Empowering Words: Inspirational Quotes from Famous Black Leaders and Icons

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

- Malcolm X

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

- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

"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.

"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.

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

- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

"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.

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

- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

"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

"Ours is not the struggle of one day, one week, or one year. Ours is not the struggle of one judicial appointment or presidential term. Ours is the struggle of a lifetime, or maybe even many lifetimes, and each one of us in every generation must do our part."

- John Lewis

"My parents gave me the pep talk when I started school, the same speech all black parents give their kids: You're gonna have to be bigger, badder, better, just to be considered equal. You're gonna have to do twice as much work and you're not going to get any credit for your accomplishments or for overcoming adversity. Most black people grow accustomed to the fact that we have to excel just to be seen as existing, and this is a lesson passed down from generation to generation."

- Gabrielle Union

"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

"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

"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 social movement that only moves people is merely a revolt. A movement that changes both people and institutions is a revolution."

- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

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

- Dr. Mae Jemison

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

- Malcolm X

"Freedom is never given; it is won."

- A. Philip Randolph

"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

"You can only become accomplished at something you love. Don't make money your goal. Instead pursue the things you love doing and then do them so well that people can't take their eyes off you."

- Maya Angelou

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

- Martin Luther King Jr.

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

- Langston Hughes

"Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better."

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"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

"Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble."

- John Lewis

"Success isn’t about how much money you make, it’s about the difference you make in people’s lives."

- Michelle Obama

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

- Rep. Shirley Chisholm

"Knowledge is the pathway from slavery to freedom."

- Frederick Douglass

"If your success is defined as being well adjusted to injustice and well adapted to indifference, then we don’t want successful leaders. We want great leaders who love the people enough and respect the people enough to be unbought, unbound, unafraid, and unintimidated to tell the truth."

- Dr. Cornel West

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

- Maya Angelou

"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

"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.

"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

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

- Michelle Obama

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

- Colin Powell

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

- Nelson Mandela

"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

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

- Jesse Jackson

"One of the lessons that I grew up with was to always stay true to yourself and never let what somebody else says distract you from your goals. And so when I hear about negative and false attacks, I really don’t invest any energy in them, because I know who I am."

- Michelle Obama

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

- Mae Jemison

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

- Frederick Douglass

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

"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

"I was raised to believe that excellence is the best deterrent to racism or sexism. And that’s how I operate my life."

- Oprah Winfrey

"A democracy cannot thrive where power remains unchecked and justice is reserved for a select few. Ignoring these cries and failing to respond to this movement is simply not an option – for peace cannot exist where justice is not served."

- John Lewis

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

- Shirley Chisholm

"The soul that is within me no man can degrade."

- Frederick Douglass

"Every time you state what you want or believe, you're the first to hear it. It's a message to both you and others about what you think is possible. Don't put a ceiling on yourself."

- Oprah Winfrey

"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 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

"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

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

- Medgar Evers

"The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them."

- Ida B. Wells

"A people without the knowledge of their history is like a tree without roots."

- Marcus Garvey

"I don’t want a Black History Month. Black history is American history."

- Morgan Freeman

"We have to talk about liberating minds as well as liberating society."

- Angela Davis

"You can’t lead the people if you don’t love the people. You can’t save the people if you don’t serve the people."

- Cornel West

"Take a stand for what’s right. Raise a ruckus and make a change. You may not always be popular, but you’ll be part of something larger and bigger and greater than yourself. Besides, making history is extremely cool."

- Samuel Jackson

"When Black women stand up—as they did during the Montgomery Bus Boycott, as they did during the Black liberation era—earth-shaking changes occur."

- Angela Y. Davis

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

- Colson Whitehead

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

- Nikole Hannah-Jones

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

- Malcolm X

"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

"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

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

- Barbara Jordan

"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

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

- Malcolm X

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

- Maya Angelou

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

- Viola Davis

"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

"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

"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

"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

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

- Tina Turner

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

- Michelle Obama

"History is a people’s memory, and without a memory, man is demoted to the lower animals."

