My main point here is that if you are the child of God and God is a part of you, the in your imagination God suppose to look like you. And when you accept a picture of the deity assigned to you by another people, you become the spiritual prisoners of that other people. John Henrik Clarke
A good teacher, like a good entertainer first must hold his audience's attention, then he can teach his lesson. John Henrik Clarke
Malcolm X found the language that communicated across the board, from college professor to floor sweeper, all at the same time, without demeaning the intellect of either. John Henrik Clarke
All the working-class people could feel a Malcolm X. They could hear Malcolm X, and two weeks later they could whisper back what he said. Verbatim. They could remember the way he put it, and he put it so well. John Henrik Clarke
Nothing the European mind ever devised was meant to do anything but to facilitate the European's control over the world. John Henrik Clarke
The people and the cultures of what is known as Africa are older than the word 'Africa.' According to most records, old and new, Africans are the oldest people on the face of the earth. The people now called Africans not only influenced the Greeks and the Romans, they influenced the early world before there was a place called Europe.John Henrik Clarke
The first light of human consciousness and the world's first civilizations were in Africa. John Henrik Clarke
Anytime you turn on your own concept of God, you are no longer a free man. No one needs to put chains on your body, because the chains are on your mind. John Henrik Clarke
A people's relationship to their heritage is the same as the relationship of a child to its mother. John Henrik Clarke
To hold a people in oppression you have to convince them first that they are supposed to be oppressed. John Henrik Clarke
Religion is the organization of spirituality into something that became the hand maiden of conquerors. Nearly all religions were brought to people and imposed on people by conquerors, and used as the framework to control their minds. John Henrik Clarke
If I lead the field in any way, it is in the area of curricula development, study guides and other teaching materials. John Henrik Clarke
I question the political judgement of those who would have the nerve to paint Christ white with his obvious African nose, lips and wooly hair. John Henrik Clarke
There was a time when all dark-skinned people were called Ethiopians, for the Greeks referred to Africa as, 'The Land Of The Burnt-Face People.' John Henrik Clarke
Africa and its people are the most written about and the least understood of all of the world's people. This condition started in the 15th and the 16th centuries with the beginning of the slave trade system. The Europeans not only colonialized most of the world, they began to colonialize information about the world and its people. John Henrik Clarke
Africans in the United States must remember that the slave ships brought no West Indians, no Caribbeans, no Jamaicans or Trinidadians or Barbadians to this hemisphere. The slave ships brought only African people and most of us took the semblance of nationality from the places where slave ships dropped us off. John Henrik Clarke
What I have learned is that a whole lot of people with degrees don't know a damn thing, and a lot of people with no degrees are brilliant. John Henrik Clarke
I saw no African people in the printed and illustrated Sunday school lessons. I began to suspect at this early age that someone had distorted the image of my people. My long search for the true history of African people the world over began. John Henrik Clarke
Powerful people cannot afford to educate the people that they oppress, because once you are truly educated, you will not ask for power. You will take it. John Henrik Clarke
The first four months of writing the book, my mental image is scratching with my hands through granite. My other image is pushing a train up the mountain, and it's icy, and I'm in bare feet. Mary Higgins Clark