I think most people do not imagine how things can change. In Detroit, there are community gardens that are only an indication that the country is coming back to the city. And that is something that actually is necessary to stop the real imminent danger of the extermination of our planet.

I think of what's happening in Detroit as part of something that's much bigger. Most people think of the decline of the city as having to do with African-Americans and being in debt, and all the issues like crime and bad housing. But what happened is that when globalization took place, following World War II, Detroit's role as the center and the symbol of industrialization was destroyed. It wasn't because we had black citizens mainly or a black mayor; it was because the world was changing.

Keep recognizing that reality is changing and that your ideas have to change. Don’t get stuck in old ideas.

We have to see today in light of the transition, say, from hunting and gathering to agriculture, and from agriculture to industry, and from industry to post-industry. We're in an epoch transition.

I think when every household in almost every neighborhood can produce what it needs without going through the market, we're going to undergo a huge change in the elevation of the community to the center of the city, and the elimination of the factory.

I think that most people don't think in terms of an American revolution, they think in terms of a Russian revolution, or even a Ukrainian revolution. But the idea of an American revolution does not occur to most people. And when I came down to the movement milieu seventy-five years ago, the black movement was just starting, and the war in Europe had brought into being the "Double V for Victory" [campaign]: the idea was that we ought to win democracy abroad with democracy at home. And that was the beginning of an American revolution, and most people don't recognize that.

I think that at some level, people recognize that growing our economy is destroying us. It's destroying us as human beings, it's destroying our planet.