As we celebrate Black History Month we should be grateful for the achievements they made and inspired by their legacies to continue their work.

Regrettably, it has become clear that torture of detainees in United States custody is not limited to Abu Ghraib or even Iraq. Since Abu Ghraib, there have been increasing reports of torture.

Black History Month must be more than just a month of remembrance; it should be a tribute to our history and reminder of the work that lies in the months and years ahead.

Real lobbying reform must end the practice of corporate lobbyists writing our laws.

It is never too late to regain our credibility around the world.

We need a tougher enforcement program and, most importantly, we need to fix the badly broken ethics system.

The worst excesses of the Congress of the 1980s pale in comparison with what is going on in Washington today.

Over the past few years special interests have had a larger and larger say over who gets what in America, and the voices of average citizens are being shut out.

The poorest residents of the gulf coast were most affected by the devastating hurricanes, and the poorest Americans have shouldered a disproportionate share of the burden in Iraq.

What's interesting is there are $12 billion of breaks in the energy bill that passed, yet we see that the sixth major oil companies in America last year made $1.1 trillion.

Parts of the Voting Rights Act are due to expire next year if Congress doesn't extend them, including the section that guarantees that voting rights will be protected by the federal government.

If not now, then when?

If you don't have the support and love and caring and connection that you get from a family, you don't have much at all.

Every new fad or fashion at once has its denouncers from the pulpit, platform, professor's chair.

I'm sure a lot of people out there make mistakes.

Everyday you have to fight so that love for humanity can be transformed into concrete deeds, into acts that set an example, that mobilize.

I should not be judged by a standard that's not applied to everyone else.

I shoot my big mouth off; it just pops up! I have to learn to edit myself.

Love isn't material. It's energy... We experience it as kindness, giving, mercy, compassion, peace, joy, acceptance, non-judgment, joining and intimacy.

Everyone knows [George W. Bush] has no clue, but no one there has the courage to say it. I mean, good gawd, the man is as he always has been: barely adequate.

We're not blank slates. What we've done, what we've survived all go into us.