75 Inspiring Quotes To Celebrate Black History Month

February marks Black History Month, a time to commemorate and reflect on remarkable African American trailblazers who have left enduring legacies by igniting a desire for hope and change. In honor of Black History Month, we’ve gathered the most inspiring quotes from powerful Black leaders such as Toni Morrison, Frederick Douglass, and Martin Luther King, Jr. These leaders have shared thought-provoking ideas that have forever impacted us and continue to encourage us today. May these wise words about dreams, humanity, and freedom inspire you, influence you, and challenge you.

Quotes About Change

• “History has shown us that courage can be contagious, and hope can take on a life of its own. —Michelle Obama
• “The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression.” —W.E.B. Du Bois
• “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” —Nelson Mandela
• “You can’t separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom.” —Malcolm X
• “If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” —Frederick Douglass
• “Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” —Barack Obama
• “I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear.” —Rosa Parks
• “The time is always right to do what is right.” —Martin Luther King, Jr.
• “Freedom is never given; it is won.” —A. Philip Randolph
• “We will not march back to what was. We move to what shall be, a country that is bruised, but whole. Benevolent, but bold. Fierce and free.” —Amanda Gorman
• “Even in dark times, we not only dream, we do. We not only see what has been, we see what can be. We shoot for the moon, and then we plant our flag on it. We are bold, fearless, and ambitious. We are undaunted in our belief that we shall overcome; that we will rise up. This is American aspiration.” —Kamala Harris
• “The need for change bulldozed a road down the center of my mind.” —Maya Angelou
• “Dreams are lovely but they are just dreams. Fleeting, ephemeral, pretty. But dreams do not come true just because you dream them. It’s hard work that makes things happen. It’s hard work that creates change.” —Shonda Rhimes

Quotes About Humanity

• “In recognizing the humanity of our fellow beings, we pay ourselves the highest tribute.” —Thurgood Marshall
• “Hate is too great a burden to bear. It injures the hater more than it injures the hated.” —Coretta Scott King
• “If you wake up deciding what you want to give versus what you’re going to get, you become a more successful person. In other words, if you want to make money, you have to help someone else make money.” —Russell Simmons
• “Defining myself, as opposed to being defined by others, is one of the most difficult challenges I face.” —Carol Moseley-Braun
• “A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.” —Jackie Robinson
• “My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.” —Desmond Tutu
• “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” —Martin Luther King Jr.
• “It isn’t where you come from; it’s where you’re going that counts.” —Ella Fitzgerald
• “Character is power.” —Booker T. Washington
• “I don’t have a feeling of inferiority. Never had. I’m as good as anybody, but no better.” —Katherine Johnson
• “The soul that is within me no man can degrade.” —Frederick Douglass
• “We all require and want respect, man or woman, black or white. It’s our basic human right.” —Aretha Franklin

Quotes About Achieving Your Dreams

• “Hold on to your dreams of a better life and stay committed to striving to realize it.” —Earl G. Graves, Sr.
• “You can only become accomplished at something you love. Don’t make money your goal. Instead pursue the things you love doing and then do them so well that people can’t take their eyes off you.” —Maya Angelou
• “Have a vision. Be demanding.” —Colin Powell
• “Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.” —Langston Hughes
• “There are times in life when, instead of complaining, you do something about your complaints.” —Rita Dove
• “Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.” —Harriet Tubman
• “What’s the world for if you can’t make it up the way you want it?” —Toni Morrison
• “Never be limited by other people’s limited imaginations.” —Dr. Mae Jemison
• “I have discovered in life that there are ways of getting almost anywhere you want to go, if you really want to go.” —Langston Hughes
• “Whatever we believe about ourselves and our ability comes true for us.” —Susan L. Taylor
• “Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed.” —Booker T. Washington
• “Every time you state what you want or believe, you’re the first to hear it. It’s a message to both you and others about what you think is possible. Don’t put a ceiling on yourself.” —Oprah Winfrey
• “I was walking through [Harvard] Yard in the evening, and a Black woman I did not know was passing me on the sidewalk … She leaned over as we crossed and said, ‘Persevere.'” —Ketanji Brown Jackson
• “Education is transformational. It changes lives. That is why people work so hard to become educated and why education has always been the key to the American Dream, the force that erases arbitrary divisions of race and class and culture and unlocks every person’s God-given potential.” —Condoleezza Rice

Quotes For Overcoming Obstacles

• “I knew then, and I know now, when it comes to justice, there is no easy way to get it.” —Claudette Colvin
• “I am America. I am the part you won’t recognize. But get used to me. Black, confident, cocky; my name, not yours; my religion, not yours; my goals, my own; get used to me.” —Muhammad Ali
• “You are not and yet you are: your thoughts, your deeds, above all your dreams still live.” —W.E.B. Du Bois
• “You never cede control of your own ability to be successful to something called racism.” —Condoleezza Rice
• “If you are silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say that you enjoyed it.” —Zora Neale Hurst
• “Get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and help redeem the soul of America.” —John Lewis
• “I am not going to die; I’m going home like a shooting star.” —Sojourner Truth
• “He who is not courageous enough to take risks will accomplish nothing in life.” —Muhammad Ali
• “Just don’t give up what you’re trying to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.” —Ella Fitzgerald
• “One of the hardest things in life to learn are which bridges to cross and which bridges to burn.” —Oprah Winfrey
• “If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.” —Shirley Chisholm
• “Life has two rules: number 1, never quit! Number 2, always remember rule number one.” —Duke Ellington
• “I had no idea that history was being made. I was just tired of giving up.” —Rosa Parks

Quotes For Keeping Hope Alive

• “If you know whence you came, there is really no limit to where you can go.” —James Baldwin
• “Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise. I rise. I rise.” —Maya Angelou
• “Never forget that justice is what love looks like in public.” —Cornel Wes
• “Give light, and people will find a way.” —Ella Baker
• “Change will not come if we wait for some other person or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” —Barack Obama
• “If you fall behind, run faster. Never give up, never surrender, and rise up against all odds.” —Jesse Jackson
• “Hope is tenacious. It goes on living and working when science has dealt it what should be its death blow.” —Paul Laurence Dunbar
• “Truth is powerful, and it prevails.” —Sojourner Truth
• “There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.” —Nelson Mandela
• “Give light, and people will find a way.” —Ella Baker
• “You can kill a man, but you can’t kill an idea.” —Medgar Evers
• “Never forget that justice is what love looks like in public.” —Cornel West

Quotes About Learning From History

• “The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.” —Ida B. Wells
• A people without the knowledge of their history is like a tree without roots.” —Marcus Garvey
• I don’t want a Black History Month. Black history is American history.” —Morgan Freeman
• “We have to talk about liberating minds as well as liberating society.” —Angela Davis
• History, especially in certain places, is not a dead thing. It is a wonderful, almost holy experience.” —Kasi Lemmons
• “You can’t lead the people if you don’t love the people. You can’t save the people if you don’t serve the people.” —Cornel West
• “The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression.” —W.E.B. Du Bois
• “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” —Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Take a stand for what’s right. Raise a ruckus and make a change. You may not always be popular, but you’ll be part of something larger and bigger and greater than yourself. Besides, making history is extremely cool.” —Samuel Jackson
• “Sometimes history takes things into its own hands.” —Thurgood Marshall
• “When Black women stand up—as they did during the Montgomery Bus Boycott, as they did during the Black liberation era—earth-shaking changes occur.” —Angela Y. Davis