People don't realize what a brilliant politician Lincoln was. Looking back, we want to ascribe a level of providence to his every decision but he was a cunning and calculating politician; from the cultivation of his image as a hayseed from Illinois, to his ability to keep this country together under dire circumstances.

My father and I made genetics history. We were the first African-Americans and the first father and son anywhere to have their genomes sequenced.

Very few Black people ever embraced back to Africa movements, and very few actually, a tiny number actually went back to Africa. They said, "We are going to make America live up to the ideals of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States." They produced one of the world's great cultures; they produced individuals who were just as brilliant and made contributions to the world civilization. In fact, they produced a world-class civilization, the African American civilization, in music, in dance, in oratory, in religion, in writing.

I didn't feel particularly close to my father.

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

Ever since I watched 'Roots,' I've dreamed of tracing my African ancestry and helping other people do the same.

In America one drop of black ancestry makes you black.