The problem is not just affirmative action, though. The problem is poor people, working people and their children, and affirmative action for the most part doesn't even apply to them.

The black church is dormant, much of the community is dormant. If the black church is leaning toward the right, much of the community is leaning toward the right. If it is leaning in the left wing direction having repercussions.

Greatness is telling the truth & being courageous in pursuit of justice. The worst thing you could tell young people is to be successful but become well-adjusted to an unjust status quo as opposed to being great & being maladjusted to an unjust status quo.

Martin Luther King's legacy is never to be measured by bricks and mortar, but rather by the kind of lives that we live, and the kind of love and service that we render.

The only countervailing force against organized money at the top, is organized people at the bottom.

We look at the legacy of Frederick Douglass and Ida B. Wells and Ella Baker, Malcolm X and Martin King. We have, and part of the struggle now in the age of [Barack] Obama is how do we keep alive the legacy of Martin King?

I have a whole lot of fun in trying to serve others and just keeping it funky, trying to keep it real, trying to ensure that we are able to be ourselves and get beyond these deodorized discourses and deodorized spaces that put on masks.