The 82+ June Jordan Quotes

That A Little Child Will Lead Us Back To The Child We Will Always Be, Vulnerable And Wanting And Hurting For Love And For Beauty.

One Of The Reasons I Came To Berkeley Was Because I Saw So Many Students Of All Different Colors Speaking So Many Different Languages And Ferociously Presenting All These Different Views. I Thought, This Is The 21st Century And I Want To Be Here!

That Attitude That Fighting Is Probably Not Fair, But You Have To Defend Yourself Anyway And Damage The Enemy, Has Been Profoundly Consequential As Far As My Political Activism Goes.

I Think I Have Come To A Place Where I'm Able To Feel More Comfortable About Being Honest.

But, Based On My Friendship With Evie As Young Mothers, I Started Going On Freedom Rides In 1966.

My Father Was Very Intense, Passionate And Over-the-top. He Was My Hero And My Tyrant.

My Father Was Both The Person Who Gave Me Reason To Learn How To Fight And The One Who Taught Me The Basics Of Fighting. He Would Tell Me That If It Was A Big Fight, It Would Probably Be Uneven, It Wouldn't Be Fair

South Africa Used To Seem So Far Away. Then It Came Home To Me. It Began To Signify The Meaning Of White Hatred Here. That Was What The Sheets And The Suits And The Ties Covered Up, Not Very Well. That Was What The Cowardly Guys Calling Me Names From Their Speeding Truck Wanted To Happen To Me, To All Of Me: To My People. That Was What Would Happen To Me If I Walked Around The Corner Into The Wrong Neighborhood. That Was Birmingham. That Was Brooklyn. That Was Reagan. That Was The End Of Reason. South Africa Was How I Came To Understand That I Am Not Against War; I Am Against Losing The War.

The Courts Cannot Garnish A Fathers Salary, Nor Freeze His Account, Nor Seize His Property On Behalf Of His Children, In Our Society. Apparently This Is Because A Kid Is Not A Car Or A Couch Or A Boat.

I Wrote Those Poems For Myself, As A Way Of Being A Soldier Here In This Country. I Didn't Know The Poems Would Travel. I Didn't Go To Lebanon Until Two Years Ago, But People Told Me That Many Arabs Had Memorized These Poems And Translated Them Into Arabic.

Sometimes We Become So Sophisticated We Have To Read The New York Times In Order To Figure Out Whether It's A Hot Or A Rainy Day.

And If I If I Ever Let Love Go Because The Hatred And The Whisperings Become A Phantom Dictate I O- Bey In Lieu Of Impulse And Realities (the Blossoming Flamingos Of My Wild Mimosa Trees) Then Let Love Freeze Me Out. (from I Must Become A Menace To My Enemies)