Empowering Voices: A Collection of Inspirational Quotes from African American Leaders

"Never limit yourself because of other’s limited imagination; never limit others because of your own limited imagination."

- Mae Jemison

"I only debate my equals. All others, I teach."

- John Henrik Clarke

"There is no boy, at this age, cute enough or interesting enough to stop you from getting an education, If I had worried about who liked me and who thought I was cute when I was your age, I wouldn’t be married to the President of the United States."

- Michelle Obama

"Strive to make something of yourself, then strive to make the most of yourself."

- Alexander Crummell

"Our elevation must be the result of self-efforts and work of our own hands. No other human power can accomplish it. If we but determine it shall be so, it will be so."

- Martin R. Delany

"We all have ability. The difference is how we use it."

- Stevie Wonder

"You can't just sit there and wait for people to give you that golden dream. You've got to get out there and make it happen for yourself."

- Diana Ross

"Believe in yourself and have confidence that you can compete against all odds. Have a vision of what you'd like to accomplish and be able to articulate that vision."

- Robert Johnson

"A problem is a chance for you to do your best."

- Duke Ellington

"Do not fear mistakes. There are none."

- Miles Davis

"I never wanted to be famous. I only wanted to be great."

- Ray Charles

"These children and their parents know that getting an education is not only their right, but a passport to a better future - for the children and for the country."

- Harry Belafonte

"All kids need is a little help, a little hope and somebody who believes in them."

- Magic Johnson

"Age is no barrier. It's a limitation you put on your mind."

- Jackie Joyner-Kersee

"Within our dreams and aspirations, we find our opportunities."

- Sugar Ray Leonard

"We all have dreams. But in order to make dreams come into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline, and effort."

- Jesse Owens

"A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives."

- Jackie Robinson

"You can always become better."

- Tiger Woods

"When I discover who I am, I'll be free."

- Ralph Ellison

"Anytime you see a turtle up on top of a fence post, you know he had some help."

- Alex Haley

"Never be afraid to sit awhile and think."

- Lorraine Hansberry

"If there is a book that you want to read, but hasn't been written yet, you must be the one to write it."

- Toni Morrison

"You can kill a man but you can't kill an idea."

- Medgar Evers

"Men who are in earnest are not afraid of consequences."

- Marcus Garvey

"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.

"Memories of our lives, of our works and our deeds will continue in others."

- Rosa Parks

"You have to be prepared to die before you can be prepared to live."

- Fred Shuttlesworth

"The best way to guarantee a loss is to quit."

- Morgan Freeman

"The advice I would give to someone is to not take anyone's advice."

- Eddie Murphy

"To simply wake up every morning a better person than when I went to bed."

- Sidney Poitier

"You pray for rain, you gotta deal with the mud too. That's a part of it."

- Denzel Washington

"We have a powerful potential in our youth, and we must have the courage to change old ideas and practices so that we may direct their power toward good ends."

- Mary McLeod Bethune

"Don't sit down and wait for the opportunities to come. Get up and make them."

- Madam C.J. Walker

"If you fall behind, run faster. Never give up, never surrender, and rise up against the odds."

- Jesse Jackson

"Don't let people disrespect you. My mom says don't open the door to the devil. Surround yourself with positive people."

- Cuba Gooding Jr.

"There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure."

- Colin Powell

"Good manners will open doors that the best education cannot."

- Clarence Thomas

"In order to be the best version of yourself, you have to dedicate time, effort, and support to other people who need it."

- Laurence Fishburne

"If there is no struggle, there is no progress."

- Frederick Douglass

"You learn more in failure than you ever do in success."

- Jay-Z

"Like what you do, and then you will do your best."

- Katherine Johnson

"Every day, my daddy told me the same thing. 'Once a task is just begun, never leave it till it's done. Be the labour great or small, do it well or not at all.'"

- Quincy Jones

"The guy who takes a chance, who walks the line between the known and unknown, who is unafraid of failure, will succeed."

- Gordon Sparks

"Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world."

- Harriet Tubman

"If you look at how long the Earth has been here, we're living in the blink of an eye. So, whatever it is you want to do, you go out and do it."

- Jamie Foxx

"Do not live someone else's life and someone else's idea of what womanhood is. Womanhood is you. Womanhood is everything that's inside of you."

