Now, Jews integrate but they don't destroy their institutions. They don't close the synagogue. They don't stop having special Jewish graveyards. They don't stop having special Jewish holidays. Why can't we understand that we can have things special to us and still comingle and integrate with others.
John Henrik ClarkeEach generation must assume the responsibility of securing their manhood, their womanhood, the definition of their being on earth that in the final analysis is nationhood.
John Henrik ClarkeAfrica is our center of gravity, our cultural and spiritual mother and father, our beating heart, no matter where we live on the face of this earth.
John Henrik ClarkeMy daddy wanted me to be a farmer; feel the smoothness of Alabama clay and become one of the first blacks in my town to own land. But, I was worried about my history being caked with that southern clay, and I subscribed to a different kind of teaching and learning in my bones and in my spirit.
John Henrik ClarkeAfricans 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.
John Henrik Clarke