Top 100 African American People Quotes
#1. Michael Joseph Jackson's genius was the ability to be the raw article himself - the real article himself. He is part of the African American people who were marginalized.
Michael Eric Dyson
#2. One of the reasons that the African American actors wanted to be a part of the show was because these people are talking to each other the way that African American people talk to each other, and they said that they didn't see that on TV.
Tony Goldwyn
#3. For African-American people, I am in the business of inventing a reality that gives a different perspective - on history, on crime, on art, on love.
John Edgar Wideman
#4. The story of the African-American people is the story of the settlement and growth of America itself, a universal tale that all people should experience,
Henry Louis Gates
#5. I want to be promoted in the urban areas. A lot of African-American people should know more about me.
Floyd Mayweather Jr.
#6. Sadly, because President Obama has done such a poor job as President, you won't see another black president for generations! I think he has set a very low bar and I think it's a shame for the African-American people.
Pope Francis
#7. You know Latin people? African-American people? How our skin ages more slowly? Even though we're dramatic, we move our faces, we eat higher-fat foods, we're the ones with fewer wrinkles - it makes you wonder.
Salma Hayek
#8. As an African American actress, there are people who have been staples in my life that opened a door that I can walk through. I hope that I can have that impact.
Monique Coleman
#9. When you have a policy of making sure that African Americans cannot build wealth, of plundering African American communities of wealth, giving opportunities to other people, it's only right that you might want to, you know, pay that back.
Ta-Nehisi Coates
#10. I feel like I come from a smaller off shoot of black people because I am mixed. People say I'm African American but that doesn't include the other half of me.
Maya Rudolph
#11. America's put American Black Folks in such a bad position, empty plates and glasses now get us full.
Darnell Lamont Walker
#12. One out of every eight prisoners in the world is an African American. We are warehousing people as a profit to shareholders or for benefits to communities that get to host federal prisons. It is modern slavery.
Randall Robinson
#13. It's unfortunate that [Louis] Brandeis was not able to translate or abstract his devotion to cultural pluralism and racial equality as he put it for Jews to enslave people and their descendants and to African Americans.
Jeffrey Rosen
#14. It's unfortunate that a lot of people think African-American female artists are monolithically R&B this-or-that, don't have to do anything by default.
Janelle Monae
#15. Nowadays, people always say, how come he's doing such young shows? But they never mention The Mod Squad. I was very proud of that show. It's the first time an African-American guy kissed a white girl.
Aaron Spelling
#16. You don't have to be African American to really enjoy 'Frisky Business'. But as far as being black, a lot of people in New York have been stopped and frisked, so that hits home for them.
Jessica Williams
#17. I think most people write from what they see in their own world, which is maybe why we so often see an African-American woman as the best friend, or the one you bring in when you need some sass. It's like we're put in a box.
Tika Sumpter
#18. Most people can't tell if I'm European, Asian, African or American. Isn't it good to know my ancestors weren't racist motherfuckers?
Daniel Marques
#19. I am more of a conservationist, myself. And people have come to me and said, "Wow, you're an African-American conservationist!" And my response is, "No, I'm a conservationist who happens to be black."
Jerome Ringo
#20. We've gone through the names - Negro, African American, African, Black. For me that's an indication of a people still trying to find their identity. Who determines what is black?
Spike Lee
#21. It seems that the Neanderthal DNA that modern Europeans and Asians (and also Native Americans and basically all non-African people) are carrying around is random. This means there are different bits and pieces in different populations, but it doesn't seem to amount to much that's significant.
Elizabeth Kolbert
#22. I am suspicious - first of all, in myself - of adopted mysticisms of glib spirituality, above all of white people's tendency to ... vampirize American Indian, or African, or Asian, or other 'exotic' ways of understanding.
Adrienne Rich
#25. I've never understood people who say they're not a practicing Jew. You never hear a black guy say he's not a practicing African-American. What does it even mean?
Gilbert Gottfried
#27. In the community, in the African-American community, one person ought to say something, and that is the minister. The minister is paid by the people. He doesn't work for a big company. He doesn't represent a particular special interest.
