I go to South Dakota for ceremonies when I have the time. And when you learn what the Indian peoples have gone through to hold onto their culture and traditions... wow, it's an amazing story.
Our Ancestors prayed for 389 years to place a person of color in the White House. They led over 200 slave revolts, fought in 11 wars, one being a civil war where over 600,000 people died. Our mothers fought and were killed for women’s suffrage, our grandparents were lynched for the civil rights bill of 1964 and the voting rights act of 1965…my father never had the opportunity to vote and I believe it is my sacred duty to pull the lever for every member of my family who was denied the right to vote. I will not allow narrow-minded ministers or regressive politicians the satisfaction of keeping me from my sacred right to vote to shape the future for my grandchildren.
The Negro people of America... have cut our forests, tilled our fields, built our railroads, fought our battles, and in all of their trials they have manifested a simple faith, a grateful heart, a cheerful spirit, and an undivided loyalty .
Obviously I think it's really important to look back at your history, and that's why I think things like Pride are important. It's not necessarily about your experience of life, it's not about whether you find it difficult to be gay; it's about the fact that people have fought over hundreds of years for this to be okay, and also that there are many countries in the world where it's still not, and it's very dangerous to be gay.
They did laugh; they did fall in love. And while they were under incredibly oppressive conditions, they constantly were trying to steal pleasures. When you go back to the slave narratives, and you read books like the 'Bullwhip Days' or 'Incidents in the Life of the Slave Girl,' they will share what life was like, and it's a 365-degree view.
If I take a bump or bruise along the way, that's nothing compared to the sacrifices that the women whose shoulders I stand upon made along the way.
The movement of nonviolent non-co-operation has nothing in common with the historical struggles for freedom in the West.
All the struggles that were fought for here in the United States for African Americans, you now enjoy the privileges of. You now come here and can enjoy privileges that were fought for by African Americans over several generations.
History records endless struggles to enlarge those realms, inspiring ones; it also records painful reversals and setbacks.
History is full of instances of people who challenged the mighty forces of evil and they were not only fighting a lonely battle but were left alone to die.
As in private life one differentiates between what a man thinks and says of himself and what he really is and does, so in historical struggles one must still more distinguish the language and the imaginary aspirations of parties from their real organism and their real interests, their conception of themselves from their reality.
