Race relations

Explore 21 quotes about Race relations

I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen"
Then.
Besides,
They'll see how
beautiful I am
And be ashamed—
I, too, am America.

Langston Hughes

I, Too

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More information about this quote

Topic

Black experience Race relations America

Author

Langston Hughes

Source

I, Too

Medium

Poem

Statement Type

Prophecies and predictions

Language

English

Time

1926 1920s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Hughes, Langston. "I, Too." The Weary Blues. Alfred A. Knopf, 1926, I. 1.

Current Citation

Hughes, Langston. The Weary Blues. Alfred A. Knopf, 2015, epilogue.

People, I just want to say, you know, can we all get along?

Rodney King

More information about this quote

Topic

Race relations

Speaker

Rodney King

Language

English

Time

1992 1990s 20th century

Authentication Score 1

Citation

King, Rodney. Statement following Los Angeles riots. 1 May 1992, Los Angeles, CA, USA.

The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line.

W.E.B. Du Bois

More information about this quote

Topic

Race relations

Author

W.E.B. Du Bois

Source

To the Nations of the World

Genre

Sociology

Language

English

Time

1900 1900s 20th century

Authentication Score 1

Citation

Du Bois, William Edward Burghardt. "To the Nations of the World." Pan-African Conference. 25 July 1900, London, England, UK. Address.

Brothers and sisters, I am here to tell you that I charge the white man. I charge the white man with being the greatest murderer on earth. I charge the white man with being the greatest kidnapper on earth. There is no place in this world that man can go and say he created peace and harmony. Everywhere he's gone, he's created havoc. Everywhere he's gone, he's created destruction. So I charge him.

Malcolm X

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More information about this quote

Topic

Race relations

Speaker

Malcolm X

Actor

Denzel Washington

Source

Malcolm X

Medium

Film

Genre

Biography (film) Drama (film) Biography Drama

Language

English

Time

1992 1990s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Malcolm X. Directed by Spike Lee, 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks, 1992.

Long as you live you ain't never gonna see no black vice president. Not while the president's white. They tell you to never say never? I'm saying never. You know why? Cause some black guy would just kill the president, that's why! Shit, I'd do it!

Chris Rock

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More information about this quote

Topic

Black President Assassination of the President Race relations American politics

Speaker

Chris Rock

Source

Bring the Pain

Medium

Standup comedy

Genre

Comedy

Language

English

Time

1996 1990s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Rock, Chris. Chris Rock: Bring the Pain. HBO, 1 June 1996.

And son, don't never ever trust whitey.

The Jerk

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More information about this quote

Topic

Race relations

Speaker

Father

Actor

Richard Ward

Source

The Jerk

Medium

Film

Genre

Comedy (film) Comedy

Language

English

Time

1979 1970s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

The Jerk. Directed by Carl Reiner, Aspen Film Society, 1979.

Goddammit, look! We live here and they live there. We black and they white. They got things and we ain't. They do things and we can't. It's just like living in jail.

Richard Wright

Native Son

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More information about this quote

Topic

Black experience Race relations

Speaker

Bigger Thomas

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.

By the way, I would have voted for Obama for a third term, if I could. Best president in my lifetime, hands down.

Get Out

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More information about this quote

Topic

Race relations American politics

Speaker

Dean Armitage

Actor

Bradley Whitford

Source

Get Out

Medium

Film

Genre

Horror (film) Horror

Language

English

Time

2017 2010s 21st century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Get Out. Directed by Jordan Peele, Blumhouse Productions/QC Entertainment/Monkeypaw Productions, 2017.

They will endure. They are better than we are. Stronger than we are. Their vices are vices aped from white men or that white men and bondage have taught them: improvidence and intemperance and evasion-not laziness: evasion: of what white men had set them to, not for their aggrandizement or even comfort but his own.

William Faulkner

Faulkner on black Americans.

More information about this quote

Topic

Black resilience Race relations

Author

William Faulkner

Source

The Bear

Medium

Short story

Language

English

Time

1942 1940s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Faulkner, William. "The Bear." Go Down, Moses. Random House, 1942, pt. 4.

Some of my best friends are white boys.
When I meet 'em
I treat 'em
just the same as if they was people.

Ray Durem

More information about this quote

Topic

Race relations

Author

Ray Durem

Source

Broadminded

Medium

Poem

Statement Type

Irony

Language

English

Time

1951 1950s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Durem, Ray. Broadminded. c. 1951.

Negroes will not break out of the barriers of the ghetto unless whites transcend the barriers of their own minds, for the ghetto in which the white lives imprisoned. The poetic irony of American race relations is that the rejected Negro must somehow also find the strength to free the privileged white.

Kenneth B. Clark

Dark Ghetto

More information about this quote

Topic

Race relations

Author

Kenneth B. Clark

Source

Dark Ghetto

Language

English

Time

1965 1960s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Clark, Kenneth B. Dark Ghetto: Dilemmas of Social Power. Harper and Row, 1965, ch. 9.

