There are two things that have always haunted me: the brutality of the European traders and the stories I've heard about Africans selling other Africans into slavery.

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.

Unfortunately a lot of people live like they are in a dream

I had a terrible education. I attended a school for emotionally disturbed teachers.

It was also my experience at Hull-House that aroused my interest in industrial diseases.

Do not fail, as you go on, to draw something every day, for no matter how little it is, it will be well worthwhile, and it will do you a world of good.

On the web, you are what you publish.

Dining is the privilege of civilization. . . . The nation which knows how to dine has learnt the leading lesson of progress.

On every formal visit a child ought to be of the party, by way of provisions for discourse.

You shall not dwell in tombs made by the dead for the living.

What kind of country is this where a woman can't weep her heart out on the highways and byways without being tormented by retired bill-brokers!

I'm slamming n***as like Shaquille, s**t is real When it's time to eat a meal, I rob and steal