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Speaker 1: Building the Good Life with John Hope Bryant is brought

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Speaker 1: to you by Potential Financial. I was on how It's

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Speaker 1: track teams. I was in very good shape and swimming team,

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Speaker 1: so I was I mean, I didn't have to worry

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Speaker 1: about physical fitness, but I was running too fast and

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Speaker 1: that decided I needed to push myself to the top

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Speaker 1: of the mountain. Well, it was a beautiful day and

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Speaker 1: I was in good condition, but by the time I

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Speaker 1: got to the top of the mountain, I almost couldn't breathe.

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Speaker 1: I might have even blacked out for a little while.

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Speaker 1: But when I got together and my breath leveled off

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Speaker 1: and I looked out, the world just looked different. Everything

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Speaker 1: I saw had a purpose. And I said, you know,

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Speaker 1: these clouds have a purpose. Uh, the trees have a purpose,

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Speaker 1: The corn fields have a purpose. The cows know what

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Speaker 1: that purpose is. Everybody thinks everything I see that God

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Speaker 1: put on this earth has a purpose. And He couldn't

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Speaker 1: have made everything with a purpose except me. That's what

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Speaker 1: I'm talking about. Reverend, Doctor, Father, pastor, Friend, Ambassador Andrew Young,

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Speaker 1: Andrew J. Young. Some would know him as the Mayor

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Speaker 1: of Atlanta two terms. Others would know him as the

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Speaker 1: first Congressman since reconstruction in the American South in Atlanta

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Speaker 1: two terms. Others would know him as the first ever

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Speaker 1: you and ambassador who happens to be African American in

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Speaker 1: the history of the United States of America, President Jimmy

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Speaker 1: Carter making that appointment. Some others would know he had

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Speaker 1: a hundred and thirty honorary doctorate degrees. Others would know

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Speaker 1: him as a Chairman of the Southern African Development Fund,

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Speaker 1: investing post apartheid in the uplift of the economic prosperity

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Speaker 1: of Sub Saharan Africa. Still others would know he brought

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Speaker 1: the Olympic Games to Atlanta, Georgia. That's right, the Olympics.

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Speaker 1: Others would know he created the only international city in

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Speaker 1: the South, the building of modern Atlanta, the tenth largest

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Speaker 1: economy in the country, the thirty largest in the world.

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Speaker 1: If Atlanta was a country, you take Atlanta outside of Georgia,

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Speaker 1: and Georgia is poor than Mississippi. Conversely, take Mississippi, Alabama

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Speaker 1: and West Virginia put it inside of the city of Atlanta,

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Speaker 1: and you still have room. This is the city, the

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Speaker 1: vision that Andrew J. Young built. The only mayor mentored

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Speaker 1: by Dr Martin the King Jr. A man who's won

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Speaker 1: the Presidential Medal of Freedom Award, the French Foreign Legion Award.

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Speaker 1: A man for whom streets in Atlanta, when you come

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Speaker 1: from the airport lead you into the heart of Atlanta.

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Speaker 1: And Drew Young International Boulevard. A man who can only

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Speaker 1: can be compared today to Nelson Mandela, the right arm

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Speaker 1: to Dr Martin of the King Junior in the civil

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Speaker 1: rights movement, the strategists in the civil rights movement, the

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Speaker 1: one that Dr King never wanted arrested because he was

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Speaker 1: his thinker, his negotiator, his doer outside of the marches,

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Speaker 1: the man who helped to create and deliver three of

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Speaker 1: the four civil rights bills. That's right, this man ninety

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Speaker 1: years young and still giving every day. Ladies and gentlemen,

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Speaker 1: Andrew Jay. Yeah, we are honored to have you with

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Speaker 1: as my man. Let's get into this conversation. I've said

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Speaker 1: some pretty provocative things. You've lived history, you have been

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Speaker 1: living history, You're still making history. Can't get you off

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Speaker 1: a plane at ninety years young, on a plane with me,

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Speaker 1: or sorry, on a plane in spite of me. Last

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Speaker 1: week I think we took a trip together a few

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Speaker 1: weeks ago. This man is passing himself in the airports.

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Speaker 1: He doesn't give up, he doesn't give in. Why have

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Speaker 1: you not let up? Well, the struggle continues. And you

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Speaker 1: know before he passed, in fact, when we were all

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Speaker 1: in our thirties, Martin Luther King said said, um, you know,

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Speaker 1: we must all be clinically insane. We got no money,

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Speaker 1: we got no political power back then in the early sixties,

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Speaker 1: and we think we are the ones that can save

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Speaker 1: the sixth society. And said, the problem is that doesn't

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Speaker 1: seem to be anybody else right now. And he said

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Speaker 1: we might not make it, and he didn't, but he said,

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Speaker 1: it's a struggle. We've got to continue at least a

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Speaker 1: hundred because it's not gonna ever be easy. Change is

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Speaker 1: not easy, but change is inevitable. Things are going to change.

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Speaker 1: The question is which direction do they change. Do they

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Speaker 1: change in the direction of helping all or do they

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Speaker 1: change in the direction of helping only a few. It's

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Speaker 1: not an either or answer because I would say that

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Speaker 1: all of the high tech industry, well, let's go back

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Speaker 1: to the automobile industry. The automobile industry basically helped you know,

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Speaker 1: Henry Ford and a few very wealthy white people who

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Speaker 1: became wealthy, but they also created millions of jobs that

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Speaker 1: gave black people a step and stone to get into

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Speaker 1: the mainstream of the economy, to become automobile dealers, and

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Speaker 1: to branch off from there, to educate their children better

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Speaker 1: than they were able to be educated and their children.

