Best 654 quotes in «african american quotes» category

How much living have you done? From it the patterns that you weave Are imaged: Your own life is your totem pole, Your yard of cloth, Your living. How much loving have you done? How full and free your giving? For living is but loving And loving only giving.

I always root for the black man, like penance for something I had not part in creating.

I am a descendent of a whole bunch of Black folk who couldn't be broken.

I am an American, proud to be an American, proud to be a black American. I’m not African-American. I’ve never been to Africa. I’m an American that is black and my　– and I’m proud to be a black that submits to my Christianity. I am proud to be just a man. I mean a man’s man, not a metro sexual, not one that gets his nails done. I mean a man that used to get out there and knock heads and get his fingernails dirty. I’m proud of being a man, but my manhood submits to my Christianity, but I don’t see that in Al Sharpton. Any time anything happens that attacks his blackness, he fears it and　– because he has nothing else to stand on. Thus, when the real civil rights movement of everyone steps up, when we’re saying the Tea Party, don’t take being discriminated against. If a black person was kicked out of a hotel for being black down in Florida, it would be an uproar, but since the Tea Party was kicked out because of their political views, that’s going against America. That’s why we’re here going against the Constitution, with certain unalienable rights. That is the true fight we must start and we must fight today like never before.

If it supports the liberation struggle of Black people then it is good. If it is in opposition to the liberation struggle of Black people then it is bad. If it supports the liberation struggle of Black people then it is moral. If it opposes the liberation struggle, then it is immoral. If it supports the liberation struggle of Black people, then it is the will of GOD. If it opposes the liberation struggle of Black people, then it is satanic. With this simple key to the mysteries of life both events and institutions can be judged.

If not as a true human, let me tell you as a Biologist, color of the skin does not define an individual’s intelligence – it does not define an individual’s ambitions - it does not define an individual’s dreams – and above all, it does not define an individual’s character.

If origin defines race, then we are all Africans – we are all black.

If you are born in America with a black skin, you're in prison

I feel sorry for you, Detective Esteban. Because I'm all out of patience, and you're all out of time. I'm sure we'll see each other again someday. In Hell. Save a seat for me.

I feel that the kinks, curls, or tight coils in Afro hair is beautiful and unique. No other race on this planet has hair like ours - that makes me proud.

I am not 'African American' —I am black American.

I hate that black people can’t decide what they want to be called. First they were “colored,” then “Negro,” then “black.” After that they became “people of color” and now they’re “African-American.” I say: Pick one! White people aren’t that smart; we can’t follow. I’ll call you ultrasuperduperstar if it makes you happy, but for God’s sake give me a final answer! The back-and-forth is giving me a migraine. And, can I just say that I don’t understand ethnocentricity? For example, where did “African-American” come from? My friend Beverly always says, “I’m African-American.” And I always say, “You’re from Massapequa Park. Exactly where in Africa is that? Is it part of the Serengeti or maybe Kenya adjacent?” Last time I checked Massapequa Park was four stops after Bellmore on the Long Island Railroad. Italian-Americans, Irish-Americans, Polish-Americans, etc., only refer to themselves like that when they want a big parade in their honor, so they can drink in public and get alternate side of the street parking waived. Otherwise they’re plain old Americans. And FYI, no one has ever, in my 239 years on this planet, called me a Hebraic-American. Jew bitch? All the time, but Hebraic-American bitch? Never.

I have just published a revised version of my book for Kindle and it will be available soon. When it is, I will make a formal announcement. The story is the same but without the noticeable errors. The revised paperback is already available, Thank you for your patience and thanks to all who are reading "A Woman Of Courage.

If you're colored, you get the short end of the stick. If you're a woman, you get the short end of the stick. So what do we get for being colored and women?

