For most people, Danny Glover's name conjures up the Lethal Weapon series of movies. But when he was on C-SPAN recently, he was identified as "actor and human rights activist."

Glover is board chair of the TransAfrica Forum, founded by Randall Robinson, that deals with issues relating to Africa and the Caribbean. He has traveled widely, promoting reparations and debt relief for African nations. In response to the AIDS crisis in Africa, he has extended his tenure as Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Development Program. He is an active board member of the Algebra Project, a math empowerment program developed by civil rights veteran Bob Moses.

Glover attended San Francisco State University and trained at the Black Actors' Workshop of the American Conservatory. He appeared in numerous stage productions, but it was his performance in New York in "Master Harold and the Boys" by the South African playwright Athol Fugard that first brought Glover national recognition.

"The only reason I'm an actor," Glover told one interviewer, "is because of Fugard." Beyond the hijinks of the Lethal Weapon series, Glover gave solid performances in such films as Places in the Heart, The Color Purple, and Beloved. And his role of a homeless man in the independent movie The Saint of Fort Washington was memorable.

Glover is a hybrid of progressive politics and artistic sensibility in an industry that commodifies everything and reduces social commitment to late night TV jokes. He knows what the Lethal movies are about: big paydays. But he takes the money and does things with it that are meaningful.

I called Danny Glover in late August in Toronto, where he was working on a film. His marvelous grainy voice and infectious vitality made me want more time with him, but the set was beckoning.

Question: At an event in New York City late last year called "Imagining Peace," you read from Martin Luther King's historic 1967 Riverside Church speech, "Beyond Vietnam." You quoted this passage, "Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war." Why did you pick that King speech?

Danny Glover: At the time I spoke, it was just a matter of three months after September 11. We were in the midst of an undeclared war of indefinite length. A war that most people, even today, have difficulty understanding. I wanted to draw out the connections of that war to past events. Today, as the drums of war again beat louder and louder, the voices of those who oppose the war are drowned out by those voices that support the expedient way.

As King noted, it's always dangerous to speak out. His speech marked his transformation from civil rights leader to human rights leader. It made him vulnerable, perhaps even more vulnerable than during the darkest days of the civil rights movement. And his assassination occurred a year to the date of that speech. In the speech, he talked about creating a new way for African Americans and people of color to look at Vietnam, to see how that war had eviscerated the social programs that were supposed to help the poor. Yet the war not only drained valuable resources but took the lives of thousands of Americans already scarred by poverty.

King's speech reverberates today. It should be as clear to us as it was to him that beyond the rhetoric of war and terrorism lies a different reality. Look at the world around us and see what is happening. Wealth has increased. The disparity between poor and rich nations has widened. Two billion people in the world live on less than a dollar a day. The gap inside of countries has also widened. People go hungry here in the United States.

Q: Your opposition to the death penalty and the war on terrorism embroiled you in some controversy. There was a call to boycott your film The Royal Tenenbaums. What was that all about?

Glover: I gave a speech at Princeton about the death penalty at the invitation of the local Amnesty International chapter. I reminded the audience that the United States is one of the few countries that still imposes the death penalty while it considers itself civilized. The European Union does not allow the death penalty and supports its abolition around the world. I was asked if my views on the death penalty applied to Osama bin Laden. I said they did. And I added that I was opposed to military tribunals, and to detentions that are still happening. After that I was tagged by elements of the right as unpatriotic.

Q: Earl Hilliard, an African American Congressman from Alabama, was defeated in June. In August, Cynthia McKinney, five-term progressive Congresswoman from Georgia, was also defeated. Both were critical of Israeli policies vis-