Top 100 Black Americans Quotes
#1. Progress for black Americans depends on good schools because education is the last great equalizer.
Alphonso Jackson
#2. As soon as you say that there is a community called, let's say, black Americans, you've immediately created a boundary line - who's in that group, who's outside that group.
Randall Kennedy
#3. Let it be said that when given a chance to complete the liberation of black Americans, on June 23, 2003 five justices consigned them to another generation - or, perhaps, a term of indefinite duration - of virtual enslavement to the past.
Ward Connerly
#4. How many of the original songs survive intact from the slave cabins? Probably not many in their original form. Time has transformed them like light in a prism. What we hope to present is a version of those spirituals, and they speak not just to black Americans, but to people worldwide.
Kathleen Battle
#5. We have a tendency in this country that when we say Black it automatically means Black Americans. But that's a big mistake, and that keeps us divided. There are Blacks all over this entire world-even in Africa.
Irene Cara
#6. I fully recognize and appreciate the many substantial contributions of black Americans and other minorities to the creation and preservation and development of our great nation.
Strom Thurmond
#7. Black Americans, no more than white Americans, they do not want more government programs which perpetuate dependency. They don't want to be a colony in a nation.
Richard M. Nixon
#8. Law enforcement's biased view of the Irish lives on in the nickname we still use for the vehicles we use to transport groups of prisoners. It is, after all, the 'paddy wagon.' The Irish had tough times, but little compares to the experience on our soil of black Americans.
James Comey
#9. I think anyone that comes to Nigeria has to offer value. What value are you bringing? There are Black Americans here. I think we've moved beyond that Africans vs. African Americans. They may have more issues with us than we do with them.
Mo Abudu
#10. There's a class divide in black America that doesn't seem to trouble black Americans so much, but whites use it and exploit it. The progress of a few is allowed to stand for the progress of everyone. We can't afford that kind of disaffection at the moment.
Darryl Pinckney
#11. For black Americans, we know that gun control ... sprouts from racist soil - be it after the or during the infamous Dred Scott case where black man's humanity was not recognized.
Niger Innis
#12. You have to use what you have in order to get what you need and the people can not be rich unless somebody is rich. The Hip-Hop generation has carried more people with it than any other enterprise Black Americans have had.
Nikki Giovanni
#13. Black Americans make up 10 or 11% of the population, but they account now for something of 40 to 45% of all the abortions. This is a privileged position that I'm not sure anyone in their right mind would aspire to.
Alan Keyes
#14. The relationship of black Americans to Obama is sociologically riveting.
Andrew Sullivan
#15. The dream was ennobling but doomed. It was Malcolm's curse to see this before the most of the rest of us; it was the beginning of his sainthood that when black Americans reached that point--when they arrived, that is to say, at their blackness--Malcolm was already there.
Peter Goldman
#16. I warn black Americans'don't get too mixed. A little is fine, but not to the point where you're out of the family.
Kola Boof
#17. Only by acknowledging the full extent of slavery's full grip on U.S. Society - its intimate connections to present day wealth and power, the depth of its injury to black Americans, the shocking nearness in time of its true end - can we reconcile the paradoxes of current American life.
Douglas A. Blackmon
#18. I write for myself, and my goal is bringing that world and that experience of black Americans to life on the stage and giving it a space there.
August Wilson
#19. But I know that the vote of 9 out of 10 black Americans for the Democratic Party or for leftist kinds of policies just is not reflective of their opinions.
Clarence Thomas
#20. All black Americans have slave names. They have white names; names that the slave master has given to them.
Muhammad Ali
#21. The trip to Mars can only be understood through Black Americans. I say, the trip to Mars can only be understood through Black Americans.
Nikki Giovanni
#22. Black Americans should be given credit for finding probably the perfect weapon; the weapon of the song. And that song continues. Most holocausts don't, so they have this bitterness left over. The phenomenon of the world, as far as Black Americans are considered, is that we are not a bitter people.
Nikki Giovanni
#23. In a typical history book, black Americans are mentioned in the context of slavery or civil rights. There's so much more to the story.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
#24. A very hurting thing for Black Americans - to feel that we can't love our enemies. People forget what a great tradition we have as African-Americans in the practice of forgiveness and compassion. And if we neglect that tradition, we suffer.
Bell Hooks
#25. Irish Americans are no more Irish than Black Americans are Africans.
