The peace and justice movement has to expand and not run away from the plight of gang members.

I was raised in an Irish-American home in Detroit where assimilation was the uppermost priority. The price of assimilation and respectability was amnesia. Although my great-grandparents were victims of the Great Hunger of the 1840's, even though I was named Thomas Emmet Hayden IV after the radical Irish nationalist exile Thomas Emmet, my inheritance was to be disinherited. My parents knew nothing of this past, or nothing worth passing on.

I don't think I'll ever fully get over losing the city council seat. I don't know how that happened. But it was less than 1 percent out of 50,000 votes. I'd put in six or seven years into changing L.A.

The peace and justice movement has to expand and not run away from the plight of gang members.

A silent majority and government by the people is incompatible.

I think people are entitled to march without a permit. When you have a few hundred thousand people on the street you have permission.

Ive written a book on gangs, taught a course on gangs at Occidental.