Mother Earth is in pain and ailing - bglobal warming. The world is dealing with issues of immigration, deindustrialization, and poverty. When I was born, there were 2.5 billion people living on the whole planet. Now there are 2.5 billion people living on less than $2 a day. That's the kind of reality we have to deal with.

Today, the media dictatorship is becoming a substitute to military dictatorship. The big economic groups are using the media and decide who can speak, who the good guy is and who the bad guy is.

I was a member of the Black Student Union, part of the central committee at San Francisco State. During the 1968 strike there, I was certainly very much involved in the activities that occurred on campus. It was part of an extraordinary period in my life

My Toussaint [Louverture] film is in limbo. We still hope after all this time that we can find another way to get this film done.

I've always been able to make choices that don't embarrass me.

Freedom Summer, the massive voter education project in Mississippi, was 1964. I graduated from high school in 1965. So becoming active was almost a rite of passage.

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