We are among those who have been violated into violence. - June Jordan

Body and soul, Black America reveals the extreme questions of contemporary life, questions of freedom and identity: How can I be who I am?

We had to break those laws or agree to the slaveholder's image of us: three fifths of a human being.

If we lived in a democratic state our language would have to hurtle, fly, curse, and sing, in all the common American names, all the undeniable and representative and participating voices of everybody here. We would not tolerate the language of the powerful and, thereby, lose all respect for words, per se. We would make our language lead us into the equality of power that a democratic state must represent.