The details of our struggle to survive and prosper, in what has been a difficult and sometimes bitter relationship with a system of laws and practices that deny us access to the tools necessary for productive and industrious life, are available to any serious student of history or sociology.

Blacks have traditionally had to operate in a situation where whites have set themselves up as the custodians of the black experience.

I cried a river of tears but he was too heavy to float on them. So I dragged him with me these years across an ocean.

Suffice it to say, I'm not poor.

I write for myself and my goal is bringing that world and that experience of black Americans to life on the stage and giving it a space there.

I found out life's hard but it ain't impossible.

Jazz in itself is not struggling. That is, the music itself is not struggling... It's the attitude that's in trouble. My plays insist that we should not forget or toss away our history.