“In fact when Sweet Honey was ten years old it was too big for me to run, and I knew it, but I ran it for another thirteen years because I couldn’t convince other people to really do it. And this year, I’m not running it.”

I think the Civil Rights Movement changed that trajectory for me. The first thing I did was leave school. I was suspended for my participation in Movement demonstrations in my hometown, December, 1961

Today whenever women gather together it is not necessarily nurturing. It is coalition building. And if you feel the strain, you may be doing some good work.

I went to a church where you could not sing out loud in the service until you had been saved.

When I started graduate school I was interested in the culture of the Civil Rights Movement.

Coming up in the African-American culture, we were taught that we belonged to the universe and society was wrong in the way it dealt with us. We had to learn to express and affirm values not from the winning position.

Mothering/nurturing is a vital force and process establishing relationships throughout the universe.

If, in moving through your life, you find yourself lost, go back to the last place where you knew who you were, and what you were doing, and start from there.

Personally I discovered that you could go through the academy as a young scholar, come out, and almost immediately have an impact on the academic environment.

What would you be like if you had white hair and had not given up your principles? It might be wise as you deal with coalition efforts to think about the possibilities of going for fifty years.

If I had been at a University I don’t think I would have been able to have the experience I had in my Smithsonian work. I don’t think I have been as successful

There is nowhere you can go and only be with people who are like you. Give it up.

At the same time all this was happening, there was a folk song revival movement goingon, so the commercial music industry was actually changed by the Civil Rights Movement.

If you’re in a coalition and you’re comfortable, you know it’s not a broad enough coalition.

I started graduate school in 1971, I started working at the Smithsonian in the festival in 1972. I went full-time at the Smithsonian in 1974. And I got my doctorate in 1975.

If we dwell in a community that is comfortable, then it’s probably not broad enough a coalition.

I just don’t think one person has that much to contribute to any subject

I would not run for president. I really like what I’m doing now. People say I’m giving them energy and hope.

Wars and elections are both too big and too small to matter in the long run. The daily work – that goes on, it adds up.

I think of writing–particularly of writing picture books–as a kind of choreography.

I started to get so many letters from unlikely people; a single mum going, “I watch your show, I’m not into survival, but I hold down four jobs and I get it when you say it’s about persistence and putting a positive attitude into things during difficult times.”

I never listen to calumnies, because if they are untrue I run the risk of being deceived, and if they be true, of hating persons not worth thinking about.

Exercise helps my back. If I don’t exercise, that’s when it starts to hurt. The pain is a good motivator to run and exercise.

The only time an Australian ever walks is when his car runs out of petrol.

I would say that God is much bigger than all of this. I’ve been through difficult times where it just seems like hope is nowhere to be found, but those are some of the greater moments where we run to Christ a little faster and hang on a little tighter.