37 Quotes About Black History

The history of the United States is unique because it was founded by immigrants. From the time of the first American settlers to today, people of color have contributed to the culture, politics, and economy of this country. In this article you will find quotes from famous black Americans that tell their stories and remind us that history is made up of each person's contribution.

IF YOU AIN'T RAISING THE VIBRATION YOU ARE KILLING THE...
1
IF YOU AIN'T RAISING THE VIBRATION YOU ARE KILLING THE VIBE! Qwana ReynoldsFrasier
IF SOMEONE KEEPS DOING WHAT THEY'RE DOINGTHEY WILL GET BETTER...
2
IF SOMEONE KEEPS DOING WHAT THEY'RE DOINGTHEY WILL GET BETTER AT IT, BUT.... THEY STILL WON'T BE BETTER THEN YOU! KEEP PUSHING! Qwana ReynoldsFrasier
3
Not one thought entered my head that did not seem disloyal. I was ashamed, seeing their pride close up, as if for the first time, at how little I had accomplished, how much I had failed to do at St. Paul's. Somewhere in the last two years I had forgotten my mission. What had I done, I kept thinking, that was worthy of their faith? How had I helped my race? How had I prepared myself for a meaningful future? .. They were right: only a handful of us got this break. I wanted to shout at them that I had squandered it. Now that it's all over, hey, I'm not your girl! I couldn't do it. Lorene Cary
4
I had not expected the gentle, tentative surge of gratitude I began to feel...for St. Paul's School, the spring, and the early morning. I needed the morning light and the warbling birds. I needed to find a way to live in this place for a moment and get the good of it. I had tried to hold myself apart, and the aloneness proved more terrible than what I had tried to escape. Lorene Cary
To celebrate freedom and democracy while forgetting American's origins in...
5
To celebrate freedom and democracy while forgetting American's origins in a slavery economy is patriotism à la carte. TaNehisi Coates
6
Oh Maker, what did they really say about your black creation? I think you made a beautiful work of art on a canvass of rebellion. Hey, Maker! We are still selling out! Chinonye J. Chidolue
7
What I wanted was for them to have a grand, sweeping narrative that they deserved, the kind of American history that belongs to the Wright Brothers and the astronauts, to Alexander Hamilton and Martin Luther King Jr. Not told as a separate history, but as part of the story we all know. Not at the margins, but at the very center, the protagonists of the drama. And not just because they are black, or because they are women, but because they are part of the American epic. . Margot Lee Shetterly
8
What these thinkers, chroniclers, and interpreters have written about, how they have theorized their scholarly endeavors, and their approaches and methodologies have inevitably been informed and shaped by the times in which they existed. Pero Gaglo Dagbovie
9
When Pope Pius XII died, LIFE magazine carried a picture of him in his private study kneeling before a black Christ. What was the source of their information? All white people who have studied history and geography know that Christ was a black man. Only the poor, brainwashed American Negro has been made to believe that Christ was white, to maneuver him into worshiping the white man. After becoming a Muslim in prison, I read almost everything I could put my hands on in the prison library. I began to think back on everything I had read and especially with the histories, I realized that nearly all of them read by the general public have been made into white histories. I found out that the history-whitening process either had left out great things that black men had done, or some of the great black men had gotten whitened. Malcolm X
10
Back then, Black churches were a small piece of peace. Church was a world where, even with its imperfections, the offer of equality and common humanity was the sustenance needed to make it through the rest of the week in a society that deemed them less than human. Janelle Gray
11
You have a color of your own- Dark chocolate, You have a culture your own- Hip pop, You have a revival of your own- Harlem Renaissance, You are the spot on a ladybug that adds its beauty, You are the pupil of an eye, You are the vastness of space, You are the richness of soil, You are the sweetness of dark chocolate, You are the mystery in nature, Blessed Black chocolate, God has made You to rule the Land, that made You a slave. Luffina Lourduraj
12
