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The people who couldn't get out of New Orleans to escape the storm were predominantly Black.

At screenings for 'Black in America,' I've heard people say, 'Well you know, I never thought you were black until you did Katrina, and then I thought you were black.'

This city will be chocolate at the end of the day. This city will be a majority-African-American city. It's the way God wants it to be. You can't have New Orleans no other way.

Last year, when we were in Mobile, Al., covering Hurricane Ivan, we heard the stories of poor people, many of them black stranded downtown because they had no way out.

There's nothing like New Orleans. When it comes back, it will be a tremendous highlight for America.

Ain't no place like New Orleans. It's one of kind.

The people of New Orleans have gotten to rock bottom. And the only way out in my mind is for them to really understand it, and then to really choose to get better.

The reason New Orleans is still around is because of the celebrations it has inspired since its inception as a city. I'm always excited about the possibility of what might happen. That's what drives us, and I think that's the spirit of New Orleans and the spirit of jazz.

The black artist's role in America is to aid in the destruction of America as he knows it.

I thought that, as a black audience member, I would like to see something that reflected an experience that's not normally exhibited in documentaries, or is so much about black people as victims in this country, and black people not taking control of their own lives and their own destinies.