Unless children have strong education and strong families and strong communities and decent housing, it's not enough to go sit in at a lunch counter.

Much of what I do now stems from my rage at segregation and discrimination. I can't stand to see children not able to do anything, anybody not able to do what they can do. The daily lessons of exclusion, having hand-me-down books in schools, of seeing ambulances turn away and not give health care for people lying in the streets who are migrant workers. Everything I do today stems from that segregated existence.

Don't feel entitled to anything you didn't sweat and struggle for.

Let all children come unto me.

When Jesus Christ asked little children to come to him, he didn't say only rich children, or White children, or children with two-parent families, or children who didn't have a mental or physical handicap. He said, Let all children come unto me.

It is utterly exhausting being Black in America - physically, mentally, and emotionally. While many minority groups and women feel similar stress, there is no respite or escape from your badge of color.

So much of America's tragic and costly failure to care for all its children stems from our tendency to distinguish between our own children and other people's children--as if justice were divisible.