My organization, National Action Network (NAN), was on the ground talking and meeting with people in Ferguson, just as we did in Staten Island following Eric Garner's death.
There are so many things that we could do to change the world in so many aspects. There are people working in nonprofit organizations, tackling the issues that we so desperately need to face, while governments fail so appallingly.
I wanted to continue to be active on those things that I cared about when I was president where I could still have an impact.
It's so self-evident that I have to live my own history, to remind people the fact that I got into radio back in the early '80s was because of AIDS and HIV. It was what motivated me - that was the topic that I felt was so important that I had to talk about it, educating young people about it.
I was very active. I was always all over the place trying to do a million things, just into this activity. If you asked me when I was 14 what I wanted to be: "Activist, first, is my occupation. I am an activist."
My life as an advocate for those most in need is inspired by my mother's example. She believed in the potential inherent in each of us, and that belief is the foundation of my work.
I'm not a lawyer I'm a kind of mouthpiece/activist type, though occasionally they shave me and stuff me into my Bar Mitzvah suit and send me to a standards body or the UN to stir up trouble. I spend about three weeks a month on the road doing completely weird stuff like going to Microsoft to talk about DRM.
Growing up, I realized as an actor I had to figure out how to use my platform in order to give back as well and use that spotlight to shine, or at least to balance that light and to try to shine light onto the other issues that were happening in the world.
Charity depends on the vicissitudes of whim and personal wealth; justice depends on commitment instead of circumstance. Faith-based charity provides crumbs from the table; faith-based justice offers a place at the table.
This In Friendship - out of it came certain connections with the liberal labor establishment. Among the personalities that were involved were Bayard Rustin and a person from the American Jewish Congress, Stanley Levinson.
I think the important thing being a wife of a president is to know who you are and find a cause that corresponds to you. The truth is, it's hard to keep a job in that position. I kept playing music because no one could stop me from playing music at night.
I think my experience at the University of Chicago, working in the civil rights movement, working in the peace movement, working with community organizations, did a lot to influence the politics that I have.
I thought in 1965 that my job was to convince most Americans to be against the war. So I spent summers knocking on doors, handing out literature, trying to talk to people who didn't agree with me, trying to get them to see the war was wrong. And by 1968 a majority of Americans did oppose the war.
Especially as a teenager, I was always being racially profiled by the police. You just see all this injustice, and you want to do something about it, but you don't know how.
I'm a huge advocate for individuals with disabilities.
Steve Warren's work and career have opened doors for out professionals across the entertainment industry. In addition to advocating for LGBT people, he has continuously mobilized a large base of high-profile allies to help bring about social change.
I don't kid myself in thinking that I'm on the front lines. I know the people who are on the front lines. I mean there are people in some freakin' significant places making on-the-ground social front line change. I've marched. I've put feet on the ground for what I believe and what I'm against with no compromise. And there are people who are risking a whole hell of a lot more than me to make change, that's for damn sure.
I'm going to fight for human rights, whether I do it silently behind the scenes or vocally so that I get locked up. I can't just sit back; it's not in my nature. I can't sit back and blindly ignore it, and I won't.
I quit because I can’t stand seeing kids come to class hungry and needing shoes. I thought I could do more by organizing farm workers than by trying to teach their hungry children.
Growing up, I realized as an actor I had to figure out how to use my platform in order to give back.
I've always wanted to be an advocate.
If you take a job as a public advocate, then you must advocate publicly.
While living in exile I have become the loudspeaker for the people of Iran.
I go, and I lobby for seniors on the Hill in Washington, D.C., and I've fought to have the Older Americans Act reauthorized, so I believe that my voice has been used for a lot of good.
I talked to Shailene Woodley the next day [after arrest]. She was fine, and she was very happy. She knew that it brought attention to a cause that she cared very much about. She was in high spirits and knew that was a possibility when she was protesting. The people who arrested her, if they were trying to prove a point of not to protest, they only helped the cause.
