racial awakening Quotes

I think I've been writing black poems all along, wearing my white mask. I'm always the victim ... but no longer!

I think that [Eddie Murphy's famous "White Like Me"] is probably the first time I thought, "Oh. Being black is different. That is a totally different experience."

There's a long-term tradition of white supremacy in this country. [Donald] Trump isn't something entirely new. But then there is the crisis for white supremacy in this country now where you have people of color standing up for themselves in ways that they've never stood up for themselves or at least standing up for themselves in a generational, novel way.

We are Americans, not only by birth and by citizenship, but by our political ideals, our language, our religion. Farther than that, our Americanism does not go. At that point, we are Negroes, members of a vast historic race that from the very dawn of creation has slept, but half awakening in the dark forests of its African fatherland.

Betty's a good Muslim woman and wife. I don't imagine many other women might put up with the way I am. Awakening this brainwashed black man and telling this arrogant, devilish white man the truth about himself, Betty understands, is a full-time job

Soon now, as the Negro awakens a little more and sees the vise that he's in, sees the bag that he's in, sees the real game that he's in, then the Negro's going to develop a new tactic.

You have to be very careful introducing the truth to the black man, who has never previously heard the truth about himself. The black brother is so brainwashed that he may reject the truth when he first hears it. You have to drop a little bit on him at a time, and wait a while to let that sink in before advancing to the next step

The consequences of whiteness are particularly lethal right now. And the ignorance about it, especially on the part of white people themselves, makes them unavoidably complicit in a system that has to be unmasked, unveiled, undressed in order to be reformed or destroyed.

My father's voice had nevertheless remained untainted, inspiring, rebuking, granting or withholding approval. 'You do not work hard enough, Barry. You must help in your people's struggle. Wake up, black man!

It has taken us that long to get the deaf, dumb, and blind black men in the wilderness of North America to wake up and understand who they are.

The white population could not possibly be unaffected by those events - some whites more stubborn in their defense of segregation, but others beginning to think in different ways. And the black population was transformed, having risen up in mass action for the first time, feeling its power, knowing now that if the old order could be shaken it could be toppled.

I think there's an awakening now of a realization that we too early congratulated ourselves on the end of racial prejudice and white supremacy. And that was a feeling that we had when I was president, that we had pretty much overcome that problem.