- Viola Davis

"We're here for a reason. I believe a bit of the reason is to throw little torches out to lead people through the dark."

- Whoopi Goldberg

"Never dull your shine for somebody else."

- Tyra Banks

"You can fool people. You can fool anybody any time of the day, but you can't fool yourself. At night, when you go home, you've got to be straight up with you."

- Whitney Houston

"If everything was perfect, you would never learn and you would never grow."

- Beyoncé

"Success is the sweetest revenge."

- Vanessa Williams

"Successful people don't have fewer problems. They have determined that nothing will stop them from going forward."

- Benjamin Carson

"You have to be able to accept failure to get better."

- LeBron James

"Get up. Stand up. Speak up. Do something."

- Tamara Burke

"Never let someone tell you you're too small or too slow."

- Chris Paul

"It's okay to fail; it's not okay to quit."

- Christopher Paul Gardner

"If your dream is only about you, it's too small."

- Ava DuVernay

"Now I think it’s one of the most useless questions an adult can ask a child—What do you want to be when you grow up? As if growing up is finite. As if at some point you become something and that’s the end."

- Michelle Obama

"If you can't figure out your purpose, figure out your passion. For your passion will lead you right into your purpose."

- Bishop T.D. Jakes

"Bottom line: if you show a genuine interest in learning about how others became successful, you can open up a world of opportunities."

- Armstrong Williams

"You can and should set your own limits and clearly articulate them. This takes courage, but it is also liberating and empowering, and often earns you new respect."

- Rosalind Brewer

"I know that in life there will be sickness, devastation, disappointments, heartache - it's a given. What's not a given is the way you choose to get through it all. If you look hard enough, you can always find the bright side."

- Rashida Jones

"The easy thing to do is to keep doing what’s always been done, but challenging the status quo can show you things you didn’t know were possible."

- Alicia Boler Davis

"Just don't give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don't think you can go wrong."

- Ella Fitzgerald

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

- Langston Hughes

"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."

- Barack Obama

"Nothing will work unless you do."

- Maya Angelou

"If you wanna make the world a better place, take a look at yourself, then make that change."

- Michael Jackson

"The paradox of education is precisely this - that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated."

- James Baldwin

"Don't follow the path. Go where there is no path and begin the trail. When you start a new trail equipped with courage, strength, and conviction, the only thing that can stop you is you!"

- Ruby Bridges

"You have to believe in yourself when no one else does."

- Serena Williams

"Everything negative - pressure, challenges - is all an opportunity for me to rise."

- Kobe Bryant

"I refused to take no for an answer."

- Bessie Coleman

"Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today."

- Malcolm X

"Always keep swinging. Whether I was in a slump or feeling bad or having trouble off the field, the only thing to do was keep swinging."

- Hank Aaron

"He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life."

- Muhammad Ali

"When you stop having dreams and ideals - well, you might as well stop altogether."

- Marian Anderson

"Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can."

- Arthur Ashe

"Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced."

- James Baldwin

"Without faith, nothing is possible. With it, nothing is impossible."

- Mary McLeod Bethune

"I chased my dreams. In the end, find what gets you excited and chase it."

- Guion Bluford

"Let us keep the dance of rain our fathers kept and tread our dreams beneath the jungle sky."

- Arna Bontemps

"You can surmount the obstacles in your path if you are determined, courageous and hard-working. Never be faint-hearted. Be resolute, but never bitter."

- Ralph Bunche

"When you do the common things in life in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world."

- George Washington Carver

"If they don't give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair."

- Shirley Chisholm

"A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination."

- Nelson Mandela

"Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody's going to know whether you did it or not."

- Oprah Winfrey

"I can accept failure. Everyone fails at something. But I can't accept not trying."

- Michael Jordan

"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."

- Jesse Owens

"The price of hating other human beings is loving oneself less."

- Eldridge Cleaver

"Truth is powerful and it prevails."

- Sojourner Truth

"My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together."

- Desmond Tutu

"Sticks in a bundle are unbreakable."

- Kenyan Proverb

"Your life is already artful- waiting, just waiting, for you to make it art."

- Toni Morrison

"You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world. And you have to do it all the time."

