Nat King Cole Quotes

However, while we should certainly celebrate the demise of overt official racism, we must also critically examine where we are at this historical moment, recognize the many challenges ahead and reaffirm our commitment to making Brown v. Board a reality.

I wish black people had a flag they could put into the ground, like when the troops stormed Iwo Jima.

And I guess what I would say is that we can't think narrowly about movements for black liberation and we can't necessarily see this class division as simply a product or a certain strategy that black movements have developed for liberation.

Any successful black person will have to face suspicion within his or her own community about his or her loyalty to other blacks.

The Afro-American is not a bestial race.

It's hard to say when or if we will actually arrive at that place called 'post-racial', or, better yet, post-racism.

We need Black supremacy to get Negroes off their knees in churches that preach a white heaven, a white God and a white universe.

My number one priority is to save the Black man.

The world has made being black a crime .... I hope to make it a virtue.

I learned a lot about evasiveness, and how racists could use a system to forestall equality. I also learned a lot riding those dusty roads and walking into those sullen hostile courts in Jackson, Mississippi. It just seems that unless something's pushed, unless you litigate, nothing happens.

Black people were so angry at me. But we need to get some distance from the binary opposition we were raised in: evil white people and good black people. The world just isn't like that.

Sunken-place entrants include Clarence Thomas, Ben Carson, Tiger Woods, O.J. Simpson, sometimes Kanye West, and any black person with something nice to say about President Trump. It's more generous than 'sellout' and less punitive than 'Uncle Tom,' a dis and a road to redemption.

When I started, black people were either victims or they were the perpetrators; they were the boogie men who jumped out of the bushes and did terrible things to you.

Normally, 'black responsibility' is a forbidden phrase for a black leader -- not because blacks reject responsibility, but because even the idea of black responsibility weakens moral leverage over whites.

Happily, the days when overt racial discrimination and segregation were championed by social conservatives are long past.

I have never been what you would call just an integrationist. I know I've been called that... Integrating that bus wouldn't mean more equality. Even when there was segregation, there was plenty of integration in the South, but it was for the benefit and convenience of the white person, not us.

I'm a black man in the United States, and there's no two ways about that. I have a shared common experience with other black men, and through that, there's an automatic understanding.

There are certain things black people just don't do, OK? Skiing is one of them.

You know what? As a black person, you see so much racism. Films are no different than the government, politics - it's everywhere. It's not exclusively film. It's infuriating to see it in film. But my being in film changes things.

In my time, I experienced a black man not being able to be the quarterback of a football team.

Being a little kid, you don't hear much about racism. You figure everybody's the same. If racism isn't taught, you're just a black kid and a white kid together.

My whole intention is to break down these limitations of what a black comedian is supposed to be and to open up a space.

If you are born black, and you don't accept your natural status as a victim, then the validity of your blackness is immediately called into question.

When you're a black superhero, you can't erase the notion that you're black. If you're black, living in the community, and you want to change things, there are going to be things that happen. That's true of anybody. I mean, you could use celebrity as a similar metaphor.

We are clear that all lives matter, but we live in a world where that's not actually happening in practice. So if we want to get to the place where all lives matter, then we have to make sure that black lives matter, too.