It's also important for those who promote those issues within the white community - the somewhat privileged community - to talk about issues affecting people of color.

President Obama is a man who had certain advantages because of the civil rights movement. He had the opportunity to go to some of the best schools in this country - schools that train you how to run the political paradigm, not challenge it. The leaders of the Black Power Movement were challenging that paradigm.

It is the most painful thing to see how young children become collateral damage of wars, but when peace treaties are signed landmines do not respect any of these accords. And as long as these silent killers linger after wars, children will never know peace

I didn't elect [Barack] Obama because he's a black; I voted for Obama because he was the right person at the time.

There are things that make me excited about what I'm doing: Trouble the Water [the 2008 documentary Glover executive produced] on New Orleans, or something like Soundtrack for a Revolution, about the power of the music of the civil rights movement [which he executive produced in 2009]. Or Bamako, about the African debt crisis, a platform to discuss the experience of people who actually live it. All of these are important ways we can use film as a forum inviting people into a dialogue.

In The Black Power Mixtape , you hear the voice of Angela Davis - not someone playing Angela Davis.

Every day of my life I walk with the idea I am black no matter how successful I am.