Some know Van Jones as a talking head on CNN brought in to give a liberal view on race and the world. Some know Jones as Obama’s “Green Czar” who was an early casualty of Republican obstructionism and the general attitudes that have resulted in Donald Trump and Ted Cruz being the GOP’s only viable candidates. In the last 24 hours, it has become more and more clear that the artist and musician and pop icon Prince was a friend of Jones and the two men worked together in the hopes of helping uplift our society’s most vulnerable groups—young people of color. Appearing remotely, Jones was interviewed by Don Lemon last night. Jones was emotional but determined to illuminate the public on how much charity work, how much humanitarian work, how much thought and effort the departed Prince put into trying to make the world a better place.

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There was a core of genius that he used music to express himself, but he was also an incredible humanitarian, Don. He was a Jehovah’s Witness and wasn’t allowed to speak publicly about any of his good acts, any of his charitable acts.

Jones talks about #YesWeCode, the national initiative to teach 100,000 men and women from low-opportunity backgrounds to get footholds in the future tech sectors of society. Prince came up with the idea, helped with initially funding it, and launched it with a performance at the 20th Anniversary ESSENCE Festival.

Jones says the idea for YesWeCode took root when he was discussing race with his friend after the Trayvon Martin verdict. "Every time you see a black kid wearing a hoodie, you say: There's a thug. If you see a white kid wearing hoodie, you say: There's Mark Zuckerberg," Jones told USA TODAYlast year. "I said, 'That's because of racism. And Prince said, 'Maybe so, or maybe you civil rights guys haven't created enough Mark Zuckerbergs.' "

Prince played for #YesWeCode in Oakland, Detroit, Philadelphia.

"He didn't talk about set lists. He didn't talk about compensation. He talked about: How many kids can we help? That's all he wanted to know. What can we do that will help these kids out here," Jones recalled. "And then we did hackathons all across the country in Detroit, in Philadelphia, all of that inspired or outright paid for by Prince."

Prince helped silently fund Green For All—an environmentally based community action group—that targeted lower-income, frequently underserved black communities, in their efforts to bring environmentalist activism into poorer communities. As Jones told Lemon last night:

There are people that have solar panels on their houses right now in Oakland, California, that don’t know Prince paid for them.

I could wax poetic about my early childhood memories of Prince and my growing appreciation of him over the years as my age and my experiences have broadened and the magnitude of his talent revealed itself to me, but what is important here is this statement by Van Jones: