Change From African Americans Quotes & Sayings

The fact of history is that black people have not
probably no people have ever
liberated themselves strictly through their own efforts. In every great change in the lives of African Americans we see the hand of events that were beyond our individual control, events that were not unalloyed goods. You cannot disconnect our emancipation in the Northern colonies from the blood spilled in the Revolutionary War, any more than you can disconnect our emancipation from slavery in the South from the charnel houses of the Civil War, any more than you can disconnect our emancipation from Jim Crow from the genocides of the Second World War. History is not solely in our hands. And still you are called to struggle, not because it assures you victory but because it assures you an honorable and sane life. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

Clinton knew how to get things done. He was battling the Republicans, and then he basically took a lot of their agenda and made it his own. That's what Obama's not doing. — Dennis Quaid

The fundamental failure of most graphic, product, architectural and even urban design is its insistence on serving the God of Looking-Good rather than the God of Being-Good. — Richard Saul Wurman

The suburbanization and the ghettos that were created as a result of the limits of where [African-Americans] could live in the North [still exist today.] And ... the South was forced to change, in part because they were losing such a large part of their workforce through the Great Migration. — Isabel Wilkerson

So ... maybe it was okay to hope, to trust that things could work out. Maybe ... maybe that was what had kept me human all this time, that faith that I could be more than a monster. When I lost that hope
that was when the monster won. — Julie Kagawa

As a result of World War II, European artists migrated to America, enlarging the scene and diminishing Paris as the center. America was beginning its dominance of the art world with the emergence of the Abstract Expressionists. — Arne Glimcher

When I hear a guy lost a battle to cancer, that really did bother me, that that's a term. It implies that he failed and that somebody else that defeated cancer is heroic and courageous. — Norm MacDonald

Simply because one is Black or Latino or lesbian or gay or whatever does not guarantee the person's fidelity to a body of politics that empowers the particular constituency that they supposedly represent. The number of black elected officials has risen from 100 in 1964 to more than 9000 today. The number of African Americans who were in congress 30 years ago was about five; today it is over 40, an 800 percent increase. But have Blacks experienced an 800 percent increase in real power? It hasn't happened. So, I think the emphasis of this liberal notion of social change by working solely within the established electoral system is just fatally flawed. — Manning Marable

When women got the vote, they did not redefine voting. When African-Americans got the right to sit at a lunch counter alongside white people, they did not redefine eating out. They were simply invited to the table. That is all we want to do; we have no desire to change marriage. We want to be entitled to not only the same privileges but the same responsibilities as straight people — Cynthia Nixon

I stay connected in my head. I'm spiritually and psychologically connected to African-Americans. They are my people, and that will never change. — Assata Shakur

The Marines estimate that roughly a hundred or 200 women will be interested in going into these jobs - roughly 2 percent of those jobs. Still, this is historic. It's a biggest cultural change in the military maybe ever, probably bigger than integrating the force back in 1948 when African-Americans were no longer segregated in separate units. — Renee Montagne

And if the word integration means anything, this is what it means: that we, with love, shall force our brothers to see themselves as they are, to cease fleeing from reality and begin to change it. For this is your home, my friend, do not be driven from it; great men have done great things here, and will again, and we can make America what America must become. — James Baldwin

Joy is as thorny and sharp as any of the dark emotions. To love someone fiercely, to believe in something with your whole heart, to celebrate a fleeting moment in time, to fully engage in a life that doesn't come with guarantees - these are risks that involve vulnerability and often pain. When we lose our tolerance for discomfort, we lose joy. — Brene Brown

If we truly believe in the power of cultural institutions to impact communities and engage authentically with social justice issues, if we believe in museums' capacity to bring about social change, improve cultural awareness, and even transform the world, than we must also believe that our internal practices have an impact, and must act according to the changes we seek. — Monica O Montgomery

I'm pore, I'm black, I may be ugly and can't cook, a voice say to everything listening. But I'm here. — Alice Walker

It's a libel to say that I use my newspapers to support my other business interests. The fact is, I haven't got any other business interests. — Rupert Murdoch

Stand-up came out of three things. Frustration, necessity and arrogance. I didn't have a great career ahead of me in anything. Someone literally said to me, 'You should try stand-up,' and took me to a venue. — Eric Bana