Black Quote by Cecile McLorin Salvant

Not that long ago - in my parents' lives, in fact - actors in minstrel shows wore blackface to mimic and mock African Americans.…

— Wayne Messam

I think when black performers performed in blackface, they were kind of taking back slave songs, but it was still a little bit iffy…

— Cecile McLorin Salvant

Blackface remains exoticist and offensive as a practice, not just because of its long tradition of being used to mock black selfhood, sexuality, and…

— Kevin Young

The climate in the '50s and '60s for black performers or black people in the entertainment business was atrocious. It was atrocious.

— Quincy Jones

I think that for the most part, black people specifically have sort of been used as props in TV shows as a way to…

— Lena Waithe

I think that's the core of black aesthetics: the ability to improvise. That is what has enabled our [black people's] survival.

— August Wilson

It's great to be black in Hollywood. When a black actor does something, it seems new and different just by virtue of the fact…

— Will Smith

A lot of great art comes from the Afro-American male experience. Black men are geniuses, and many times their desperation, their position as being…

— Ishmael Reed

I used to always say - and I think a lot of artists think of it this way - that when you see a…

— Kerry James Marshall

It's hard to find black roles that are just whimsical and fun and colorful. And I think, in many ways, that can be just…

— Amandla Stenberg

The gestures and the swagger and the attitude of black men is imitated everywhere in American culture, but people still find black men intolerable.

— Jess Row

The black artist is dangerous. Black art controls the 'Negro's' reality, negates negative influences, and creates positive images.

— Sonia Sanchez