If you're born round, you don't come out square

I have raised you to respect every human being as singular. And you must extend that same respect into the past. Slavery is not an indefinable mass of flesh. It is a particular, specific enslaved woman whose mind is as active as your own, whose range of feelings as vast as your own, who prefers the way the light falls in one particular spot in the woods, who enjoys fishing where the water eddys in the nearby stream, who loves her mother in her own complicated way, thinks her sister talks to loud, has a favorite cousin, a favorite season, who excels at dress making, and knows inside herself that she is as intelligent and capable as anyone. Slavery is the same woman born in a world that loudly proclaims its love of freedom and describes this world in essential texts. A world in which these same professors hold this woman a slave. Hold her mother a slave, her father a slave, her daughter a slave. And when this woman peers back into the generations, all she sees is the enslaved. She can hope for more. She can imagine some future for her grandchildren, but when she dies, the world, which is really the only world she can really know, ends. For this woman enslavement is not a parable, it is damnation, it is the never ending night, and the length of that night is most of our history. Never forget that we were enslaved in this country longer than we have been free. Never forget that for 250 years black people were born into chains, whole generations followed by more generations who knew nothing but chains.

I'll go further and say she was one of the best cooks in the world! The compimentary expression, "This food will make you slap yo' Aint Emma" was apt in her case.

I'm American. Why didn't I say I was African American? Because I'm in a foreign country? But can I really consider myself to be in a foreign country when I could go walking back to my own country right now if I wanted, and it wouldn't even take very long? Does this mean that in some places I'm American and in some places I'm African American and in other places, by logical extension, I'm nobody?

In Harlem, Negro policemen are feared more than whites, for they have more to prove and fewer ways to prove it

In the biological sense, race does not exist.

I’m a Black woman. Empowered, powerful, and greatness.

I order to avoid falling into the product junkie traps, it's good to know your go-to styling products.

In America, the role of blacks, as for humans everywhere, is to live and flourish and to be fit progenitors for generations to come. To do so, they must oppose racism in an unrelenting way. Psychiatry for such warriors aims to keep them fit for the duty at hand and healthy enough to enjoy the victories that are certain to come.

Is it possible for white America to really understand blacks’ distrust of the legal system, their fears of racial profiling and the police, without understanding how cheap a black life was for so long a time in our nation’s history?

I remember reading article about the woman in that Oakland neighborhood who lost all her children to violence. I wondered why'd she keep living there after the first one was killed. Didn't she care about the others? Today, I zoomed out and wondered why I'm still in America.

It is character that should be the sole measure of judgement in the society of thinking humanity, and nothing short of that would do.

It occurred to them for the first time in their lives that what's divine can come in dark skin.

I took my solo and beat hell out of the skins. Then Spoof swiped at his mouth and let go with a blast and moved it up into that squeal and stopped and started playing. It was all headwork. All new to us. New to anybody. I saw Sonny get a look on his face, and we sat still and listened while Spoof made love to that horn. Now like a scream, now like a laugh - now we're swinging in the trees, now the white men are coming, now we're in the boat and chains are hanging from our ankles and we're rowing, rowing - Spoof, what is it? - now we're sawing wood and picking cotton and serving up those cool cool drinks to the Colonel in his chair - Well, blow, man! - now we're free, and we're struttin' down Lenox Avenue and State & Madison and Pirate's Alley, laughing, crying - Who said free? - and we want to go back and we don't want to go back - Play it, Spoof! God, God, tell us all about it! Talk to us! - and we're sitting in a cellar with a comb wrapped up in paper, with a skin-barrel and a tinklebox - Don't stop, Spoof! Oh Lord, please don't stop! - and we're making something, something, what is it? Is it jazz? Why, yes, Lord, it's jazz. Thank you, sir, and thank you, sir, we finally got it, something that is ours, something great that belongs to us and to us alone, that we made, and that's why it's important and that's what it's all about and - Spoof! Spoof, you can;t stop now -- But it was over, middle of the trip. And there was Spoof standing there facing us and tears streaming out of those eyes and down over that coaldust face, and his body shaking and shaking. It's the first we ever saw that. It's the first we ever heard him cough, too - like a shotgun going off every two seconds, big raking sounds that tore up from the bottom of his belly and spilled out wet and loud. ("Black Country")

It’s a fact: black people in this country die more easily, at all ages, across genders. Look at how young black men die, and how middle-aged black men drop dead, and how black women are ravaged by HIV/AIDS. The numbers graft to poverty but they also graph to stresses known and invisible. How did we come here, after all? Not with upturned chins and bright eyes but rather in chains, across a chasm. But what did we do? We built a nation, and we built its art.

