I think that even though we should always welcome allies within the four corners of the United States, we shouldn't limit our allies to the four corners of the United States. I think that would be a grave mistake.

I think that even though we should always welcome allies within the four corners of the United States, we shouldn't limit our allies to the four corners of the United States. I think that would be a grave mistake.

In order to better charge Moscow with human rights violations, the United States had to bend with regard to the more excessive aspects of Jim Crow. It had to yield to the insistent cries on the ground here in this country.

The Africans were oftentimes allied with the antagonist of the Republic. Now, you may want to step back and ask yourself why that might be. It may lead you to a reconsideration of the origins of the nation now known as the United States of America. As opposed to seeing it in the same vein as the French Revolution and the Haitian Revolution, you might see it in the same vein as the revolt against British rule in Rhodesia in 1965, and, if so, that might help to shed light on why conservatism is so deeply entrenched in this republic.

I shudder to think where we people of African descent would be without our allies in the international community. It's been our everything, quite frankly.

In the era of slavery, you could be a so-called Afro-Cuban one day and a so-called Black American the next day, or vice versa. I mean there was all this back and forth, and there was a lot of opposition in Black America to slavery in Cuba in particular, because slavery in Cuba lasted until the 1880s.

I think - particularly in terms of the destiny of Africans in North America - our destiny has also been shaped indelibly by global alliances.