Steven Biko Quotes

#1. The logic behind white domination is to prepare the black man for the subservient role in this country.

Steven Biko

#2. WOMEN must be at the forefront of nation-building to bring the South African citizenry together and, therefore, develop a whole new ethos of human co-existence

Steven Biko

#3. Being black is not a matter of pigmentation - being black is a reflection of a mental attitude.

Steven Biko

#4. Change the way people think and things will never be the same

Steven Biko

#5. This is white man's integration, an integration based on exploitative values

Steven Biko

#6. Sure there are a few good whites just as much as there are a few bad Blacks. However what we are concerned here with is group attitudes and group politics. The exception does not make a lie or the rule - it merely substantiates it.

Steven Biko

#7. To a large extent the evil-doers have succeeded in producing at the output end of their machine a kind of black man who is man only in form. This is the extent to which the process of dehumanization has advanced.

Steven Biko

#8. We believe in the inherent goodness of man.

Steven Biko

#9. A community is easily divide when their perception of the same thing is different

Steven Biko

#10. In all fields black consciousness seeks to talk to the black man in a language that is his own

Steven Biko

#11. Merely by describing yourself as black you have started on a road towards emancipation, you have committed yourself to fight against all forces that seek to use your blackness as a stamp that marks you out as a subservient being.

Steven Biko

#12. If one is free at heart, no man-made chains can bind one to servitude.

Steven Biko

#13. The wealth of the country must eventually be enjoyed by people of the country

Steven Biko

#14. The essence of politics is to direct oneself to the group which wields power

Steven Biko

#15. We must realise that prophetic cry of black students: Black man you are on your own!

Steven Biko

#16. I think the central theme about black society is that it has got elements of a defeated society

Steven Biko

#17. We are experiencing new problems every day and whatever we do adds to the richness of our cultural heritage as long as it has man as its centre

Steven Biko

#18. Any warning normally implies, even if it is tacit, that there should be changes

Steven Biko

#19. In time, we shall be in a position to bestow on South Africa the greatest possible gift - a more human face.

Steven Biko

#20. If you want to say something radical, you should dress conservative.

Steven Biko

#21. Apartheid - both petty and grand - is obviously evil

Steven Biko

#22. Tradition has it that whenever a group of people has tasted the lovely fruits of wealth, security and prestige it begins to find it more comfortable to believe in the obvious lie and accept that it alone is entitled to privilege.

Steven Biko

#23. The great powers of the world may have done wonders in giving the world an industrial and military look but the great gift still has to come from Africa - giving the world a more human face.

Steven Biko

#24. Black Consciousness seeks to infuse the black community with a new-found pride in themselves, their efforts, their value systems, their culture, their religion and their outlook to life.

Steven Biko

#25. We believe it is the duty of the vanguard political movement which brings change to educate people's outlook

Steven Biko

#26. The oneness of community for instance is at the heart of our culture.

Steven Biko

#27. Black Consciousness therefore takes cognizance of the deliberateness of God's plan in creating Black people black.

Steven Biko

#28. I am against the fact that a settler minority should impose an entire system of values on an indigenous people.

Steven Biko

#29. Black Consciousness is an attitude of the mind and a way of life, the most positive call to emanate from the black world for a long time.

Steven Biko

#30. Part of the approach envisaged in bringing about Black Consciousness has to be directed to the past, to seek to rewrite the history of the black man and to produce in it the heroes who form the core of the African background

Steven Biko

#31. It becomes more necessary to see the truth as it is if you realize that the only vehicle for change are these people who have lost their personality.

Steven Biko

#32. You are either alive and proud or you are dead, and when you are dead, you can't care anyway.

Steven Biko

#33. The black man has become a shell, a shadow of man, completely defeated, drowning in his own misery, a slave, an ox bearing the yoke of oppression with sheepish timidity.

Steven Biko

#34. When you say 'Black is beautiful' you are saying, 'Man you are okay as you are, begin to look upon yourself as a human being'.

Steven Biko

#35. The basic tenet of black consciousness is that the black man must reject all value systems that seek to make him a foreigner in the country of his birth and reduce his basic human dignity.

Steven Biko

#36. The power of a movement lies in the fact that it can indeed change the habits of people. This change is not the result of force but of dedication, of moral persuasion.

Steven Biko

#37. Black man, you are on your own.

Steven Biko

#38. I'm going to be me as I am, and you can beat me or jail me or even kill me, but I'm not going to be what you want me to be.

Steven Biko

#39. A people without a positive history is like a vehicle without an engine.

Steven Biko

#40. The system concedes nothing without demand, for it formulates its very method of operation on the basis that the ignorant will learn to know, the child will grow into an adult and therefore demands will begin to be made. It gears itself to resist demands in whatever way it sees fit.

Steven Biko