I bought my first camera in Seattle, Washington. Only paid about seven dollars and fifty cents for it.

Photography was my choice of weapons.

Think in terms of images and words. They can be mighty powerful when they are fitted together properly.

I was born to a black childhood of confusion and poverty. The memory of that beginning influences my work today, It is impossible now to photograph a hungry child without remembering the hunger of my old childhood.

If a man can reach the latter days of his life with his soul intact, he has mastered life.

Many times I wondered whether my achievement was worth the loneliness I experienced, but now I realize the price was small.

I had known poverty firsthand, but there I learned how to fight its evil - along with the evil of racism - with a camera.