you must never be fearful about what you are doing when it is right.
— Rosa Parks
Staggering Black History Month quotations
If we accept and acquiesce in the face of discrimination, we accept the responsibility ourselves. We should, therefore, protest openly everything ... that smacks of discrimination or slander.
Revolution is a serious thing, the most serious thing about a revolutionarys life. When one commits oneself to the struggle, it must be for a lifetime.
Every great dream begins with a dreamer.
The United States has been called the melting pot of the world.
But it seems to me that the colored man either missed getting into the pot or he got melted down.
How are we going to get rid of racism? Stop talking about it!
Never be limited by other people's limited imaginations.
There is no negro problem. The problem is whether the American people have loyalty enough, honor enough, patriotism enough, to live up to their own constitution
Unconditional love will have the final word in reality.
My father was a slave and my people died to build this country and I am going to stay here and have a part of it just like you.
I am America. I am the part you won't recognize. But get used to me. Black, confident, cocky; my name, not yours; my religion, not yours; my goals, my own; get used to me.
I don't want a Black History Month. Black history is American history.
we are the ones we have been waiting for
Hate is too great a burden to bear.
The potential for greatness lives within us all.
We are the ones we've been waiting for.
Defining myself, as opposed to being defined by others, is one of the most difficult challenges I face.
I am the dream and the hope of the slave
I had no idea that history was being made. I was just tired of giving up.
I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person.
For I am my mother's daughter, and the drums of Africa still beat in my heart.
Whatever we believe about ourselves and our ability comes true for us.
I pay homage and respect to Bobby Womack [for Black History Month] knowing that he passed last year... Him being one of those artists that I have really sampled so much and just been so inspired by... You know, he is the original ‘soul man.’
This being Black History Month, I would like to ask people to celebrate the similarities and not focus on the differences between people of color and not of color.
I refuse to accept the view . . . that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise. I rise. I rise.
Books were my pass to personal freedom.
You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man.
I have observed this in my experience of slavery, that whenever my condition was improved, instead of increasing my contentment; it only increased my desire to be free, and set me thinking of plans to gain my freedom.
In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.
I almost never do anything for Black History Month, because I feel it's just another way to separate us.
If the only time you think of me as a scientist is during Black History Month, then I must not be doing my job as a scientist.
If you only think of me during Black History Month, I must be failing as an educator and as an astrophysicist.
I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all.
American means white, and Africanist people struggle to make the term applicable to themselves with ethnicity and hyphen after hyphen after hyphen.
Black people have always been America's wilderness in search of a promised land.
They oughtta change Black History Month to Black Progress Month and start measuring it.
Black History Month is in the shortest month of the year, and the coldest-just in case we want to have a parade
Racism is not an excuse to not do the best you can.
Phillip Roth uses his Black women characters to make anti intellectual remarks about Black history month, begun by a man who reached intellectual heights that Roth will never attain. Roth is a petty bigot and his ignorant remarks about black culture expose him as a buffoon to scholars the world over.
If you are a black woman, you get two history months in a row.
It is my hope that as we commemorate Black History Month in the future, we will continue to celebrate the many achievements and rich culture of African-Americans.
I have a dream, and a plan, to combine the commercial possibilities of Valentine's Day with the substance and meaning of black history month. I call it: Blackentine's Day.
Latinos outnumber Black people now. I'm not too happy about it. Because it's only a matter of time before we lose our month. Soon as they figure it out, they're going to have Latino History Month. All we're going to have is Cinco de Negro.
For children, diversity needs to be real and not merely relegated to learning the names of the usual suspects during Black History Month or enjoying south-of-the-border cuisine on Cinco de Mayo. It means talking to and spending time with kids not like them so that they may discover those kids are in fact just like them.