I knew Stokely [Carmichael] and them, but when you got to that, you saw that Nina Simone started to take up their burden. She started to preach for them. She was taking on the burden of "I want to tell the people."

Baseball is already the world's most tranquil sport. It is probably the only active sport where you are not seriously required to be alive to play.

Educational progress is a national concern; education is a private one.

Black Poetry is not for Black People...it is for everybody

History is wonderful. We have so much we can learn if we would quit making ideology out of history, and just deal with what happened.

One stands, in fact, in awe of the Constitution of the United States, though it is an idea and not quite a reality.

I try to impress upon my students the importance of looking, listening... paying attention, in other words. You must pay attention.