Great men cultivate love. . . only little men cherish a spirit of hatred
Too often the media assumes that "poverty" is an African American or a Latino issue. Of course, that's nonsense. While a higher percentage of the African American and Latino population does live in poverty as compared to the white population, when overall numbers are looked at, it is clear that people of all races, ethnicities, and colors, are represented amongst America's poor.
It's important for women to understand that it's bad enough that we don't make dollar-for-dollar what men do, but when you distill that down to women of color, our Latinas and our African American women, it's even less than that 78 cents.
I think the important thing to understand first and foremost about Michael Jackson is that he was the international emblem of the African American blues spiritual impulse that goes back through slavery - Jim Crow, Jane Crow, up to the present moment, through a Louis Armstrong, through a Ma Rainey, through a Bessie Smith, all the way to John Coltrane, Aretha Franklin and Nina Simone.
Police officers are the best of us. And the men and women, white, African-American, Asian, Latino, Hispanic, they put their lives on the line every single day.
Every woman is not a runway model, nor should she be.
It requires enormous energy for us to cut the African American uninsured rate by a third. A lot of scars.
New Jersey for me is so alive with history. It's old, dynamic, African-American, Latino.
I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person.
I think there's a lot of things that occur within the African-American community, that we would prefer to stay within the African-American community - that we get a little nervous when you start having scenes or dialogue that we know is going to be viewed and heard on a national or global scale.
The [Hillary] Clinton campaign's recent travel schedule shows how seriously it takes this problem. She and her surrogates have held rallies in cities like Philadelphia, Detroit and Cleveland, trying to boost turnout among African-Americans.
Don't take yourself too seriously. Know when to laugh at yourself, and find a way to laugh at obstacles that inevitably present themselves.
Although there are those who wish to ban my books because I have used language that is painful, I have chosen to use the language that was spoken during the period, for I refuse to whitewash history. The language was painful and life was painful for many African Americans, including my family. I remember the pain.
You don't make progress by standing on the sidelines, whimpering and complaining. You make progress by implementing ideas.
It is so painful to suggest that we go back to think about these days where an African-American could not be a citizen of the United States.
When you get real old, honey, you realize there are certain things that just don't matter anymore. You lay it all on the table. There's a saying, 'Only little children and old folks tell the truth. '
When you hear music, after it's over, it's gone, in the air. You can never capture it again.
When I got near teen age, I was so happy with my friends and the African-American culture that I couldn't imagine not being part of it.
However, research in the years that followed found that in many of its important features, African American Vernacular English was becoming not less, but more different from other dialects.
African Americans have always known that a little bit of paranoia was healthy for us.