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"When I was very young, and was dealing with my buddies in [Harlem's] wine-and urine-stained hallways, something in me wondered, What will happen to all that beauty? . . . And when I sat at Elijah's table . . . and we talked about God's—or Allah's—vengeance, I wondered, when that vengeance was achieved, What will happen to all that beauty then? I could also see that the intransigence and ignorance of the white world might make that vengeance inevitable . . . And here we are, at the center of the arc, trapped in the gaudiest, most valuable, and most improbable water wheel the world has ever seen ... If we [whites and blacks] do not falter in our duty now, we may be able, handful that we are, to end the racial nightmare, and achieve our country, and change the history of the world. If we do not now dare everything, the fulfillment of that prophecy, re-created from the Bible in song by a slave, is upon us:
God gave Noah the rainbow sign, No more water, the fire next time!"