“When we’re unemployed, we’re called lazy; when the whites are unemployed it’s called a depression.”

You cannot teach what you don’t know. You cannot give energy if you’re not on fire on the inside.

A check or credit card, a Gucci bag strap, anything of value will do. Give as you live.

I think the pain is subsiding. The back is getting better.

Our flag is red, white and blue, but our nation is a rainbow — red, yellow, brown, black and white — and we’re all precious in God’s sight.

Some people’s lives are worthy of taking the time to say goodbye to.

When I came here, I put my hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. I didn’t put my hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible.

Just because a chicken was born in the oven doesn’t make it a biscuit.

A new leadership. A choice. A chance. Don’t cry about what you don’t have. Use what you got.

No one should negotiate their dreams. Dreams must be free to fly high. No government, no legislature, has a right to limit your dreams. You should never agree to surrender your dreams.

Our flag is red, white and blue, but our nation is a rainbow – red, yellow, brown, black and white -and we’re all precious in God’s sight.

I hear that melting pot stuff a lot, and all I can say is that we haven’t melted.

We were fundamentally the same. They expressed their anger more willingly. We developed the capacity to internalize our anger, using a nonviolent discipline.

The only justification for ever looking down on somebody is to pick them up.

Tears will get you sympathy, sweat will get you change.

In many ways, history is marked as ‘before’ and ‘after’ Rosa Parks. She sat down in order that we all might stand up, and the walls of segregation came down.

The invasion only made matters worse. The occupation will not work, Iraq is unoccupiable, that will not work.

Black has depth.. you can go into it.. And you start seeing what you’re afraid of. You start seeing what you love, and it becomes like a dream.

My mom is a yoga instructor: 100% black with dreadlocks.

That Justice is a blind goddess Is a thing to which we black are wise: Her bandage hides two festering sores That once perhaps were eyes.

Nothing is ever black and white but I’m sick and tired of all the grey area.

I think every group of black guys should have at least one white guy in it.

Optimist – A proponent of the doctrine that black is white.

To describe something as being black and white means it is clearly defined. Yet when your ethnicity is black and white, the dichotomy is not that clear. In fact, it creates a grey area.

I grew up in L.A. in a school that was diverse, but it was not really integrated, so I didn’t ever fully fit in with the black girls or the white girls or the Latina girls.