The past has no wholeness, it has been etiolated by revised explanations of it, trampled over by hindsight - all their lives. - Nadine Gordimer

There are two kinds of leaders in the species humankind. There is the man or woman of personal ambition, and there is the man or woman who creates a self out of response to people's needs, the call of conscience against oppression, injustice, and sufferings of any nature within our human condition. To the one, the drive comes narrowly from within; to the other it is a charge of energy which comes in others needs and the demands these make on all of us who share humanity. Conscience is a form of solidarity.

The main reason why we're still where we are is blacks haven't united as blacks because we're told all the time to do it is to be racist.

Do we ever live really in the present? I don’t think so, not entirely, do you?...There are always intrusions, sometimes welcome, sometimes not, from the past.