The only countervailing force against organized money at the top, is organized people at the bottom.

Reelection ought not to be the primary preoccupation of any politician. It ought to be standing up for truth and justice.

When you love people, you give them a priority. You have a sense of urgency about their pain.

Patriarchy is a disease and we are in perennial recovery and relapse. So you have to get up every morning and struggle against it.

When you are fundamentally committed to something that is right, you just decide to go down fighting. Period.

All individuals have the same value, not to be determined by market price. They're made in the image and likeness of God.

The aim is not for me to be right. The aim is to make sure that we keep the focus on the people who are suffering. That's what we're here for.

Clever gimmicks of mass distraction yield a cheap soulcraft of addicted and self-medicated narcissists.

You keep folks so intimidated. You can give them money, access, but they're still scared. And as long as you're scared, you're on the plantation.

There are three dominant tendencies in a neoliberal society: financialized, privatized, militarized. And when it comes to black poor people, we get all three.

I try to, in my own fallible way, speak the truth.

To get up in the morning & do the monumental tasks that face us, our labor is best fueled by love.

To be an intellectual really means to speak a truth that allows suffering to speak.

Justice is what love looks like in public.

The blues aren’t pessimistic. We’re prisoners of hope but we tell the truth and the truth is dark.

You can't have a high-quality relationship without time and without trust.

Be willing to learn, because none of us know the truth

Music is what we need when language fails us, but we cannot remain silent.

It takes more courage to examine the dark corners of your own soul than it does for a soldier to fight on the battlefield.