African American Quotes - Page 4

I'd like to see marriage count again among African-Americans and not just in the society in general.

We all do 'do, re, mi,' but you have got to find the other notes yourself.

You were put here to protect us. But who protects us from you?

This feeling African-Americans have, this skepticism towards the police and the skepticism that the police show towards African-Americans is actually quite old. And it may be one of the most durable aspects of the relationship between black people and their country really in our history.

Since the nation's founding, African Americans repeatedly have been controlled through institutions such as slavery and Jim Crow, which appear to die, but then are reborn in new form, tailored to the needs and constraints of the time.

We all too often have socialism for the rich and rugged free market capitalism for the poor.

None of us is responsible for the complexion of his skin. This fact of nature offers no clue to the character or quality of the person underneath.

I taught them everything they know, but not everything I know.

In every crisis there is a message.

Don't play what's there, play what's not there.

It's a great thing about being a musician; you don't stop until the day you die, you can improve. So it's a wonderful thing to do.

Like snowflakes, the human pattern is never cast twice. We are uncommonly and marvelously intricate in thought and action, our problems are most complex and, too often, silently borne.

Be the buffalo. Wilma Mankiller, the first female principal chief of the Cherokee nation, once told me how the cow runs away from the storm while the buffalo charges directly toward it—and gets through it quicker. Whenever I'm confronted with a tough challenge, I do not prolong the torment. I become the buffalo.

You don't decide you're hip. It just happens that way.

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.

I'm African American / I'm African / I'm black as the moon.

I knew that I lived in a country in which the aspirations of black people were limited, marked-off. Yet I felt that I had to go somewhere and do something to redeem my being alive.

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

Don't let anyone rob you of hope.

Remember that everyone's life is measured by the power that individual has to make the world better-this is all life is.

No matter how far a person can go the horizon is still way beyond you.

History is the land-mark by which we are directed into the true course of life.

Men who are in earnest are not afraid of consequences.

Question everything. Every stripe, every star, every word spoken. Everything.

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