I Was Involved With The Anti-apartheid Movement

I Have The Capacity To Express What I Feel Needs To Be Expressed. And I Try To Do What I Believe In.

I'm Not So Vain As To Believe That My Involvement Changes Anything Whatsoever.

I Remember When Langston Hughes Used To Write A Column In Black Newspapers Around This Character Jesse B. Semple. He Always Used That As A Voice, Sometimes In Comic Ways, Of Having Everyday People's Voice Come Through This Common Folk Hero, Who Was An Ordinary Working Guy. He Would Talk About Anything From Police Brutality To The Korean War. Those Kinds Of Expression And Identification Are No Longer Prevalent In Our Popular Culture.

The Civil Rights Movement Didn't Deal With The Issue Of Political Disenfranchisement In The Northern Cities. It Didn't Deal With The Issues That Were Happening In Places Like Detroit, Where There Was A Deep Process Of Deindustrialization Going On. So You Have This Response Of Angry Young People, With A War Going On In Vietnam, A Poverty Program That Was Insufficient, And Police Brutality. All These Things Gave Rise To The Black Power Movement. The Black Power Movement Was Not A Separation From The Civil Rights Movement, But A Continuation Of This Whole Process Of Democratization.

The Progressive Movement Against The War Of Occupation In Iraq Is A Reason For Hope, As Is Resistance To Free Trade Agreements In Latin America. Those Are Moments That We Have To Celebrate: That People Still Find The Resolve And Energy To Resist