There are some very powerful contributions to knowledge in the scientific world or the legal world, but art is singular. That's why every dictator gets rid of the artists first. They burn the books and execute the artists first. Then they get on with whatever else they're interested in. Art might do something. It's dangerous.

If you can only be tall because someone else is on their knees, then you have a serious problem. And white people have a very, very serious problem.

Black people are victims of an enormous amount of violence. None of those things can take place without the complicity of the people who run the schools and the city.

Not knowing it was hard; knowing it was harder

I don't think one parent can raise a child. I don't think two parents can raise a child. You really need the whole village.

Alice thought, No. It wasn't the War and the disgruntled veterans; it wasn't the droves and droves of colored people flocking to paychecks and streets full of themselves. It was the music. The dirty, get-on-down music the women sang and the men played and both danced to, close and shamelesss or apart and wild...It made you do unwise disorderly things. Just hearing it was like violating the law.

When a child walks in the room, your child or anybody else’s child, do your eyes light up? That’s what they’re looking for.