But don't think that Charlie's wall of lies hemming in the ghetto is impenetrable. People, especially young white people, in America and in Europe ar… - Ollie Harrington

I never heard of a Black child who wasn't told at some time or other, "Whatever you do don't upset the white folks!" But there was just no place in the home of the brave where a Black kid could reach full growth without upsetting the white folks.

Traveling through the betrayed American cities last autumn I became aware of a profound trembling of the earth in every ghetto. Young Black people with amazingly straight backs, knowing, or better still, convinced that Black IS beautiful too are now enabled to release the blindingly creative energies which have always been bound in chains by a criminally bigoted system. A revolution is taking place in the ghettos if one has the eyes to look behind the frightening facade. And revolutions require expression. Black kids painting huge murals on discouragingly neglected slum buildings are expressing that revolution. Sidestreet theatres, poetry readings, and neighborhood museums are part of that expression. They're all expressing ideas with which Black people can identify. A Black Renaissance has already been born.

Downtown they were still mournfully talking about the good, solid white folks who had walked into space from Wall Street's many windows. Uptown we were talking about Paul Robeson, who was singing songs which gripped some inner fibres in us that had been dozing. And he was saying things which widened black eyes and sharpened black ears, things which sounded elusively familiar. ("Our Beloved Pauli," 1971)