Art is a form of experience of the person, the place, the history of the people, and as black people, we are different. We hail from Africa to America, so the culture is mixed, from the African to the American. We can't drop that. It's reflected in the music, the dance, the poetry, and the art.

Black women have never embraced feminism. They didn't embrace it in the '50s and '60s; they're not embracing it now. That's not new. I think it's a tendency among women in general not to be supportive of each other.

Every time people struggle, they survive, they do better, and then they forget, and they end up back where they started from.

I had something I was trying to say and sometimes the message is an easy transmission and sometimes it's a difficult one but I love the power of saying it so I'm gonna do it whether it's hard or easy.

Children are so talented. Little children, until about the age of 10 or 11, are just little artists. They need to be given the time and the space and the materials to do their work. That's all they need.

I can recall that nobody ever went out the door that wasn't dressed nicely, even though it was the Depression. I particularly remember on Sunday, the day we all went to church, if you didn't have it together, you kind of stayed in the house.