A'Lelia Bundles Quotes

So I'm a young boy in the 1940s growing up, seeing Ralph Bunche on a regular basis, seeing Duke Ellington on a regular basis. We know that these people are famous. They're living in the same community as we live in. They go to the same stores and shops.

Nina Simone sacrificed so much to be as bold as she was about being black and about being female in an era where that could have cost her life.

When the Negro was completely an underdog, he needed white spokesmen. Liberals played their parts in this period exceedingly well.... But now that the Negro has rejected his role as an underdog, he has become more assertive in his search for identity and group solidarity; he wants to speak for himself.

I merged those two words, black and feminist, because I was surrounded by black women who were very tough and and who always assumed they had to work and rear children and manage homes.

For most women, Greenham was a place of principle, growth and song. Often joyful, sometimes terrifying, and almost always cold. As it got harder, with constant evictions and mounting violence from a frustrated and humiliated police force, the women got more determined. It was a community with a shared purpose - to live in peace.

Malcolm X made me very strong at a time I needed to understand what I was angry about. He had peace in his heart. He exerted a big influence on me.

Maya Angelou, the famous African American poet, historian, and civil rights activist who is hailed be many as one of the great voices of contemporary literature, believes a struggle only makes a person stronger.

The world is better because of Coretta Scott King. She affected countless lives and her voice will be deeply missed, especially by those who carry on her incredible undertaking.

Martin Luther King was a misguided leader. He worked to be recognized as the leader of black America when what black America needs isn't a leader, it is education.

I think Mr. Cosby has always been very much an activist and a big proponent of African-American pride. That's how 'The Cosby Show' came about. I think in his older years, he has gotten a lot more direct and vocal about it. But I think he only wants the best for all of us.

Women tell me they are different since 21 May - the day I was arrested - it's a positive change, they believe now.

The Nation of Islam's main focus was teaching black pride and self-awareness. Why should we keep trying to force ourselves into white restaurants and schools when white people didn't want us? Why not clean up our own neighborhoods and schools instead of trying to move out of them and into white people's neighborhoods?

Ray Charles' revolutionary approach to music was also reflected in his politics and his deep and abiding commitment to Martin Luther King and the plight of African-Americans. Ray Charles may not have been on the front lines, but he put his money where his mouth was.

The establishment wonders why we can't get more of the black vote. It's because it's not doing the things necessary to establish a deeper relationship with the black community. Most black people don't think alike. Most black people just vote alike.

I just think Rosa Parks was overrated. Last time I checked, she got famous for breaking the law.

I was drawn to the power of the African American religious tradition to spur social change. Out of necessity, the black church had to minister to the whole person. Out of necessity, the black church rarely had the luxury of separating individual salvation from collective salvation. It had to serve as the center of the community’s political, economic and social as well as spiritual life; it understood in an intimate way the Biblical call to feed the hungry and clothe the naked and challenge powers and principalities

LBJ’s policies were giving American blacks hope they’d never had, they found intolerable what they had once accepted as inevitable.

Many women have education. But education in professional matters is very different from education in politics and preparing to take leadership roles in the society

Before, the Negro in the South had always looked on the defensive, cringing. This time they were taking the initiative.

Reading the Martin Luther King story, that little comic book, set me on the path that I'm on today.

I will take Al Sharpton seriously. And I know him, he's a nice, nice person.

The solution of this country's problems lies in black hands.

Hip-hop has done more for race relations than most cultural icons; and I say save Martin Luther King, because his 'I Have A Dream' speech was realized when Obama was elected into office.

It's important for youth, black youths particularly, to be able to fill in the blanks of themselves so they can know completely who they are, but also all the country to understand what this means: what the civil rights movement does to us as people. It is part of the journey that we must be on in order to become fully evolved human beings.

Americans are right to believe the American Dream is fading. But that dream only became a possibility for white men as a result of the labor struggles and reforms of the New Deal, and it began to extend to minorities and women only after the civil rights and women's movements of the 1960s and 1970s.