I come from a great family. I've seen family life and I know how wonderful, how nurturing, and how wonderful it can be.

I didn't run into racism until we moved to Nassau when I was ten and a half, but it was vastly different from the kind of horrendous oppression that black people in Miami were under when I moved there at 15. I found Florida an antihuman place.

As I entered this world, I would leave behind the nurturing of my family and my home, but in another sense I would take their protection with me. The lessons I had learned, the feelings of groundedness and belonging that have been woven into my character there, would be my companions on the journey.

I always wanted to be someone better the next day than I was the day before.

My father was a tomato farmer. There is the phrase that says he or she worked their fingers to the bone, well, that's my dad. And he was a very good man.

I'd seen my father. He was a poor man, and I watched him do astonishing things.

Mine was an easy ride compared to Jackie Robinson's.