- Angela Davis

"The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character — that is the goal of true education."

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world."

- Nelson Mandela

"Children are not things to be molded, but are people to be unfolded."

- Jess Lair

"I believe a child going without an education is a crime."

- Vice President Kamala Harris

"The whole world opened to me when I learned to read."

- Mary McLeod Bethune

"You are your best thing."

- Toni Morrison

"Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed."

- Booker T. Washington

"The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression."

- W.E.B. Du Bois

"I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.... I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word."

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers. Our abundance has brought us neither peace of mind nor serenity of spirit."

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope... and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance."

- Robert F. Kennedy

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

- Maya Angelou

"The moment anyone tries to demean or degrade you in any way, you have to know how great you are. Nobody would bother to beat you down if you were not a threat."

- Cicely Tyson

"Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth."

- Muhammad Ali

"I’m a black American, I am proud of my race. I am proud of who I am. I have a lot of pride and dignity."

- Michael Jackson

"I had to make my own living and my own opportunity. But I made it! Don’t sit down and wait for the opportunities to come. Get up and make them."

- Madam C.J. Walker

"You are where you are today because you stand on somebody’s shoulders. And wherever you are heading, you cannot get there by yourself. If you stand on the shoulders of others, you have a reciprocal responsibility to live your life so that others may stand on your shoulders. It’s the quid pro quo of life. We exist temporarily through what we take, but we live forever through what we give"

- Vernon Jordan

"I looked up the road I was going and back the way I come, and since I wasn’t satisfied, I decided to step off the road and cut me a new path."

- Maya Angelou

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

- Carol Moseley Braun

"If we accept and acquiesce in the face of discrimination, we accept the responsibility ourselves and allow those responsible to salve their conscience by believing that they have our acceptance and concurrence. We should, therefore, protest openly everything... that smacks of discrimination or slander."

- Mary McLeod Bethune

"When I dare to be powerful to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid."

- Audre Lorde

"We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated."

- Maya Angelou

"One important key to success is self-confidence. An important key to self-confidence is preparation."

- Arthur Ashe

"Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome."

- Booker T. Washington

"Our needs are identical with labor’s needs – decent wages, fair working conditions, livable housing, old age security, health and welfare measures."

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Freedom is never given; it is won."

- A. Philip Randolph

"You have to believe in yourself when no one else does -- that makes you a winner right there."

- Venus Williams

"The time is always right to do what is right."

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

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

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond."

- Gwendolyn Brooks

"The need for change bulldozed a road down the center of my mind."

- Maya Angelou

"You really can change the world if you care enough."

- Marian Wright Edelman

"Each person must live their life as a model for others."

- Rosa Parks

"I believe that each of us carries a bit of inner brightness, something entirely unique and individual, a flame that's worth protecting. When we are able to recognize our own light, we become empowered to use it. When we learn to foster what's unique in the people around us, we become better able to build compassionate communities and make meaningful change."

- Michelle Obama

"The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"I knew my life would be a fight, and I realized this: I had it in me."

- Viola Davis

"Power concedes nothing without a demand, It never did and it never will."

- Frederick Douglass

"The fact is that justice is indivisible; injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"You are the designer of your destiny; you are the author of your story."

- Lisa Nichols

"Rising from the ashes of my earlier life, I learned that our thoughts, words, and deeds are unified through spiritual practice. They are made whole within us. And when our thoughts, words, and deeds are aligned with our most positive intentions, magic happens."

- Tina Turner

"I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and incur my own abhorrence."

- Frederick Douglass

"For me, becoming isn’t about arriving somewhere or achieving a certain aim. I see it instead as forward motion, a means of evolving, a way to reach continuously toward a better self. The journey doesn’t end."

- Michelle Obama

"Freedom is never granted; it is won. Justice is never given; it is exacted."

- Philip Randolph

"Pursue the things you love doing, and then do them so well that people can't take their eyes off you."

- Maya Angelou

"History has shown us that courage can be contagious, and hope can take on a life of its own."

- Michelle Obama

"Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them."

- Assata Shakur

"We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed."

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"I’m for truth, no matter who tells it. I’m for justice, no matter who it is for or against. I’m a human being first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole."

- Malcolm X

"You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it."

