Nobody Can Enjoy Unless We All Enjoy,

I Agree With Balzac And 19th-century Writers, Black And White, Who Say, 'i Write For Money.' Yes, I Think Everybody Should Be Paid Handsomely; I Insist On It, And I Pay People Who Work For Me, Or With Me, Handsomely.

The Needs Of A Society Determine Its Ethics, And In The Black American Ghettos The Hero Is That Man Who Is Offered Only The Crumbs From His Country's Table But By Ingenuity And Courage Is Able To Take For Himself A Lucullan Feast. Hence The Janitor Who Lives In One Room But Sports A Robin's-egg-blue Cadillac Is Not Laughed At But Admired, And The Domestic Who Buys Forty-dollar Shoes Is Not Criticized But Is Appreciated. We Know That They Have Put To Use Their Full Mental And Physical Powers. Each Single Gain Feeds Into The Gains Of The Body Collective.

I Believe That Every Person Is Born With Talent.

Home Is That Youthful Region Where A Child Is The Only Real Living Inhabitant. Parents, Siblings, And Neighbors Are Mysterious Apparitions Who Come, Go, And Do Strange Unfathomable Thing In And Around The Child, The Region's Only Enfranchised Citizen.

Out Of The Huts Of History's Shame I Rise Up From A Past That's Rooted In Pain I Rise I'm A Black Ocean, Leaping And Wide, Welling And Swelling I Bear In The Tide. Leaving Behind Nights Of Terror And Fear I Rise Into A Daybreak That's Wondrously Clear I Rise Bringing The Gifts That My Ancestors Gave, I Am The Dream And The Hope Of The Slave. I Rise I Rise I Rise.