Black Pearls Living

I stopped thinking that all white folks were out to get me.

—Nathan McCall

I’ve always been proud to be black. But proud and obsessive are different things.

—Jacob Lamar

Conversation is food for the ear.

—Trinidadian Proverb

Hair and teeth—a man got those two things, he’s got it all.

—James Brown

Save money and money will save you.

—Jamaican Proverb

Whence all this passion toward conformity anyway?—diversity is the word.

—Ralph Ellison

I tell my students there is such a thing as “writer’s block,” and they should respect it. It’s blocked because it ought to be blocked, because you haven’t got it right now.

—Toni Morrison

You cannot teach what you don’t know. You cannot give energy if you’re not on fire on the inside.

—Jesse Jackson

The Negro was invented in America.

—John Oliver Killens

You know what religion is? You got ta live religion. You got ta do religion. You got ta live Right.

—Mance Lipscomb