I agree with the (Supreme Court's) holding that racial discrimination in higher education admissions will be illegal in 25 years. They are illegal now.

We've talked more about civil rights after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 than we talked about it before 1964.

I actually think that I have been fortunate to have had misfortune, because the response, in responding to the misfortune, you develop in your own life, you develop sort of the tools you need to continue on, or to do better.

I don't really have the luxury to be bitter. I don't have the luxury of having negative things in my life.

[T]he courts are so willing to assume that anything that is predominantly black must be inferior.... The mere fact that a school is black does not mean that it is the product of an unconstitutional violation.

To define each of us by our race is nothing short of a denial of our humanity.

It takes a person with a mission to succeed.