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.
Today we know with certainty that segregation is dead. The only question remaining is how costly will be the funeral.
I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person.
An artist must be free to choose what he does, certainly, but he must also never be afraid to do what he might choose.
When I read great literature, great drama, speeches, or sermons, I feel that the human mind has not achieved anything greater than the ability to share feelings and thoughts through language.
I am an invisible man. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids - and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.
They oughtta change Black History Month to Black Progress Month and start measuring it.
I do not weep at the world I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife.
The world is a severe schoolmaster, for its frowns are less dangerous than its smiles and flatteries, and it is a difficult task to keep in the path of wisdom.
We’ve gone through the names—Negro, African American, African, Black. For me that’s an indication of a people still trying to find their identity. Who determines what is black?
Many of us in Nashville accepted nonviolence as a way of life, a way of living, not simply as a technique or a tactic.
I don't celebrate Valentine's Day. It gets in the way of Black History Month. Cupid didn't free any slaves.
You're either part of the solution or you're part of the problem.
I came back to Louisville after the Olympics with my shiny gold medal. Went into a luncheonette where black folks couldn't eat. Thought I'd put them on the spot. I sat down and asked for a meal. The Olympic champion wearing his gold medal. They said, "We don't serve niggers here. " I said, "That's okay, I don't eat 'em. " But they put me out in the street. So I went down to the river, the Ohio River, and threw my gold medal in it.
You go to school, you study about the Germans and the French, but not about your own race. I hope the time will come when you study black history too.
I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.
The United States has been called the melting pot of the world. But it seems to me that the colored man either missed getting into the pot or he got melted down.
In all things social we can be as seperate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.
Black History Month should be celebrated everyday. It's a month that's kind of sad to me, because I am reminded of the struggles that people before us had to go through for us to be able to live comfortably today.
The truest writers are those who see language not as a linguistic process but as a living element.