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

In high school, I won a prize for an essay on tuberculosis. When I got through writing the essay, I was sure I had the disease.

The middle class, in the white population, encompasses a wide swath.

A Negro who does not vote is ungrateful to those who have already died in the fight for freedom. ... Any person who does not vote is failing to serve the cause of freedom - his own freedom, his people's freedom, and his country's freedom.

I got the chance to argue my first case in Supreme Court, a criminal case arising in Alabama that involved the right of a defendant to counsel at a critical stage in a capital case before a trial.

I was born and raised in the oldest settled part of the nation and in an environment in which racism was officially mooted.

Affirmitive action is extremely complex because it appears in many different forms.