Best 654 quotes in «african american quotes» category

Colored, Negro, Afro-American, African American. ... Every couple of years someone came up with something that got us an inch closer to the truth. Bit by bit we crept along. As if that thing we believed to be approaching actually existed.

Considering the popularity of soaps with the African-American audience, it's grotesque that the entertainment industry, for all its vaunted liberalism, is lagging so far behind social changes in the United States. And why has there never been an all-black daytime network soap? It would probably blow the white soaps off the map.

Coming up in the African-American culture, we were taught that we belonged to the universe and society was wrong in the way it dealt with us. We had to learn to express and affirm values not from the winning position.

Crisis' seems to be too mild a word to describe conditions in countless African-American communities. It is beyond crisis when in the richest nation in the world, African Americans in Harlem live shorter lives than the people of Bangladesh, one of the poorest nations of the world.

Diabetes occurs at twice the rate in the African American community as it does in white Americans.

Decades of record immigration have produced lower wages and higher unemployment for our citizens, especially for African American and Latino workers. We are going to have an immigration system that works, but one that works for the American people.

[Donald] Trump is going to appeal better to African Americans, Hispanics, and others than previous Republican candidates because he's talking about what they want: a fair chance to have a better life economically.

Donald Trump - whatever he was warning the Democrats, whatever he's warning African-Americans about - he wasn't criticizing them. He was criticizing the Democrat Party. He was telling them it's the Democrat Party that has made their bed for 'em, and it's time that that changed.

Don't let the same dog bite you twice.

Don't think you are going to go on forever because you are not and begin to plan something that will compensate as you reduce your capacities to leap or turn on this or that or the other, begin thinking of something else.

Currently, more than 4.7 million African Americans receive Social Security benefits, and nearly 8 million people with disabilities depend on Social Security for their daily sustenance.

Develop enough courage so that you can stand up for yourself and then stand up for somebody else.

Does a black person make them an African American? No. There are Hispanics that are very, very dark skinned so the word has lost its meaning, it's not a very concise or proper word to use even today and it wasn't then.

Don't take yourself too seriously. Know when to laugh at yourself, and find a way to laugh at obstacles that inevitably present themselves.

Don't want to be near you for the thoughts we share but the words we never have to speak.

Everybody knows this legend in kind of African-American lore. There's always somebody in your neighborhood named Orangejello or Lemonjello. And that's spelled - Orangejello is spelled O-R-A-N-G-E-J-E-L-L-O.

Everyone has a plan 'till they get punched in the mouth.

During the 2008 campaign, I strongly endorsed Barack Obama for president. I did so early, when many Democratic leaders - including many prominent African-American politicians - believed the safe bet was to back then-front-runner Hillary Clinton.

During the campaign [Donald Trump] talked about reaching out to African- American voters in particular. He talked about inner cities in a way that did offend some people. Lot of Democrats. Some African- Americans of saying what have you got to lose.

During the days of segregation, there was not a place of higher learning for African Americans. They were simply not welcome in many of the traditional schools. And from this backward policy grew the network of historical black colleges and universities.

During the Great Depression African Americans understood that Republicans championed citizenship and voting rights, but they became impatient for economic emancipation.

During the Great Depression, African Americans were faced with problems that were not unlike those experienced by the most disadvantaged groups in society. The Great Depression had a leveling effect, and all groups really experienced hard times: poor whites, poor blacks.

Every woman is not a runway model, nor should she be.

Excellence is the name of the game.

Everything African-Americans - every freedom they have obtained - came from Republicans, not Democrats. All the way back to the Emancipation Proclamation, to the Civil Rights movement. Civil Rights legislation was passed by a Republican Congress.

Fifty-eight percent of African- American youth don't have jobs.

Failure: Is it a limitation? Bad timing? It's a lot of things. It's something you can't be afraid of, because you'll stop growing. The next step beyond failure could be your biggest success in life.

"First female president." That's it, and that's nowhere near, by the way, as powerful or penetrating as the first African-American president. I mean, women, yeah, I mean, make the case that they've been victimized. But they can't put themselves in the same shoes as slavery's legacy for example. Now, women might try to make the case. Hillary [Clinton] might try to make the case about not being ought to be able to vote, but it ain't gonna fly.

From being a little girl in the projects, going through all of the mess that I was going through, to ending up at the Inauguration for the first African-American president, I'm speechless right now because I never thought I'd - I never ever - I couldn't even see that far. Even when I ended up in the music business I couldn't see that.

Every pastor I talk to says, and particularly if they're African American they'll say, "I'm not black enough for African Americans. I'm not white enough for the whites. I'm not Hispanic enough.

From politics and business to music and food to culture, African-Americans have helped to shape our state's colourful past and its future.

Groups like the NAACP, The Anti-Defamation League, NOW and GLAAD, will respond to derisive language directed at their constituents. The price paid by those who cavalierly chose to verbally disrespect the dignity of African Americans, Jews, women and homosexuals is steep.

God blessed me with a lot of heart and no height, and I'll take that any day.

For starters, Portland isn't a great city to live in if you're a young, African American male with a lot of money.

Had middle class black women begun a movement in which they had labeled themselves "oppressed," no one would have taken them seriously.

Higher minimum wages, full-employment programs, early-childhood education: Those kinds of programs are, by design, universal, but by definition, because they are helping folks who are in the worst economic situations, are most likely to disproportionately impact and benefit African Americans. They also have the benefit of being sellable to a majority of the body politic.

Hillary Clinton is a bigot who sees people of color only as votes, not as human beings worthy of a better future. She's going to do nothing for African-Americans. She's going to do nothing for the Hispanics.

Historically Black Colleges and Universities, or HBCUs, have played an important role in enriching the lives of not just African Americans, but our entire country.

Here's what my love affair with quotations has taught me: the more you focus on words that uplift you, the more you embody the ideas contained in those words.

[Hillary] Clinton was able to assemble a winning Democratic coalition out here, beating Sanders among African-Americans, women, among women, and voters from union households, so, unions, women, African-Americans.

History could pass for a scarlet text, its jot and title graven red in human blood.

Hollywood needs to recognise all shades of African American beauty.

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

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

Hungry people cannot be good at learning or producing anything, except perhaps violence.

I accept that people are going to call me awful things every day, and I will always defend their right to do so.

However, research in the years that followed found that in many of its important features, African American Vernacular English was becoming not less, but more different from other dialects.

I always say African American history is the quintessential American story. It's about perseverance and resilience - something everyone can relate to.

I always thought books were just the canon, things I couldn't identify with. And then I was introduced to really amazing multicultural literature - it was all things I was trying to do unsuccessfully in my poetry. It really just changed everything. I was introduced to authors like Sandra Cisneros, Gabriel García Márquez, Junot Díaz, and a lot of African American literature, as well.

I actually spoke in an African-American church yesterday.