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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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