I think music is one of the hero/sheroes of the African-American existence.

Don't let anybody raise you. You've been raised.

Growing up, I decided, a long time ago, I wouldn't accept any manmade differences between human beings, differences made at somebody else's insistence or someone else's whim or convenience.

My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style

You can see in others what they don't see in themselves and what the world doesn't see in them.

Poetry puts starch in your backbone so you can stand, so you can compose your life.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear, I rise. Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear, I rise.