I had grown up at a time when people were being lynched, being attacked with water hoses. Becoming active and learning a different way of viewing my life was a healthy reaction to what I was seeing every day.
I have been a political activist most of my life and many groups have attempted to label me as a criminal because of my outspoken beliefs. I am not a criminal and I have never been one.
People come telling the truth. When I ask how thing are in the States, they don’t give me the okeydoke. They say, “Honey, things are hard.” It reminds me I have to keep struggling.
I miss friends and family. If it weren’t for visits from old friends and other African Americans I meet who come to Cuba, I’d probably be in some kind of time warp.
A lot of contemporary American culture makes its way to this county. Cuba is not some gray, isolated backwater. This is a happening place.
Being in Cuba has allowed me to live in a society that is not at war with itself. There is a sense of community. It’s a given in Cuba that, if you fall down, the person next to you is going to help you get up.
Every person that steps up and commits to social change helps solidify the black movement cause. It is not easy for those who fill in the leader role.
The US government’s most acute fear is that other countries are going to follow the Cuban example. They want everybody to know that if you follow this example we will attack you in every way that we can.
I trust Cuba as a principled country. Cuba’s strength is that it has been steadfast in its commitment to the principles of liberation, freedom, of resistance to the kind of institutionalized terrorism that the United States government does every day.
I worked, studied, mothered and continued to be an activist. I found that Cuba was much different from the US; its government was genuinely trying to erase racism.
I think that one of the great things that the Cuban revolution has done is preserve history.
I really wanted to know what happens in a place that is trying to build socialism, that’s trying to construct some form of social justice. That’s trying to feed people, to make health care and education a right.
Imperialism is the underlying motor of racism. The underlying reason that racism keeps on being promoted in all of its various forms.
When I was a child, if someone had talked to me about buying water, I would have thought it was a joke.
If we are not committed to saving this earth we will be buying designer air filters and gas masks with little Nike swishes on them.
The people who are running this planet are insane – they are literally destroying it. I don’t know where they think they’re gonna drink water, breathe air.
This planet is a wonderful place, but a vulnerable place.
Racism had grown out of slavery and exploitation and was very hard to eradicate quickly and completely.
There is a down side to everything if you don’t understand what the consequences of what you are saying in your music you could possibly end up getting yourself killed or hurting other people because of your carelessness.
I think it’s really hard to plan if you don’t believe you can implement those plans.
The real reason Cuba poses a threat has nothing to do with my being here or anyone else being here. It’s because Cuba is an example of a country that is actively fighting against imperialist domination and insists on its own right to self-determination and sovereignty.