Bob Geldof
#26. Since neither black animosity nor the Left's falsehood of "racial tensions" is based on the actual behavior of the vast majority of white Americans, nothing white America can do will affect the perceptions of many black Americans or of the leftist libel.
Dennis Prager
#27. In 1975 I was among a group of blacks who formed the Black Americans in Support of Israel Committee.
David Dinkins
#28. My greatest influence has been the blues. And that's a literary influence, because I think the blues is the best literature that we as black Americans have.
August Wilson
#29. When President Kennedy was elected, many black Americans, like so many Americans, were captivated by his youth and energy and promise and were especially hopeful that he might move the country in a new direction on civil rights.
Marian Wright Edelman
#30. I think all in all, one thing a lot of plays seem to be saying is that we need to, as black Americans, to make a connection with our past in order to determine the kind of future we're going to have. In other words, we simply need to know who we are in relation to our historical presence in America.
August Wilson
#31. A guard was sitting on it, smoking a cigarette. He was black. Newt always felt guilty in the presence of black Americans, in case they blamed him for two hundred years of slave trading.
Terry Pratchett
#32. Big and oppressive government has long been the enemy of freedom, something black Americans know all too well.
Rand Paul
#33. Buffalo Soldiers in Italy: Black Americans in World War II
Charles M. Blow
#34. The closest Indian analogy to the position of black Americans is that of the Dalits - formerly called 'Untouchables,' the outcastes who for millennia suffered humiliating discrimination and oppression.
Shashi Tharoor
#35. I was adopted my black Americans, I feel that I'm a 'Hybrid'. When I'm around Africans'I suddenly feel very black American. And when I'm around black Americans'I feel very North African. North Africa and black America are both the creators of Kola Boof.
Kola Boof
#36. I think black Americans expect too much from individual black Americans in terms of changing the status quo.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
#37. The injustices endured by black Americans at the hands of their own government have no parallel in our history, not only during the period of slavery but also in the Jim Crow era that followed.
Jim Webb
#38. White Americans believe we've made more progress since the end of slavery in 1865 than do black Americans for whom '12 Years a Slave' documents a collective memory, passed down in the genes and by the lore of generations.
Steve Erickson
#39. I happen to know at least a hundred Sudanese refugees in the United States, all of whom were taken in by white families and white churches, and they all tell me'Naima, you were blessed to be raised by Black Americans.'
Kola Boof
#40. I think race has been a burden for black Americans. Being Muslim has also been a challenge because so many people do not understand Islam.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
#41. We must never forget that Black History is American History. The achievements of African Americans have contributed to our nation's greatness.
Yvette Clarke
#42. It's just cheaper to be White in America than it is to be Black, because of educational advances, because of the police incidents, because of the poverty we grow up in as African-Americans. So, it's just cheaper in this country if you're born a Caucasian than being born a Black person.
Warren Ballentine
#43. Americans have their issues with skin colour, even within the black community, with light and dark skin; it's crazy - but no one's oblivious to it.
Estelle
#44. Civil rights for all Americans, black, white, red, yellow, the rich, poor, young, old, gay, straight, et cetera, is not a liberal or a conservative value. It's an American value that I would think that we pretty much all agree on.
Jerry Falwell
#45. The bed sheet brigade is bad enough, but the real threat to Americans and human rights today is the plain clothes Klux in the halls of government and certain black-robed Klux on court benches.
Stetson Kennedy
#46. During the days of segregation, there was not a place of higher learning for African Americans. They were simply not welcome in many of the traditional schools. And from this backward policy grew the network of historical black colleges and universities.
Michael N. Castle
#47. As African-Americans, that's what's being played fast and loose with, our citizenship. When you have the Trayvon Martins and the Michael Browns being shot and killed, it's because, on a certain level, there is a kind of mutability in the understanding of citizenship around the black body.
Claudia Rankine
#48. The number of African Americans in my profession is woefully small; about two percent of architects in the country are black. I'd like to see more diversity. That's why whenever I'm asked to speak at middle and high schools I always say yes.
Philip Freelon
#49. I'm thinking about American votes and American - all Americans, black or white have to be concerned about what's happening in the world.
Greg Gutfeld
#50. The establishment of democracy on the American continent was scarcely as radical a break with the past as was the necessity, which Americans faced, of broadening this concept to include black men.