- Maya Angelou

"That's all anybody can do right now. Live. Hold out. Survive. I don't know whether good times are coming back again. But I know that won't matter if we don't survive these times."

- Octavia E. Butler

"Any community seriously concerned with its own freedom has to be concerned about other peoples’ freedom as well."

- Assata Shakur

"For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others."

- Nelson Mandela

"If you don’t get out there and define yourself, you’ll be quickly and inaccurately defined by others."

- Michelle Obama

"When I dare to be powerful – to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid."

- Audre Lorde

"To those who’ve survived: Breathe. That’s it. Once more. Good. You’re good. Even if you’re not, you’re alive. That is a victory."

- N. K. Jemisin

"You don't have to think about doing the right thing. If you're for the right thing, then you do it without thinking."

- Maya Angelou

"We are pow­er­ful because we have sur­vived, and that is what it is all about- sur­vival and growth."

- Audre Lorde

"There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you."

- Maya Angelou

"The black skin is not a badge of shame, but rather a glorious symbol of national greatness."

- Marcus Garvey

"For every door that’s been opened to me, I’ve tried to open my door to others. And here is what I have to say, finally: Let’s invite one another in."

- Michelle Obama

"I am dripping in melanin and honey. I am Black without apology."

- Upile Chisala

"My humanness doesn’t insulate me from racism or sexism. In fact, I think I can deal effectively with the world precisely because I am a black woman who is so comfortable in my black-womanness. I know what I can accomplish. And anything I have accomplished, I did so not in spite of being a black woman, but because I am a black woman."

- Gabrielle Union

"I have found that, to make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason. He must be able to detect no inconsistencies in slavery; he must be made to feel that slavery is right; and he can be brought to that only when he ceased to be a man."

- Frederick Douglass

"Don’t follow the path. Go where there is no path and begin the trail."

- Ruby Bridges

"Just don’t give up what you’re trying to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong."

- Ella Fitzgerald

"Own your magic, walk in your purpose, and rock your truth."

- Beverly Bond

"It is extremely rough to follow through with my goals, but I felt a responsibility to show the world what the African Americans are facing through this rough patch."

- Ida B. Wells

"For I am my mother’s daughter, and the drums of Africa still beat in my heart."

- Mary McLeod Bethune

"Never be limited by other people’s limited imaginations."

- Dr. Mae Jemison

"If my future were determined just by my performance on a standardized test, I wouldn’t be here. I guarantee you that."

- Michelle Obama

"I’ve learned in life that what you give to others is what provides the most value to your life. There I was, a mess myself, yet I still had something to offer that would have an effect on another person’s world."

- Jennifer Lewis

"What I know for sure is that speaking your truth is the most powerful tool we all have."

- Oprah Winfrey

"I don’t like to lose — at anything… Yet I’ve grown most not from victories, but setbacks. If winning is God’s reward, then losing is how he teaches us."

- Serena Williams

"I will not have my life narrowed down. I will not bow down to somebody else’s whim or to someone else’s ignorance."

- Bell Hooks

"You’re not obligated to win. You’re obligated to keep trying to do the best you can every day."

- Marian Wright Edelman

"Wanna fly, you got to give up the s — — that weighs you down."

- Toni Morrison

"Be a girl with a mind, a b**ch with an attitude, a lady with class."

- Rihanna

"What you know means something. What you do means something. Your name means something."

- Audria Richmond

"In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress."

- Booker T. Washington

"Wherever there is a human being, I see God-given rights inherent in that being, whatever may be the sex or complexion."

- William Lloyd Garrison

"…he told her, ‘Don’t ever become small,’ and she said, ‘I never could.’"

- Roxane Gay

"We must never forget that Black History is American History. The achievements of African Americans have contributed to our nation’s greatness."

- Yvette Clarke

"Real education means to inspire people to live more abundantly, to learn to begin with life as they find it and make it better."

- Carter G. Woodson

"Your world is only as small as you make it."

- Gabrielle Union

"Justice may be slow and invisible, but it always renders its true verdict in the end."

- Colson Whitehead

"All too often, when we see injustices, both great and small, we think, That's terrible, but we do nothing. We say nothing. We let other people fight their own battles. We remain silent because silence is easier... When we say nothing, when we do nothing, we are consenting to these trespasses against us."