- Malcolm X

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

- W.E.B. Du Bois

"You can't separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom."

- Malcolm X

"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

"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

"We will not march back to what was. We move to what shall be, a country that is bruised, but whole. Benevolent, but bold. Fierce and free."

- Amanda Gorman

"Even in dark times, we not only dream, we do. We not only see what has been, we see what can be. We shoot for the moon, and then we plant our flag on it. We are bold, fearless, and ambitious. We are undaunted in our belief that we shall overcome; that we will rise up. This is American aspiration."

- Kamala Harris

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

- Maya Angelou

"Dreams are lovely but they are just dreams. Fleeting, ephemeral, pretty. But dreams do not come true just because you dream them. It’s hard work that makes things happen. It’s hard work that creates change."

- Shonda Rhimes

"In recognizing the humanity of our fellow beings, we pay ourselves the highest tribute."

- Thurgood Marshall

"Hate is too great a burden to bear. It injures the hater more than it injures the hated."

- Coretta Scott King

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

- Carol Moseley-Braun

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

- Jackie Robinson

"It isn't where you come from; it's where you're going that counts."

- Ella Fitzgerald

"Character is power."

- Booker T. Washington

"I don't have a feeling of inferiority. Never had. I'm as good as anybody, but no better."

- Katherine Johnson

"We all require and want respect, man or woman, black or white. It’s our basic human right."

- Aretha Franklin

"Hold on to your dreams of a better life and stay committed to striving to realize it."

- Earl G. Graves, Sr.

"Have a vision. Be demanding."

- Colin Powell

"What's the world for if you can't make it up the way you want it?"

- Toni Morrison

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

- Dr. Mae Jemison

"I have discovered in life that there are ways of getting almost anywhere you want to go, if you really want to go."

- Langston Hughes

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

- Susan L. Taylor

"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

"I was walking through [Harvard] Yard in the evening, and a Black woman I did not know was passing me on the sidewalk ... She leaned over as we crossed and said, 'Persevere.'"

- Ketanji Brown Jackson

"Education is transformational. It changes lives. That is why people work so hard to become educated and why education has always been the key to the American Dream, the force that erases arbitrary divisions of race and class and culture and unlocks every person's God-given potential."

- Condoleezza Rice

"I knew then, and I know now, when it comes to justice, there is no easy way to get it."

- Claudette Colvin

"I am America. I am the part you won’t recognize. But get used to me. Black, confident, cocky; my name, not yours; my religion, not yours; my goals, my own; get used to me."

- Muhammad Ali

"You are not and yet you are: your thoughts, your deeds, above all your dreams still live."

- W.E.B. Du Bois

"You never cede control of your own ability to be successful to something called racism."

- Condoleezza Rice

"Get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and help redeem the soul of America."

- John Lewis

"I am not going to die; I’m going home like a shooting star."

- Sojourner Truth

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

- Muhammad Ali

"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

"One of the hardest things in life to learn are which bridges to cross and which bridges to burn."

- Oprah Winfrey

"Life has two rules: number 1, never quit! Number 2, always remember rule number one."

- Duke Ellington

"I had no idea that history was being made. I was just tired of giving up."

- Rosa Parks

"If you know whence you came, there is really no limit to where you can go."

- James Baldwin

"Never forget that justice is what love looks like in public."

- Cornel West

"Give light, and people will find a way."

- Ella Baker

"Hope is tenacious. It goes on living and working when science has dealt it what should be its death blow."

- Paul Laurence Dunbar

"Truth is powerful, and it prevails."

- Sojourner Truth

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

- former First Lady Michelle Obama

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

- Mary McLeod Bethune

"I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up, this diminishes fear."

- Rosa Parks

"When we’re talking about diversity, it’s not a box to check. It is a reality that should be deeply felt and held and valued by all of us."

- Ava DuVernay

"I am lucky that whatever fear I have inside me, my desire to win is always stronger."

