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

I sustain myself with the love of family.

The white American man makes the white American woman maybe not superfluous but just a little kind of decoration. Not really important to turning around the wheels of the state. Well the black American woman has never been able to feel that way. No black American man at any time in our history in the United States has been able to feel that he didn't need that black woman right against him, shoulder to shoulder-in that cotton field, on the auction block, in the ghetto, wherever.

I've learned that I still have a lot to learn.

The truth is, no one of us can be free until everybody is free.

All of my history as an African-American woman, as a Jewish woman, as a Muslim woman. I'm bringing everything I ever knew, and all the stories I've read - everything good, strong, kind and powerful. I bring it all with me into every situation, and I will not allow my life to be minimized by anybody's racism or sexism or ageism.

It may in fact be utterly impossible to be successful without helping others to become successful.