Langston Hughes Quotes

I'm a student of Ice Cube and Scarface, which means the stuff I rap about is not radio-friendly, and it's very opinionated. and it's very much from the perspective of a black man in America, and our opinion ain't always popular when we have a political opinion.

'The Help' sheds light on a certain truth in America, but the tragedy is if we don't get a chance to contrast it with other points of views. 'The Butler' does that, 'Red Tails' does that and that's what '96 Minutes' does.

And no book gives a deeper insight into the inner life of the Negro, his struggles and his aspirations, than, The Souls of Black Folk.

I love telling the experience of a black male in America, but modern, not always having to go back to a period piece to remind people where we come from. It's more a modern sense of where we are today and where we want to go in the future. So I try to choose projects somewhere around that space.

My only crime was being born black - or being born black in Alabama.

The history of Black Americans in South Carolina is riddled with trials and tribulations.

There's no idea in the world that is not contained by black life. I could write forever about the black experience in America.

We African Americans have now spent the major part of the 20th Century battling racism.

When you're born you get a ticket to the freak show. When you're born in America, you get a front row seat.

There haven't been enough profound things written about what being black means and what a black character is. Nobody knows.

Country music has become the music that best represents the reality of American life.

I remember being infuriated from the top of my head to the tip of my toes the first time a screen was put around Bob Carter and me on a train leaving Washington in the 1940s.

I don't think that everything on Broadway relates to us, and I think that's why we as black people don't always go to Broadway shows, but shows like 'What's on the Hearts of Men' has a lot of issues that can relate to black families, and that's why I enjoy it.

My idea at this time, which was slowly developing, was to create a comedie humaine with little people, average people - samples from every period in American life.

One must learn how to be black in America.

You know, people'd always ask 'Why is Jesse Jackson running for the White House?' They never seen the house I'm running from.

I couldn't wait to be, you know, a Black Panther. Of course they wouldn't let me join.

My goal is to make as many films as possible about different aspects of American life.

James Brown's life was really a metaphor for our inability to talk about matters like race and class in America.

To be black in the Baltimore of my youth was to be naked before the elements of the world.

Ali helped raise black people in this country out of mental slavery. The entire experience of being black changed for millions of people because of Ali.

I kept having the producers of 'Fog in August' take out some of the Nazi terms and phrases. I don't want audiences to look at this doctor and say, 'He is a Nazi monster' and think that it has nothing to do with our lives today.

Racism is over in the 'Star Trek' future, but they found a way to comment on sexism and racism in the present day in such a subversive and smart way, you know?

I've always thought that 'Dear White People' should live on as a TV show, so I'll leave it at that.

It's interesting because I think class is a heavy, heavy part of 'Moonlight,' and I think, in a certain way, through the sum of all these parts, it's become a commentary on the black experience in America.