- Serena Williams

"Racism is man’s gravest threat to man—the maximum of hatred for a minimum of reason."

- Abraham Joshua Heschel

"There are two rules in life: Number 1, never quit! Number 2, never forget rule number one."

- Duke Ellington

"There are still many causes worth sacrificing for, so much history yet to be made."

- Michelle Obama

"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

"Life is not a spectator sport. If you’re going to spend your whole life in the grandstand just watching what goes on, in my opinion, you’re wasting your life."

- Jackie Robinson

"I need to see my own beauty and to continue to be reminded that I am enough, that I am worthy of love without effort, that I am beautiful, that the texture of my hair and that the shape of my curves, the size of my lips, the color of my skin, and the feelings that I have are all worthy and okay."

- Tracee Ellis Ross

"I had reasoned this out in my mind; there was one of two things I had a right to, liberty, or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other; for no man should take me alive; I should fight for my liberty as long as my strength lasted, and when the time came for me to go, the Lord would let them take me."

- Harriet Tubman

"True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost."

- Arthur Ashe

"A man without knowledge of himself and his heritage is like a tree without roots."

- Dick Gregory

"As black women, we’re always given these seemingly devastating experiences—experiences that could absolutely break us. But what the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls the butterfly. What we do as black women is take the worst situations and create from that point."

- Viola Davis

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

- Malcolm X

"You never know how or when you’ll have an impact, or how important your example can be to someone else."

- Denzel Washington

"Have a vision of excellence, a dream of success, and work like hell."

- Dr. Samuel DuBois Cook

"To me, we are the most beautiful creatures in the whole world. Black people. And I mean that in every sense."

- Nina Simone

"We need to internalize this idea of excellence. Not many folks spend a lot of time trying to be excellent."

- Barack Obama

"The things that make us different, those are our super powers."

- Lena Waithe

"We will all, at some point, encounter hurdles to gaining access and entry, moving up and conquering self-doubt; but on the other side is the capacity to own opportunity and tell our own story."

- Stacey Abrams

"If you have no confidence in self, you are twice defeated in the race of life."

- Marcus Garvey

"Every time you state what you want or believe, you’re the first to hear it. It’s a message to both you and others about what you think is possible. Don’t put a ceiling on yourself."

- Oprah Winfrey

"Freeing yourself was one thing; claiming ownership of that freed self was another."

- Toni Morrison

"I will not take ‘but’ for an answer."

- Langston Hughes

"It isn’t where you come from; it’s where you’re going that counts."

- Ella Fitzgerald

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

- James Baldwin

"There is no better than adversity. Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance the next time."

- Malcolm X

"The future rewards those who press on. I don’t have time to feel sorry for myself. I don’t have time to complain. I’m going to press on."

- Barack Obama

"If you have no critics you’ll likely have no success."

- Malcolm X

"A leader…is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock, letting the most nimble go out ahead, where upon the other follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind."

- Nelson Mandela

"We are not makers of history. We are made by history."

- MARTIN LUTHER KING JR

"Won’t it be wonderful when black history and Native American history and Jewish history and all of U.S. history is taught from one book. Just U.S. history."

- Maya Angelou

"If you’re going to hold someone down you’re going to have to hold on by the other end of the chain. You are confined by your own repression."

- Toni Morrison

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

- Michelle Obama

"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

"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

"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

"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

"I have had one goal in my life, that of playing some role in making life a little easier for the persons who come after me."

- Percy Lavon Julian

"We have a powerful potential in out 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

"The only difference between a hero and the villain is that the villain chooses to use that power in a way that is selfish and hurts other people."

- Chadwick Boseman

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

- Madam C.J. Walker

"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

"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

"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

"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

"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

"When you control a man’s thinking, you do not have to worry about his actions."

- Dr. Carter G. Woodson

"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

"Learning to stand in somebody else’s shoes, to see through their eyes, that’s how peace begins."

- former President Barack Obama

"To bring about change, you must not be afraid to take the first step. We will fail when we fail to try."

