The passions and commitments that ignited my activity as a student are the same passions and commitments that I have today.

I was from my little perch in a prep school I saw the civil rights movement and it was defining the moral dimensions of the time and I was drawn to it and I read James Baldwin and read Invisible Man and these were my touch points. But it was when I got to Michigan and saw a bigger world, a real world, that I got involved.

I wanted a racially just society. I wanted to end wars. I wanted to end white supremacy. I wanted to create a world that was based on egalitarianism, sharing, racial justice.

All that means to me is that people who have a vision of a better world have a responsibility to open their eyes, to pay attention, to act on what the moment demands, and to be humble about that action.

I'd been arrested many times by then. I'd been an organizer, so many things had changed over those three years [from 1965 till 1968].

It's the height of the Cold War, but I grew up in apolitical family and politics wasn't on the agenda.

I was involved in the anti-war movement.