Gregory Stanton

“It's important for us to know where we come from and what's been done to us, otherwise, how're we supposed to fight what's happening to us now? It's all connected.”
― Daven McQueen, The Invincible Summer of Juniper Jones

“Next week is Negro History Week," said Simple. "And how much Negro history do you know?"

"Why should I know Negro history?" I replied. "I am an American."

"But you are also a black man," said Simple, "and you did not come over on the Mayflower—at least, not the same Mayflower as the rest."

"What rest?" I asked.

"The rest who make up the most," said Simple, "then write the history books and leave us out, or else put in the books nothing but prize fighters and ballplayers. Some folks think Negro history begins and ends with Jackie Robinson."

"Not quite," I said.

"Not quite is right," said Simple. "Before Jackie there was Du Bois and before him there was Booker T. Washington, and before him was Frederick Douglass and before Douglass the original Freedom Walker, Harriet Tubman, who were a lady. Before her was them great Freedom Fighters who started rebellions in the South long before the Civil War. By name they was Gabriel and Nat Turner and Denmark Vesey."

"When, how, and where did you get all that information at once?" I asked.

"From my wife, Joyce," said Simple. "Joyce is a fiend for history. She belongs to the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History. Also Joyce went to school down South. There colored teachers teach children about our history. It is not like up North where almost no teachers teach children anything about themselves and who they is and where they come from out of our great black past which were Africa in the old days.”
― Langston Hughes, The Return of Simple

“Anybody, no matter who they were, could come right off the boat and get more rights and respect than amerikan-born Blacks.”
― Assata Shakur, Assata: An Autobiography

“When white feminism ignores history, ignores that the tears of white women have the power to get Black people killed while insisting that all women are on the same side, it doesn't solve anything. Look at Carolyn Bryant, who lied about Emmett Till whistling at her in 1955. Despite knowing who had killed him, and that he was innocent of even the casual disrespect she had claimed, she carried on with the lie for another fifty years after his lynching and death”
― Mikki Kendall, Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot