I think people involved with institutions find it harder to know the time to go than the time to come.

Whites have more than eleven times the net worth or wealth of African Americans. They make greater salaries. Our unemployment rate is twice theirs. You look at the prison system and who that's chewing up.

I've never had any trouble opposing people I've been close to. I've never worried about offending or bothering people I feel strongly about.

You plant twenty coconut trees over here, and twenty coconut trees over there, and you water this batch and don't water that batch. Of the batch you water, nineteen will survive and one will die. Of the batch you don't water, nineteen will die and one will survive.

I wanted to write and think. Activism is a displacing kind of passion.

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.

I'm aware that because America is so powerful - with its tentacles reaching out to the world - one doesn't escape it by leaving. This is the most dangerous and disturbing time in my life.