Popular quotes about Black! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 20
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 MosbyThere are more than 100 million African women who go topless at some point in the day, each and every day, to honor both God and our ancestors. So being in a country like America where nothing is hated more than the image of the black woman, even by black people'because her womb produces the black man and makes us black'I find it of grave importance to implement African images, and especially to produce media images that acknowledge the sexual power and fertility of black women.
Kola BoofYou can't have anything valuable in your house. Niggers will break in and take it all! Everything white people don't like about black people, black people don't like about black people. It's like our own personal civil war. On one side, there's black people. On the other, you've got niggers. The niggers have got to go. I love black people, but I hate niggers. I am tired of niggers. Tired, tired, tired.
Chris RockBlack writers, of whatever quality, who step outside the pale of what black writers are supposed to write about, or who black writers are supposed to be, are condemned to silences in black literary circles that are as total and as destructive as any imposed by racism.
Audre LordeWhen you go to a church and you see the pastor of that church with a philosophy and a program that's designed to bring black people together and elevate black people, join that church. Join that church. If you see where the NAACP is preaching and practicing that which is designed to make black nationalism materialize, join the NAACP. Join any kind of organization, civic, religious, fraternal, political, or otherwise that's based on lifting the black man up and making him master of his own community.
Malcolm XI was always the only black in the movie theater, the only black in class, the only black in the library, the only black in the discotheque. I always felt observed and judged.
Concha BuikaSo, to say Obama is progress is saying that heโs the first black person that is qualified to be president. Thatโs not black progress. Thatโs white progress. Thereโs been black people qualified to be president for hundreds of years. The question is, you know, my kids are smart, educated, beautiful, polite children. There have been smart, educated, beautiful, polite black children for hundreds of years. The advantage that my children have is that my children are encountering the nicest white people that America has ever produced. Letโs hope America keeps producing nicer white people.
Chris RockMen who are proud of being black marry black women; women who are proud of being black marry black men.
Malcolm X...black women write differently from white women. This is the most marked difference of all those combinations of black and white, male and female. It's not so much that women write differently from men, but that black women write differently from white women. Black men don't write very differently from white men.
Toni MorrisonThe Circle Theatre, black people had to sit in the balcony. Any theater with a balcony, black people had to sit up there. Black people couldn't check into any hotel except their own. And black people couldn't eat anywhere except in their own restaurants.
Kurt VonnegutWhen I was in Mecca I noticed that their, they had no color problem. That they had people there whose eyes were blue and people there whose eyes were black, people whose skin was white, people whose skin was black, people whose hair was blond, people whose hair was black, from the whitest white person to the blackest black person.
Malcolm XYou don't pick black actors or black directors because they are black. You pick them because they are good. If you lend somebody 50 million dollars you want you're money back. You don't care if they are oppressed. You just want you're money back.
Denzel WashingtonMy dad, who was creative director in the '60s, always wore black jeans with black desert boots; he thought he was cool. He told me to buy a pair as well. I didn't like black, so I got the sand color, and I've been wearing them since college.
Andy SpadeSee?" Fezzik pointed then. Far down, at the very bottom of the mountain path, the man in black could be seen running. "Inigo is beaten." Inconceivable!" exploded the Sicilian. Fezzik never dared disagree with the hunchback. "I'm so stupid," Fezzik nodded. "Inigo has not lost to the man in black, he has defeated him. And to prove it he has put on all the man in black's clothes and masks and hoods and boots and gained eighty pounds.
William GoldmanThe true story is that black people need to tell their history. Very few films are made by black people about slavery. That itself is a crime because slavery is a very important historical event that has held our people hostage. Forget white people's role in it. In the end what's important is black people remain and live with the scars and psychological issues.
Haile GerimaWhite people's fear of Black people with guns will never cease to amaze me. Probably it's because they think about what they would do were they in our place. Especially the police, who have done so much dirt to Black people - their guilty conscience tells them to be afraid. When Black people seriously organize and take up arms to fight for our liberation, there will be a lot of white people who will drop dead from no other reason than their own guilt and fear.
Assata ShakurI was wearing black clothes almost from the beginning. I feel comfortable in black. I felt like black looked good onstage, that it was attractive, so I started wearing it all the time.
Johnny CashThe black masses want not to be shrunk from as though they are plague-ridden. They want not to be walled up in slums, in the ghettos, like animals. They want to live in an open, free society where they can walk with their heads up, like men, and women! Few white people realize that many black people today dislike and avoid spending more time than they must about white people. This 'integration' image, as it is popularly interpreted, has millions of vain, self-exalted white people convinced that black people want to sleep in bed with them - and that's a lie!
Malcolm XBeing gay is harder than being black. I didn't have to come out black. I didn't have to tell my parents about what its like to be black.
Wanda SykesThe black man in North America was economically sick and that was evident in one simple fact: as a consumer, he got less than his share, and as a producer gave least. The black American today shows us the perfect parasite image - the black tick under the delusion that he is progressing because he rides on the udder of the fat, three-stomached cow that is white America.
Malcolm XLet's start with the black glove. We felt it necessary being the fact that the Olympic Games, for the first time ever [in 1968], had been televised worldwide. The second thing is the fact that it was in Technicolor. Never had the games been shown in color before.We wanted it to be understood that we were representing America, but we were representing Black America in particular, so that's why we put the black glove on.
