Piri Thomas - Down These Mean Streets (1967)

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What a world! Whether you're right or wrong, as long as you're strong, you're right.

Piri Thomas

The worlds of home and school were made up of rules laid down by adults who had forgotten the feeling of what it means to be a kid but expected a kid to remember to be an adult—something he hadn't gotten to yet. The world of street belonged to the kid alone.

Piri Thomas

We must learn words can be bullets or butterflies.

Piri Thomas

Man! How many times have I stood on the rooftop of my broken-down building at night and watched the bulb-lit world below. Like somehow it's different at night, this my Harlem. There ain't no bright sunlight to reveal the stark naked truth of garbage-lepered streets. Gone is the drabness and hurt, covered by a friendly night. It makes clean the dirty-faced kids.

Piri Thomas