African Americans

"(Have you ever known anyone who seemed to you great?) JB: James Meredith. He's a very tough and loving little man"

"Western civilization has worked like this: They marched in armor and took over. Almost all of the wealth comes from developing land. England never paid a dime for a single acre. But now there's no more land to take. They've tried in space for fifty years and they haven't found no place out there. So we're gonna have to learn to do what the Native Americans knew how to do: live the good life on the land that's there."

"The biggest untold story in American history is what happened to the Native Americans east of the Mississippi River."

"I've always bragged about getting my principles from my father, but it was my momma who showed me how."

"What any human being can do in life depends upon the foundation laid between birth and age five."

"My great-grandfather was the last ruler of the Choctaw Nation...When I was growing up, we saw ourselves as Native Americans. I was really shielded. I knew literally nothing about blacks. The first time I was called "nigger" to my face was the first day I went to Ole Miss...Everybody else was dealing with the black-white war. Tell you the truth, I was still fighting the European-Indian war."

"What I did at Ole Miss had nothing to do with going to classes. My objective was to destroy the system of white supremacy."

"I thought I couldn't die. And I really believed it. I know better now. But I'm glad I didn't know better then."

"My statue at Ole Miss is a false idol. And it wasn't put there for my benefit. It was put there for Ole Miss and Mississippi...Ole Miss kicked my butt and they're still celebrating. Because every black that's gone there since me has been insulted, humiliated, and they can't even tell their story. Everybody has to tell James Meredith's story — which is a lie. The powers that be in Mississippi understand this very clearly. See, I've been telling them for fifty years how insulting it is to me to suggest that I had to be courageous to confront some ignorant white folks. And recently, they told me they really understand, but they're gonna keep doing it. I can't figure a way to make 'em stop. They're gonna keep on doin' it because it makes it impossible for the blacks there now to say anything about what's happened to them. Because the comparison is with the idol."

"Bear Bryant had a quota of five blacks on his team. In NFL, until 15 or 20 years ago, everyone said a black couldn't be quarterback. Now if he can win, he can be the quarterback. It's not an issue any more. Even Tiger Woods: When he first came on scene it was an issue. Today nobody anywhere in the world wants to have a golf tournament if Tiger Woods ain't on the team."

"What we need is to shift the focus from race and color to rich and poor."

"I knew the only way to beat Mississippi was with the United States military. I had not just the United States Army fighting my war against Mississippi, but President Kennedy sent in the best of the United States Army."

"The big fight among evangelicals is whether you interpret the Bible through metaphors or you literally believe that what is said in the Bible: that the rich should help the poor. It literally says in the Bible that the rich should help the poor, that farmers could not harvest all the crops."

"Democracy has some good points, but it ain't hardly what most Americans think it is."

"I think the future of the United States of America will be determined by two groups of people: well-to-do white women over 70, and professional or well-to-do white males under 40. What most people don't know is that it was the rich white females that defeated the ERA (Equal Rights Amendment)."

"You don't win elections just by having people on the roads who are on your side. You understand: Any good politicians knows if you can keep the right people away from the polls, it will make all the difference. Like this Florida thing: The whites sent out letters telling blacks they're going to be arrested (if they got a record when they vote). That's for real. I know there are more ways to keep people from doing something than to get them to do something. I guarantee you that the Republicans know more tricks than I do."

"There's nothing more powerful than someone that everyone can say is crazy, but everybody knows they're are not. Fear is a two-way street, Most people only think it's a one-way street. Nothing is more powerful than a person being in a situation where everyone thinks they ought to be fearful, and they do not show any fear. What that situation does is scare the life out of everybody else. Know it's a fact: When (then-Lt. Gov.) Paul Johnson stopped us in the middle of the street (in 1962) ... he was shaking so bad that he couldn't hold his hand straight. Back then, the football players that couldn't make it to the pros got automatic positions on the state police. So you had all those 300-pound state troopers backing up against the wall, and every one of them was shaking like a leaf on a tree."

"Now I'm going to use all my energy to do what I think God sent me here to do. ("What is that?") To make the Christian world, particularly, know what the biblical and Jesus' own command is for them to do for the poor. And the only thing I'm connecting myself to with this debate at Oxford is this March Against AIDS. Not because it's that, but the AIDS problem is what it is because of the condition of the poor, and the responsibility (the rich shirk) to give to the poor. When they give anything, they think it's a gift. You understand? But that absolutely ain't the way Christ meant it. It was an absolute responsibility. That's the message God called me to deliver; and that's what I'm going to do with the rest of my life. To tell you the truth, the last 10, 15 years, I've spent trying to figure out why in the world God let me stay in (my life)."

