I was building the plane while flying it in the first term.

Character issues such as drug abuse are not exclusive to Detroit Public Schools. My reference to substance abuse, not intended to focus on any particular school district, was simply used to illustrate this position.

What is happening in Detroit is not good so I don't even want to be a part of that, but there is something on the other side that I may want to be a part of so I don't know yet.

I don't think there has been any mayor in America scrutinized that way. I don't think there has been any mayor as a matter of fact, Coleman Young I think received an incredible amount of scrutiny and he was kind of the poster child for that in Detroit. He was the first Black mayor who really expressed his manhood in a different way than had been seen from African-American man that was projected across the country.

My dream in growing up in the city of Detroit was to be Mayor. At the family picnics from the time I was 9-years-old that's what I told people I was going to be. The mayor of the city of Detroit.

When you are going through something like compaign run nothing happens without Allah's permission. So a lot of the times you just have to surrender to his will and learning how to surrender was a major thing for me, getting me out of the way, surrendering to the will of God.

What I learned in politics (is that) it's a very enslaving place to be. It's hard to be free in politics and if the search for your spirit is to be free, it's hard.