Jim Clyburn

he was a pretty good orator himself.

And I was blessed with the vocal cords that he had.

I guess when I got to South Carolina State, because when I was in high school, it was more the band and the choir for a while.

There were people who thought that I should sing.

But when I got to South Carolina State,

I got involved in the sit-ins.

And it so happened that before every march or even every meeting that we had, I was always called on to do the prayer, to open the meeting.

It's when I first detected that people were just as attracted to my intonations as they were to my recitations.

And so I would always say,

Be creative.

With these prayers I was given, for instance, you know, I was sensitive to people's different religious backgrounds.

And so I would always open my prayer with addressing the omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent being.

That's the way I always did it in order to not insult folks.

There were just one or two people on stage campus who called themselves Muslims.

Then every now and then, especially during the movement, there were a lot of Jewish people involved with our efforts.

And I didn't want to insult anybody.

So that's the way I would open every prayer.

But then people started talking to me about

about my voice.

And that's when I first realized it.