As an artist I come to sing, but as a citizen, I will always speak for peace, and no one can silence me in this.

My father was a slave and my people died to build this country and I am going to stay here and have a part of it just like you.

Get them to sing your song and they will want to know who you are.

With Othello, Shakespeare posed this problem of a black man in a white society in the role that he's playing. And Shakespeare gave Othello such dignity - he came not from - as he said - not from hate but from honor, from a sense of his own human dignity. And to me, to my mind, there could be no greater character played.

You know I am an actor, and I have medals for diction.

Every artist, every scientist, must decide now where he stands. He has no alternative. There is no standing above the conflict on Olympian heights. There are no impartial observers. Through the destruction, in certain countries, of the greatest of man's literary heritage, through the propagation of false ideas of racial and national superiority, the artist, the scientist, the writer is challenged. The struggle invades the formerly cloistered halls of our universities and other seats of learning. The battlefront is everywhere. There is no sheltered rear.

The course of history can be changed but not halted.