“I think he's been in every courthouse basement in the South,”

“We are going to do our best to reach out to every citizen of the United States, to engage them in every way possible, and to make certain that they appreciate fully the opportunity which we have to do something not only significant but even spectacular.”

“Her determination (was) to stand up, not merely for herself, not merely for all women, not merely for African-Americans but for all Americans.”

“I want to be out there on the firing line, helping, directing or doing something to try to make this a better world, a better place to live,”

“I'm just waiting to see if it will happen. I've been disillusioned so many times before. It's 2006, and there's nothing in the nation's capital to show what happened to African-Americans. Nothing.”

“The circumstances are remarkable when you stop to think about what you couldn't do in Raleigh and in Richmond. After 1831, they didn't want blacks to learn the ABCs. She put those boys in school,”

“We can't undo this part of our heritage. But what we can affect is where we are headed. I want to talk about multiculturalism, because I think that's where we are headed.”

“It's not so much Katrina as a phenomenon as it's Katrina as a metaphor for what our society has become. It reflects; it's a mirror of what we've become - super-extraordinarily complacent.”

“. . . Historical facts are all pervasive and cut through the most rigid barriers of race and caste.”

“Education came to be one of the great preoccupations, enlightenment was viewed as the greatest single opportunity to escape . . . . Parents made untold sacrifice to secure learning for their children that they had been denied.”