When I was 18, I went to the Soviet Union. I kept hearing that America was planning to bomb them – lots of bombs were going to come down on these people. I went there not knowing anything, except that I thought the whole thing was stupid and that I wanted to see who these people were that we were going to bomb.
Yes, Mother. I can see you are flawed. You have not hidden it. That is your greatest gift to me.
‘Fame’ exhausts me.
I made my first white women friends in college; they loved me and were loyal to our friendship, but I understood, as they did, that they were white women and that whiteness mattered.
Peace will come wherever it is sincerely invited.
In the summer of 1966, I went to Mississippi to be in the heart of the civil-rights movement, helping people who had been thrown off the farms or taken off the welfare roles for registering to vote. While working there, I met the civil-rights lawyer I later married – we became an interracial couple.
We should learn to accept that change is truly the only thing that’s going on always, and learn to ride with it and enjoy it.
I’m tri-racial: African-American, Native American and Euro – that’s the Scotch-Irish part.
I grew up in the South under segregation. So, I know what terrorism feels like – when your father could be taken out in the middle of the night and lynched just because he didn’t look like he was in an obeying frame of mind when a white person said something he must do. I mean, that’s terrorism, too.
Creation is a sustained period of bliss, even though the subject can still be very sad. Because there’s the triumph of coming through and understanding that you have, and that you did it the way only you could do it. You didn’t do it the way somebody told you to do it.
I’ve always felt quite singular, even as a child. That I must stay on track to keep my purpose.
You know how big love is? Love is big. love can hold anger; love can even hold hatred.
Howard Zinn was magical as a teacher. Witty, irreverent, and wise, he loved what he was teaching and clearly wanted his students to love it, also.
