“I’d have no trouble being the barbecue kingpin of America. I’d just add it to all the other things I am: jazz musician, carpenter, architect, engineer and revolutionary.”

I always tried to raise money for the Black Panthers through business schemes.

There is an entire generation of young people who know nothing about how viciously the FBI attacked The Black Panther Party, and why.

The Black Panther Party were not revenge nationalists.

My father was a master carpenter and builder. Architectural design, engineering design, mechanical design, three-dimensional views, that was my shtick, my forte.

I have quite a few good friends in Philadelphia who were police officers.

The first point was we wanted power to determine our own destiny in our own black community. And what we had done is, we wanted to write a program that was straightforward to the people. We didn’t want to give a long dissertation.

The people have now come to realize that the only way to deal with the oppressor is to deal on our own terms and this was done.

To develop political and economic power in a capitalist society, you need capital.

You don’t fight racism with racism, the best way to fight racism is with solidarity.

I am not a hoodlum. I’m a community organizer.

There’s nothing wrong with being a cop. There’s nothing wrong with being a white person. It’s about where your heart is…We’ve got to get everyone beyond the xenophobic isolationism.

Our position was: If you don’t attack us, there won’t be any violence; if you bring violence to us, we will defend ourselves.

We don’t hate nobody because of their color. We hate oppression!

Electoral politics was always an objective of the Black Panther party, so Barack Obama is a part of what we dreamed and struggled and died for.

The Black Panther party of Self-Defense is a revolutionary party.

We’re hip to the fact that Superman never saved no black people. You got that?

As an audience member, I like the sound of something that’s been written – I like it to sound written. And then, of course, you can’t do it without the musicians who can play it.

Anyone who’s got a guitar, you like to pick it up. I can play a couple of songs, some ’50s rock and roll, a bit of Elvis. That’s it, really – I’m not a musician, I’m not a singer.

As a musician, my job is incredibly easy, and it’s a good one, but I’ve got to work at it occasionally.

If one were asked to name one musician who came closest to composing without human flaw, I suppose general consensus would choose Johann Sebastian Bach.

Eclecticism is the word. Like a jazz musician who creates his own style out of the styles around him, I play by ear.

I think it was that we were really seasoned musicians. We had serious roots that spanned different cultures, obviously the blues.

Nature is an aeolian harp, a musical instrument whose tones are the re-echo of higher strings within us.

I can show you that I have played with just about every jazz musician, every African musician, every blues musician. It’s not like I’m cashing in on a false concept. This is what I do.