I'm not ready to give you a clear answer on whether electoral politics holds any particular hope for progressives. It would mean that nothing I did ever mattered.

He likes to take strolls by himself and believes dog-catchers are friendly innkeepers who'll take care of a meal. He's gullible and has never learned to fight back against a ruthless world.

His herding instinct is so strong that he confuses tractors on a baseball field for sheep. He was hospitalized twice. Once by a line drive and once for attacking a tractor tread.

What I said was that I was at first supportive of Bernie [Sanders] when he came to Los Angeles for his first rally, I was there, I was supportive.

All my life I've been involved with racial politics. I was a Freedom Rider in the South. I was the author of books on gang violence, I was a community organizer in Newark, New Jersey, and when I spoke to the Black Caucus, congressional and state, I realized they were going all the way for Hillary [Clinton] and so was the Latino caucus in Sacramento and I asked myself this question: "Do I really want to cast my vote against these people who have been central to my life and to the soul of the country?" And so I went with them. Period.

The issue of civil rights was too much for the establishment to handle. One of the chapters of history thats least studied by historians is the 300 to 500 riots in the U.S. between 1965 and 1970.

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.