Growing up in Mississippi - a state that historically was a place of racial injustice, inequality and oppression - gave me the unique opportunity to experience first-hand the evolution of the civil rights movement through the eyes of my parents, grandparents, and the black elders of our community.
Mysteries, like the Masonic rites, are ones parents and elders are sworn not to reveal to the uninitiated, which include all children. And so we sought for signs.
I had an inkling that I was going to prison before I actually did, because I'd witnessed my father and my elders going through it. It seemed like that's the way that you got respect, which is a sad thing.
Trouble is, kids feel they have to shock their elders and each generation grows up into something harder to shock.
You seek help from the elders. A society with elders is healthy. It's not always that way in the West.
I'd advise the youth to not get influenced or forced by their elders. They should have own political views and choices and the courage to pick the right leader.
People say, 'Respect your elders,' but I always go, 'Respect your young people because they are our future.'
The music business can be very cold. And it doesn't honor its elders.
The functions of these elders, therefore, determine the power of the people; for a representative is one chosen by others to do in their name what they are entitled to do in their own persons; or rather to exercise the powers which radically inhere in those for whom they act.
Ruling elders are declared to be the representatives of the people.
