African American Woman Quotes

#1. The law cannot do it for us. We must do it for ourselves. Women in this country must become revolutionaries." - Shirley Chisholm, the first African American woman elected to the U.S. Congress

Jessica Bennett

#2. My plays aren't stylistically the same. Just being an African-American woman playwright on Broadway is experimental.

Suzan-Lori Parks

#3. My mom was the first African-American woman to graduate from the University of Chicago Law School, in 1946. She had leadership roles in the law, in government and the corporate world. She was a great role model in that she felt anything was possible.

John W. Rogers Jr.

#4. I don't live my life as a writer. I'm a mother, an African-American woman, and I do everything that everybody else does - cook and a little bit of cleaning.

Terry McMillan

#5. Mostly I'm proud to be an African-American woman, but I'm glad I have a universal look as well.

Chanel Iman

#6. To reaffirm the statement on the choosing of my identity, I come from two beautiful cultures which I have embraced, bridged, balanced, and identify with. I am proud to be who I am as a Dine' (Navajo) and Nahilii (African American) woman. Hozho', , & blessings

Radmilla Cody

#7. I was repeatedly told that there isn't an African American woman who can open a show on Broadway. I said, 'Well, how do we know? How do we know if we don't do it?' I said, 'I think you're wrong.'

Lynn Nottage

#8. 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

#9. I was the first African-American woman to play Maggie in 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.' It was at the Virginia State Theatre, and we turned Richmond upside down.

Tamara Tunie

#10. I would love to get a role that changes the landscape of being an African American woman in television and film.

Candice Patton

#11. You know what the lowest rated episode we ever had was? Where Captain Kirk kissed Uhuru - a white man kissing an African-American woman. All the stations in the American South - in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana - refused to air it. And so our ratings plummeted.

George Takei

#12. 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

#13. The shadow acts on instinct, not reason.

Erin Kellison

#14. In other words, Texans lynched one person a month for thirty years, and almost 80 percent of the time the man or woman hanging on the end of a rope or smoldering in the remains of a fire was African American.

E.R. Bills

#15. For twenty years I have ached to go back home, when there was nobody there to whom I could return.

Anne Lamott

#16. My parents are wonderful, practical, sensible people, and the expectation was that I would study something academic.

Gemma Chan

#17. I'm jealous of her. Can you be jealous of your mom for being able to handle things? I couldn't take a day off, take a dog to the vet, and cook dinner. That's like three times too much stuff for me to get done in one day. How am I ever going to have my own house?

Ned Vizzini

#18. There are not many of us African American Sister Presidents, and those of us who are in this field do not have an easy time of it. Why the story goes that one Black woman college president died and went to hell, and it was two weeks before she realized that she wasn't still on the job.

Johnnetta B. Cole

#19. 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

#20. I'm here not just as an actress but as a woman, an African-American, a granddaughter of Ellis Island immigrants, a person who could not have afforded college without the help of student loans and as one of millions of volunteers working to re-elect President Obama!

Kerry Washington

#21. You're an incredible woman, Lela. I would battle a thousand Terrademons to reach your heart. But I cannot challenge or defeat an enemy that's already dead. I cannot fight for a heart that doesn't want to be won.

N.D. Jones

#22. I am a colored woman or a Negro woman. Either one is OK. People dislike those words now. Today these use this term African American. It wouldn't occur to me to use that. I prefer to think of myself as an American, that's all!

Annie Elizabeth Delany

#23. There's good reason to be excited. You have the first woman running who is qualified, and a very attractive African-American who has demonstrated crossover appeal. I got involved in politics 40 years ago during the civil rights movement, so yes, it's an exciting thing.

Joe Biden

#24. It would be impossible to think it's just about sex with a woman like you. You demand more without even trying. I'm set on giving you more. Sex is only an introduction- Amon Mikende

AlTonya Washington

#25. I remember reading article about the woman in that Oakland neighborhood who lost all her children to violence. I wondered why'd she keep living there after the first one was killed. Didn't she care about the others?
Today, I zoomed out and wondered why I'm still in America.

Darnell Lamont Walker

#26. Don't interfere with something that ain't bothering' you none.

Roy Bean

#27. I'd lost a good deal of my sensibilities, most of my faith in mankind, and all of my underwear somewhere between a graveyard and a church parking lot.

Liliana Hart

#28. If you're colored, you get the short end of the stick. If you're a woman, you get the short end of the stick. So what do we get for being colored and women?

Sherri L. Smith

#29. 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

#30. Any woman with kinky textured hair - can wear it, love it and manage it. She only needs the right tools, inspiration and motivation.

Monica Millner

#31. Music is harmony, harmony is perfection, perfection is our dream, and our dream is heaven.

Henri Frederic Amiel

#32. All work is the avoidance of harder work.

James Richardson

#33. I sometimes wish I were African American because people don't bash them afterward. It's the hardest to be a woman.

Julie Delpy

#34. But at the same time you can't ...

Angela Davis

#35. I'm African American, I'm a lot of other things, a musician and an artist. But that woman part holds the most pain for me. And therefore, obviously, the most lessons.

India.Arie

#36. Golden Arches theory: no two countries with a McDonald's have ever fought in a war.

Steven Pinker

#37. Viola: I pity you
Olivia: That's a degree to love

William Shakespeare

#38. It was hard to love a woman that always made you feel so wishful.

Zora Neale Hurston

#39. We have this American president, Obama, born of an African father, who is saying we will not give you aid if you don't embrace homosexuality. We ask, was he born out of homosexuality? We need continuity in our race, and that comes from the woman, and no to homosexuality.

Robert Mugabe

#40. Ivanov: Gentlemen, you've again set up a drinking shop in my study ... I have asked each and every one of you a
thousand times not to do that ...
Look now, you've spilt vodka on a paper ... and there are crumbs ... and gherkins ...
It's disgusting!

Anton Chekhov

#41. I started to learn Greek when I was in high school, the last year of high school, by accident, because my teacher knew Greek and she offered to teach me on the lunch hour, so we did it in an informal way, and then I did it at university, and that was the main thing of my life.

Anne Carson