Clementa C. Pinckney
#28. Samba rhythm is a great one to sing on, but it's also got some other suggestions in it, an undercurrent of being primitive - because it is a primitive African, South American, Afro-whatever-you-call-that rhythm. So to white people, it has a very sinister thing about it.
Mick Jagger
#29. That's one problem I have. Jews when they get successful they will help their people and some of the African-Americans - maybe I'll get in trouble again - they don't want to help anybody,
Donald Sterling
#30. I am an American. Black. Conservative. I don't use African-American, because I'm American, I'm black and I'm conservative. I don't like people trying to label me. African- American is socially acceptable for some people, but I am not some people.
Herman Cain
#31. Myself, I happen to be married to an African-American woman, and we're together 17 years. We took a few trips to the South 15 years ago, and we were sobered by some of the reactions people had - how subtle or not-so-subtle their reactions were.
Tom Verica
#32. ...forever meant different things to people at different times. They could imagine what infinity looked and felt like as much as they wanted, but could never truly grasp its meaning nor bear its full weight.
Roy L. Pickering Jr.
#33. I had this idea that I wanted to do this mixture of visions of African American women and visions of African American men. And call it 'The Men' and call it 'The Women' and show different faces of these two people.
Faith Ringgold
#34. I love "Phenomenal Woman." The experiences she had of being African American in the U.S. - that itself is a task. I appreciate the hardships Maya Angelou went through for our generation. I'm super influenced by the black people that paved the way for us.
Serena Williams
#35. Somehow, someway, for some people there's an automatic assumption that a mayor who is African-American or some other elected official has to support another African-American.
Michael Nutter
#36. I love the fact that a lot of my audience is people from the inner city. African-Americans love my films.
Wes Craven
#37. I'm less interested in how we label ourselves. I'm more interested in how we treat each other. And if we're treating each other right, then I can be African-American, I can be multi-racial, I can be you name it, what matters is, am I showing people respect, am I caring for one, for other people.
Barack Obama
#38. In the closing years of the nineteenth century, African-American historians began to look at their people's history from their vantage point and their point of view.
John Henrik Clarke
#39. I'm always telling people baseball needs to be more prominent in the African American community. What a better way to do so, going on these TV shows and appearing on the cover of this or that. Now kids can see how baseball can change your life. Frank Thomas did that for me.
Matt Kemp
#40. I feel like we need to make new superheroes, African-American superheroes, that people would accept.
Terry Crews
#41. The African-American community still needs to come together as one and stand up for rights of the people and of what's happening in their culture, their community.
Ziggy Marley
#42. Interestingly, a lot of the polling that I see is not along racial lines, but along generational lines. We are doing better and better among younger people, not so well among older people, whether they're African-American, whether they're white or whether they're Latino.
Bernie Sanders
#43. I have a long history in fighting for civil rights. I understand that many people in the African-American community may not understand that.
Bernie Sanders
#44. People identify with me - everyone does - African American women, Caucasian women, they all identify with me because I'm ethnic.
Janice Dickinson
#45. I hate white people writing for black people; it's so offensive. So we go out and look specifically for African-American voices.
Lee Daniels
#46. In the long, nonillustrious history of white people pilfering African American culture, have I just perpetrated that? I'm motivated by a love for the music and by a love of the performances, and I really hope I haven't done anything bad.
Moby
#47. It is a cultural tradition that makes New Orleans what it is. It also represents the roots of American music and an important part of the African-American community in New Orleans. It unites people in some of the poorer neighborhoods of the city. It is absolutely critical to continue.
Bill Taylor
#48. Being the only African American at this level in American Ballet Theater, I feel like people are looking at me, and it's my responsibility for me to do whatever I can to provide these opportunities in communities to be able to educate them.
Misty Copeland
#49. It will be up to each of you to make sure that the young people, African Americans, Latinos, and women, who powered our victory in 2008, stand together once again.
