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Merely by describing yourself as black you have started on a road towards emancipation, you have committed yourself to fight against all forces that seek to use your blackness as a stamp that marks you out as a subservient being.

Steven Biko

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Steven Biko
Age: 30 †
Born: 1946
Born: December 18
Died: 1977
Died: September 12
Activist
Civil Rights Advocate
Politician
Trade Unionist
Writer
Amsterdam
Netherlands
Bantu Stephen Biko
Marks
Seek
Fight
Describing
Started
Forces
Subservient
Fighting
Towards
Blackness
Force
Committed
Stamp
Use
Merely
Emancipation
Black
Road
Stamps
Mark

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The oneness of community for instance is at the heart of our culture.
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The logic behind white domination is to prepare the black man for the subservient role in this country.
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The system concedes nothing without demand, for it formulates its very method of operation on the basis that the ignorant will learn to know, the child will grow into an adult and therefore demands will begin to be made. It gears itself to resist demands in whatever way it sees fit.
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This is white man's integration, an integration based on exploitative values
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We are experiencing new problems every day and whatever we do adds to the richness of our cultural heritage as long as it has man as its centre
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Part of the approach envisaged in bringing about Black Consciousness has to be directed to the past, to seek to rewrite the history of the black man and to produce in it the heroes who form the core of the African background
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You are either alive and proud or you are dead, and when you are dead, you can't care anyway.
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The great powers of the world may have done wonders in giving the world an industrial and military look but the great gift still has to come from Africa - giving the world a more human face.
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A community is easily divide when their perception of the same thing is different
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The basic tenet of black consciousness is that the black man must reject all value systems that seek to make him a foreigner in the country of his birth and reduce his basic human dignity.
Steven Biko
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In time, we shall be in a position to bestow on South Africa the greatest possible gift - a more human face.
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It is better to die for an idea that will live, than to live for an idea that will die.
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It becomes more necessary to see the truth as it is if you realize that the only vehicle for change are these people who have lost their personality.
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Tradition has it that whenever a group of people has tasted the lovely fruits of wealth, security and prestige it begins to find it more comfortable to believe in the obvious lie and accept that it alone is entitled to privilege.
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I am against the fact that a settler minority should impose an entire system of values on an indigenous people.
Steven Biko
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In all fields black consciousness seeks to talk to the black man in a language that is his own
Steven Biko
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WOMEN must be at the forefront of nation-building to bring the South African citizenry together and, therefore, develop a whole new ethos of human co-existence
Steven Biko
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I would like to remind the black ministry and indeed all black people that God is not in the habit of coming down from heaven to solve people's problems on earth.
Steven Biko
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Sure there are a few good whites just as much as there are a few bad Blacks. However what we are concerned here with is group attitudes and group politics. The exception does not make a lie or the rule - it merely substantiates it.
Steven Biko
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The essence of politics is to direct oneself to the group which wields power
Steven Biko