When I was a boy we were poor and we had to make do with what we had. So my grandma used to make us quits that we used for blankets. She couldn't afford to go to the store and buy a blanket -- so she'd take scraps of cloth and sew them together. there'd be different colors and different patterns and different types of cloth -- but they all went together to make that big quilt to keep us warm.

We must know the difference between sweat and tears. Sweat is wet. Tears are wet. Sweat is salty. Tears are salty. But progress comes through sweat. Progress never came through tears.

It's not enough to be quiet. Quietness is the absence of noise. We need peace, the presence of justice and to be - and so people here can coexist and live together.

The fact is in a city like Chicago, for example, unemployment in the black community is around 20 percent for adults, 35 percent for youth, they bail out the banks, public schools, there is a deep divide. We need a plan for reconstruction and redevelopment and I hope that - police are the gatekeepers but behind that gate are these problems of disparities and injustice.

Inclusion is not a matter of political correctness. It is the key to growth.

I've paid my dues. I've earned your votes. Send me.

Everywhere I go, kids walk around not with books under their arms, but with radios up against their heads. Children can't read or write, but they can memorize whole albums.