If you read Martin Luther King speeches and sermons in the last two years of his life - you might want to - –when I read these to my students, they think it's Malcom X because it's so radical. And if you read nothing else - if your viewers read nothing else - then the April 4, 1967, speech at Riverside Church called "Beyond Vietnam," that's where he says the greatest purveyor of violence on earth is my country. And he connects the triplets of evil, racism, militarism, and materialism, and that connection makes him a radical.

We have arguments [with my father] and we had a lot of arguments in the years when I was at Michigan.

Agitators, organizers, activists, intellectuals aren't bound by those rules. We're not trying to figure out, how do I thread this particular needle?

Students for a Democratic Society was founded in 1961.

I was a good liberal in some sense at that point. I wanted to end a war. I wanted to support the civil rights movement.

Chicago '68 was a relatively small demonstration for its time, but I've talked to millions of people who claim they were there because it felt like we were all there. Everyone from our generation was there and was at Woodstock.

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?