Ability Quote by Kehinde Wiley

In the end, so much of what I wanted to do was to have a body of work that exhaustively looked at black American…

— Kehinde Wiley

Body and soul, Black America reveals the extreme questions of contemporary life, questions of freedom and identity: How can I be who I am?

— June Jordan

A lot of my work reflects the incredible influence that America has had on contemporary African culture. Some of it's insidious, some of it's…

— Wangechi Mutu

I think I was drawn to black culture by the same things that have been drawing the entire world to it since the days…

— Thomas Chatterton Williams

I think a lot about race and the burdens of representation. There's an idea that because I'm writing a book set around the time…

— Ayana Mathis

A key text for me is James Baldwin's essays. And, in particular, his essay Stranger in the Village. It's a text that I've used…

— Glenn Ligon

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

My writing has been largely concerned with the depicting of Negro life in America.

— Langston Hughes

My biggest inspiration is black America and what they've done in the arts. I have always felt like an outsider in America, and what…

— Hasan Minhaj

I find, in being black, a thing of beauty: a joy; a strength; a secret cup of gladness.

— Ossie Davis

“I write to breath life back into memory to remind African-Americans of our rich and textured history. I also see myself as a "root,"…

— Bernice L. McFadden

My work sometimes can be abstract and appear not to have a direct relationship to Afro-American concerns, but, in fact, it is based on…

— Donald Byrd