Black writer

Explore 74 quotes by Black writers

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

Langston Hughes

The Negro Speaks of Rivers

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Topic

Rivers

Author

Langston Hughes

Source

The Negro Speaks of Rivers The Crisis

Medium

Poem Magazine

Statement Type

Vision

Language

English

Time

1921 1920s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Hughes, Langston. "The Negro Speaks of Rivers." The Crisis, June 1921, I. 5.

Current Citation

Hughes, Langston. "The Negro Speaks of Rivers." The Weary Blues. Alfred A. Knopf, 2015, I. 5.

Who knows when some slight shock, disturbing the delicate balance between social order and thirsty aspiration, shall send the skyscrapers in our cities toppling?

Richard Wright

Native Son

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Topic

Riots Civil disorder

Speaker

Max

Author

Richard Wright

Source

Native Son

Medium

Novel

Language

English

Time

1940 1940s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Wright, Richard. Native Son. Harper & Brothers, 1940, bk. 3.

God has been replaced, as he has all over the West, with respectability and air conditioning.

Amiri Baraka

More information about this quote

Topic

Decline of religion Death of God God Disenchanted world

Author

Amiri Baraka

Source

What Does Nonviolence Mean?

Medium

Essay

Genre

Political literature

Language

English

Time

1963 1960s 20th century

Authentication Score 1

Citation

Baraka, Amiri (aka Imamu Amiri Baraka). "What Does Non-Violence Mean?" Midstream. Dec. 1963, vol. IX, no. 4.

I thought love would adapt itself to my needs.
But needs grow too fast.
They come up like weeds.
Through cracks in the conversation.
Through silences in the dark.
Through everything you thought was concrete.

Alice Walker

More information about this quote

Topic

Human needs Love

Author

Alice Walker

Source

Did This Happen to Your Mother? Did Your Sister Throw Up a Lot? Good Night, Willie Lee, I'll See You in the Morning

Medium

Poem

Language

English

Time

1979 1970s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Walker, Alice. "Did This Happen to Your Mother? Did Your Sister Throw Up a Lot?" Good Night, Willie Lee, I'll See You in the Morning. The Dial Press, 1979, I. 24.

It comes as a great shock around the age of 5, 6, or 7 to discover that the flag to which you have pledged allegiance, along with everybody else, has not pledged allegiance to you. It comes as a great shock to see Gary Cooper killing off the Indians, and although you are rooting for Gary Cooper, that the Indians are you.

James Baldwin

Quoted in The New York Times

More information about this quote

Topic

Black experience

Speaker

James Baldwin

Source

The American Dream and the American Negro The New York Times

Medium

Speech

Language

English

Time

1965 1960s 20th century

Authentication Score 2

Citation

Baldwin, James. "The American Dream and the American Negro." The New York Times, 7 Mar. 1965. Originally debate speech "The American Dream and the American Negro." Has the American Dream Been Achieved at the Expense of the American Negro? Debate between James Baldwin and William F. Buckley. Cambridge Union. 17 Feb. 1965, Cambridge, England, UK.

The return from your work must be the satisfaction which that work brings you and the world's need of that work. With this, life is heaven, or as near heaven as you can get. Without this-with work which you despise, which bores you, and which the world does not need-this life is hell.

W.E.B. Du Bois

More information about this quote

Topic

Work

Author

W.E.B. Du Bois

Language

English

Time

1958 1950s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Du Bois, William Edward Burghardt. "Advice to a Great-Grandson." His 90th birthday celebration. 1958, The Roosevelt Hotel, New York, NY, USA. Address.

I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes... I do not weep at the world-I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife.

Zora Neale Hurston

More information about this quote

Topic

Black experience

Author

Zora Neale Hurston

Source

How It Feels to Be Colored Me

Medium

Essay

Language

English

Time

1928 1920s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Hurston, Zora Neale. "How It Feels to Be Colored Me." World Tomorrow, May 1928.

Of all the things that drive men to sea, the most common disaster, I've come to learn, is women.

Charles R. Johnson

Middle Passage

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Topic

Dangers of women Ocean and sea

Author

Charles R. Johnson

Source

Middle Passage

Medium

Novel

Language

English

Time

1990 1990s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Johnson, Charles R. Middle Passage. Atheneum Publishers, 1990.

A grown child is a dangerous thing.

Alice Walker

The Color Purple

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Topic

Immaturity

Author

Alice Walker

Source

The Color Purple

Medium

Novel

Genre

Epistolary novel

Language

English

Time

1982 1980s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Walker, Alice. The Color Purple. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982.

For poems are like rainbows: they escape you quickly.

Langston Hughes

Read I've Known Rivers at Project Gutenberg

More information about this quote

Topic

Poetry Rainbows The ephemeral

Author

Langston Hughes

Source

The Big Sea

Genre

Autobiography and memoir

Statement Type

Metaphor, analogy and simile

Language

English

Time

1940 1940s 20th century

Authentication Score 2

Citation

Hughes, Langston. "I've Known Rivers." The Big Sea. Alfred A. Knopf, 1940.

My life, my real life, was in danger, and not from anything other people might do but from the hatred I carried in my own heart.

