What has been imposed on religion is not religion itself but the custom of those who have been converted to it. I think that the most atrocious of all of this is Islam. They were in the slave trade before Islam. The Arabs were natural slave traders. They were the people who were called on to conquer us, unfortunately.

When people laugh at your institutions and convince you that you have to adopt theirs - adopt their dress, adopt their taste in food - you are a prisoner to those people.

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.

You walk out in the street, we don't know if we're going to get across. It's a test.

Every form of true education trains the student in self-reliance

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.

Service is the highest form of prayer as far as I am concerned.