Darryl Pinckney Quotes

Hold those things that tell your history and protect them. During slavery, who was able to read or write or keep anything? The ability to have somebody to tell your story to is so important. It says: 'I was here. I may be sold tomorrow. But you know I was here.'

The Afro-American experience is the only real culture that America has. Basically, every American tries to walk, talk, dress and behave like African Americans.

For a long time, I've been interested in cultural memory and historical erasure.

There is a distinctive African American culture that has roots in Africa and evolved on American soil.

You can't just say in one sentence what is blackness or what is black culture or what makes you who you are.

Blacks have a special history, since they were enslaved and were here as early as the first Americans. I hate to sound like a liberal but these are facts. That makes blacks a special group.

The 22 million or 30 million, whatever the case may be, Afro-Americans in the United States were still Africans.

As Africans Americans we often think about the tragic stories associated with our lineage, but there are a lot of triumphs. Traveling helps you learn about other aspects of our history, like the story of Christ the Redeemer. It's empowering and inspiring.

It is my hope that as we commemorate Black History Month in the future, we will continue to celebrate the many achievements and rich culture of African-Americans.

I want to make it clear that the black race did not come to the United States culturally empty-handed. The role and importance of ethnic history is in how well it teaches a people to use their own talents, take pride in their own history and love their own memories.

My work is as an ethnographic rescuer: a conduit between past and future generations. The urgency of this effort cannot be overstated.

We've got to map all of our ancient history before it's gone because, let's face it, if we don't have a common heritage to share, something to get excited about, then what are we living for?

Whole generations have forgotten history.

Writers are historians, too. It is in literature that the greater truths about a people and their past are found.

Considered now as a possession, one may define culture as the residuum of a large body of useless knowledge that has been well and truly forgotten.

When I was in South Africa, I went for dinner with some friends, and I knew more about their history than they did - it just hasn't been told.

My work sometimes can be abstract and appear not to have a direct relationship to Afro-American concerns, but, in fact, it is based on that.

I do consider myself part of black history.

If we lose our culture, we lose our memory.

African Americans are one of the oldest ethnic groups in this country. We been here since the beginning. Before the beginning.

A people without a history is like the wind over buffalo grass.

History is a heavy thing everywhere.

A people without a positive history is like a vehicle without an engine.

I think the blues is the best literature that we as blacks have created since we've been here. I call it our 'sacred book.' What I've attempted to do is to mine that field, to mine those cultural ideas and attitudes and give them to my characters.

I viewed black musicals before 'Jelly' as a form of cultural strip mining. The exterior remained, but all the culture that signified where the people had come from and their connection to the earth was absent.