“If I could take all my parts with me when I go somewhere / and not have to say to one of them, ‘No, you stay home tonight, you won’t be welcome’/ because I’m going to an all-white party where I can be gay but not Black / Or I’m going to a Black poetry reading, and half the poets are anti-homosexual / or thousands of situations where something of what I am cannot come with me / The day all the different parts of me can come along / we would have what I would call / a revolution” IfsI CanDifferentHomeReadingBlackWhitePartyHalfSituationPoetRevolutionGayWelcomeIf I CouldTonightBlack PeopleHomosexualityHomosexualGay PrideLesbianismAnti GayAnti DiscriminationPoetry Reading Author:Pat Parker
“Now I see why reading was illegal for black people during slavery. I discover that I think in words. The more words I know, the more things I can think about. My vocab and thoughts grow together like the stem and petals of a flower. Reading was illegal because if you limit someone's vocab, you limit their thoughts. They can't even think of freedom because they don't have the language to.” PeopleIfsThinkingKnowsI CanTogetherReadingLanguageGrowsBlackFlowerLimitsSlaveryIllegalBlack PeopleStemPetals Author:M. K. Asante
“I need to be famous so I can talk about religion. I can talk about God. It's an expensive price that I have to pay to be the most famous man on earth and I do it with pleasure only for God. My fight is only and introduction to the real fight, the one for God. Fighting by itself doesn't interest me anymore. I want to help people, the black people and I need any kind of media to spread my thought: God, charity, peace.” PeopleMenWantNeedsKindI CanRealHelpingEarthFightingBlackInterestPleasurePayMediaCharitySpreadExpensiveBlack PeopleMy ThoughtsIntroduction Author:Muhammad Ali