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People rise and fall on the basis of the makings of institutions.

John Henrik Clarke

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John Henrik Clarke
Age: 83 †
Born: 1915
Born: January 1
Died: 1998
Died: July 16
Historian
Writer
Union Springs
Alabama
John Clarke
Basis
Bases
Rise
Institutions
Fall
People
Makings

More quotes by John Henrik Clarke

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I think many times we charge the Lord for things we can do ourselves. If only we realized how well we have been equipped.
John Henrik Clarke
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In a collective society, everybody's business is everybody's business.
John Henrik Clarke
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What we might have been dealing with here - with the building of the Pyramids - is an age that got lost. Man had to learn again what they previously had known.
John Henrik Clarke
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My loving sister Mary has always shared the pain and pleasure of my heartbeat in a unique and special way. We have sung our sad and warm songs together.
John Henrik Clarke
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When the early Europeans first met Africans, at the crossroads of history, it was a respectful meeting and the Africans were not slaves. Their nations were old before Europe was born.
John Henrik Clarke
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Your group has a right and responsibility to preside over your behavior and you have a responsibility to make that behavior in a manner that does not endanger the group.
John Henrik Clarke
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In Africa, the woman was co-equal. In Europe, the woman was a vassal. To some extent, she still is.
John Henrik Clarke
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The African had opinions about the universe that eventually turned out to be true.
John Henrik Clarke
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To control a people you must first control what they think about themselves and how they regard their history and culture. And when your conqueror makes you ashamed of your culture and your history, he needs no prison walls and no chains to hold you.
John Henrik Clarke
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After the Moslem Africans lost control over Spain, they began to prey on the Africans further to the south. They destroyed the great independent states in West Africa, and subsequently set Africa up for the Western slave trade and the Arabs were in the slave trade before Islam and they are still in the slave trade.
John Henrik Clarke
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I don't attend any particular church now. I don't believe in denominations, nor do I believe in organized religion.
John Henrik Clarke
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My daddy wanted me to be a farmer feel the smoothness of Alabama clay and become one of the first blacks in my town to own land. But, I was worried about my history being caked with that southern clay, and I subscribed to a different kind of teaching and learning in my bones and in my spirit.
John Henrik Clarke
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I am a nationalist, and a Pan-Africanist, first and foremost. I was well grounded in history before ever taking a history course. I did not spend much formal time in school - I had to work.
John Henrik Clarke
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When I was able to go to school in my early years, my third grade teacher, Ms. Harris, convinced me that one day I would be a writer. I heard her, but I knew that I had to leave Georgia, and unlike my friend Ray Charles, I did not go around with 'Georgia on My Mind.'
John Henrik Clarke
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It is unfortunate that so much of the history of Africa has been written by conquerors, foreigners, missionaries and adventurers. The Egyptians left the best record of their history written by local writers.
John Henrik Clarke
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What example do you have of anything like the Pyramids outside of Africa? You have them in Mexico, but that can be traced to early African migration. So the African created mound culture.
John Henrik Clarke
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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
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Anytime someone says your God is ugly and you release your God and join their God, there is no hope for your freedom until you once more believe in your own concept of the 'deity.'
John Henrik Clarke
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I have no faith in much organized religion because I think it's by a bunch of hypocrites and practiced by a bunch of hypocrites. They don't mean what they say because all of them are in the slave trade one way or the other.
John Henrik Clarke
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You walk out in the street, we don't know if we're going to get across. It's a test.
John Henrik Clarke