As I stood and gave the eulogy for young Michael Brown last week, I kept thinking about the fact that this child should have been in college instead of laying in a coffin.

In 1999, I was in St. Louis with Martin Luther King III as we led protests against the state's failure to hire minority contractors for highway construction projects. We went at dawn on a summer day with over a thousand people and performed acts of civil disobedience.

When the culture of police departments is sometimes infused with bias or preconceived ideas against certain groups, there needs to be reform and retraining throughout. And unfortunately, we cannot rely on local departments to police themselves; we need intervention from the top.

When you loot or behave violently, you give grounds to those that try to justify illegal police abuse. You become the poster child for them to say, 'See, we have no choice but to shoot and kill, or use a chokehold, because just look at the way they behave.'

Countries around the world have their own immigration laws and methods of dealing with a recurring theme: desperate people searching for peace from volatile parts of the world. And nations everywhere thrive and prosper from the contributions of immigrants and the children of immigrants - including right here in the U.S.

Throughout my years championing for civil rights, analyzing politics and advocating on behalf of the voiceless, I am disturbed the most when harmless children suffer because of politics or detrimental policies.

My message to everyone: the next time you hear about migrant children near the border, just picture them as your own. Then think what you would want our government to do.

As a preacher who has spent significant time in churches and houses of worship all across the country, I can tell you firsthand that religious liberty and freedom are principles that can never be infringed upon.

If companies can refuse to provide coverage for women, what other objections to the Affordable Care Act will we see based on 'religious grounds'? For that matter, will 'religious freedom' be used as an excuse to discriminate against other minorities and disenfranchised groups across the board? Where will it end?

I could have easily been a statistic. Growing up in Brooklyn, N.Y., it was easy - a little too easy - to get into trouble. Surrounded by poor schools, lack of resources, high unemployment rates, poverty, gangs and more, I watched as many of my peers fell victim to a vicious cycle of diminished opportunities and imprisonment.

If it weren't for the mentorship and guidance from people like my mother, James Brown and others, I wouldn't have been able to make something of my life.

Not graduating high school on time leads to fewer chances of attending college and obtaining good paying jobs, and creates instead higher chances of incarceration and unemployment.

Like myself, President Obama is the father of two daughters. He understands the obstacles that they face as women, but he also understands the emergency of the state of young black men in America.

As I often say, we have come a long way from the days of slavery, but in 2014, discrimination and inequality still saturate our society in modern ways. Though racism may be less blatant now in many cases, its existence is undeniable.

There's no reason why children in inner cities or rural areas do not receive the same quality education or opportunities as those in suburbs or wealthy neighborhoods. If we truly believe in giving all citizens a chance to pursue happiness and pursue their goals, then we cannot continue to marginalize entire groups of people.

I knew from the age of four that I wanted to preach. I didn't even consider it strange that grown people were listening to this kid preaching until I was around thirteen. I have never believed in limitations.

There is a great market for cars in the United States - as Honda and Toyota have proven.

The more senior your management position is, the more important it is to connect the organization or the project to the outside world. You know, how does this fit in with what we're doing? What is the real goal, the real mission?

I've been very fortunate to be part of projects that are really big and broad.

Don't manage your career. Follow your dream and contribute.

Think about just exceeding expectations of every job you're being asked to do. Continually ask for feedback on how it's going. Ask everybody involved what you can do to do an even better job, and the world will beat down your door trying to ask you to do more and more.

Ford is committed to building a sustainable future for the benefit of all Americans, and we believe Ford is on the right path to achieve this vision.

Boeing is a United States icon.

Some people believe the U.S. can't compete in the design and manufacture of sophisticated products. I think we absolutely can if we pull together. We have shown that we can do that in commercial airplanes, and we can absolutely prove that we can do that in automobiles.

Automobiles are fun and exciting. We need them. They are a part of our lives.

I'm a creative guy, a designer, a customer.

You can't manage a secret.

I think my first-ever car was a Chevrolet, 1960.

Transparency is so important in business.

The purpose of life is to love and be loved... what could possibly be more energizing than that?

An important part of leadership is being able to hold two things in your mind at once: Dealing with the reality, whatever it may be, and focus on hope for the future. Any leader helping an organization through challenges needs to be able to do both.

I felt very comfortable moving from aerospace to automobiles.

I sleep very well, although sometimes it's hard to go to sleep 'cos I'm so excited about the business performance review the following day.

The most important thing is the fact we have created this successful and sustainable Ford Motor Co. worldwide. I have no regrets.

Information should never be used as a weapon on a team.

Never make a joke or try for humor at someone else's expense. In a high-stakes environment, everyone needs to feel safe.

I really like working with talented people to do something for a lot of people around our world.

Be true to yourself and your values.

The most important thing is to simultaneously deal with reality - really the way it is, not the way you wished it could be or you hoped it could be - but also have a vision about where you want to go.

Because of the Internet of Things, we're all going to be connected.

As we develop our energy policies in the United States to generate our energy clean, then I think we're going to really move to a world that all of us want, and that is a sustainable future.

I really do believe that working together works, and it's amazing to me.

This working together is just so important: you're either working together, or you're not working together.

A lot of people don't want to get bad news.

You can't improve if you don't know what the real situation is.

If you get honest feedback and do nothing about it, then the feedback will stop.

Nothing will ever have the impact that 9/11 had on Boeing and on the world. It just changed things overnight.

When work is what you love to do, it's not work - it's serving.

I drive a different car every night.

I can remember the first time I tried to drive into the garage of the world headquarters of Ford in a Camry. It was almost like they wouldn't let me in. They said, 'Why do you want to do that?' I said, 'Because we are going to make the best cars in the world, and we need to know everything about the competitor's car.'