Pastoral Resources

The Klan had used fear, intimidation and murder to brutally oppress over African-Americans who sought justice and equality and it sought to respond to the young workers of the civil rights movement in Mississippi in the same way.

The challenges African-Americans are facing today are rooted in the system of slavery.

One of the biggest things I understood in a program like that was that it allowed more young African American scholars to do field research in the Caribbean and in Africa than had ever happened before in the history of the country and since.

The first job I had with the Smithsonian was as a field researcher among African American communities in Southwest Louisiana and Arkansas for the festival.

I had this idea that I wanted to do this mixture of visions of African American women and visions of African American men. And call it 'The Men' and call it 'The Women' and show different faces of these two people.

Because the mask is your face, the face is a mask, so I'm thinking of the face as a mask because of the way I see faces is coming from an African vision of the mask which is the thing that we carry around with us, it is our presentation, it's our front, it's our face.

My son Wesley has just turned 13. He was 12 during the recording of this record and he is quite a drummer already and has been studying drums since he was four, but he's also very interested in African percussion and studies percussion.

I don't think people have been able to deal with the fact that African American filmmakers can make movies about life and relationships.

I know there has long been a great frustration among the African Americans in Nevada over their belief that we have not adequately responded to their desires to become more educated and more productive citizens.

First of all, the music that people call Latin or Spanish is really African. So Black people need to get the credit for that.

The African is my brother but he is my younger brother by several centuries.

In fact, the Harvard study data indicates that 70 percent of African American children attend schools that are predominately African American, about the same level as in 1968 when Dr. King died.

I don't necessarily believe there's a message in the fact that I'm an African-American Republican. I think there is a message that America as a whole, we are now awake. We are looking at a political construct and we're fairly disappointed. I think the message is no matter where you come from in this country, there is great potential.

When I was growing up, so many of the important changes for African-Americans were being made in the United States Supreme Court and were being made by lawyers. I followed the court very intensely and wanted to do that for my life.

I'd like to see marriage count again among African-Americans and not just in the society in general.

I had very supportive parents that made the way for me, even at a time when there were very few women - no women, really; maybe two or three women - and very few, fewer than that, African-American women heading in this direction, so there were very few people to look up to. You just had to have faith.

I don't think there is such a definition of a perfect family, but I do think that our marriages are in crisis. Our families are in crisis. And I think the African-American family is at one of the worst stages it's been at in a very long time in this country. Fatherlessness is rampant.

As a gay Jewish white South African, I belong to quite a lot of minority groups. You constantly have to question who you are, what you are and whether you have the courage to be who you are.

Jamestown changed the world in many ways, but perhaps it shaped our nation most profoundly the day Africans arrived. I can't think of a more relevant place to talk about the issues facing our community today than the place where African culture became American culture.

The United States spends more money on African aid than any nation on earth.