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Race relations21 quotes
I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen"
Then.
Besides,
They'll see how
beautiful I am
And be ashamed—
I, too, am America. — Langston Hughes · 1926People, I just want to say, you know, can we all get along? — Rodney King · 1992The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line. — W.E.B. Du Bois · 1900Brothers and sisters, I am here to tell you that I charge the white man. I charge the white man with being the greatest murderer on earth. I charge the white man with being the greatest kidnapper on earth. There is no place in this world that man can go and say he created peace and harmony. Everywhere he's gone, he's created havoc. Everywhere he's gone, he's created destruction. So I charge him. — Malcolm X · 1992Long as you live you ain't never gonna see no black vice president. Not while the president's white. They tell you to never say never? I'm saying never. You know why? Cause some black guy would just kill the president, that's why! Shit, I'd do it! — Chris Rock · 1996And son, don't never ever trust whitey. — Father · 1979All 21 quotes →American politics3 quotes
Long as you live you ain't never gonna see no black vice president. Not while the president's white. They tell you to never say never? I'm saying never. You know why? Cause some black guy would just kill the president, that's why! Shit, I'd do it! — Chris Rock · 1996By the way, I would have voted for Obama for a third term, if I could. Best president in my lifetime, hands down. — Dean Armitage · 2017The adoption of the concept of Black Power is one of the most legitimate and healthy developments in American politics and race relations in our time.... It is a call for black people in this country to unite, to recognize their heritage, to build a sense of community. It is a call for black people to begin to define their own goals, to lead their own organizations and to support those organizations. It is a call to reject the racist institutions and values of this society. — Stokely Carmichael · 1967Black experience2 quotes
I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen"
Then.
Besides,
They'll see how
beautiful I am
And be ashamed—
I, too, am America. — Langston Hughes · 1926Goddammit, look! We live here and they live there. We black and they white. They got things and we ain't. They do things and we can't. It's just like living in jail. — Richard Wright · 1940Africa1 quote
Yeah, Africa's my home. Damn America and what America thinks. Yeah, I live in America; but, Africa's the home of the black man. And I was a slave 400 years ago and I'm going back home to fight among my brothers. Yeah! — Muhammad Ali · 1996America1 quote
I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen"
Then.
Besides,
They'll see how
beautiful I am
And be ashamed—
I, too, am America. — Langston Hughes · 1926Black Power1 quote
The adoption of the concept of Black Power is one of the most legitimate and healthy developments in American politics and race relations in our time.... It is a call for black people in this country to unite, to recognize their heritage, to build a sense of community. It is a call for black people to begin to define their own goals, to lead their own organizations and to support those organizations. It is a call to reject the racist institutions and values of this society. — Stokely Carmichael · 1967Black identity1 quote
Yeah, Africa's my home. Damn America and what America thinks. Yeah, I live in America; but, Africa's the home of the black man. And I was a slave 400 years ago and I'm going back home to fight among my brothers. Yeah! — Muhammad Ali · 1996Black is beautiful1 quote
Black is beautiful when it is a slum kid studying to enter college, when it is a man learning new skills for a new job, or a slum mother battling to give her kids a chance for a better life. But white is beautiful, too, when it helps change society to make our system work for black people also. White is ugly when it oppresses blacks-and so is black ugly when black people exploit other blacks. No race has a monopoly on vice or virtue, and the worth of an individual is not related to the color of his skin. — Whitney Young · 1969Black music1 quote
It is only in his music, which Americans are able to admire because a protective sentimentality limits their understanding of it, that the Negro in America has been able to tell his story. It is a story which otherwise has yet to be told and which no American is prepared to hear. — James Baldwin · 1951Black president1 quote
Long as you live you ain't never gonna see no black vice president. Not while the president's white. They tell you to never say never? I'm saying never. You know why? Cause some black guy would just kill the president, that's why! Shit, I'd do it! — Chris Rock · 1996Black resilience1 quote
They will endure. They are better than we are. Stronger than we are. Their vices are vices aped from white men or that white men and bondage have taught them: improvidence and intemperance and evasion-not laziness: evasion: of what white men had set them to, not for their aggrandizement or even comfort but his own. — William Faulkner · 1942Islam1 quote
Because of the spiritual rebirth which I was blessed to undergo as a result of my pilgrimage to the Holy City of Mecca, I no longer subscribe to sweeping indictments of one race. I intend to be very careful not to sentence anyone who has not been proven guilty. I'm not a racist and do not subscribe to any of the tenets of racism. In all honesty and sincerity it can be stated that I wish nothing but freedom, justice and equality: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all people. Now my first concern, of course, is with the group to which I belong, for we, more than any others, are deprived of our inalienable rights. But I believe the true practice of Islam can remove the cancer of racism from the hearts and the souls of all Americans. — Malcolm X · 1992Political progress1 quote
We can do well in this country. We will have difficult times; we've had difficult times in the past; we will have difficult times in the future. It is not the end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; it is not the end of disorder. But the vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings who abide in our land. — Robert F. Kennedy · 1968Prejudice and bias1 quote
The divide of race has been America's constant curse. And each new wave of immigrants gives new targets to old prejudices... These obsessions cripple both those who hate and of course those who are hated, robbing both of what they might become. We cannot, we will not, succumb to the dark impulses that lurk in the far regions of the soul everywhere. We shall overcome them. — Bill Clinton · 1997Racism1 quote
Because of the spiritual rebirth which I was blessed to undergo as a result of my pilgrimage to the Holy City of Mecca, I no longer subscribe to sweeping indictments of one race. I intend to be very careful not to sentence anyone who has not been proven guilty. I'm not a racist and do not subscribe to any of the tenets of racism. In all honesty and sincerity it can be stated that I wish nothing but freedom, justice and equality: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all people. Now my first concern, of course, is with the group to which I belong, for we, more than any others, are deprived of our inalienable rights. But I believe the true practice of Islam can remove the cancer of racism from the hearts and the souls of all Americans. — Malcolm X · 1992