QUOTES: Black History Month

This week on Curious Quotes, Points To Ponder, & Inspiring Insights, I offer a collection of five brand new slides in honor of February and Black History Month. Read on for inspiration from African-American pioneers Dr. Mae Jemison, Frederick Douglass, Jesse Owens, Shirley Chisholm, and Harriett Tubman. 

As a lover of space, I felt obligated to begin this week with this quote from Dr. Mae Jemison who was the first African-American woman to travel into space. Dr. Jemison served as a mission specialist about the Space Shuttle Endeavour in September of 1992. I wanted to use a photo of Dr. Jemison floating in space. The image does not offer a lot of blank canvas to work with which is why I moved the quote to the bottom and added her name at the top. I used the Nasalization font inspired by the NASA worm logo font. I also used a shadow to make the text more visible. 

Abolitionist Leader, Frederick Douglass tells us that in order for us to progress then there must be struggle. Moving forward is not easy and requires effort. I cropped this image to the 1920 x 1080 canvas size from this original image. I used the Bebas Neue font because it is both tall and narrow which allows you to put a lot of text in a small space. Notice that I also added an extra space after IS on lines 1 and 3. This is a little thing, but I think it gives a cleaner look. I also wanted the parallel construction of the phrase THERE IS. 

I love this photo of Jesse Owens from the 1936 Berlin Olympics during which he is credited as "single handedly crushing Hitler's myth of Aryan supremacy." It really seems like he is in the act of taking flight. The crowd in the background presented an interesting challenge. A simple solution was to use the text highlight to make the text stand out. Like the slide before, I manipulated the ending of each line to emphasize the punctuation. I love this quote because Owens emphasizes that making dreams come true is the act of hard work. Dream making is not a passive thing. 

Shirley Chisholm was the first African-American woman elected to the U.S. Congress and served for seven terms from 1969 to 1983. In 1972, she became the first woman to run for the Democratic Party's nomination for president and the first black candidate to run for nomination for President of the United States. In many of the photos of Shirley Chisholm available online, there is this look of indignation that makes me wonder what was being said. This quote emphasizes the importance of being a part of the conversation when decisions are being made and the value of inserting yourself into these positions even when not invited. Here we see Chisholm seated at the table. I like that the tabletop provided a canvas for the quote. 

We end this collection of quotes with one from Harriett Tubman about the power that dreamers possess. This images of Tubman are often cropped to only headshots. I wanted to use this full-sized image, and as a result, I found myself defaulting to the classic photo with a quote next to it layout. I initially had the photo on the left side of the slide, but eventually realized that it worked much better to have it on the right.

Thanks for reading this week's collection of quotes and my thinking about the design. I plan to come back to the topic Black History later in the month. If there are quotes or individuals that you think should be included, please let me know. I am happy to create a slide based on your requests.