Be kind to the living.

The black church will accept anybody.

The question of religion in black America is something filmmakers don't want to touch.

As a journalist, the details always tell the story.

There are some really great books that have been written about slavery, but I don't think that the discourse about it in society has been very accurate or healthy. I don't think we've come up with ways to tell it that don't insult people or hit them in the wrong way. Part of the problem is that most people don't really understand what slavery was anyway. Most white people didn't own slaves. Slavery was a way of life, just like driving cars is a way of life now. It doesn't mean that it was right.

Slavery was a web of relationships, and if people knew how thick the whole business was, they would not make fun of people like Harriet Tubman. They would understand how intelligent she was and how sharp.

There are two responses to really awful things. One is to lament and say, "Oh my God, oh lord." And the other is to laugh at it a little bit, try your best to deal with it and, if you can, forget about it as soon as possible.