Some colored people so scared of whitefolks they claim to love the cotton gin.

The gift of loneliness is sometimes a radical vision of society or one's people that has not previously been taken into account.

Howard Zinn helped us desegregate Atlanta. That was moving because he took a lot of abuse for that. He and Staughton Lynd, a fellow professor who was also from the North, stood with us. They were certainly behind us. In fact, they often stood in front of us. This had a huge impact on me. But one of the reasons I was very careful about speaking about the relationship I had with him and Staughton was because, in a racist society, if you acknowledge a deep love for and a deep debt owed to white teachers, they tend to discredit your own parents and your own community.

I can easily imagine Obama sitting down and talking to any leader - or any person - in the world, with no baggage of past servitude or race supremacy to mar their talks.

To know is to exist; to exist is to be involved, to move about, to see the world with my own eyes.

Look closely at the present you are constructing: it should look like the future you are dreaming.

The Congo is really beautiful. People correct me and say, "Oh, you mean the Democratic Republic of the Congo." Well, fine. But, the land there, the landscape is extraordinary. It's big lakes and beautiful hills and trees.