Kekla Magoon Quotes

You're only responsible for your own actions. You can't control how someone else reacts to what you do. You made a choice. Stand by it.

The river moves, but it follows a path. When it tires of one journey, it rubs through some rock to forge a new way. Hard work, but that's its nature.

The river is motion, turmoil, rage. As the river flows, it wonders what it would be like to be so still, to take a breath, to rest. But the rock will always wonder what lies around the bend in the stream.

It's not that you said it. I care that you even though it.

People make mistakes. They look at the surface of things and see what they want to.

As a black man, you have to keep your head down. You have to keep yourself steady. You have to follow every rule that's ever been written, plus a few that have always remained unspoken.

It seemed like a backward step at first, but now I know going back was the only way to show how far I’ve come.

Anyone who can see will see you beautiful.

People who like things exactly the same aren't the ones who go out and change the world" -Styx

In the white newspapers, they use it against us. They make the Panthers look like we all just want to rip the throats out of some white folks for no good reason. We have good reasons, but we still don't want to do that.

Trouble ain’t met trouble till it crosses paths with us!

Half the point of a street name is to make yourself stand out from every other Tom, Dick, and Malcolm.

If you just play really hard, he says, nothing else matters.

My shoes dangle from my fingertips because, all things considered, barefoot is better.

I've never had a guy who's interested in the rest of me. One who likes to look into my eyes. To most guys, I'm just a round face, a double-E cup, and a pair of hippo hips.

I wish she would just look at me, look at my face and stop talking long enough to see me. To see that things are not right. That none of this is real and I am in some other place.

My moves are smooth. Always have been. I’m smart enough to see what’s coming, and clever enough to turn it my way. All my skills make me perfect for this. The street dance. The hustle.

I'm really good with problems. I can solve a differential equation in my head. I chew through trig angles like candy. I know this, and it just makes it worse. Because I don't know how to solve this one.

I glance through the rear window at the house. It amazes me slightly that it looks the same as it did, though it’s been gutted of so many valuable things. You wouldn’t know, to walk past that house, what it had lost. It looks as proud, and as firm, and as fancy as ever. As whole.

They spin away, always away. Too fast to understand, sometimes. They rush on, but we remain. They will come back, and we will still be here, as they expect us to be. We are the guardians. In between each small flurry, we rest. We breathe. Redeema raises her face to the sky. "My children," she murmurs, and the sound of it aches.

Like I always tell Will: If you dress like a hood, you will get treated like a hood. If you want to get treated like a man, you have to dress like a man. Simple as that. It's how this world works. It stops being about the color of your skin after a while and starts being about how you comport yourself. Inside, too, but mostly out.

I was leaning over him when he died. My hands on his chest. My palms felt his last breath move inside him. His chest rose and fell and then kept falling, like it could carry us both straight down through the earth. I didn't stop pushing, but I knew. Right then. I was breathing hard myself. My lungs probably took int he last air Tariq ever exhaled. It can't possibly be in me anymore, but it feels like it is. Like it's weighing heavy on my chest with every breath I take, even now.

there was always going to be a day that changed everything. Everyone has such days from time to time; it’s a fact of life.

I never wanted to be exceptional,” she whispered. “I’ve always been ‘exceptional.’ You know what that means? It means you’re an exception. There’s a rule, and you don’t fit into it. Everyone else has friends, and you’re the exception. Everyone else understands the world and how they fit into it, and you’re the exception.

Try as she might, she still couldn’t see herself as the fire, as  the daughter of shadows and light who could bridge the divides and pull everyone together. She was only one girl.

After growing up an only child, with few friends, she still struggled with the concept of operating in a group. It was so much easier to do things on your own. You just decided what you wanted to do and then went out and did it. Easy enough. But in a different way, having friends to help made things easier, too. It was more cumbersome getting started, but once the plan was in motion, many hands made light work.

What you’re doing ain’t fighting,” he said. “You call me up when you find the fire.

It was amazing really, how easy it had become to appreciate the simple things. Small, tangible things, like clean shirts and toothpaste. And the invisible things that were not so small to Robyn anymore, like laughter, and a brief moment of feeling completely safe, completely free.

Which was worse? Hurting Stick by doing nothing, or hurting Father by doing what I did? My head ached with my thoughts, all the memories of moments I still didn’t understand.

