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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
Engines
Vehicle
Positive
History
Without
Like
People
Engine

More quotes by 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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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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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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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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In time, we shall be in a position to bestow on South Africa the greatest possible gift - a more human face.
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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I think the central theme about black society is that it has got elements of a defeated society
Steven Biko
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Black Consciousness therefore takes cognizance of the deliberateness of God's plan in creating Black people black.
Steven Biko
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What Black Consciousness seeks to do is to produce real black people who do not regard themselves as appendages to white society. We do not need to apologise for this because it is true that the white systems have produced through the world a number of people who are not aware that they too are people.
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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Change the way people think and things will never be the same
Steven Biko
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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 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 logic behind white domination is to prepare the black man for the subservient role in this country.
Steven Biko
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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.
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
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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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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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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