Barack Obama
#50. There is something immensely scary about putting yourself out there for people to love or hate you, fan or pan you, review or screw you.
L.V. Lewis
#51. Live life to the fullest and never forget the people that supported you along the way.
Dorothy W. Cosey
#52. To make an absolutely gross generalization, I think a lot of people feel like if you're mixed, more often than not you're quote unquote white. So if you're mixed, you embrace the mainstream culture more than the African-American culture.
Keegan-Michael Key
#53. The interesting thing about the African-American experience in this country is that we are sort of a mongrel of people. I mean we're all kind of mixed up.
Barack Obama
#54. A lot of people don't realize that hair is a big thing for a lot of people, not just African-American women. It's something to be aware of and to be cautious of.
Zendaya
#55. I think it's a wonderful thing to have African-American characters. Look at life. It's not a white world or a black world; there are all kind of people in it. It's showing growth, and in today's world there are so many outlets.
Darius McCrary
#56. Don't you know sugar is brown first? White folks couldn't stand the fact that something so sweet shared the same color as the people who cut the cane, slopped the hogs and picked the cotton. So they bleached it to resemble them, and now they done gone and fooled everybody. You included.
Bernice L. McFadden
#57. Welfare has destroyed the African-American family by telling young black women that husbands and fathers are unnecessary and obsolete. ... We have incentivized fornication rather than marriage, and it's no wonder we are now awash in the disastrous social consequences of people who rut like rabbits.
Bryan Fischer
#58. The media in America is not covering American AIDS very much. They're covering African AIDS as if somehow miraculously it's all stopped here. Well, it hasn't, and the one thing they're not saying about Africa is that all those people are going to die; there's no way these people can be saved - none.
Larry Kramer
#59. I stay connected in my head. I'm spiritually and psychologically connected to African-Americans. They are my people, and that will never change.
Assata Shakur
#60. If you're Native American and you pray to the wolves, you're a savage. If you're African and you pray to your ancestors, you're a primitive. But when white people pray to a guy who turns water into wine, well, that's just common sense.
Trevor Noah
#61. I don't buy the argument that there can't be a successful independent candidacy for the presidency of the United States. People who say, 'It can't happen,' are many of the same people who said we'd never elect an African American.
Mark McKinnon
#62. There are individuals who are working very hard to promote fear and antagonism towards Islam and Muslims in this country. It's fueled, in part, by the first African-American president that we have. Obama's father was a Muslim and people have used this to arouse hostility against him.
Feisal Abdul Rauf
#64. I was taught from a young age that many people would treat me as a second-class citizen because I was African-American and because I was female.
Queen Latifah
#65. I'd like to state that Spike Lee is not saying that African American culture is just for black people alone to enjoy and cherish. Culture is for everybody.
Spike Lee
#66. Black people are dying in this country because we have a criminal justice system which is out of control, a system in which over 50% of young African-American kids are unemployed, it is estimated that a black baby born today has a one in four chance of ending up in the criminal justice system.
Bernie Sanders
#67. I'd be happy if people said that I did a little bit to raise the dignity and recognition of the greatness of African-American music.
Ahmet Ertegun
#68. One thing that sticks in my mind is that jazz means freedom and openness. It's a music that, although it developed out of the African American experience, speaks more about the human experience than the experience of a particular people.
Herbie Hancock
#70. I never said I wasn't Black ... I want to make that very clear. I said, I am not African-American. I never expected my personal beliefs and comments to spark such emotion in people. I think it is only positive when we can openly discuss race and being labeled in America.
Raven-Symone
#71. And that's the beginning of the primary conversation in African American literature, right there: the African descendant explaining to the European descendant about how white people's actions are affecting the lives of black people.* In
Mat Johnson
#72. It takes time for brown people and people of different ethnicities to get into the Hollywood world, which is predominantly Caucasian and African American.
Utkarsh Ambudkar
#73. Decades of record immigration have produced lower wages and higher unemployment for our citizens, especially for African-American and Latino workers. We are going to have an immigration system that works, but one that works for the American people.
