Ron Stallworth Quotes

There are very few African Americans who have had as much impact on American society as Bill Cosby.

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.

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.

I do consider myself part of black history.

I'm a sponge for historical images of black people and black history on film.

I think that Michael Jackson, just as an entertainer, as a figure who embodies the contradictions of black identity and the possibilities of R&B music in the '70s and '80s, will continue to be one of the most recognized and formidable human beings that we've ever produced in our tradition.

Jazz came to America three hundred years ago in chains.

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

My own thinking has evolved. You find Africanisms in American speech. You find an African influence on United States culture. There are all kinds of Africanisms in America, as you would expect, if you really thought about it... That whole thing is much broader; the influence is much broader than I first understood.

My audience went, 'Wait, why is she singing jazz? What's going on?' And then they went, 'Oh, because she can. Because she loves it.' And jazz, a music invented by the African-American community, is the greatest art form, I believe, to have ever come out of this country.

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.

With my representation of a black woman in the world today, there's such a powerful response from my community about what it means to have black representation on television. That response is so overwhelming and so strong that I just have to express my own gratitude for it, because I understand the necessity for it.

Sports is a unique thing in our country. It's so influential. It's almost like a sacrament for religion.

In the imagination, Harlem will always be the spiritual capital of black excellence in America.

Black History Month is a poignant time for the entire country, but particularly the African American community.

To me, Harlem is one of the most important places on the earth, particularly when it comes to talking about African Americans.

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.

I'm just happy that as an African-American man, that 'Candyman' has once again been given the nod to enter people's consciousness.

BET was a touchstone for me and a lot of my friends - it was a place you could go to see exactly what being black in 1992 and 1996 was like and what it was supposed to look like.

Michael Jackson National African American Art Examiner Series

The Negro and all things negroid had become a fad, and Harlem had become a shrine to which feverish pilgrimages were in order . . . Seventh Avenue was the gorge into which Harlem cliff dwellers crowded to promenade.

Spike Lee made such a difference in terms of black filmmakers, the subtleties - those authors, those writers who write from love, and those who write from that lofty position of superiority.I felt he took aspects of the black experience in America and held it up for us to see. He tried to put it in perspective. He did put it in perspective in his unique way.

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.

Baldwin gave expression to the longings of blacks in exalted prose. He was embraced, in the tradition of Negro Firsterism, even by those who never sat down with a book, as our preeminent literary spokesman, whether he liked it or not. Neither athlete nor entertainer, but nevertheless a star.

A lot of the things I do deal with my race, but my race is who I am. I'm an American kid who grew up listening to predominantly hip-hop. I will talk about hip-hop as the music I grew up listening to, and I think sometimes people like to put it as, 'Oh, well, he's talking about black things.' And, yeah, they are, but that's my American identity.