I often wonder whether Negroes like myself who are pretty well known help out at all in breaking down barriers.

I am an American citizen and feel I am entitled to the same rights as any other citizen.

I'm proud of our court. It knocks back a lot of the propaganda the Communists put out about the way America treats her Negroes.

I'm a musician at heart, I know I'm not really a singer. I couldn't compete with real singers. But I sing because the public buys it.

Doo-wop is the true music to me, man. Doo-wop was what nurtured me and grew me into who I am, and I guess even when I was in school, the teacher probably thought I had ADD or something every day, because I'd be beating on the desks, singing like the Flamingos or the Spaniels or Clyde McPhatter or somebody.

The academy at Abidjan was my school of education. At 16, they sent me the boots and jersey with my name on the back. You can imagine how I felt: in the clouds.

I talk about jobs. I talk about education. I talk about making government work for people. That's really the dinner-table issues that I hear from Michiganders in every part of our state.

My privileged upbringing and education and linguistic fluency gave me such proximity to whiteness that it stung all the more to still find myself outside of it. My mother, on the other hand, not only accepted that she would always be an outsider in this country but also believed it to be a finer fate and home than any other she could have had.