I am really quite proud of most of the people I " know who have "made it," who do things to help people.

I am really quite proud of most of the people I " know who have "made it," who do things to help people.

You can never enslave somebody who knows who he is.

It's always intrigued me that amidst the group called slaves there were individuals who were extremely able, who were extremely colorful, who were powerful personalities, who by no means fit the usual images of slaves. They were people who, through their personalities and abilities, were very respected in the community where they lived by both black and white.

Indeed optimists rather than defeatists have produced the results for which serious genealogical research is best known.

When you clench your fist, no one can put anything in your hand.

I acknowledge immense debt to the griots [tribal poets] of Africa - where today it is rightly said that when a griot dies, it is as if a library has burned to the ground.