African American famous quotes

Mix a conviction with a man and...
-- Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.

#Men #African American #Conviction

I did a little bit to raise the dignity and recognition of the greatness of African-American music.
-- Ahmet Ertegun

#Greatness #African American #Littles

Really, the potential for, first of all, any college graduate today is enormously good. These are good times for anyone with a college degree today, particularly African Americans. With a college degree today, you really breach the unemployment rate.
-- Alexis Herman

#Graduation #College #African American

we are the ones we have been waiting for
-- Alice Walker

#Confidence #Waiting #African American

As you know, in this country Anglo-Americans are about 75 to 76 percent home ownership in this country, where Hispanics, African Americans are less than 50 percent.
-- Alphonso Jackson

#Country #Home #African American

African-Americans who might have disagreed with candidate Obama's left-of-center politics voted for him in 2008 because electing a candidate with brown skin was too historic an opportunity to miss.
-- Alveda King

#Opportunity #Missing #African American

The Tea Party is protecting its millionaire and oil company friends while gutting critical services that they know protect the livelihood of African-Americans, as well as Latinos and other disadvantaged minorities,
-- Andre Carson

#Party #Oil #African American

It is a blessing to die for a cause, because you can so easily die for nothing.
-- Andrew Young

#Blessing #African American #Causes

We have to talk about liberating minds as well as liberating society.
-- Angela Davis

#Inspiring #African American #Mind

But at the same time you can't...
-- Angela Davis

#African American

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

#Words Of Wisdom #African American #Existence

I think, though, as African-American women, we are always trained to value our community even at the expense of ourselves, and so we attempt to protect the African-American community.
-- Anita Hill

#Thinking #Community #African American

The cause of freedom is not the...
-- Anna Julia Cooper

#African American #Causes

Most African Americans, especially the men and women from my generation, would accept the nationalist gambit that says only European Americans can be racists, which is an interesting gambit.
-- Anthony Braxton

#Men #Interesting #African American

I know I’m an African-American, and I know I play the saxophone, but I’m not a jazz musician. I’m not a classical musician, either. My music is like my life: It’s in between these areas.
-- Anthony Braxton

#Play #African American #Musician

I am consumed with the fear of...
-- Arsenio Hall

#African American

Clothes and manners do not make the...
-- Arthur Ashe

#Clothes #African American #Manners

With respect to Barack Obama, let's face it; Barack Obama is an iconic figure in the African-American community. We respect that. We understand that. African-Americans are going to vote for the first black president, especially when he happens to share the liberal politics on economic issues that many in that community hold.
-- Artur Davis

#Issues #Community #African American

A good compromise, a good piece of...
-- Barbara Jordan

#African American #Pieces #Compromise

I am a regular young man surrounded...
-- Barrington Irving

#Men #African American #Young

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.
-- Bebe Moore Campbell

#Thinking #Racism #African American

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.
-- Bell Hooks

#School #Knowing #African American

Indians were here first - it's about time. We're way behind the African Americans and Hispanic Americans in getting politically involved, but we're beginning to take a page out of their notebook.
-- Ben Nighthorse Campbell

#Notebook #African American #Pages

I mean it used to be, there was a time … when lynchings of African Americans were not that incredibly rare. Now the lynchings are the police and it's just an outrage.
-- Ben Stein

#Mean #Lynching #African American

Presumption should never make us neglect that which appears easy to us, nor despair make us lose courage at the sight of difficulties.
-- Benjamin Banneker

#Sight #African American #Challenges

The first job I had with the Smithsonian was as a field researcher among African American communities in Southwest Louisiana and Arkansas for the festival.
-- Bernice Johnson Reagon

#Jobs #Community #African American

The good news is that the American people, not just the African-American community are saying enough is enough. You can`t hold people in custody and suddenly find out that they are dead. You can`t shoot people in the back.
-- Bernie Sanders

#People #Community #African American

A word to the wise ain't...
-- Bill Cosby

#Wise #African American #Wise Words

I'm so tired of the left trying to divide us by race. One of the things I said today in my speech, we're not Indian-Americans, African-Americans, Irish-Americans, rich Americans, poor Americans. We're all Americans.
-- Bobby Jindal

#Tired #Race #African American

Seriously though, my father was the first African American to sign a contract with the Metropolitan Opera so I grew up with classical music and jazz in the home all the time.
-- Bobby McFerrin

#Father #Home #African American

Great men cultivate love...only little men cherish a spirit of hatred
-- Booker T. Washington

#Men #Hatred #African American

First of all, Bolshevism represents...
-- C. L. R. James

#African American #Firsts

Considering the popularity of soaps with the African-American audience, it's grotesque that the entertainment industry, for all its vaunted liberalism, is lagging so far behind social changes in the United States. And why has there never been an all-black daytime network soap? It would probably blow the white soaps off the map.
-- Camille Paglia

#Blow #White #African American

I would love to get a role that changes the landscape of being an African American woman in television and film.
-- Candice Patton

