What did it mean for a black woman to be an artist in our grandmothers' time? In our great-grandmothers' day? It is an answer cruel enough to stop the blood.
I always have felt that elders are really important. I think it's because, in my little Southern black culture, elders really were respected. Everybody listened to them. They may not have agreed - that's a whole different story - but they would totally listen and consider what the elder had to say.
I believe God is everything, say Shug. Everything that is or ever was or ever will be. And when you can feel that, and be happy to feel that, you've found It.
My great-great-great-grandmother walked as a slave from Virginia to Eatonton, Georgia... It is in memory of this walk that I chose to keep and to embrace my "maiden" name, Walker.
I am an elder, and I am delighted to be an elder. I would like to exhibit [and] explore it more - what an elder could mean in this time. But, I'd like to show that elders are good for us - that they can be good for us.
As for those who think the Arab world promises freedom, the briefest study of its routine traditional treatment of blacks (slavery) and women (purdah) will provide relief from all illusion. If Malcolm X had been a black woman his last message to the world would have been entirely different. The brotherhood of Moslem men-all colors-may exist there, but part of the glue that holds them together is the thorough suppression of women.
If you want to have a life that is worth living, a life that expresses your deepest feelings and emotions, and cares and dreams, you have to fight for it.
I can imagine in years to come that my papers and memorabilia, my journals and letters, will find themselves always in the company of people who care about many of the things I do.
Howard Zinn helped us desegregate Atlanta. That was moving because he took a lot of abuse for that. He and Staughton Lynd, a fellow professor who was also from the North, stood with us. They were certainly behind us. In fact, they often stood in front of us. This had a huge impact on me. But one of the reasons I was very careful about speaking about the relationship I had with him and Staughton was because, in a racist society, if you acknowledge a deep love for and a deep debt owed to white teachers, they tend to discredit your own parents and your own community.
Yoga means to bind back, unite. To bring the body and the soul together. For this reason the practice of yoga is a holy endeavor and the teaching of it to our people a very high calling.