The wonderful thing about the black church for me is that it forces you to come to terms with the centrality of love in the world.

I believe philosophy must go to school with the poets; it's not either/or, it's not over or against.

I'm not a pacifist at all; I think there is a notion of "just war" that can be persuasively argued. I think in the face of Nazis, in the face of apartheid, that I would have joined those armies. But that's the last, last resort.

What is accurately portrayed is the rich humanity not just of Martin Luther King but of the movement, which was a multiracial movement. You had blacks and whites coming together and sacrificing, organizing and mobilizing the world. That's the first time we've had collective action put at the center of any kind of portrayal of Martin King on the screen.

I am excited to have a black president because white supremacy is real and it needs to be shattered.

The most dangerous thing in American society is a self-respecting and self-loving black person, because they're on the road to freedom and that means they're gonna run up against the powers that be.

Poor people and working people have not been the focus of the Obama administration. That for me is not just a disappointment but a kind of betrayal.