Quotes About Heritage

WITH the growing population of slaves in the Southern States of America, there is a fearful increase of half whites, most of whose fathers are slaveowners and their mothers slaves.

We must be free or die, who speak the tongueThat Shakespeare spake; the faith and morals holdWhich Milton held.

We must be free or die, who speak the tongue that Shakespeare spoke: the faith and morals hold which Milton held.

The Bluesis the roots of all American music.

His claim to his home is deep, but there are too many ghosts. He must absorb without being absorbed.

Family. Family said it all. Fifty years later, the name's the same. Family is the currency that never devalues. Family is beyond value. The priceless thing that enriches our lives and our work.

An Indian is an Indian regardless of the degree of Indian blood or which little government card they do or do not possess.

It is the women who are responsible for bringing along the next generation to carry the culture forward.

I'd like to take a walk far back in the flinty hills and search for a souvenir, an old double-bitted ax stuck deep in the side of a white oak tree. I know the handle has long since rotted away with time. Perhaps the rusty frame of a coal-oil lantern still hangs there on the blade.

The qualities of mongrels are rarely admirable, and the mixture of the Arab and negro types has produced a debased and cruel breed, more shocking because they are more intelligent than the primitive savages.

Some Americans need hyphens in their names, because only part of them has come over; but when the whole man has come over, heart and thought and all, the hyphen drops of its own weight out of his name.

A conservative is someone who makes no changes and consults his grandmother when in doubt.

Some Americans need hyphens in their names because only part of them has come over.

A nation which does not remember what it was yesterday, does not know what it is today, nor what it is trying to do. We are trying to do a futile thing if we do not know where we came from or what we have been about.

This land is your land, this land is my land,From California to the New York island,From the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters,This land was made for you and me.

When my ma went off a old woman called Aunt Emmaline kep' me. (She kep' all de orphunt chillun an' dem who's mammas had been sent off to de breedin' quarters. When dem women had chillun dey brung 'em an' let somebody lak Aunt Emmaline raise em.)

Rap Is More Damaging Than Confederate Statues

Genealogies are admirable things, provided they do not encourage the curious delusion that some families are older than others.

So we are all black people, so-called Negroes, second-class citizens, ex-slaves. You are nothing but an ex-slave. You don't like to be told that. But what else are you? You are ex-slaves. You didn't come here on the Mayflower. You came here on a slave ship -- in chains, like a horse, or a cow, or a chicken. And you were brought here by the people who came here on the Mayflower. You were brought here by the so-called Pilgrims, or Founding Fathers. They were the ones who brought you here.

You catch any white man off guard in here right now, you catch him off guard and ask him what he is, he doesn't say he's an American. He either tells you he's Irish, or he's Italian, or he's German, if you catch him off guard and he doesn't know what you're up to. And even though he was born here, he'll tell you he's Italian. Well, if he's Italian, you and I are African even though we were born here.

X is not my real name, but if you study history you'll find why no black man in the western hemisphere knows his real name. Some of his ancestors kidnapped our ancestors from Africa, and took us into the western hemisphere and sold us there. And our names were stripped from us and so today we don't know who we really are. I am one of those who admit it and so I just put X up there to keep from wearing his name.

We are African, and we happened to be in America. We're not American. We are people who formerly were Africans who were kidnapped and brought to America. Our forefathers weren't the Pilgrims. We didn't land on Plymouth Rock. The rock was landed on us.

My father used to sing to me in my mother's womb. I think I can name about any tune in two beats.

Their flag has two background colours: green representing the ground below, and blue for the sky above. In its centre it depicted a wheel: this symbolized the image of the Romani people as travellers and, resembling the 24-spoke wheel known as the Ashoka Chatra which features in the centre of the flag of India, it served as a reference to the Roms' historical country of origin.