Shelby Steele Quotes

At this moment, then, the Negroes must begin to do the very thing which they have been taught that they cannot do.

I am true to my own race. I wish to see all done that can be done for their encouragement, to assist them in acquiring property, in becoming intelligent, enlightened, useful, valuable citizens.

I identify... with the ideas that Malcolm X stood for.

For sure, I think that's the mission in all life, whether it's basketball, being a doctor, building a company. I think we take social justice and the lessons we're learning now, that everybody is learning.

It's about knowing yourself and what you're good at. Females, males - anyone can be anything they want to be.

Our [black people's] path is clear: We refuse to be inferior. We want to be exactly what Allah (God) has desired for us to be and we can't be that in their [white people's] house. We either have to take over their house or go and build a house of our own.

I said, "If I was a Negro girl-" He placed his fingers across my lips so I tasted his saltiness. "We can't think of changing our skin," he said. "Change the world-that's how we gotta think."

I would like to flood South Africa with black personages of all sorts of persuasions: writers, educators, businessmen, you name it. If you are black and have any clout at all, I would like to see you go to South Africa and look for yourself and come back and try to use the tools that you have at your command to try and help the brothers down there.

When the Negro was completely an underdog, he needed white spokesmen. Liberals played their parts in this period exceedingly well.... But now that the Negro has rejected his role as an underdog, he has become more assertive in his search for identity and group solidarity; he wants to speak for himself.

Long-term sustainable change happens if people discover their own power.

I like the fact that glass ceilings are breaking all over.

I am a feminist, and what that means to me is much the same as the meaning of the fact that I am Black: it means that I must undertake to love myself and to respect myself as though my very life depends upon self-love and self-respect.

We don't all have to take the same coordinates to get to the same destination. Being a young African American female artist, I want to open doors for young black girls.

Every child, and every person, deserves a chance to make something of themselves.

Let people have an education and you can't stop them.

To me, that's the role of government: not to give people a hand out, but a hand up... giving people the tools to pave their own way to success.

I'll also say, yes, I think the change in black consciuosness in recent years has made me more sensitive to injustice in every area of my life.

If the white man wants to hold on to it, let him do so; but the Negro, so far as he is able, should develop and carry out a program of his own.

It is the rank and file - the average woman - for whom the world has opened up so astonishingly.

And I do believe that the way to change a society, to uplift people - not just their spirit, but to uplift their society and economic base - is through education.

The drums of Africa still beat in my heart. They will not rest while there is a single Negro boy or girl without a chance to prove his worth.

My number one priority is to save the Black man.

I am the equal of any white man. I want you to feel the same way.

The need for women to have their own individual identity belongs to your generation, not mine.

Up you mighty race. You can accomplish what you will! Build your future on these foundations: Freedom, Justice and Equality.