I had an exciting, interesting childhood, to be sure, with all of the challenges that ghetto life provides - but had loving parents.

[The World Series] introduced me for the first time to a team with a lot of black players. Detroit had about three of them: I think it was Willie Horton, Gates Brown, and Earl Wilson - might have been one or two more in '68.

The writer's gift can make us see ourselves and our morals differently than our reality suggests.

Black women must help black men understand their full potential lies not in denying black women full access to their humanity and opportunity, but in working diligently to overcome the odds that hamper our progress. Yes, some of that is self-imposed, and we must confront it; and much of it comes from outside. But without courageous and brilliant black women, our communities are greatly diminished.

It's not enough to be against something.

I went to a segregated school; I was born a Negro, not a black man.

There is a consciousness as an agent of one's own destiny as a person in America, there are things that can be done, there are advantages and benefits which exist that are directly related to - and even rest upon - white privilege.