Awareness Quotes

"Neither love nor terror makes one blind: indifference makes one blind."

- James Baldwin

"We have simply got to make people aware that none of us are free until we’re all free."

- Opal Lee

"The liberation Juneteenth commemorates is cause for celebration, but it also reminds us how equality can be delayed."

- Usher

"Happy #Juneteenth everyone! We’ve come so far—but we know we still have a long way to go."

- Halle Berry

"It might seem like a small moment in time, but it is a critical moment in the long struggle to realize the promises of American democracy and freedom. Juneteenth would surely have gone unmarked in our collective historical memory had it not been for the thousands of formerly enslaved people who kindled the small flame of that moment."

- Shennette Garrett-Scott, PhD

"Juneteenth is a day of profound weight and profound power."

- President Joseph R. Biden

"We Black folk, our history, and our present being are a mirror of all the manifold experiences of America. If we Black folk perish, America will perish."

- Richard Wright

"The persistence of violent white nationalism - these things have deep ugly roots, inextricably tied to slavery and its aftermath. We will be better off unearthing it and airing it out if we really want repair."

- Joy Reid

"We have simply got to make people aware that none of us are free until we’re all free, and we aren’t free yet."

- Opal Lee

"Studying the blueprints of liberation, one can map out the ways we as The Global African Diaspora have continued to resist and exist under regimes of antiBlack terror."

- Brandon Gonzalez

"The proclamation notes that freedom shall not be repressed. This is what I believe to be the primary significance of Juneteenth."

- Theodorea Regina Berry

"Juneteenth is another moment for me and my loved ones to build an archive of truth and experience of (ourselves) Black folks."

- Tatiana Glover

"Hold those things that tell your history and protect them. During slavery, who was able to read or write or keep anything? The ability to have somebody to tell your story to is so important. It says: ‘I was here. I may be sold tomorrow. But you know I was here.’"

- Maya Angelou

"The flag that was the symbol of slavery on the high seas for a long time was not the Confederate battle flag, it was sadly the Stars and Stripes."

- Alan Keyes

"We’re in denial of the African holocaust. Most times, people don’t want to talk about it. One is often restless or termed a racist just for having compassion for the African experience, for speaking truth to the trans-Atlantic and Arab slave trades, for speaking truth to the significant omission of our history. We don’t want to sit down and listen to these things, or to discuss them. But we have to."

- Ilyasah Shabazz

"Who this girl in the back of the room?"

- Beyoncé

"Most things out of focus view / But when you're in the room, they notice you."

- Beyoncé

"Your words, they take the shape my body makes / Ain’t that the scary thing."

- Beyoncé

"Until there is a mosaic of perspectives coming from different ethnicities behind the lens, we will continue to have a narrow approach and view of what the world actually looks like."

- Beyoncé

"People are like stained – glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within."

- Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

"Live, so you do not have to look back and say: ‘God, how I have wasted my life.’"

- Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

"Instructions for living a life. / Pay attention. / Be astonished. Tell about it."

- Mary Oliver

"If you think you're free, there's no escape possible."

- Ram Dass

"You can't wake a person who is pretending to be asleep."

- Navajo Proverb

"Juneteenth is a date that recognizes the end of slavery in the United States. Although Juneteenth is not a day that is celebrated in the UK, it is still a reminder of the injustices black people endured."

"You are beautiful both on the inside and the outside."

"If you are scared, accept the fear. If you are sad, be sad. We don’t have to be happy and brave at all times."

"Words have a way of moving you, of bringing about personal emotions only you can relate to, because each one of us is impacted by the power of words so differently."

"This year the Universe has rattled us, and I believe it is for good reason."

"Summer vacation is the time when parents realize teachers are grossly underpaid."

- Unknown