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Their words

Quotes on unity

87 quotes from the leaders of Africa and its diaspora.

“Raise your head, my brother; the days of servitude are over.”
Gamal Abdel Nasser Egypt
“Africa should have one identity, one nationality, one people, one currency, one army.”
Muammar Gaddafi Libya
“A people united, striving to achieve a common good for all members of society, will always emerge victorious.”
Sam Nujoma Namibia
“We must work together as a united people with one heart and one mind.”
Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah Namibia
“We need in every community a group of angelic troublemakers.”
Bayard Rustin United States
“African Unity is, above all, a political kingdom which can only be gained by political means.”
Kwame Nkrumah Ghana
“It is no less important that we know whence we came. An awareness of our past is essential to the establishment of our personality and our identity as Africans.”
Haile Selassie Ethiopia
“Africa has to open her doors to every Black man in the world. Until Africa sees it that way, she won't have made it yet, man.”
Fela Kuti Nigeria
“The wrongs of the past must now stand forgiven and forgotten.”
Robert Mugabe Zimbabwe
“Egyptian antiquity is to African culture what Graeco-Roman antiquity is to Western culture. The building up of a corpus of African humanities should be based on this fact.”
Cheikh Anta Diop Senegal
“The foundation of everything is unity. … we chose to think beyond the horizon of tragedy, and become a people with a future.”
Paul Kagame Rwanda
“Today, we all wear the jersey of Liberia, and the victory belongs to the people, to peace, and to democracy.”
George Weah Liberia
“I want to make the sport an interesting sport whereby all the human beings can run and together we can make this world a beautiful world.”
Eliud Kipchoge Kenya
“The reason for everything I do and how I do it is for one goal and one goal only, and that's the eventual unity of Africa.”
Burna Boy Nigeria
“Ivorians, from the south, the north, the east and the west, we have proved to you today that all of Côte d'Ivoire can live side by side and play together for one goal: the World Cup.”
Didier Drogba Côte d'Ivoire
“The Zairean experience is based on a political philosophy that we call authenticity. This is an awareness on the part of the people of Zaire that they should return to their beginnings and search for the values of their ancestors.”
Mobutu Sese Seko DR Congo
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
Martin Luther King Jr. United States
“In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.”
Booker T. Washington United States
“Democracy is not a state. It is an act, and each generation must do its part to help build what we called the Beloved Community.”
John Lewis United States
“…a victory for democracy in Jackson will be a victory for democracy everywhere.”
Medgar Evers United States
“Our black heritage must be a foundation stone we can build on, not a place to withdraw into.”
Colin Powell United States
“Africa is the cornerstone to the realisation of people's unity.”
Bob Marley Jamaica
“I believe that love is the most important thing we can take from life, because everything else passes. … Love! Love! Love!”
Pelé Brazil
“I must identify myself with Africa. Then I will have an identity.”
Fela Kuti Nigeria
“Perhaps oppression dehumanizes the oppressor as much as, if not more than, the oppressed. They need each other to become truly free, to become human.”
Desmond Tutu South Africa
“The whole human race had its origin, just as the ancients had guessed, at the foot of the Mountains of the Moon.”
Cheikh Anta Diop Senegal
“We have a Constitution we can be proud of, now let's make it work.”
Cyril Ramaphosa South Africa
“We have to be strict, but it is not a question of money. […] We must look for solutions all together.”
Samuel Eto'o Cameroon
“We are too great a nation and too grounded as a people to rob ourselves of our finest destiny.”
Bola Tinubu Nigeria
“We belong to Liberia first before we belong to our inherited tribes, or chosen counties.”
George Weah Liberia
“Seeing both leaders side by side for the national anthems was very special. I felt then that the Ivory Coast was born again.”
Didier Drogba Côte d'Ivoire
“All lives are sacred and must be protected. … I am calling on world leaders to come together and prevent the slaughter of innocent souls. Humanity must prevail.”
Mohamed Salah Egypt
“I know Amun helps me more than a million troops, more than a hundred thousand charioteers, more than ten thousand brothers and sons who are united as one heart.”
Ramesses II Egypt
“A return to authenticity is not narrow nationalism, a blind return to the past. On the contrary, it is a useful instrument for peace among nations, a condition for existence among peoples.”
Mobutu Sese Seko DR Congo
“But I was free, and they should be free. I would make a home in the North and bring them there, God helping me.”
Harriet Tubman United States
“We had to take a stand to at least let it be known that we want to be free regardless of the conditions under which we were living.”
Rosa Parks United States
“We recognize that we are collective agents of history and that history cannot be deleted like web pages.”
Angela Davis United States
“Our flag is red, white and blue, but our nation is a rainbow — red, yellow, brown, black and white — and we're all precious in God's sight.”
Jesse Jackson United States
“…when we say “All Power to the People,” we mean to convey a sense of deep respect and love for the people, and the idea that the people deserve complete truth and honesty.”
Huey P. Newton United States
“My family are very proud of me, but I am very proud of them and where they come from. I am proud that they come from Kabylie.”
Zinedine Zidane France / Algeria
“The forces that unite us are far greater than the difficulties that divide us at present, and our goal must be the establishment of Africa's dignity, progress and prosperity.”
Kwame Nkrumah Ghana
“I want peace. Happiness. Not only for myself. For everybody. If I get it for myself I can't have peace. When everybody has peace then I will have peace.”
Fela Kuti Nigeria
“God created us so that we should form the human family, existing together because we were made for one another.”
