Martin Luther King would celebrate the symbolic status (of having a black president), but he would examine what the real substance was. And if he saw that poor and working people were not at the center of public policy, he would be deeply, deeply upset.

The greatest gift you can give someone is the gift of inspiration.

Love and trust and justice, concern for the poor, that's being pushed to the margins, and you can see it.

We are who we are because somebody loved us.

So more and more black folk tend to be well-adjusted to [Barack] Obama's presidency, but does that mean they're well-adjusted to injustice? Because we don't hear our president talking about the new Jim Crow, the prison-industrial complex.

Profound music leads us beyond language...to the dark roots of our scream and the celestial heights of our silence.

A fully functional multiracial society cannot be achieved without a sense of history and open, honest dialogue.