100 Famous African Americans Quotes

A collection of some of the very best famous African Americans quotes that will touch your heart. These quotes are from various famous black Americans, famous black people around the globe. These lovely quotes are from some of the finest and brightest minds in the world. I believe these quotes would remind us of who we are as people under one God irrespective of our color or race.

One of my favorite quotes which was recently echoed by the White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany during a press conference. - "We must learn to live together as brothers or we will perish together as fools - Martin Luther King Jr."

If you love famous quotes, then check out this 30 JuneTeenth Quotes From Famous Minds.

All Unite Irrespective Of Color

1. 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

2. 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

3. There are still many causes worth sacrificing for, so much history yet to be made. - Michelle Obama

4. The best way to make dreams come true is to wake up. - Mae C. Jemison

5. The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression. - W.E.B. Du Bois

6. You've got to learn to leave the table when love's no longer being served. - Nina Simone

7. 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

8. The day we see the truth and cease to speak is the day we begin to die. - Martin Luther King, Jr.

9. If you have no confidence in self, you are twice defeated in the race of life. - Marcus Garvey

10. Defining myself, as opposed to being defined by others, is one of the most difficult challenges I face. - Carol Moseley-Braun, politician and lawyer

11. Even if it makes others uncomfortable, I will love who I am. - Janelle Monae

12. I am a feminist, and what that means to me is much the same as the meaning of the fact that I am Black; it means that I must undertake to love myself and to respect myself as though my very life depends upon self-love and self-respect. - June Jordan

13. Racism isn't born, folks, it's taught. I have a two-year-old son. You know what he hates? Naps! End of list. - Dennis Leary

14. 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

15. Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better. - Martin Luther King, Jr.

16. I'm hungry for knowledge. The whole thing is to learn every day, to get brighter and brighter. That's what this world is about. You look at someone like Gandhi, and he glowed. Martin Luther King glowed. Muhammad Ali glows. I think that's from being bright all the time, and trying to be brighter. - Jay-Z

17. Black History Month must be more than just a month of remembrance; it should be a tribute to our history and reminder of the work that lies in the months and years ahead. - Marty Meehan

18. I am lucky that whatever fear I have inside me, my desire to win is always stronger. - Serena Williams

19. Today we know with certainty that segregation is dead. The only question remaining is how costly will be the funeral. - Martin Luther King, Jr.

20. I had no idea that history was being made. I was just tired of giving up. - Rosa Parks

Black History Quotes

21. If you don't have confidence, you'll always find a way not to win. - Carl Lewis

22. 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

23. 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

24. 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

25. Hate is too great a burden to bear. It injures the hater more than it injures the hated. - Coretta Scott King

26. You are your best thing. - Toni Morrison

27. The soul that is within me no man can degrade. - Frederick Douglass

28. The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any. - Alice Walker

29. Stretch your mind and fly. - Whitney M. Young Jr

30. Character is power. - Booker T. Washington

31. Diversity is not about how we differ. Diversity is about embracing one another's uniqueness. - Ola Joseph

32. If they don't give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair. - Shirley Chisholm

33. 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, activist, philanthropist, and former president of the Ford Foundation

34. If the only time you think of me as a scientist is during Black History Month, then I must not be doing my job as a scientist. - Neil deGrasse Tyson

35. Life has two rules: number 1, never quit! Number 2, always remember rule number one. - Duke Ellington

36. There comes a time when people get tired of being plunged into the abyss of exploitation and nagging injustice. - Martin Luther King, Jr.

37. We all have dreams. In order to make dreams come into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline and effort. - Jesse Owens, world record-setting Olympic athlete

38. He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life. - Muhammad Ali

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

40. Don't agonize, organize. - Florynce Kennedy

Quotes About Being Black & Proud

41. I can accept failure. Everyone fails at something. But I can't accept not trying. - Michael Jordan

42. 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

43. My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together. - Desmond Tutu

44. 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

45. I don't want a Black History Month. Black history is American history. - Morgan Freeman

46. I swear to the Lord I still can't see why democracy means everybody but me. - Langston Hughes

47. 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.

48. 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

49. Never be limited by other people's limited imaginations. - Dr. Mae Jemison, first African-American female astronaut

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

51. 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

52. Don't let anything stop you. There will be times when you'll be disappointed, but you can't stop. - Sadie T. M. Alexander

53. A man without knowledge of himself and his heritage is like a tree without roots. - Dick Gregory

54. Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better. - Maya Angelou

55. 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.

56. We all require and want respect, man or woman, black or white. It's our basic human right. - Aretha Franklin

57. If there is no struggle, there is no progress. - Frederick Douglass

58. The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them. - Ida B. Wells

59. Whatever we believe about ourselves and our ability comes true for us. - Susan L. Taylor, journalist

60. It's important for us to also understand that the phrase Black Lives Matter' simply refers to the notion that there's a specific vulnerability for African Americans that needs to be addressed. It's not meant to suggest that other lives don't matter. It's to suggest that other folks aren't experiencing this particular vulnerability. - Barack Obama

African American Quotes

61. The time is always right to do what is right. - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

62. 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

63. 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

64. 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

65. God's time is always near. He set the North Star in the heavens; He gave me the strength in my limbs; He meant I should be free. - Harriet Tubman

66. If you judge people, you have no time to love them. - Mother Teresa

67. 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

68. During Black History Month, I'm reminded yet again of the ways that the struggle for civil rights is interwoven with the struggle for workers' rights. - Tom Perez

69. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. - Martin Luther King, Jr.

70. If you know whence you came, there is really no limit to where you can go. - James Baldwin

71. 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

72. Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they've been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It's a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing. - Muhammad Ali

73. 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

74. Have a vision of excellence, a dream of success, and work like hell. - Dr. Samuel DuBois Cook

75. 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

76. 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

77. I knew then and I know now, when it comes to justice, there is no easy way to get it. - Claudette Colvin

78. I felt that one had better die fighting against injustice than to die like a dog or rat in a trap. I had already determined to sell my life as early as possible if attacked. I felt if I could take one lyncher with me, this would even up the score a little bit. - Ida B. Wells

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

80. Be as you are and hope that it's right. - Dizzy Gillespie

Wise African American Quotes

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

82. 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

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

84. In recognizing the humanity of our fellow beings, we pay ourselves the highest tribute. - Thurgood Marshall, first African American U.S. Supreme Court member

85. 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

86. Make a difference about something other than yourselves. - Toni Morrison

87. You're not to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it. - Malcolm X

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

89. 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

90. We have a wonderful history behind us, and it is going to inspire us to greater achievements. - Carter G. Woodson

Black Lives Quotes

91. Freedom is never given; it is won. - A. Philip Randolph, civil rights activist

92. I'm not quite sure what freedom is, but I know damn well what it ain't. How have we gotten so silly, I wonder. - Assata Shakur

93. One of the hardest things in life is having words in your heart that you can't utter. - James Earl Jones

94. A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination. - Nelson Mandela

95. Hold on to your dreams of a better life and stay committed to striving to realize it. - Earl G. Graves, Sr.

96. Truth is powerful and it prevails. - Sojourner Truth

97. Racism is man's gravest threat to man - the maximum of hatred for a minimum of reason. - Abraham Joshua Heschel

98. If everything was perfect, you would never learn and you would never grow. - Beyonce Knowles

99. The price of hating other human beings is loving oneself less. - Eldridge Cleaver

100. 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