I was encouraged to look around me and to paint what I saw. I painted my story, and it had a lot of angles to it. I was trying to explain how I saw l… - Faith Ringgold

I think they were a little bit too bold in that I was showing the relationship between black and white people, the struggle for independence and freedom that black people were pursuing during the civil rights era. It was just a little bit too damn much going on. The struggle was one thing when you talk about it, another thing when you picture it. I wanted people also to look at that work and see themselves. Whichever part you were playing, this is what's going on…

Political people don’t seem to understand art…It’s not what they’re trying to do. And if it is, let them do that. Don’t tell me what to do, because I have to look at this many years from now and be happy that I did it, not unhappy. And I would be unhappy with the ‘Kill whitey.’ It’s not my thing.

…Quilting was a method of artistic expression that could also be used to cover people, to keep them warm, but which also put designs together to make them beautiful…