Black History Quotes

“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.”
― idowu koyenikan, Wealth for all Africans: How Every African Can Live the Life of Their Dreams

“When Pope Pius XII died, LIFE magazine carried a picture of him in his private study kneeling before a black Christ. What was the source of their information? All white people who have studied history and geography know that Christ was a black man. Only the poor, brainwashed American Negro has been made to believe that Christ was white, to maneuver him into worshiping the white man. After becoming a Muslim in prison, I read almost everything I could put my hands on in the prison library. I began to think back on everything I had read and especially with the histories, I realized that nearly all of them read by the general public have been made into white histories. I found out that the history-whitening process either had left out great things that black men had done, or some of the great black men had gotten whitened.”
― Malcolm X

“All blood runs red.”
― Phrase painted on the side of the plane flown by Eugene Bullard in World War I the first black comba

“I'm not quite sure what freedom is, but i know damn well what it ain't. How have we gotten so silly, i wonder.”
― Assata Shakur, Assata: An Autobiography

“Antiblack violencein Chicago was common since at least the 189-s, when blacks were brought in as strikebreakers. The violence grew with the black population. In the two years leading up to mid-July 1919, whhites bombed more than twenty-five homes and properties owned by blacks in white areas...One bombing killed a little girl...The police never arrested anyone, infuriating blacks.”
― Cameron McWhirter

“Canceled checks will be to future historians and cultural anthropologists what the Dead Sea Scrolls and hieroglyphics are to us.”
― Brent Staples

“The abolition of slavery, apart from preservation of the Union, was the most important result of our Civil War. But the transition was badly handled. Slaves were simply declared free and then left to their own devises. Southern Negroes, powerless, continued to be underprivileged in education, medical care, job opportunities and political status.”
― William Silverman

“When the slaves finished, they had stripped the fields of their color. It was a magnificent operation, from seed to bale, but no one of them could be prideful of their labor. It had been stolen from them. Bled from them.”
― Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad

“Here is a new musical phenomenon. Not songs written for black musicians by white composers. Not humiliating parodies that grope for a laugh, joking at the black singers' expense. Black composers and lyricists, black musicians excellent in their own right. Not merely excellent, but daring and vibrant and wholly original.”
― Julie Berry, Lovely War

“Their story, as the Delany sisters like to say, is not meant as "black" or "women's" history, but American history. It belongs to all of us. (From the Preface of "Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years)”
― Amy Hill Hearth

“If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.”
― Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X

“Black churches viewed education and litercay as paramount to the success of the African American community...."the vast majorities of HBCUs were founded to be seminaries and divinity schools...schools in church basements evolved into HBCUs: Morehouse College arose from the basement of Springfield Baptist Church in Augusta Georgia; Selman College, from the basement of Friendship Baptist Church in Atlanta; and Tuskegee Institute, out of a room near the local AME Zion church.”
― Henry Louis Gates Jr., The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song

“Stories of Ayuba's Muslim religious practices - running away to find private spaces in which to say his daily prayers - led to his imprisonment. During his captivity, Ayuba wrote a letter in Arabic to his father in Africa, explaining the desperation of his situation and pleading for help. The letter made its way into the hands of James Oglethorpe, the founder of Georgia, which began as an antislavery colony.”
― Henry Louis Gates Jr., The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song

“A people without a positive history is like a vehicle without an engine. Their [Page 30 ] emotions cannot be easily controlled and channelled in a recognisable direction. They always live in the shadow of a more successful society.”
― Steve Biko, I write what I like

“If you speak to the right elders, you can find out anything. It’s like that in Atlanta, too. It’s like that wherever Black people are—we carry hidden histories, passed down from generation to generation.”
― Tia Williams, A Love Song for Ricki Wilde

“Titus thought the stain that was slavery was soaked into the bedrock of the place he called home. A curse of blood that no amount of money nor charity could wash away.”
― S.A. Cosby, All the Sinners Bleed

“Even Lincoln started off as a backboneless traditionalist, who was prepared to do whatever it takes to save the union. But in time he corrected himself, and became an ally of abolition.

If you cannot be an activist, be an ally. If you cannot be an ally, be silent. There is always something you can do, if not, try not to be an inhuman burden.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Brit Actually: Nursery Rhymes of Reparations

“You know, back in slavery times, our people told stories and sang songs to pass on information when it was dangerous to say things out loud.”
...
“... . There’s an unseen river of communication that forever flows—dark and powerful. Tonight was about food and laughter, yes. But it was also about navigatin’ that river.”
― Sharon M. Draper, Stella by Starlight

“Black lives should not only matter when we are dead. We should matter while we are living.”
― Ahavel Aborishade

“Black women are not victims. Black women are alchemists, spinning gold from a life of hardship.”
― Catherine Joy White, This Thread of Gold: A Celebration of Black Womanhood

“The dark, dark liver--love it, love it, and the beat and beating heart, love that too. More than eyes or feet.More than lungs that have yet to draw free air. More than your life holding womb and your life-giving private parts, hear me now, love your heart. For this is the prize.”
― Toni Morrison, BELOVED

“And I had my Bible. I rolled myself a joint and got a glass of red wine. So I want you to get that in your mind: a Bible, a joint, and a glass of red wine! I preached my own self free that day and joined the church.”
― Yvette Flunder

“if God makes us in God's image, as he does all human beings, the this must be something positive about Blackness. Blackness couldn't be sole negative, given the white supremacists' discourse.”
― James Cone

“Virginia even passed a law in 1667 stating that 'the Conferrin of Baptisme doth not allow that Condition of the slave as to his Bondage or freedome," Thus, when Anglican missionaries arrived in Britain's New World colonies in the 1670s with the intent to convert those enslaved on plantations, they faced opposition and even violence from white colonists who wanted to keep Christianity exclusive to free white people.”
― Katharine Gerbner, Christian Slavery: Conversion and Race in the Protestant Atlantic World

“Anglican missionaries therefore had to articulate a vision of Christianity that brought religion to enslaved men and women while at the same time placating their owners. The centered it on race rather than religion...Missionaries sought to convince planters that Christianity would not foment rebellion. Instead, it would make the enslaved docile, hardworking, and easier to manage.”
― Katharine Gerbner, Christian Slavery: Conversion and Race in the Protestant Atlantic World

“her theology, which Broughton summarized in the 1904 book Women's Work, as Gleaned from the Women of the Bible, offered "biblical precedents for gender equality”
― Henry Louis Gates Jr., The Black Church: This Is Our Story, This Is Our Song

“You know what Black means? BLACK means Brave, BLACK means Leaderly, BLACK means Adventurous, BLACK means Considerate, BLACK means Kind.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Bulldozer on Duty

“BLACK is Brave, Leaderly, Adventurous, Conscientious and KINGly.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Azad Earth Army: When The World Cries Blood

“No longer was reference made to African culture, it became barbarism. Africa was the "dark continent". Religious practices and customs were referred to as superstition. The history of African Society was reduced to tribal battles and internecine wars. There was no conscious migration by the people from one place of abode to another. No, it was always flight from one tyrant who wanted to defeat the tribe not for any positive reason but merely to wipe them out of the face of this earth. No wonder the African child learns to hate his heritage in his days at school. So negative is the image presented to him that he tends to find solace only in close identification with the white society.”
― Steve Biko, I Write What I Like: Selected Writings

“Every society is really governed by hidden laws, by unspoken but profound assumptions on the part of the people, and ours is no exception.”
― James Baldwin