Top 94 African Women Quotes
#1. I interviewed dozens and dozens of African women who had endured more hardship and trauma than most Westerners even read about, and they ploughed on. I often openly cried during interviews, unable to process this violence and hatred towards women I was witnessing.
Lynsey Addario
#2. Culturally, it is commonplace for African women to work.
Richard Attias
#3. African women in general need to know that it's OK for them to be the way they are - to see the way they are as a strength, and to be liberated from fear and from silence.
Wangari Maathai
#4. I write about African women, that's really my topic. I have no shame or qualm in it because it's a very underrepresented topic, which is part of the reason I started to write.
Danai Gurira
#5. Americans of faith should try as hard to save the lives of African women as the lives of unborn fetuses.
Nicholas D. Kristof
#6. My mother is a fighter. After she battled polio and learned to walk again, the doctors told her she would be a cripple her entire life. Instead of accepting defeat, she refused this fate and went on to become the West African Women's Singles tennis champion in college.
Uzo Aduba
#7. Most African women are taught to endure abusive marriages. They say endurance means a good wife but most women endure abusive relationship because they are not empowered economically; they depend on their husbands.
Joyce Banda
#8. This I know for a fact: the reason African women have children is so that there's someone else to do the housework.
Ben Aaronovitch
#9. Silicon Valley is not a perfect meritocracy, but it is open to all who are highly motivated. For example, there is a dearth of women, Hispanics, and African Americans in Silicon Valley.
Deborah Perry Piscione
#12. 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
#13. As we women know, there are so many other hurdles that we have to cross that I would love it if we could stop having the race conversation so that we can get women further on. You know, a female president now that we have an African American president. Maybe we can get an Asian female, a gay person?
Octavia Spencer
#14. ...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.
#15. I do not make any apologies for my manner or personality. I come from a long line of very strong, black African-American women who neither bend nor bow. I haven't had very good modeling in submission.
Faye Wattleton
#16. Many African-American men are incarcerated. And so African-American women do carry an enormous burden. And traditionally have carried a greater burden than perhaps their white counterparts.
Faye Wattleton
#17. Perhaps it is time to debate culture. The common story is that in 'real' African culture, before it was tainted by the West, gender roles were rigid and women were contentedly oppressed.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
#18. This is hardly a South African problem, of course. We are confronting nothing less than a global system of brutal misogyny. Too many men across the world see too many women as repositories of their rage, frustration, narcissism or simply their will to enact violence.
Dave Zirin
#19. Feminist is so heavy with baggage, negative baggage: You hate men, you hate bras, you hate African culture, you think women should always be in charge, you don't wear makeup, you don't shave, you're always angry, you don't have a sense of humor, you don't use deodorant.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
#20. Nothing felt better to him than the act of waiting for her. As long as he believed it wasn't in vain, he was able to justify his presence.
Roy L. Pickering Jr.
#21. Honey, de white man is de ruler of everything as fur as Ah been able tuh find out. Maybe it's some place way off in de ocean where de black man is in power, but we don't know nothin' but what we see.
Zora Neale Hurston
#22. The window of her sadness was so vast that it almost opened a path to her soul.
Ondjaki
#23. No country in Europe has a larger proportion of men and women of immigrant descent, mainly from the African continent and mainly Muslim: an estimated six to seven million of them, or more than 10% of the population.
Timothy Garton Ash
#24. No one would stand for it [being the fool in the media] in a minute if you took any other group -Native Americans, African Americans, Hispanics, women - but somehow it's okay to do that with hillbillies.
John Shelton Reed
#25. When the history of African development is written, it will be clear that a turning point involved the empowerment of women.
Sheryl WuDunn
#27. It's so weird to turn on a switch and be the role model for all women, for all African-Americans. That doesn't happen that easily. It just doesn't. And so I don't act up in public and I don't do anything weird - because my sisters are watching me, not because the world is watching me.
Gabourey Sidibe
#28. Being one of the few African American women to make it to this level in a classical ballet company, the level of American Ballet Theatre, takes a lot of perseverance.
Misty Copeland
#30. I have never been more proud of the United States than I am this year. We have elected an African-American president. We have the stellar Michelle Obama setting the standard for American women. I simply cannot say it enough: look how far we've come.
Kathryn Stockett
#31. African-American women who develop breast cancer are more likely to die from the disease than White women of the same age. Survival rates are worse among African-Americans for colon, prostate and ovarian cancers as well.
Frank C. Garland
#32. We need a broader party. If we're not doing better with millennials and women and Hispanics, African Americans, Asian Americans and others, we will have a tough time being a majority party at the national level.
