Quotes About Empowerment

Her new life required a different sort of strength. She was meticulous in her posture, a walking spear, in the manner of those who'd been made to bend and will bend no more.

Get them off the plantation and they learned to read, it was a disease.

Time enough for Cora to take stock of her journey from Randall and make a thick braid of her misfortunes.

Liberty make a body fertile," Georgina said. That, and the knowledge they will not be sold, Cora added.

But if he didn't read, he was a slave.

We must believe in our souls that we are somebody, that we are significant, that we are wonderful, and we must walk the streets of life every day with this sense of dignity and this sense of somebody-ness

Because to walk around with that in your mind and do nothing was to die.

The boy made a fist. He knew what he'd do if the man put his hand on his leg or tried to touch his thing. He'd vowed to sock Freddie Rich in the face many times and then stood paralyzed when the time came, but this day he felt he could actually do it. Drawing strength from the free world.

Her price fluctuated. When you are sold that many times, the world is teaching you to pay attention.

A free black walks different than a slave," he said. "White people recognize it immediately, even if they don't know it. Walks different, talks different, carries himself different. It's in the bones.

The negro's story may have started in this country with degradation, but triumph and prosperity would be his one day.

Black hands built the White House

She was surrounded by men and women who'd been born in Africa, or born in chains, who had freed themselves or escaped. Branded, beaten, raped. Now they were here. They were free and black and stewards of their own fates. It made her shiver.

If two women were a flaw, what was a community?

It was the last time he raised his hand. The way he saw it, living taught you that you didn't have to live the way you'd been taught to live. You came from one place but more important was where you decided to go.

The way he saw it, living taught you that you didn't have to live the way you've been taught to live. You came from one place but more important was where you decided to go.

She wanted to tell him so mach, on the tarmac, the day he left. The world is run by brutal men and the surest proof is their armies. If they ask you to stand still, you should dance. If they ask you to burn the flag, wave it. If they ask you to murder, re-create.

If they ask you to stand still, you should dance.

Pain is not wat you get, it is wat you give.

The conspiracy of women. We are in it together, make no mistake.

People think they know the mystery of living in your skin. They don't. There's no one knows except the person who carts it around her own self.

She wanted to tell him so much, on the tarmac, the day he left. The world is run by brutal men and the surest proof is their armies. If they ask you to stand still, you should dance. If they ask you to burn the flag, wave it. If they ask you to murder, re-create. Theorem, anti-theorem, corollary, anti-corollary. Underline it twice. It's all there in the numbers. Listen to your mother. Listen to me, Joshua. Look me in the eyes. I have something to tell you.

Pain's nothing. Pain's what you give, not what you get.

And what is it we give our children anyway, except the ability to not become us?