These African American Women quotes will inspire you.
A collection of motivating, happy, and encouraging African American Women quotes, African American Women sayings, and African American Women proverbs.
Famous African American Women Quotes
- “I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.” ~ Michael Jordan
- “Never underestimate the power of dreams and the influence of the human spirit. We are all the same in this notion: The potential for greatness lives within each of us.” ~ Wilma Rudolph
- “If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.” ~ Maya Angelou
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“Don’t let anyone rob you of your imagination, your creativity, or your curiosity. It’s your place in the world; it’s your life. Go on and do all you can with it, and make it the life you want to live.” ~ Mae Jemison
- “Doing the best at this moment puts you in the best place for the next moment.” ~ Oprah Winfrey
- “We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we must understand that all the threads of the tapestry are equal in value no matter what their color.” ~ Maya Angelou
- “I had very supportive parents that made the way for me, even at a time when there were very few women – no women, really; maybe two or three women – and very few, fewer than that, African-American women heading in this direction, so there were very few people to look up to. You just had to have faith.” ~ Leah Ward Sears
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“I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear.” ~ Rosa Parks
- “If there’s a book you really want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” ~ Toni Morrison
- “I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has had to overcome while trying to succeed.” ~ Booker T. Washington
- “It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength.” ~ Maya Angelou
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“Each person must live their life as a model for others.” ~ Rosa Parks
- “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” ~ Martin Luther King, Jr. , African American Women quotes love
- “Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” ~ Barack Obama
- “I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all.” ~ Zora Neale Hurston
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“Defining myself, as opposed to being defined by others, is one of the most difficult challenges I face.” ~ Carol Moseley Braun
- “Give light, and people will find the way…” ~ Ella Baker
- “It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it.” ~ Lou Holtz
- “I know why the caged bird sings.” ~ Maya Angelou
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“Since Bush has been in office, African-American women have fallen behind in terms of income and wages.” ~ Donna Brazile
- “People identify with me – everyone does – African American women, Caucasian women, they all identify with me because I’m ethnic.” ~ Janice Dickinson
- “I was raised to believe that excellence is the best deterrent to racism or sexism. And that’s how I operate my life.” ~ Oprah Winfrey
- “Design the life you want to live.” ~ Rachel Roy
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“African-American women account for 67 percent of all newly diagnosed female AIDS cases.” ~ Elijah Cummings
- “I think the bottom of the totem pole is African-American women, or women of colour. I think they get the least opportunities in Hollywood.” ~ Denzel Washington
- “I think, though, as African-American women, we are always trained to value our community even at the expense of ourselves, and so we attempt to protect the African-American community.” ~ Anita Hill
- “I had this idea that I wanted to do this mixture of visions of African American women and visions of African American men. And call it ‘The Men’ and call it ‘The Women’ and show different faces of these two people.” ~ Faith Ringgold
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“Hate is too great a burden to bear. It injures the hater more than it injures the hated.” ~ Coretta Scott King
- “You’re not obligated to win. You’re obligated to keep trying to do the best you can every day.” ~ Marian Wright Edelman
- “Don’t let anyone rob you of hope.” ~ Pope Francis
- “Knowing what must be done does away with fear.” ~ Rosa Parks
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“The potential for greatness lives within us all.” ~ Wilma Rudolph
- “If we accept and acquiesce in the face of discrimination, we accept the responsibility ourselves. We should, therefore, protest openly everything … that smacks of discrimination or slander.” ~ Mary McLeod Bethune
- “Every great dream begins with a dreamer.” ~ Harriet Tubman
- “I am a feminist, and what that means to me is much the same as the meaning of the fact that I am Black: it means that I must undertake to love myself and to respect myself as though my very life depends upon self-love and self-respect.” ~ June Jordan
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“I felt somehow for many years that George Washington and Alexander Hamilton just left me out by mistake. But through the process of amendment, interpretation, and court decision, I have finally been included in ‘We, the people.'” ~ Barbara Jordan