Rob Portman
#33. Sex in the City was a different kind of phenomenon because of the show itself is a phenomenon and to me that's successful because to resonate with women across the board for six years and have only one African-American actor pass through for one episode.
Blair Underwood
#34. I can never do justice to the great feeling of amazement and encouragement I felt when, perhaps for the first time in American history, white citizens of a Southern state banded together to come to Selma and show their indignation about the injustices against the African-Americans.
Amelia Boynton Robinson
#35. I suggest that Black feminist thought consists of specialised knowledge created by African-American women which clarifies a standpoint of and for Black women. In other words, Black feminist thought encompasses theoretical interpretations of Black women's reality by those who live it.
Patricia Hill Collins
#36. Latinos, Asians, African-Americans, women - we're all trying to find our place in this world of cinema and television and theater. And the great thing with comedy is that most of the time, you could be orange. It doesn't matter, as long you're funny.
Sandra Bullock
#37. For more than 20 years, Camfed has supported a generation of African girls and women with access to secondary and higher education, employment opportunities, and, ultimately, into positions of leadership.
Ann Cotton
#38. Like a lot of Black women, I have always had to invent the power my freedom requires ...
June Jordan
#39. You may be amazed that you are still unique and beautiful as your natural self. Only you can decide if this style is for you.
Monica Millner
#40. It was easy for me to be ridiculed and for both men and women to perceive that maybe I'm a bit crazy because I'm educated in the West and I have lost some of my basic decency as an African woman.
Wangari Maathai
#41. It was almost as if she had willed him into existence, into standing before her at the precise moment she was willing to accommodate him, arriving not a minute too early or too late.
Roy L. Pickering Jr.
#42. And that makes us (black women) feel like we have spokespeople, because everybody we encounter feels they have a piece of you and can tell you how to live your life
Malebo Sephodi
#43. Hacking shampoos, conditioners, gels and creams with your oil(s) of choice is a great way to promote healthy strong hair growth.
Monica Millner
#44. In Nigeria, along with its West African neighbor Ghana, women are now starting businesses in greater numbers than men.
Gayle Tzemach Lemmon
#45. Groups like the NAACP, The Anti-Defamation League, NOW and GLAAD, will respond to derisive language directed at their constituents. The price paid by those who cavalierly chose to verbally disrespect the dignity of African Americans, Jews, women and homosexuals is steep.
John C. McGinley
#46. I think the '90s is the reason why I recently had to find natural haircare products to allow my hair to grow. That was a time where they were processing your hair, and it was a time when African-American women wanted that straight hair.
Drew Sidora
#47. I order to avoid falling into the product junkie traps, it's good to know your go-to styling products.
Monica Millner
#48. African American women in particular have incredible buying power. Statistically, we go to the movies more than anyone. We have made Tyler Perry's career. His films open with $25 million almost consistently.
Lynn Nottage
#49. In today's U.S., it's possible for almost anyone - women, gays, African-Americans, Jews - to run for, and be elected to, high office.
Salman Rushdie
#50. I think, though, as African-American women, we are always trained to value our community even at the expense of ourselves, and so we attempt to protect the African-American community.
Anita Hill
#51. Black women have always found that in the social order of things we're the least likely to be believed
by anyone.
Joycelyn Elders
#52. African-American women account for 67 percent of all newly diagnosed female AIDS cases.
Elijah Cummings
#53. It doesn't have to be dreads. You can wear an Afro, or braids like you used to. There's a lot you can do with natural hair
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
#54. I don't strive on being the most beautiful woman in the room! I strive to be the most unique! The one who stands out, the one you will never forget.
Sahndra Fon Dufe
#55. Education for women is something that has plagued the world for a very long time. When I saw this problem firsthand, I knew I had to write about it.
Sahndra Fon Dufe
#56. 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
#57. Above Constance's desk were nude photographs of women in 1930s France, draped in provocative poses. She had put them there for Bob's viewing pleasure and in return he had placed African art of naked men above his desk for her.
Cecelia Ahern
#58. His fierce appreciation of female beauty, the unrelenting desire he felt for their company, the pleasure he both derived and sought to give, had led him in and out of quite a few bedroom doors.
Roy L. Pickering Jr.
#59. We do have Museums of African American Art in the United States, and there is a National Museum of Women's Art. However, I believe Latinos are best served by displaying their art next to the art of other groups, particularly North American, European, and even Asian artists.
Mari Carmen Ramirez
#60. Most people surrendered fairy tale hopes in exchange for cookie cutter lives
Roy L. Pickering Jr.
