Cicely Tyson Quotes

I was in California when this journalist made a blanket statement about the fact that she did not think that black men and women had the kind of love relationship that Rebecca and Nathan had in Sounder.

I used to get letters saying, 'I didn't know black children and white children were the same.'

I don't think because I hang out with enough black people, I'm gonna turn black. What kind of rationalization is that? I'm just friends with people that I like. I don't care what skin color you are.

Some white people hate black people, and some white people love black people, some black people hate white people, and some black people love white people. So you see it's not an issue of black and white, it's an issue of Lovers and Haters.

The true Islam has shown me that a blanket indictment of all white people is as wrong as when whites make blanket indictments against blacks.

To like an individual because he's black is just as insulting as to dislike him because he isn't white.

I spent seven months in Africa and came back saying there isn't anything you can say about black people that you couldn't say about, say, pink people except that they're black.

We know that we're not supposed to be racially biased, and we don't want to think of ourselves as racially biased, so we tell ourselves a different story.

I don't believe in blanket statements on race.

People don't want to be thought of as racists ... all polls tend to over-report tolerance.

White people, wake up before it is too late. Do you want Negroes working beside you, your wife and your daughters, in your mills and factories? Frank Graham favors mingling of the races.

THERE Is no power in the world--not even in all the mechanized armies of the earth, Allied and Axis—which could now force the Southern white people to the abandonment of the principle of social segregation

On TV, as in life, white folks are allowed to make mistakes, but usually, black people aren't.

Any concept of one person being superior to another can lead to racism.

Now, then, in order to understand white supremacy we must dismiss the fallacious notion that white people can give anybody their freedom.

Yeah, I did see where the people dissing me were coming from. But, it's like, anything that happened in the past between black and white, I can't really speak on it, because I wasn't there. I don't feel like me being born the color I am makes me any less of a person.

I want the white people to understand my people.

I think it is a sin to look at another person as inferior to yourself because of race or because of ethnic background, and I think the greatest thing to do is to pray that God will give you love for them, and I do.

Two people will never be President in my lifetime. A woman and a black.

If any man claims the Negro should be content... let him say he would willingly change the color of his skin and go to live in the Negro section of a large city. Then and only then has he a right to such a claim.

You didn't know whether Chuck Berry was black or white - it was not a concern.

To most white people, jazz means black and jazz means dirt, and that's not what I play. I play black classical music.

It's no surprise that White people say things when they are together about Black people.

I've never tried to run away from my race. I was born a black man. You know that in your bones as soon as you are able to understand this country... My approach to life about race is, I don't see the difference between black people and white people.

But, on the other hand, I get bored with racism too and recognize that there are still many things to be said about a Black person and a White person loving each other in a racist society.