Donald Trump
#74. When people see Barack Obama, they don't necessarily see an African-American president. They see someone who is a child of immigrants. They see someone whose family has worked hard and struggled. And they see many similarities between themselves and Barack Obama.
Grace Meng
#75. Crisis' seems to be too mild a word to describe conditions in countless African-American communities. It is beyond crisis when in the richest nation in the world, African Americans in Harlem live shorter lives than the people of Bangladesh, one of the poorest nations of the world.
Johnnetta B. Cole
#76. I want to introduce my readers to people they may never have met, take them places they may never have visited, and present them with situations they may never have encountered.
J. Everett Prewitt
#77. 'Revelations' is one of the most important pieces to the African American arts. It assesses the hope and despair of a people and overcoming the struggle with our faith.
Robert Battle
#78. We're African-American and we work together as a family, so people assume we're like the Jacksons. But I didn't have parents using me to get out of a bad situation.
Beyonce Knowles
#79. People ask me if I miss the States. I miss African Americans. But not the U.S. government or all the things they put me through. I miss African American culture, our speech, dance and cooking.
Assata Shakur
#80. Well, what I will tell you is the support from the world - it's not just an African-American citizen. There are people of all different walks of life who are rallying behind the concerns with the that Sandy was treated because what that says to me is that this is an American issue.
Sharon Cooper
#81. I think that there are some people on the so-called Left who might say we have to circle our wagons around the first African American president, and to me that is racism in reverse because his policies are actually still the racist policies of empire.
Cindy Sheehan
#83. People see dark faces out there, and the perception is that they're African American. They're not us. They're impostors,
Torii Hunter
#84. I don't think people have been able to deal with the fact that African American filmmakers can make movies about life and relationships.
Tim Robbins
#85. In the final analysis, the whole cause of world revolution hinges on the revolutionary struggles of the Asian, African and Latin American people who make up the overwhelming majority of the world's population.
Lin Biao
#87. We still have to create things for African American women. Just like Tyler Perry is doing it, we can't wait for things to happen; you have to go and make and create roles and go to people.
Kym Whitley
#88. I sometimes wish I were African American because people don't bash them afterward. It's the hardest to be a woman.
Julie Delpy
#89. You know, I'm an African-American quarterback. That may scare a lot of people because they - they haven't seen nothing that they can compare me to.
Cam Newton
#90. This book is dedicated to every woman who has ever felt self-conscious about her size. Outer beauty comes in all sizes, shapes, heights, ages, and colors. And inner beauty will always shine through, no matter what the packaging.
Raynetta Manees
#91. I think that we, as the African-American men in hip-hop, we have a greater responsibly because we have the ears of so many millions of our young people. And they listenin'.
Steve Harvey
#92. We have more people in jail than any other country in Earth, disproportionately Latino and African-American.
Bernie Sanders
#93. Most people surrendered fairy tale hopes in exchange for cookie cutter lives
Roy L. Pickering Jr.
#94. People can graduate from beauty school and know everything about white hair and nothing about African-American hair.
Tracie Thoms
#95. The history of American democracy, to say the least, has been checkered. Our nation was founded at a time when people of African descent were held in bondage. After slavery was abolished, they were forced to endure legal discrimination for another 100 years.
Bernie Sanders
#96. I look white to a lot of people. And I'm not. I'm African-American. I'm mixed. I like to call myself Mulatto because that definition fits. So, you know, I've dealt with the conflict my whole life between how I look and my actual ethnic and racial identity.
Mat Johnson
#97. Homicide through gun violence is the leading cause of death among young African American males in the United States. If people look a certain way, they have a higher tendency of dying, of having their lives taken away.
Ryan Coogler
#99. These same people who accuse Planned Parenthood of 'targeting' African-American children, they care about you only while you're in the womb. The minute you crown, you're on your own.
Gwen Moore
#100. As an African-American, we stand on the shoulders of people who fought despite not seeing victories in their lifetime or even in their children's lifetime or even in their grandchildren's lifetime. So fatalism isn't really an option.
Ta-Nehisi Coates
