DAYTON — Spike Lee is a filmmaker who, while acknowledging his struggles, always looks forward.

Lee, who spoke at the Schuster Center on Monday night, Feb. 18, to cap the University of Dayton's Diversity Lecture Series, opened by talking politics.

"We are living in some very exciting times," said Lee, making no bones about his support for Barack Obama, the Democratic senator for Illinois.

"And the months leading up to the election in November will determine which way this country is going to go; forward or backward. It's up to you to do the right thing."

During the next hour, Lee, dressed in a casual sweater, dungarees and ball cap, chronicled his journey from a fairly average student at Atlanta's Morehouse College to an award-winning director who last year won an Emmy for Exceptional Merit in Nonfiction Filmmaking for "When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts," a documentary about the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

"At first, I didn't know that people actually made movies," said Lee of his childhood in Brooklyn, N.Y.

"We would go to the movies on the weekend and stay until our parents dragged us out. I didn't decide to become a filmmaker until I went to college. But I did realize that the richness of the African-American experience that I saw on the corner every day was not on the screen."

Lee said he could never have done it without the support of his family.

"I speak at a lot of colleges and I tell kids that parents kill more dreams than anybody. You have to have a vision, a dream and through hard work you can make it happen," he said.