I'm a sponge for historical images of black people and black history on film.

If people perceive 'Roots' to be a black history show, nobody is going to watch it.

Black people don't have an accurate idea of their history, which has been either suppressed or distorted.

The history of Oregon is partially the history of a state that legislated not wanting black people around.

Wherever you go in the history of America, there have been Black people making contributions, but their contributions have been obscured, lost, buried.

I don't think that the black market's a new thing. It's always been a part of history, and it's been one of the ways that immigrants and disenfranchised people move into the middle class.

Why would you create a movie for black people if you don't understand the history and perspective of the people you are doing it for? You need historical perspective to make sound decisions.

Black history isn't a separate history. This is all of our history, this is American history, and we need to understand that. It has such an impact on kids and their values and how they view black people.

You can be poor, middle class, or rich - it doesn't matter. The black card will still confer upon you an entire history of oppression, even if you've never been oppressed. Flash the black card, and most white people will cower.

The trajectory of a lot of black lives in the 20th century was people moving into cities. A lot of the issue with modern urban fantasy is that it's un-diverse, and that's crazy with what we know the history of cities here to be.

I never hated hip-hop. It became the new rock and roll. It became the biggest thing that Africans have ever done in the history of the Americas. Hip-hop put more black Americans on than anything before it. It fed more people. It allowed them to diversify into clothing lines and billion-dollar headphone companies.

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