I want to make it clear that the black race did not come to the United States culturally empty-handed. The role and importance of ethnic history is in how well it teaches a people to use their own talents, take pride in their own history and love their own memories.

Whoever is in control of the hell in your life, is your devil.

I believe in doing good for good's sake.

If you struck your mother or your father, it was punishable by death because you struck at the whole society. You struck at the morality of the society itself. This is what we have lost.

There has been a struggle to reclaim the African self. That struggle has been on the part of a minority of dedicated African-Americans who never gave up our African identity at no time during our stay here.

To control a people you must first control what they think about themselves and how they regard their history and culture. And when your conqueror makes you ashamed of your culture and your history, he needs no prison walls and no chains to hold you.

History is a compass that you locate yourself on the map of human geography, politically, culturally, financially.