I would like to be known as an intelligent woman, a courageous woman, a loving woman, a woman who teaches by being.

We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.

Hatred is the ballast of the rock which lies upon our necks and underfoot.

I speak to the black experience, but I am always talking about the human condition.

Lord keep Your arm around my shoulder and Your hand over my mouth.

There were people who went to sleep last night, poor and rich and white and black, but they will never wake again. And those dead folks would give anything at all for just five minutes of this weather or ten minutes of plowing. So you watch yourself about complaining. What you're supposed to do when you don't like a thing is change it. If you can't change it, change the way you think about it.

All men are prepared to accomplish the incredible if their ideals are threatened.