Black Quotes
Most Famous Black Quotes of All Time!
We have created a collection of some of the best black quotes so you can read and share anytime with your friends and family. Share our Top 10 Black Quotes on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.
As a black actor, you always have the feeling that there's not as much work out there as for a white counterpart, but is America after all; you have to play ball if you're going to play ball.
I think a lot of times stereotypes come when there are disconnected white writers who maybe have two or three black friends, and they write black characters, and they put them in situations that are ridiculous.
It's really easy to get colors right. It's really hard to get black - and neutrals - right. Black is certainly a color but it's also an illusion.
We put stereotypes on ourselves. Everybody does that. But I think it's just a little harder for black kids to just be who they are.
Black men struggle with masculinity so much. The idea that we must always be strong really presses us all down - it keeps us from growing.
Black culture is a fight. We want to hold on to what we are, but sometimes the things that we are can be totally negative. You have to think: can't we try something new and not be seen as suspect?
I thought that I would like to be affiliated with some school or institution. As time went on, I also decided on the subject that I wanted to get involved with in addition to music: it was Black Studies.
It's an incredible dilemma to be an artist of color and to always be in denial about that, saying, 'I'm a choreographer first and then I'm black,' when in fact, that's not the case. I'm black first and then I'm also a choreographer.
More often than not, we think of ourselves as black, white, Asian, or Hispanic pretty much in this country, but the real America is much more than that.
I'm a gay black guy. If I can't ask questions without caring what people think of me, who can?
Governing means governing all of the people, no matter what demographic it is, whether it'd be black, white, women, straight, gay, Republican.
We're always trailing, as far as the amount of roles that are written for us and the films that are being made that have black characters in them. I don't know if that's going to change.
So often when Black men have to play roles on TV, we're either the noble savage or we're completely a savage, and there's no nuance.
I imagine it was much different in the 1970s. That was the Renaissance for black actors, albeit in blaxploitation movies. There was a much greater preponderance of work then than there is now.
I want to see somebody go to jail over the financial crisis and not just black, brown and poor whites over humbles and minor drug beefs.
I felt that it was my mission to see to it that black talent had an opportunity to get national television exposure.
One motivation for the 'Soul Train' awards was the grumbling that all of us in the industry have heard about the way black music tends to be viewed as a secondary phenomenon by the other awards shows.
I used to drive up and down Pacific Coast Highway in this black Porsche, and I had seen a couple of accidents on the highway involving Porsches. I realized if you're in any kind of head on accident in one of those cars, they're going to get you out of it with a can opener, one of those Jaws of Life.
Here's an interesting thing about L.A. - it's overrun with black widow spiders. I could find you one on the street in 10 minutes.
I'm a big rock 'n' roll head, I love country music, I love yodeling music. But I'm still black and funky.
Black men, we're known for getting into some drama with other black men, specifically black-on-black crime. We're used to the confrontational attitude.
I don't sing white; I don't sing black - I sing Bronx. When I sing 'Ruby Baby,' I'm rolling like Jimmy Reed. I wanted to communicate like Hank Williams and groove like Jimmy Reed.
I was mostly influenced by bands like Black Sabbath and Judas Priest - Metallica's 'Kill 'Em All' was also a hell of an inspiration.
Between Alan Freed in Cleveland and Bob Horn and Lee Stewart in Philadelphia and George 'Hound Dog' Lorenz in Buffalo, they began to find out that white kids liked black music. It was a very significant period of time before I got there.
I am really enjoying the new Martin Luther King Jr stamp - just think about all those white bigots, licking the backside of a black man.
I used to get letters saying, 'I didn't know black children and white children were the same.'
It was an unwritten law that black comics were not permitted to work white nightclubs. You could sing and you could dance, but you couldn't stand flat-footed and talk; that was a no-no.
Let me tell you, never before in the history of this planet has anybody made the progress that African-Americans have made in a 30-year period, in spite of many black folks and white folks lying to one another.
I never thought I'd see the day that I would see white folks as frightened, or more so, than black folks was during the civil rights movement when we was in Mississippi.
One, I have a wonderful publisher, Black Sparrow Press; as long as they exist, they will keep me in print. And they claim they sell very respectable numbers of my books, so I guess, and it's true, every place I go, my books are in libraries and on bookshelves.
