[The strike in 1968] brought us together with teachers and also with progressive whites. All of us came from diverse backgrounds, but at the same time the reasons why we were at San Francisco State in the late sixties was because of the agitation and movement building that had occurred within our communities. We saw ourselves not separate from the community but intimately connected to it.

What happened to Haiti is a threat that could happen anywhere in the Caribbean to these island nations, you know, because of global warming, because of climate change and all this.

Mel Gibson is my friend. I love Mel. He's not the person that I hear people are often trying to diminish. Whatever his challenges are in life, he still remains someone I'm very close to.

We have to be that wedge that drives the question and asks the hard questions

In 1967, the students at San Francisco State invited the poet Amiri Baraka to the campus for a semester. He attracted other influential black writers such as Sonia Sanchez, Ed Bullins, Eldridge Cleaver. What emerged was something we called the community communications program. That's how I got involved; I got involved in a little play

My theatrical background was in the great work of the South African playwright Athol Fugard.

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