The Source of Self-Regard

black people could be enslaved for generation after generation and recorded in statistics along with lists of rice, tar, and turpentine cargo, but they did not turn out to be cargo.

the questions I must put to it are: What was the hierarchy in my civilization? Who were the arbiters of custom? What were the laws? Who were the outlaws—not the legal outlaws, but the community outlaws? Where did we go for solace and for advice? Who were the betrayers of that culture?

was a manifestation of what I believe is true and verifiable: the impulse to do and revere art is an ancient need—whether on cave walls, one’s own body, a cathedral or a religious rite, we hunger for a way to articulate who we are and what we mean