Both my parents came from North Carolina, in Warren County. My mother had a feeling that there was greater culture in North Carolina than obtained in Norfolk, Virginia, plus the fact she just didn't like the lowland-lying climate there.

During the Depression years, I began to identify to some extent with the unemployed, the organization for the unemployed at that period.

I have always thought that what is needed is the development of people who are interested not in being leaders as much as in developing leadership in others.

Until the killing of black men, black mothers' sons, becomes as important to the rest of the country as the killing of a white mother's sons, we who believe in freedom cannot rest until this happens.

I came out of a family background that involved itself with people.

I believe, the [Gunnar] Myrdal study had been made, and if we hadn't had anything else to raise questions, this in itself would have been something to provoke thought in the direction of the value of accommodating leadership.

When I came out of the Depression, I came out of it with a different point of view as to what constituted success. And that was even just even personal success.