Black History Quotes

you must never be fearful about what you are doing when it is right.

The world is a severe schoolmaster, for its frowns are less dangerous than its smiles and flatteries, and it is a difficult task to keep in the path of wisdom.

I felt that one had better die fighting against injustice than to die like a dog or rat in a trap. I had already determined to sell my life as dearly as possible if attacked. I felt if I could take one lyncher with me, this would even up the score a little bit.

The United States has been called the melting pot of the world. But it seems to me that the colored man either missed getting into the pot or he got melted down.

An artist must be free to choose what he does, certainly, but he must also never be afraid to do what he might choose.

There is no negro problem. The problem is whether the American people have loyalty enough, honor enough, patriotism enough, to live up to their own constitution

America will tolerate the taking of a human life without giving it a second thought. But don't misuse a household pet.

You can be up to your boobies in white satin, with gardenias in your hair and no sugar cane for miles, but you can still be working on a plantation.

The question is not whether we can afford to invest in every child; it is whether we can afford not to.

The impatient idealist says: 'Give me a place to stand and I shall move the earth.' But such a place does not exist. We all have to stand on the earth itself and go with her at her pace.

I don't want a Black History Month. Black history is American history.

Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, . . . neither persons nor property will be safe.

I came back to Louisville after the Olympics with my shiny gold medal. Went into a luncheonette where black folks couldn't eat. Thought I'd put them on the spot. I sat down and asked for a meal. The Olympic champion wearing his gold medal. They said, "We don't serve niggers here." I said, "That's okay, I don't eat 'em." But they put me out in the street. So I went down to the river, the Ohio River, and threw my gold medal in it.

No race has a monopoly on vice or virtue, and the worth of an individual is not related to the color of his skin.

I don't believe in fear - I live my life without regrets.

You're either part of the solution or you're part of the problem.

As long as we are not ourselves, we will try to be what other people are.

Won't it be wonderful when black history and native American history and Jewish history and all of U.S. history is taught from one book. Just U.S. history.

We have come over a way that with tears has been watered, We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered.

The great thing about serving the poor is that there is no competition.

If you want to get an idea across, wrap it up in a person.

In a world where change is inevitable and continuous, the need to achieve that change without violence is essential for survival.

What is possible for me is possible for you.

I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person.

Be black, shine, aim high.

All business is personal...Make your friends before you need them.

Prejudice doesn't make me mad. It just - I guess 'pisses me off' is the word.

No time to marry, no time to settle down; I'm a young woman, and I ain't done runnin' around.

I still have my feet on the ground, I just wear better shoes.

Slowly we have lifeted ourselves by our own bootstraps. Step by halting step, we have beat our way back

The truest writers are those who see language not as a linguistic process but as a living element.

One ever feels his twoness - an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.

The burden of being black is that you have to be superior just to be equal. But the glory of it is that, once you achieve, you have achieved, indeed.

When I read great literature, great drama, speeches, or sermons, I feel that the human mind has not achieved anything greater than the ability to share feelings and thoughts through language.

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

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.

A woman needs someone she can trust, someone who laughs when she laughs, but who has different ideas so she can learn from and teach to them. She needs someone who will stand up with her and encourage her to be a woman-not just a female. See where you are, admit what you know, and what you need, and search for a sister friend.

You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man.

The thing about black history is that the truth is so much more complex than anything you could make up.

You go to school, you study about the Germans and the French, but not about your own race. I hope the time will come when you study black history too.

Never before has the seductive market way of life held such sway in nearly every sphere of American life. This marketing way of life promotes addictions to stimulation and obsessions with comfort and convenience ... centered primarily around bodily pleasures and status rankings. ... The common denominator is a rugged and ragged individualism and rapacious hedonism in quest of a perennial "high" in body and mind.

In my writing, as much as I could, I tried to find the good, and praise it.

We've removed the ceiling above our dreams. There are no more impossible dreams.

In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.

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

There are no new ideas. There are only new ways of making them felt.

Racism is not an excuse to not do the best you can.

What's shaking, chiefy baby?

[W]e are the heirs of a past of rope, fire, and murder. I for one am not ashamed of this past. My shame is for those who became so inhuman that they could inflict this torture upon us.

Bring on your tear gas, bring on your grenades, your new supplies of Mace, your state troopers and even your national guards. But let the record show we ain't going to be turned around.