WEBVTT - Best of full interview: Andrew Young & John Hope Bryant Talk 'The Dirty Work' Documentary, Friendship With MLK Jr. + More 0:00:01.560 --> 0:00:04.960 Every day. Up we click yours up the Breakfast Club. 0:00:05.920 --> 0:00:06.400 Y'all done. 0:00:07.120 --> 0:00:09.360 Yes, it's the world's most dangerous morning show to Breakfast Club. 0:00:09.440 --> 0:00:12.440 Charlamagne the God DJ Envy just hilarious. Envy's not here today, 0:00:12.480 --> 0:00:15.160 but Lauren le Rossa is and we have an amazing 0:00:15.200 --> 0:00:16.440 guest in the building today. 0:00:16.480 --> 0:00:17.680 Man. You know, it's. 0:00:17.560 --> 0:00:20.360 Interesting when we talk about, you know, black history, as 0:00:20.400 --> 0:00:21.880 if it's the thing of the past, like, you know, 0:00:21.960 --> 0:00:24.279 as if we don't have living legends and icons and 0:00:24.280 --> 0:00:28.120 people who you know, actually we're there for the things 0:00:28.160 --> 0:00:32.280 that we talk about. Mister Andrew Young is here. Good morning, sir. 0:00:32.159 --> 0:00:35.960 Good morning. I'm really glad to be here with you. Yes, sir, 0:00:36.080 --> 0:00:39.959 I'm long overdue, man, what are you telling I mean, 0:00:40.000 --> 0:00:42.800 I need to know where you are, Yes, sir, and 0:00:43.120 --> 0:00:47.879 I'm I'm out of the sink. A look at the 0:00:47.920 --> 0:00:51.199 book and be honest or dine and probably you know 0:00:51.360 --> 0:00:52.560 I need to read that quickly. 0:00:52.760 --> 0:00:52.919 Yes. 0:00:58.080 --> 0:01:00.400 John O'Brien is here as well, John Hope Ryan, Good 0:01:00.400 --> 0:01:04.959 morning morning. Mister Andrew Young had a new documentary i'll 0:01:05.000 --> 0:01:07.480 called The Dirty Work. It comes out on this Friday, 0:01:07.520 --> 0:01:10.360 ten seventeen. Why was it important for you to tell 0:01:11.240 --> 0:01:12.600 this part of your story. 0:01:12.760 --> 0:01:19.360 Now, Well, I'm telling my story, and we see the 0:01:19.440 --> 0:01:22.959 glamor of the civil rights movement, and it was very glamorous. 0:01:23.280 --> 0:01:27.320 But for every one or two you see on television, 0:01:28.280 --> 0:01:30.319 there were five hundred to one thousand of us in 0:01:30.360 --> 0:01:35.000 the background doing the dirty work. And it's the way 0:01:35.040 --> 0:01:36.959 I got into it. I was actually up here in 0:01:37.000 --> 0:01:45.959 New York in nineteen fifty seven fifty eight and doctor 0:01:46.040 --> 0:01:52.280 King needed somebody to move with him to Atlanta. My 0:01:52.360 --> 0:01:56.120 wife was from Marrying, Alabama, which was a little country 0:01:56.160 --> 0:02:02.560 town near Selma, and we saw the ms Man. It 0:02:02.720 --> 0:02:12.280 was a NBC documentary on John Lewis in the Nashville 0:02:12.360 --> 0:02:16.400 citing story. We just bought a house out in Queen's 0:02:17.080 --> 0:02:19.640 and I was working up at the National Council of Churches. 0:02:20.440 --> 0:02:25.040 And when the documentary came home, my wife said it's 0:02:25.080 --> 0:02:28.320 time for us to go home. I said, we are home. 0:02:28.480 --> 0:02:31.320 She said, no, this is New York. New York can 0:02:31.400 --> 0:02:34.520 have will be my home. And I said, well, we 0:02:34.720 --> 0:02:37.359 just bought this house and we got a good job. 0:02:38.000 --> 0:02:40.520 She said, yeah, and I hope you'll deal with that. 0:02:40.600 --> 0:02:42.399 I said, well, what are you going to do? She said, 0:02:42.400 --> 0:02:45.320 I'm going back to my mama in Alabama, and I'm 0:02:45.400 --> 0:02:48.000 taking my children and I said, well, what do you 0:02:48.000 --> 0:02:49.560 want me to do? She said, I want you to 0:02:49.600 --> 0:02:54.760 sell this house and find a job down south. And 0:02:55.440 --> 0:02:58.760 she was the blessing in New York, though, was that 0:02:58.880 --> 0:03:01.520 she got a chance to go Queen's