Quotes about Identity

All I got to do is stay black and die.

Believe people when they tell you who they are. They know themselves better than you.

Never let white folks know what you really think. If you're sad, laugh. If you're bleeding inside, dance.

The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.

Seek the fashion which truly fits and befits you. You will always be in fashion if you are true to yourself, and only if you are true to yourself.

You may encounter many defeats. But you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats so you can know who you are, what you can rise from and how you can still come out of it.

Sounds came to me dully, as if people were speaking through their handkerchiefs or with their hands over their mouths. Colors weren't true either, but rather a vague assortment of shaded pastels that indicated not so much color as faded familiarities. People's names escaped me and I began to worry over my sanity.

This book is dedicated to MY SON, GUY JOHNSON, AND ALL THE STRONG BLACK BIRDS OF PROMISE who defy the odds and gods and sing their songs

They also told me how I got the name "My." After Bailey learned definitely that I was his sister, he refused to call me Marguerite, but rather addressed me each time as "Mya Sister," and in later more articulate years, after the need for brevity had shortened the appellation to "My," it was elaborated into "Maya.

Her husband remains, in my memory, undefined. I lumped him with all the other white men that I had ever seen and tried not to see.

During these years in Stamps, I met and fell in love with William Shakespeare. He was my first white love.

I made no attempt to wipe away the tears. I could not claim a forefather who came to America on the Mayflower. Nor did any ancestor of mine amass riches to leave me free from toil. My great-grandparents were illiterate when their fellow men were signing the Declaration of Independence, and the first families of my people were bought separately and sold apart, nameless and without traces — yet there was this: 'Deep River My home is over Jordan.