Still, I do have people I turn to before that point… I’ll send my ideas or images to a friends group chat or I ask my boyfriend, you know? Also, my dad has always been such an important figure in my life, and still is. He’s probably the most knowledgeable person I know.

I abandoned surgery, I abandoned medicine. The only person I consulted was my wife when I said ‘Listen, next month, we’re not going to have a salary. On the contrary, we’re going to take all our savings and waste it on tuition fees.’ That’s it. That’s what I wanted.

Try to retain some of the finest parts of the African American culture, some of the sweetest parts. The fact that people kind of drop their voices and become almost musical when they talk to a friend, or to a preacher, or to a teacher. They say, “Hey! How you doin’?” Remember that. Keep the melody in your mind and in your spirit. It will keep you tender in the tough times, which is very important.

My mother made the same brilliant impression upon my childhood's eye. She shone for me like the Evening Star. I loved her dearly—but at a distance. My nurse was my confidante. Mrs. Everest it was who looked after me and tended all my wants. It was to her I poured out my many troubles, both now and in my schooldays.

A man does not get to write his own epitaph. But if I were to write mine it would say the following: He loved his family, and he loved his troops, and they loved him — period.