You can't be the rock and the river, Sam." "The rock is high ground...Solid. Immovable." "The river is motion, turmoil, rage. As the river flows, it wonders what it would be like to be so still, to take breath, to rest. But the rock will always wonder what lies around the bend in the stream." "I want to be both," I whispered.

was terrible to think that way. She knew it. The guilt swamped her as she packed her kit alongside the guys. They gathered in the launch pad to load the Clipper, the Light Blade’s shuttle. It would have them on the planet’s surface in a matter of minutes. “The Cloud Cat is away,” Colin reported, entering the chamber. “They’ve sent Gabriel, Carly, and Chris, surprisingly. It’s actually good, because—” “Wait a minute,” Anna said sharply. “Let’s not discuss them right now.” Colin smiled icily. He did not like being told what to do. That should never be forgotten. But he stood quietly as the surface crew packed into the shuttle. Siena, Ravi, and

we

But to stop the laughter meant silence. Silence meant thoughts, which meant remembering what had happened. So they laughed until their eyes stung.

Sometimes you don't ever find out what someone else is thinking.

I never imagined I’d be brought so low. Archie’s here to kill me, and there’s nothing I can do.

It was fine to fight when it was us against us, but it was about to be us against them. And that changed everything.

To look at us, to listen to us laughing, you’d think we had it perfect. But our circle is incomplete.

I can’t take it. I stop trying to tell them what’s what. They don’t know what it takes to get by in the city. They haven’t been where I’ve been. They can’t understand.

I’m sure you are, dear. But no one tells all their secrets to a person they’ve just met, do they?

The FBI nicknamed the program COINTELPRO, as a shorthand for "counterintelligence program." COINTELPRO originated in the 1950s, to prevent socialist movements from developing in the United States, and the program rose to new heights in the Black Power era. Even prior to Stokely Carmichael's first calls for Black Power in 1966, the FBI was organizing to undermine civil rights movement efforts. The Black organizations they labeled as "militant' included not only Stokely's SNCC but also the Rev. Dr. King's Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a group that never wavered in its dedication to nonviolent civil disobedience. Between 1963 and 1971, the FBI ran nearly three hundred separate COINTELPRO operations against Black nationalist groups, the majority of which targeted the Black Panther Party. The program's major goals were to: 1. Prevent the coalition of militant Black nationalist groups, as there would be strength in unity. 2. Prevent the rise of a "messiah" who could unify and electrify the movement, such as the Rev. Dr. King or Malcolm X. 3. Prevent violence, ideally by neutralizing movement leaders before they could become violent. 4. Prevent Black nationalist leaders from gaining respectability, ideally by discrediting them in the eyes of white people, Black people, and radicals of all races. 5. Prevent young people from joining the groups and increasing their membership base.

Common tactics employed by blacks, along with many white supporters, in this movement for civil rights included public marches and protests... Equally powerful was the movement's decision to respond to violence with non-violent resistance. White authorities publicly attacked black protestors, who refused to fight back. These conflicts, when captured on film and video, revealed the extent of the brutal hatred and racial violence black citizens had been enduring for centuries.

I'm not afraid... I'm awake to the way they think now... They have to have us in a box. They have to have us know they could shoot us. At any time.

they are getting all up in my grill!

Things of innocence should not spark rage. Things of innocence should not spark fear. Things of innocence should go on and on and on, until they end in something poignant, beautiful. Should go on and on, until they grow.

Saying goodbye usually means you will get to say hello again soon We shout it from the doorway from the street back and forth until we can’t hear each other anymore.

On the surface, she looked both ways before she crossed the street, because she never knew what was coming.

Everyone makes sacrifices. Dad’s voice in her head. The trick is to know for sure what it is you want most.

And she was supposed to be its leader. The knowledge settled over her like a soft blanket woven of fate. It was always going to end up like this. It was always going to be bigger than her alone.

OFFSPRING OF DARKNESS, DAUGHTER OF LIGHT GIFTING THE PEOPLE, BEACON IN THE NIGHT EMERGE AFTER SHADOWS, HIDING HER FACE HOPE OF THE ANCIENTS, DISCOVER HER PLACE BREATH BLOOD BONE, ALL ELEMENTS UNITE BLAZE FROM WITHIN, INSPIRE THEIR FIGHT SUN FINDS HOME, IN ANCIENT RUNE DEEP IN THE CRADLE, OF THE CRESCENT MOON

Dissatisfaction is the first step on the road to greatness.