I have been unable to live an uncommitted or suspended life. I have not hesitated to declare my affiliation with an extremely unpopular cause.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I had no support, no opportunity, no sponsors backing me for most of my career.
I think the Civil Rights Movement changed that trajectory for me. The first thing I did was leave school. I was suspended for my participation in Movement demonstrations in my hometown, December, 1961.
I don't owe my success to state subsidies but to a faithful public which has sustained me.
Declaring independence was the most traumatic decision I had to live up to. Because I didn't want to do it.
I survived only a year in Berkeley, partly because I declined to sign the anticommunist loyalty oath.
I discovered the National Coalition Against Censorship when I felt totally alone in my fight to protect intellectual freedom, and that group changed my life. I was no longer alone.
If you want to participate in life, you have to deny your identity.
People keep coming up to me and asking, 'How does it feel to be banned for life?' Banned for life. I wasn't banned for life. There was never a word of suspension, probation or ban in that agreement. It was never meant to be part of it.
I went from living my life anonymously for 58 years to being a public figure known globally in a matter of minutes.
Not a lot of people would think that I spent most of my early years totally rebelling against anything I could, getting suspended from school, going on demonstrations.