"[T]here comes a point when a usage is so common that we must consider it not slovenliness but change."

"("Isn't it easy to take a stance on fighting AIDS?") No, it's not easy. ... The media has decided they are not going to deal with AIDS in America."

"There's a fourth (branch of government): the media, which is a thousand times more powerful than all the others put together. You see, you all are always blaming the Klan, the Ku Klux Klan. They ain't the ones making the policy; (the Klan) do what other powers allow them to do. Dealing with the black/white issue in America, that's been the Southern Baptists, and the most powerful are the Mississippi Southern Baptists. All other states have deferred to Mississippi and follow their lead on what policies can be agreed to. ... [Y]ou hear people talking about the "Bubba faction." The white, poor working class faction: That exists because the media, for 40 years, went on a program of making all whites feel like they were descended from the slave-holding class. There was nothing further from truth ... (White supremacy) wasn't about the (poor white) people who were always blamed; it was the powers-that-be."

"We clap when our infants don't spill their food. We can afford to let go of clapping when exotic folks don't, when in our times, celebrating diversity is a shibboleth of moral legitimacy among thinking First World people, and considerably, if not comprehensibly, beyond."

"If your opinions never evolve, you’re either not paying attention or not genuinely interested."

"Understand: The greatest supporters of white supremacy are blacks who have "made it." They are the last people who want substantial change because they don't know where they will fit after change. You understand? But that's secondary. The main issue in America today is the whites who lived all their life on this promise of getting something better than nonwhites, are now being cut off, they think."

"I think Ole Miss is the most progressive of any major school in the nation when it comes to race issues...For the first 35 years after I went there, you would have found nothing at Ole Miss that made you know that James Meredith had ever been there. Almost since the time of present administration (Chancellor Robert Khayat), they made what I am sure, although they never told me, was a conscious decision to change. I think the decision was to educate Mississippians, not to keep the nation off their back, but they genuinely went out looking for blacks to educate. For the first 35 years, you couldn't have read nothing (done by Ole Miss) to know I was there."

"my real focus is on producing citizens without any identification. Don't call me African American; I am a citizen of the United States of America. That's the designation that I want everybody to reach."

"White supremacy is worldwide; the whole war against Hitler was about white supremacy. It's not just an issue in America. I found out last time I was in Europe. I went to Eastern Europe; that's when I found out that white supremacy is just as powerful there as the worst days in Mississippi."

"Do you know what the words "African American" really imply? That the person doesn't have the natural right to be there, so that whatever right they have has to be given to them. John Kennedy's daddy spent his whole life and a whole lot of money trying to keep from becoming (called) half Native American. For blacks to get control of the set-asides, the black elite deliberately set up this African American thing. Jesse Jackson called a meeting a long time ago of elite blacks, determined to use this term. The majority of blacks hated this term with a passion, but the media is pushing it down their throats."

"there are nine people who control the Southern Baptists, who control America, and America controls the world. I don't know how many people control the media, but there aren't a whole lot more than that."

"The use of this race thing was to keep the poor whites poor but happy, because they could still feel they were better than the blacks. That's where you are now with groups saying, "Let the past stay in the past." That's not really what they're about. It's still all about "Us" and "Them," and they have never considered "Them" anymore "Us" than they consider me."

"A great agent doesn’t have to be a great organizer, but a great agent could advocate for relationships with organizers. What we are doing today will make our values heard and our voices heard. We’ve got to keep agitating things. We can’t be complacent. We can’t let this moment just pass us by, we have to continue to put our foot on their necks."

"But I think about legacy a lot. What I leave behind is something that I think about a lot."

"For all the success that I’ve had, there’s going to be negative reactions and opinions thrown at me. That just comes with it. When you’re younger, you’re just frustrated, but when you start to realize that this is what it is, you start to understand. I’m never going to make everybody happy. People are always going to have their opinions about me. People can make up something completely false that has no fucking substance or anything, and there’s going to be 100,000 people that are going to believe it and that’s going to be their opinion of me. I can’t do anything about that, and I’ve just got to accept that and keep moving in my purpose. People that know me know my heart. But people that know me for my work . . . they know what I allow them to know. The fact that I’ve been so closed off about a lot of parts of my life was a personal choice. As I’ve gotten older and a little more mature and comfortable in my own skin, I’ve become less concerned about it."

