I think that, like many sisters, I was raised to be a Superwoman. I am a serious woman, and I want to be taken seriously.

In my case, spirituality has been important to me because at periods in my life there's been very little else that I've had going. I've actually needed to call on, to feel the forces of good in this universe to be able to survive.

The first part of planning is to believe that you can put that plan into practise.

I believe in self-defense and self-determination for Africans and other oppressed people in America.

I've always been a student of different ways of looking at the world, different religions. That's been part of my survival mechanism, and also part of my curiosity as a person.

Black revolutionaries do not drop from the moon. We are created by our conditions. Shaped by our oppression.

I must confess that waltzes do not move me, I guess I hummed the blues too early, and spent too many midnights out wailing to the rain.