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You look at a clock and it tells you it's eight o'clock, you know the number of hours that has been before eight you know the number of hours you've got after eight. You can now measure your time to see if you can get done a number of things you've got to get done. History serves the same purpose.

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
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History
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More quotes by John Henrik Clarke

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The white woman has never had the co-equal status that the African woman has had.
John Henrik Clarke
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I think that you're just as close to Jesus if you use the equipment he gave you other than to call on him to do for you what you can do for yourself.
John Henrik Clarke
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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
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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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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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In the African matrilineal society, the lineage of the bloodline comes down through the female side. The Arabs who invaded East Africa and other parts of Africa reversed it to the patrilineal where everything comes down through the male side and the woman has no basic rights except that which the male is willing to grant her.
John Henrik Clarke
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Clowns don't build institutions, nor do boxers.
John Henrik Clarke
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This kind of collective society - giving to each according to his need - existed in Africa not only before Karl Marx, but also before Europe.
John Henrik Clarke
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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
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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
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The one thing you never integrate at the ruin of your own pleasure is your institutions.
John Henrik Clarke
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All life is a test one way or the other.
John Henrik Clarke
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Man's attitude towards the universe and his opinion of the universe predates the scientific probe of the universe.
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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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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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
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I make a special point of working on Thanksgiving Day. I have friends I go out with but I even make it plain to them. The standard reason for Thanksgiving doesn't mean nothing to me.
John Henrik Clarke
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Each generation must assume the responsibility of securing their manhood, their womanhood, the definition of their being on earth that in the final analysis is nationhood.
John Henrik Clarke
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Our concept of beauty is taken from Hollywood, which is anti-black. We don't see ourselves as beautiful in most cases. Although we are naturally one of the most beautiful peoples out there, we don't see it. We don't get the point. Hollywood sets the standards.
John Henrik Clarke
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We're in a world of propaganda. Some of it is all to effective.
John Henrik Clarke