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

The Black Power Mixtape is a documentary, first of all. It brings us closer to the voices we heard at that particular point in time.

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.

The black power movement was not a separation from the civil rights movement, but a continuation of this whole process of democratization.

Kids made fun of me because I was dark skinned, had a wide nose, and was dyslexic. Even as an actor, it took me a long time to realize why words and letters got jumbled in my mind and came out differently.

President [Barack] Obama is a man who had certain advantages because of the civil rights movement.

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