We had to learn that we’re beautiful. We had to relearn something forcefully taken from us. We had to learn about Black power. People have power if we unite. We learned the importance of coming together and being active.
Theory without practice is just as incomplete as practice without theory.
The attitudes of many police organizations were extremely negative to the prospect of Rap, and many officials weren’t afraid to say that they were against it. To them, Rappers were just criminals waiting to get caught.
The government recognized immediately that Rap music has enormous revolutionary potential and politicians immediately came together to end it.
Tourism has affected Cuba, because tourists come and they bring racist, sexist ideas. They bring a whole vision that there are rich people all over the world and that’s the way it should be.
I think anybody who is honestly struggling against racism must struggle against imperialism and vice versa.
I realized that I was connected to Africa.
Are you ready to sacrifice to end world hunger? To sacrifice to end colonialism? To end neo-colonialism? To end racism? To end sexism?
All you have to do is ask yourselves, who controls the government? And who are the victims of that control?
We are pregnant with freedom.
I must confess that waltzes do not move me, I guess I hummed the blues too early, and spent too many midnights out wailing to the rain.
Being a warrior and being a struggler has been forced on me by oppression, otherwise I would have been free to be so much more.
Unless you are addressing the issues people are concerned about and contributing positive direction, they’ll never support you. The first thing the enemy tries to do is isolate revolutionaries from the masses of people, making us horrible and hideous monsters so that our people will hate us.
A woman’s place is in the struggle.
The U. S. is becoming more hostile to Black people and other people of color. Racism is running rampant and xenophobia is on the rise.
I couldn’t see how we could seriously struggle without having a strong sense of collectivity, without being responsible FOR each other and TO each other.
In the long run, the people are our only appeal. The only ones who can free us are ourselves.
And it is that one percent, the heads of large corporations, who control the policies of news media and determine what you and I hear on radio, read in the newspapers, see on television. It is more important for us to think about where the media gets its information.
People think that in order for something to work, it has to be complicated, but a lot of times the opposite is true. We usually reach success by putting the simple truths that we know into practice.
I have advocated and I still advocate revolutionary change.