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.

I think it's wrong for North America in particular, the West in general to make a comparison between the economic situation in Cuba and the extraordinarily developed industrial complex of North America.

I always said this and the people think it's a cute answer, but I say we have always been in the system and that's why we fight because we don't like the system. We are trying to transform it.

I think it's absurd to talk about - one time you were outside the system, now you are in the system - no, we fight, the cause of the fight is because the system is bad that we can't get out of it.

There is a very strong socialist movement in Jamaica. I was in Jamaica years ago. All the talk, all day they talk politics. The literacy rate is very low. Everyone is so interested in politics, more than those who can read in the United States.

I worked in the mechanical factories repairing cement trucks. The Cuban government wanted me to work in the university as a teacher in literature, but I declined because I wanted a more sense of the countryside.

Black Power is giving power to people who have not had power to determine their destiny.