Keeping the Union together, freeing slaves and being assassinated all added up to creating 'Lincoln the myth.' He overcame a lot of his own prejudices and became what many would consider the first black man's president.

The story of the African-American people is the story of the settlement and growth of America itself, a universal tale that all people should experience.

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.

My family and our neighbors and friends thought of Africa and its Africans as extensions of the stereotyped characters that we saw in movies and on television in films such as 'Tarzan' and in programs such as 'Ramar of the Jungle' and 'Sheena, Queen of the Jungle.'

Everybody wants to have sex - you don't have to have a baby when you're 16. You don't have to do drugs. I think our Sunday schools should be turned into Black history schools and computer schools on the weekend, just like Hebrew schools for Jewish people, or my Asian friends who send their kids to schools on the weekend to learn Chinese or Korean.

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.

For as long as I can remember, I have been passionately intrigued by 'Africa,' by the word itself, by its flora and fauna, its topographical diversity and grandeur; but above all else, by the sheer variety of the colors of its people, from tan and sepia to jet and ebony.