African American History Quotes

I always say African American history is the quintessential American story. It's about perseverance and resilience - something everyone can relate to.

My producers and I worked with these consultants and came up with seventy [stories] which we think are exemplary of the larger arc of African-American history between 1513 and 2013. We covered half a millennium, and it's amazing.

I'm not against knowing the history of white people in the U.S. - that's not the point. The point is that there's so much greater history. We don't know about Native Americans. Very basically, we don't know that much about African American history, except that they were enslaved. You only get bits and pieces.

In a one-hour documentary, you can tell maybe ten stories. That's how the documentary is structured. I wrote to forty of the greatest historians of both African and African-American history, and hired them as consultants. I had them submit what they thought were the indispensable stories, the ones they felt this series absolutely had to include.

Precisely that, covering 500 years of African-American history in six hours. I've been working on this for seven years. The biggest challenge was deciding which stories to tell.

I do not weep at the world I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife.

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.

You're either part of the solution or you're part of the problem.

For Africa to me... is more than a glamorous fact. It is a historical truth. No man can know where he is going unless he knows exactly where he has been and exactly how he arrived at his present place.

Life is short, and it is up to you to make it sweet

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.

You can be up to your boobies in white satin, with gardenias in your hair and no sugar cane for miles, but you can still be working on a plantation.

The battles that count aren't the ones for gold medals. The struggles within yourself - the invisible, inevitable battles inside all of us - that's where it's at.

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.

Hate is too great a burden to bear. It injures the hater more than it injures the hated.

Defining myself, as opposed to being defined by others, is one of the most difficult challenges I face.

Black people have always been America's wilderness in search of a promised land.

I am the dream and the hope of the slave

We are the ones we've been waiting for.

You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man.

No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem.

Excellence is the best deterrent to racism or sexism.

I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person.

Racism is not an excuse to not do the best you can.

I felt somehow for many years that George Washington and Alexander Hamilton just left me out by mistake. But through the process of amendment, interpretation, and court decision, I have finally been included in 'We, the people.'

Never underestimate the power of dreams and the influence of the human spirit. We are all the same in this notion: The potential for greatness lives within each of us.

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise. I rise. I rise.

What we need is not a history of selected races or nations, but the history of the world void of national bias, race hate, and religious prejudice.

Where there is no vision, there is no hope.

The potential for greatness lives within us all.

I was raised to believe that excellence is the best deterrent to racism or sexism. And that's how I operate my life.

Do not call for black power or green power. Call for brain power.

Never be limited by other people's limited imaginations.

I don't want a Black History Month. Black history is American history.

The time is always right to do what is right.

Knowing what must be done does away with fear.

I have learned over the years that when one's mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear.

Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Hate is too great a burden to bear.

we are the ones we have been waiting for

Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.

Every great dream begins with a dreamer.

I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has had to overcome while trying to succeed.

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.

I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can't accept not trying.

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.