In a collective society, everybody's business is everybody's business.

We never see ourselves as heroes and sometimes when we do it is a hero that has made a fortune as a clown or a boxer. And there is no lasting value in either one of those.

I am a nationalist, and a Pan-Africanist, first and foremost. I was well grounded in history before ever taking a history course. I did not spend much formal time in school - I had to work.

People get overwhelmed with folklore as fact. Take the Exodus. The Exodus did not occur. It could not have occurred. Wasn't necessary for it to occur. The Jews walked into Africa over a 16-mile land until they built the Suez Canal - that land is still there. Why would they have to leave by the sea. They didn't come by the sea. Certain people think you are against their religion when you use common sense.

You look at the Pyramids. They're not one fraction of an inch off in terms of their alignment. They were built without a bonding agent.

All the working-class people could feel a Malcolm X. They could hear Malcolm X, and two weeks later they could whisper back what he said. Verbatim. They could remember the way he put it, and he put it so well.

Africa 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.