- Rosa Parks

"Education is the key to unlock the golden door of freedom."

- George Washington Carver

"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

"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

"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

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

- Cicely Tyson

"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

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

- Ralph Ellison

"You can always become better."

- Tiger Woods

"I don’t foresee, or want, a color-blind, race-neutral environment. The nineteenth century was the time for that. It’s too late now. Our race-inflected culture not only exists, it thrives. The question is whether it thrives as a virus or a bountiful harvest of possibilities."

- Toni Morrison

"Just walking through this life as a Black person, and actually surviving that, was and still is an ovation-worthy performance."

- Cicely Tyson

"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

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

- Maya Angelou

"Social transformation is not measured in weeks or months, but in generation."

- Cicely Tyson

"Revolution is about change, and the first place the change begins is in yourself."

- Assata Shakur

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

- Roxane Gay

"Knowing your generational story firms the ground upon which you stand. It makes your life, your struggles and triumphs, bigger than your lone existence. It connects you to a grand plotline."

- Cicely Tyson

"I believe that telling our stories, first to ourselves and then to one another and the world, is a revolutionary act. It is an act that can be met with hostility, exclusion, and violence. It can also lead to love, understanding, transcendence, and community."

- Janet Mock

"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

"Don’t let anybody, anybody convince you this is the way the world is and therefore must be. It must be the way it ought to be."

- Toni Morrison

"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

"Change requires intent and effort. It really is that simple."

- Roxane Gay

"Dreams are lovely. But they are just dreams. Fleeting, ephemeral. Pretty. But dreams do not come true just because you dream them. It’s hard work that makes things happen. It’s hard work that creates change."

- Shonda Rhimes

"History has shown that one person's willingness to stand up for what is right can be the spark that ignites far-reaching change."

- Kamala Harris

"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

"Healing, as I see it, is not the absence of pain. Rather it is a gradual reduction in the ache. The lessening of that hurt eventually makes room for fond memories to surface."

- Cicely Tyson

"Whenever you conceptualize social justice struggles, you will always defeat your own purposes if you cannot imagine the people around whom you are struggling as equal partners."

- Angela Y. Davis

"You can't be a part of the solution if you don't recognize how you are a part of the problem."

- Elaine Welteroth

"In pursuing your highest ambitions, don’t let your personal safety diminish the safety of your stepsister. In wielding the power that is deservedly yours, don’t permit it to enslave your stepsisters. Let your might and your power emanate from that place in you that is nurturing and caring."

- Toni Morrison

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

- Sugar Ray Leonard

"It demands great spiritual resilience not to hate the hater whose foot is on your neck, and an even greater miracle of perception and charity not to teach your child to hate."

- James Baldwin

"I came to love the men and women I worked with: the single mom living on a ravaged block who somehow got all four children through college; the Irish priest who threw open the church doors every evening so that kids had an option other than gangs; the laid-off steelworker who went back to school to become a social worker. Their stories of hardship and their modest victories confirmed for me again and again the basic decency of people... Through them, I resolved the lingering questions of my racial identity. For it turned out there was no single way to be Black; just trying to be a good man was enough."

- Barack Obama

"I believe my purpose is to bring joy to people, to make them laugh, and to share my story to help them. To show people that no matter what, they matter, and they can succeed. No matter how bad things go, no matter how dark your life is, there is a reason for it. You can find beauty in it, and you can get better. I know, because I’ve done it."

- Tiffany Haddish

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

- Jackie Joyner-Kersee

"We seek harm to none and harmony for all."

- Amanda Gorman

"One light feeds another. One strong family lends strength to more. One engaged community can ignite those around it. This is the power of the light we carry."

- Michelle Obama

"I don't think we have any alternative other than remaining optimistic. Optimism is an absolute necessity, even if it's only optimism of the will."

- Angela Y. Davis

"My daily challenge to myself is to be part of the solution, to be a joyful warrior in the battle to come."