Because of the spiritual rebirth which I was blessed to undergo as a result of my pilgrimage to the Holy City of Mecca, I no longer subscribe to sweeping indictments of one race. I intend to be very careful not to sentence anyone who has not been proven guilty. I'm not a racist and do not subscribe to any of the tenets of racism. In all honesty and sincerity it can be stated that I wish nothing but freedom, justice and equality: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all people. Now my first concern, of course, is with the group to which I belong, for we, more than any others, are deprived of our inalienable rights. But I believe the true practice of Islam can remove the cancer of racism from the hearts and the souls of all Americans.

Malcolm X

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More information about this quote

Topic

Islam Racism Race relations

Speaker

Malcolm X

Actor

Denzel Washington

Source

Malcolm X

Medium

Film

Genre

Biography (film) Drama (film) Biography Drama

Language

English

Time

1992 1990s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Malcolm X. Directed by Spike Lee, 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks, 1992.

Yeah, Africa's my home. Damn America and what America thinks. Yeah, I live in America; but, Africa's the home of the black man. And I was a slave 400 years ago and I'm going back home to fight among my brothers. Yeah!

Muhammad Ali

When We Were Kings

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More information about this quote

Topic

Race relations Black identity Africa

Speaker

Muhammad Ali

Source

When We Were Kings

Medium

Film

Genre

Documentary (film) Sports (film) Sports

Language

English

Time

1996 1990s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

When We Were Kings. Directed by Leon Gast, Polygram/Image Entertainment Inc./Gramercy Pictures, 1996.

Oh, white girls. They get you every time.

Get Out

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More information about this quote

Topic

Race relations

Speaker

Detective Latoya

Actor

Erika Alexander

Source

Get Out

Medium

Film

Genre

Horror (film) Horror

Language

English

Time

2017 2010s 21st century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Get Out. Directed by Jordan Peele, Blumhouse Productions/QC Entertainment/Monkeypaw Productions, 2017.

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.

The relation subsisting between the white and colored people of this country, is of all other questions, the great, paramount, imperative and all commanding question for this age and nation to solve.

More information about this quote

Topic

Race relations

Speaker

Frederick Douglass

Source

The Present and Future of the Colored Race in America

Medium

Speech

Genre

Political speech

Language

English

Time

1863 1860s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Douglass, Frederick. "The Present and Future of the Colored Race in America." 15 May 1863, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Brooklyn, New York City, NY, USA.

The divide of race has been America's constant curse. And each new wave of immigrants gives new targets to old prejudices... These obsessions cripple both those who hate and of course those who are hated, robbing both of what they might become. We cannot, we will not, succumb to the dark impulses that lurk in the far regions of the soul everywhere. We shall overcome them.

Bill Clinton

Second Inaugural Address of Bill Clinton

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Read this speech at UVA's Miller Center website

More information about this quote

Topic

Race relations Prejudice and bias

Speaker

Bill Clinton

Source

Second Inaugural Address of Bill Clinton Presidential inaugural address

Medium

Speech

Genre

Political speech

Language

English

Time

1997 1990s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Clinton, William J. "Second Inaugural Address." 20 Jan. 1997, West Front, US Capitol Building, Washington, DC, USA.

The adoption of the concept of Black Power is one of the most legitimate and healthy developments in American politics and race relations in our time.... It 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 begin to define their own goals, to lead their own organizations and to support those organizations. It is a call to reject the racist institutions and values of this society.

Stokely Carmichael

Black Power: The Politics of Liberation

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More information about this quote

Topic

Black Power Race relations American politics

Author

Stokely Carmichael

Source

Black Power: The Politics of Liberation

Genre

Political literature

Language

English

Time

1967 1960s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Carmichael, Stokely and Charles Vernon Hamilton. Black Power: The Politics of Liberation. Random House, 1967.

We can do well in this country. We will have difficult times; we've had difficult times in the past; we will have difficult times in the future. It is not the end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; it is not the end of disorder. But the vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings who abide in our land.

Robert F. Kennedy

More information about this quote

Topic

Race relations Political progress

Speaker

Robert F. Kennedy

Medium

Speech

Genre

Political speech

Language

English

Time

1968 1960s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Kennedy, Robert F. Remarks on the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. 4 Apr. 1968, Indianapolis, IN, USA.

Black is beautiful when it is a slum kid studying to enter college, when it is a man learning new skills for a new job, or a slum mother battling to give her kids a chance for a better life. But white is beautiful, too, when it helps change society to make our system work for black people also. White is ugly when it oppresses blacks-and so is black ugly when black people exploit other blacks. No race has a monopoly on vice or virtue, and the worth of an individual is not related to the color of his skin.

Whitney Young

More information about this quote

Topic

Black is beautiful Race relations

Author

Whitney Young

Genre

Political literature

Language

English

Time

1969 1960s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Young, Whitney Moore, Jr. Beyond Racism: Building an Open Society. McGraw-Hill, 1969, ch. 4.