In honor of Black History Month, let’s not only celebrate the groundbreaking accomplishments of black actors and musicians in Hollywood, but also take a moment to get truly moved and inspired. The past few years have been full of history-making moments and even more powerful speeches. Just last year, we witnessed How to Get Away With Murder actor Viola Davis make history as the first black actor to win an Oscar, Emmy and Tony for acting. And Atlanta director and star Donald Glover broke new ground for black directors, becoming the first black person to win an Emmy for directing a comedy.
From Oprah Winfrey’s rousing acceptance speech at the 2018 Golden Globes and Queen Latifah’s 2016 SAG Awards opening to Lupita Nyong’o and Uzo Aduba’s uplifting words about natural beauty, these quotes are sure to inspire confidence and light a fire in your belly to really take action and get what you want out of life.
Lupita Nyong’o
“What I’ve learned from myself is that I don’t have to be anybody else. Myself is good enough.” — Lupita Nyong’o backstage at the 2014 Oscars after winning Best Supporting Actress
Viola Davis
Viola Davis’ speech at the 2018 Women’s March in LA, alongside Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman.
Ava DuVernay
“[Do] not wait for permission. The key is: What do you want? If you want to be famous and have a big car and a fancy house, that’s a different thing. You have to ask permission for that. But if you want to make a film, say, and your reasons are truly for the experience of doing it and for the storytelling and the art of it, you don’t have to ask anyone.” — A Wrinkle in Time director Ava Duvernay to Real Simple
Jordan Peele
“We need to break boundaries, so every time I feel like, ‘Oh snap, oh my God, I don’t know how this is gonna be received,’ I also feel this validation, like, ‘All the greats, all my favorites have felt this.'” — Get Out director Jordan Peele to SyFy
Kendrick Lamar
“Life will put many red lights in front of you, but sometimes we must push on the gas and trust God.” — Kendrick Lamar
Queen Latifah
Queen Latifah’s speech at the 2016 SAG Awards.
Oprah Winfrey
“I want all the girls watching here, now, to know that a new day is on the horizon. And when that new day finally dawns, it will be because of a lot of magnificent women, many of whom are right here in this room tonight, and some pretty phenomenal men, fighting hard to make sure that they become the leaders who take us to the time when nobody ever has to say ‘Me too’ again.” — Oprah Winfrey accepting a lifetime achievement award at the 2018 Golden Globes
Rashida Jones
“You can’t invest in your looks as your only thing because it’s a depreciating asset. It’s like putting money into a stock that’s going down. Invest in your brain, invest in your talents. Those things can appreciate and they get better as you get older.” — Rashida Jones in a column for Glamour in 2014 after being accused of being anti-feminist
Denzel Washington
“Don’t be afraid to go outside the box. Don’t be afraid to think outside the box. Don’t be afraid to fail big, to dream big, but remember, dreams without goals are just dreams. And they ultimately fuel disappointment.” — Denzel Washington at the 2015 Dillard University graduation
Tracee Ellis Ross
“We as women need to change our gaze from how are we ‘seen’ to how we are ‘seeing.'” — Tracee Ellis Ross
Uzo Aduba
Uzo Aduba’s interviw with Harper’s BAZAAR in 2014.
Will Smith
“Greatness is not this wonderful, esoteric, elusive, god-like feature that only the special among us will ever taste. It’s something that truly exists in all of us.” — Will Smith
Donald Glover
“One thing my dad once said to me, ‘You either want to be right or you want to be happy. To be happy, there’s gotta be a conversation.'” — Donald Glover while making history as the first black director to win an Emmy
Tiffany Haddish
“Whenever I can, I always choose to laugh. Who wants to be around a bitter bitch? I don’t want to be that chick. And that’s why I think my life has turned out as good as it has. No matter how bad things get, no matter how dark life seems, there is a reason for it. There is a lesson to be learned. You can hold on to your light, and you can feel better.” — Tiffany Haddish in her book, The Last Black Unicorn
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
“The problem with gender is that it prescribes how we should be rather than recognizing how we are. Imagine how much happier we would be, how much freer to be our true individual selves, if we didn’t have the weight of gender expectations.” — Nigerian novelist, writer and public speaker Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in her TEDx Talk
Sterling K. Brown
Sterling K. Brown said about the most important thing he learned from traveling.
Roxane Gay
“This is what most girls are taught? — ?that we should be slender and small. We should not take up space. We should be seen and not heard, and if we are seen, we should be pleasing to men, acceptable to society. And most women know this, that we are supposed to disappear, but it’s something that needs to be said, loudly, over and over again, so that we can resist surrendering to what is expected of us.” — Author Roxane Gay in Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body
Beyoncé
“We need to reshape our own perception of how we view ourselves. We have to step up as women and take the lead.” — Beyoncé in her self-produced HBO documentary Life Is But a Dream
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