Spike Lee recalls meeting Barack Obama in 2004 at Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s home on Martha's Vineyard, and the future president thanking him for making the movie where he went with his future wife Michelle on their first date.

VIDEO: Spike Lee, in a conversation with Henry Louis Gates Jr., The Root's Editor-in-Chief, calls out the critics who predicted violence at the release of his groundbreaking 1989 film and clarifies what the "right thing" really was.

The infamous ice scene and Spike Lee's love-hate relationship with his female characters.

Twenty years after Do the Right Thing, and Spike Lee, that angry, ebony wunderkind of the ’80s, is now middle-aged. The 1989 film may not be his masterpiece, but no other film got people talking about race—or still has people talking about race—like it did, and does.