Don't assume a door is closed; push on it. Don't assume if it was closed yesterday that it is closed today. Don't ever stop learning and improving your mind. If you do, you're going to be left behind.

Never let us confuse what is legal with what is right. Everything Hitler did in Nazi Germany was legal, but it was not right.

It is a spiritually impoverished nation that permits infants and children to be the poorest Americans.

In 1990, when we started the Black Community Crusade for Children, we were always talking about all children, but we paid particular attention to children who were not white, who were poor, who were disabled, and who were the most vulnerable.Parents didn't think their children would live to adulthood, and the children didn't think they were going to live to adulthood. That's when we started our first gun-violence campaign. We've lost 17 times more young black people to gun violence since 1968 than we lost in all the lynching in slavery.

We do not have a money problem in America. We have a values and priorities problem.

We must serve consciously as caring role models, emphasizing the ethic of service, not consumption.

The literacy level at Mississippi prisons? Fifth grade. Can't read, what are you going to do? If you've got a conviction rap, what are you going to do? It's a real crisis.