If you don't tell your stories, other people will tell their story about you. It's important that we nurture and protect these memories. Things change. Existence means change.

Everything my mother and father did was designed to put me where I am.

I want to be a figure for prison reform. I think that the criminal justice system is rotten.

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 many people of color who made major contributions to American history have been trapped in the purgatory of history.

I got a letter from this lady of Russian and Jewish descent. She asked me if I was a racist because I didn't do any White people. I was shocked, because my mandate is to do Black studies. It would have never occurred to me if this lady hadn't written this letter. We decided we were going expand the brand and do everybody.

Politicians will not put forth programs aimed at the problems of poor blacks while their turnout remains so low.