“My mother and our pastor always said you have to pray for your enemies and people who do you wrong, and that’s what I did.”

I think racism is something that is passed on and taught to our kids, and that’s a shame.

I was the first black child to desegregate the all-white William Frantz Elementary School in Louisiana in 1960.

I believe it doesn’t do yourself any good to hate.

My mother had taught me that the only thing you could depend on was your faith, and I had that.

The greatest lesson I learned that year in Mrs. Henry’s class was the lesson Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to teach us all: Never judge people by the color of their skin. God makes each of us unique in ways that go much deeper.

I want to inspire kids.

That’s really what my work is all about – bringing kids together.

You cannot look at a person and tell whether they’re good or bad.

If you really think about it, if we begin to teach history exactly the way that it happened – good, bad, ugly, no matter what – I believe that we’re going to find that we are closer, more connected than we are apart.

We must absolutely take care of one another.

We have tolerance, respect, and equality in our written laws but not in the hearts of some of our people.

Racism is a form of hate. We pass it on to our young people. When we do that, we are robbing children of their innocence.

Now that I’m a parent, I know that my parents were incredibly brave.

I pray for my enemies, that God would forgive them.

Evil looks like you and I. I know what evil looks like, and I know that it comes in all shades and colors.

Kids come into the world with clean hearts, fresh starts.