When black men started bearing arms, these people who we think of as being pro-gun are saying, 'We ought to change this law.

Once your leaders get corrupted one way or another, it's hard to stop the organization from being corrupted.

One of the most important parts of the civil rights movement that people don't talk about was these mass meetings. It's like "Movement Church." It's a combination of the music of the movement and the church. Those mass meetings are where people got the energy to go on to the next day.

You can't imagine hip-hop without the Black Panthers. Today, hopefully, the movement can be an inspiration to people. These were people who made mistakes but they were trying to change things.

When black men started bearing arms, these people who we think of as being pro-gun are saying, 'We ought to change this law.

Instead of feeling like there's two or three of us in this town of hostile crackers, I'm in a big church filled with people who believe the same thing I believe and the power of song is raising what we're trying to do, raising it up to the rafters.

Part of the problem with Occupy Wall Street was that folks were never really clear on what they were fighting for. If you don't know what you're fighting for, how do you know when you've got victory? In some ways, new media makes it easier for people to connect. It's hard, though, because we're much more seduced by the Internet, by big-screen TVs, by cell phones that can do everything.