The poster boy for our superabled future is Oscar Pistorius an increasingly famous South African sprinter who happens to have had both of his legs amputated below the knee. Using upside down question mark-shaped carbon fiber sprinting prosthetics called Cheetah blades Mr. Pistorius can challenge the fastest sprinters in the world.

Maya Angelou the famous African American poet historian and civil rights activist who is hailed be many as one of the great voices of contemporary literature believes a struggle only makes a person stronger.

The real estate agent had to go door-to-door in the apartment building we wanted to rent asking if it was OK for this interracial family - my mom is white and I was a 1-year-old half-African kid - to live in the apartment building.

My family and our neighbors and friends thought of Africa and its Africans as extensions of the stereotyped characters that we saw in movies and on television in films such as 'Tarzan' and in programs such as 'Ramar of the Jungle' and 'Sheena Queen of the Jungle.'

The bottom line is that Wanda Sykes has the longest continuously documented family tree of any African-American we have ever researched.

I had very supportive parents that made the way for me even at a time when there were very few women - no women really maybe two or three women - and very few fewer than that African-American women heading in this direction so there were very few people to look up to. You just had to have faith.

My parents shared not only an improbable love they shared an abiding faith in the possibilities of this nation. They would give me an African name Barack or blessed believing that in a tolerant America your name is no barrier to success.

I knew that there were several among African-American leaders who had been put out by me because of my failure or reluctance to endorse Sen. Kerry.

African Americans make up about 13 percent of the U.S. population but comprise 32 percent of patients treated for kidney failure giving them a kidney failure rate that is 4.2 times greater than that of white Americans.

I live with one foot in the sand and one in the snow. There's European egocentricity and the African opposite. I normally say that my African experience has made me a better European.

The Klan had used fear intimidation and murder to brutally oppress over African-Americans who sought justice and equality and it sought to respond to the young workers of the civil rights movement in Mississippi in the same way.

Genius is an African who dreams up snow.

I mean in the South African case many of those who were part of death squads would have been respectable members of their white community people who went to church on Sunday every Sunday.

I'm the whitest guy you will ever meet. The first time I saw an African-American my dad had to tell me to stop staring.

As a gay Jewish white South African I belong to quite a lot of minority groups. You constantly have to question who you are what you are and whether you have the courage to be who you are.

It is up to African leaders to show their will and political courage in order to assure that this new pan-African institution becomes an efficient instrument and not a place for endless discussions.

The simple truth is that balding African-American men look cool when they shave their heads whereas balding white men look like giant thumbs.

The sad truth is that without complex business partnerships between African elites and European traders and commercial agents the slave trade to the New World would have been impossible at least on the scale it occurred.

Patriotism is best exemplified through auto-critique. When you're willing to stand up within the group and say 'It is wrong for Black people to be anti-Semitic ' or 'It is wrong for America to discriminate against persons of African descent and made them slaves and based its wealth upon free labor ' it's crucial to say that.

Hollywood needs to recognise all shades of African American beauty.

We can revolutionize the attitude of inner city brown and black kids to learning. We need a civil rights movement within the African-American community.

It's important to debunk the myths of Africa being this benighted continent civilized only when white people arrived. In fact Africans had been creators of culture for thousands of years before. These were very intelligent subtle and sophisticated people with organized societies and great art.

Being told about the effects of climate change is an appeal to our reason and to our desire to bring about change. But to see that Africans are the hardest hit by climate change even though they generate almost no greenhouse gas is a glaring injustice which also triggers anger and outrage over those who seek to ignore it.

I think there is a big difference between expressing the pain and anger that many African Americans and other people of color may feel versus language that I think now crosses the line and goes into hate.