No white racist makes you get pregnant when you are a black teenager.

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.

It is the black poet who bridges the gap in tradition, who modifies tradition when experience demands it, who translates experience into meaning and meaning into belief.

If America has a civic religion, the First Amendment is its central article of faith.

All historians generalize from particulars. And often, if you look at a historian's footnotes, the number of examples of specific cases is very, very small.

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 brother and I had a really privileged relationship with my parents... They treated us like adults.