Black America Quotes:

Defining myself, as opposed to being defined by others, is one of the most difficult challenges I face.

- Carol Moseley Braun

topic: Freedom, Challenges, Faces, Defining Myself, Difficult Challenges

We should emphasize not Negro History, but the Negro in history. What we need is not a history of selected races or nations, but the history of the world, void of national bias, race, hate, and religious prejudice. There should be no indulgence in undue eulogy of the Negro. The case of the Negro is well taken care of when it is shown how he has far influenced the development of civilization.

- Carter G. Woodson

source: Carter G. Woodson (2008). “Negro Makers of History”, p.20, Wildside Press LLC

topic: Religious, Hate, Taken, Inspirational History, Race In America

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.

- Barack Obama

source: June Jordan, “Poem For South African Women”

topic: Inspirational, Motivational, Change, Times Have Changed, Inspirational Presidential

You're not obligated to win. You're obligated to keep trying to do the best you can every day.

- Marian Wright Edelman

topic: Success, Winning, History, Persistence Inspirational, African American Inspirational

You can't separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom.

- Malcolm X

topic: Peace, Freedom, Inspiration, Separate Peace, July 4th 1776

If we accept and acquiesce in the face of discrimination, we accept the responsibility ourselves. We should, therefore, protest openly everything ... that smacks of discrimination or slander.

- Mary McLeod Bethune

topic: Responsibility, Patriotism, Faces, Discrimination And Racism, Racism In America

The time is always right to do what is right.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

topic: Inspirational, Positive, Inspiring, Social Good, Social Service

I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has had to overcome while trying to succeed.

- Booker T. Washington

source: Booker T. Washington (1901). “An Autobiography: The Story of My Life and Work, the Original Brought Up-to-date with Over Half a Hundred Full Page Photo and Halftone Engravings and Drawings by Frank Beard”

topic: Inspirational, Life, Success, Best Success, Inspirational History

The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression.

- W. E. B. Du Bois

source: John Brown ch. 13 (1909)

topic: Inspirational, Inspiring, Freedom, Repression, Inspirational History

I learned to put my trust in God and to see Him as my strength. Long ago I set my mind to be a free person and not to give in to fear. I always felt that it was my right to defend myself if I could. I have learned over the years that when one's mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear.

- Rosa Parks

topic: Long Ago, Years, Knowing, Empowering Women, I Am Strong

It's not the load that breaks you down, it's the way you carry it.

- Lou Holtz

topic: Inspirational, Way, Break, Inspirational Football, My Attitude

If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude.

- Maya Angelou

topic: Inspirational, Motivational, Change, Make People Feel Better, Live For Yourself

we are the ones we have been waiting for

- Alice Walker

source: Alice Walker (2013). “The World Has Changed: Conversations with Alice Walker”, p.342, The New Press

topic: Confidence, Waiting, African American, Times Have Changed, Inspirational Presidential

Hate is too great a burden to bear. It injures the hater more than it injures the hated.

- Coretta Scott King

source: "Understanding Cultural Diversity in Today's Complex World". Book by Leo Parvis, p. 54, 2010.

topic: Inspirational, Inspiring, Forgiveness, Importunate, Love And Hate

We are the ones we've been waiting for.

- June Jordan

topic: Waiting, Times Have Changed, Inspirational Change, Inspirational Presidential, Time And Change

Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.

- Harriet Tubman

topic: Inspirational, Life, Motivational, Impossible Dream, Inspirational Dream

Never be limited by other people's limited imaginations. If you adopt their attitudes, then the possibility won't exist because you'll have already shut it out...You can hear other people's wisdom, but you've got to re-evaluate the world for yourself.

- Mae Jemison

topic: Attitude, People, Imagination, Business Growth, African American History

In this country American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate.

- Toni Morrison

topic: Inspirational, Country, Mean, White Racism, Racism In America

I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person. There was such a glory over everything. The sun came up like gold through the trees, and I felt like I was in heaven.

- Harriet Tubman

source: "Harriet, The Moses of Her People". Book by Sarah H. Bradford, 1886.

topic: Freedom, Hands, Heaven, African American History, African American History Month

If violence is wrong in America, violence is wrong abroad. If it is wrong to be violent defending black women and black children and black babies and black men, then it is wrong for America to draft us, and make us violent abroad in defense of her. And if it is right for America to draft us, and teach us how to be violent in defense of her, then it is right for you and me to do whatever is necessary to defend our own people right here in this country.

- Malcolm X

topic: Country, Baby, Children, Black People, Defending America

Black people have always been America's wilderness in search of a promised land.

- Cornel West

source: Cornel West (2000). “Race Matters”, p.16, Beacon Press

topic: Inspirational, America, Land, Black People, African American History

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise. I rise. I rise.

- Maya Angelou

topic: Inspirational, Dream, Slave, Inspirational History, Daybreak

When black America is on the move, America is on the move.

- Cornel West

source: Source: www.pbs.org

topic: Moving, America, Black, Black America

If you really think back to the culture or just black America before rap music took off, New York could have been Paris.

- Ice Cube

topic: New York, Rap, Thinking, Black America

Black America knows better than anyone else the high price children pay for the sexual agendas of adults.

- Maggie Gallagher

topic: Children, America, Black, Black America, High Prices

Obama was elected in a flourish of promise that many in the African-American community believed would help not only to symbolize African-American progress since the Civil War and Civil Rights Acts but that his presidency would result in doors opening in the halls of power as had never been seen before by black America.