#African American #Roles #Television

We have a wonderful history behind us. ... If you are unable to demonstrate to the world that you have this record, the world will say to you, 'You are not worthy to enjoy the blessings of democracy or anything else'.
-- Carter G. Woodson

#Blessing #History #African American

If a race has no history, if it has no worthwhile tradition, it becomes a negligible factor in the thought of the world, and it stands in danger of being exterminated.
-- Carter G. Woodson

#Race #History #African American

And thus goes segregation which is the most far-reaching development in the history of the Negro since the enslavement of the race.
-- Carter G. Woodson

#Race #History #African American

Being black, I'm involved in the reparations movement. It's focused toward the African-American audience. We could begin to heal.
-- Cassandra Wilson

#African American #Black #Movement

Without Social Security, poverty rates for African American seniors would more than double.
-- Chaka Fattah

#Senior #African American #Poverty

Currently, more than 4.7 million African Americans receive Social Security benefits, and nearly 8 million people with disabilities depend on Social Security for their daily sustenance.
-- Chaka Fattah

#People #African American #Benefits

Mostly I'm proud to be an African-American woman, but I'm glad I have a universal look as well.
-- Chanel Iman

#African American #Proud #Looks

The Klan had used fear, intimidation and murder to brutally oppress over African-Americans who sought justice and equality and it sought to respond to the young workers of the civil rights movement in Mississippi in the same way.
-- Charles Rangel

#Rights #Justice #African American

The challenges African-Americans are facing today are rooted in the system of slavery.
-- Charles Rangel

#African American #Challenges #Slavery

As busy as I am wherever I am, I...
-- Chris Gardner

#African American #Busy

You can't look forward and backward...
-- Coleman Young

#African American #Looks

Colored, Negro, Afro-American, African American. ... Every couple of years someone came up with something that got us an inch closer to the truth. Bit by bit we crept along. As if that thing we believed to be approaching actually existed.
-- Colson Whitehead

#Couple #Years #African American

We African Americans have now spent the major part of the 20th Century battling racism
-- Constance Baker Motley

#Racism #African American #Century

Hate is too great a burden to bear....
-- Coretta Scott King

#Hate #African American #Bears

African Americans have always known that a little bit of paranoia was healthy for us.
-- Cynthia McKinney

#African American #Healthy #Littles

Since 1957, black people have experienced double-digit unemployment - in good times and bad times. Look at the population of African Americans in prison. They represent more than half the population of prisoners in the country, 55 percent of those on death row
-- Danny Glover

#Country #People #African American

I tell people I'm too stupid to...
-- Debi Thomas

#Stupid #People #African American

I go out with white women. This...
-- Dennis Rodman

#White #African American

That’s one problem I have. Jews when they get successful they will help their people and some of the African-Americans — maybe I’ll get in trouble again — they don’t want to help anybody,
-- Donald Sterling

#Successful #People #African American

Since Bush has been in office, African-American women have fallen behind in terms of income and wages.
-- Donna Brazile

#Office #African American #Income

During the 2008 campaign, I strongly endorsed Barack Obama for president. I did so early, when many Democratic leaders - including many prominent African-American politicians - believed the safe bet was to back then-front-runner Hillary Clinton.
-- Douglas Wilder

#Leader #African American #President

The highest percentage of African Americans own their own homes today than ever in our nation's history.
-- Ed Gillespie

#Home #African American #Today

Theres this little box that African-American actors have to work in, in the first place, and I was able to rise above that box. I could have done a bunch of movies where I stayed as the Axel Foley or Reggie Hammond persona. But I didnt want to be doing the same thing all the time. Every now and then, you crash and burn, but thats part of it.
-- Eddie Murphy

#African American #Actors #Done

There is no way that we know what is going on between the African American and the Asian American. We don't understand what an Indigenous American is. We don't understand what a Latino American is
-- Edward James Olmos

#African American #Asian #Way

History could pass for a scarlet text, its jot and title graven red in human blood.
-- Eldridge Cleaver

#Blood #History #African American

African-American women account for 67 percent of all newly diagnosed female AIDS cases.
-- Elijah Cummings

#African American #Female #Aids

It is my hope that as we commemorate Black History Month in the future, we will continue to celebrate the many achievements and rich culture of African-Americans.
-- Eliot Engel

#Achievement #Black History #African American

One of the things that has to be faced is the process of waiting to change the system, how much we have got to do to find out who we are, where we have come from and where we are going.
-- Ella Baker

#History #Waiting #African American

Question everything. Every stripe, every star, every word spoken. Everything.
-- Ernest Gaines

#Stars #African American #Stripes

There will always be men struggling...
-- Ernest Gaines

#Struggle #Men #African American

[According to Twitter] 24 percent of American Twitter users are African-American. That's about twice as high as African-Americans are represented in the population.
-- Ethan Zuckerman

#Technology #African American #Population

I want to be promoted in the urban areas. A lot of African-American people should know more about me.
-- Floyd Mayweather, Jr.