- Roxane Gay

"And so the world watches America—the only great power in history made up of people from every corner of the planet, comprising every race and faith and cultural practice—to see if our experiment in democracy can work. To see if we can do what no other nation has ever done. To see if we can actually live up to the meaning of our creed."

- Barack Obama

"We actually don't give a f**k about shiny, polished candidates. We care about justice."

- Patrisse Khan-Cullors

"I chose to speak truth. Even when it's uncomfortable. Even when it leaves people feeling uneasy. When you speak truth, people won't always walk away feeling good—and sometimes you won't feel so great about the reaction you receive. But at least all parties will walk away knowing it was an honest conversation."

- Kamala Harris

"That is the promise to glade, the hill we climb if only we dare it, because .being American is more than a pride we inherit—It's the past we step into, and how we repair it."

- Amanda Gorman

"I have no mercy or compassion in me for a society that will crush people, and then penalize them for not being able to stand up under the weight."

- Malcolm X

"To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships."

- W.E.B. DuBois

"Whoever debases others is debasing himself."

- James Baldwin

"All of us—who might have probed space, or cured cancer, or built industries—were, instead, black victims of the white man's American social system."

- Malcolm X

"I admit that the slave does sometimes sing, dance and appear to be merry. But what does this prove? It only proves to my mind, that though slavery is armed with a thousand stings, it is not able entirely to kill the elastic spirit of the bondman."

- Frederick Douglass

"Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat."

- Ralph Ellison

"There's nothing easy about finding your way through a world loaded with obstacles that others can't or don't see."

- Michelle Obama

"I learnt that the only way to get a thing done is to start to do it, then keep on doing it, and finally you’ll finish it, even if in the beginning you think you can’t do it at all."

- Langston Hughes

"When your dreams are bigger than the places you find yourself in, sometimes you need to seek out your own reminders that there is more. And there is always more waiting for you on the other side of fear."

- Elaine Welteroth

"Growth requires movement. And often, the only way forward is through an exit door."

- Alicia Keys

"If you're too weak to handle failure and disappointment, then you're too weak to handle success, which will only end up damaging your life and happiness."

- Kevin Hart

"No man knows what he can do until he tries."

- Carter G. Woodson

"Here’s to us being afraid and doing it anyway."

- Gabrielle Union

"I did infer, however, that submitting to melancholy would undo the labors of those who had come before me, that I had an obligation to resist instead of giving in. I rose unsteadily to my feet, aware of my shackles, but determined to somehow overcome them."

- Jabari Asim

"Be brave. Be amazing. Be worthy."

- Shonda Rhimes

"The ability to read awoke inside of me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive."

- Malcolm X

"Then it was that books began to happen to me, and I began to believe in nothing but books and the wonderful world in books—where if people suffered, they suffered in beautiful language, not in monosyllables as we did in Kansas."

- Langston Hughes

"Salvation is certainly among the reasons I read... Stories have given me a place in which to lose myself. They have allowed me to remember. They have allowed me to forget. They have allowed me to imagine different endings and better possible worlds."

- Roxane Gay

"So my advice to other young writers: Read widely. Study other writers. Be thoughtful, Then go out and do the work of changing the form, finding your own voice, and saying what you need to say. Be fearless. And care."

- Glory Edim

"With really good literature you’re allowed to take multiple journeys as your perspective shifts over time. It continues to resonate, as you find different ways of entering and engaging with the narrative."

- Glory Edim

"Art is not mere entertainment or decoration, it has meaning, and we both want and need to fathom that meaning."

- Toni Morrison

"To be sensual, I think, is to respect and rejoice in the force of life, of life itself, and to be present in all that one does, from the effort of loving to the breaking of bread."

- James Baldwin

"My biggest discovery was that you can literally re-create your life."

- Viola Davis

"Education among all kinds of men always has had, and always will have, an element of danger and revolution, of dissatisfaction and discontent. Nevertheless, men strive to know."

- W.E.B. Du Bois

"You hand us the fatback of a pig and we use it to make savory greens. You hand us a fledgling radio station and we turn it into a media empire ... We are alchemists. So our ability to transform our lived experience—even the ones plagued by trauma—is the very reason why we should internalize our acceptance and release ourselves from any obligation to be something other than who we are, individually and collectively."

