Living at the YMCA in Harlem dramatically broadened my view of the world.

I grew up in a house where nobody had to tell me to go to school every day and do my homework.

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

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

When I was 15, I decided I wanted to be a lawyer. No one thought this was a good idea

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

Columbia Law School men were being drafted, and suddenly women who had done well in college were considered acceptable candidates for the vacant seats.