I was born and raised in the oldest settled part of the nation and in an environment in which racism was officially mooted.
Living at the YMCA in Harlem dramatically broadened my view of the world.
In high school, I discovered myself. I was interested in race relations and the legal profession. I read about Lincoln and that he believed the law to be the most difficult of professions.
Affirmitive action is extremely complex because it appears in many different forms.
In high school, I won a prize for an essay on tuberculosis. When I got through writing the essay, I was sure I had the disease.
King thought he understood the white Southerner, having been born and reared in Georgia and trained a theologian.
King consciously steered away from legal claims and instead relied on civil disobedience.
Lack of encouragement never deterred me. I was the kind of person who would not be put down.
I soon found law school an unmitigated bore.
In my view, I did not get to the federal bench because I was a woman.
I remember being infuriated from the top of my head to the tip of my toes the first time a screen was put around Bob Carter and me on a train leaving Washington in the 1940s.
I rejected the notion that my race or sex would bar my success in life.
I never thought I would live long enough to see the legal profession change to the extent it has.
I grew up in a house where nobody had to tell me to go to school every day and do my homework.
I got the chance to argue my first case in Supreme Court, a criminal case arising in Alabama that involved the right of a defendant to counsel at a critical stage in a capital case before a trial.