College for eighteen 0:03:01.560 --> 0:03:05.800 dollars a semester and get a master's degree. And that's 0:03:05.840 --> 0:03:12.360 what supported us in those early days. But it's it 0:03:12.560 --> 0:03:20.120 was the attraction of going back south that got me 0:03:20.200 --> 0:03:23.000 back in the movement. And it was in that transition 0:03:23.160 --> 0:03:27.320 Martin Luther King had just been stabbed and he took 0:03:27.760 --> 0:03:30.880 New York. In New York, he took a month off 0:03:31.919 --> 0:03:34.840 to go to India and was just coming back and 0:03:34.920 --> 0:03:41.200 planning to move from Montgomery to Atlanta. So I ended 0:03:41.280 --> 0:03:45.119 up getting pulled in to try to help him move. 0:03:45.960 --> 0:03:49.800 And that was that was the dirty work. He needed 0:03:49.840 --> 0:03:53.640 to be in a bigger city than Montgomery, and but 0:03:55.320 --> 0:03:58.480 he couldn't afford to live in Atlanta except with his parents, 0:03:59.000 --> 0:04:03.920 and so he was trying to raise funds. And that's 0:04:03.960 --> 0:04:04.720 another story. 0:04:04.920 --> 0:04:08.040 But no, no, that's this story. But that he never 0:04:08.440 --> 0:04:09.920 he keeps avoiding his own He. 0:04:10.280 --> 0:04:13.360 Never had he never had a million dollars a year 0:04:13.400 --> 0:04:16.640 to work with the entire time we had the movement going. 0:04:17.640 --> 0:04:19.719 And so I was trying to help him raise some 0:04:19.800 --> 0:04:22.520 funds and went to my church up here, the United 0:04:22.640 --> 0:04:27.119 Church of Christ, and asked them. They founded a number 0:04:27.120 --> 0:04:33.480 of colleges, Howard and Fisk, Talladega to Galoo, all across 0:04:33.520 --> 0:04:37.800 the south, and so I said, you know, if you 0:04:37.880 --> 0:04:40.960 would let us use some of these properties or some 0:04:41.040 --> 0:04:46.320 of them, we could have a movement southwide in a 0:04:46.320 --> 0:04:49.719 little of no time. And so I was sort of 0:04:49.760 --> 0:04:54.040 being a bridge between him making the transition to Montgomery 0:04:55.000 --> 0:05:00.840 and comeing to Atlanta. I was then moved from Atlanta 0:05:01.640 --> 0:05:04.920 back to I mean from New York back to Atlanta, 0:05:05.360 --> 0:05:07.920 and the first job I got, he was not there. 0:05:08.520 --> 0:05:13.440 His secretary said, well once, she said, my wife's in Alabama. 0:05:13.600 --> 0:05:17.520 She said, you can't be hanging around here loose. He said, 0:05:18.640 --> 0:05:22.239 idle miners the devil's workshop, and we got a whole 0:05:22.279 --> 0:05:27.200 lot of devils. And she said you need something to do. 0:05:27.640 --> 0:05:30.560 I said, well, anything I can do to help, And 0:05:30.680 --> 0:05:35.800 she gave me a great big egg crate packed with letters. 0:05:36.360 --> 0:05:40.240 She put about one hundred letters in a package, tied 0:05:40.320 --> 0:05:43.520 them up, and they would. There were maybe a dozen packages, 0:05:44.400 --> 0:05:46.520 and so she said, if you can help doctor King 0:05:46.560 --> 0:05:50.480 with his mail, Well, that's kind of dirty work, but 0:05:50.880 --> 0:05:53.120 that's really if you want to get to know a company, 0:05:53.160 --> 0:05:55.000 if somebody's coming in here and wants to get to 0:05:55.040 --> 0:05:58.920 know it, answer to mail, or at least read a mail, 0:05:59.400 --> 0:06:02.919 or know what's what's happening around. And so it gave me. 0:06:04.440 --> 0:06:06.680 I mean, I ended up with the bucket of mail, 0:06:07.839 --> 0:06:09.640 and that was sort of a dirty work. 0:06:11.080 --> 0:06:12.920 So you missed a couple of pieces. First of all, 0:06:13.000 --> 0:06:16.640 you and doctor King's wife, your wife and doctor. 0:06:16.600 --> 0:06:22.880 My wife and Martin's wife were by coincidence, and I said, 0:06:22.880 --> 0:06:26.440 coincidence of God's way of remaining anonymous. They were from 0:06:26.480 --> 0:06:29.800 the little same country town of three thousand, Marion, Alabama. 