The bottom line is that Wanda Sykes has the longest continuously documented family tree of any African-American we have ever researched.

Well, certainly one of the ironies of the success of affirmative action is that the middle class within the black community no longer lives within 'black community' by and large.

So, Mexico, Brazil, they wanted their national culture to be 'blackish' - really brown, a beautiful brown blend. And finally, I discovered that in each of these societies the people at the bottom are the darkest skinned with the most African features.

The precise form of an individual's activity is determined, of course, by the equipment with which he came into the world. In other words, it is determined by his heredity.

Wherever you go in the history of America, there have been Black people making contributions, but their contributions have been obscured, lost, buried.

Instill respect for teachers.

You notice patterns. White guests often are mortified - that word again - when they learn their ancestors owned slaves. But I've never had a black guest who was upset to learn about white ancestry that probably involved forced sexual relations.