Sometimes, I repeat myself, and that was a second elimination [of Barack Obama]. I worked with a team, including a great editor who, as the project came together, suggested other additions and eliminations. It was a process.

Always firmly believing in a higher power, I have also always been in search of a spiritual peace.

I hope his wife feeds him [Clarence Thomas, Justice, U.S. Supreme Court] lots of eggs and butter and he dies early like many black men do, of heart disease. . . . He is an absolutely reprehensible person.

Black child poverty is higher. As I write in the epilogue, "Yes we can. No he didn't. President [Barack] Obama didn't push black people backward, but he missed the opportunity to move us forward."

I think that ranked-choice voting makes a lot of sense.

Cutting HBCUs was unconscionable. Implementing new regulations on Parent Plus loans, which cost HBCUs 28,000 students, was hostile. At the same time, it is important to note that, except for his first two years, which were a missed opportunity, President [Barack] Obama faced rabid opposition from the Republicans.

Frankly, I'd love to see a multiparty system, like we have in some of our European countries. But I'm not sure how to get there.