0:06:30.560 --> 0:06:33.920 But there was a good school there and actually, in 0:06:33.960 --> 0:06:39.360 the nineteen forties that school turned out more black PhDs 0:06:39.920 --> 0:06:44.520 than any school in the nation because it had a 0:06:44.880 --> 0:06:51.440 I don't know how bad people who were studious and 0:06:51.880 --> 0:07:00.000 Julian Bond's daddy got his PhD writing it on Lincoln 0:07:00.040 --> 0:07:03.320 in school in Marion, Alabama, which is where all these 0:07:03.400 --> 0:07:06.680 young people came from. And it was where the movement 0:07:06.920 --> 0:07:08.760 a lot of movement. People came from there. 0:07:09.360 --> 0:07:11.480 So Charlomagne when he also when he went to go 0:07:11.800 --> 0:07:13.880 get the job, when he went to do it South, 0:07:15.720 --> 0:07:18.280 the stabb didn't want them. Doctor King was out giving 0:07:18.280 --> 0:07:22.000 speeches and on the road. The stabb didn't want them. 0:07:22.000 --> 0:07:25.120 He was smart, he was articulated. He was like, all 0:07:25.160 --> 0:07:28.960 the seats are taken, we all get every good. They 0:07:28.960 --> 0:07:32.040 sent him packing, so he came back with a grant. 0:07:32.600 --> 0:07:36.120 The grant was self funded and it was for non 0:07:36.160 --> 0:07:39.000 violent education or something like that, but he funded his salary. 0:07:39.600 --> 0:07:42.120 So doctor King said, you consider you paid for it. 0:07:42.120 --> 0:07:43.200 You can sit right over here. 0:07:43.520 --> 0:07:46.800 Well, we've been paid for it. We not only paid 0:07:46.840 --> 0:07:50.600 for it, I brought access to all of those schools. Yes, 0:07:51.240 --> 0:07:58.880 from in North Carolina King's Mountain, Georgia. It was Atlanta University, 0:07:59.560 --> 0:08:05.480 Alabam Most two galu Uh Talladega, Talladega and Alabama and 0:08:05.480 --> 0:08:07.000 two Glue and Mississippi. 0:08:07.160 --> 0:08:09.520 But the key point of that in bass Young was again, 0:08:09.520 --> 0:08:11.760 you won't take credit for this. He became the one 0:08:11.760 --> 0:08:15.240 person nobody could fire, so he could speak truth to power. 0:08:15.760 --> 0:08:18.280 Didn't anybody exactly. 0:08:17.920 --> 0:08:20.040 Because doctor King didn't like conflict. If you let me 0:08:20.080 --> 0:08:24.720 finish my point yes, Doctor Dean didn't like conflict, so 0:08:25.120 --> 0:08:27.720 he was a conflict manager. So he was the one 0:08:28.240 --> 0:08:30.840 inside the staff. You had crazy people on the left 0:08:31.040 --> 0:08:33.920 and crazy folks sort of over here trying to do revolutions. 0:08:34.360 --> 0:08:37.480 Doctor he didn't want conflict, so he would expecting Bashi 0:08:37.559 --> 0:08:41.680 Young to knock his inside. That's it. And when he 0:08:41.720 --> 0:08:44.679 came in, he wanted it to be resolved. And so 0:08:44.760 --> 0:08:48.440 he was the resolution manager inside the movement and outside 0:08:48.520 --> 0:08:50.680 the movement. Again, he doesn't take credit for it, but 0:08:51.040 --> 0:08:53.240 that that really became one of his magic pieces was 0:08:53.280 --> 0:08:56.240 that he was an independent thinker, just like you are. 0:08:56.679 --> 0:08:59.199 Just like all you guys are independent thinkers. 0:09:00.800 --> 0:09:03.080 They get that right, I guess. 0:09:04.360 --> 0:09:04.560 You know. 0:09:04.720 --> 0:09:07.720 The thing is that that the one thing you I 0:09:07.760 --> 0:09:11.080 couldn't do. I couldn't move in there. I grew up 0:09:11.120 --> 0:09:11.840 in New Orleans. 0:09:12.840 --> 0:09:12.960 Uh. 0:09:13.360 --> 0:09:16.080 I'd lived in the South all my life. But I 0:09:16.160 --> 0:09:19.439 was up here in New York when the movement started, 0:09:20.280 --> 0:09:23.640 So I couldn't come back down there and claim and 0:09:24.200 --> 0:09:27.080 I hadn't done anything. Everybody had been beating up gone 0:09:27.080 --> 0:09:30.960 to jail. Uh, and I come down with a grant. 