African American Quotes - Page 3

We must go beyond textbooks, go out into the bypaths and untrodden depths of the wilderness and travel and explore and tell the world the glories of our journey.

When you hear music, after it's over, it's gone, in the air. You can never capture it again.

It's not what you achieve in life, but who you become as a person due to those achievements.

Black literature is taught as sociology, as tolerance, not as a serious, rigorous art form.

I am not ashamed of my grandparents for having been slaves. I am only ashamed of myself for having at one time being ashamed.

I am the dream and the hope of the slave

Black women have been cultured to compare not connect.

A violinist had a violin, a painter his palette. All I had was myself. I was the instrument that I must care for.

According to the American Heart Association, the prevalence of hypertension in African Americans in the United States is among the highest in the world.

Our mistreatment was just not right, and I was tired of it.

I suggest that Black feminist thought consists of specialised knowledge created by African-American women which clarifies a standpoint of and for Black women. In other words, Black feminist thought encompasses theoretical interpretations of Black women's reality by those who live it.

I am convinced that the Black man will only reach his full potential when he learns to draw upon the strengths and insights of the Black woman.

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

Anger and humor are like the left and right arm. They complement each other. Anger empowers the poor to declare their uncompromising opposition to oppression, and humor prevents them from being consumed by their fury.

The lives of most men are patchwork quilts. Or at best one matching outfit with a closet and laundry bag full of incongruous accumulations. A lifetime of training for just ten seconds.

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

You have to be taught to be second class; you're not born that way.

Catch Fire, Do Something, Get Excited by Finding Your Purpose In Life.

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.

I respect myself and insist upon it from everybody. And because I do it, I then respect everybody, too.

I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person.

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.

Being alive and being a woman is all I got, but being colored is a metaphysical dilemma I haven't conquered yet.

The South has not always been the friendliest place for African-Americans.

When the storm has passed, put your energy into rebuilding your life, don't waste time looking back.