#61. Had middle class black women begun a movement in which they had labeled themselves "oppressed," no one would have taken them seriously.
Bell Hooks
#62. I love writing for other actors, women of African descent and people who are generally underrepresented.
Danai Gurira
#63. I have a very personal interest. I am a Miami-Dade voter. One of the issues is that my vote and so many other votes of women and African Americans in Florida are being discounted or discarded. I want my vote to count.
Patricia Ireland
#64. I think it's pretty dynamic. There's a lot of energy there and life, and you'll have women dressed in their traditional African dress when they come, and you have people from all over the place, and some people have headphones on because they're listening in Spanish.
Michael Emerson
#65. 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
#66. 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
#68. Since Bush has been in office, African-American women have fallen behind in terms of income and wages.
Donna Brazile
#69. 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
#70. [Hillary] Clinton was able to assemble a winning Democratic coalition out here, beating Sanders among African-Americans, women, among women, and voters from union households, so, unions, women, African-Americans.
Chris Matthews
#71. Israelis are a mix of North African, Levantine, and Eastern European, which inflames the politics but does amazing things for the women.
Kenneth Cain
#72. I have a well-balanced show. It's 50/50 on men/women, and also African-American/white writers, it's the same thing. I have four African-American writers, and four non-African-American writers.
Wanda Sykes
#73. They are me, these women. They are the ones who taught me to see; I taught me to see. They, we, are the ones healing the Ginen story, fighting to destroy that cancerous trade in shiploads of African bodies that ever demands to be fed more sugar, more rum, more Nubian gold.
Nalo Hopkinson
#74. The fact that women are very young in obtaining their civil rights and African-Americans are young in obtaining their civil rights, I think it's about time that we extend that to all Americans, whether straight, gay, purple, green, black, brown.
Octavia Spencer
#75. So she sat on the porch and watched the moon rise. Soon its amber fluid was drenching the earth, and quenching the thirst of the day.
Zora Neale Hurston
#76. Society is obsessed with women's bodies and I take my body back by doing whatever it is that I want to do with my body
Malebo Sephodi
#77. We live in a country where our young ladies who have recently attained the age of puberty cannot afford sanitary pads, but our men and women in public offices have ipads which they do not even know how to use.
Patrick L.O. Lumumba
#78. 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
#79. I do criticise the narrative that excludes women and continually put men in the forefront.
Malebo Sephodi
#80. I think the bottom of the totem pole is African-American women, or women of colour. I think they get the least opportunities in Hollywood.
Denzel Washington
#81. Tackling malaria in a country like the Central African Republic is a huge uphill battle, and my experiences there have been a healthy dose of reality, fueling my own sense of urgency to do my part in reducing the preventable suffering of the incredible women I met.
Mandy Moore
#82. The chaos of their voices registers as a single, overwhelming force cutting off her ability to reason, and all she wants is to get as far away from people as possible.
Zainab Omaki
#83. 'Who Fears Death' addresses the push and pull in African culture that powerful women face when their culture has certain duties and beliefs that can stifle them.
Nnedi Okorafor
#84. It's important that young people know about the struggles we faced to get to the point we are today. Only then will they appreciate the hard-won freedom of blacks in this country.
Amelia Boynton Robinson
#85. People identify with me - everyone does - African American women, Caucasian women, they all identify with me because I'm ethnic.
Janice Dickinson
#86. I took one look at him, my mouth started watering and my panties moistened with thick fluid as if he had touched my sensation and made me instantaneously combust.
Siva D.
#87. The objective of stereotypes is not to reflect or represent a reality but to function as a disguise, or mystification, of objective social relations.
Hazel V. Carby
#88. 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
#89. Bill Clinton is like a lot of white politicians. They eat soul food, they party with black women, they play the saxophone, but when it comes to domestic and foreign policy, they make the same decisions that are destructive to African people in this country and throughout the world.
Sister Souljah
#90. I feel that the kinks, curls, or tight coils in Afro hair is beautiful and unique. No other race on this planet has hair like ours - that makes me proud.
Monica Millner
#91. Most African Americans, especially the men and women from my generation, would accept the nationalist gambit that says only European Americans can be racists, which is an interesting gambit.
Anthony Braxton
#92. And although he recognized that tenderness was not the same as passion, and certainly not equivalent to love, for now it seemed to him a suitable substitute.
Roy L. Pickering Jr.
#93. 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
#94. ...there is a predator-like mental scan that black women have to do before speaking, and even after we've done risk assessment, things can still go astray.
Phoebe Robinson
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