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

“I'm hurting because the color of my skin makes me perfect for their target practice.”
― R.H. Sin

“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

“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

“There is no black history month, the entire human race calendar is black.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Hazrat-e Humanity: The Uncultured Polyglot

“Mother Africa is the cradle of humanity, Global South is the cradle of civilization.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Hazrat-e Humanity: The Uncultured Polyglot

“If a people can be renamed, they can be removed. Reclassification was never a clerical act—it was a strategy”
― T'Malkia Zuri, We Built This [BEEP]: The Historical Receipts of Black American Visionaries, Builders, Farmers, and Founders

“Peaceful resistance during apartheid is nonsense, even to a child. Tutu recalled a moment when he was speaking in a meeting about peaceful change.
After the meeting, a twelve-year-old boy approached him. 'Bishop Tutu, I heard what you said. Do you believe it?' Tutu said he began to hem and haw and evade the question. The boy, sensing his inability to answer him straight on, issued a challenge: 'Can you people, with your eloquent talk about peaceful change, show us what you have achieved with your talk? And we will show you what we have gained with a few stones.' The boy was referring to the Soweto Uprising of 1976, in which over twenty thousand South African schoolchildren protested the introduction of Afrikaans as the language of instruction in Black and Bantu schools. Hundreds of children were shot at or wounded, and sixteen were killed, by the police. The violence went on for three days and drew international attention. Thousands of children were harmed, but even though they were outmatched by police forces, they physically fought back and won the world’s support. Tutu admitted that he did not have any evidence to show him. Yet the boy could point to the fact that Afrikaans was no longer the compulsory language of instruction. He could point to new school buildings that the South African government had put up as a result of all their activism. He could point to the fact that the South African government was putting more money into Black education than they had before, largely in response to what the young people had done. Tutu conceded, 'And so in some ways, he was right.' Even a child understood the efficacy of force and the limitations of nonviolence.”
― Kellie Carter Jackson, We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance

“Change filled the air
when the people stood
one behind the other
on lines as long as history
to cast their vote,
this precious note
placed on ballots.”
― Ibi Zoboi, The People Remember

“A new president, Barack Obama, claimed a seat,
the most powerful in all the land.
He demanded change and took a stand
with Michelle, Sasha, and Malia by his side.
They were their ancestors' dreams, the people's pride.”
― Ibi Zoboi, The People Remember

“But the people remember
that it happens again and again.

A boy and his toy;
a teenager on the phone;
friends coming home from a party;
a girl asking for the right way--
their breath and their light
taken in just one shot.

But the people still remember
that with each rising sun is a new day.

With each new year is a new dream;
a new seed of hope unearthed, dusted, and polished.

The people know
that there will be a time of peace.”
― Ibi Zoboi, The People Remember

“Booker dreamed
of making friends with words,
setting free the secrets
that lived in books.”
― Jabari Asim, Fifty Cents and a Dream: Young Booker T. Washington

“Man, I could really go for some fried chicken.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“Colonial and conquered minds are the most difficult people to engage in any awakening conversation, because they treat every challenging idea as blasphemy and as a threat to the fragile privileges of their temporary enslavement.”
― Eduvie Donald