Any racial reconciliation we've had in this country has come not out of confrontation but out of a spirit of reconciliation. If we continue to practice an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, we'll eventually end up with a land of people who are blind and toothless.

What we forget is that African Americans made the largest contribution to America, economically, before the Civil War of any sector of society. I read that the railroads were worth about $2 billion, but slavery was a $3 billion asset.

Affirmative action is an effort to include every aspect of society in the decision making.

I wouldn't listen to my parents, but I found out that I absorbed. I never heard what they said - told me - but I did what they did.

We were trying to transform America, not triumph over white folk.

The man with courage is a majority.

The Soviet Union is going to have a human-rights explosion. You'll have hundreds of thousands of dissidents.