Turning against the church I also had to turn against a lot of the teachings of people in my family who were very much of the church and caught in it, and every time I turned to find where resides the good in the church, all I saw was the demonic, the Lucifer of the journey.

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.

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.

In my earliest of years, my mother was a huge force in my life. She was for all intents and purposes, a single parent. My father had abandoned us. He was an alcoholic and a physical abuser. My mother lived through that tyranny and made her living as a domestic worker. She was uneducated but she brought high principles and decent values into our existence, and she set lofty goals for herself and for her children. We were forever inspired by her strength and by her resistance to racism and to fascism.

I think being born in America and growing up exclusively within the American boundaries of race and race oppression is a very different experience for those of us who grew up under the boundaries of race and race experience in the Caribbean or for those who grew up in Africa.

If I've impacted on one heart, one mind, one soul, and brought to that individual a greater truth than that individual came into a relationship with me having, then I would say that I have been successful.

When I go across the country, whether it's Albuquerque, New Mexico, whether it's Birmingham, Alabama or Milwaukee, Wisconsin, there are always forces at play that I choose to relate to and extract inspiration from, and as long as they stay committed to the struggle against poverty, I find a role for myself.