African Americans

"Revolution within a modern industrial capitalist society can only mean the overthrow of all existing property relations and the destruction of all institutions that directly or indirectly support existing property relations. It must include the total suppression of all classes and individuals who endorse the present state of property relations or who stand to gain from it. Anything less than this is reform."

"Born to a premature death, a menial, subsistence-wage worker, odd-job man, the cleaner, the caught, the man under hatches, without bail-that's me, the colonial victim. Anyone who can pass the civil service examination today can kill me tomorrow. Anyone who passed the civil service examination yesterday can kill me today with complete immunity."

"Waiting for power to move to its inevitable collapse is suicidal for all concerned. Blacks and other Third World peoples have the very imminent prospect of genocidal tactics to contend with, and we can now all see that the modern industrial state, motivated by exclusive groups of capitalist masters, cannot regulate itself to make possible an inclusive production and distribution of goods, or production without a massive waste of resources and destruction of all that stands about. The debate ends, the action begins. It is not question of the necessity of violence, but of how to organize it."

"Top-heavy establishment organizations that exist openly are always a reflection of the men who staff them."

"The government of the U.S.A. and all that it stands for, all that it represents, must be destroyed. This is the starting point, and the end. We have the means to this end; the problem is to develop acceptance of their use."

"The debate ends, the action begins. It is not a question of the necessity of violence, but how to organize it to fit our unique situation, to tie it with flawless exactitude to our political activity, and to organize it immediately."

"Prestige bars any serious attack on power. Do people attack a thing they consider with awe?"

"The prestige of power as the subjective effect of a past deed or reputation, real or fancied, then has a very definite life process."

"Prestige stands between the masses and a revolt against their class enemy. The aura of magic, glamour, luster and splendid permanence covers the fascists like a protective layer of fat. The slimy scales of majesty shield and conceal the dilapidation of the old bourgeois reign of terror."

"The wiser you get, the more experience you have, and the more you see people for who they are as human beings, as opposed to figures you have to fight against."

"I think there's a time to work, and everyone has to kind of adjust. And then there's a time to relax, and be the mom or take the kids on vacation when you need to wind down. So it's a matter of planning, and being able to map out your year or your week or let's start with the day. It is just being multi-tasking and being available."

"I am lucky to have three daughters who are completely different. I look at my daughters and I have different relationships with all three and there are parts of each personality that are very special."

"You want me to defend the riches reaped from the super-exploitation of the darker races of mankind by a few white, rich, super-monopolists who control the most vast empire that has ever existed in man's one million years of History--all in the name of "Freedom"!"

"The good, the bad, the ugly, and the pretty, it all adds up to me. I honor my journey, all of it. Changing the past would mean changing me. And I like me, just the way I am. Why would I want to change anything? Depending on who asks the question, I occasionally throw a curveball with a deeper, more philosophical answer, along these lines: I’ve already changed my past, by turning poison into medicine, and by raising my life condition, which transforms my perception of the past. Our perception determines the way events affect us. So, when we change the way a past event affects us, we effectively change the past. In other words, since past, present, and future are seamlessly connected, a change in the present moment has the power to affect a change in everything throughout all directions of space and time. Every now and then, when I share this answer, I’m told that I sound like a Jedi master from Star Wars, so I don’t share it often. But I hope you enjoy hearing it."

"I have to admit, I learned a lot from her and the way she saw music. She would say something like, "Oh, don't play that chord that sounds like running water." Or, "That is too blue. Give me more green." My first thought as a music snob was, "Oh come on! I have to figure out what green or water means? Take some time and learn what a chord is!" That was my big mistake! It took me a few years to realize that if I could realize what she was saying by learning to speak her language, she was always right! She was always right and in a way taught me so much. Her musical instincts are absolutely impeccable. People like to say, "Oh yeah, she's got the great legs. She's got a great voice. She's a great singer and dancer. She is a great personality." They talk about the hair and everything else. Those are all true but the thing I have the most respect for is as a band leader and a record producer. Very rarely did she take a credit as a record producer but, I swear, she knew everything everybody was playing and she knew how to make it better! [...] I was so lucky to be around one of the major musical forces of the late 20th century! She truly is amazing!"

"Ike was often unpredictable in his actions and reactions, while Tina Turner only very rarely lost her composure even in her hardest times. For the band and all the other employees, she was always something like a haven of tranquility in the big thunderstorm."

"Standing up there next to her was the hottest place in the universe."

"She's a good-hearted woman in love with a good-timin' man. She loves him in spite of his ways she don't understand. With teardrops and laughter they pass through this world hand in hand, A good-hearted woman, lovin' a good-timin' man."

"In the beginning, we all depend on attention and affection of our mother or other caring people. Without love and care, we cannot survive. Without loving action, we miss the meaning of life."

"Beyond the power – you find the flower. Beyond the bound – you find new ground."

"What is life without a dream to hold? Take my hand and never let me go!"

"People often ask me when am I gonna slow down. You know what I tell 'em? I'm just gettin' started."

"King of the jungle, The lion he roars, But the lioness calmly Soothes his soul."

"Some of us are livin' in an earthly heaven, Lord, some of us are livin' in hell. Yeah, we're livin' in hell, Right here."

"A church house, gin house, A school house, outhouse On highway number nineteen, The people keep the city clean."

"There are two sides to everybody, A good side and a bad, A side to make you happy, A side to make you mad."

"We never, ever, do nothin' nice and easy. We always do it nice and rough."

"Sometimes I'm tossed and driven, Lord, Sometimes I don't know where to go. My mother and father won't own me, So I'll try to make heaven my home."

"When I think of soul, I think of grease 'cause ain't nothin' no good without the grease."

