Scatman Crothers Quotes

Regardless of what you feel about Obama and his politics - screw all that. The fact of the matter is, he was the first black guy to be the president of the United States. The history is still being made.

There's a time when it was an event for a black person to be on television. Where black households would gather around, 'Oh, you know, Sammy Davis is going to be on 'All in the Family' tonight! Let's go check it out!' It was a big, big thing.

Nowadays, people always say, how come he's doing such young shows? But they never mention The Mod Squad. I was very proud of that show. It's the first time an African-American guy kissed a white girl.

In 1965, Cosby had become the first black man ever to star in a prime-time television show; he was conscious enough of his non-dissolved, traditional nuclear family that he made it the foundation of his public persona, his comedy act, and eventually of his blockbuster sitcom.

I always believed there would be an African-American president. It was something I'd dreamed about, thought about, but certainly did not believe would happen in my lifetime.

The first black president was a hotter plot line than the first woman president.

I grew up in the 1950s and '60s, when it was almost a holiday when a black act would go on Ed Sullivan.

The very fact that Barack Obama - an African-American - was twice elected to the presidency will always be the lead line in that hard-to-meld, gold-plated paragraph.

Electing a black president was probably the only coup America could pull off.

When I first heard that Barack Obama was going to be the first black president, I wanted to do the smallest, biggest tribute in history.

We have a generation of black actors playing leading roles on film and TV - Idris Elba, Chiwetel Ejiofor - which is great and is breaking the mould.

In the Fifties, there were certain places we couldn't ride on the bus, and now there is a possibility of a black man being in the White House. You have to feel good about it.

Television had a black president long before Barack Obama.

It's an amazing honor to be the fourth Black hockey player to go into the Hall of Fame. It's a huge thrill.

The small moments I've had to talk with President Obama, I've told him, 'I get it.' His presidency was in some ways almost overshadowed by the fact that he was the first black president.

Anything with the title 'Breaking The Barriers' means a lot to us, and to myself in particular, because if it wasn't for those who broke the barrier of color before me, I would not have the opportunity to live the life I'm leading right now.

I was one of the first three black students to go to an all-white school in Tennessee.

As I look out there and see the culture of baseball, a lot of blacks and Latins, it's given me a lot of joy to know that Jackie started that. If Jackie hadn't come in '47, me and Ron Santo wouldn't have played in Double-A and all those years in the big leagues.

Most voters—most Republicans—are too young to imagine a world before integration and have no longing to see one.

School desegregation cases overturned not only the constitutional precedents built up over three quarters of a century but the social structure of an entire region ... Desegregation decrees have all the qualities of social legislation ...

If someone had told me in 1963 that in 50 years we would see a Black man in the white house, I would have said “You’re crazy! You are not living in the real world.”

A show hosted by a black had never been accepted, so the first time that knob's turned on, people are judging against all they have ever been taught. I may have been the first black in the house.

That I am a national figure because I was the first person in 192 years to be at once a congressman, black, and a woman proves, I would think, that our society is not yet either just or free.

During Black History Month, I'm reminded yet again of the ways that the struggle for civil rights is interwoven with the struggle for workers' rights.

I remember being a teenager, I never thought that I'd live in a society that was not segregated. It happened.