You can say I had a severe case of 'Roots' envy. I wanted to be like Alex Haley, and I wanted to be able to... do my family tree back to the slave ship and then reverse the Middle Passage, as I like to put it, and find the tribe or ethnic group that I was from in Africa.

I think that we need more economic-based solutions to the problems afflicting the Black community, and I think that that's a way to redefine affirmative action. I grew up with poor white people in West Virginia, and I know there's a culture of poverty. I know that I've seen white people perform exactly the same pathological forms of behavior as Black people do when they're systematically deprived, whether it's getting pregnant, doing drugs, dropping out of school, whatever we're talking about. I think that we should have affirmative action for poor white people too.

Remember, I have a Ph.D. in English literature.

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.

The first slave to read and write was the first to run away.

It turns out one of my ancestors fought in the Continental Army, so I was inducted into the Sons of the American Revolution.

It's fascinating how life works.