African Ancestry Quotes

Africans in the United States must remember that the slave ships brought no West Indians, no Caribbeans, no Jamaicans or Trinidadians or Barbadians to this hemisphere. The slave ships brought only African people and most of us took the semblance of nationality from the places where slave ships dropped us off.

The Dominican Republic says 'We're black behind the ears.' And in Mexico, 'there's a black grandma in the closet.' They know, they've just been intermarrying for a long time. But if we did the DNA of everyone in Mexico a whole lot of people would have a whole lot of black in them.

As much as I'm a black person from America, I'm a black person from Africa, too.

Being African didn't mean anything to me until later in my life.

Maybe if I go far enough back into my ancestry, I have African roots or something. I've got no idea.

The people and the cultures of what is known as Africa are older than the word 'Africa.' According to most records, old and new, Africans are the oldest people on the face of the earth. The people now called Africans not only influenced the Greeks and the Romans, they influenced the early world before there was a place called Europe.

The election of Senator Barack Obama brought jubilation across Africa, where millions celebrated him as 'one of their own.'

So for everybody who allows themselves to be separated from me because I said 'African' instead of 'Nubian' or 'Black' or 'Kemet' or 'original' or 'Israelite,' don't be so foolish. I say 'African' because the continent of Africa is the land from which we all originate. It is the word that we are most familiar with right now.

When we say Afro American, we include everyone in the Western Hemisphere of African descent. South America is America. Central America is America. South America has many people in it of African descent.

Just going to Africa is amazing; it all comes back to the motherland. It's pretty much where everything started.

Ever since I watched 'Roots,' I've dreamed of tracing my African ancestry and helping other people do the same.

My roots go back to West Africa, but my last name is Kirby, which is not an African name.

My children have to know where they come from and the way of life in Africa.

To the best of my knowledge and of my effort, every lineage statement within 'Roots' is from either my African or American families' carefully preserved oral history, much of which I have been able conventionally to corroborate with documents.

Everyone is related to Africa; everyone comes from Africa. We are all distant relatives.

Many people believe that determining who is 'black' is rather easy, a task simplified by the administration of the one-drop rule. Under the one-drop rule, any discernible African ancestry stamps a person as 'black.'

It's impossible for most black Americans to construct full family trees. Official census records, used by so many genealogy enthusiasts to piece together their families' pasts, don't include our non-European ancestors.

It should be remembered that hundreds of people of African ancestry also walked the Trail of Tears with the Cherokee during the forced removal of 1838-1839. Although we know about the terrible human suffering of our native people and the members of other tribes during the removal, we rarely hear of those black people who also suffered.

It turns out that every person alive today can trace his or her ancestry back to Africa. Everyone's DNA tells a story of a journey from an African homeland to wherever you live.

My knowledge of my ancestry, like a lot of black people not living in Africa today, is very vague.

We all evolved out of the same three or four groups in Africa, as black Africans.

My soul existed in an African vessel hundreds of years ago as the leader of a tribe, and my tribe fought for honor.

Obviously I descend from Africa.

Kunta Kinte is the closest thing I've ever seen... to a superhero. He's amazing. He's inspirational.

There's a thing called the 'One Drop' theory in African-American culture, which is if you have one drop of black blood in you, you're black.