"The first point was we wanted power to determine our own destiny in our own black community. And what we had done is, we wanted to write a program that was straightforward to the people. We didn't want to give a long dissertation."

"On the one hand, the guns were there to help capture the imagination of the people. But more important, since we knew that you couldn't observe the police without guns, we took our guns with us to let the police know that we have an equalizer."

"They came down on us because we had a grass-roots, real people's revolution, complete with the programs, complete with the unity, complete with the working coalitions, where we crossed racial lines."

"We were like heroes, to stand there and observe the police, and the police were scared to move upon us."

"You don't fight racism with racism, the best way to fight racism is with solidarity."