Democracy only works, as President [Barack] Obama spoke of in his farewell message, if it's driven by the people and the people stay active and vigilant and speak out and let their concerns be known.

Now, I actually have to a degree, a responsibility to ensure that it doesn't happen again.' I felt pride. When you're up there [in the noose] it does give you pause but I'm no stranger to degradation and dehumanization. I felt a lot of pride to be a part of showing something like this because a lot of people don't know and haven't been exposed to these types of historical experiences until they see it depicted on our show [Underground].

I'm always ready and willing to just keep pushing and working and going because it's in my spirit.

I'd like to think that in any circumstance I'd say, "You know what? Screw this. Kill me. I'm done. I'm not going to grovel."

Regardless of the project, whenever you're working on something, the best you can hope for is to be around good people.

It's crazy how intelligent kids can be at a very young age and how they know what they know.

They don't really focus on that history here in America. I remember growing up as a kid, history class was very washed-over. They didn't really get into the gritty bits of slavery. It's a very, very small section in the history books. It's not something they really touch on directly with American curriculums.