When I was able to go to school in my early years, my third grade teacher, Ms. Harris, convinced me that one day I would be a writer. I heard her, but I knew that I had to leave Georgia, and unlike my friend Ray Charles, I did not go around with 'Georgia on My Mind.'

If I lead the field in any way, it is in the area of curricula development, study guides and other teaching materials.

Egypt gave birth to what later would become known as 'Western Civilization,' long before the greatness of Greece and Rome.

You have to convince the adults that if a child is to learn his culture, he or she will have to see his mother and father reading about it, and explaining it to him. Then it gets a legitimacy it otherwise would never have. Until then, his learning is limited.

I say if black people don't unite and begin to support themselves, their communities and their families, they might as well begin to go out of business as a people. Nobody's going to have any mercy. And nobody's going to have any compunction about making slaves out of them.

Slavery ended and left its false images of black people intact

Some of us say, "Lord knows how much I can bear". I think you can assume that you can bear more than you have a right to bear.