The health effects of air pollution imperil human lives. This fact is well-documented.
Within a month I announced I was going to start this initiative: A World of Women for World Peace.
Well, I happen to believe all business is female business.
Our second phase was to develop a school curriculum that teaches tolerance, respect for differences, conflict resolution, anger management, and other attributes of peace.
Our first phase was inviting all the women Ambassadors who were here from other countries and trying to get in touch with all the peace centers around the country in order to focus on increasing the volume and activity toward peace.
I came up in a family oriented towards the sick, so I always felt an obligation for doing something.
All issues are women's issues - and there are several that are just women's business.
It takes ground activity to stimulate that Black vote.
I said we needed to organize women around the world to push peace.
There are still traces of discrimination against race and gender, but it's a lot different than when I started out. It just comes quietly, slowly, sometimes so quietly that you don't realize it until you start looking back.
We have to think about the future and what it is we want to accomplish from this party.
Generally speaking, historically in this country, the care of a child has been thought of as female business.
There is not an issue that a woman cannot bring a perspective to.
Dallas was a Black and White society at that time; it didn't have the diversity it has now.
This was the first time a woman in Dallas had won public office of any kind - even women questioned whether or not I was qualified, whether or not I could take it.
During the election, I had three male opponents and we went into a runoff. The front runner for the men was a native of Dallas who had run at large before, but I had a higher profile than him from my community service.
I try hard to convince them it's important - but there's a history of discomfort with minorities voting in some parts of this country, so most especially the older people have to get accustomed to it.
Right after 9/11 there was a magazine with a cover of kids, mostly 12-14 year-olds, who were being trained for military combat. I thought that this had just gone too far.
When you have this many losses, you don't have a following.
We're going to have to look very seriously at what we're doing right or wrong because we just keep losing.
