African American Quotations

When I was growing up, so many of the important changes for African-Americans were being made in the United States Supreme Court and were being made by lawyers. I followed the court very intensely and wanted to do that for my life.

Obamanomics, his imposition of European-style socialism, is not working for African-Americans. It is not working for Latinos and African-Americans.

Hollywood needs to recognise all shades of African American beauty.

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.

Indians were here first - it's about time. We're way behind the African Americans and Hispanic Americans in getting politically involved, but we're beginning to take a page out of their notebook.

It is my hope that as we commemorate Black History Month in the future, we will continue to celebrate the many achievements and rich culture of African-Americans.

It is a blessing to die for a cause, because you can so easily die for nothing.

One of the things that has to be faced is the process of waiting to change the system, how much we have got to do to find out who we are, where we have come from and where we are going.

None of us is responsible for the complexion of his skin. This fact of nature offers no clue to the character or quality of the person underneath.

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

If women want any rights more than they's got, why don't they just take them, and not be talking about it.

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

To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.

Really, the potential for, first of all, any college graduate today is enormously good. These are good times for anyone with a college degree today, particularly African Americans. With a college degree today, you really breach the unemployment rate.

Republicans have called for a National African-American Museum. The plan is being held up by finding a location that isn't in their neighborhood.

There is no way that we know what is going on between the African American and the Asian American. We don't understand what an Indigenous American is. We don't understand what a Latino American is

African Americans know about racism, but I don't think we really know the causes. I decided it's first of all a family problem.

People identify with me - everyone does - African American women, Caucasian women, they all identify with me because I'm ethnic.

Question everything. Every stripe, every star, every word spoken. Everything.

We all do 'do, re, mi,' but you have got to find the other notes yourself.

I have never been more proud of the United States than I am this year. We have elected an African-American president. We have the stellar Michelle Obama setting the standard for American women. I simply cannot say it enough: look how far we've come.

You don't make progress by standing on the sidelines, whimpering and complaining. You make progress by implementing ideas.

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.

The first job I had with the Smithsonian was as a field researcher among African American communities in Southwest Louisiana and Arkansas for the festival.

Since 1957, black people have experienced double-digit unemployment - in good times and bad times. Look at the population of African Americans in prison. They represent more than half the population of prisoners in the country, 55 percent of those on death row

There's not an American in this country free until every one of us is free.

Seriously though, my father was the first African American to sign a contract with the Metropolitan Opera so I grew up with classical music and jazz in the home all the time.

We African Americans have now spent the major part of the 20th Century battling racism

You have to be taught to be second class; you're not born that way.

Mostly I'm proud to be an African-American woman, but I'm glad I have a universal look as well.

African-American women account for 67 percent of all newly diagnosed female AIDS cases.

Presumption should never make us neglect that which appears easy to us, nor despair make us lose courage at the sight of difficulties.

I'd like to see marriage count again among African-Americans and not just in the society in general.

Don't play what's there, play what's not there.

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

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.

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.

We don't intend to always keep this necessarily African oriented. Originally I had hoped to have African American Indian of this area, and the Appalachian of this area, but at the same time, just as we have the Haitian room, we will always have room for another exhibit.

When I became a director, I wanted to convince a very reluctant Sidney into allowing me to go on the journey of his life. Sidney had gone ahead of every other African American actor.

It appears that the present-day form of African American English is not the inheritance of the period of slavery, but the creation of the second half of the 20th century.

African Americans have always known that a little bit of paranoia was healthy for us.

African American women in particular have incredible buying power. Statistically, we go to the movies more than anyone. We have made Tyler Perrys career. His films open with $25 million almost consistently.

We talk about freedoms for African-Americans but unless you have more than one option politically, how free are you?

As African-Americans, we often spend our time and energy blaming other people for the problems we see around us.

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.

When you talk about evangelicals, don't forget that a significant proportion of the evangelical community is African American. And most African Americans - well over 90 percent, thoroughly evangelical, thoroughly biblical - will probably vote Democratic.

As we women know, there are so many other hurdles that we have to cross that I would love it if we could stop having the race conversation so that we can get women further on. You know, a female president now that we have an African American president. Maybe we can get an Asian female, a gay person?

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.'

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

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.

There's a thing called the 'One Drop' theory in African-American culture, which is if you have one drop of black blood in you, you're black.

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.

