Continuity

We are, all of us, the children of Africa. Where humanity took our first steps, made the first tools and artwork, and for hundreds of millennia afterward, continued to shape the course of history and culture. But colonialism, the transatlantic slave trade, and centuries of subjugation have separated many of us in the diaspora from our identities, our cultures. Our sense of home and belonging. Thankfully, many are the creatives and scholars who have reckoned with this rift. May their words give you a starting point in your journey home.

“In every crisis there is a message. Crises are nature’s way of forcing change—breaking down old structures, shaking loose negative habits so that something new and better can take their place.”

Susan Taylor, USA

“Birth is the only remedy against death.”

Unknown, Hausa

“Seems like God don’t see fit to give the black man nothing but dreams—but He did give us children to make them dreams seem worthwhile.”

Lorraine Hansberry, USA

“Our struggle is not just for today, it is for the memory of those who came before and for the future of those who will come.”

Conceição Evaristo, Brazil

“You go to school, you study about the Germans and the French, but not about your own race. I hope the time will come when you study black history too.”

Booker T. Washington, USA

“History must restore what slavery took away, for it is the social damage of slavery that the present generations must repair and offset.”

Arthur A. Schomburg, USA

“If you want to know the end, look at the beginning.”

Unknown, Africa

“History is a clock that people use to tell the cultural and political time of day. It is also a compass that people use to find themselves on the map of human geography.”

John Henrik Clarke, USA

“The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men”

Alice Walker, USA

“Until recently [even the well-educated in the West assumed] that [Africa was a jungle,] inhabited by savages and fierce beasts. [They hardly thought of Africa as the site of some of the first] great civilizations…”

John Henrik Clark, USA

Continuity

“In every crisis there is a message. Crises are nature’s way of forcing change—breaking down old structures, shaking loose negative habits so that something new and better can take their place.”

“Birth is the only remedy against death.”

“Seems like God don’t see fit to give the black man nothing but dreams—but He did give us children to make them dreams seem worthwhile.”

“Our struggle is not just for today, it is for the memory of those who came before and for the future of those who will come.”

“Prepare now for the solutions of tomorrow.”

“Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.”

“Our identity is our strength.”

“The beauty of our skin is a reflection of our strength and history.”

“Our color is resistance, our history is resistance.”

“You go to school, you study about the Germans and the French, but not about your own race. I hope the time will come when you study black history too.”

“A tree cannot stand without roots.”

“No man can outwit their ancestors.”

“However far a stream flows, it doesn’t forget its origin.”

“The worship of the black woman as the mother of the human race goes back to the dimmest antiquity.”

“There is no future for a people who deny their past.”

“History must restore what slavery took away, for it is the social damage of slavery that the present generations must repair and offset.”

“If you want to know the end, look at the beginning.”

“History is a clock that people use to tell the cultural and political time of day. It is also a compass that people use to find themselves on the map of human geography.”

“The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men”

“Until recently [even the well-educated in the West assumed] that [Africa was a jungle,] inhabited by savages and fierce beasts. [They hardly thought of Africa as the site of some of the first] great civilizations…”

“Black people’s grace has been what they do with language.”

“Our history is one of struggle, resistance, and overcoming.”

“Black resistance is a way of existing and persisting.”

“Belief in magic is older than writing.”