The most ironic outcome of the black Civil Rights movement has been the creation of a new black middle class which is increasingly separate from the black underclass.

Censorship is to art as lynching is to justice.

There are just so many stories that are buried on family trees.

Like the amazing story of Anthony Johnson. This man was a slave, then became free, accumulated 250 acres, and even had his own slave, a black man who took him to court in Virginia in 1654.That man argued that he should be freed like an indentured servant. But Johnson, who we believe was a pure African from Angola, said, "No way, you're my slave." And the court agreed.

Each individual has a responsibility to get out of bed, learn their ABCs, learn your math tables, not use race and racism as an excuse.

I want to get into the educational DNA of American culture. I want 10 percent of the common culture, more or less, to be black.

You have a diasporic black world, and the only way to put it back together again is symbolic. It's like Humpty Dumpty. Whoever could edit the 'Encyclopedia Africana' would provide symbolic order to the fragments created over the past 500 years. That is a major contribution.