We felt that the police needed a label, a label other than that fear image that they carried in the community. So we used the pig as the rather low-lifed animal in order to identify the police. And it worked.

When I founded the party in 1966, I had just turned 24.And each year, no, not each year, each day I live I've gained new experiences. Now the criticism is not to say the party did not play a positive part in those times, but, in order to be objective, we did not accomplish the things we set out to accomplish.

I do not expect the white media to create positive black male images.

I wanted to leave high school in 1958 and join the Cuban revolution. So the only reason I did not come to join [Fidel] Castro was because my mother would not let me. I was only 16.

A rather honored guest of the Cuban government, so I wouldn't experience the problems. I think it would take a black Cuban to really articulate this because I'm being treated in a very generous way.

There's no reason for the establishment to fear me. But it has every right to fear the people collectively - I am one with the people.

Any unarmed people are slaves, or are subject to slavery at any given moment. If the guns are taken out of the hands of the people and only the pigs have guns, then it's off to the concentration camps, the gas chambers, or whatever the fascists in America come up with. One of the democratic rights of the United States, the Second Amendment to the Constitution, gives the people the right to bear arms. However, there is a greater right; the right of human dignity that gives all men the right to defend themselves.