Mrs. Parks is for me probably what the Statute of Liberty was for immigrants. She stood for the future, and the better future.

The future is plump with promise.

Just as hope rings through laughter, it can also shine through tears.

Anyone of us can be a rainbow in somebody's clouds. I want the University of Cincinnati to be a rainbow in the clouds. The University of Cincinnati is really a possibility of hope; it is a rainbow.

At the worst of times, there's the possibility of seeing hope, ... That's why that song is so important right now.

Had I not had my grandmother, who dared to be my rainbow in the clouds, I would have been just another sexually abused barefoot black girl on the roads of Arkansas,