- Tracey Michae'l Lewis-Giggetts

"Your story is what you have, what you will always have. It is something to own."

- Michelle Obama

"A writer's life and work are not a gift to mankind; they are its necessity."

- Toni Morrison

"Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with shades of deeper meaning."

- Maya Angelou

"History shows that it does not matter who is in power or what revolutionary forces take over the government, those who have not learned to do for themselves and have to depend solely on others never obtain any more rights or privileges in the end than they had in the beginning."

- Carter G. Woodson

"Sometimes being a good ally is about opening the door for someone instead of insisting that your voice is the only one that matters."

- Mikki Kendall

"I believe in living. I believe in birth. I believe in the sweat of love and in the fire of truth. And I believe that a lost ship, steered by tired, seasick sailors, can still be guided him to port."

- Assata Shakur

"I call something a miracle when an ordinary person achieves something extraordinary. We all have the potential to create miraculous changes."

- Tina Turner

"Power doesn't have to show off. Power is confident, self-assuring, self-starting and self-stopping, self-warming and self-justifying. When you have it, you know it."

- Ralph Ellison

"No woman has to be respectable to be valuable."

- Mikki Kendall

"Either you seize what may turn out to be the only chance you have, or you decide you’re willing to live with the knowledge that the chance has passed you by."

- Barack Obama

"Don't sell yourself short. You will meet people along the way who will be lining up to place limits on you. You don't need to beat them to the punch."

- Leslie Odom Jr.

"When life forces you to face yourself, what awaits in the mirror is a gift: vulnerability."

- Alicia Keys

"I am what I have become."

- Sidney Poitier

"When you don't know your true value, you see the world through the lens of how you don't measure up."

- Cicely Tyson

"When you can’t find someone to follow, you have to find a way to lead by example."

- Roxane Gay

"Self-definition and self-determination is about the many varied decisions that we make to compose and journey toward ourselves, about the audacity and strength to proclaim, create, and evolve into who we know ourselves to be. It’s okay if your personal definition is in a constant state of flux as you navigate the world."

- Janet Mock

"I find, in being Black, a thing of beauty: a joy a strength a secret cup of gladness."

- Ossie Davis

"Choosing yourself is a revolutionary act of integrity."

- Jennifer Arnise

"these hips have never been enslaved, they go where they want to go they do what they want to do. these hips are mighty hips. these hips are magic hips"

- Lucille Clifton

"Have a vision. Be demanding."

- Colin Powell

"Let woman choose her own vocation just as man does his. Let her go into business, let her make money, let her become independent, if possible, of man."

- Maggie Lena Walker

"If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude."

- Maya Angelou

"Winning is great, sure, but if you are really going to do something in life, the secret is learning how to lose. Nobody goes undefeated all the time. If you can pick up after a crushing defeat, and go on to win again, you are going to be a champion someday."

- Wilma Rudolph

"Take responsibility for yourself because no one’s going to take responsibility for you. I’m not a victim. I grow from this and I learn."

- Tyra Banks

"Whatever we believe about ourselves and our ability comes true for us."

- Susan L. Taylor

"If I didn’t define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people’s fantasies for me and eaten alive."

- Audre Lorde

"Self-esteem means knowing you are the dream."

- Oprah Winfrey

"The triumph can’t be had without the struggle."

- Wilma Rudolph

"The truth is, I’ve never been a big believer in destiny. I worry that it encourages resignation in the down-and-out and complacency among the powerful."

- Barack Obama

"America loves the myth of a meritocracy more than anything else, because it lets us ignore the reality of the impact of bigotry."

- Mikki Kendall

"Children don't carry the weight of history, so their capacity for heavy things might be greater. But few adults believe this, so we pass along only what we think they can bear. Children wonder later why we didn't tell them everything so they could avoid our mistakes."

- Daniel Black

"But for a society build on exploitation, there is no greater threat than having no one left to oppress."

- N. K. Jemisin

"Courage does not always roar."

- Tomi Adeyemi

"If I don't poke my head out of my shell and show people who I am, all anyone will ever think I am is my shell."

