I just had a wonderful life, and I couldn't ask for anything else.

Well Lord, I'm still on the case. I'm still doing what Dr. King and Pops want me to do. I'm still on that freedom highway, and I'm going to walk on it until Dr. King's dream is realized.

I won't wear rings and jewelry on the stage because I don't want you looking at my hands. I want you hearing what I'm saying.

I would get in fights a lot. My voice was so heavy, kids would say you sound like a boy, so I would start beating them up.

I started writing letters home to my mother, saying that I wanted to come home, grandma won't let me sing.

One day, when I was about eight years old, some kids pushed me on stage at school during a talent show because they knew I could sing.

We enjoyed the fact that we were called to the folk festivals and we got to know Joan Baez, Dylan. We were singing strictly gospel, but then after we started hearing songs that they would sing, we saw that those songs were very fitting for us because they were singing the truth, and truth is gospel.