0:09:31.600 --> 0:09:37.960 Well that's no, I mean, that gives me no scoring 0:09:38.000 --> 0:09:40.959 points at all, but I and I didn't need them. 0:09:41.360 --> 0:09:45.640 I just wanted to be there to help because well, 0:09:45.640 --> 0:09:50.360 I don't know. I left Howard and I really well, 0:09:50.400 --> 0:09:53.079 I really fucked up for three and a half years. 0:09:54.200 --> 0:09:58.800 See but I somehow got a degree. And you you 0:09:58.880 --> 0:10:02.560 was fucking up because I was playing around, wasn't studying. 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:05.400 I was trying to make the swimming team, trying to 0:10:05.400 --> 0:10:08.560 make the track team, even tried the wrestling team, and 0:10:08.679 --> 0:10:12.360 trying to play ball, basketball in the gym. And I 0:10:12.480 --> 0:10:16.240 was I went to college at fifteen, and so I 0:10:16.320 --> 0:10:19.040 was trying to hit on the girls. And I wasn't 0:10:19.040 --> 0:10:24.120 making any bragras at all. You know, a little nigga 0:10:24.200 --> 0:10:29.560 from New Orleans, and I got along with people, but 0:10:31.640 --> 0:10:35.080 I was trying to grow up. And when I came 0:10:35.840 --> 0:10:40.480 left Howard and we stopped that you couldn't had no 0:10:40.559 --> 0:10:44.760 hotels at lets you stay. We stopped at a King's Mountain, 0:10:44.800 --> 0:10:50.760 North Carolina, where we had a church conference going on, 0:10:51.600 --> 0:10:54.400 and I decided to run up the mountain and that 0:10:54.559 --> 0:10:58.160 was where I was in good shape. But when you're 0:10:58.160 --> 0:11:02.040 in the hills, you never run flat, either running downhill 0:11:02.200 --> 0:11:07.400 or uphill. And I was running downhill too fast and 0:11:07.520 --> 0:11:09.680 still tried to make it to the top of the mountain, 0:11:09.679 --> 0:11:13.920 and somewhere along there I kind of blacked out, and 0:11:15.040 --> 0:11:18.360 I looked around and everything seemed perfect. You know, it 0:11:18.480 --> 0:11:23.800 was a perfect sky, perfect corn field. The green trees 0:11:23.840 --> 0:11:28.199 were sparkling, and I said, damn everything. He has got 0:11:28.240 --> 0:11:34.040 a purpose but me and I said, I cannot be 0:11:34.200 --> 0:11:38.480 put here on this earth with no purpose at all, 0:11:39.240 --> 0:11:42.760 And how do I find a purpose? Well, what I 0:11:42.800 --> 0:11:46.439 came to was if there's something that I think needs 0:11:46.480 --> 0:11:50.040 doing and nobody wants to do it, that becomes my purpose. 0:11:50.920 --> 0:11:53.040 So I was looking for stuff that needed to be 0:11:53.080 --> 0:11:55.199 done that nobody wanted to do. 0:11:55.480 --> 0:11:58.360 Did that okay, Jr? Be working with him? Did that 0:11:58.400 --> 0:11:59.480 feel like part of your purpose? 0:12:01.440 --> 0:12:05.200 Well, he was the only game in town and he 0:12:05.320 --> 0:12:11.240 had just finished, you know, the Montgomery Improvement Association. He 0:12:11.360 --> 0:12:14.559 got stabbed of here in Harlem, and he was recovering 0:12:14.679 --> 0:12:20.400 from He and Corretta took a trip to India to 0:12:20.480 --> 0:12:24.120 study more about nonviolence. And that was sort of when 0:12:24.160 --> 0:12:28.240 I came in and he wasn't around, so I started 0:12:28.640 --> 0:12:36.120 cleaning up. But I learned that when he got to 0:12:36.200 --> 0:12:40.080 be head of the Montgomery Improvement Association, he wasn't even 0:12:40.120 --> 0:12:44.719 a meeting. He was back in the in the mimiograph 0:12:44.840 --> 0:12:49.280 room running a Memi ray machine, turning out handbills telling 0:12:49.360 --> 0:12:52.400 people that we're gonna have a one day boycott. Well 0:12:52.440 --> 0:12:55.240 that