#People #African American #Want

African-American women who develop breast cancer are more likely to die from the disease than White women of the same age. Survival rates are worse among African-Americans for colon, prostate and ovarian cancers as well.
-- Frank C. Garland

#Cancer #White #African American

Hollywood needs to recognise all shades of African American beauty.
-- Gabrielle Union

#Beauty #African American #Hollywood

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 #African American

No individual has any right to come into the world and go out of it without leaving behind him distinct and legitimate reasons for having passed through it.
-- George Washington Carver

#Educational #Leaving #African American

How far you go in life depends on...
-- George Washington Carver

#African American

For starters, Portland isn't a great city to live in if you're a young, African American male with a lot of money,
-- Greg Oden

#Cities #African American #Portland

I was filled with rage. These same people who accuse Planned Parenthood of ‘targeting’ African-American children, they care about you only while you’re in the womb. The minute you crown, you’re on your own.
-- Gwen Moore

#Children #People #African American

Be careful what you swallow. Chew!
-- Gwendolyn Brooks

#Words Of Wisdom #African American #Be Careful

A purely materialistic art would be...
-- Haile Selassie

#Art #African American #Would Be

I never doubted my ability, but...
-- Hank Aaron

#African American #Ability #Doubted

When I was born, I was colored. I soon became a Negro. Not long after that I was black. Most recently I was African-American. It seems we're on a roll here. But I am still first and foremost in search of freedom.
-- Harry Belafonte

#Long #African American #Black

It's been obvious that [Republicans]'re doing everything they can to make [Obama] fail. And I hope, I hope - and I say this seriously - I hope that's based on substance and not the fact that he's African-American.
-- Harry Reid

#African American #Substance #Facts

While we dance in the streets and pat ourselves on the back for being a nation great enough to reach beyond racial divides to elect our first African-American president, let us not forget that we remain a nation still proudly practicing prejudice.
-- Harvey Fierstein

#African American #President #Firsts

I have always respected everyone's...
-- Hazel Scott

#African American

I rebel at the notion that I can't be part of other groups, that I can't construct identities through elective affinity, that race must be the most important thing about me. Is that what I want on my gravestone: Here lies an African American?
-- Henry Louis Gates

#Lying #Race #African American

My father and I made genetics history. We were the first African-Americans and the first father and son anywhere to have their genomes sequenced.
-- Henry Louis Gates

#Father #Son #African American

The bottom line is that Wanda Sykes has the longest continuously documented family tree of any African-American we have ever researched.
-- Henry Louis Gates

#Tree #African American #Lines

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.
-- Herbie Hancock

#Mean #People #African American

Nice Site! http://google.com
-- Horace Grant

#Nice #African American #Google

I actually spoke in an African-American church yesterday.
-- Howard Dean

#Yesterday #African American #Church

There must always be a remedy for wrong and injustice if we only know how to find it.
-- Ida B. Wells

#African American #Injustice #Remedy

The treatment of African and African American culture in our education was no different from their treatment in Tarzan movies.
-- Ishmael Reed

#Education #Race #African American

I guess probably in my time in politics, it continued to be affirmed to me that the African-American community, despite being subscription television's most valuable customers, they are very underserved by cable and satellite television programming options.
-- J. C. Watts

#Community #African American #Television

Like any group that has endured much, African Americans have created a strong and mutually reinforcing sense of group identity. That's not a bad thing in and of itself.
-- J. C. Watts

#Strong #African American #Identity

There's a whole lot more to the African-American community than entertainment and sports.
-- J. C. Watts

#Sports #Community #African American

There really has not been a strong Republican message to either the poor or the African American community at large.
-- Jack Kemp

#Strong #Community #African American

There's not an American in this country free until every one of us is free.
-- Jackie Robinson

#Country #African American

I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also, much more than that. So are we all.
-- James A. Baldwin

#African American #Philanthropy #Made

To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.
-- James A. Baldwin

#Country #African American #Literature

I'm not going to be joining ZZ Top. You know they can't play my stuff. It's too complicated.
-- James Brown

#Play #African American #Joining

Once you begin to explain or excuse...
-- James Earl Jones

#African American #Excuse

People identify with me - everyone does - African American women, Caucasian women, they all identify with me because I'm ethnic.
-- Janice Dickinson

#People #African American #Doe

Sen. Joe Biden, on the day of announcing his candidacy for president of the United States, called Barack Obama the first mainstream African-American who is articulate, bright, and . . . clean. I think we've seen the shortest presidential campaign in history.
-- Jay Leno

#Thinking #Presidential #African American

With domestic adoption, you get a form, you fill it out, and there are these boxes: African-American, African-American and Hispanic, and you check the boxes that you're comfortable with. Race is completely open in that regard.
-- Jennifer Gilmore

#Race #Adoption #African American