Hatred of injustice is not the same thing as a love for everyday people.

We've been talking about this for a good while, the immorality of drones, dropping bombs on innocent people. It's been over 200 children so far. These are war crimes.

I want to be a jazzman until the day I die. To help keep that motion, momentum and movement going, for myself, for my students, for the people who hear me. Oh sure, some days you look around at this country and look at the evidence and think, Oh Lord, don't look good. But you keep moving. You gotta keep moving.

For me, music is in no way ornamental or decorative, it's constitutive of who I am.

Martin King was fundamentally committed to the least of these [poor, working people]. Of course, he was a Christian soldier for justice from the 25th chapter of Matthew.

I cannot be an optimist but I am a prisoner of hope.

I think it's important not to view Martin Luther King Jr. in a narrow political manner. His fundamental commitment is to a radical love of humanity, and especially of poor and working people. And that radical love leads him to a radical analysis of power, domination and oppression. What's difficult is to situate him ideologically under a particular category.