Best 654 quotes in «african american quotes» category

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.

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.

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.

Hollywood needs to recognise all shades of African American beauty.

How old would you be if you didn't know how old you are?

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.

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

[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.

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

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 actually spoke in an African-American church yesterday.

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

I am a colored woman or a Negro woman. Either one is OK. People dislike those words now. Today these use this term African American. It wouldn't occur to me to use that. I prefer to think of myself as an American, that's all!

I am an American. Black. Conservative. I don't use African-American, because I'm American, I'm black and I'm conservative. I don't like people trying to label me. African- American is socially acceptable for some people, but I am not some people.

I am an invisible man. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids - and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.

I am an African-American in America. That will never change. But I don't have to be defined by that.

I am committed to ensure that our 2008 Republican presidential candidates forthrightly address issues of importance to the African-American community.

I am more of a conservationist, myself. And people have come to me and said, "Wow, you're an African-American conservationist!" And my response is, "No, I'm a conservationist who happens to be black.

I am convinced that the Black man will only reach his full potential when he learns to draw upon the strengths and insights of the Black woman.

I am colored but I offer nothing in the way of extenuating circumstances except the fact that I am the only Negro in the United States whose grandfather on the mother's side was not an Indian chief.

I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.

I am not ashamed of my grandparents for having been slaves. I am only ashamed of myself for having at one time being ashamed.

I am proud to live in a country with an African-American president. But President Obama cannot be proud of the fact that the prevalence of black poverty has actually increased under his leadership. The specific policies advanced by the president and his allies on the left amount to little more than throwing money at the problem and walking away.

I am tired with hyphenated Americans! We are not Indian-Americans, or African-Americans.

I am so hip even my errors are correct

I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also, much more than that. So are we all.

I am the first African-American chairman of any major conservation organization in history. That's a big step.

I believe in individuality, that everybody is special, and it's up to them to find that quality and let it live.

I believe that each of us-no matter what our age or background or walk of life-each of us has something to contribute to the life of this nation.

I can't deny that it will be a historic event for an African-American to become president. And should that happen, all Americans should be proud - not just African-Americans, but all Americans - that we have reached this point in our national history where such a thing could happen. It will also not only electrify our country, I think it'll electrify the world.

I decided blacks should not have to experience the difficulties I had faced, so I decided to open a flying school and teach other black women to fly.

I'd been taught from an early age that I was in the other category on the standardized tests. You know, I had to go down the checklist - Caucasian, African-American, Latino, Asian-Pacific Islander, and then, you know, at the bottom is other. So, you know, very early on I was taught, in a way, that I was somehow this anomaly.

I did a little bit to raise the dignity and recognition of the greatness of African-American music.

I'd been listening to African-American music since the first record I ever bought, which was by Sam Cooke. And it sounds more like my private thoughts that I never thought I would be able to articulate - I never thought I would be able to express publicly.

Identity is very personal...identity is political. My identity is what is and it is what it's gonna be. And I don't think that any information will change that profoundly...I [already] know that I am a Black woman, and a Black woman who has mixed some heritage, like most African Americans.

I did not get on the bus to get arrested. I got on the bus to go home.

I don't know how many off the record conversations I've had with African-American leaders who would not be quoted and refused to make their sentiments public.

I did want to mark the fact that it was the first African-American to win the Lead Actress category.I thought it was so progressive.

I'd like to state that Spike Lee is not saying that African American culture is just for black people alone to enjoy and cherish. Culture is for everybody.

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

I don't know what the future may hold, but I know who holds the future.

I don't think every African-American or Latino have the same body type, but, yes, that's been one of the excuses ... saying that African-Americans are too muscular or just aren't lean enough. Usually they say, "Oh, they have flat feet so they just don't have the flexibility that it takes to create the line in a point shoe.

I don't see how any African-American, with any inkling of history, can say that you don't have the right to live your life how you want to live your life. No one should be telling you who you should love, no one should be telling you who you should be spending the rest of your life with. When we start talking about equality, and everybody being treated equally, I don't want to know an African-American who will say everybody doesn't deserve equality.

I don't see black people as victims even though we are exploited. Victims are flat, one- dimensional characters, someone rolled over by a steamroller so you have a cardboard person. We are far more resilient and more rounded than that. I will go on showing there's more to us than our being victimized. Victims are dead.