Every day before supper and before we went to services on Sundays. My grandmother would read the Bible to me, and my grandfather would pray. We even had devotions before going to pick cotton in the fields. Prayer and the Bible, became a part of my everyday thoughts and beliefs. I learned to put my trust in God and to seek Him as my strength.

Stand for something or you will fall for anything. Today's mighty oak is yesterday's nut that held its ground.

I have spent over half my life teaching love and brotherhood, and I feel that it is better to continue to try to teach or live equality and love than it would be to have hatred or prejudice. Everyone living together in peace and harmony and love - that’s the goal that we seek, and I think that the more people there are who reach that state of mind, the better we will all be.

I will no longer act on the outside in a way that contradicts the truth that I hold deeply inside. I will no longer act as if I were less than the whole person I know myself inwardly to be.

All I was trying to do was get home from work.

As long as there is unemployment, war, crime and all things that go to the infliction of man's inhumanity to man, regardless - there is much to be done, and people need to work together.

I thought about Emmett Till, and I could not go back. My legs and feet were not hurting, that is a stereotype. I paid the same fare as others, and I felt violated. I was not going back.