KRS-One Quotes

Malcolm X never renounced and never stepped away from a strong commitment to black nationalism and black self-determination. That's absolutely clear if you do any analysis of his speeches.

Maya Angelou was the voice of three generations. Her poetry spanned our journey, chronicled our hearts and documented our struggles as we moved from the orations of Martin Luther King to the presidency of Barack Obama.

My mom went through civil rights; my dad went through civil rights. My name was Kenya because they wanted to give me an African name.

Rap's conscious response to the poverty and oppression of U.S. blacks is like some hideous parody of sixties black pride.

With guys I revere, like Marcus Garvey or Malcolm X, their look is less about style than purpose and the expression of beauty. It wasn't just about being noticed, you know?

I'd been very partial to Malcolm X, particularly his self-help teachings.

The first African-American leader was Dr. Martin Luther King.

I do consider myself part of black history.

The basic tenet of black consciousness is that the black man must reject all value systems that seek to make him a foreigner in the country of his birth and reduce his basic human dignity.

These young people have to know that Dr. King and others made it possible for them to do their Hip Hopping.

If a Black American may not enter this theater, this black Egyptian will not enter.

When the curtain dropped on the [Marcus] Garvey theatricals, the black man of America was exactly where Garvey had found him, though a little bit sadder, perhaps a bit poorer—if not wiser.

I was doing a civil rights musical here in Los Angeles, and we sang at one of the rallies where Dr. Martin Luther King spoke, and I remember the thrill I felt when we were introduced to him. To have him shake your hand was an absolutely unforgettable experience.

I grew up reading Martin Luther King and Malcolm X.

The name James Baldwin had been around the house for as long as I could remember and meant almost as much as that of Martin Luther King.

I come from an era of black pride, black power, my father riding around listening to James Brown singing, 'Say it loud: I'm black and I'm proud,' and people walking around with African medallions and Malcolm X hats.

My mom is a Pan-Africanist. My dad is still Orthodox Sunni Muslim, but he's super fun. He worked in television for years. He was a Black Panther.

I'm African American / I'm African / I'm black as the moon.

I wanted to identify that the black experience is American experience.

I wanted Luke Cage to very much be an African American superhero rather than a superhero that happens to be black. I felt it was important to give him that cultural grounding but also show that it doesn't make him an obtuse or one-sided character.

People ask me why my figures have to be so black. There are a lot of reasons. First, the blackness is a rhetorical device. When we talk about ourselves as a people and as a culture, we talk about black history, black culture, black music. That's the rhetorical position we occupy.

I tease sometimes and say that the King holiday is a 20th-century miracle. Reagan even signed it, and he was completely opposed to the idea.

Malcolm X's separatist ideas were situational. If you think about where African-Americans were in the 1940s and 1950s, we needed to step away because that force, which is still present but more subdued, was very in your face, and we needed to take a step back just to get some clarity.

Foreman had annihilated every single one of his opponents to that point, but here was Ali, going to Africa, selling himself as the 'real deal' black man.

I think that for many of us, the years of the Civil Rights movements - Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy running for president in 1968 to end the war and so forth - these were defining moment in terms of trying to hold government accountable and have a level of responsibility and truth-telling.