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A people without a positive history is like a vehicle without an engine.

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
Positive
History
Without
Like
People
Engine
Engines
Vehicle

More quotes by Steven Biko

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You are either alive and proud or you are dead, and when you are dead, you can't care anyway.
Steven Biko
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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
Steven Biko
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I'm going to be me as I am, and you can beat me or jail me or even kill me, but I'm not going to be what you want me to be.
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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The logic behind white domination is to prepare the black man for the subservient role in this country.
Steven Biko
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The oneness of community for instance is at the heart of our culture.
Steven Biko
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If one is free at heart, no man-made chains can bind one to servitude.
Steven Biko
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I think the central theme about black society is that it has got elements of a defeated society
Steven Biko
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It is better to die for an idea that will live, than to live for an idea that will die.
Steven Biko
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This is white man's integration, an integration based on exploitative values
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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The most potent weapon of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.
Steven Biko
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To a large extent the evil-doers have succeeded in producing at the output end of their machine a kind of black man who is man only in form. This is the extent to which the process of dehumanization has advanced.
Steven Biko
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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
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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Black Consciousness is in essence the realization by the black man of the need to rally together with his brothers around the cause of their oppression.
Steven Biko
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Being black is not a matter of pigmentation - being black is a reflection of a mental attitude.
Steven Biko
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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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The essence of politics is to direct oneself to the group which wields power
Steven Biko
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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.
Steven Biko