Black politics is redemption and transformation. It's not always pretty, but it's not always ugly either. I'll put India.Arie up against Donald Trump any day and let the people choose.

I want to be remembered as one of the great innovators among social justice advocates of the 21st Century.

Fighting for and defending the values from the pulpit is critical. You can't love the Creator, and disrespect the creation.

I think that for those of us who come from oppressed backgrounds and who do our work in marginalized communities, recovering our innocence is one of the most important acts of self-liberation and de-colonization. Not letting the requirement that we adapt to impossible circumstances and unconscionable crimes leave us shackled to the kind of cynicism and armor such that we can't breathe and laugh and magnetize to ourselves all the genius and love and support that we need to transform the situation. That's probably the biggest challenge, is to recover our innocence.

It's time to start bringing the congregations down to City Hall and to ask the mayors, the city councils and the school boards, "What's the plan? What's the local government going to do for us?"

The surest path to safe streets and peaceful communities is not more police and prisons, but ecologically sounds economic development. And that same path can lift us to a new, green economy - one with the power to lift people out of poverty while respecting and repairing the environment.

If [Donald ] Trump goes after - if Trump fails, frankly, to stand up right now for the Muslim community - right now, Muslims are being bullied. Women wearing hijabs are being bullied and people are saying, "Trump, Trump!" when they're doing it.