THE NEXT DAY WAS RAIN-SOAKED and smelled of thick sweet caramel, warm coconut and ginger. A nearby bakery fanned its daily offerings. A lapis lazuli sky was blanketed by gunmetal gray clouds as it wept crocodile tears across the parched Los Angeles landscape. When Ivy was a child and she overheard adults talking about their break-ups, in her young feeble-formed mind, she imagined it in the most literal of essences. She once heard her mother speaking of her break up with an emotionally unavailable man. She said they broke up on 69th Street. Ivy visualized her mother and that man breaking into countless fragments, like a spilled box of jigsaw pieces. And she imagined them shattered in broken shards, being blown down the pavement of 69th Street.For some reason, on the drive home from Marcel’s apartment that next morning, all Ivy could think about was her mother and that faceless man in broken pieces, perhaps some aspects of them still stuck in cracks and crevices of the sidewalk, mistaken as grit. She couldn’t get the image of Marcel having his seizure out of her mind. It left a burning sensation in the center of her chest. An incessant flame torched her lungs, chest, and even the back door of her tongue. Witnessing someone you cared about experiencing a seizure was one of those things that scribed itself indelibly on the canvas of your mind. It was gut-wrenching. Graphic and out-of-body, it was the stuff that post traumatic stress syndrome was made of. Brandi L. Bates
13
Won't reparations divide us? Not any more than we are already divided. The wealth gap merely puts a number on something we feel but cannot say - that American propserity was ill-gotten and selective in its distribution. What is needed is an airing of family secrets, a settling with old ghosts. What is needed is a healing of the American psyche and the banishment of white guilt. TaNehisi Coates
14
Sentiments that glorify humanity know no racial distinction. Abhijit Naskar
15
Call up the ever-pure, the effulgent and the ever-radiant character of true humanism in yourself and in others, and no racism shall have the power to thrive in such society even for a few seconds. Abhijit Naskar
16
Tolstoy was a Caucasian, Gandhi was an Asian, and Martin Luther King Jr. was a Negro, yet all of their hearts were inspired by the one idea of nonviolent resistance. King received it from Gandhi, Gandhi received it from Tolstoy, and Tolstoy received it from Christ. Abhijit Naskar
17
It is character that should be the sole measure of judgement in the society of thinking humanity, and nothing short of that would do. Abhijit Naskar
18
If not as a true human, let me tell you as a Biologist, color of the skin does not define an individual’s intelligence — it does not define an individual’s ambitions - it does not define an individual’s dreams — and above all, it does not define an individual’s character. Abhijit Naskar
19
In the biological sense, race does not exist. Abhijit Naskar
20
To my Black brothers and sisters, choose faith. As difficult as it is, choose faith–the kind of faith that we know without works is dead. The faith that raises awareness, educates the community, advocates, cares for the widows and feeds the orphans. Choose the faith that is compelled to action, but not controlled my anger. Andrena Sawyer
21
How a member of the church–one who had read the Good Lord’s bible–could sit so calmly and watch a man be led to his destruction frightened me. Jay Grewal
22
If origin defines race, then we are all Africans — we are all black. Abhijit Naskar
23
Our stories are timeless and tested. They are about us, a people of tremendous strength. Our songs are full of love and life– and the ups and downs of both. They are soulful with the rhythms of a heart that is in sync with nature and wonderment. Our struggles are real and rugged. They beckon our memory to the highest callings of the spirit, to help us rejoice and to overcome. Deborah L. Parker
24
[whiteness] has no real meaning divorced from the machinery of criminal power. The new people were something else before they were white– Catholic, Corsican, Welsh, Mennonite, Jewish–and if all our national hopes have any fulfillment, then they will have to be something else again. Perhaps they will truly become American and create a nobler basis for their myth. I cannot call it. As for now, it must be said that the process of washing the disparate tribes white, the elevation of the belief in being white, was not achieved through wine tastings and ice cream socials, but rather through the pillaging of life, liberty, labor and land; through the flaying of backs; the chaining of limbs; the strangling of dissidents; the destruction of families; the rape of mothers; the sale of children; and various other acts meant, first and foremost, to deny you and me the right to secure and govern our own bodies. The new people are not original in this. Perhaps there has been, at some point in history, some great power whose elevation was exempt from the violent exploitation of other human bodies. If there has been, I have yet to discover it. But this banality of violence can never excuse America, because America makes no claim to the banal. America believes itself exceptional, the greatest and noblest nation ever to exist, a lone champion standing between the white city of democracy and terrorists, despots, barbarians, and other enemies of civilization. One cannot, at once, claim to be superhuman and then plead mortal error. I propose to take our countrymen's claims of American exceptionalism seriously, which is to say I propose subjecting our country to an exceptional moral standard. This is difficult because there exists, all around us, an apparatus urging us to accept American innocence at face value and not to inquire too much. And it is so easy to look away, to live with the fruits of our history and to ignore the great evil done in all of our names. But you and I have never truly had that luxury. TaNehisi Coates