"Use your life for peace and goodwill. Keep on going until you climb the summit of your happiest dreams. I hope that what I’ve offered in this little book will be of service to you in your ascent to new heights of fulfillment. Thank you for letting me share my life with you. Thank you for opening your heart and mind to my words. I wish you well on your journey to joy, and I leave you with this final thought, my greatest wish and prayer for you:"

"On an even deeper level, the reason I happily and gratefully accept everything I went through in the past is because I believe every detail of my life is both my karma and my mission. We are all born with a mission, a purpose, that only we can fulfill. When you live with a joyful sense of purpose, when you infuse your life with a greater purpose beyond your individual self, every aspect of your karma can become a brilliant facet of your mission. You can transform sorrow and adversity of any sort into joy, stability, health, and prosperity. By changing poison into medicine and accomplishing your inner revolution, you can use every experience of karma to encourage others who suffer from the same problems that you overcame. You can become an ambassador of hope, an essential and radiant treasure of humanity, in which you recognize that all who have ever lived are members of your extended family. As you continue to spread light in this way, actively doing good in the world, that energy will come back to you in abundant positivity. When you refuse to perpetuate any bad that has been done to you, you can free yourself from the chains of negativity."

"My longest love affair has been with my audience."

"Let me say this carefully, because I don't want anyone to take it the wrong way, but after working so hard for so many years, I was ready to stop. This was the moment to do it because I wanted to finish with my fans remembering me at my best."

"My wildest dream was to have this kind of success – to pack a stadium, to walk out on a stage and look at the crowd, knowing that they came to see me. What a wonderful turn my life had taken. After so much unhappiness, after thinking that love of any kind would never be a part of my story, love was all around me."

"You have to be someone large on stage, not who you are in your everyday life. When I was performing, I believed that every song told a story, which I expressed through singing and movement. My audience wanted theater, and that's what we gave them. You start out not knowing who they are, or how active they will be, but you want to impress them. If they were quiet and they didn't move, then we had to work together, me, the girls, and the band, to pull them in and show them how to have a good time."

"I never said, "Well, I don't have this and I don't have that." I said, "I don't have this yet, but I'm going to get it." The way I was thinking, I was choreographing my own life, figuring out which steps to take and, more importantly, picking the right time to take them."

"Someone once asked me about the relationship between singing and chanting. I explained that chanting is not necessarily like singing a song, rather it's that moment when you find yourself making sounds from within – from your heart, from your spirit. Each person has a song inside. That is something I learned over time. You can find the hum inside of you that can give you peace when you are really down."

"There's always been an emotion in my voice because it reached back to the life I was living. Where there were tears on stage, it wasn't Hollywood, it was real."

"I was never glamorous. I was always a little rock 'n' roll and a little funky and all of that. I didn't care about being glamorous and all of that. I just loved the freedom that I had and I enjoyed the work and the band and all of that. That was the love. That truly was the love at the time."

"People think my life has been tough but I think it's been a wonderful journey. The older you get, the more you realise it's not what happens, it's how you deal with it."

"My greatest beauty secret is being happy with myself. I don't use special creams or treatments – I'll use a little bit of everything. It's a mistake to think you are what you put on yourself. I believe that a lot of how you look is to do with how you feel about yourself and your life."

"I am strong, I lived through a divorce, separation from my family, all kinds of hell. I never let it break me down. I'm not an alcoholic, I've never smoked, I've never done drugs. I've floated through the disaster of my past clean."

"I like me very much. When I look in the mirror and my skin glows back at me, I think, "Wow, that sure is pretty." I have a simple, childlike view of life, and I want to keep it. That's why I never got into that Beverly Hills world. So many pretentious people. They just aren't real."

"My work is noisy, but my life is quiet. I need nature and solitude — they nurture me. My idea of a vacation is reading a book on the terrace while my boyfriend cooks us dinner."

"Well, it was a church person in the early days, Mahalia Jackson. And Rosetta Tharpe. These spiritual, very strong voices. I only knew that they were figures in the black race, recognizable and respected. But I must admit, I've always covered the songs of males. I haven't followed up on women or listened to that much women's music."

"I will never give in to old age until I become old. And I am not old yet!"

"If you are unhappy with anything — your mother, your father, your husband, your wife, your job, your boss, your car — whatever is bringing you down, get rid of it. Because you'll find that when you're free, your true creativity, your true self comes out."

"I didn't have anybody, really, no foundation in life, so I had to make my own way. Always. From the start. I had to go out in the world and become strong, to discover my mission in life."

"As the first Black woman to fill a football stadium. That is a wish of mine. It hasn't been done. Janis Joplin did it for the White girls. I want to do it for the Blacks."

"We must do our part to prevent barriers from rising between one human heart and another. We must curb the trend of neighbors no longer knowing each other, while they seek a sense of shared identity with people elsewhere, perhaps even in other countries, separating themselves along racial, religious, or national lines. This fracturing of society is unsustainable. We all have a number of aspects to our identities. My identity has included many ingredients in this lifetime, including: daughter, sister, Baptist, singer, American, mother, Buddhist, actress, Swiss, spouse, and more. But the most important, core identity that I share with you and every other person on the planet is this: human. I believe that only by awakening to this shared identity can we save ourselves, individually and collectively, from the problems we face around the world. We must urgently work together to find solutions that can transform the global poisons of systemic racism and homophobia, climate crisis, pandemics, loss of the Amazon jungle, factory farming of animals, fossil fuel consumption, nuclear weapons, plastic pollution, and more. The universal solution to all of the problems confronting humanity is for us to unite as one global team, honoring our truest roots as members of the same circle of life. Uniting in this spirit is my hope and prayer for future generations."