Quote Templates

Shirley Chisholm - In the end, anti-black, anti-female, and all forms of discrimination are equivalent to the same thing—anti-humanism.

Ralph Waldo Emerson - Liberty is slow fruit. It is never cheap; it is made difficult because freedom is the accomplishment and perfectness of man.

Fatimata Cham - Liberation lies within us and will not be formed from the current institutional structures we have in place for it never has.

Brittany Packnett Cunningham - Every Black person you meet is a miracle.

Tatiana Glover - Juneteenth is another moment for me and my loved ones to build an archive of truth and experience of Black folks.

Tanesha Grant - As Black people, we are told we don’t deserve our own holidays rooted in our own history. Everything is whitewashed.

Brandon Gonzalez - Studying the blueprints of liberation, one can map out the ways we as The Global African Diaspora have continued to resist and exist under regimes of anti-Black terror.

Kwame Nkruma - Freedom is not something that one people can bestow on another as a gift. They claim it as their own and none can keep it from them.

Theodorea Regina Berry - The proclamation notes that freedom shall not be repressed. This is what I believe to be the primary significance of Juneteenth.

Michelle Obama - There are still many causes worth sacrificing for, so much history yet to be made.

Harriet Tubman - Now I’ve been free, I know what a dreadful condition slavery is. I have seen hundreds of escaped slaves, but I never saw one who was willing to go back and be a slave.

Alan Keyes - The flag that was the symbol of slavery on the high seas for a long time was not the Confederate battle flag, it was sadly the Stars and Stripes.

Langston Hughes - I swear to the Lord I still can’t see why democracy means everybody but me.

Frederick Douglass - Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave.

Malcom X - You can’t separate peace from freedom, because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom.

Desmond Tutu - My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.

Kevin Bales - Slavery is theft—theft of a life, theft of work, theft of any property or produce, theft even of the children a slave might have borne.

Harriet Tubman - I should fight for my liberty as long as my strength lasted, and when the time came for me to go, the Lord would let them take me.

John Quincy Adams - Where annual elections end where slavery begins.

Haye Turner - My daddy told me that they whooped and hollered and bored holes in trees with augers and stopped it up with [gun] powder and light and that would be their blast for the celebration.

James Baldwin - If you know whence you came, there is really no limit to where you can go.

Martin Luther King Jr. - What matters is not how long you live…but how you live

Martin Luther King Jr. - Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.

Martin Luther King Jr. - Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.

Martin Luther King Jr. - Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

Aretha Franklin - We all require and want respect, man or woman, Black or white. It's our basic human right.

Zoé Samudzi - We are not ready to fight because we love fighting. We are ready to fight because we are worth fighting for.

Paulo Coelho - One day you will wake up and there won’t be any more time to do the things you’ve always wanted. Do it now.

Jim Ryun - Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.

Karen Lamb - A year from now, you may wish you had started today.

Doe Zantamata - Every morning starts a new page in your story. Make it a great one today.

Abu Bakr - It is a matter of shame that in the morning the birds should be awake earlier than you.

Toni Morrison - Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another.

Shirley Chisholm - In the end, anti-black, anti-female, and all forms of discrimination are equivalent to the same thing: anti-humanism.

Fred Hampton - If you dare to struggle, you dare to win. If you dare not struggle, then damn it, you don’t deserve to win.

Martin Luther King Jr. - Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

Harriet Tubman - I had crossed the line. I was free; but there was no one to welcome me to the land of freedom. I was a stranger in a strange land.

Fannie Lou Hamer - Nobody’s until everybody’s

Pharrell Williams - The day we were free—everyone was free. Why not make it a paid holiday? We deserve that…We want a day that is inclusive to everyone.

Maya Angelou - You may kill me with your hatefulness. But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Colin Kaepernick - I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses Black people and people of color.

Frederick Douglass - I prayed for freedom for twenty years, but received no answer until I prayed with my legs.

Rosa Parks - I would like to be remembered as a person who wanted to be free… so other people would be also free.

James Brown - Say it loud. I’m black and I’m proud!

Dr. Greg Carr - Every June 19th is an opportunity for us to continue the momentum of memory, and the parade and the self-determination movements.

Abraham Lincoln - Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.

Denise Brennan-Nelson - Someday is not a day of the week.

Bernard Williams - There was never a night or a problem that could defeat sunrise or hope.

John Wooden - Make today your masterpiece.

Steve Maraboli - When a new day begins, dare to smile gratefully.