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.

The Civil Rights Movement also reaffirmed me as a singer. It taught me that singing was not entertainment, it was something else.

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.

When I started graduate school I was interested in the culture of the Civil Rights Movement.

So one of the things that happened with integration in the South is they found that the black teachers were much more educated than the white teachers.

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

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