Elvis Mitchell Quotes

The Negro who experiences bitter and agonizing circumstances as a result of some ungodly white person is tempted to look upon all white persons as evil, if he fails to look beyond his circumstances. But the minute he looks beyond his circumstances and sees the whole of the situation, he discovers that some of the most implacable and vehement advocates of racial equality are consecrated white persons.

The mob spirit has grown with the increasing intelligence of the Afro-American.

The world has made being black a crime .... I hope to make it a virtue.

Negroes are destined to be the most revolutionary class in America

Black identity since the '60s has been a totalitarian identity. It's enforced. And if you don't subscribe to the party line, then you are a betrayer and a dissident, and you are treated as dissidents were treated in the Soviet Union.

Ali helped raise black people in this country out of mental slavery. The entire experience of being black changed for millions of people because of Ali.

Black Lives Matter was created as a response to state violence and anti-black racism and a call to action for those who want to fight it and build a world where black lives do, in fact, matter.

Obviously, I'm not not black. But this is one thing I do know after years and years of working with a lot of black players and black commentators on many networks: That if you go to the place of you're telling a black man, or a black woman, that 'You should know your place and stay in it,' when you get to there, them's fighting words.

The Black Lives Matter movement has to, by its very nature, be intersectional because of the complexities of who black people are in this country and throughout the world.

Where is the raised voice of black America? Why are we mute?

Black Power alone is no more insurance against social injustice than white power.

When I was a kid, some of the guys would try to get me to hate white people for what they've been doing to Negroes, and for a while I tried real hard. But every time I got to hating them, some white guy would come along and mess the whole thing up.

To be black and conscious in America is to be in a constant state of rage.

Few whites are ready to actively promote civil rights for blacks.

In '42,' it's like the '40s where racial equality had come into the consciousness of a lot of people, whereas in the 1900s it was sort of a new thing.

When I wrote 'The Secret Life of Bees,' I was writing about civil rights.

Sidney Poitier became a star in part by helping black and white Americans negotiate their new relationship in the post-Civil Rights era.

I feel that there has been progress made since I was a boy on matters of race, but we have a long way to go.

America faces a new race that has awakened.

One must learn how to be black in America.

The sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality.

The promise of Obama's presidency, in many people's minds, is partly that America will move toward becoming a post-racial society. It's pretty clear, though, that we aren't there yet.

I'll also say, yes, I think the change in black consciuosness in recent years has made me more sensitive to injustice in every area of my life.

Being black, I'm involved in the reparations movement. It's focused toward the African-American audience. We could begin to heal.

White society will not listen to preaching. They will not listen to their liberals. Liberalism has not grown within white society, and we blacks cannot stand idly by watching the situation. We can only generate a response from white society when we, as blacks, speak with a black voice and say what we want. Now has come the time when we, as blacks, must articulate what we want, and put it across to the white man, and from a position of strength.