If I hadn't been so outspoken, Jimmy Carter wouldn't have wanted me.

I wasn't predicted to be anything. I just followed an inner spirit, and it put me in the right place and the right time. I didn't want to be the mayor of Atlanta. I didn't want to run for Congress. I didn't want to work for Martin Luther King Jr. I wanted to work close to him and be a writer and write about the movement.

No nation as rich as ours should have so many people isolated on islands of poverty in such a sea of material wealth.

President Jimmy Carter was a citizen soldier. Ironically, he was considered weak because he didn't kill anybody and he didn't get anyone killed.

There is a sense in which the United States Ambassador speaks to the United States, as well as for the United States. I have always seen my role as a thermostat, rather than a thermometer. So I'm going to be actively working... for my own concerns. I have always had people advise me on what to say, but never on what not to say.

We think it is complicated to change the world. Change comes little by little. Nothing worthwhile can happen in one generation.

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