I'm a bluesman moving through a blues-soaked America, a blues-soaked world, a planet where catastrophe and celebration... "Joy and Pain" - sit side by side. The blues started off in some field, in some plantation, in some mind, in some imagination, in some heart. The blues blew over to the next plantation, and then the next state. The blues went south to north, got electrified and even sanctified. The blues got mixed up with jazz and gospel and rock and roll.

Martin Luther King was a radical democrat, by which I mean someone who is a foe of wealth inequality.

I'm black, so, you know, I'm again with black folk, but it's a love that spills over to vanilla suburbs and red reservations and brown barrios and yellow slices.

I had a passion and love of learning and wisdom that was inseparable from a love of music and the arts. I've never viewed them in any way as being separable.

None of us alone can save the nation or the world. But each of us can make a positive difference if we commit ourselves to do so. (p. 109)

The evil is so ubiquitous in terms of objectification of all of us, that one can say that almost about any TV and even radio show.

The country is in deep trouble. We've forgotten that a rich life consists fundamentally of serving others, trying to leave the world a little better than you found it. We need the courage to question the powers that be, the courage to be impatient with evil and patient with people, the courage to fight for social justice. In many instances we will be stepping out on nothing, and just hoping to land on something. But that's the struggle. To live is to wrestle with despair, yet never allow despair to have the last word.