Democracy requires that if you who don't like the outcome of elections you have to tolerate it and then pursue your interest the next time around.

The whole future of America's black community is at risk. One out of every three young black men in Washington, D.C., is under one arm or the other of the criminal justice system. These are the continuing consequences of slavery.

I got a chance to be in a society where the barriers between classes - social and economic - are not insuperable, where money is not everything all the time.

Democracy requires that if you who don't like the outcome of elections you have to tolerate it and then pursue your interest the next time around.

Every people, in order to remain healthy and strong, has to have a grasp of its foundation story. Culture is a chrysalis - it is protective, it takes care of you. That's what cultures are for. You cannot rob a people of language, culture, mother, father, the value of their labor - all of that - without doing vast damage to those people.

I was really worn down by an American society that is racist, smugly blind to it, and hugely self-satisfied.

I never met a white person till I was a grown man. I never went to school with a white till I was twenty-six years old, at Harvard Law School. The insult of segregation was searing and unforgettable. It has left a great scar, and will be with me for the rest of my life.