James A. Baldwin
#51. I think that America certainly has racism, I think that any industrialized country does. But when you see how many million fans Barack Obama has who are not black, it would lead one to the conclusion that millions of Americans are in fact not burdened by the albatross of racism.
Henry Rollins
#52. At its core, black theology is predicated on the assertion that God has a unique relationship with African Americans. God is not a passive bystander in human history but rather an active participant in the struggles of oppressed and dispossessed people.
Melissa V. Harris-Perry
#53. I do not diminish the incredible symbolic importance of a black man getting elected president. But my euphoria was a smart guy getting elected president. Maybe for the first time in my lifetime we had elected one of the thousand smartest Americans president.
Aaron Sorkin
#54. Native Americans were driven off their land. Lincoln even took part in the Black Hawk campaign against the Native Americans in Illinois. While they were being exterminated and driven off their land, Whites were collecting assets.
Ishmael Reed
#55. We must always embrace individual liberty and enforce the constitutional rights of all Americans-rich and poor, immigrant and native, black and white.
Rand Paul
#56. The best of humanity's recorded history is a creative balance between horrors endured and victories achieved, and so it was during the Harlem Renaissance.
Aberjhani
#57. Black children need to see their lives reflected in the books they read. If they don't, they won't feel welcome in the world of literature. The lives of African-Americans are rich and diverse, and the books our children read should reflect that.
Valerie Wilson Wesley
#58. Americans see everything too simply-a good guy, a bad guy, does he have a white hat or a black hat? But it's the wrong question.
Claire Messud
#59. Without the presence of black people in America, European-Americans would not be "white"
they would be Irish, Italians, Poles, Welsh, and other engaged in class, ethnic, and gender struggles over resources and identity. (p. 107-108)
Cornel West
#60. Americans continue to rapidly homogenize ourselves into a neutered oblivion. For a country founded on the protection of the unique, we relish our sameness.
Lewis Black
#61. The Americans at heart are a pure and noble people; things to them are in black and white. It's either 'rawk' or it's not. We Brits putter around in the grey area.
David Bowie
#62. There's no doubt that many of the mainstream white institutions tend to be cosmetic and symbolic when it comes to including African-Americans, whereas we black folk tend to be much more sensitive about embracing others, and we have a long history of that.
Cornel West
#63. There's a lot of Americans, black and white, who think that we've arrived where we need to be and nothing else needs to be done and affirmative action needs to be dismantled.
Spike Lee
#64. Reggie Campbell and Kathleen Goldsmith are participants in an American success story, the unprecedented boom of home-buying by African-Americans in the 1990s. Only he is black and she is white. When he moved into the neighborhood, she moved out.
Bill Dedman
#65. I saw him enthusiastically greet a hulking big African American (Do they call them African Americans here?).
Brett Kiellerop-Morris
#66. Very few Americans will directly proclaim that they are in favor of black people being left to the streets. But a very large number of Americans will do all they can to preserve the Dream.
Ta-Nehisi Coates
#67. The black situation has changed. They finally realized they're Americans.
Leslie Fiedler
#68. Calling out the supposed 'abuse' of welfare by blacks and other people of color is a time-honored tactic for distracting the general public from actual national issue. It also taps into latent, subconscious racism, which is what right-wing politicians would call a 'win-win.
Justin Simien
#69. Americans like what is easy, and it's easy to like pregnant women - they're like ducklings or bunnies or dogs. Still, it baffles me that these self-righteous, self-enthralled waddlers get such special treatment. As if it's so hard to spread your legs and let a man ejaculate between them.
Gillian Flynn
#70. Holocaust survivors and their descendants are supposed to hate those who oppressed and killed them and their people. Black people are not. This is how anti-blackness works.
Darnell Lamont Walker
#71. I understand now that the only time black people don't feel guilty is when we've actually done something wrong, because that relieves us of the cognitive dissonance of being black and innocent, and in a way the prospect of going to jail becomes a relief.
Paul Beatty
#72. I say violence is necessary. Violence is a part of America's culture. It is as American as cherry pie. Americans taught the black people to be violent. We will use that violence to rid ourselves of oppression if necessary. We will be free, by any means necessary.
H. Rap Brown
#74. A King Charles spaniel named Camilla Parker Bowles. Fucking Americans.
Black, Tasha (2014-12-22). Fate of the Alpha: Episode 1: A Tarker's Hollow Serial (Kindle Location 1321). 13th Story Press. Kindle Edition.
