“The rise of African nations concurrent with the spread of the Nation o...” — John Henrik Clarke Quote

The rise of African nations concurrent with the spread of the Nation of Islam and the civil rights movement gave black America a burst of pride over and above anything they had had since the decline of the movement of Marcus Garvey.

I question the political judgement of those who would have the nerve to paint Christ white with his obvious African nose, lips and wooly hair.

History is not everything, but it is a starting point. History is a clock that people use to tell their political and cultural time of day. It is a compass they use to find themselves on the map of human geography. It tells them where they are but, more importantly, what they must be.

Africans in the United States must remember that the slave ships brought no West Indians, no Caribbeans, no Jamaicans or Trinidadians or Barbadians to this hemisphere. The slave ships brought only African people and most of us took the semblance of nationality from the places where slave ships dropped us off.

'The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears' is very much about America - it just happens to have African and Ethiopian characters, and in fact, it happens to have more characters who are not Ethiopian than who are.

I read a lot of biographies and books with an African background.

What brought the British to the Gambia in the first place - which was bigger than it is now - was trade in ivory because the Gambia had a lot of elephants. They wiped out all the elephants and ended up selling Africans.

I don't want to be a race-transcending leader. I want to be deeply understood as a man, as African- American, as a Christian, all that I am.