Black Church Quotes:

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

source: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2012). “A Gift of Love: Sermons from Strength to Love and Other Preachings”, p.67, Beacon Press

topic: Inspirational, Life, Inspiring, Social Equality, Love And Hate

Black churches are very powerful forces in the African American community and always have been. Because religion has been that one place where you have an imagination that no one can control. And so, as long as you know that you are a human being and nobody can take that away from you, then God is that reality in your life that enables you to know that.

- James H. Cone

topic: Powerful, Reality, Long, Black Church

Nothing is more powerful than the black church experience. A good choir and a good sermon in the black church, it's pretty hard not to be move and be transported.

- Barack Obama

source: Interview with Cathleen Falsani, www.beliefnet.com. March 27, 2004.

topic: Powerful, Moving, Black, Black Church

I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

topic: Love, Faith, Peace, Belive, Peace Love

I love what the church offers to us as a culture - black people in particular. We would be nowhere without the black church.

- Oprah Winfrey

source: Source: www.aarp.org

topic: People, Black, Church, Black Church

The wonderful thing about the black church for me is that it forces you to come to terms with the centrality of love in the world.

- Cornel West

source: Source: articles.latimes.com

topic: Black, Church, World, Black Church

Returning hate for hate multiplies hate...

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

topic: Hate, Social Equality, Love And Hate, Make Peace Not War, Social Programs

Black churches minister to social needs out of necessity.

- Barack Obama

topic: Black, Church, Needs, Black Church

If the churches don't move, much of the community won't move. We've got a situation in which a black church is still a major institution in the black community where 55 percent of the black folk attend and over 75 pass through its doors.

- Cornel West

source: Source: www.pbs.org

topic: Moving, Doors, Community, Black Church

Ever since the civil rights movement, the black church has always encouraged people to utilize their voting right, which is a right that was fought for.

- Otis Moss III

topic: Rights, People, Voting, Civil Rights Movement, Black Church

I refuse to accept the view . . . that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

source: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2013). “The Essential Martin Luther King, Jr.: "I Have a Dream" and Other Great Writings”, p.116, Beacon Press

topic: Peace, Kings, Unconditional Love, Kings Speech, Daybreak

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

You know, the vibrancy of the black church, the black businesses that employ so many people, the opportunities that so many families are working to provide for their kids. There's a lot that we should be proud of and we should be supporting and lifting up.

- Hillary Clinton

source: "Clinton And Trump Clash In Tense First Presidential Debate". www.npr.org. September 26, 2016.

topic: Kids, Opportunity, People, Lifting Up, Vibrancy

The Black church is extremely important in Black America. I think most Americans themselves believe in a divine power, in a god, and I'm sure that that number increases with Black people.

- Harry Lennix

source: Source: www.pbs.org

topic: Believe, Thinking, Numbers, Black Church

The beauty of the literary art, the grappling with the black church, the wrestling with one's identity in the bosom of a complicated black community that was both bulwark to the larger white society as well as a threshing ground, so to speak, to hash out the differences that black people have among ourselves.

- Michael Eric Dyson

source: Source: www.motherjones.com

topic: Art, Wrestling, White, Hash, Literary Art

As you know, Sunday at 11 o'clock is the most segregated hour in America. You have black churches; you have white churches; you have Hispanic churches. It's not really reflective of the world we live in, by and large, in America.

- David Oyelowo

source: Source: decentfilms.com

topic: Sunday, White, America, Black Church

I know specifically me being somebody who has had most of my experiences within the black church, that's cultural... you gotta put on your church clothes when you got to church...and it's nothing wrong with that - that's absolutely fine! But I think what's happening to a new generation ,the hip hop generation, there's astigmatism, a feeling that I'm unwelcome.

- LeCrae

source: Source: thegospelguru.com

topic: Thinking, Clothes, Hip Hop, Unwelcome, Black Church

The black church will accept anybody.

- James McBride

topic: Black, Church, Accepting, Black Church

Some of the most moving experiences I've had are just in black churches in the South, during the Civil Rights Movement, where people were getting beaten, killed, really struggling for the most elementary rights.

- Noam Chomsky

source: "Noam Chomsky on Love: 'Life's Empty Without It'". Big think Interview, bigthink.com. August 18, 2009.

topic: Moving, Struggle, Rights, Civil Right Movement, Black Church

The next Republican that will win will campaign in the Latino community, will campaign amongst Asian-Americans, will campaign in the black churches, will campaign in college campuses.