- “I am the dream and the hope of the slave” ~ Maya Angelou
- “Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
- “I do not weep at the world I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife.” ~ Zora Neale Hurston
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“I used to want the words ‘She tried’ on my tombstone. Now I want ‘She did it.'” ~ Katherine Dunham
- “I am sick and tired of being sick and tired.” ~ Fannie Lou Hamer
- “I really don’t think life is about the I-could-have-beens. Life is only about the I-tried-to-do. I don’t mind the failure but I can’t imagine that I’d forgive myself if I didn’t try.” ~ Nikki Giovanni
- “Let me tell you something: The only thing that separates women of color from anyone else is opportunity. You cannot win an Emmy for roles that are simply not there.” ~ Viola Davis
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“You cannot win an Emmy for roles that are simply not there.” ~ Viola Davis
- “The only thing that separates women of color from everyone else is opportunity.” ~ Viola Davis
- “Hate is too great a burden to bear.” ~ Coretta Scott King
- “You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man.” ~ Frederick Douglass
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“In diversity there is beauty and there is strength.” ~ Maya Angelou
- “Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise. I rise. I rise.” ~ Maya Angelou
- “Racism is not an excuse to not do the best you can.” ~ Arthur Ashe
- “Never be limited by other people’s limited imaginations.” ~ Mae Jemison
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“What we need is not a history of selected races or nations, but the history of the world void of national bias, race hate, and religious prejudice.” ~ Carter G. Woodson
- “I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person.” ~ Harriet Tubman
- “To reaffirm the statement on the choosing of my identity, I come from two beautiful cultures which I have embraced, bridged, balanced, and identify with. I am proud to be who I am as a Dine’ (Navajo) and Nahilii (African American) woman. Hozho’, , & blessings” ~ Radmilla Cody
- “… not all black women have silently acquiesced in sexism and misogyny within the African-American community. Indeed, many writers, activists, and other women have voiced their opposition and paid the price: they have been ostracized and branded as either man- haters or pawns of white feminists, two of the more predictable modes of disciplining and discrediting black feminists.” ~ Kimberle Williams Crenshaw
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“Excellence is the best deterrent to racism or sexism.” ~ Oprah Winfrey
- “It’s important for women to understand that it’s bad enough that we don’t make dollar-for-dollar what men do, but when you distill that down to women of color, our Latinas and our African American women, it’s even less than that 78 cents.” ~ Nina Turner
- “All of my history as an African-American woman, as a Jewish woman, as a Muslim woman. I’m bringing everything I ever knew, and all the stories I’ve read – everything good, strong, kind and powerful. I bring it all with me into every situation, and I will not allow my life to be minimized by anybody’s racism or sexism or ageism.” ~ Maya Angelou
- “There still aren’t enough[ roles for women of color]. And I’d say that’s the case, not only for African-American women, but for all women in the Hollywood game. It’s just slim pickings, and a very challenging time for us. I think that’s why more of us need to work our way behind the camera in order to create roles that really illuminate who women are. We still have room for growth in that area, without a doubt.” ~ Jada Pinkett Smith
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“Look at Hispanic women – they are being paid 42 cents on the dollar – or African-American women. I think it’s an issue we have to look at across the board.” ~ Jessica Chastain
- “Senator Sessions has opposed protections for LGBT individuals. He’s spoken out against Freedom Corps’ marriage equality decision. He opposed the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. He opposed the nomination of Loretta Lynch, the nation’s first African-American woman to serve as attorney general. These things worry me.” ~ Patrick Leahy
- “The writer in me can look as far as an African-American woman and stop. Often that writer looks through the African-American woman. Race is a layer of being, but not a culmination.” ~ Thylias Moss
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“… black women have always found that in the social order of things we’re the least likely to be believed–by anyone.” ~ Joycelyn Elders
- “The hearts of Afro-American women are too warm and too large for race hatred. Long suffering has so chastened them that they are developing a special sense of sympathy for all who suffer and fail of justice.” ~ Fannie Barrier Williams
- “Had middle class black women begun a movement in which they had labeled themselves “oppressed,” no one would have taken them seriously.” ~ Bell Hooks
