionable circumstances.”

“There's no question that there's been a breach in the trust between urban - especially urban community, African-American and minority communities and the police in major American cities.”

Community Cities Majors Police African American Minorities Urban Breach American Cities

Author:Mark Shields

“Everybody knows this legend in kind of African-American lore. There's always somebody in your neighborhood named Orangejello or Lemonjello. And that's spelled - Orangejello is spelled O-R-A-N-G-E-J-E-L-L-O.”

Knows Kind African American Neighborhood Legends

Author:Jordan Peele

“Since we were renamed, and now it feels like 80 percent of the African-American population has the name Washington or Jefferson or some president or slave owner's name. And, I almost wonder is this, like, is this part of a way of taking back the principle of naming your - I might be going too far into this - but naming your kids something of your choice?”

Way Feels Might Kids Choices Names President Wonder Principles Percent Slave Population African American Owners Slave Owners

Author:Jordan Peele

“My father has passed away. He was African-American. My mother is white. So I was adopted by a couple that was of a similar dynamic as my biological parents.”

Mother Father Parent White Couple African American Adopted Passed Away

Author:Keegan-Michael Key

“I've been very lucky to have a family who has welcomed me and not been hung up on anything racial, almost overlooking the fact that there was a racial difference. But I can honestly say I do feel like I missed out on some lessons of what the African-American experience is like growing up.”

Feels I Can Facts Differences Growing Up Growing Lessons Lucky Honestly African American Hung Overlooking

Author:Jordan Peele

“What the Nazis did to the Jews in Europe, plantation owners and law enforcement [officers] were doing to the African-Americans.”

Law Europe Jew African American Owners Officers Nazi Law Enforcement Enforcement Plantations

Author:Morris Dees

“I think that we, as the African-American men in hip-hop, we have a greater responsibly because we have the ears of so many millions of our young people. And they listenin'.”

People Thinking Men Success Young Faith Millions Greater Relationship Ears Hip Hop Hips African American Hops Harvey

Author:Steve Harvey

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