Let us stop saying 'white Americans' and 'colored Americans,' let us try once and for all saying... Americans. Let human beings be equal on Earth as in Heaven.

Friends, to me for years St. Louis represented a city of fear... humiliation... misery and terror... A city where in the eyes of the white man a Negro should know his place and had better stay in it.

When I was a child and they burned me out of my home, I was frightened and I ran away. Eventually I ran far away. It was to a place called France. Many of you have been there, and many have not. But I must tell you, ladies and gentlemen, in that country I never feared. It was like a fairyland place.

I wanted to get far away from those who believed in cruelty, so then I went to France, a land of true freedom, democracy, equality and fraternity.

What a blessing that God allows a life to come through your body, and then allows you to place that body in a body bag and take it out. I had to say that there's a magnificent something that God has for me to do, to give me that level of completion. That level of experience. It's unspeakable.

I told God, 'I don't want a man. I don't want more gold albums. The only thing I want is the love, friendship, and presence of my mother.' And God gave it to me.

The scriptures make the danger of delay clear. It is that we may discover that we have run out of time. The God who gives us each day as a treasure will require an accounting.

I think that for some people faith is good - they have something to draw to.