I am not ashamed of my grandparents for having been slaves. I am only ashamed of myself for having at one time being ashamed.

Commercial rock 'n' roll music is a brutalization of the stream of contemporary Negro church music an obscene looting of a cultural expression.

What and how much had I lost by trying to do only what was expected of me instead of what I myself had wished to do? What a waste, what a senseless waste! But what of those things which you actually didn't like, not because you were not supposed to like them, not because to dislike them was considered a mark of refinement and education - but because you actually found them distasteful? The very idea annoyed me. How could you know? It involved a problem of choice. I would have to weigh many things carefully before deciding and there would be some things that would cause quite a bit of trouble, simply because I had never formed a personal attitude toward so much. I had accepted the accepted attitudes and it had made life seem simple ...

Meaning grows in the mind, but the shape and form of the act remains.

If the word has the potency to revive and make us free, it has also the power to blind, imprison, and destroy.

Education is all a matter of building bridges