When I first went on the stage I was 17 and under the legal age for performers.

Mom was the greatest influence of my childhood. She wanted to save me from the vice, lust, and drinking that was all about me.

The white audiences thought I was white, my features being what they are, and at every performance I'd have to take off my gloves to prove I was a spade.

In her whole life Mom never earned more than five or six dollars a week. Being without a husband, it was hard for her to find any place at all for us to live.

The big compliment came from the beer drinkers who didn't know me. They wouldn't drink or move when I sang. If they had their glasses in mid-air, the glasses wouldn't come down.

What broke Mom's heart was realizing that her children knew nothing and cared nothing about the better side of life.

We show girls were forced to live in whorehouses in each town, no other accommodations being available.