25
Don’t be so hard on yourself. Be perfectly okay with being who YOU are. Fully embrace yourself, flaws and all. Love yourself right where you are. Strive to do better, but don’t beat yourself up for every shortcoming that you may have. Be brave in your journey! Hold your head up high, and keep moving forward. Stephanie Lahart
26
Vagrancy laws and other laws defining activities such as "mischief" and "insulting gestures" as crimes were enforced vigorously against blacks. The aggressive enforcement of these criminal offenses opened up an enormous market for convict leasing. Michelle Alexander
27
No, there is plenty wrong with Negroes. They have no society. They’re robots, automatons. No minds of their own. I hate to say that about us, but it’s the truth. They are a black body with a white brain. Malcolm X
28
The irony of American history is the tendency of good white Americanas to presume racial innocence. Ignorance of how we are shaped racially is the first sign of privilege. In other words. It is a privilege to ignore the consequences of race in America. Tim Wise
29
Ignorance of how we are shaped racially is the first sign of privilege. In other words. It is a privilege to ignore the consequences of race in America. Tim Wise
30
..After all, acknowledging unfairness then calls decent people forth to correct those injustices. And since most persons are at their core, decent folks, the need to ignore evidence of injustice is powerful: To do otherwise would force whites to either push for change (which they would perceive as against their interests) or live consciously as hypocrites who speak of freedom and opportunity but perpetuate a system of inequality. The irony of American history is the tendency of good white Americanas to presume racial innocence. Ignorance of how we are shaped racially is the first sign of privilege. In other words. It is a privilege to ignore the consequences of race in America. Tim Wise
31
TRUE Hebrew Israelites DO NOT hate white people. T R U E Hebrew Israelites DO NOT have more than one wife. T R U E Hebrew Israelites DO NOT smoke marijuana or do any other types of drugs T R U E Hebrew Israelites DO NOT have to stand on corners Intimidating people into believing the way. Alex Hartley Jr.
32
I couldn’t figure out if it was fate or faith that had brought me there. How funny those two words sounded when paired together. One was the inevitable, something I could not change in my life, while the other was the hope and belief that I could. These two words were enemies of each other, and one of them was down right dangerous for a slave to have anywhere near his mind. Jay Grewal
33
That was when I realized we weren’t born to beslaves. It was ignorant for any man to think he could be the master of another. We were all meant to be free, and somewhere there were good people helping to heal this broken world. Jay Grewal
34
But when they brought Sabira out, the crowd parted almost magically. A sea of hands rose faster than a swell and a bidding war commenced, amongst these civilized gentlemen who made their living off the backs of slaves. Jay Grewal
35
Besides the moral courage required to accept commissions in the Fifty-fourth at the time it was organizing, physical courage was also necessary, for the Confederate Congress, on May 1, 1863, passed an act, a potion of which read as follow: -Section IV. That every white person being a commissioned officer, or acting as such, who, during the present war, shall command negroes or mulattoes in arms against the Confederate States, or who shall arm, train, organize, or prepare negroes or mulattoes for military service against the Confederate States, or who shall voluntarily aid negroes or mulattoes in any military enterprise, attack, or conflict in such service, shall be deemed as inciting servile insurrection, and shall, if captured, be put to death or be otherwise punished at the discretion of the Court. Luis Fenollosa Emilio
36
Most people write me off when they see me. They do not know my story. They say I am just an African.They judge me before they get to know me. What they do not know is The pride I have in the blood that runs through my veins; The pride I have in my rich culture and the history of my people; The pride I have in my strong family ties and the deep connection to my community; The pride I have in the African music, African art, and African dance; The pride I have in my name and the meaning behind it. Just as my name has meaning, I too will live my life with meaning. So you think I am nothing? Don’t worry about what I am now, For what I will be, I am gradually becoming. I will raise my head high wherever I go Because of my African pride, And nobody will take that away from me. . Idowu Koyenikan