There ought to be a robust, uninhibited conversation in black America with different black ideological perspectives.

We can't have a freedom struggle without free choice.

Courage is the enabling virtue for any philosopher - for any human being, I think, in the end. Courage to think, courage to love, courage to hope.

You can't talk about truth unless you talk about yourself.

I cannot be an optimist but I am a prisoner of hope.

I'm a bluesman, which means that I put an emphasis on the minor keys.

The condition of truth, is to allow suffering to speak. Which means attend to suffering of the least of these, of the orphan, the widow, the poor, the working people, the gay brother, the lesbian sister, the transgender, the black people.