The progressive movement against the war of occupation in Iraq is a reason for hope, as is resistance to free trade agreements in Latin America. Those are moments that we have to celebrate: that people still find the resolve and energy to resist

Remember, we're talking [in The Black Power Mixtape] about 1967, the year before [Martin Luther] King's assassination. We're talking about the emergence of black power, which is a discussion King mentioned in his last book, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? We're talking about the meaning of black power and the possibility that it alienated our supporters, both white and black.

The civil rights movement didn't deal with the issue of political disenfranchisement in the Northern cities. It didn't deal with the issues that were happening in places like Detroit, where there was a deep process of deindustrialization going on. So you have this response of angry young people, with a war going on in Vietnam, a poverty program that was insufficient, and police brutality. All these things gave rise to the black power movement. The black power movement was not a separation from the civil rights movement, but a continuation of this whole process of democratization.

I was involved with the anti-apartheid movement through my work as an artist and also through my political commitment.

When you've moved past a point where you're just scrambling for jobs, you think about the things that you want to do. And the things that you want to do are governed by what you've seen, what you choose to embrace

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.

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