So, I've never been politically correct, even before that term was available to us, and I have really identified with other people who don't want to be read as just a black poet, or just a woman poet, or just someone who represents a cause, an anti-Vietnam war poet.
Americans have an interesting conundrum, a black and white line: You're on one side or the other of Puritanism or licentiousness. But that gray area where people abide, between their ears or on the Internet, needs to be fleshed out more in terms of permission granted.
My mother always said I must be part Mongolian because of my lotus-pale complexion and squid-ink black hair.
If I were to call it black music, that would be untrue. I don't know what that is, unless it would be some African drums or something.
Paul Robeson was an athlete, Rutgers valedictorian, lawyer, writer, actor in movies and plays, great voice - a black male doing it all, back when some people thought he shouldn't. One reason I do all the things I do is to break stereotypes that people can only do certain things.
As a child, I used to see legends holding the 'black lady' and would think that I would get it someday.
People think, 'Oh, he's a black quarterback, he must be dual-threat.' People throw around that word all the time. It's lazy.
When people are like, 'Why are these white people walking around this black hood?' I'm like, 'Why aren't they?' If it ain't bothering nobody, they can do whatever they want! They're in the hood to make it better.
What is black empowerment when it seems to benefit not the vast majority but an elite that tends to be recycled?
Other black and white films have also been released in colour, but 'Hum Dono' is better than all of them. When you watch 'Hum Dono Rangeen,' you will feel as though it was shot in colour; you won't feel that I have got the reels painted by brush.
I am not defined as a black writer in the Caribbean, but as soon as I go to America or the U.K., my place becomes black theatre. It's a little ridiculous.
I don't think there is any such thing as a black writer or a white writer. Ultimately, there is someone whom one reads.
Under slavery, families were ripped apart, and it was a desire of black men and black women to be together with their loved ones. Family meant something. Spouses meant something.
It's like I say all the time, it's the heavyweight division. It doesn't matter if the guys a black belt or if he's a world-class boxer. We still have a 50-50 chance.
I always had dreamed one day Bruce Buffer's going to be introducing me... Derrick 'The Black Beast' Lewis... and I just always pictured him saying it.
I got into this thing called the National Youth Theatre, and to me, that was all about the status quo. It seemed to me like 'Downton Abbey' - all the working-class and black people were playing servants, or the gravedigger in 'Hamlet,' and the boys from Eton and posh private schools got Hamlet, all the big roles.
I can adapt to any environment or any situation I need to, so I am ready to go to Russia. You take what you get or start crying about it, but I am re-doing 'Rocky IV.' I am doing the black 'Rocky.'
I grew up in Houston, and I remember we had separate drinking fountains, and black people sat in the balcony of the theater... We had an African-American housekeeper growing up who was really like my second mother. I thought it was silly - hatred just because of the color of somebody's skin.
Black or white good parts are hard to come by. A good actor with a good opportunity has a shot; without the opportunity it doesn't matter how good you are.
I'm very proud to be black, but black is not all I am. That's my cultural historical background, my genetic makeup, but it's not all of who I am nor is it the basis from which I answer every question.
I really do believe that was what I was put on this planet to do: to give to people and, through my performances, show them another world - in the case of '24,' to show them what a politician, black or white, should be. Basically, I wanted to be a service to others.
I think that show will go down in history... people will scratch their heads and say 'How did this ever get on the air?' I mean, they finally have a planet that's populated with a black race and then they present them as savage warriors, and the men want the white girl!
I got into my very theatrical phase. I wore only black: a big black hat and wild hair and wild black clothes, and I carried a sword stick. I went there still looking like Miss Florida, and I came back looking very different.
There is a class system in acting just like in anything else. Black females fall in a category below black male actors.
There's a dearth of media around young black women and certainly a dearth of LGBT media for people of color.
We have to create a range, and we have to let there be possibilities. And basically, by showing there are different types of people, you write down the monolith. You stop having to represent for all black people when you allow there to be different types represented.
'Greenleaf' is nothing like 'Empire.' I think 'Empire' stands alone in what they are doing. It's a wonderful show. The only thing that is similar though is that they are black families - the shows in it of themselves have very different dynamics.
I earned a black belt when I was in high school. And I did a lot of boxing and full contact karate in college.
I listened to a lot of Amy Winehouse: her albums 'Frank' and 'Back to Black'. She was such an incredible artist. She was just so raw and had her unique sound; she paired jazz with pop and was so soulful at the same time. So I pulled from her a lot in the beginning.