"Everything that I’ve been through—everything that I’ve been taught, all the successes that I’ve had, all the failures that I’ve had, all the wisdom that I was given, I’ve learned from people who have done it before me."

"There are a lot of roles and auditions that call for someone my age. The young people are taking over. They are really coming up the acting industry. There are lots of roles out there but you have to have the right people and the right connections to get called for auditions. You sometimes have to be in the right place at the right time. At the same time, you don’t always have to be in “the business” to get a good break. There are outstanding breakthroughs and “unheard of” actors doing great jobs. You don’t need the connections, but it helps."

"I think for me it's just that I was lucky enough to have a lot of work. I'm a firm believer in that what's for you is what's for you, and coming out of that situation — not to give it, you know, any energy and kind of move from that — is you know, it was an experience for me to grow and learn."

"The one thing I don’t want to get is typecast. The first two major roles I have so far, I went from being on a baseball team to being in a gang, and then being a drug dealer. The type roles I get are probably because of the style I have, with the braids and cornrolls. The way I present myself is what will determine the roles I get. I’m trying to switch it up, probably go for the casual look. With the braids out, I should have more options. I’m being thrown urban roles right now, but I don’t plan on doing these my whole life. For right now, it’s going pretty good."

"I’m playing to be autonomous. That’s liberation, because you’re really controlling your own destiny, and it gives you the freedom to make an impact where you see fit. It’s like, ‘All right, I can do what I need to do, when I need to do it, and there’s no asking."

"I’m always willing to prove myself. When you come from where I come from, and everybody doesn’t get those opportunities and breaks — that luck, or whatever — you start to question why you’re getting the things that you get. Why am I successful in life? Or why did I go this way, and everybody went that way? That builds up on you after a while."

"When you come from where I come from, and everybody doesn’t get those breaks, that luck, you start to question, ‘Why am I successful in life? Why did I go this way, and everybody went that way?’"

"Growing up on set, in the industry, over 20 years, and starting out doing background work and extra work and just seeing the sets evolve and seeing everybody’s job and seeing how a real production took place, I finally got to this place in my career where I wanted to tell a story and not just be in front of the camera to execute somebody else’s vision."

"When you walk in my room, you can’t look in one direction without seeing storyboards everywhere. When I’m literally in the depths of the room in the far dark corner, I can play this game. Because if I were to play it out here, I would be looking around, like, ‘What am I doing? I’m playing a video game when I should be doing other things.’"

"I’ve been blessed to work with a lot of incredible directors, and having a lot of guidance and mentors and people that I look up to, who inspired me to be on that storytelling level. I’ve been quietly watching and putting together these folders of things that I wanna try, for quite some time now. I was just waiting for the right opportunity to step up and get behind the camera."

"There are roles that I passed on that I knew I didn’t have enough life experience to play. I was like, ‘What can I pull from?’. But I finally found what love was."

"When I was younger, I don’t know if I could have handled the onslaught of opinions and being picked apart, and also being conscious of what the other person’s going to go through. It takes a special person to deal with that."

"My ambition has intersected at this moment where I have the experience and knowledge to direct, the opportunity within a franchise to step behind the camera and [the ability] to maximize it by having a production company. It’s my turn to make my impact while I have the energy and strength. I’ve got to tee up the ones that come after, but at the same time hyper-focus on what needs to be done right now. It’s the moment I’ve waited for my entire life. This is it. This can dictate the next 10, 15, 20 years."

"To be young, Black and successful — and disruptive — in this industry, there’s a certain navigation to get to the place I need to get to. This is the most open that things have been for somebody who’s in favor right now, and you try to hold that moment and stay in it for as long as you can."

"My experience being on set, since I was a kid, is having a shorthand with a lot of the crew that have been around throughout my movie career. And I had a clear vision for the story that I wanted to tell, because I’ve been marinating on it and developing it for such a long time. It was the most challenging thing that I’ve ever done, by far. Daily, I was pushing myself to new limits, learning how to communicate and get what’s in your head out, and have other people pick up on that passion and enthusiasm, so that they want to execute your vision to the best of their ability. That’s not an easy task to do."

"There are steps that we can take to support the rights of all people in South Asia. It is time that we take these steps. They include cutting off our aid and trade with India and putting the US Congress on record in support of self-determination for the Sikhs of Punjab, Khalistan, the Christian people of Nagaland, the Kashmiris, and all the people of South Asia, who are seeking freedom. Only by exercising their right to self-determination, which is the essence of democracy, can the people there finally live in freedom, peace, and prosperity."

"Not bad for a running back."