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Perhaps the earliest memories I have are of being a stubborn, determined child. Through the years my mother has told me that it was fortunate that I chose to do acceptable things, for if I had chosen otherwise, no one could have deflected me from my path.

I grew up in the Deep South, where sexism, racism, and homophobia were and still are alive and well. I have early, early memories of words and actions of this type being very painful.

I was born illegitimately and almost immediately, as I understand it, placed in an orphanage. So my very earliest memories were in an orphanage. It was the tag end of the Great Depression when I was born. People were desperately poor.

My earliest memories are the best. I always try to remember the good times when Daddy was alive.

One of my earliest memories is walking up a muddy road into the mountains. It was raining. Behind me, my village was burning. When there was school, it was under a tree. Then the United Nations came. They fed me, my family, my community.

One of my earliest memories is of my father carrying me in one arm with a picket sign in the other.

My earliest memories are of my father explaining to me the American Dream and how he expected me to do better than he did.

I remember at the age of five travelling on a trolley car with my mother past a group of women on a picket line at a textile plant, seeing them being viciously beaten by security people. So that kind of thing stayed with me.

You grow up with a heightened sense of the Civil Rights Movement, but I think it wasn't until I became of age that I really had a great appreciation for the struggle that took place.