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.

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

The voice I have now, I got the first time I sang in a movement meeting, after I got out of jail... and I'd never heard it before in my life.

It makes sense that whatever the topic is, it's more compelling if you can provide the audience with a range of perspectives, and you can cross disciplines. And you don't have to control what people take out of it.

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.

What would you be like if you had white hair and had not given up your principles? It might be wise as you deal with coalition efforts to think about the possibilities of going for fifty years.