Community Uplift Quotes

My graduation was an amazing moment for my family, my community. In my early childhood, we lived on a subsidized income, with government assistance - at one point when I was growing up, my mother was making $14,000 a year. Now I had made it out of the hood, so to speak.

There's a full-court press to put down an uprising around Ferguson, but no preparation for lifting up the people there.

The revolution will come from the people and the willingness to work towards something better, to fight for a better living.

Giants of Africa holds such a special place in my heart. It's not just another non-profit organization - this is personal. What started as a dream to give back to the country that raised me has since blossomed into an intercontinental mission to uplift youth across the diaspora, and shed light on the greatest part of Africa: its people.

I want to make music to lift the people.

I like to think my work is furthering black culture by educating and empowering black people.

African art is functional, it serves a purpose. It's not a dormant. It's not a means to collect the largest cheering section. It should be healing, a source a joy. Spreading positive vibrations.

I want to be known as someone who got caught trying. Yup. Trying to make communities that didn't think much of themselves see themselves as fabulous, powerful, beautiful, loving, kind, members of this world. That's what I want people to say about me.

By lifting the weakest, poorest among us, we lift the rest of us as well.

I am not merely satisfied in making money for myself, for I am endeavoring to provide employment for hundreds of women of my race. ... I want to say to every Negro woman present, don't sit down and wait for the opportunities to come. Get up and make them!

I was brought up singing gospel, and I really enjoy getting the church up on their feet, their hips swaying, their hands clapping, it's a great feeling to evoke that energy for the Lord.

I firmly believe that none of us in this world have made it until the least among us have made it.

When you go to a church and you see the pastor of that church with a philosophy and a program that's designed to bring black people together and elevate black people, join that church. Join that church. If you see where the NAACP is preaching and practicing that which is designed to make black nationalism materialize, join the NAACP. Join any kind of organization, civic, religious, fraternal, political, or otherwise that's based on lifting the black man up and making him master of his own community.

I want to be the light of my city.

Rap has always been about using your talents for doing more.

I think it's so important as a woman, and especially as a minority, to lift as you climb. So having people shadow you or mentoring people - that's important to me.

Contrary to popular belief, all I want to do is empower people.

I feel like I missed my era, because I remember the time when black people uplifted each other and looked for the positives. I feel sorry for the people who live their lives in the negative default setting because they filter out what's good, and that's no way to live.

We have to give people dreams; we have to give people hope. In terms of government, in terms of society, that's our goal. You can't have a group of people that don't dream, that see themselves as dead or in jail.

I'm probably proudest of being able to lift a lot of us out of the 'hood. That's the biggest thing, that I've been able to employ a lot of people and give them opportunities.

Ministers should impress upon the people the necessity of individual effort. No church can flourish unless its members are workers. The people must lift where the ministers lift.

I want to get involved in things that makes a difference in peoples lives and lifts them up. I don't want to be a part of anything that's not inspiring or helpful to the community that I'm serving.

I may not be a role model, but I most definitely could be motivation for a lot of people in the hoods.

We should go to the masses and learn from them, synthesize their experience into better, articulated principles and methods, then do propaganda among the masses, and call upon them to put these principles and methods into practice so as to solve their problems and help them achieve liberation and happiness.

We have to stop making excuses. One of the things that I'm careful to show is the horrendous effects of institutional and structural racism, but in the end, you can't wait for white man or a Black man to come riding in on a white horse to save you. We have to save ourselves, and that's the lesson of "The African Americans."