Working in a situation with men and women, and seeing women take on roles equal to the roles taken by men made you understand that, "Hey, these people can do things too." And I think it made me and other people in the movement realize that we're living in a community of equals. And that among those equals, they have equal rights. And we ought to respect their rights if they respected ours.

Ever since I've become chairman, there have been profiles of me in People, George, The Washington Post, The Detroit News, and all of them could have been written by the same person

You must place interest in principle above interest on principal.

People see America through particular lenses, either their profession, their race or their gender. So the party that speaks to our racial perceptions and offers solutions to the racial difficulties which we face is the party that's going to be rewarded with our votes.

There is no coloration to rights. Everybody has rights. I don't care who you are, where you come from. You got rights. I got rights. All God's children got rights.

You could not be in the civil rights movement without having an appreciation for everybody's rights. That these rights are not divisible - not something men have and women don't and so on.

I've appeared on a weekly syndicated television show since 1980