Africans in the United States must remember that the slave ships brought no West Indians, no Caribbeans, no Jamaicans or Trinidadians or Barbadians to this hemisphere. The slave ships brought only African people and most of us took the semblance of nationality from the places where slave ships dropped us off.

The first light of human consciousness and the world's first civilizations were in Africa.

A people's relationship to their heritage is the same as the relationship of a child to its mother.

When the early Europeans first met Africans, at the crossroads of history, it was a respectful meeting and the Africans were not slaves. Their nations were old before Europe was born.

In Africa, the woman was co-equal. In Europe, the woman was a vassal. To some extent, she still is.

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 think that Jesus-dependency has taken over our minds, and too many of our institutions.