African American Quotes - Page 33

• Indians were here first - it's about time. We're way behind the African Americans and Hispanic Americans in getting politically involved, but we're beginning to take a page out of their notebook.

  Ben Nighthorse Campbell

  Notebook, Pages, Way

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• When you talk about evangelicals, don't forget that a significant proportion of the evangelical community is African American. And most African Americans - well over 90 percent, thoroughly evangelical, thoroughly biblical - will probably vote Democratic.

  Tony Campolo

  Biblical, Community, Vote

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• I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he's African American.

  Jimmy Carter

  Men, Thinking, Black

  "Carter Cites 'Racism Inclination' in Animosity Toward Obama". Interview with Brian Williams, voices.washingtonpost.com. September 16, 2009.

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• When our thoughts - which bring actions - are filled with hate against anyone, Negro or white, we are in a living hell. That is as real as hell will ever be.

  George Washington Carver

  Hate, Real, White

  "George Washington Carver: Scientist and Symbol". Book by Linda O. McMurray, 1982.

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• 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

  School, College, Historical

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• Maya Angelou, the famous African American poet, historian, and civil rights activist who is hailed be many as one of the great voices of contemporary literature, believes a struggle only makes a person stronger.

  Michael N. Castle

  Believe, Struggle, Rights

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• In the United States, the Supreme Court's decision of 1954, outlawing segregation in school systems, was greeted with mixed feelings of hope and skepticism by African-Americans.

  John Henrik Clarke

  School, Decision, Feelings

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• The acceptance of the facts of African-American history and the African-American historian as a legitimate part of the academic community did not come easily. Slavery ended and left its false images of black people intact.

  John Henrik Clarke

  Acceptance, People, Community

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• History could pass for a scarlet text, its jot and title graven red in human blood.

  Eldridge Cleaver

  Blood, History, Red

  "Soul On Ice".

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• Children today will grow up taking for granted that an African-American or a woman can, yes, become the president of the United States.

  Hillary Clinton

  Children, Growing Up, President

  Announcing Suspension of Presidential Campaign, delivered 7 June 2008, National Building Museum, Washington, D.C.

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• New Jersey for me is so alive with history. It's old, dynamic, African-American, Latino.

  Junot Diaz

  Alive, Jersey, Latino

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• We don't intend to always keep this necessarily African oriented. Originally I had hoped to have African American Indian of this area, and the Appalachian of this area, but at the same time, just as we have the Haitian room, we will always have room for another exhibit.

  Katherine Dunham

  Rooms, American Indian, Haitian

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• We can now have action movies with two stars where one might be African American and one might be Asian American. One of them doesn't have to be white, and the other one doesn't have to be the ethnic sidekick. We're way over that. And I think it's happening in society, too.

  Roger Ebert

  Stars, Thinking, Two

  Interview With Matthew Rothschild, progressive.org. August 1, 2003.

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• Some people are your relatives but others are your ancestors, and you choose the ones you want to have as ancestors. You create yourself out of those values.

  Ralph Ellison

  Relationship, Cousin, People

  Time Magazine, March 27, 1964.

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• While we dance in the streets and pat ourselves on the back for being a nation great enough to reach beyond racial divides to elect our first African-American president let us not forget that we remain a nation still proudly practicing prejudice.

  Harvey Fierstein

  President, Prejudice, Firsts

  "Historic for Some, Same Old Shit for the Rest of Us" by Harvey Fierstein, www.huffingtonpost.com. December 8, 2008.

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• The bottom line is that Wanda Sykes has the longest continuously documented family tree of any African-American we have ever researched.

  Henry Louis Gates

  Tree, Lines, Bottom

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• First we have to recognize that the cause of poverty is both structural and behavioral. And the first thing about the behavior part is that we need a moral revolution within the African American community. Look - no white racist makes you get pregnant when you are a black teenager.

  Henry Louis Gates

  Teenager, White, Community

  "35 Million Ways to Be Black". Interview with Adam Hochschild, www.motherjones.com. March 14, 2007.

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• The African American's relationship to Africa has long been ambivalent, at least since the early nineteenth century, when 3,000 black men crowded into Bishop Richard Allen's African Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia to protest noisily a plan to recolonize free blacks in Africa.

  Henry Louis Gates

  Men, Philadelphia, Long

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• I rebel at the notion that I can't be part of other groups, that I can't construct identities through elective affinity, that race must be the most important thing about me. Is that what I want on my gravestone: Here lies an African American?

  Henry Louis Gates

  Lying, Race, Important

  "Colored People: A Memoir". Book by Henry Louis Gates, therumpus.net. 1994.

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• We can't all work in the inner city. And, I don't even think that it is incumbent upon an African-American intellectual to be concerned in their work with problems of race and class. It's just one of the things, that we here at the DuBois Institute, are concerned about.

  Henry Louis Gates

  Thinking, Race, Class

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• Color categories are on steroids in Latin America. I find that fascinating. It's very difficult for Americans, particularly African-Americans to understand or sympathize with.

  Henry Louis Gates

  Latin, Color, America

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• Most of all, I dislike this idea nowadays that if you're a black person in America, then you must be called African-American. Listen, I've visited Africa, and I've got news for everyone: I'm not an African.

  Whoopi Goldberg

  Ideas, America, Black

  The Daily Telegraph Interview, April 20, 1998.

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• I am an African-American in America. That will never change. But I don't have to be defined by that.

  Robert Griffin III

  America, Never Change, Defined

  " Local Robert Griffin III: If he's a "cornball", give us more" by Alfonzo Porter, www.washingtonpost.com. December 19, 2012.

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• I don't play too much into the color game, because I don't want to be the best African American quarterback, I want to be the best quarterback.

  Robert Griffin III

  Play, Color, Games

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• Warren Moon and Doug Williams really didn't run that much. That's the negative stereotype when it comes to African-American quarterbacks, that most of us just run. Those guys threw it around. I like to think I can throw it around a little bit.

  Robert Griffin III

  Running, Thinking, Moon

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