Best 654 quotes in «african american quotes» category

It is not possible to erase racism just because African-Americans have reached a level of financial success and crossover appeal.

It is so painful to suggest that we go back to think about these days where an African-American could not be a citizen of the United States.

It's easy to do anything in victory. It's in defeat that a man reveals himself.

I try to find the core values that are so fundamental that they transcend ethnic identity. That doesn't mean I run from it. I embrace African-American culture and I love it and embrace it, but it is a part of a human identity. So I'm always trying to make a larger human statement.

It may be changing, but still it's the one place, that total control of an institution, that African Americans have. So sometimes, you know, you'll hear the statement of African Americans saying, "I have to work with whites.

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

It's really important to have life strategies and part of that is sort of knowing where you want to go so you can have a map that helps you to get there. And the traditional way tells us oh we get into school and someone else advises us, helps us, but that often does not work for African Americans female and male. Because what works for the dominant culture often does not work for us.

It requires enormous energy for us to cut the African American uninsured rate by a third. A lot of scars.

It's so weird to turn on a switch and be the role model for all women, for all African-Americans. That doesn't happen that easily. It does not. So I don't act up in public and don't do anything weird, because my sisters are watching me. Not because the world is watching me.

It's unfortunate that [Louis] Brandeis was not able to translate or abstract his devotion to cultural pluralism and racial equality as he put it for Jews to enslave people and their descendants and to African Americans.

It's time for us to come together. It's time for us to rebuild New Orleans - the one that should be a chocolate New Orleans. This city will be a majority African American city. It's the way God wants it to be. You can't have New Orleans no other way. It wouldn't be New Orleans.

It's time for democrats to grow a backbone and stand up for what we believe.

It's important for women to understand that it's bad enough that we don't make dollar-for-dollar what men do, but when you distill that down to women of color, our Latinas and our African American women, it's even less than that 78 cents.

I've always believed that I could do whatever I set my mind to do.

It will be up to each of you to make sure that young people, African Americans, Latinos and women who powered our victory in 2008 stand together once again.

I've always thought of myself as an African-American comedian, African-American man, everything.

I've always gotten a positive reaction to doing African-American characters.

I use African-American, because I teach African Studies as well as African-American Studies, so it's easy, neat and convenient. But sometimes, when you're in a barber shop, somebody'll say, "Did you see what that Negro did?" A lot of people slip in and out of different terms effortlessly, and I don't think the thought police should be on patrol.

I was filled with rage. These same people who accuse Planned Parenthood of ‘targeting’ African-American children, they care about you only while you’re in the womb. The minute you crown, you’re on your own.

I've been very lucky to have a family who has welcomed me and not been hung up on anything racial, almost overlooking the fact that there was a racial difference. But I can honestly say I do feel like I missed out on some lessons of what the African-American experience is like growing up.

I was repeatedly told that there isn't an African American woman who can open a show on Broadway. I said, 'Well, how do we know? How do we know if we don't do it?' I said, 'I think you're wrong.'

I want to be promoted in the urban areas. A lot of African-American people should know more about me.

I was taught from a young age that many people would treat me as a second-class citizen because I was African-American and because I was female.

I will go to the NAACP convention, and explain to the African-American community why they should demand paychecks instead of food stamps.

I would argue that the objective evidence shows that big government is not a friend to African Americans.

I would flip this the other way and say over 90 percent of African-Americans voted against Donald Trump.

I was born black and female.

Jesse Jackson's living depends on the maintenance of an African-American victim culture

Jim Jones started out as a civil rights crusader in Indianapolis. As a young preacher in the mid-50s, he used members of his congregation to integrate lunch counters and all-white churches in rich neighborhoods; they'd just march in and sit down at the pews and see what happened. Often they were received with racist insults, and once with a bomb threat. But the fact that you had this charismatic, white man, aggressively promoting racial equality, was a huge draw for African Americans, many of whom felt the Civil Rights Movement had stalled by the late 60s.

I would love to get a role that changes the landscape of being an African American woman in television and film.

I was well known to African Americans before Bill Clinton discovered me. He was like Christopher Columbus riding up on something he didn't understand.

Jimmer Fredette is the best scorer in the world!!

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

Journalists become candidates for cardiac arrest when they see or hear an African American disagreeing with an African American. We would become inauthentic if we did not have disagreements with this president.

Let the good times roll is especially or risky message for African-Americans. The plain fact is that they tend to possess poor native judgment than members of better educated groups. Thus, they need stricter moral guidance from society.

Liberals love to say things like, "We're just asking everyone to pay their fair share." But government is not about asking. It is about telling. The difference is fundamental. It is the difference between making love and being raped, between working for a living and being a slave. The Internal Revenue service is not asking anybody to do anything. It confiscates your assets and puts you behind bars if you don't pay.

Latinos, Asians, African-Americans, women - we're all trying to find our place in this world of cinema and television and theater. And the great thing with comedy is that most of the time, you could be orange. It doesn't matter, as long you're funny.

Luxury is...to be able to take control of one's life, health, and the pursuit of happiness in a way that is joyful.

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.

Like any group that has endured much, African Americans have created a strong and mutually reinforcing sense of group identity. That's not a bad thing in and of itself.

Living consciously involves being genuine; it involves listening and responding to others honestly and openly; it involves being in the moment.

Look at Hispanic women - they are being paid 42 cents on the dollar - or African-American women. I think it's an issue we have to look at across the board.

Michael Joseph Jackson's genius was the ability to be the raw article himself - the real article himself. He is part of the African American people who were marginalized.

Michael Jackson fundamentally altered the terms of the debate about African American music.

Louis Brandeis never had the opportunity - or he never sought the opportunity I should say - to work closely with African American lawyers. He was also a Southern Democrat, you know, at a time when both parties were supportive of segregation.

Most of the more celebrated names among African-American authors, poets, and artists are known to the world because of their association with specific cultural arts movements.

Mrs. James, my fifth-grade teacher, introduced us to some of the great literature of African American culture. I won my first blue ribbon reciting the vernacular poems of Paul Lawrence Dunbar, in particular "Little Brown Baby.

Music is the universal language.

My father and I made genetics history. We were the first African-Americans and the first father and son anywhere to have their genomes sequenced.

My husband [Julius Tennon] and I started a production company. We've already optioned a book and some scripts to do exactly that, to create more complicated, multi-faceted roles for African-Americans, especially African-American females. I think it's important.