one day boycott turned into three hundred and eighty 0:12:55.280 --> 0:13:01.679 one days. But they went to the back room because 0:13:01.760 --> 0:13:06.320 two preachers, Methodists and Baptists usually they were arguing about 0:13:06.360 --> 0:13:09.480 whose turn it was to be the spokesman. And the 0:13:09.640 --> 0:13:13.880 ladies in the group said, look, these brothers always fussing 0:13:13.920 --> 0:13:16.400 than fighting, why don't we let this young man in 0:13:16.440 --> 0:13:19.800 the back be the spokesman. And so they voted him 0:13:19.840 --> 0:13:21.319 the spokesman. And he didn't even know it. 0:13:21.640 --> 0:13:25.319 That's that's how he became like yeah, and he. 0:13:25.320 --> 0:13:27.760 Went and they went to the back and told him 0:13:28.160 --> 0:13:30.760 that he was going to chair the meeting. And he 0:13:30.880 --> 0:13:34.400 had less than an hour. It was about seven o'clock. 0:13:34.920 --> 0:13:37.520 The mass meeting started at eight o'clock at another church 0:13:37.559 --> 0:13:43.760 across town, and he had to stand up and to 0:13:43.840 --> 0:13:49.000 find this whole movement. Well, he really was brilliant, But 0:13:49.559 --> 0:13:51.640 with that kind of stuff, when you run a Mimi 0:13:51.760 --> 0:13:55.400 reference and all day your mind's wandering and somebody says, 0:13:55.400 --> 0:14:00.240 hold up, you got twenty minutes, you got to speak, 0:14:01.840 --> 0:14:03.800 and nothing you can do but go to the bathroom 0:14:03.800 --> 0:14:04.520 and lock the door. 0:14:04.800 --> 0:14:06.760 But somebody had to know he had those gifts, right 0:14:06.800 --> 0:14:07.600 like somebody had. 0:14:07.800 --> 0:14:12.080 Well they had heard him preaching in his church. But 0:14:12.520 --> 0:14:18.520 it wasn't a gift like running a mass movement. And 0:14:18.760 --> 0:14:21.080 I mean this was the first time in a long time, 0:14:21.880 --> 0:14:24.200 well the first time, and I can remember that any 0:14:24.320 --> 0:14:29.560 city got together and did an agreed that everybody would 0:14:29.600 --> 0:14:33.520 stop riding the bus. Started out for one day, but 0:14:33.560 --> 0:14:36.840 it was so successful that it ended up being three 0:14:36.880 --> 0:14:38.080 hundred and eighty one days. 0:14:38.240 --> 0:14:39.880 That was an early uber, by the way, because it 0:14:39.960 --> 0:14:42.920 was a black, black taxis. Everybody just decided to drive 0:14:42.920 --> 0:14:46.640 everybody else around and not get on the bus. But 0:14:46.680 --> 0:14:50.120 the thing he the message for your audience, Charlomagne, is 0:14:50.720 --> 0:14:54.680 when he's running up that mountain, he was insecure. He 0:14:55.560 --> 0:14:57.600 was lost, and he was looking for a purpose. A 0:14:57.600 --> 0:15:00.040 lot of people are looking for a purpose, doctor, he 0:15:00.200 --> 0:15:01.960 was looking for a purpose. He was back in the 0:15:01.960 --> 0:15:03.680 mimeiagram machine, tried to figure out what his life was 0:15:03.680 --> 0:15:06.600 going to be like. And he'd spend eighteen hours preparing 0:15:06.640 --> 0:15:10.520 for a sermon. He had eighteen minutes that when his 0:15:10.560 --> 0:15:13.720 moment came, it's that you're on and a half an hour, dude. 0:15:13.760 --> 0:15:18.080 But you know, and the speeches that that speech, his 0:15:18.120 --> 0:15:21.440 wife was pregnant, so she couldn't be there. She asked 0:15:21.480 --> 0:15:26.360 the choir director to record it, so we have it recorded, 0:15:27.080 --> 0:15:31.960 and what you see is all of the you see 0:15:32.080 --> 0:15:35.080 references to all of the speeches he made when he 0:15:35.120 --> 0:15:37.200 got the Nobel Peace Prize when he was at the 0:15:37.200 --> 0:15:42.200 marchin on Wardington in Selma. I mean, he had a 0:15:42.240 --> 0:15:47.960 repertoire and he just pulled it all together, and he 0:15:48.000 --> 0:15:52.880 had a nice voice and a nice cadence, and he 0:15:52.960 --> 0:15:55.880 knew how to move across. So he put all of 0:15:55.920 --> 0:15:59.520 the stuff together and preached his way to the top. 0:16:00.480 --> 0:16:02.960 It's such an interesting perspective when you talk about, you know, 0:16:03.000 --> 0:16:05.640 purpose to John, because in my mind, you know, I 0:16:05.680 --> 0:16:09.640 always thought the purpose was the liberation of black people. 