Tasha Black
#75. I think Americans such as Leviathan have done a lot to expand the sonic palette of black metal.
Colin Marston
#76. If this society ascribes roles to Black men which they are not allowed to fulfill, is it Black women who must bend and alter our lives to compensate, or is it society that needs changing?
Audre Lorde
#77. Americans are inclined to see the world and foreign affairs in black and white.
Richard Kerry
#78. Although black and white Americans live, work, and learn together now, there is still injustice in America.
Kathleen Sebelius
#79. The Black church is extremely important in Black America. I think most Americans themselves believe in a divine power, in a god, and I'm sure that that number increases with Black people.
Harry Lennix
#80. I advise you to be suspicious of any black American whose family does not claim a blood connection to Native Americans. That's a clear sign of a racial infiltrator who has not done enough research.
Baratunde R. Thurston
#81. Most of the things that are asked of me as a representative black person, would suggest never are we equal Americans.
Alex Haley
#82. What comes forth from you as an artist cannot be controlled. But you have responsibilities as a global citizen. Your history dictates your duty. And by writing about black people, you are not limiting yourself. The experiences of African-Americans are as wide open as God's closet.
August Wilson
#83. 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
#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. Under the white population of the United States of America only the reactionary classes oppres the black population. Under no circumstance can they represent the workers, farmers and revolutionary intellectuals and other enlighted people who form the majority of the white population.
Mao Tse-tung
#86. It's said that most Americans under the age of 30 reflexively dislike movies made before 1970, especially those that were shot in black and white. If this is so, I suspect it's because such films portray an America that no longer exists.
Terry Teachout
#87. Many Americans are living paycheck to paycheck and are only one step away from being homeless. Whether you are white, black, Latino, or Asian, we have to be there to help pick each other up.
Raheem Devaughn
#88. I think it's unfortunate that there exists only one path in America to complete social legitimacy, and that is marriage. I think, for instance, that it would be far easier for Americans to elect a black president or a female president than an unmarried president.
Elizabeth Gilbert
#89. Those close to Mr. Obama say he grows irritated at being misunderstood - not just by opponents who insinuate that he caters to African-Americans, but also by black lawmakers and intellectuals who fault him for not making his presidency an all-out assault on racial disparity.
Jodi Kantor
#90. If the Democrats have their way, African Americans will continue to feel oppressed, despised and handicapped into the indefinite future. All progress will be downplayed and every setback amplified. In this way, Democrats can continue to rely on lopsided black support at the polls.
Mona Charen
#91. Voting is a Constitutional right. Absent any evidence of fraud, all Americans have a protected right to vote, be they rich or poor, black, Hispanic or white, people who live in a big city or in remote rural areas.
Juan Williams
#92. Black scientists and technicians, many of them women, used cells from a black woman to help save the lives of millions of Americans, most of them white. And they did so on the same campus - and at the very same time - that state officials were conducting the infamous Tuskegee syphilis studies.
Rebecca Skloot
#93. As a child, however, I knew so many African Americans working in science, math, and engineering that I thought that's just what black folks did. My
Margot Lee Shetterly
#94. It [the Harlem Renaissance] was a time of black individualism, a time marked by a vast array of characters whose uniqueness challenged the traditional inability of white Americans to differentiate between blacks.
Clement Alexander Price
#95. African-Americans are not a monolithic group. So, we tend to talk about the black community, the black culture, the African-American television viewing audience, but there are just as many facets of us as there are other cultures.
Malcolm-Jamal Warner
#96. When President Roosevelt signed Social Security into law in 1935, 65 percent of African Americans nationally and between 70 and 80 percent in the South were ineligible.
Ta-Nehisi Coates
#97. I am not 'African American' - I am black American.
John McWhorter
#98. The Afrocentric exploration of the black past only scratches the surface. A full examination of the ancestry of those who are referred to in the newspapers as blacks and African Americans must include Europe and Native America.
Ishmael Reed
#99. Americans of all ages are earning less than they did two decades ago when adjusted for inflation. Yet they're paying more in taxes.
Simon Black
#100. The purpose of the University of Washington cannot be to produce black lawyers for blacks, Polish lawyers for Poles, Jewish lawyers for Jews, Irish lawyers for Irish. It should be to produce good lawyers for Americans and not to place First Amendment barriers against anyone.
William O. Douglas
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