To really involve yourself in transforming yourself. That's the work that I'm really focused on through my company, Higher Ground Productions, is really helping people to really find a place of personal empowerment as well as inner peace.
Do you know what I think of when I remember him? I think: He was such a kid. He taught me how to swim when I was 4 and how to ride a bike. So when I think of Martin Luther King, I think of laughter. I think of the play and the fun.
I try to understand people who do violence. I try to understand what they are feeling and experiencing.
I was watching the news that day when the bulletin came on that my father had been shot. I prayed. I asked God, 'Please don't let my daddy die.'
My father was bigger than life, an entity and everyone expected us, as his offspring, to be saintettes, these little carbon copies.
The civil rights movement was not a mirage… It was live and in living color.
Somebody has always wanted me to speak as a voice of black America, but it has dawned on me that I can only speak for myself.
This is one of my favorite things to do, working with a symphonic accompaniment, because I don't sing - and this is as close as I will come to singing.
I feel that I'm very much in touch with my father's spirit and presence. I feel it, sense it and take much energy and inspiration from that.
My father was not really pleased when I told him of my choice to train as an actress, when he was with us in this dimension.
I tease sometimes and say that the King holiday is a 20th-century miracle. Reagan even signed it, and he was completely opposed to the idea.
Obviously, since 9/11, here in this country there has been a resurgence of fear and people feeling distrustful of other people that are different. And what we chose to do was to focus on people coming together, working across those barriers of race, of culture, of religion, and really finding a heart connection.
What just resonates with me so strongly is my whole spirituality and the fact that we are, my belief that we are spiritual beings having a human experience.
When you see the commitment my parents exhibited… it was not for fame or fortune.
The best sermons are those that are lived.
We've not reached the promised land. We're still wandering around, bumping into each other in the wilderness of ignorance and hate. That is why the King holiday is so important.
I have such strong memories of my Daddy.
My friends… feel there are not that many people they can really look up to. They feel people are so hypocritical and fake… But I do have some people I respect, a great number of people, and I'm sure my friends have.
I am an artist with very strong social and political concerns.
When you say 'the man of the house,' the black woman has been the woman and the man of the house, because black men have so often had to spend all of their time and energy working and trying, at least, to give their families the basic needs. So black women, I find, are not really concerned about women's liberation.
