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.

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

We have to see that all of us are in the same boat.

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

A Negro woman has the same kind of problems as other women, but she can't take the same things for granted.

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.

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