The writing of history reflects the interests, predilections, and even prejudices of a given generation.

One of the problems in the United States is the refusal on the part of our young people to remember or to want to remember, or to recognize the experiences of the past as being relevant, germane, important to the present and to the future. They simply don't want anything that's painful. They want to live in a painless society where everything is pleasant, and everything is joyful.

One feels the excitement of hearing an untold story.

I went to college on my way to be a lawyer. That's all I wanted to do was go back home and help my daddy. I thought we were poor because he was not a good businessman and I was going to become the lawyer who would take charge of the business.

We must go beyond textbooks, go out into the bypaths and untrodden depths of the wilderness and travel and explore and tell the world the glories of our journey.

My challenge was to weave into the fabric of American history enough of the presence of blacks so that the story of the United States could be told adequately and fairly.

There's no reason in the world why black [people] should not be regarded as an attribute that is not degrading but is positive. There's no reason in the world why any person should think that white is degrading.