“I didn’t know what lay ahead of me, but I believed in myself. My deepest instincts told me I would not perish. Poverty and bigotry would still be around, but at last I could fight them on even terms. The significant thing was a choice of weapons with which to fight them most effectively. That I would accept those of a mother who placed love, dignity and hard work over hatred was a fate that had accompanied me from her womb.”

-Gordon Parks, A Choice of Weapons, p.274