- Jeb Bush

source: "Jeb Bush calls for U.S. Embassy to move from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem" By Ashley Killough, www.cnn.com. May 30, 2015.

topic: Winning, College, Community, Asian American, College Campus

I certainly think so, and I argue so, and I give talks on that. Are there risks by putting people together? Absolutely. Is there value in the black church? Absolutely. Is there value in having immigrant churches? Absolutely. But if we don't have congregations gathering with people of different races, what we're doing is we are redefining racial division, a racial inequality.

- Michael Emerson

source: Source: www.pbs.org

topic: Thinking, Race, People, Different Races, Black Church

The black church often has reinforced certain self images that are damaging to black peoples' beauty, black peoples' confidence.

- Cornel West

source: Source: articles.latimes.com

topic: Self, Black, Church, Black Church

People like Clyde McPhatter who came out of the black churches - like Sam Cooke and Aretha Franklin - were all church singers who became great pop singers because gospel singing is very close to the blues.

- Ahmet Ertegun

source: Source: www.slate.com

topic: People, Black, Singing, Sam Cooke, Black Church

The black church is dormant, much of the community is dormant. If the black church is leaning toward the right, much of the community is leaning toward the right. If it is leaning in the left wing direction having repercussions.

- Cornel West

source: Source: www.pbs.org

topic: Wings, Community, Black, Left Wing, Dormant

Becoming a junior usher at a black church was my entry into the wonder of worship.

- Isaiah Washington

source: Source: lasentinel.net

topic: Black, Church, Juniors, Black Church

There could be no more powerful argument against mixing religion and government than the success of independent African American churches in placing racial segregation and discrimination on a reluctant nation's social agenda. Would black churches have been able to take the lead in the struggle had they been dependent on funds doled out for 'faith-based initiatives' . . . ?

- Susan Jacoby

topic: Powerful, Struggle, Independent, Lead In, Racial Segregation

Sunday at 11 o'clock is the most segregated hour in America. You have black churches; you have white churches; you have Hispanic churches. It's not really reflective of the world we live in, by and large, in America.

- David Oyelowo

source: Source: www.ncregister.com

topic: Sunday, White, America, Black Church

Donald Trump has not held an event in the black community. He has not gone to a black church, as Hillary Clinton has done.

- Donna Brazile

source: "This Week" with George Stephanopoulos, abcnews.go.com. August 28, 2016.

topic: Community, Black, Church, Black Church

What's happening is that Asian and Latino and other groups without that history are more likely to end up in either black churches or white churches and then make them multiracial churches. I talk about that in the US we have two cultures.

- Michael Emerson

source: Source: www.pbs.org

topic: Two, White, Black, Multiracial, Black Church

It happens a little bit more in the West, where there's more fluid - where everybody's originally from somewhere else. So they have a little bit more permission to do it. It happens the least, at the individual level at least, in the South, because the South has very strong, you know, set up black churches and white churches and a long history of that, and so it's a bigger social cost.

- Michael Emerson

source: Source: www.pbs.org

topic: Strong, Somewhere Else, White, Black Church

The Catholic Church had strict racial attitudes and intolerance for anybody who was not Catholic. When I look at a lot of Black ministers and what went on in the Black church, I was more caught up with those who were in Cadillacs and shiny suits than I was with those who were Kingian in their style.

- Harry Belafonte

source: "Actor-activist Harry Belafonte, Part 2". "The Tavis Smiley Show" with Tavis Smiley, www.pbs.org. December 1, 2011.

topic: Attitude, Catholic, Black, Black Church

I love going to black churches, and I love some of these black preachers. The best preacher I ever saw in my life was a 93-year-old in a black church in Hamilton, Virginia. What a preacher!

- Robert Duvall

topic: Virginia, Years, Black, Hamilton, Black Church

This is what heaven's gonna be like. Not just a white church or a black church, but people.

- Mr. Wrestling

topic: White, People, Heaven, Black Church

Preaching styles and people being slain in the spirit and things like that. Now it doesn't happen in all black churches, and it happens sometimes in white churches, right? But on average they're quite a bit different.

- Michael Emerson

source: Source: www.pbs.org

topic: Average, White, People, All Black, Black Church

When Dylann Roof walked into a black church, he wanted to start a race war. We didn't let him do that because we didn't cast him as a representative of the white race. We didn't give into his narrative. We did the exact opposite. And I think that we have to be careful not to give into the apocalyptic narrative of ISIS that wants to start a war between Muslims and everybody else.

- Chuck Todd

source: Source: www.nbcnews.com

topic: War, Thinking, Race, White Race, Black Church