The feeling of accomplishment welled up inside of me, three Olympic gold medals. I knew that was something nobody could ever take away from me, ever.

By the time I was 12 I was challenging every boy in our neighborhood at running, jumping, everything.

Believe me, the reward is not so great without the struggle.

'I can't' are two words that have never been in my vocabulary. I believe in me more than anything in this world.

I know black women in Tennessee who have worked all their lives, from the time they were twelve years old to the day they died. These women don't listen to the women's liberation rhetoric because they know that it's nothing but a bunch of white women who had certain life-styles and who want to change those life-styles.

Black women . . . work because their husbands can't make enough money at their jobs to keep everything going. . . . They don't go to work to find fulfillment, or adventure, or glamour and romance, like so many white women think they are doing. Black women work out of necessity.

I tell them that the most important aspect is to be yourself and have confidence in yourself.