Burgess Owens

In the decades since my youth, I've witnessed the explosion of fatherless families and an exponential increase in illiteracy and crime.

We understood, growing up - 'cause it was taught in our family home, my mom and dad - to respect women, for instance. To respect yourself. That you respect your name. Those are the kind of things we were taught.

It was the understanding of the power of perception that allowed the Martin Luther King, Jr. generations to stay true to the strategy of non-violence, refusing to retaliate when every emotional instinct would justify them doing so.

One of these days, I'm going to stop learning through my errors.

I believe that my worth is not measured by what I do, by the honors that are bestowed upon me, or by material wealth that I might obtain. Instead, I am measured by the courage I show while standing for my beliefs, by the dedication I exhibit to ensure my word is good, and the resolve I undertake to establish my actions and deeds as honorable.

If you wonder why urban young black women are allowing themselves to be victimized by Planned Parenthood, look at BET, which is owned by very wealthy white Democrats.

We don't have to wonder or drift with society; the Lord has a very strong and clear pathway of what is right and where blessings come from.

There is nothing more rewarding than winning when you're looked at as not being capable of doing so.

One of the things I did in my book, I start off with, is explaining how great our grace was: the things we were able to accomplish after the first one-hundred years from slavery.

There were questions I didn't have the answers to, and I was trying to figure it out. I remember staying up until 4 A.M. reading the Bible and praying.

The success of the long-established relationship between the liberal/socialist/progressives and the Black Talented Tenth has been due to their commonality in commitment to an ideology and self-aggrandizement above all else.

From 1865 to 1965, my race, the black race, was one of the most competitive, entrepreneurial, Christian, moral races in our country. We had the highest percentage of entrepreneurs in the country, the highest percentage of marriage in the country.