- Kamala Harris

"By honoring each other’s ethnic, religious, and cultural backgrounds, we become stronger and happier, brightening the cosmic masterpiece of artwork that is our world. Rather than emphasize differences, we should be looking for similarities. Our differences are ultimately superficial, and the best thing to do is celebrate them."

- Tina Turner

"Ours is the struggle of a lifetime, or maybe even many lifetimes, and each one of us in every generation must do our part. And if we believe in the change we seek, then it is easy to commit to doing all we can, because the responsibility is ours alone to build a better society and a more peaceful world."

- John Lewis

"It may be a while before we find our footing again. The losses will reverberate for years to come. We will get shaken and shaken again. The world will remain both beautiful and broken. The uncertainties aren’t going away. But when equilibrium isn’t possible, we are challenged to evolve."

- Michelle Obama

"Never be afraid to sit awhile and think."

- Lorraine Hansberry

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

- Magic Johnson

"Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace—not in the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth."

- James Baldwin

"Never underestimate the power of dreams and the influence of the human spirit. We are all the same in this notion: The potential for greatness lives within each of us."

- Wilma Rudolph

"Obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it."

- Michael Jordan

"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

"The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any."

- Alice Walker

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

- James Baldwin

"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

"Won’t it be wonderful when Black history and Native American history and Jewish history and all of U.S. history is taught from one book. Just U.S. history."

- Maya Angelou

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

- Ray Charles

"Do not fear mistakes. There are none."

- Miles Davis

"If we do not know how to meaningfully talk about racism, our actions will move in misleading directions."

- Angela Davis

"The very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being."

- Toni Morrison

"Racism separates, but it never liberates. Hatred generates fear, and fear once given a foothold binds, consumes, and imprisons. Nothing is gained from prejudice. No one benefits from racism."

- Thurgood Marshall

"In a racist society, it is not enough to be non-racist. We must be anti-racist."

- Angela Davis

"The beauty of anti-racism is that you don’t have to pretend to be free of racism to be anti-racist. Anti-racism is the commitment to fight racism wherever you find it, including in yourself. And it’s the only way forward."

- Ijeoma Oluo

"You are your best thing."

- Toni Morrison

"Even if it makes others uncomfortable, I will love who I am."

- Janelle Monáe

"You’ve got to learn to leave the table when love’s no longer being served."

- Nina Simone

"Those who say it can’t be done are usually interrupted by others doing it."

- James Baldwin

"I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept."

- Angela Y. Davis

"No person is your friend who demands your silence or denies your right to grow."

- Alice Walker

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

- Barbara Jordan

"Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better."

- Maya Angelou

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

- Duke Ellington

"For Africa to me... is more than a glamorous fact. It is a historical truth. No man can know where he is going unless he knows exactly where he has been and exactly how he arrived at his present place."

- Maya Angelou

"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

"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

"Next to God we are indebted to women, first for life itself, and then for making it worth living."

- Mary McLeod Bethune

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

- Gwendolyn Brooks

"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

"Where there is no vision, there is no hope."

- George Washington Carver

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

- Eldridge Cleaver

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

- Marian Wright Edelman

"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

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

- Stevie Wonder

"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

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

- Langston Hughes

"Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place."

- Zora Neale Hurston

"Our nation is a rainbow - red, yellow, brown, black, and white - and we're all precious in God's sight."

- Jesse Jackson

"Greatness can be captured in one word: lifestyle. Life is God's gift to you, style is what you make of it."

- Mae Jemison

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

- John Henrik Clarke

"One thing is clear to me: We, as human beings, must be willing to accept people who are different from ourselves."

- Barbara Jordan

"I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."

- Michael Jordan

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

- George Washington Carver

"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

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

- Guion Bluford

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

- Nelson Mandela

"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

"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

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

- Rosa Parks

"I have learned over the years that when one's mind is made up, this diminishes fear."

- Rosa Parks

"If you are going to achieve excellence in big things, you develop the habit in little matters. Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude."

- Colin Powell

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

- Mary McLeod Bethune

"One day our descendants will think it incredible that we paid so much attention to things like the amount of melanin in our skin or the shape of our eyes or our gender instead of the unique identities of each of us as complex human beings."

