Black Quotes by Maya Angelou

I am the dream and the hope of the slave

— Maya Angelou

“All I got to do is stay black and die.”

— Maya Angelou

Shakespeare must be a black girl.

— Maya Angelou

I am overwhelmed by the grace and persistence of my people.

— Maya Angelou

The poetry you read has been written for you, each of you - black, white, Hispanic, man, woman, gay, straight.

— Maya Angelou

The hope, the hope that lives in the breast of the black American, is just so tremendous that it overwhelms me sometimes.

— Maya Angelou

I speak to the black experience, but I am always talking about the human condition.

— Maya Angelou

I write because I am a Black woman, listening attentively to her people.

— Maya Angelou

Always in the black spirituals there's that promise that things are going to be better, by and by.

— Maya Angelou

In Stamps the segregation was so complete that most Black children didn't really, absolutely know what whites looked like.

— Maya Angelou

As far as I knew white women were never lonely, except in books. White men adored them, Black men desired them and…

— Maya Angelou

When I try to describe myself to God I say, 'Lord, remember me? Black? Female? Six-foot tall? The writer?' And I almost…

— Maya Angelou

There is a kind of strength that is almost frightening in Black women. It's as if a steel rod runs right through…

— Maya Angelou

We really are 15 countries, and it's remarkable that each of us thinks we represent the real America. The Midwesterner in Kansas,…

— Maya Angelou

Of all the needs (there are none imaginary) a lonely child has, the one that must be satisfied, if there is going…

— Maya Angelou

The whites were really brutishly ignorant, blitheringly, so they killed people sometimes - just came into the African-American community and maimed people…

— Maya Angelou

I agree with Balzac and 19th-century writers, black and white, who say, 'I write for money.' Yes, I think everybody should be…

— Maya Angelou

Living in a state of terror was new to many white people in America, but black people have been living in a…

— Maya Angelou

Soft you day, be velvet soft, My true love approaches, Look you bright, you dusty sun, Array your golden coaches. Soft you…

— Maya Angelou

At one time, you could sit on the Rue de la Paix in Paris or at the Habima Theater in Tel Aviv…

— Maya Angelou

I, with millions of other Americans, have the same dream Martin Luther King Jr. had; when I wake up I wish some…

— Maya Angelou

A woman needs someone she can trust, someone who laughs when she laughs, but who has different ideas so she can learn…

— Maya Angelou

The first decade of the twentieth century was not a great time to be born black and poor and female in St.…

— Maya Angelou

I find in my poetry and prose the rhythms and imagery of the best - I mean, when I'm at my best…

— Maya Angelou

Oh, Black known and unknown poets, how often have your auctioned pains sustained us? Who will compute the lonely nights made less…

— Maya Angelou

Black people comprehend the South. We understand its weight. It has rested on our backs... I knew that my heart would break…

— Maya Angelou

The needs of a society determine its ethics, and in the Black American ghettos the hero is that man who is offered…

— Maya Angelou

“Black females, for the most part, know by the time they are ten years old that the world is not much concerned…

— Maya Angelou

If on Judgement Day I were summoned by St. Peter to give testimony to the used-to-be sheriff's act of kindness, I would…

— Maya Angelou

“The bright hours when the young rebelled against the descending sun had to give way to twenty-four-hour periods called “days” that were…

— Maya Angelou

When I cook for my family on Christmas, I make feijoada, a South American dish of roasted and smoked meats like ham,…

— Maya Angelou

My great blessing is my son, but I have daughters. I have white ones and Black ones and fat ones and thin…

— Maya Angelou

A black person grows up in this country - and in many places - knowing that racism will be as familiar as…

— Maya Angelou

It is imperative that young white men and women study the black American history. It is imperative that blacks and whites study…

— Maya Angelou

Black women have not historically stood in the pulpit, but that doesn't undermine the fact that they built the churches and maintain…

— Maya Angelou

I've still not written as well as I want to. I want to write so that the reader in Des Moines, Iowa,…

— Maya Angelou

The black kids, the poor white kids, Spanish-speaking kids, and Asian kids in the US - in the face of everything to…

— Maya Angelou

If growing up is painful for the Southern Black girl, being aware of her displacement is the rust on the razor that…

— Maya Angelou

I will not sit in a room with black people when the N word is used. I know it was meant to…

— Maya Angelou

The Black female is assaulted in her tender years by all those common forces of nature at the same time she is…

— Maya Angelou