It's a shameful, wicked, abominable law, and I'll break it, for one, the first time I get a chance; and I hope I shall have a chance, I do! Things have got to a pretty pass, if a woman can't give a warm supper and a bed to poor, starving creatures, just because they are slaves, and have been abused and oppressed all their lives, poor things!" ... "Now, John, I don't know anything about politics, but I can read my Bible; and there I see that I must feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and comfort the desolate; and that Bible I mean to follow.

It was almost as if she had willed him into existence, into standing before her at the precise moment she was willing to accommodate him, arriving not a minute too early or too late.

Inspire, celebrate, and empower our Black males. Support them in becoming confident, intelligent, strong, capable, and powerful Black men, teens, and boys. There’s GREAT power in Black male positivity!

I’ve often thought that being a light-skinned black woman is like being a well-dressed person who is also homeless.

I want to introduce my readers to people they may never have met, take them places they may never have visited, and present them with situations they may never have encountered.

I was just trying to demonstrate to the students of Rowland University that Rowland University was not infinite. It had taken me a long time to figure out what the problem was, but one day I realized that the students at Rowland University thought that Rowland University was infinite. Infinite bookstore. Infinite fraternities and sororities. Infinite sports teams. Infinite snack shop. Infinite Homecoming. Infinite graduation. Infinite prospects.

Jaeshawn!” I screamed. My hips bucked off the bed, as the sucking grew more intense. I could feel a tightening sensation in my stomach that sent tingles to the ends of my toes. He stopped sucking and roughly dragged his tongue over my love button, over and over again, until I felt like I was going to explode. "Jaeeee!” I screamed as I started to ride his tongue.

It is not enough for the Negroes to declare that color-prejudice is the sole cause of their social condition, nor for the white South to reply that their social condition is the main cause of prejudice. They both act as reciprocal cause and effect, and a change in neither alone will bring the desired effect. Both must change, or neither can improve to any great extent."(p.88)...."Only by a union of intelligence and sympathy across the color-line in this critical period of the Republic shall justice and right triumph,

Mayor Walmsley is using the typical Jim Crow manipulation tactics to deflect the blame and guilt. He's a classic racist politician with an ulterior motive,” says Ora.

Most people surrendered fairy tale hopes in exchange for cookie cutter lives

Most people write me off when they see me. They do not know my story. They say I am just an African. They judge me before they get to know me. What they do not know is The pride I have in the blood that runs through my veins; The pride I have in my rich culture and the history of my people; The pride I have in my strong family ties and the deep connection to my community; The pride I have in the African music, African art, and African dance; The pride I have in my name and the meaning behind it. Just as my name has meaning, I too will live my life with meaning. So you think I am nothing? Don’t worry about what I am now, For what I will be, I am gradually becoming. I will raise my head high wherever I go Because of my African pride, And nobody will take that away from me.

It was his experience that life worked under the same guidelines as a capitalistic society. In order to get what you wanted, it was usually necessary to give up something in return. Sometimes gaining what you defined as everything meant losing what you most needed.

John will never forsake the weak and the helpless, nor fail to bring hope to the hopeless. That is what they believe, and so they do not worry. They go on and laugh and sing. Things are bound to come out right tomorrow. That is the secret of Negro song and laughter.

Nothing felt better to him than the act of waiting for her. As long as he believed it wasn’t in vain, he was able to justify his presence.

Look at you. Riding the gravy train with biscuit wheels.

Once you break someone’s heart, you are forever its master.

On occasion we stumble upon what seems to be a truth. Compared to the surrounding blackness, it sparkles and dazzles our eyes. But are these actually truths? Are our eyes really feasting upon light? Or just patches of grey?

Pastor McFucking Bride this . . . Pastor McFucking Bride that. Fuck him!

People judge you by your color, God judges you by your deeds.

Nowadays, a simple faulty brake light traffic stop, can get a black person killed. It's better to fix the broken light bulb, then having to face and cooperate with a senseless police officer.

On occasion he would think back to the fiercest passion it had been his pleasure to experience and reflect on what might have been. He would look upon the woman who occupied the opposite half of his bed and feel his life had not quite lived up to the promise of another day. These moments would be mercifully brief, or so he hoped.