- Franklin Thomas

"Truth is powerful and it prevails."

- Sojourner Truth

"Presumption should never make us neglect that which appears easy to us, nor despair make us lose courage at the sight of difficulties."

- Benjamin Banneker

"In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect."

- Alice Walker

"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

"There are two ways of exerting one's strength: one is pushing down, the other is pulling up."

- Booker T. Washington

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

- Venus Williams

"I was raised to believe that excellence is the best deterrent to racism or sexism."

- Oprah Winfrey

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

- Oprah Winfrey

"All I know is I've tried my best."

- Tiger Woods

"We should emphasize not Negro History, but the Negro in history. What we need is not a history of selected races or nations, but the history of the world void of national bias, race hate, and religious prejudice."

- Carter Woodson

"There are years that ask questions and years that answer."

- Zora Neale Hurston

"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

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

- Angela Y. Davis

"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

"You have to give yourself permission, even when you’re doing it."

- Toni Morrison

"It’s my devout conviction that if I’m not enabling and encouraging the underprivileged and the vulnerable, then I haven’t justified their confidence in me, and I haven’t done sufficient justice to their gifts."

- Billy Porter

"When Black women assert themselves, that somehow threatens people. This happens in retail situations, corporate offices, and school hallways. A Black woman can be minding her own business, and how she responds to provocation or even a random question will be used against her."

- Gabrielle Union

"The price of equality, or at least of the promise of an equal society, is vigilance against those who would make government the tool of hierarchy."

- Nikole Hannah-Jones

"I propose to take our countrymen’s claims of American exceptionalism seriously, which is to say I propose subjecting our country to an exceptional moral standard."

- Ta-Nehisi Coates

"When we are creating a shared history, what we remember is just as revelatory as what we forget."

- Ibram X. Kendi

"By now we know that the flower children, the yippies, the gay rights organizers, and the second-wave feminists were all inspired by the voices of the freedom movement. But the ripple is much bigger. In each successive generation, expression has pushed past existing boundaries, arguing that their insistence is more than a matter of style or taste, but rather that it is a matter of freedom."

- Imani Perry

"Could it be that we matter?"

- Patrisse Khan-Cullors

"There is something radical and beautiful and deeply transformational in bearing witness to public accountability, accountability before a community gathered for the sake of wholeness."

- Patrisse Khan-Cullors

"Resentment corrodes the veins of the person who carries it."

- Cicely Tyson

"I am American. That means something to me, some common ground with others of this soil, even as the country feels irredeemably racist and maybe not worth saving."

- Imani Perry

"Human beings are more alike than different—damn sure more alike than we like to admit."

- Octavia E. Butler

"At every moment, we always have a choice, even if it feels as if we don’t. Sometimes that choice may simply be to think a more positive thought."

- Tina Turner

"Devote a slice of your energies toward making the world suck less every week."

- Shonda Rhimes

"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

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

- Yvette Clarke

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

- Alexander Crummell

"Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens."

- Jimi Hendrix

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

- Elaine Welteroth

"The knowledge I have now is not the knowledge I had then."

- Stokely Carmichael

"There’s always something to suggest that you’ll never be who you wanted to be. Your choice is to take it or keep on moving."

- Phylicia Rashad

"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

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

- Patrisse Khan-Cullors

"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

"Sometimes history takes things into its own hands."

- Thurgood Marshall

"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

"History, especially in certain places, is not a dead thing. It is a wonderful, almost holy experience."

- Kasi Lemmons

"If you wake up deciding what you want to give versus what you're going to get, you become a more successful person. In other words, if you want to make money, you have to help someone else make money."

- Russell Simmons

"If you are silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say that you enjoyed it."

- Zora Neale Hurst

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

- Eddie Murphy

"I did what my conscience told me to do, and you can’t fail if you do that."

- Anita Hill

"If you can be the best, then why not try to be the best?"

