People who have been wronged will attempt to right the wrong; they would not be people if they didn't. They can rarely afford to be scrupulous about the means they will use. They will use such means as come to hand. Neither, in the main, will they distinguish one oppressor from another, nor see through to the root principle of their oppression.
James A. BaldwinAn American Negro, however deep his sympathies, or however bright his rage, ceases to be simply a black man when he faces a black man from Africa.
James A. BaldwinAny real change implies the breakup of the world as one has always known it, the loss of all that gave one an identity, the end of safety.
James A. BaldwinThere are, forever, swamps to be drained, cities to be created, mines to be exploited, children to be fed ... But the conquest of the physical world is not manโs only duty. He is also enjoined to conquer the great wilderness of himself. The precise role of the artist, then, is to illuminate that darkness, blaze roads through vast forests, so that we will not, in all our doing, lose sight of its purpose, which is, after all, to make the world a more human dwelling place.
James A. Baldwin