Personally I discovered that you could go through the academy as a young scholar, come out, and almost immediately have an impact on the academic environment.

Welcome to prekindergarten! You will not die if you discover that there are more lines out there than just your own. In fact, you'll discover that you will have an advantage if you know more of them!

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 you're in a coalition and you're comfortable, you know it's not a broad enough coalition.

If every moment is sacred and if you are amazed and in awe most of the time when you find yourself breathing and not crazy, then you are in a state of constant thankfulness, worship and humility.

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.