John CarlosSanta Claus was white and everything bad was black. The little ugly duckling was the black duck, and the black cat was the bad luck. And if I threaten you, I'm going to blackmail you.I said, 'Momma, why don't they call it 'whitemail'? They lie too.'
Muhammad AliFeminism as a theoretical enterprise is approached differently by Black women depending on where we are. There are more reformist Black women who tend to use the phrase "Black feminism".
Bell HooksPart of what I am dealing with, with this blackness, is asking the question, "Where are those black people, who are as dark as the description of a young black boy that Solomon Northup gives in 12 Years A Slave?" He describes the young black 14-year-old boy as "blacker than any crow." You have to question if he is using that metaphorically or as a descriptive?
Kerry James MarshallThe media love to cover black people on the front page. After all, when you live in a society that will lock up about 30 percent of all black men at some time in their lives and send more of them to prison than to college, chances are a fair number of those black faces will end up in the newspaper.
Michael MooreThere are black men who are madly in love with white women. God bless them, if that's what works for them. I just hope that we can strike a balance that portrays black folks and the black family in a light that's not extreme. Those are the types of characters that I find myself attracted to.
Nia LongCertainly I feel like I'm the tip of the arrow at times because certainly the national media wants to talk about the fact that I'm a black Republican and some people think of that as zany that a black person would be a conservative but to me what is zany is any person black, white, red, brown or yellow not being a conservative.
Tim ScottThere were class differences among black people then and there are class differences among black people now. There is still an assumption among many people in American society that being black is its own class, a blanket class. That, I believe, is an erroneous and deeply offensive view.
Ayana MathisWeโve gone through the namesโNegro, African American, African, Black. For me thatโs an indication of a people still trying to find their identity. Who determines what is black?
Spike LeeHow I grew to believe Black hair has power, genius, and magic in it, defying gravity and limitation. I mean, look at how marvelous it is: Black hair grows up and out.
Michaela Angela DavisAs a young black boy, it made me proud to see black leaders that did something amazing and made the world change.
John LegendIt seems that our politicians see the world in black and white, so why not our artists? Did Woody Allen's 'Manhattan' have to be in black and white? No. But is it fantastic that it was? To see New York like that? Yes!
Alexander PayneVirginia Mayo had kind of a small role in The Best Years of Our Lives, but you got the whole character in one scene. Where are those parts? I was talking to somebody about great actors: Morgan Freeman's name came up, Forest Whitaker, Denzel Washington. And I realized, there're no black actresses. Where's there a black actress who's been extremely successful in the past 10 years?
Laura DernPeople look at black pride in America and sport's impact on it. In the major cities it took off the first time Jackie Robinson stole home. In the deep South, it started with Eddie Robinson, who took a small college in northern Louisiana with little or no funds and sent the first black to the pros and made everyone look at him and Grambling.
Jerry IzenbergLet's say black, the whole black religious experience, here, is very impressive to me, because when I first arrived I realized that people carry their faith with so much pride.
Boris KodjoeThey oughtta change Black History Month to Black Progress Month and start measuring it.
Rush LimbaughUp until the middle to late '60s, it was a choice to film in black-and-white or color. But then television became so vital to a film's finance, and television won't show black-and-white. So that killed it off, really.
John BoormanI have 90 percent or 95 percent support in the African American community and it's not sort of "Well, he's black, so it's okay. We're not going to say anything even though we're seething." And I hang out with a lot of middle-aged black women, and they're not casual in their support of me. There's a lot of love forthcoming. Partly because they understand the constraints of this society. They know that this is hard.
Barack ObamaShe was wearing a purple T-shirt, with a skinny black dress over it that made you remember how much of a girl she was, and trashed black boots that made you forget.
Kami GarciaDo you realize that if you fall into a black hole, you will see the entire future of the Universe unfold in front of you in a matter of moments and you will emerge into another space-time created by the singularity of the black hole you just fell into?
Neil deGrasse TysonThe emphasis on personal responsibility is something we've had in black America from the get-go. Every major leader and intellectual worth her salt has advocated for black folk to better ourselves and push ourselves to the limits of our abilities and gifts. At the same time, we've got to focus on creating a society that recognizes our worth, regardless of race and other factors.
Michael Eric DysonNow, the black man here was so-called free by [Abe] Lincoln 100 years ago. The black man in America has an - has a purchasing power of 20 billion dollars. Now, and he's educated.
Malcolm XWe have deluded ourselves into believing the myth that capitalism grew and prospered out of the Protestant ethic of hard work and sacrifices. Capitalism was built on the exploitation of black slaves and continues to thrive on the exploitation of the poor, both black and white, both here and abroad.
Martin Luther King, Jr.There's no Chanel collection without black. (It) will never exist. Who can live without some black clothes.
Karl LagerfeldBill [Clinton] is every bit as black as Barack. He's probably gone with more black women than Barack.
Andrew YoungHope is what sits by the window and waits for one more dawn, despite the fact that there isn't an ounce of proof in tonight's black, black sky that it can possible come.
Joan D. Chittister...to look at the stars always makes me dream, as simply as I dream over the black dots of a map representing towns and villages. Why, I ask myself, should the shining dots of the sky not be as accessible as the black dots on the map of France?
Vincent Van GoghFor instance, if you're a black guy and you got pulled over, and you didn't know that any other black men were being pulled over, you would constantly in the back of your head be thinking, "What did I do?" rather than, "I didn't do anything, these are just the conditions I live under."
Claudia Rankine