African-American Studies!!コミュのAFRICAN AWARENESS MONTH: INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES BY PEOPLE OF AFRICAN DESCENT

“You can always dream, and your dreams will come true,
but you have to make them come true.” Michael Jackson

“Not everything that is faced can be changed,
but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
James Baldwin

“Life loves the liver of it.”
Maya Angelou

“Plan your hours to be productive?
Plan your weeks to be educational?
Plan your years to be purposeful.
Plan your life to be an experience of growth.
Plan to change. Plan to grow.” Iyanla Vanzant

“We've removed the ceiling above our dreams.
There are no more impossible dreams.” Jesse Jackson

“What God intended for you goes far beyond anything you can imagine.”
Oprah Winfrey

“I have discovered in life that there are ways of getting
almost anywhere you want to go, if you really want to go.”
Langston Hughes

“As I give, I get.”
Mary McLeod Bethune

“As you enter positions of trust and power,
dream a little before you think.” Toni Morrison

“Surround yourself with only people who are going to lift you higher.”
Oprah Winfrey

“Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery;
none but ourselves can free our mind.” Bob Marley

“We have to talk about liberating minds as well as liberating society.”
Angela Davis

“This precious moment that I am living in
is the most essential part of my life!”
King Solomon Hearn

“To understand how any society functions
you must understand the relationship
between the men and the women.” Angela Davis

“The future belongs to those who prepare for it today.”
Malcolm X

“The quality, not the longevity, of one's life is what is important.”
Dr. Martin Luther King

“I've learned that people will forget what you said,
people will forget what you did,
but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
Maya Angelou

“Our dreams must be stronger than our memories.
We must be pulled by our dreams, rather than
pushed by our memories.” Jesse Jackson

“No part of our legacy is more valuable
than the unique ethical teaching of the Odu Ifa,
the sacred text of our Yoruba ancestors,
that we and all humans are divinely chosen
to bring good into the world and that this is
the fundamental meaning and mission of human life.”
Dr. Maulana Karenga

“Let us take care of the children,
for they have a long way to go.
Let us take care of the elders,
for they have come a long way.
Let us take care of those in between,
for they are doing the work.”
Tradition African Prayer

“I believe in wishes and in a person's ability
to make a wish come true, I really do.
And a wish is more than a wish..
it's a goal that your conscience
and subconscience can help make reality.
Michael Jackson

“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.”
President Barack Obama

“I've known rivers: I've known rivers
ancient as the world and older
than the flow of human blood in Human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.”
Langston Hughes

“Following your heart's desire will lead you in the direction
your spirit wants to go.” Oprah Winfrey

“I've learned that people will forget what you said,
people will forget what you did,
but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
Maya Angelou

“As we move into the next decade and new era,
no lesson is more important for us to learn
from our history and culture than our need
to recognize our interrelatedness as a people
and part of humanity and our parallel need
to establish and put into wider practice
an ethics of sharing which recognizes and builds
on this interrelatedness in the most positive
and mutually beneficial ways. In fact,
this is an indispensable way to fulfill
and further our moral obligation
to constantly bring good into the world.”
Dr. Maulana Karenga

“And the dream we were conceived in will reveal a joyful face...
and the world we once believed in will shine again in grace.
Then why do we keep strangling life wound this Earth, crucify its soul.
Though it's plain to see, this world is heavenly.
We could be God's glow... Heal the world.” Michael Jackson

“Each challenge I encounter in life
presents me with an opportunity
for personal growth and development.
I simply have to ask myself
what can I learn from this experience?”
King Solomon Hearn

“You face the biggest challenge of all: to have the courage
to seek your big dream regardless of what anyone says.
You are the only person alive who can see your big picture
and even you can't see it all.” Oprah Winfrey

“When I focus my energy on living in the now,
in this present (precious) moment
everything is possible!” King Solomon Hearn

“A wise person speaks carefully and with truth,
for every word that passes between one's teeth
is meant for something.” Molefi Kete Asante

“I intend to always have the courage to change.”
King Solomon Hearn

This concludes my posts for this month, you can find additional
quotes based around a monthly theme posted in my:

INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES COMMUNITY
http://mixi.jp/view_community.pl?id=3123451

I enjoyed every quate you shared. Thank you Alvin!

Hello, Alvin.
Good to know that you are out there doing this.
African American is one of the ethnic ended in America's but the history is strongly chained to it's slavery. Because of the color of the skin, it is hard to get out of the discrimination visually from the society. At least this is how I observe this. Please do not give up, it is all starts by own individuals and will go on. I will be keep painting their "life" to give them back a little of something that they missed to be touched.
It was a great February again,
yupimango

Hello Yupimango.

Thank you for your message, your kind words and for sharing your
beautiful artwork. I would like to see and learn more about your work.
Do you have a website where we can all see more of your work?

Yes, it’s changing to escape discrimination based on a physical
characteristic. I agree that the most popularized version of African
American history and culture is our connection with the our enslavement
“Triangle Trade” or “Transatlantic Slave Trade”,
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_slave_trade), however there
is anthropological evidence that confirms an African presence in the
America’s hundreds of years before it began:

They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America
Dr. Ivan Van Sertima
http://www.amazon.com/Ivan-Van-Sertima/e/B001HCZWQC/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0

African Presence in Early America by Ivan Van Sertima
Early America Revisited by Dr. Ivan Van Sertima

African Presence in Early America by Dr. Ivan Van Sertima
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0887387152/ref=rdr_ext_sb_ti_hist_1

Introduction to Black Studies By Dr. Maulana Karenga
http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Black-Studies-Maulana-Karenga/dp/0943412234/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267522941&sr=1-1

African American History: An Introduction | Revised Edition
By Joanne Turner-Sadler

I learned from Dr. Karenga in my first African American Studies class an
“Introduction to Black Studies”class many years ago that in this
modern world that we live in a peoples humanity is intrinsically tied to
its historical contributions to human history. For many years the legacy
of African American History was chained to our enslavement. Thus the
rescue and reconstruction of our history and our culture in our own
terms became an essential component of the rescue and reconstruction of
our humanity since our enslavement.

My intention for sharing these quotes is to share some of the thoughts
of important figures in African American history and their contributions
to human history. For me the importance of “African” and “African
American” history and the history of other ethnic groups is it provides
us with a greater understanding of human history. I believe that one of
the important reasons for studying history is it helps us understand how
we came to be where we are today. However, what more important to me is
having an more accurate picture of human history and anthropology may
help us to discover that we have a common origin and we are all a part
of the same human family.

Thank you Marina for all your positive feedback!

“Life-transforming ideas have always come to me through books.”
Bell Hooks

“Life-transforming ideas have always come to me through books.”
Bell Hooks