If a race has no history, if it has no worthwhile tradition, it becomes a negligible factor in the thought of the world, and it stands in danger of being exterminated.

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

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.

Since Bush has been in office, African-American women have fallen behind in terms of income and wages.

We have to talk about liberating minds as well as liberating society.

There really has not been a strong Republican message to either the poor or the African American community at large.

I don't think there's enough breadth to the stories told about African-Americans.

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

While we dance in the streets and pat ourselves on the back for being a nation great enough to reach beyond racial divides to elect our first African-American president, let us not forget that we remain a nation still proudly practicing prejudice.

Without Social Security, poverty rates for African American seniors would more than double.

As you know, in this country Anglo-Americans are about 75 to 76 percent home ownership in this country, where Hispanics, African Americans are less than 50 percent.

African-Americans who might have disagreed with candidate Obama's left-of-center politics voted for him in 2008 because electing a candidate with brown skin was too historic an opportunity to miss.

I'm the whitest guy you will ever meet. The first time I saw an African-American, my dad had to tell me to stop staring.

Oh, I love labels, as long as they are numerous. I'm an American writer. I'm a Nigerian writer. I'm a Nigerian American writer. I'm an African writer. I'm a Yoruba writer. I'm an African American writer. I'm a writer who's been strongly influenced by European precedents. I'm a writer who feels very close to literary practice in India - which I go to quite often - and to writers over there.

I think, though, as African-American women, we are always trained to value our community even at the expense of ourselves, and so we attempt to protect the African-American community.

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.

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

No individual has any right to come into the world and go out of it without leaving behind him distinct and legitimate reasons for having passed through it.

I don't think people have been able to deal with the fact that African American filmmakers can make movies about life and relationships.

According to the American Heart Association, the prevalence of hypertension in African Americans in the United States is among the highest in the world.

I'm not going to be joining ZZ Top. You know they can't play my stuff. It's too complicated.

I have a very personal interest. I am a Miami-Dade voter. One of the issues is that my vote and so many other votes of women and African Americans in Florida are being discounted or discarded. I want my vote to count.

The African American community is so under-served in the entertainment industry.

Whether you come from a council estate or a country estate, your success will be determined by your own confidence and fortitude.

Delaware State is no longer a college for African Americans without other choices, it is a university of choice.

The blues style - moody or rollicking or boastful or bashful - developed in the Delta around 1900 and was, for a time, exclusively African-American. That isn't the case anymore.

And thus goes segregation which is the most far-reaching development in the history of the Negro since the enslavement of the race.

I had a white senator call me a rag head, and I had an African-American legislator call me a conservative with a tan.

There are so few guys who do action and do it well. Even fewer who are African-American. Even fewer who have classical-theater training. So a cat like me coming in, I'm bringing all of that to an action movie.

No matter how far a person can go the horizon is still way beyond you.

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.

Men who are in earnest are not afraid of consequences.

The challenges African-Americans are facing today are rooted in the system of slavery.

Every day in America, African Americans are reminded of their race in ways large and small. Every day.

I am famous because I am an African American jazz artist.

You just need to be a flea against injustice. Enough committed fleas biting strategically can make even the biggest dog uncomfortable and transform even the biggest nation.

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.

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.

I think there's a lot of things that occur within the African-American community, that we would prefer to stay within the African-American community - that we get a little nervous when you start having scenes or dialogue that we know is going to be viewed and heard on a national or global scale.

There's a whole lot more to the African-American community than entertainment and sports.

Are things getting better with each generation? Yes. It's quite interesting to be living in these times, for me to witness an African-American being elected president. It's quite extraordinary.

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

This whole notion that all African-Americans are not going to vote for Obama is not necessarily true. I believe a third would vote for me, based on my own anecdotal feedback. Not vote for me because I'm black but because of my policies.

One thing that sticks in my mind is that jazz means freedom and openness. It's a music that, although it developed out of the African American experience, speaks more about the human experience than the experience of a particular people.

In the United States, the Supreme Court's decision of 1954, outlawing segregation in school systems, was greeted with mixed feelings of hope and skepticism by African-Americans.

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 guess probably in my time in politics, it continued to be affirmed to me that the African-American community, despite being subscription television's most valuable customers, they are very underserved by cable and satellite television programming options.

Once there are more African Americans and Asian Americans behind the scenes as producers, writers, and directors, I think more inclusive casting will happen.