My parents never told us that our great-grandmothers had been slaves.

Lack of encouragement never deterred me. I was the kind of person who would not be put down.

Something which we think is impossible now is not impossible in another decade.

When Thurgood Marshall became a lawyer, race relations in the United States were particularly bad.

My father kept his distance from working-class American blacks.

The legal difference between the sit-ins and the Freedom Riders was significant.

Doing away with separate black colleges meets resistance from alumni and other blacks.