Harlem QUOTES

1 " The best of humanity's recorded history is a creative balance between horrors endured and victories achieved, and so it was during the Harlem Renaissance. "

― Aberjhani , Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry

2 " The leaders and followers of the Harlem Renaissance were every bit as intent on using Black culture to help make the United States a more functional democracy as they were on employing Black culture to 'vindicate' Black people. "

― Aberjhani , Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance

3 " You have a color of your own- Dark chocolate,
You have a culture your own- Hip pop,
You have a revival of your own- Harlem Renaissance,
You are the spot on a ladybug that adds its beauty,
You are the pupil of an eye,
You are the vastness of space,
You are the richness of soil,
You are the sweetness of dark chocolate,
You are the mystery in nature,
Blessed Black chocolate, God has made You to rule the Land, that made You a slave. "

―

4 " [T]he piano was to Harlem what brass bands had been to New Orleans. The instrument represented conflicting possibilities -- a pathway for assimilating traditional highbrow culture, a calling card of lowbrow nightlife, a symbol of middle-class prosperity, or, quite simply, a means of making a living. "

― , The History of Jazz

5 " Whether we consider hip-hop as an evolved manifestation of the Harlem Renaissance or something completely new under the sun, it clearly has moved beyond the stage of just entertaining lives to that of informing and empowering lives. "

― Aberjhani , Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry

6 " Whatever they have done, or are doing, or will do to the people locked away forever in Guantanamo Bay, they will do the same to the people in Harlem and the people in Los Angeles and the people in Texas and the people in Washington and the people in Florida and of course to the people in Alabama and the people in South Carolina........ "

7 " The city of Paris, France, became a place of refuge for biracial Americans during slavery and at the time of the Harlem Renaissance for black musicians, fine artists, writers and others seeking opportunities to practice their craft free from American racism. "

― , Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance (Facts on File Library of American History)

8 " It seemed that there was no time to catch up with all the things that were happening. I would be at the construction workers' demonstration one day and then marching with the welfare mothers the next. We got down with everything - the rent strikes, the sit-ins, the takeover of the Harlem state office building, whatever it was. If we agreed with it, we would try to give active support in some way. The more active i became, the more i liked it. It was like medicine, making me well, making me whole ...

My energy just couldn't stop dancing. I was caught up in the music of the struggle and i wanted to dance. I was never bored and never lonely, and the brothers and sisters who became my friends were so beautiful to me. "

― Assata Shakur , Assata: An Autobiography

9 " In 7.81 square miles of vaunted black community, the 850 square feet of Dum Dum Donuts was the only place in the " community" where one could experience the Latin root of the word, where a citizen could revel in common togetherness. So one rainy Sunday afternoon, not long after the tanks and media attention had left, my father ordered his usual. He sat at the table nearest the ATM and said aloud, to no one in particular, " Do you know that the average household net worth for whites is $113,149 per year, Hispanics $6,325, and black folks $5,677?" " For real?" " What's your source material, nigger?" " The Pew Research Center." Motherfuckers from Harvard to Harlem respect the Pew Research Center, and hearing this, the concerned patrons turned around in their squeaky plastic seats as best they could, given that donut shop swivel chairs swivel only six degrees in either direction. Pops politely asked the manager to dim the lights. I switched on the overhead projector, slid a transparency over the glass, and together we craned our necks toward the ceiling, where a bar graph titled " Income Disparity as Determined by Race" hovered overhead like some dark, damning, statistical cumulonimbus cloud threatening to rain on our collective parades." I was wondering what that li'l nigger was doing in a donut shop with a damn overhead projector. "

10 " It [the Harlem Renaissance] was a time of black individualism, a time marked by a vast array of characters whose uniqueness challenged the traditional inability of white Americans to differentiate between blacks. "

― Clement Alexander Price , Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance

11 " Everybody says 'Good Morning' in Harlem because it's true! And that's lovely. "

12 " When I was 17, I worked in a mentoring program in Harlem designed to improve the community. That's when I first gained an appreciation of the Harlem Renaissance, a time when African-Americans rose to prominence in American culture. For the first time, they were taken seriously as artists, musicians, writers, athletes, and as political thinkers. "

13 " Being in Harlem on the night of Barack Obama's election was extraordinary. It was the best street party I have ever gone to, and it felt like the period of American history which began with slavery had ended that evening. "

14 " I think probably one of the coolest things was when I went to play basketball at Rucker Park in Harlem. First of all, who would think that Larry the Cable Guy would go to Harlem to play basketball? And I was received like a rock star. It was amazing! There were people everywhere. There were guys walking by yelling, 'Git 'r done!' "

15 " It's still amazing, but when I was growing up, Harlem was the Mecca of black culture. I was so inspired by it, the aspirational feeling you'd get spending time there. Experiences that were really specific to that place. "

16 " 'Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream' is an intentionally angry film. How could it not be when the chance of an infant dying is five times greater on the Bronx Park Avenue than on Manhattan's Park Avenue just across the Harlem River? "

17 " I grew up in Harlem in New York, very rough, urban environment, and so what I found is that, if I can have kids travel to different places, countries, areas, it can expand their minds. "

18 " The thing that surprised me the most is just how much money women that weren't rich were paying for their hair. When you're in a beauty parlor in Harlem next to abandoned buildings and somebody's paying five grand for a weave, that's a bit much. "