“You go to school, you study about the Germans and the French, but not about your own race. I hope the time will come when you study black history too.”

Success is not measured by where you are in life, but the obstacles you’ve over come.

Decide to be your best. In the long run the world is going to want and have the best and that might as well be you.

A race, like an individual, lifts itself up by lifting others up.

We must reinforce argument with results.

Great men cultivate love and only little men cherish a spirit of hatred; assistance given to the weak makes the one who gives it strong; oppression of the unfortunate makes one weak.

No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem.

The world cares very little about what a man or woman knows; it is what the man or woman is able to do that counts.

I pity from the bottom of my heart any individual who is so unfortunate as to get into the habit of holding race prejudice, for nothing else makes one so blind and narrow.

I think I have learned, in some degree at least, to disregard the old maxim “”Do not get others to do what you can do yourself.”” My motto on the other hand is; “”Do not do that which others can do as well.

There is no defense or security for any of us except in the highest intelligence and development of all.

At the bottom of education, at the bottom of politics, even at the bottom of religion, there must be for our race economic independence.

You can’t hold a man down without staying down with him.

Men may make laws to hinder and fetter the ballot, but men cannot make laws that will bind or retard the growth of manhood.

Nothing ever comes to one, that is worth having, except as a result of hard work.

I would permit no man, no matter what his colour might be, to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.

Educated men and women, especially those who are in college, very often get the idea that religion is fit only for the common people. No young man or woman can make a greater error than this.

I am a black woman. we build, we nurture & we do not tear down other black women.

She is black girl excellent, she is me and I am her.

I think Black people need to take self-esteem seriously.

If you wear black socks with white shoes then we can’t be friends.

I am going to stop calling you a white man and I’m going to ask you to stop calling me a black man.

We need to listen to Black women.

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.

Black revolutionaries do not drop from the moon. We are created by our conditions. Shaped by our oppression.