“Ostensibly about a Gullah fam­ily whose younger generation are making plans to leave their ances­tral islands for mainland U.S.A. at the crest of the 20th century, 'Daughters of the Dust' is also an interrogation of Black America's cleft soul, split between the quest for modernity and a hunger for the replenish­ment of roots.”

“People who don't know any better think Gullah people talk funny. Those in the know realize that Gullah is a bona fide dialect and are confident in the scholarly thesis that 'Gullah' is a contrac­tion of 'Angola.'”

“It’s a make-it-or-break-it period for us. We do the right thing, we’ll be able to pull into the 21st century with some kind of program. We do the wrong thing, the 21st century is going to be gone, there’ll be no coming back”

“Hughes was the first black American writer many of us ever read... and his career re­mains an inspiring model for black writers determined to make a living solely from their work.”

“Rakim's persona is that of a sagacious gangster, like Miles Da­vis's ... We're talking about that school of self-confirmed bad-assed-ness, where you don't need spectators to know you're looking sugarshit sharp. Drop Miles or Rakim on the moon, they'd still be chilly-most”

"My beef is, okay, you got De La Soul, Jungle Broth­ers, A Tribe Called Quest, and that whole new Afrocentric, boho hiphop posse and they're progres­sive, but the muhfuhkuhs put on the weakest shows in God's creation."

“Never mind the Sex Pistols, here come something for the ass. Namely, the Bad Brains. Baddest hardcore band in the land, living or dead”

Wash­ington Heights: That was where I’d found my kind of party people, that 25-to-35-year-­old posse of race-conscious black profes­sionals and community organizers whose politics are Pan-Afrikanist (if not just pro-black)

The five stories in this issue do not presume to represent the New York black experience in total. What they do presume to capture are the encounters five black writers had with people in several of New York's black communities.

“If there’s any legacy of ’60s Black Nationalism I find ennobling and empowering, it’s that movement’s Pan­-Afrikanist embrace of Black folk every­where as brother and sister.”