August Wilson Quotes

I do consider myself part of black history.

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

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

When I was growing up, 'Ebony Magazine' was a must read in our household. In those pages I found our news, our stories, and my pride.

Would America have been America without her Negro people?

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.

In a typical history book, black Americans are mentioned in the context of slavery or civil rights. There's so much more to the story.

The history of the black man did not begin with slavery.

All black art is always judged to illuminate our experience and prove that our stories and our history and our lives matter. And that goes back to Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston - take your pick.

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.

You must begin to define yourself. You must begin to define your Black heritage.

You've got to appreciate the things that come from the art of the Negro and from the heart of the man farthest down.

There's no question that I'm African-American. OK? I'm a black man. We're not going to escape that.

I am proud of my black roots and of the black blood that runs in my veins.

Let not the 12 million Negroes be ashamed of the fact that they are the grandchildren of slaves. There is dishonor in being slave-owners.

Afro-American

I'm a black man from the South. I like my food!

Jimmy Baldwin was not only a writer, an international literary figure: he was a man, spirit, voice - old and black and terrible as that first ancestor.

Blacks in America want to forget about slavery - the stigma, the shame. If you can't be who you are, who can you be? How can you know what to do? We have our history. We have our book, and that is the blues.

My biggest inspiration is black America and what they've done in the arts. I have always felt like an outsider in America, and what black Americans have done to add their chapter to this book called the American dream, and to be so unapologetic and true, and have added so much to art and culture in the world.

Black culture - we dance and sing. We're entertainers. James Brown said it best: the things we are make people want to be like us.

Black youth, in general, have no understanding of our past. Young black people who don't know who Martin Luther King Jr. was, don't know nothin'.

When I pitched headforemost into the world I landed in the crib of Negroism.

I read every one of the books on the shelf marked American Negro Literature. I became a nationalist, a colour nationalist, through the writings of men and women who lived a world away from me.