“I didn’t know if another black woman would be coming behind me and be given the same opportunities… That’s why I danced through a severe injury with ‘Firebird’ because I felt, had I not done that role and not done a really good job, that I would be given the opportunity again,” she said, recalling her brutal performance in which she danced the title role while enduring a nearly career-ending foot injury in the Stravinsky ballet from which she titled her children’s book.