80 Black History Inspirational Quotes That All Kids Should Read

Black History Month is celebrated in February in the USA and Canada while in UK, Ireland, and the Netherlands it is observed in October.Black History Month is celebrated to acknowledge the important African American history in the USA as well as the African diaspora in the world. The month is used to celebrate historical events along with the achievements of people of African origin.Since the African American community has faced massive oppression in the USA as well as in other countries, celebrating Black History month becomes important and encourages everyone to make a difference. Children should be taught early on to be aware of black history so here are some black history inspirational quotes that all kids should read.If you like this article about black history inspirational quotes, also check out other articles like Rosa Parks quotes and I Have A Dream Speech quotes.‍Black History Month Inspirational QuotesThis subcategory has wonderful and inspirational quotes that you can share with others for Black History Month.1. “Hate is too great a burden to bear. I have decided to love.”- Martin Luther King Jr.2. “We must never forget that Black History is American History. The achievements of African Americans have contributed to our nation’s greatness.”- Yvette Clark.3. “While one may encounter many defeats, one must not be defeated.”- Maya Angelou.4. “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.5. “Whatever we believe about ourselves and our ability comes true for us.”- Susan Taylor.6. “I am America. I am the part you won’t recognize. But get used to me.”- Muhammad Ali.7. “Rule-following, legal precedence, and political consistency are not more important than right, justice and plain common-sense.”- W. E. B. Du Bois, ‘Black Reconstruction In America’.8. “Make sure you’re very courageous: be strong, be extremely kind, and above all be humble.”- Serena Williams.9. “We will all, at some point, encounter hurdles to gaining access and entry, moving up and conquering self-doubt; but on the other side is the capacity to own opportunity and tell our own story.”- Stacey Abrams.10. “Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome.”- Booker T. Washington.11. “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.12. “The thing about black history is that the truth is so much more complex than anything you could make up.”- Henry Louis Gates.13. “Without a struggle, there can be no progress.”- Frederick Douglass.14. “I’m not going to continue knocking that old door that doesn’t open for me. I’m going to create my own door and walk through that.”- Ava DuVernay.15. “The challenge is in the moment; the time is always now.”- James Baldwin.16. “A race of people is like an individual man; until it uses its own talent, takes pride in its own history, expresses its own culture, affirms its own selfhood, it can never fulfill itself.”- Malcolm X.17. “You don’t have to be anything but yourself to be worthy.”- Tarana Burke.18. “Be unwavering and relentless in your approach.”- Halle Berry.19. “No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”- Nelson Mandela.20. “We did not come to fear the future. We came here to shape it.”- Barack Obama.Inspirational Quotes For Black History MonthMany African Americans in US History have said that we should not be limited by other people but work to make our dreams come true for us. This subcategory has quotes from Black History Month that will teach us to keep the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach our ambitions21. “Time is always right to do what is right.”- Martin Luther King Jr.22. “At the end of the day, it’s not about what you have or even what you’ve accomplished. It’s about what you’ve done with those accomplishments.”- Denzel Washington.23. “A change is brought about because ordinary people do extraordinary things.”- Barack Obama.24. “Your willingness to look at your darkness is what empowers you to change.”- Iyanla Vanzant.25. “Stand for something or you will fall for anything. Today’s mighty oak is yesterday’s nut that held its ground.”- Rosa Parks.26. “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.”- Alice Walker.27. “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.”- Audrey Lorde.28. “…don’t ever underestimate the importance you can have because history has shown us that courage can be contagious and hope can take on a life of its own.”- Michelle Obama.29. “Never be limited by other people’s limited imaginations.”- Mae C. Jemison.30. “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”- Frederick Douglass.31. “There are two things I’ve got a right to, and these are, Death or Liberty – one or the other I mean to have. No one will take me back alive; I shall fight for my liberty, and when the time has come for me to go, the Lord will let them, kill me.”- Harriet Tubman.32. “During Black History Month, I’m reminded yet again of the ways that the struggle for civil rights is interwoven with the struggle for workers’ rights.”- Tom Perez.33. “We must use time wisely and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right.”- Nelson Mandela.34. “Don’t put a ceiling on yourself.”- Oprah Winfrey.35. “The next time a woman of whatever color, or a dark-skinned person of whatever sex aspires to be president, the way should be a little smoother because I helped pave it.”- Shirley Chisholm.36. “The only thing that separates women of color from anyone else is opportunity.”- Viola Davis.37. “Nothing can stand in the way of the power of millions of voices calling for change.”- Barack Obama.38. “But what of Black women?