It was not a matter of believing or disbelieving what I read, but of feeling something new, of being affected by something that made the look of the world different.

I was not leaving the south to forget the south, but so that some day I might understand it

Love grows from stable relationships, shared experience, loyalty, devotion, trust.

But the color of a Negro's skin makes him easily recognizable, makes him suspect, converts him into a defenseless target

Goddamnit, look! We live here and they live there. We black and they white. They got things and we ain't. They do things and we can't. It's just like livin' in jail.

It was not a matter of believing or disbelieving what I read, but of feeling something new, of being affected by something that made the look of the world different.

I knew that I lived in a country in which the aspirations of black people were limited, marked-off. Yet I felt that I had to go somewhere and do something to redeem my being alive.