Best Black History Month Quotes & Sayings

Black History Month is in the shortest month of the year, and the coldest-just in case we want to have a parade — Chris Rock

Black History Month is dedicated to heroes that paved the way for Black people. It's a month that's very imperative because it gives those who lack the knowledge of our heroes a chance to gain insight. It's not just about the month, it's about the years that it took for us to get to this one month and it's beyond placing a value on how much Black History Month really means to me. — Alana Beard

The argument is that Black History Month dwells too much on the downside of white America's relationship to its brothers of African heritage, slavery and torture and the like, and ignores the work of all the good white folk through the years who were nice to black people (did you know it was a white teacher who first suggested George Washington Carver study horticulture?). — Matt Taibbi

I remembered a classmate, a boy from Congo, ridiculed brutally by the American blacks simply because his skin was darker and his hair knottier than theirs. I found it strange that for nine out of ten months of the year, this boy was a social pariah to them and then for that month, Black History Month, he became the embodiment of all their past glory. Being an outsider I found it hypocritical. — Sergio F. Monteiro

Historical exclusivity often has a way of turning into present and institutionalized tragedy. Whose story gets told matters. — Aurin Squire

Black History Month should be celebrated everyday. It's a month that's kind of sad to me, because I am reminded of the struggles that people before us had to go through for us to be able to live comfortably today. — Tamara James

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. — Lynn Swann

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. — Angela Davis

The violence that undergirded the country, so flagrantly on display during Black History Month, and the intimate violence of "Yeah, nigger, what's up now?" were not unrelated. And this violence was not magical, but was of a piece and by design. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

When female stories are muted, we are teaching our kids that their dignity is second class and the historical accounts of their lives [are] less relevant. This lowered value carries over when women face sexual objectification and systemic brutalization from inside and outside the community. — Aurin Squire

If you only think of me during Black History Month, I must be failing as an educator and as an astrophysicist. — Neil DeGrasse Tyson

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. — Ishmael Reed

Black History Month has been extended indefinitely by The Bronzeville Press. — Harold Lee Rush

Any ministry to black people which is not designed to effect their empowerment is designed to perpetuate their enslavement. — Albert B. Cleage Jr.

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. — Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Trayvon Martin, at the most, seems only to have been guilty of being himself. — Aberjhani

I look around. You'd have to be out of your fucking mind to write, as Marcus did, that Black History Month is a ploy to lever more entitlement money out of Congress, but the ho-hum nonresponse of the white crowd reading this bit of transparent insanity is, to me, even weirder. — Matt Taibbi

Black History Month must be more than just a month of remembrance; it should be a tribute to our history and reminder of the work that lies in the months and years ahead. — Marty Meehan

They oughtta change Black History Month to Black Progress Month and start measuring it. — Rush Limbaugh

How are we going to get rid of racism? Stop talking about it! — Morgan Freeman

Black History Month is a great celebration for Black people everywhere. I just hope we get to the point as Black people that we celebrate everyday like it is Black History month by living our lives and aspiring to be all we can. Many people lost their lives for us to have the privileges we have so we need to honor them by striving to be the best we can be. — Crystal Robinson

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. — Eliot Engel

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

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. — Alonzo Bodden

The problem with relegating black history to one really short month, the shortest month, is not only are we telling the same stories over and over again - which are amazing, George Washington Carver is incredible, there's nobody like Frederick Douglass - but there are so many. — Karyn Parsons

The best of humanity's recorded history is a creative balance between horrors endured and victories achieved, and so it was during the Harlem Renaissance. — Aberjhani

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. — John Ridley

Those Garveyites I knew could never understand why I liked them but would never follow them, and I pitied them too much to tell them that they could never achieve their goal, that Africa was owned by the imperial powers of Europe, that their lives were alien to the mores of the natives of Africa, that they were people of the West and would for ever be so until they either merged with the West or perished. — Richard Wright

I don't celebrate Valentine's Day. It gets in the way of Black History Month. Cupid didn't free any slaves. — Damien Lemon

Historical omission points toward a culture's subconscious beliefs that some people matter less than others. — Aurin Squire

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. — Mo Rocca

As we celebrate Black History Month we should be grateful for the achievements they made and inspired by their legacies to continue their work. — Marty Meehan