Had it not been for slavery, the death penalty would have likely been abolished in America. Slavery became a haven for the death penalty.

We know the road to freedom has always been stalked by death.

Poor people, people of color - especially are much more likely to be found in prison than in institutions of higher education.

We know the road to freedom has always been stalked by death.

My name became known because I was, one might say accidentally the target of state repression and because so many people throughout the country and other parts of the world organized around the demand for my freedom.

Now, if we look at the way in which the labor movement itself has evolved over the last couple of decades, we see increasing numbers of black people who are in the leadership of the labor movement and this is true today.

You can never stop and as older people, we have to learn how to take leadership from the youth and I guess I would say that this is what I'm attempting to do right now.

I never saw myself as an individual who had any particular leadership powers.

I grew up in the southern United States in a city which at that time during the late '40's and early '50's was the most segregated city in the country, and in a sense learning how to oppose the status quo was a question of survival.

As a black woman, my politics and political affiliation are bound up with and flow from participation in my people's struggle for liberation, and with the fight of oppressed people all over the world against American imperialism.