The precise form of an individual's activity is determined, of course, by the equipment with which he came into the world. In other words, it is determined by his heredity.

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.

It's good to feel attractive on the outside, but being smart and confident on the inside is what counts.

If you keep taking an approach that continues to lead you over and over again to the same result, you just have to take a total new different approach to get to your desired result”.

At age 77, I need the help of someone with more energy than I can now summon to finish a book

We cannot give our children what we don’t have.

Prayer is God's appointed means for appropriating the blessings that are ours in Christ Jesus.

It takes truth, and it takes speaking truth to power, but because the stranglehold is so tight it seems to take something else - a real political threat.

The books are all very, very different so the publishers really had to be different too.

Intellectual prowess has its limitations. Thus, do not limit the scope of your learning to the realm of the intellect.

Unlawful desires are punished after the effect of enjoying; but impossible desires are punished in the desire itself.

Opera needs to be a total escape from real life. To relate to what we're going through today is fine and dandy, but it's really about being transported and completely swept away by a romantic notion.