When you're a black woman, you seldom get to do what you just want to do; you always do what you have to do.

We had people of all backgrounds coming together - all races, all creeds, all colors, all status in life. And coming together there was a kind of quiet dignity and a kind of sense of caring and a feeling of joint responsibility.

If the times aren't ripe, you have to ripen the times.

I think of my life as a unity of circles. Some are concentric, others overlap, but they all connect in some way. Sometimes the connections don't happen for years. But when they do, I marvel. As in a shimmering kaleidoscope, familiar patterns keep unfolding

I am the product of many whose lives have touched mine, from the famous, distinguished, and powerful to the little known and the poor.

The black woman had had to struggle against being a person of great strength.

Civil rights are civil rights. There are no persons who are not entitled to their civil rights... We have to recognize that we have a long way to go, but we have to go that way together.