In the gun game, we are the most hunted. The river of blood that washes the streets of our nation flows mostly from the bodies of our black children.

As a matter of fact, compromise is what oppression feeds on.

I don't find inspiration on Wall Street. I don't find that in Beverly Hills. I don't find that in places where opportunity resides unbridled, and I think the real creative energy and the real juice is in where people are caught, in the economic abyss.

I think America offers a dream that cannot be fulfilled as easily anywhere else in the world as it could be fulfilled here. Although oppression was common to all of us, those styles of oppression gave us the opportunity to see the world in dimensions we didn't quite see growing up in any one place.

To really know what progress we’re making for children, we have to know how many children we have to begin with. The simple act of counting is an expression of a country’s intent to take care of its people.

When I was born, I was colored. I soon became a Negro. Not long after that I was black. Most recently I was African-American. It seems we're on a roll here. But I am still first and foremost in search of freedom.

Many who have nothing opposed to the few who have everything, and as long as these disparities remain, as long as these distances remain between people and forces, I think we'll be in a perpetual state of upheaval.