James Baldwin

Notes of a Native Son

More information about this quote

Topic

Effects of racism Black experience

Author

James Baldwin

Source

Notes of a Native Son

Medium

Essay

Language

English

Time

1955 1950s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Baldwin, James. "Me and My House." Harper's Magazine, Nov. 1955.

Current Citation

Baldwin, James. "Notes of a Native Son." James Baldwin: Collected Essays, edited by Toni Morrison. Library of America, 1998.

Don't confuse honors with achievement.

Zadie Smith

More information about this quote

Topic

Achievement Recognition

Author

Zadie Smith

Source

The Guardian

Medium

Newspaper

Statement Type

Advice

Language

English

Time

2010 2010s 21st century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Smith, Zadie. "Ten Rules for Writing Fiction: Part 2." Guardian, 19 Feb. 2010, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/feb/22/zadie-smith-rules-for-writers.

There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside you.

Zora Neale Hurston

Dust Tracks on a Road

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Topic

Creative impulse Stories Writing

Author

Zora Neale Hurston

Source

Dust Tracks on a Road

Genre

Autobiography and memoir

Language

English

Time

1942 1940s 20th century

Authentication Score 1

Citation

Hurston, Zora Neale. Dust Tracks on a Road. J. B. Lippincott Company, 1942, ch. 11.

There is a loneliness that can be rocked. Arms crossed, knees drawn up, holding, holding on, this motion, unlike a ship's, smooths and contains the rocker. It's an inside kind-wrapped tight like skin. Then there is the loneliness that roams. No rocking can hold it down. It is alive. On its own. A dry and spreading thing that makes the sound of one's own feet going seem to come from a far-off place.

Toni Morrison

Beloved

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Topic

Loneliness

Author

Toni Morrison

Source

Beloved

Medium

Novel

Language

English

Time

1987 1980s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Morrison, Toni. Beloved. Alfred A. Knopf, 1987.

It is only in his music, which Americans are able to admire because a protective sentimentality limits their understanding of it, that the Negro in America has been able to tell his story. It is a story which otherwise has yet to be told and which no American is prepared to hear.

James Baldwin

Notes of a Native Son

More information about this quote

Topic

Black music Race relations

Author

James Baldwin

Source

Notes of a Native Son

Medium

Essay

Language

English

Time

1951 1950s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Baldwin, James. "Many Thousands Gone." Partisan Review, Nov. 1951 - Dec. 1951.

Current Citation

Baldwin, James. "Many Thousands Gone." James Baldwin: Collected Essays, edited by Toni Morrison. Library of America, 1998.

We have a beautiful mother
Her green lap immense
Her brown embrace eternal
Her blue body everything
We know.

Alice Walker

More information about this quote

Topic

Mother earth The earth

Author

Alice Walker

Source

We Have a Beautiful Mother Her Blue Body Everything We Know: Earthling Poems

Medium

Poem

Language

English

Time

1991 1990s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Walker, Alice. "We Have a Beautiful Mother." Her Blue Body Everything We Know: Earthling Poems. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1991, I. 23.

Life is for the living.
Death is for the dead.
Let life be like music.
And death a note unsaid.

Langston Hughes

More information about this quote

Topic

Life and death Life Death

Author

Langston Hughes

Source

Note in Music

Medium

Poem

Language

English

Time

1936 1930s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Hughes, Langston. "Note In Music." Opportunity: Journal of Negro Life, Jan. 1936.

Current Citation

Hughes, Langston. "Note In Music." The Collected Works of Langston Hughes: The Poems: 1921-1940, edited by Arnold Rampersad. Vol. 1, University of Missouri Press, 2001.

You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was Dostoevsky and Dickens who taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive.

James Baldwin

More information about this quote

Topic

Broken heart Interconnectedness of all people The human condition Power of literature

Speaker

James Baldwin

Source

Life Magazine

Medium

Interview Magazine

Language

English

Time

1963 1960s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Howard, Jane. "Doom and Glory of Knowing Who You Are." Life Magazine, 24 May 1963.

He knew that the moment he allowed what his life meant to enter fully into his consciousness, he would either kill himself or someone else. So he denied himself and acted tough.

Richard Wright

Native Son

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More information about this quote

Topic

Lying to oneself Pain

Author

Richard Wright

Source

Native Son

Medium

Novel

Language

English

Time

1940 1940s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Wright, Richard. Native Son. Harper & Brothers, 1940, bk. 1.

Best advice I ever got was an old friend mine, a black friend, who said you have to go the way your blood beats. If you don’t live the only life you have, you won’t live some other life, you won’t live any life at all.

James Baldwin

More information about this quote

Topic

Following your heart Being true to oneself Authenticity Life

Speaker

James Baldwin

Source

Village Voice

Medium

Interview Newspaper

Statement Type

Advice

Language

English

Time

1984 1980s 20th century

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

Baldwin, James. Quoted in "Go the Way Your Blood Beats." Interviewed by Richard Goldstein. Village Voice, 26 June 1984.

Current Citation

Baldwin, James. "Go the Way Your Blood Beats." James Baldwin: The Last Interview and Other Interviews. Melville House, 2014.