Desmond Tutu South Africa
“Now is the time to lend a hand. Now is the time for each of us to say 'send me'.”
Cyril Ramaphosa South Africa
“There is no segregation on who can own these shares. We want every human being living on the continent to be part of this action.”
Aliko Dangote Nigeria
“What is fundamentally beautiful is compassion for yourself and for those around you.”
Lupita Nyong'o Kenya
“I came to offer you a Ballon d'Or: it is the Ballon d'Or of all Côte d'Ivoire.”
Didier Drogba Côte d'Ivoire
“I've always said it's really important to give back and I try my best to give back what my people have given me.”
Sadio Mané Senegal
“In light of the sorry history of discrimination and its devastating impact on the lives of Negroes, bringing the Negro into the mainstream of American life should be a state interest of the highest order.”
Thurgood Marshall United States
“We must leave racial battle ground and come to economic common ground and moral higher ground.”
Jesse Jackson United States
“Jamaica has proven that we are the greatest sprint country.”
Usain Bolt Jamaica
“Nelson Mandela was one of the most influential people in my life. He was my hero, my friend, and also a companion to me in our fight for the people and for world peace.”
Pelé Brazil
“To be recognised by a whole country is incredible. … It's a message to everybody — politicians, the kids I grew up with, ordinary French people — about what can be done.”
Zinedine Zidane France / Algeria
“I hope you will catch the inspiration, grasp the opportunity to do something.”
Madam C. J. Walker United States
“We cannot be free until they are free.”
James Baldwin United States
“Hear ye, all persons! ye people as many as ye are! I have done this according to the design of my heart.”
Hatshepsut Egypt
“No community is beyond repair, and the dignity of a people is never fully extinguished.”
Paul Kagame Rwanda
“What democracy demands is that we do not resolve differences through force and repression. But we make allowance for the legitimacy of views that differ from our own.”
Bola Tinubu Nigeria
“Let's all keep running. Together, there is nothing we cannot achieve.”
Eliud Kipchoge Kenya
“We need to sit together and speak about it to make sure it is the first and last time.”
Didier Drogba Côte d'Ivoire
“…the real genius of Egypt has been one of peace… and its ambition has been to build not to destroy, to create not to annihilate, to coexist not to eliminate.”
Anwar Sadat Egypt
“Work, culture, liberty — all these we need, not singly but together, not successively but together, each growing and aiding each…”
W. E. B. Du Bois United States
“I know no national boundary where the Negro is concerned. The whole world is my province until Africa is free.”
Marcus Garvey United States
“On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.”
Barack Obama United States
“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.”
James Baldwin United States
“We should undertake to live as Africans. It is the only way to live free and to live in dignity.”
Thomas Sankara Burkina Faso
“The Congo's independence is a decisive step towards the liberation of the whole African continent.”
Patrice Lumumba DR Congo
“That until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned… the dream of lasting peace and world citizenship and the rule of international morality will remain but a fleeting illusion.”
Haile Selassie Ethiopia
“My appeal is ultimately directed to us all, black and white together, to close the chapter on our past and to strive together for this beautiful and blessed land as the rainbow people of God.”
Desmond Tutu South Africa
“I kept my culture. I kept the music of my roots. Through my music I became this voice and image of Africa and the people without even realising.”
Miriam Makeba South Africa
“The level of vaccine inequity that we see is appalling… We tend to forget that nobody is safe until everyone is safe.”
Samia Suluhu Hassan Tanzania
“Tonight, the CDC has lost the election, but Liberia has won. This is a time for graciousness in defeat, a time to place our country above party.”
George Weah Liberia
“Africa is home. Africa is where I was born… Africa is a small continent with a lot of energy and energetic youth.”
Eliud Kipchoge Kenya
“I don't want children to grow up the same way I did, with separations and borders and, 'We are all better than you'.”
Burna Boy Nigeria
“We invite all other Africans, all these oppressed peoples, to unite in order to face adversity.”
Ibrahim Traoré Burkina Faso
“…it's time for us to submerge our differences and realize that it is best for us to first see that we have the same problem, a common problem…”
Malcolm X United States
“We will only attain freedom if we learn to appreciate what is different and muster the courage to discover what is fundamentally the same.”
Thurgood Marshall United States
“Selma shows us that America is not the project of any one person. Because the single-most powerful word in our democracy is the word “We.””
Barack Obama United States
“We're not often taught their stories. But as Americans, we all stand on their shoulders.”
Kamala Harris United States
“I wanted to do it for my fans. Without them, I wouldn't have done what I've done.”
Usain Bolt Jamaica
“I am far from all those ideas, from this Front National. … Extremes are never good.”
Zinedine Zidane France / Algeria
“In this country, it's never been each person for themselves. No, we're all in this together. We always have been.”
Michelle Obama United States
“My humanity is caught up, is inextricably bound up, in yours. We belong in a bundle of life. We say, 'A person is a person through other persons.'”
Desmond Tutu South Africa
“I would unite with anybody to do right; and with nobody to do wrong.”
Frederick Douglass United States
“The legal system can force open doors and sometimes even knock down walls. But it cannot build bridges. That job belongs to you and me.”
Thurgood Marshall United States
“We want freedom. We want power to determine the destiny of our Black community.”
Huey P. Newton United States
“For Europe, for ourselves and for humanity, comrades, we must make a new start, develop a new way of thinking, and endeavor to create a new man.”
Frantz Fanon Martinique / Algeria