0:16:10.040 --> 0:16:13.600 But you're always just looking for something a purpose within yourself. 0:16:14.600 --> 0:16:20.160 Well, except you've got to start liberating black people by 0:16:20.280 --> 0:16:25.960 liberating the one you are. And I'm not liberated. I'm 0:16:26.240 --> 0:16:30.640 I'm I'm enslaved. All of the crap that that goes 0:16:30.680 --> 0:16:34.200 on on every college campus and and in every neighborhood. 0:16:35.120 --> 0:16:37.880 And uh so let's let's let's get some into some 0:16:37.960 --> 0:16:42.960 real talk. He's got survivor's guilt. He doesn't sleep, he's 0:16:43.000 --> 0:16:45.840 always working because he was on that balcony when Doctor 0:16:45.880 --> 0:16:50.440 King was assassinated, and and uh he was right. 0:16:50.320 --> 0:16:55.720 There before that. Though we're all born into a mess. 0:16:56.120 --> 0:16:59.520 I mean I was born into a neighborhood, well, my 0:16:59.600 --> 0:17:03.000 brother with only black kids. There were three four black families. 0:17:03.840 --> 0:17:06.240 But you had an Irish grocery store on one corner, 0:17:06.480 --> 0:17:09.639 an Italian bar on the next. The Nazi party was 0:17:09.680 --> 0:17:12.560 on the third corner. And I'm smack dad in the middle, 0:17:13.160 --> 0:17:16.879 fifty yards from each one of them. And at four years. 0:17:16.600 --> 0:17:20.679 Old, that's you. Yeah, that's you. 0:17:21.040 --> 0:17:21.880 I gotta be your ful. 0:17:22.960 --> 0:17:27.600 I don't know, Governor call turn it off for you. 0:17:27.680 --> 0:17:28.159 I don't know. 0:17:29.080 --> 0:17:34.480 So so when he when Doctor King was assassinated, the 0:17:34.600 --> 0:17:38.800 FBI told him the instructions for the shooter. If you missed, 0:17:38.800 --> 0:17:40.560 the dreamer killed the strategist. 0:17:41.359 --> 0:17:41.800 Mm hmm. 0:17:42.920 --> 0:17:48.760 So he's been this all this time. You an ambassador, 0:17:48.800 --> 0:17:51.520 first black un ambassador of history the United States at 0:17:51.520 --> 0:17:56.480 the Carter, first congressman since reconstruction in the South brought 0:17:56.480 --> 0:17:59.720 the Atlantic, the Olympics to the Atlanta made Atlanta International City, 0:18:01.320 --> 0:18:04.560 President of Medlaler freedma Wardi French foreor Legion of Wardie 0:18:04.600 --> 0:18:08.159 one hundred and fifty hoary doctor degrees, brought a venture 0:18:08.200 --> 0:18:12.080 Capital of Africa, liberated Zimbabwe, helped get Mandela out of prison. 0:18:12.280 --> 0:18:17.840 But underneath all this is I'm here because my friend 0:18:17.880 --> 0:18:21.600 was a shot, so he couldn't enjoy any of it. 0:18:21.640 --> 0:18:25.119 He give all his money away. He's been a servant 0:18:25.359 --> 0:18:29.000 his whole life, and he is He's the closest thing 0:18:29.040 --> 0:18:30.080 we have to Nelson Mandela. 0:18:30.560 --> 0:18:33.440 But he had to stay in jail for three to 0:18:33.560 --> 0:18:37.800 thirty thirty years. Yes, I have, and that was one 0:18:37.840 --> 0:18:40.119 of the things I was guilty about. Everybody else has 0:18:40.160 --> 0:18:42.240 been been to jail, and. 0:18:42.520 --> 0:18:45.480 They called him and uncle Tom, and the staff called 0:18:45.520 --> 0:18:46.160 him uncle Tom. 0:18:46.520 --> 0:18:51.520 Because I was managing the foundation money, I couldn't. I 0:18:51.560 --> 0:18:57.840 wasn't supposed to go to jail, and so until I 0:18:57.920 --> 0:19:05.480 got set up