I was very struck when Min. Farrakhan said if Jesus and Muhammad were here today, they'd be embracing each other. That's a tremendous message that needs to be heard more broadly.

I'm nervous about the prospects of an America that refuses to abide by its best conscience and its best lights and its best angels.

Obama sees the world in two ways: from the black perspective and from the white perspective. He was raised as a black man, whose culture he has self-consciously adopted. But he was reared largely by his white grandparents. He lived a kind of racially bipartisan experience, and he will be able to speak a language that resonates with both communities.

My ambition didn't grow out of nowhere. It was planted in me by a community that nurtured me.

I used to tell people when I preached at a church, 'If you want a great sermon, be a great audience.'

I have written 13 books, full of my ideas about a variety of issues - from black women, to hip-hop culture, to the civil rights struggle. Even when I address such figures as Tupac Shakur and Bill Cosby, my ideas are quite evident.

I think that the over-incarceration of black and brown folk is one of the great crimes of American society.