Kat Graham Quotes

My work sometimes can be abstract and appear not to have a direct relationship to Afro-American concerns, but, in fact, it is based on that.

As yet, the Negroes themselves do not fully appreciate these old slave songs.

Black Power is a call for black people in this country to unite, to recognize their heritage, to build a sense of community. It is a call for black people to define their own goals, to lead their own organizations.

The true Negro does not want integration... He realizes his potential is far better among his own race.

Growing up as a product of the black civil-rights movement, I had a lot of different models for black weirdness, whether it's Richard Pryor or James Baldwin or Jimmy Walker.

I learned about poise and dignity, and I learned about what it means to be an African-American in television and what that requires in terms of what kind of position you take for yourself and how you define your own reality in a world that is still finding its footing, to say the least.

There is a movement we call Afro-Futurism, where we imagine a black way of life free of white supremacy and bigotry. 'Black Panther,' I think, is the first blockbuster film centered in the ethos of Afro-Futurism, where the writers and directors and makeup and wardrobe team all imagined a beautiful, thriving black Africa without colonialism.

Our Luke Cage is a black hero, not a hero who happens to be black.

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.

Lift Every Voice and Sing

Negro President

Body and soul, Black America reveals the extreme questions of contemporary life, questions of freedom and identity: How can I be who I am?

Black power means Black dignity

To my mind, it is the duty of the younger Negro artist, if he accepts any duties at all from outsiders, to change through the force of his art that old whispering 'I want to be white,' hidden in the aspirations of his people, to 'Why should I want to be white? I am a Negro - and beautiful!'

Even the humble black grandmother, who sings in the church choir and struggles to raise a grandchild abandoned to her care, must assert ideological liberalism in order to make others comfortable about her blackness.

Do you have any idea what Ali meant to black people? He was the leader of a nation, the leader of Black America. As a young black, at times I was ashamed of my color; I was ashamed of my hair. And Ali made me proud.

Typically, there's this perspective among writers - and black writers: there's this idea that there is one person - and maybe beyond writers - among blacks, there is always one person who everyone should go to learn about all things black.

I have lots of hopes for black actors in general, whether they be on TV or on stage or in movies, and that is that we move beyond the tokenism of what it means to be black in a particular set of circumstances.

We younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased, we are glad. If they are not, it doesn't matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly too.

My job is to be the constructive awakener of the black masses of the world so them know themself and others know what black people suppose to be and where.

I'm black because I was born this way. I'm proud of it. Thank God I am who I am.

I think, as a black man, I have a responsibility to have knowledge and have an opinion.

I love being black.

I am proud to be black man.