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.

My mother really held the family together. She was a perfect example of the kind of black woman I would love to see again. She ruled my father with an iron hand, yet she barely ever raised her voice above a whisper.

My 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.

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 believe in doing good for good's sake.

I think that you're just as close to Jesus if you use the equipment he gave you other than to call on him to do for you what you can do for yourself.

The one thing you never integrate at the ruin of your own pleasure is your institutions.