A beauty queen, a popular TV journalist and the wife of former Secretary of Defense William Cohen, Janet Langhart Cohen has enjoyed success that many would envy. But success didn't fall into Langhart Cohen's lap; she grew up in rat-infested public housing where Ku Klux Klan rallies and "blacks only" water fountains were the norm. Even participation in the civil rights movement didn't come easily — Martin Luther King Jr. denied her a place in the March on Washington for being "too angry."

Langhart Cohen took Dr. King's wisdom to heart and now channels that bitterness into works like "Anne and Emmett," her play about a fictional meeting between Anne Frank and Emmett Till.

See also: A word or 2 from 3 wise women.

Langhart Cohen discusses her life and her new book, From Rage to Reason: My Life in Two Americas, with My Generation's Del Walters.