My top goal as your Secretary of State is to save lives by reducing fatal traffic crashes. When I established the Teen Driver Safety Task Force, the goal was to improve Illinois' graduated driver licensing law and, even more importantly, to save lives.

I tell the people that hire us, if we don't get a standing ovation when we're finished with our performance, it's free - and we've always been paid.

You cannot imagine how many people called, how many letters, how many emails. Every place I go, people ask me, 'Please, don't quit.'

I first met Dr. King in 1954 when I was a student at Alabama State University and a member of a local church down there. He was in town to organize a rally against public transportation. Rosa Parks had been arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white man, which was illegal back then.

I thank God, Jesus, and my Grandmother for being able to support myself and my family.

Self-censorship has become a part of me. I think because we live in a place where community is very important, family is very important, you feel the weight of how people look at you. Even though I might seem very modern and very liberated, I still have a lot of issues to deal with. I'm scared of how people look at me.

In Denver, I was a homebody, and that's a life I'd chosen with great happiness. I wanted that break from the arc lights and focus on building a lovely home, have some fun, look after my kids and do things that I had missed out on while pursuing my dream.

While I've won five Junos, I've donated four of them to the National Archives in Ottawa. Which left my fifth Juno sitting, seemingly abandoned by its four family members, on my bookcase in my dining room.