Fannie Lou Hamer Quotes

If you're black, you can't just be ordinary. All successful black people are extraordinary.

Being black is not a matter of pigmentation - being black is a reflection of a mental attitude.

It would seem that some black people want to say that when you, as a black, become successful, you cease to be black. That's ridiculous.

Black Consciousness therefore takes cognizance of the deliberateness of God's plan in creating Black people black.

When I walk out into the street or go to the toilet, I don't think of myself as being black. Of course, other people think of me as black when I walk into a pub. Obviously being black is a part of me.

When you're a black superhero you can't erase the notion that you're black.

There were certain expectations that were assumed of me as a young black American 20th-century - then 20th-century artist.

Part of the history of black people in the western hemisphere, in some ways, has been fleeing from this notion that they were black. So I can represent an ideal, and with that, you can demonstrate that there is nothing to be afraid of, nothing to run from, and that, in fact, a good deal of beauty that resides there.

My grandfather was coloured, my father was Negro, and I am Black.

I never learned how to be adequately black. I never learned how to be black at all.

The perception of linked fate and that feeling of being always on the spot as a representative of the race, at least in mixed company, are features of African American life that predate affirmative action and arise outside of its presence.

I'm black because that's the way the world sees me.

I've always had an interest in complicating the way that we perceive the black character, whether it's the black academic or scholar or activist or black intellectual.

I'm black, I don't feel burdened by it and I don't think it's a huge responsibility. It's part of who I am. It does not define me.

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!'

I enjoy challenging perspective - challenging ideas of what it means to be a black man.

A lot of the time, black people, we don't introduce ourselves as black.

I'm a black man in the United States, and there's no two ways about that. I have a shared common experience with other black men, and through that, there's an automatic understanding.

I stand on the black side of issues, philosophically, politically, socially, and for me to not check that box, I felt like, would be some sort of betrayal of not only who I am but also the community I affiliate with.

Most so-called 'black' people do not feel themselves at liberty to simply turn off or ignore their allotted racial designation, whether they would like to or not.

As much as I'd love to believe that we are 'post-racial' - an idea that really gained traction after the election of Barack Obama in 2008 - I can never escape the fact that in the world I am perceived as a 'black man' and, in certain parts of the world, as a 'black gay man.'

People often expect that I should know a lot of things because I'm black. I don't really explain it to people, but it's like, I'm from Australia, my Mum's Aussie, and I grew up with five other Aussie brothers and sisters.

I don't consider myself just a black man. I consider myself a brotha. I love my people.

If you're black, you can't just be ordinary. All successful black people are extraordinary. If you are tremendously successful, and you're black, you are extraordinary, or you wouldn't stand out in this world.

With a black president, I can relax... I can dance in public... I can buy a whole watermelon now.