Black History Quotes

Phillip Roth uses his Black women characters to make anti intellectual remarks about Black history month, begun by a man who reached intellectual heights that Roth will never attain. Roth is a petty bigot and his ignorant remarks about black culture expose him as a buffoon to scholars the world over.

Black History Month is a great celebration for Black people everywhere. I just hope we get to the point as Black people that we celebrate everyday like it is Black History month by living our lives and aspiring to be all we can. Many people lost their lives for us to have the privileges we have so we need to honor them by striving to be the best we can be.

As we celebrate Black History Month we should be grateful for the achievements they made and inspired by their legacies to continue their work.

Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better.

When the Negro was completely an underdog, he needed white spokesmen. Liberals played their parts in this period exceedingly well.... But now that the Negro has rejected his role as an underdog, he has become more assertive in his search for identity and group solidarity; he wants to speak for himself.

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.

Each person must live their life as a model for others.

I refuse to accept the view . . . that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.

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.

You really can change the world if you care enough.

Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.

I used to want the words 'She tried' on my tombstone. Now I want 'She did it.'

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

I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all.

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

For Africa to me... is more than a glamorous fact. It is a historical truth. No man can know where he is going unless he knows exactly where he has been and exactly how he arrived at his present place.

My father was a slave and my people died to build this country and I am going to stay here and have a part of it just like you.

I am America. I am the part you won't recognize. But get used to me. Black, confident, cocky; my name, not yours; my religion, not yours; my goals, my own; get used to me.

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 battles that count aren't the ones for gold medals. The struggles within yourself - the invisible, inevitable battles inside all of us - that's where it's at.

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.

Hate is too great a burden to bear. It injures the hater more than it injures the hated.

Defining myself, as opposed to being defined by others, is one of the most difficult challenges I face.

Black people have always been America's wilderness in search of a promised land.

I am the dream and the hope of the slave

We are the ones we've been waiting for.

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

In this country American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate.

No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem.

Excellence is the best deterrent to racism or sexism.

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

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

I felt somehow for many years that George Washington and Alexander Hamilton just left me out by mistake. But through the process of amendment, interpretation, and court decision, I have finally been included in 'We, the people.'

Never underestimate the power of dreams and the influence of the human spirit. We are all the same in this notion: The potential for greatness lives within each of us.

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise. I rise. I rise.

What we need is not a history of selected races or nations, but the history of the world void of national bias, race hate, and religious prejudice.

Where there is no vision, there is no hope.

The potential for greatness lives within us all.

I was raised to believe that excellence is the best deterrent to racism or sexism. And that's how I operate my life.

Do not call for black power or green power. Call for brain power.

Never be limited by other people's limited imaginations.

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

Where there is no struggle, there is no strength.

Unconditional love will have the final word in reality.

I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can't accept not trying.

Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced.

No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow.

It is the mind that makes the body.

You can't separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom.

What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? ... Or does it explode?