'The Red Era' is for everybody. Every gay, every fluid, every black, every white.
It was the Michael Jordan/Nike phenomenon that really let people see that athletes were OK, and black athletes were OK. Defying a previous wisdom - not only that black athletes wouldn't sell in white America, but that the NBA as a predominantly black sport could not sell in white America.
Seattle is still more Caucasian than most medium-sized cities. The sort of psychosexual politics of white fandom in context of black athletes who are also both very rich and slightly angry is just, to me, bottomlessly fascinating.
Ninety-nine percent of the music that was of any interest to me when I was growing up came out of the black community.
I love that as a black person I've experienced not being a minority. I think that's helped me to combat the minority mentality people can have here, which can stop them scaling the heights.
I have a bee in my bonnet as to how few black historical figures one sees on film; incredible stories, stories from which we are living the legacy and which just don't get made.
I think until Britain acknowledges just how much of a presence black people had here before the Sixties, then there are certain stories that are not going to be inclusive of what I have to offer.
In my time since moving to the United States, I've found that there is a dearth of great writing for black people. There are stories that depict us in a way that isn't cliched or niche, and that a white person, a Chinese person, an Indian person can watch and relate to. Those are the stories I want to be a part of telling.
One of the things I have an allergic reaction to playing, especially as a black actor, is the mandatory kind of best friend/cop/detective type. You will never see me in that movie.
I consider myself a human being, a Christian, a father, a husband, so many things, before being a black person.
Because I was aspirational, I did my work, I was respectful to my teachers, I experienced a lot of bullying from the black kids. My friends were largely white or Asian.
There are a lot of challenges I undeniably have faced as a black person both in the U.K. and in the U.S. that contrived to make me feel lesser than what I am.
The only way we are going to get diversity is if the demographics of the decision-makers change... The odd-token bone thrown is not going to do it. Don't pat yourself on the back because you made that black drama; that's not diversity. It's got to be baked into the foundation of where the ideas flow from.
The fact that I was black and desirous to do my work, the other kids would call me a coconut, as if I were somehow attempting to be white. The bullying was real: I'd get punched, spat at, terrible things.
Generally speaking, we as black people have been celebrated more for when we are subservient when we are not being leaders or kings or in the center of our own narrative driving it forward.
The Holocaust, taken by itself, is a black hole. To look at it directly is to be swallowed up by it.
It's good to play something that's black and white, and a guy that sees right and wrong. I've never played a character like that.
I can still remember them wheeling the black and white TV sets into our classroom at school so we could watch the men landing on the Moon, and that obviously had a huge impact. I later found out those people flying Apollo were ex-military test pilots, so I decided to join the Air Force and become a test pilot.
'Roots' did show that the audience would be receptive to black talent and a black story.
If people perceive 'Roots' to be a black history show, nobody is going to watch it.
I once had an extraordinary experience with former prime minister Ted Heath. Both of his eyes, including the whites, turned jet black, and I seemed to be looking into two black holes.
I was born with a black eye. When they pulled me out with the forceps, they clamped them round my face, so I had a big bruise from that.
Muhammad Ali is my hero. Yes, he was the best boxer in the world, but he also put himself on the line. He talked when black Americans had to be quiet.
With theatre, we all agree to suspend our disbelief about so many things, but not about race. It's totally OK to have one actor playing five roles - people are willing to believe that. But they won't believe it if there's a black or an Asian kid who has white parents. What does that say about us?
My school is about 25 percent black, but the way we're covered doesn't reflect that.
It would be extraordinary if the BBC were to make me the first black 'Doctor Who;' it would be extraordinary.
I do know in the 1960s comics, Martian Manhunter took on the form of a black man - that could have been influenced by the political climate back then.
American television, for all its faults, still has a black presence in shows and even in commercials. You'll see black people in automobile ads, black women starring on their own television shows. We don't see that on British television.
Without a doubt, the majority of historical period dramas tend to be told from a certain perspective. At least in America, black people have some visibility in period dramas, although it's usually in the form of slaves or servitude.
Related Quotes Topics for You.
Guys, we are trying to share Unique Black Quotes, so you will not get to read the same things again and again on our website. You can also share your favorites on Facebook or send them to a friend who loves to reading quotes.
