You have to be organized, that you have to vote even when it's not exciting.

Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago.

If, in [Federal Housing Administration] application, black folks were excluded from it, then you have to override that by going after those discriminatory practices.

We can't have special interests sitting shotgun. We gotta have middle class families up in front. We don't mind the Republicans joining us. They can come for the ride, but they gotta sit in back.

The bottom line is that it's hard to find a model in which you can practically administer and sustain political support for those kinds of efforts. And what makes America complicated as well is the degree to which this is not just a black/white society, and it is becoming less so every year.

The government has to treat all citizens equally. I am a strong supporter not of a weak version of civil unions, but of a strong version, in which the rights that are conferred at the federal level to persons who are part of the same-sex union are compatible. When it comes to federal rights, the over 1,100 rights that right now are not being given to same-sex couples, I think that's unacceptable.

I believe that we have better ideas. But I also believe that good ideas don't matter if people don't hear them.