Most black leaders, whether left, right or center, from Frederick Douglas and Martin Delaney on in the middle of the 19th century have not even wondered about the merits of the capitalist system.

In America there is institutional racism that we all inherit and participate in, like breathing the air in this room - and we have to become sensitive to it.

The story of the African-American people is the story of the settlement and growth of America itself, a universal tale that all people should experience.

The first step toward tolerance is respect and the first step toward respect is knowledge.

The thing about black history is that the truth is so much more complex than anything you could make up.

In Ethiopia, the black people became Christians 1700 years ago, hundreds of years before Northern Europe turned to Christianity... And here, most of the saints are black.

We can revolutionize the attitude of inner city brown and black kids to learning. We need a civil rights movement within the African-American community.

I want to be a figure for prison reform. I think that the criminal justice system is rotten.

Censorship is to art as lynching is to justice.

Wherever you go in the history of America, there have been Black people making contributions, but their contributions have been obscured, lost, buried.

Well, certainly one of the ironies of the success of affirmative action is that the middle class within the black community no longer lives within 'black community' by and large.

As a well spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death.

If you love yourself, you will be happy because you will always have your own company and attention

Reading books in one's youth is like looking at the moon through a crevice

The nearer we come to great men the more clearly we see that they are only men. They rarely seem great to their valets.

Although my Dad was a talented calligrapher and both of my younger brothers were successful, I was the first one in my family to graduate from high school.

Kaoru: Grownups are so tiresome. They fake their smiles all day long and they try to force us to do the same. It's no fun at all.

Being a celebrity is probably the closest to being a beautiful woman as you can get.

I guess I've learned more from the Clearwater than anything else. All I did was help to plant a seed, and I didn't know what the hell I was doing.

We are most probably here for local information-gathering and local-Universe problem-solving in support of the integrity of eternally regenerative Universe.

We are always complaining that our days are few, and acting as though there would be no end to them.