in Saint Augustine, well really even in Savannah, 0:19:06.640 --> 0:19:09.760 and I ended up first time getting arrested because I 0:19:09.840 --> 0:19:12.480 was walking to try to get Hose Williams out of jail, 0:19:13.240 --> 0:19:16.760 and there were kids playing picketty in front of the 0:19:16.840 --> 0:19:22.160 holiday inn. I mean they were twelve years old and 0:19:22.200 --> 0:19:25.359 the police come up there to arrest them, and I 0:19:25.400 --> 0:19:27.159 went on and I said, look, these kids are not 0:19:27.240 --> 0:19:30.560 part of anybody's movement. We wouldn't put people out here 0:19:31.200 --> 0:19:37.280 like this with no adults. I said, if you arrest 0:19:37.359 --> 0:19:43.520 these kids, you ask them for trouble. And they grabbed 0:19:43.520 --> 0:19:48.919 me and threw me in the paddywagon. But I was 0:19:48.960 --> 0:19:53.120 glad I went because they immediately shut the thing down 0:19:53.160 --> 0:19:57.199 and you got a little slit Inland. It was at 0:19:57.280 --> 0:20:00.840 least close to one hundred degrees in Savannah, and they 0:20:00.880 --> 0:20:06.600 closed the air off and I got, you know, fifteen 0:20:06.680 --> 0:20:12.400 twenty kids in there, and they expected us to start, 0:20:12.600 --> 0:20:15.600 you know, crying and screaming because we were. We were 0:20:15.640 --> 0:20:22.119 really closed in and hot. And that's where I go in. 0:20:22.160 --> 0:20:24.560 The Sunday School helped me and I said, look y'all, 0:20:24.800 --> 0:20:27.720 y'all know how to sing. Wade in the water. We 0:20:27.880 --> 0:20:32.600 go into the beach, close eyes see, and I said, 0:20:32.800 --> 0:20:36.960 and I said, we're going down to Tybee Beach. And 0:20:37.000 --> 0:20:39.840 when you get to the beach, the water's cold and 0:20:39.920 --> 0:20:43.760 we're gonna get and the song goes the chills the body, 0:20:43.800 --> 0:20:47.879 but not the soul. And so we started then walking 0:20:47.920 --> 0:20:51.080 the like they were in their mind, walking into the water. 0:20:51.520 --> 0:20:54.520 I said, we are not going to pash waist deep. 0:20:55.760 --> 0:20:58.000 Then everybody's gonna get down and we're gonna cool off. 0:20:58.680 --> 0:21:01.520 And so when we kind of figure out how to 0:21:01.600 --> 0:21:07.600 stay in the oven and i'd burn, I said, let's 0:21:08.000 --> 0:21:11.160 we're gonna sing, and they started singing, wade in the water. 0:21:11.960 --> 0:21:17.640 God's going to trouble the water. See, and we turned 0:21:18.160 --> 0:21:23.359 tragedy into a triumph. The police got mad and took 0:21:23.400 --> 0:21:25.920 everybody to jail, and I had to go with him. 0:21:27.760 --> 0:21:32.040 But then when we got to jail, it was dinner 0:21:32.119 --> 0:21:37.160 time and they gave everybody a paper plate and they 0:21:37.160 --> 0:21:40.240 put up grits and Greece. That's what they served them. 0:21:41.080 --> 0:21:45.080 And the kids said, we don't eat this ship, and 0:21:45.119 --> 0:21:50.720 they started sailing the plates across the jail. And I mean, 0:21:50.760 --> 0:21:55.440 it was it was a while time. But there again, 0:21:56.760 --> 0:22:02.080 that's I accidentally got into that. When you when you 0:22:02.280 --> 0:22:03.440 but that was the dirty work. 0:22:04.040 --> 0:22:06.600 When you look back, was there a moment when you 0:22:06.680 --> 0:22:09.920 realize the moral weight of what you were doing could 0:22:09.960 --> 0:22:11.240 also cost you personally. 