When I was teaching in the 1960s in Boston there was a great deal of hope in the air. Martin Luther King Jr. was alive Malcolm X was alive great great leaders were emerging from the southern freedom movement.

I am a filmmaker. That is all I've ever been. You know Martin Scorsese makes films about the mob. And I make movies about food.

When you look around right now Nashville is kind of going through another changing of guard you're watching the Martina McBrides and the Faith Hills and all of them that have been the big stars for the last however many years and the next generation is coming in: Miranda Lambert Carrie Underwood those girls.

I think it's a good thing for a president or political leaders to want to put their values or their faith into action. Desmond Tutu did that in South Africa. Martin Luther King Jr. did that here. This is a good thing.

My daddy Rev. A. D. King my granddaddy Martin Luther King Senior - we are a family of faith hope and love.

I would wish for any one of my colleagues to have the experience of working with Martin Scorsese once in their lifetime.

Martin Luther King Jr. didn't carry just a piece of cloth to symbolize his belief in racial equality he carried the American flag.

I had never done anything with blue screen before or prosthetics or anything like that. Lord of the Rings was like stepping into a videogame for me. It was another world completely. But to be honest I basically did it so that I could have the ears. I thought they would really work with my bare head.Working with Martin Scorsese was an absolute minute-by-minute education without him ever being grandiose about it.

We are now operating a school system in America that's more segregated than at any time since the death of Martin Luther King.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day is a time to honor the greatest champion of racial equality who taught a nation - through compassion and courage - about democracy nonviolence and racial justice.