When Black people seriously organize and take up arms to fight for our liberation, there will be a lot of white people who will drop dead from no other reason than their own guilt and fear.

Any Black person in amerika [sic], if they are being honest with themselves, have got to come to the conclusion that they don't know what it feels like to be free. We aren't free politically, economically, or socially. We have very little power over what happens in our lives. In fact, a Black person isn't free to walk down the street. Walk down the wrong street, in the wrong neighborhood at night, and you know what happens.

And if I know anything at all, it's that a wall is just a wall and nothing more at all. It can be broken down.

I hate war, and I hate having to struggle. I honestly do because I wish I had been born into a world where it was unnecessary. This context of struggle and being a warrior and being a struggler has been forced on me by oppression. Otherwise I would be a sculptor, or a gardener, carpenter - You know, I would be free to be so much more… I guess part of me or a part of who I am, a part of what I do is being a warrior - a reluctant warrior, a reluctant struggler. But I do it, because I’m committed to life.

In my case, spirituality has been important to me because at periods in my life there's been very little else that I've had going. I've actually needed to call on, to feel the forces of good in this universe to be able to survive.

There is a down side to everything if you don't understand what the consequences of what you are saying in your music you could possibly end up getting yourself killed or hurting other people because of your carelessness.

I worked, studied, mothered and continued to be an activist. I found that Cuba was much different from the US; its government was genuinely trying to erase racism.