0:22:12.880 --> 0:22:18.920 I think I never worried about that, and I never 0:22:18.960 --> 0:22:24.080 worried about that because I never been I mean the 0:22:24.119 --> 0:22:27.840 school I went to in the elementary school, Belina C. 0:22:28.000 --> 0:22:37.679 Jones was an all black public school, overcrowded, and I 0:22:37.680 --> 0:22:40.840 could have gotten killed that in school, I mean it 0:22:40.880 --> 0:22:45.520 was it was called a bucket of blood. But I 0:22:45.560 --> 0:22:50.439 got along. And then between that in my schooling and 0:22:50.480 --> 0:22:55.800 then I went to a church nursery and they taught 0:22:55.840 --> 0:22:57.639 me to read and write. So when they put me 0:22:57.680 --> 0:23:02.920 in public school, I was six years old, but they 0:23:02.920 --> 0:23:07.280 put me in third grade and everybody else was nine ten, 0:23:08.320 --> 0:23:14.280 and so I've always had a burden which I learned 0:23:14.280 --> 0:23:22.119 to deal with and not you know, but I was 0:23:22.160 --> 0:23:23.360 always playing ketchup? 0:23:25.400 --> 0:23:29.800 Why did the staff call you that supposedly unpleasant phrase, 0:23:29.800 --> 0:23:32.840 which actually, when you're doing a little research on Uncle Tom, 0:23:32.840 --> 0:23:36.159 he was a bad brother. Actually he actually he actually 0:23:36.160 --> 0:23:39.720 took slaves up north to Canada. He bought a home, 0:23:39.840 --> 0:23:42.520 bought some property in Canada and actually housed them and 0:23:42.520 --> 0:23:45.800 created self sustainability. Other folks turned the story in doing 0:23:45.840 --> 0:23:48.920 something negative. But why do they call you some of 0:23:48.960 --> 0:23:49.880 the staff uncle Tom? 0:23:50.400 --> 0:23:53.960 Because my daddy taught me to live in that neighborhood 0:23:54.280 --> 0:23:57.960 and to go to that school. I had to stay calm. 0:23:58.000 --> 0:24:00.200 And my dadd is macho. He was a little man 0:24:00.440 --> 0:24:04.560 five to four, and he said, look, you're never gonna 0:24:04.600 --> 0:24:09.440 be big enough to beat up anybody, so stay calm 0:24:09.680 --> 0:24:13.960 and let your mind lead you. Your mind is fat 0:24:14.200 --> 0:24:18.159 is more powerful than your fist or your feet. You 0:24:18.200 --> 0:24:21.119 can run from trouble, but you won't feel good about running. 0:24:21.640 --> 0:24:23.680 And you can fight, but you're probably gonna get beat 0:24:24.200 --> 0:24:27.160 But if you let your mind work, you can figure 0:24:27.200 --> 0:24:30.520 out how to get through any trouble. But don't ever 0:24:30.560 --> 0:24:35.960 get mad. Get smart. See and I heard that from four. 0:24:36.800 --> 0:24:39.800 In fact, he took me to the movie, a segregated movie, 0:24:40.680 --> 0:24:45.000 to see Jesse Owens in the nineteen thirty six Olympics, 0:24:45.680 --> 0:24:50.520 because when Jesse Owens won one hundred meter dash, Hitler 0:24:50.560 --> 0:24:52.920 got mad and he was supposed to give Jesse Owens 0:24:52.960 --> 0:24:57.320 the medal, but he walked out of the stadium and 0:24:57.359 --> 0:25:01.120 took all of his troops with him. My daddy said, 0:25:01.119 --> 0:25:03.880 and I watched jessid what's he doing. I said, He's 0:25:03.920 --> 0:25:08.520 going about his business. He said, that's the point. He's 0:25:08.560 --> 0:25:12.400 not letting Hitler at him upset. He got three more 0:25:12.440 --> 0:25:15.639 medals to win and he ended up coming out with 0:25:15.760 --> 0:25:20.320 four gold medals and a world a couple of world records, 0:25:20.840 --> 0:25:30.280 and so it was it was that preparation that that 0:25:30.400 --> 0:25:33.360 made me ready to do whatever I had to do. 0:25:33.800 --> 0:25:37.240 So they didn't understand his role. Doctor King never wanted 0:25:37.280 --> 0:25:40.880 him arrested. Doctor King, he needed him on the outside. 0:25:41.160 --> 0:25:43.960 He didn't want it was he was not useful getting 0:25:43.960 --> 0:25:46.560 locked up like other people. He needed it was. It 0:25:46.600 --> 0:25:49.480 was a different frequency. And he's not saying it, but 0:25:49.600 --> 0:25:50.640 he was a strategist. 0:25:50.760 --> 0:25:52.520 And yeah, I mean, I think that's the interesting thing about 0:25:52.520 --> 0:25:54.560 the doc right, like it shows you that the civil 0:25:54.640 --> 0:25:56.919