- Garrett Morgan

"There are times in life when, instead of complaining, you do something about your complaints."

- Rita Dove

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

- Toni Morrison

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

- Desmond Tutu

"You never know which experiences of life are going to be of value . . . You’ve got to leave yourself open to the hidden opportunities."

- Robin Roberts

"Success is the sweetest revenge."

- Vanessa Williams

"The impatient idealist says: ‘Give me a place to stand and I shall move the earth.’ But such a place does not exist. We all have to stand on the earth itself and go with her at her pace."

- Chinua Achebe

"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

"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

"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.

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

- Toni Morrison

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

- Clarence Thomas

"I don’t listen to what art critics say. I don’t know anybody who needs a critic to find out what art is."

- Jean-Michel Basquiat

"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

"There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered."

- Nelson Mandela

"Black history isn’t a separate history. This is all of our history, this is American history, and we need to understand that. It has such an impact on kids and their values and how they view black people."

- Karyn Parsons

"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

"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

"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

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

- Henry Louis Gates

"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

"Surround yourself with people who take their work seriously, but not themselves, those who work hard and play hard."

- Colin Powell

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

- Arna Bontemps

"Intemperance and intolerance serve no one and hatred guarantees failure."

- Edward Brooke

"Art hurts. Art urges voyages - and it is easier to stay at home."

- Gwendolyn Brooks

"Love is contraband in Hell, cause love is an acid that eats away bars."

- Assata Shakur

"I don’t understand why people work so hard at pointing out our differences; we should be celebrating the things we have in common."

- Bernie Mac

"Hurt is worse than anger, you know. Anger dwells in the head, then fades. Hurt lingers in the soul."

- Daniel Black

"It’s funny about 'passing.' We disapprove of it and at the same time condone it. It excites our contempt and yet we rather admire it. We shy away from it with an odd kind of revulsion, but we protect it."

- Nella Larsen

"In the dark, you could never be too black. In the dark, everyone was the same color."

- Brit Bennett

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

- Gabrielle Union

"Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted."

- 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

"One of the hardest things in life is having words in your heart that you can't utter."

- James Earl Jones

"Non-cooperation is a measure of discipline and sacrifice, and it demands respect for the opposite views."

- Mohandas Gandhi

"We become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams."

- Jimmy Carter

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

- Mikki Kendall

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

- Henry Louis Gates

"Black history isn’t a separate history. This is all of our history, this is American history, and we need to understand that."

- Karyn Parsons

"It is a time to remember that Black history is American history. Just the other day, I was commenting that there was a record number of five Black United States senators currently serving — an incredible testament to how far we have come, and also a stark reminder of the work that remains to be done."

- Reverend Raphael Warnock

"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

"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

"Diversity is not about how we differ. Diversity is about embracing one another’s uniqueness."

- Ola Joseph

"Somebody once said we never know what is enough until we know what's more than enough."

- Billie Holiday

"Sticks in a bundle are unbreakable."

- Kenyan Proverb

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

- Alex Haley

"It is easy to be brave from a safe distance."

- Aesop

"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."

"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."

"Never let anyone—any person or any force—dampen, dim or diminish your light."

"A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus."

"Turning a blind eye to our history has not saved us from its consequences."

"I’m grateful for all the breaks and honors and opportunities I’ve had, but I always believe I won’t have it made until the humblest black kid in the most remote backwoods of America has it made."

"In order to rise from its own ashes, a Phoenix first must burn."

"I feel that if we don't take seriously the ways in which racism is embedded in structures of institutions, if we assume that there must be an identifiable racist who is the perpetrator, then we won't ever succeed in eradicating racism."

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

"Race is the child of racism, not the father."

"Yes, representation matters, but there is more to transformation than looking into a book the way you would look into a mirror."

"The discussion of representation is one that has been repeated over and over again, and the solution has always been that it’s up to us to support, promote, and create the images that we want to see."

"Laundry is the only thing that should be separated by color."

"God gives nothing to those who keep their arms crossed."