… I most sincerely doubt if any other race of women could have brought its fineness up through so devilish a fire.”- W. E. B. Du Bois.39. “We all should rise, above the clouds of ignorance, narrowness, and selfishness.”- Booker T. Washington, ‘The Story Of My Life And Work’.40. “A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything.”- Malcolm X.41. “Don’t beg for your dignity and your humanity.”- Tarana Burke.42. “Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.”- Langston Hughes.43. “It isn’t where you came from; it’s where you’re going that counts.”- Ella Fitzgerald.44. “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”- Martin Luther King Jr., ‘Strength To Love’.45. “It always seems impossible, until it is done.”- Nelson Mandela.46. “It’s easier to be cynical; to accept that change isn’t possible, and politics is hopeless, and to believe that our voices and actions don’t matter. But if we give up now, then we forsake a better future.”- Barack Obama.Freedom Quotes By African-American ActivistsMartin Luther King Jr. had said that “freedom is never given by the ones who oppress us, but that we have to take it by our own effort to change the world.” US history is full of such African-Americans who had decided to fight for their freedom. Harriet Tubman had also proclaimed that everyone who dreams to reach for the stars to change the world should have patience and the passion since “you have within you the strength.” Read more such inspiring quotes below.47. “We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor, it must be demanded by the oppressed.”- Martin Luther King Jr.48. “The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.”- Ida B. Wells.49. “Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you’re a man, you take it.”- Malcolm X.50. “Freedom is a road seldom traveled by the multitude.”- Frederick Douglass.51. “Freedom is never given; it is won.”- A. Philip Randolph.52. “Real leaders must be ready to sacrifice all for the freedom of their people.”- Nelson Mandela.53. “You can’t separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom.”- Malcolm X.54. “The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression.”- W. E. B. Du Bois.55. “Our freedom is threatened every time one of our young people is killed by another child… every time a person gets stopped and beaten by the police because of the color of their skin.”- Rosa Parks.56. “Have a vision. Be demanding.”- Colin Powell.57. “While we breathe, we will hope.”- Barack Obama.58. “No one is going to give you the education you need to overthrow them. Nobody is going to teach you your true history, teach you your true heroes, if they know that that knowledge will help set you free.”- Assata Shakur.59. “Well, if you pick a fight with somebody that’s smaller than you and you beat them, where’s the honor in that?”- Carol Moseley Braun.60. “Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.”- Harriet Tubman.61. “If you’re not ready to die for it, put the word ‘freedom’ out of your vocabulary.”- Malcolm X.62. “We are going out of slavery, we are bound for freedom’s light…”- Sojourner Truth.63. “I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.”- Nelson Mandela.Famous Quotes By Black ActivistsHere are some well-known quotes by famous black activists.64. “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”- Martin Luther King Jr.65. “Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave.”- Frederick Douglass.66. “The plague of racism is insidious, entering into our minds as smoothly and quietly and invisibly as floating airborne microbes enter into our bodies to find lifelong purchase in our bloodstreams.”- Maya Angelou.67. “If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.”- Shirley Chisholm.68. “Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.”- Maya Angelou, ‘Wouldn’t Take Nothing For My Journey Now’.69. “…who made your skin white? Was it not God? Who made mine black? Was it not the same God? Am I to blame, therefore, because my skin is black?”- Sojourner Truth.70. “None of us got where we are solely by pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps.”- Thurgood Marshall.71. “My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.”- Desmond Tutu.72. “If you have no confidence in self, you are twice defeated in the race of life.”- Marcus Garvey.73. “Slavery is the next thing to hell.”- Harriet Tubman.74. “Since stepping reluctantly into public life, I’ve been held up as the most powerful woman in the world and taken down as an ‘angry black woman.’ I’ve wanted to ask my detractors which part of that phrase matters to them the most—is it ‘angry’ or ‘black’ or ‘woman’?”- Michelle Obama.75. “The Black skin is not a badge of shame, but rather a glorious symbol of national greatness.”- Marcus Garvey.76. “People always say that I didn’t give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn’t true. I was not tired physically … No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.”- Rosa Parks.77. “Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future, and renders the present inaccessible.”- Maya Angelou.78. “No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem.”- Booker T. Washington.79. “I’ve learned that it’s harder to hate up close.”- Michelle Obama.80. “No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck.”- Frederick Douglass.Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly quotes for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for black history inspirational quotes that all kids should read then why not take a look at Shirley Chisholm quotes or Women’s History Month quotes.

Black History Month is celebrated in February in the USA and Canada while in UK, Ireland, and the Netherlands it is observed in October.