I am of the generation of segregation. Black Lives Matter is post. I said today, and I will say all the time, "If Nina [Simone] were here, she'd have her Black Lives Matter [T-shirt] on." I think they're great kids. They don't need me or anybody else to tell them what to do.

We [Black people] have always used our creativity to battle and we're not the only ones. Black Americans are certainly leaders in that simply because we were denied education and dealt with enforced illiteracy. But people seem to always forget that literacy is not the only way of learning things or conveying knowledge.

The trip to Mars can only be understood through Black Americans. I say, the trip to Mars can only be understood through Black Americans.

Everybody that loves freedom loves Harriet Tubman because she was determined not only to be free, but to make free as many people as she could.

If now isn't a good time for the truth I don't see when we'll get to it.

Poets can tell the truth as they see it. It’s the author’s story, the author’s voice.

If everybody became a poet the world would be much better. We would all read to each other.