Brazil is the second blackest nation in the world.

There's a boom in genealogy now. With ancestry.com and other sites digitizing so many of the records, you can now find things in a few minutes that used to take months.

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

Where do real conversations about citizenship occur? In our schools. Think about the things you learned in first grade. "My Country 'Tis of Thee," "I pledge allegiance to the flag," "America the Beautiful."

The truth is I would do my job for free! I love it every day. If you can possibly choose a vocation that's an avocation, a job that's really a hobby, then you'll be way ahead of the game.

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

You had one guy who was a slave, and another who wasn't. And I actually know what happened to them. [Juan ] Garrido ended up getting good jobs and a pension in Mexico which was the center of New Spain, as it was called. Esteban ended up being killed by the Zuni Indians.