28 Powerful Quotes That Perfectly Capture The Spirit Of Black History

The thing about black history is that the truth is so much more complex than anything you could make up.

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“Black history does not begin with slavery.”

Ron Cogswell
Flickr / Ron Cogswell

1.  If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. African Proverb

2. Truth is powerful and it prevails. Sojourner Truth

3. It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. Frederick Douglas

4. The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression. W.E.B. DuBois

5. Freedom is not something that one people can bestow on another as a gift. Thy claim it as their own and none can keep it from them. Kwame Nkrumah

6. As for the charges against me, I am unconcerned. I am beyond their timid lying morality so I am beyond caring. Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti

7. To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time. James Baldwin

8. Give light and people will find a way. Ella Baker

9. But if you are going to wear blinders, you do not know the world. Miriam Makeba

10. You can’t separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom. Malcolm X

11. If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward. Martin Luther King Jr.

12. I think what motivates people is not great hate, but great love for other people. Huey P. Newton

13. I would fight for my liberty so long as my strength lasted, and if the time came for me to go, the Lord would let them take me. Harriet Tubman

14. Not one of us will have to raise a sword. Not one gun would we need to fire. The great cannon that will be fired is our unity. Elijah Muhammed

15. The only bond worth anything between human beings is their humanness. Jesse Owens

16. This world was not created piecemeal. Africa was born no later and no earlier than any other geographical area on this globe. Africans, no more and no less than other men, possess all human attributes, talents and deficiencies, virtues and faults. Haile Selassie

17. A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots. Marcus Garvey 

18. History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again. Maya Angelou

19. Art is man’s constant effort to create for himself a different order of reality from that which is given to him. Chinua Achebe

20. Your silence will not protect you. Audre Lorde

21. 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. Rosa Parks

22. Nobody’s free until everybody’s free. Fannie Lou Hamer

23. And when I talk about love, I’m talking about something that’s great, though, brother. I’m talking about something that will sustain you. Cornel West

24. I shall allow no man to belittle my soul by making me hate him. Booker T. Washington

25. In recognizing the humanity of our fellow beings, we pay ourselves the highest tribute. Thurgwood Marshall

26. There is no such thing as part freedom. Nelson Mandela

27. Brave men do not gather by thousands to torture and murder a single individual, so gagged and bound he cannot make even feeble resistance or defense. Ida B. Wells

28. The thing about black history is that the truth is so much more complex than anything you could make up. Henry Louis Gates. Thought Catalog Logo Mark


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