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

“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

“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

“Black History is World History, we are all offsprings of Africa.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Bulletproof Backbone: Injustice Not Allowed on My Watch

“Cosmos is colored.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Iftar-e Insaniyat: The First Supper

“The believed they fled their chains. Some brought new ones with them. Shackled to the God of their captors, they praised him with a faith that was once reserved for deities who looked like them and spoke their mother tongue. Fueled by impossible belief, an unshakable faith was born.”
― Erin E. Adams

“They believed they fled their chains. Some brought new ones with them. Shackled to the God of their captors, they praised him with a faith that was once reserved for deities who looked like them and spoke their mother tongue. Fueled by impossible belief, an unshakable faith was born.”
― Erin E. Adams

“I’m a member of the Silent Generation, and my story is about my determination, resilience, wisdom, hard work, and independence—all rooted in my cultural background and the times in which I have lived.”
― Felicita Churie, The Veiled Investment

“We had been completely brainwashed and we didn't even know it. We accepted white value systems and white standards of beauty and, at times, we accepted t5he white man's view of ourselves. We had never been exposed to any other point of view or any other standard of beauty.”
― Assata Shakur, Assata: An Autobiography

“The Revolutionary War was led by some rich white boys who got tired of paying heavy taxes to the king. It didn't have anything at all to do with freedom, justice, and equality for all.”
― Assata Shakur, Assata: An Autobiography

“Little did I know that Lincoln was an archracist who had openly expressed his disdain for Black people. He was of the opinion that Black people would be forcibly deported to Africa or anywhere else.”
― Assata Shakur, Assata: An Autobiography

“Since i was a teenager i had always said that the world was too horrible to bring another human being into. And a Black child. We see our children frustrated at best. Noses pressed against windows, looking in. And, at worse, we see them die from drugs or oppression, shot down by police, or wasted away in jail.”
― Assata Shakur, Assata: An Autobiography

“Now your people! Ya'll got a good reason to hate. All the wrongs been done to you and yours? A people who been whipped and beaten, hunted and hounded, suffered so grievously at their hands. You have every reason to despise them. To loathe them for centuries of depravations. That hate would be so pure, so sure and righteous - so strong!”
― P. Djèlí Clark, Ring Shout

“They like the places where we hurt. They use it against us.
The words of the girl, my other self from the dream place, strikes with sudden understanding. The places where we hurt. Where we hurt. Not just me, all of us, colored folk everywhere, who carry our wounds with us, sometimes open for all to see, but always so much more buried and hidden deep. I remember the songs that come with all those visions. Songs full of hurt. Songs full of sadness and tears. Songs pulsing with pain. A righteous anger and cry for justice.
But not hate.
They ain't the same thing. Never was. These monsters want to pervert that. Turn it to their own ends. Because that's what they do. Twist you all up so that you forget yourself. Make you into something like them. Only I can't forget, because all those memories always with me, showing me the way.”
― P. Djèlí Clark, Ring Shout