You have to have a canon so the next generation can come along and explode it.

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.

What did it matter if he existed for two or for twenty years? Happiness was the fact that he had existed.

But when a cut is deep, it’s still just flesh beneath.

Peace if possible, truth at all costs.

Art attracts us only by what it reveals of our most secret self.

Your writing", she said to me, "it's so raw. It's like a sledgehammer, and yet it has humor and tenderness. . . .

Since I was a small child, I was always writing either poems or plays... plays in which I had the starring part.

The rich are those who play to win. The middle class plays not to lose.

Hillary Clinton skated because she's running for president. She clearly violated the law.

We Dutch, we like to have an opinion, a strong opinion. We think we know everything better.

More important than anything else is for Americans to wise up to class warfare demagoguery and reject the politics of envy.