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“The leaders and followers of the Harlem Renaissance were every bit as intent on using Black culture to help make the United States a more functional democracy as they were on employing Black culture to 'vindicate' Black people.”
― Aberjhani, Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance

“It is best to think of culture as a repertoire, like that of an actor,a musician, or a dancer. This image suggests that culture cultivates skills and habits in its users, so that one can be more or less good at the culture repertoire one performs,and that such cultured capacities may exist both as discrete skills,habits and orientations, and in larger assemblages, like the pieces a musician has mastered or the plays a actor has performed. It is in this sense that people have an array of cultural resources upon which they can draw. We can ask not only what pieces are in the repertoire but why some are performed at one time, some at another.”
― Karyn Lacy, Blue-Chip Black: Race, Class, and Status in the New Black Middle Class

“In advanced societies it is not the race politicians or the "rights" leaders who create the new ideas and the new images of life and man. That role belongs to the artists and intellectuals of each generation. Let the race politicians, if they will, create political, economic or organizational forms of leadership; but it is the artists and the creative minds who will, and must, furnish the all important content. And in this role, they must not be subordinated to the whims and desires of politicians, race leaders and civil rights entrepreneurs whether they come from the Left, Right, or Center, or whether they are peaceful, reform, violent, non-violent or laissez-faire. Which means to say, in advanced societies the cultural front is a special one that requires special techniques not perceived, understood, or appreciated by political philistines.”
― Harold Cruse

“There's a liberal story that limited opportunities, and barriers, lead to employment problems and criminal records, but then there's another story that has to do with norms, behaviors, and oppositional culture. You can't prove the latter statistically, but it still might be true.' Holzer thinks that both arguments contain truth and that one doesn't preclude the other. Fair enough. Suffice it to say, though, that the evidence supporting structural inequality is compelling. In 2001, a researcher sent out black and white job applicants in Milwaukee, randomly assigning them a criminal record. The researcher concluded that a white man with a criminal record had about the same chance of getting a job as a black man without one. Three years later, researchers produced the same results in New York under more rigorous conditions.”
― Ta-Nehisi Coates, We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy

“And watching this silently, as was my way, I marveled at the bonds between us-the way we shortened our words, or spoke, sometimes, with no words at all...an entire world of our own, hidden away from them, and to be part of that world, I felt even then, was to be in on a secret, a secret that was in you.”
― Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Water Dancer

“Here they learn the rest of the lesson begun in those soft houses with porch swings and pots of bleeding heart: how to behave. The careful development of thrift, patience, high morals, and good manners. In short, how to get rid of the funkiness. The dreadful funkiness of passion, the funkiness of nature, the funkiness of the wide range of human emotions.

Wherever it erupts, this Funk, they wipe it away; where it crusts, they dissolve it; wherever it drips, flowers, or clings, they find it and fight it until it dies. They fight this battle all the way to the grave. The laugh that is a little too loud; the enunciation a little too round; the gesture a little too generous. They hold their behind in for fear of a sway too free; when they wear lipstick, they never cover the entire mouth for fear of lips too thick, and they worry, worry, worry, about the edges of their hair.”
― Toni Morrison

“I wish BET did more to represent the full spectrum of black experiences in a balanced manner. If you watch BET, you get the sense that the only way black people succeed is through professional sports, music, or marrying/fucking/being a baby mama of someone who is involved with professional sports or music.”
― Roxanne Gay

“My daughter is black and she has to know what it is like to be black. My daughter should know you, Aiken, but she should learn what it means to be black, and you cannot teach her that.”
― Allan Dare Pearce, Paris in April

“The unpolished rawness and uncompromising energy of hip-hop have their roots in slavery. Just like some of the sweetest forms of expression the human race has ever invented, like jazz and blues. They were born out of misery but were so infectiously captivating and full of such bold emotions that they permeated everything else -- contemporary music, fashion, art, the way people talk, the way people walk, the way people are.”
― Jason Timbuktu Diakité, A Drop of Midnight: A Memoir

“I believe that the democrats see in black America is an undereducated community of people who are over invested in culture. Their methodology then, is to maintain control of the culture as a means to regulate the black vote.”
― Candace Owens, Blackout: How Black America Can Make Its Second Escape from the Democrat Plantation

“We're craftspeople, We're folk artists, We're barbecue royalty, We're Black Smoke.”
― Adrian Miller, Black Smoke: African Americans and the United States of Barbecue

“If Black culture was not adequately presented to black people in America, than diversity becomes a curse.”
― Craig Majors, THE PROUD NEGROES OR NIGGAS NO DIFFERENCE: POEMS ARE WRITTEN BY

“Black women's history is a tale of fierce determination, sass, and unyielding resilience. From Sojourner Truth's "Ain't I a Woman?" speech to Maya Angelou's poetic prowess, they've left a trail of fabulousness in their wake. With style, grace they've faced adversity head-on and emerged as queens of their own narratives. So let's raise a glass this February to the trailblazers, the game-changers, and the unsung heroes!”
― Life is Positive