Everyone who knew [Barack] Obama from being in Hyde Park knew he was the smartest guy in any room he walked into; a decent, compassionate, lovely person; pragmatic, middle-of-the-road and ambitious.

Nixon probably was a nice guy.

It transmitted because on the campuses, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was recruiting, was organizing. Students for a Democratic Society was founded at Michigan just a couple years before I got there. So, there was a kind of a churning of political awareness. It was just beginning.

So we were ecstatic and we swirled around spontaneously, the campus in Ann Harbor and about 4,000 of us landed on the steps of the president of the University of Michigan's home.

I taught. I lectured at universities. I spoke to my students. I spoke in certain public forums. But what I didn't do was respond to microphones being thrust in my face and saying, what is your relationship with Obama and are you an unrepentant terrorist?

In a world as out of balance as this world, everyone can find something to do. And the question isn't can you do everything; the question is, can you do anything?

It's not Lyndon Johnson who makes the black freedom movement; it's the black freedom movement who makes Lyndon Johnson.