We have to launch a national campaign against homophobia in the black community.

Nelson Mandela sat in a South African prison for 27 years. He was nonviolent. He negotiated his way out of jail. His honor and suffering of 27 years in a South African prison is really ultimately what brought about the freedom of South Africa. That is nonviolence.

Without Coretta Scott King, there would not have been a Martin Luther King, Jr. in the way that we know him.

When you are willing to make sacrifices for a great cause, you will never be alone.

For many years now, I have been an outspoken supporter of civil and human rights for gay and lesbian people. Gays and lesbians stood up for civil rights in Montgomery, Selma, in Albany, Ga. and St. Augustine, Fla., and many other campaigns of the Civil Rights Movement. Many of these courageous men and women were fighting for my freedom at a time when they could find few voices for their own, and I salute their contributions.

nonviolence first changes the individual.

If a man had nothing that was worth dying for, then he was not fit to live.