- Douglas Wilder

source: "Obama or Clinton better for blacks?" by Douglas Wilder, www.politico.com. December 12, 2011.

topic: War, Rights, Doors, Civil Rights Act, Black America

For black America needs a politics whose first mission isn't the reinforcement of the idea of black America; and a discourse of race that isn't centrally concerned with preserving the idea of race and racial unanimity. We need something we don't yet have: a way of speaking about black poverty that doesn't falsify the reality of black advancement; a way of speaking about black advancement that doesn't distort the enduring realities of black poverty.

- Henry Louis Gates

topic: Reality, Race, Ideas, Black America, Unanimity

When is black America going to forgive white America for slavery?

- Mark Steyn

topic: White, America, Black, Black America

The question of religion in black America is something filmmakers don't want to touch.

- James McBride

topic: America, Black, Want, Black America

In black America there's such a thing as passing, the black people who are light skinned and they will pass for white.

- Juan Williams

source: Source: www.foxnews.com

topic: Light, White, America, Black America

Liberalism Has Nearly Destroyed Black America, And Now It’s Time For Black America To Return The Favor.

- Elbert Guillory

source: "State Senator Who Slammed ‘Government Plantation’ in Moving Video Is Back — And You’ll Want to Hear About His New Role". Video Statement, www.theblaze.com. August 6, 2013.

topic: America, Black, Favors, Black America

I believe if we make black America better, we make all of America better.

- Tavis Smiley

topic: Believe, America, Black, Black America

It is not the destiny of Black America to repeat white America's mistakes. But we will, if we mistake the trappings of success in a sick society for the signs of a meaningful life.

- Audre Lorde

topic: Meaningful, Mistake, Destiny, Black America, Sick Society

I try to speak my points of view about black America, and how I feel about black men and the role that black men should play in their lives with their children and in their lives with their women.

- Will Smith

source: "Will Smith on Playing Muhammed Ali". abcnews.go.com. December 13.

topic: Children, Men, Views, Black America

Jeremiah Wright is one of the greatest prophetic preachers that black America has produced. What I find striking is that many white brothers and sisters miss the fact that there would be no black church if the white church wasn't political and racist in refusing to worship with us.

- Michael Eric Dyson

source: "Professor checks out new landscape 'after King'". Interview with Arienne Thompson, www.usatoday.com. April 3, 2008.

topic: Brother, White, America, Jeremiah, Black America

There is not a liberal America and a conservative America - there is the United States of America. There is not a black America and a white America and latino America and asian America - there's the United States of America.

- Barack Obama

topic: Powerful, Patriotic, White, Land Of The Free, American Citizens

Body and soul, Black America reveals the extreme questions of contemporary life, questions of freedom and identity: How can I be who I am?

- June Jordan

source: 1969 'Black Studies: Bringing Back the Person', in the Evergreen Review, Oct.

topic: America, Who I Am, Soul, Contemporary Life, Black America

Where is the raised voice of black America? Why are we mute?

- Harry Belafonte

source: "Harry Belafonte in guns plea: 'Where is the raised voice of black America?'" by Paul Harris, www.theguardian.com. February 2, 2013.

topic: Voice, America, Black, Black America

Let us build bridges, my friends, build bridges to human dignity across that gulf that separates black America from white America.

- Richard M. Nixon

topic: Bridges, White, America, Personal Dignity, Black America

There's a class divide in black America that doesn't seem to trouble black Americans so much, but whites use it and exploit it. The progress of a few is allowed to stand for the progress of everyone. We can't afford that kind of disaffection at the moment.

- Darryl Pinckney

source: Source: www.guernicamag.com

topic: Class, America, Black, Black America

I think that the Vietnam War era is important because we tend not to want to revisit it. For black people, there was the temptation of disaffection. People looked for alternative ways to express themselves personally and politically, people doubted the system, and there was the terrible kind of division in black America between a radical leadership and a much older, compromising leadership.

- Darryl Pinckney

source: Source: www.guernicamag.com

topic: War, Thinking, America, Black America

Just as important I believe, is Black America can look back at the show and say, "Wow, I think I now understand why a lot of white people were appalled at the acquittal of O.J. Simpson."

- Sterling K. Brown

topic: Believe, Thinking, White, Acquittal, Black America

I think, something that you might be able to locate in the work that I'm creating today: the ability to look at a black America as something that not only can be mined in a very sort of cynical, cold way, but also embraced in a very personal, love-driven way; but also sort of critiqued.

- Kehinde Wiley

topic: Thinking, Creating, America, Black America, Personal Love

In the era of slavery, you could be a so-called Afro-Cuban one day and a so-called Black American the next day, or vice versa. I mean there was all this back and forth, and there was a lot of opposition in Black America to slavery in Cuba in particular, because slavery in Cuba lasted until the 1880s.

- Gerald Horne

source: Source: politicalaffairs.net

topic: Mean, Next Day, America, Black America

I always want to read something about our people's enslavement near the 4th. To keep it light, I also read Rolanda Watts' "Destiny Lingers" She is a sisterfriend and I ran into her at Essence. Then, I finished Paul Taylor's "The Next America." Taylor is the Executive VP at the Pew Research Center, and he uses their excellent data base to talk about the coming "generational showdown" which we are experiencing, at some level, in Black America.

- Julianne Malveaux

source: Source: www.theskanner.com

topic: Destiny, Light, Essence, Black America, Showdowns

I think that Malcolm X was the most remarkable historical figure produced by Black America in the 20th century.

- Manning Marable

source: Source: historynewsnetwork.org

topic: Thinking, America, Historical, Black America, Historical Figure

About the state of black America, I've been working on that for many, many years. And [Donald Trump] said certain things in his early days about wanting to do something about it. We have a lot of violence in our neighborhoods now. We need education. And we need jobs. Is what I'm trying to say.

- Jim Brown

source: Source: www.realclearpolitics.com

topic: Jobs, America, Years, Black America