Best 199 quotes in «black history quotes» category

An artist must be free to choose what he does, certainly, but he must also never be afraid to do what he might choose.

Anger, used, does not destroy. Hatred does.

Ancient Egypt was a Negro Civilization. The history of Black Africa will remain suspended in air and cannot be written correctly until African historians dare to connect it with the history of Egypt.

A woman needs someone she can trust, someone who laughs when she laughs, but who has different ideas so she can learn from and teach to them. She needs someone who will stand up with her and encourage her to be a woman-not just a female. See where you are, admit what you know, and what you need, and search for a sister friend.

As we celebrate Black History Month we should be grateful for the achievements they made and inspired by their legacies to continue their work.

Black History Month must be more than just a month of remembrance; it should be a tribute to our history and reminder of the work that lies in the months and years ahead.

Black History Month is a great celebration for Black people everywhere. I just hope we get to the point as Black people that we celebrate everyday like it is Black History month by living our lives and aspiring to be all we can. Many people lost their lives for us to have the privileges we have so we need to honor them by striving to be the best we can be.

Black History Month is in the shortest month of the year, and the coldest-just in case we want to have a parade

Black History Month should be celebrated everyday. It's a month that's kind of sad to me, because I am reminded of the struggles that people before us had to go through for us to be able to live comfortably today.

Go to work! Go to work in the morn of a new creation... until you have... reached the height of self-progress, and from that pinnacle bestow upon the world a civilization of your own.

But George Lucas is carrying about Black actors, about Black men, about Black history, which really incorporates and tells all of history. You can't take one race out without eliminating every other race if you're going to tell the story of the human race.

Bring on your tear gas, bring on your grenades, your new supplies of Mace, your state troopers and even your national guards. But let the record show we ain't going to be turned around.

I did a book in 1996, an overview of black history. In that process I became more aware of a lot of the black inventors of the 19th century.

Greatness occurs when your children love you, when your critics respect you and when you have peace of mind.

I came back to Louisville after the Olympics with my shiny gold medal. Went into a luncheonette where black folks couldn't eat. Thought I'd put them on the spot. I sat down and asked for a meal. The Olympic champion wearing his gold medal. They said, "We don't serve niggers here." I said, "That's okay, I don't eat 'em." But they put me out in the street. So I went down to the river, the Ohio River, and threw my gold medal in it.

I don't believe in fear - I live my life without regrets.

I do not weep at the world I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife.

I feel that the most important requirement in success is learning to overcome failure. You must learn to tolerate it, but never accept it

I don't celebrate Valentine's Day. It gets in the way of Black History Month. Cupid didn't free any slaves.

I don't want a Black History Month. Black history is American history.

If the only time you think of me as a scientist is during Black History Month, then I must not be doing my job as a scientist.

I have a dream, and a plan, to combine the commercial possibilities of Valentine's Day with the substance and meaning of black history month. I call it: Blackentine's Day.

If you have no critics you'll likely have no success.

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.

If you want to get an idea across, wrap it up in a person.

I still have my feet on the ground, I just wear better shoes.

I have observed this in my experience of slavery, that whenever my condition was improved, instead of increasing my contentment; it only increased my desire to be free, and set me thinking of plans to gain my freedom.

In a world where change is inevitable and continuous, the need to achieve that change without violence is essential for survival.

In recognizing the humanity of our fellow beings, we pay ourselves the highest tribute.

I will always remember my delight when Mrs. Georgia Gilmore - an unlettered woman of unusual intelligence - told how an operator demanded that she get off the bus after paying her fare and board it again by the back door, and then drove away before she could get there. She turned to Judge Carter and said: "When they count the money, they do not know Negro money from white money.

I will not take 'but' for an answer. Negroes have been looking at democracy's 'but' too long.

Just like you can buy grades of silk, you can buy grades of justice.

Many of us in Nashville accepted nonviolence as a way of life, a way of living, not simply as a technique or a tactic.

Let us not become the evil that we deplore.

My horizon on humanity is enlarged by reading the writers of poems, seeing a painting, listening to some music, some opera, which has nothing at all to do with a volatile human condition or struggle or whatever. It enriches me as a human being.

Never, never rest contented with any circle of ideas, but always be certain that a wider one is still possible.

Never before has the seductive market way of life held such sway in nearly every sphere of American life. This marketing way of life promotes addictions to stimulation and obsessions with comfort and convenience ... centered primarily around bodily pleasures and status rankings. ... The common denominator is a rugged and ragged individualism and rapacious hedonism in quest of a perennial "high" in body and mind.

No race has a monopoly on vice or virtue, and the worth of an individual is not related to the color of his skin.

No library of American business achievement is complete without the story of Arthur G. Gaston. . . . Black Titan is a long overdue contribution to the recording of not just black history, but American history.

No time to marry, no time to settle down; I'm a young woman, and I ain't done runnin' around.

Phillip Roth uses his Black women characters to make anti intellectual remarks about Black history month, begun by a man who reached intellectual heights that Roth will never attain. Roth is a petty bigot and his ignorant remarks about black culture expose him as a buffoon to scholars the world over.

One of the things I recognized early on, doing whatever studies of black history I have, is that even though black folks were transported as slaves, into servitude, when they were carried out of Africa they left empty-handed, but they didn't leave empty-headed. They carried with them the culture they knew, the culture they had, and that culture reconstituted itself in all the places they went.

The problem with hatred and violence is that they intensity the fears of the white majority, and leave them less ashamed of their prejudices toward Negroes.

Slowly we have lifeted ourselves by our own bootstraps. Step by halting step, we have beat our way back

The kind of beauty I want most is the hard-to-get kind that comes from within - strength, courage, dignity.

Prejudice doesn't make me mad. It just - I guess 'pisses me off' is the word.

Racism is man's gravest threat to man - the maximum of hatred for a minimum of reason.

The great thing about serving the poor is that there is no competition.

Today we know with certainty that segregation is dead. The only question remaining is how costly will be the funeral.

There are times in life when, instead of complaining, you do something about your complaints.