Howard University shocked me into realizing how desperately sick the Negro could be, how he could be led into self-destruction, and how he would not realize that it was the society that had forced him into a great sickness.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
The separate water foundations, park benches, bathrooms and restaurants of the Jim Crow South startled me. These experiences motivated my lifelong study of the status of African Americans and the sources of improvement in that status.
I love 'The Autobiography of Malcolm X.' That was like the only black book we read in high school.
The thought of' the inferiority of the Negro is drilled into him in almost every class he enters and in almost every book he studies.
In so many ways, segregation shaped me, and education liberated me.
Malcolm X made me very strong at a time I needed to understand what I was angry about. He had peace in his heart. He exerted a big influence on me.
As a young black boy, it made me proud to see black leaders that did something amazing and made the world change.
What I would like to be remembered for is that Walter Washington changed the spirit of the people of this city, that he came in as mayor when there was hate and greed and misunderstanding among our people and the races were polarized.
My mother introduced me to more academic-minded writers, Cornel West and Skip Gates. In her library, I came across, when I was very young, Harold Cruse's 'The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual,' which is like a bible of Negro intellectuals from Frederick Douglass to Amiri Baraka.
What got me motivated was my dad's idea that I go to Morehouse College in Atlanta. It's an all-black, all-male school. Martin Luther King went there. The most famous person in my class was Spike Lee. And I really caught fire. I was so inspired by the people around me that I went from C's and D's to straight A's by the time I left.
'The Autobiography of Malcolm X.' I've used it to demonstrate racial attitudes to people who I thought needed a better understanding of all human beings. Malcolm was not a racist. He was not looking for revenge. He realized that kindness and goodness did not come from any one kind of person.