This is the United States of America and unfortunately, race still matters to a lot of people. The evil head of racism doesn't hide, it sticks its head up.

I didn't want to be president; I didn't want to be governor; I didn't want to be a congress person. I just wanted to be mayor of the city of Detroit. I lived there my entire life.

I know in the Christian church the old ladies use to say "what the devil meant for bad God meant for good." So some of the things that I think they went out and tried to be detrimental to my life saved me in a lot of ways.

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.

Michigan is very racially separated and the city of Detroit itself is 84 percent African-American and the surrounding suburbs are 86 percent White.

I heard somebody say that you can't judge a tree by the bark it wears but by the fruit it bears.

I loved the city, so the feeling in 2001 [election] first was shock, then (I was) nervous, then scared but then it's - I really wasn't happy and ecstatic like I thought I (would be). I was immediately hit with the enormity of the responsibility and the fact that most people in that town - particularly those that voted for me were placing their hopes and dreams in me. That is a big, big stressful place to be.