Leaders must be tough enough to fight, tender enough to cry, human enough to make mistakes, humble enough to admit them, strong enough to absorb the pain, and resilient enough to bounce back and keep on moving.

Fighting disparities is very significant.

When we were hit on 9/11 it took us a few weeks to get the coalition together because [George] Bush had come in with a kind of narrow ideology, looking at the world, I'd say, through a keyhole and not through a door.

How can you have in our country that is based upon liberality and liberation, be so anti-liberal. That's toxic waste to our consciousness. It's hard to be an American conservative because that's a contradiction in terms. Now if you take away freedom of speech, freedom of press, freedom of protest, and lock people out based upon their race, their language and their religion, that's conservative and fascist. America is a liberal idea.

Capitalism without capital is just an ism.

In order for an ideal to become a reality, there must be a person, a personality to translate it.

Statehood for the District of Columbia is the most important civil rights and social justice issue in America today.