I knew, as I had always known, that the only way you can head people off from using who you are against you is to be honest and open first, to talk a… - Audre Lorde

What understanding begins to do is to make knowledge available for use, and that’s the urgency, that’s the push, that’s the drive.

As Black people, if there is one thing we can learn from the 60s, it is how infinitely complex any move for liberation must be. For we must move against not only those forces which dehumanize us from the outside, but also against those oppressive values which we have been forced to take into ourselves. Through examining the combination of our triumphs and errors, we can examine the dangers of an incomplete vision. Not to condemn that vision but to alter it, construct templates for possible futures, and focus our rage for change upon our enemies rather than upon each other. In the 1960s, the awakened anger of the Black community was often expressed, not vertically against the corruption of power and true sources of control over our lives, but horizontally toward those closest to us who mirrored our own impotence.

We do not have to live the same mistakes over again if we can look at them, learn from them, and build upon them.