Life's challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they're supposed to help you discover who you are.

If we dwell in a community that is comfortable, then it's probably not broad enough a coalition.

Most people come out of their Ph.D. experience trying to prove themselves, trying to get ahead, trying to get published. You're scared everybody else is going to do your research and get your topic.

The first job I had with the Smithsonian was as a field researcher among African American communities in Southwest Louisiana and Arkansas for the festival.

I learned that if you bring black people together, you bring them together with a song. To this day, I don't understand how people think they can bring anybody together without a song.

Coming up in the African-American culture, we were taught that we belonged to the universe and society was wrong in the way it dealt with us. We had to learn to express and affirm values not from the winning position.

Mothering/nurturing is a vital force and process establishing relationships throughout the universe.