- Shonda Rhimes

"You could convince anyone you belonged somewhere if you acted like you did."

- Brit Bennett

"You were never just you, and you owed it to the people you cared about to remember that. Because the people you loved were part of your identity, too. Perhaps the biggest part."

- Charmaine Wilkerson

"We put our kids to fifteen years of quick-cut advertising, passive television watching, and sadistic video games, and we expect to see emerge a new generation of calm, compassionate, and engaged human beings?"

- Sidney Poitier

"Are you going to let someone else's view of who you should be, and what you should do, hold you back?"

- Charmaine Wilkerson

"I started teaching myself to contort my rage into more valuable shapes; it doesn't disappear that way, just works for you instead of against you."

- Nikole Hannah-Jones

"All men are created equal, unless we decide you are not a man."

- Colson Whitehead

"Discovering what you don’t want is just as important as finding out what you do."

- Elaine Welteroth

"We say, hold on to the real facts of history as they are, but complete such knowledge by studying also the history of races and nations which have been purposely ignored."

- Carter G. Woodson

"If we are truly a great nation, the truth cannot destroy us."

- Nikole Hannah-Jones

"If you know what you want, ask for it. And be specific—you just might get it."

- Elaine Welteroth

"Question yourself, yes, but don't doubt yourself. There is a difference."

- Charmaine Wilkerson

"We were not actors but acted upon. We were not contributors, just recipients. White people enslaved us, and white people freed us. Black people could choose either to take advantage of that freedom or to squander it, as our depictions in the media seemed to suggest so many of us were doing."

- Nikole Hannah-Jones

"No one ever told her how to get her heart to abandon a dream once the dreamer stops dreaming."

- Kaia Alderson

"Now no one can fault the conqueror for writing history the way he sees it, and certainly not for digesting human events and discovering their patterns according to his point of view. But we can fault him for not owning up to what his point of view is."

- Toni Morrison

"What the people want is simple: they want an America as good as its promise."

- Barbara Jordan

"Whatever is bringing you down, get rid of it. Because you’ll find that when you’re free . . . your true self comes out."

- Tina Turner

"It's okay to be discouraged. It's natural. But in the discouragement, find your courage."

- Tabitha Brown

"Truth does not change, only our awareness of it."

- Malcolm X

"When children are small, our desires seem small, even if we want the sky. Anything we want seems to be only a matter of time and effort away. It’s too early to imagine what’s already holding you back."

- Ashley C. Ford

"We should seek out all the doors which still remain ajar, however slight the opening might be."

- Angela Davis

"You can fall, but you can rise also."

- Angelique Kidjo

"The opportunity to earn a dollar in a factory just now is worth infinitely more than the opportunity to spend a dollar in an opera house."

- Booker T. Washington

"More people's lives have been shaped by violence than we like to think. And more people's lives have been shaped by silence than we think."

- Charmaine Wilkerson

"Repressive societies always seemed to understand the danger of 'wrong' ideas."

- Octavia E. Butler

"We must abolish the entitlement that deludes us into believing that we have the right to make assumptions about people's identities and project those assumptions onto their genders and bodies."

- Janet Mock

"It's not till she's outside that she realizes what she was looking for in there. What she's been looking for all these years. What she realizes now she no longer needs. Permission."

- Tochi Onyebuchi

"No matter how often you fall from grace, what matters most is how many times you get up."

"I am stronger than I am broken."

"The most marvelous, unbelievable thing about Black people in America is that they exist. Every imaginable monstrosity that evil can conjure has been inflicted on this population, yet they have not been extinguished."

"Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children."

"Success is liking yourself, liking what you do, and liking how you do it."

"Black people always found a way in the most miserable circumstances. If we didn't, we'd have been exterminated by the white man long ago."

"Most people run from what they’re afraid of. I run toward it. That doesn’t mean I think I’m bulletproof (I’ve learned the hard way that I’m not) or that I’m unaware of danger. I experience fear as much as the next man. But one of the greatest mistakes people can make is becoming comfortable with their fears."

"To soar toward what's possible, you must leave behind what's comfortable."

"You don't have to become something you're not to be better than you were."

"When the world tells you to shrink, expand."

"When I discover who I am, I’ll be free."

"I am a strong black woman that deserve all the good things coming my way."