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Speaker 1: I'm I'm, I'm always amazed to find young people thinking

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Speaker 1: of things that even in my ninety years, I've never

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Speaker 1: heard of. Uh. And it it uh, it's like, well

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Speaker 1: like the whole technology revolution. I mean, my kids use this.

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Speaker 1: So my grandchildren ten years old use their cell phones

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Speaker 1: better than I do. Uh, they know how to use them.

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Speaker 1: And I get frustrated because every time they upgraded or something,

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Speaker 1: they messed with something and I don't know how to

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Speaker 1: do it from that on and I'm barely to the

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Speaker 1: point where I can turn on my phone and doctors Greece. Well, yeah,

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Speaker 1: but I'm not of this era. But let's talk about

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Speaker 1: the things that are timeless. You're not of this era,

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Speaker 1: but you learned some lessons as a child and as

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Speaker 1: a young man that I think our timeless today for

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Speaker 1: this period where we can't as you said to me

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Speaker 1: one day, folks are so confused they're arguing on which

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Speaker 1: way the which way is up? You actually, as people

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Speaker 1: will argue with you on which way is up and

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Speaker 1: which way is down, which I unfortunately, I agree with

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Speaker 1: the story of you growing up with four corners of

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Speaker 1: friction in your life, the story of your dad uh

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Speaker 1: sort of teasing you aggressively uh and trying to get

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Speaker 1: you to antagonize you to see if you'd fight, and

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Speaker 1: and encouraging you to use uh your brain and not

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Speaker 1: your bron You know, living and growing up in America

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Speaker 1: is a great opportunity. And I grew up in New

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Speaker 1: Orleans with an Irish grocery store on one corner, an

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Speaker 1: Italian bar on another. Um, the Nazi party was on

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Speaker 1: the third corner, and there was a Chevrolet dealership around

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Speaker 1: the fourth corna and so um. There were black people

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Speaker 1: living in the neighborhood, but my brother and I were

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Speaker 1: probably the only black kids. And once I know you,

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Speaker 1: I didn't know that. Yeah, well, but it meant that

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Speaker 1: with difficult people and that we had to get along

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Speaker 1: and we couldn't fight all the time, And we couldn't

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Speaker 1: fight every time because at times when it's well. My

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Speaker 1: father's mantra was don't get mad, get smart. He said,

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Speaker 1: when you get angry in a fight, you lose your fight,

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Speaker 1: and he uses and this was before later, but his

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Speaker 1: best example was Sunny Listening and Muhammad Ali. Muhammad Ali

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Speaker 1: was just out of the um Uh Olympics and he

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Speaker 1: was young and tall and skinny. He didn't look like

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Speaker 1: he weighed two hundred pounds. He probably didn't. He was

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Speaker 1: probably just a hundred ninety so and Sunny Listen was

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Speaker 1: about two fifty and he looked like it. He was

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Speaker 1: nothing but muscle mass. And uh Mohammed Ali provoked him

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Speaker 1: and said, I'm gonna beat him out of this championship.

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Speaker 1: So he's too ugly to beet the champion. And he said,

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Speaker 1: I'm a pretty boy that the world champion ought to

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Speaker 1: be pretty like me. And Sunnay Listen was so mad

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Speaker 1: and Mohammed Ali, and my daddy said, I said, I

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Speaker 1: wish Mohammed would kind of cool it. Sunny Listen is

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Speaker 1: gonna kill him, and my dad had said no, he

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Speaker 1: probably knocked him out in one or two rounds. I said,

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Speaker 1: how do you figure that? He says, Sunday Listen got

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Speaker 1: mad and son and and when you're mad, you're not thinking,

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Speaker 1: and he's gonna walk in a couple of jabs uh

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Speaker 1: and the right cross and he's gonna be out of

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Speaker 1: there and it won't take it take less than five minutes.

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Speaker 1: When I saw a Sunday listening standing laying on the

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Speaker 1: ground and and he didn't even turn over, you know,

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Speaker 1: he was just flat on his back. Um and Muhammad

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Speaker 1: alities standing over him. I understood what my daddy was

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Speaker 1: talking about, that when you get angry, you're gonna get

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Speaker 1: your ass with because you're not thinking. And he was short.

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Speaker 1: I'm short. Was short, yeah, and all of us were

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Speaker 1: less than five eight and everybody rights movement, basically almost

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Speaker 1: everybody and still rights CT. Vivian was but six ft

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Speaker 1: and but most almost everybody was short. The big vision

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Speaker 1: and and and so you couldn't win on braun and

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Speaker 1: in in and big muscles. You had to have a

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Speaker 1: big brain. You had to have a big He had

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Speaker 1: to use your mind. And it's amazing, and you can't

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Speaker 1: really make the civil rights movement makes sense, uh, looking

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Speaker 1: at it politically and economically. There was a God factor

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Speaker 1: in that there was a spirituality that we depended on

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Speaker 1: but didn't talk about UH. For instance, when Martin Luther

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Speaker 1: King won the Nobel Priest Peace Prize and we came

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Speaker 1: back to talk to him President Lyndon Johnson. President Johnson

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Speaker 1: agreed with everything we asked him, but he said, I'm sorry,

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Speaker 1: I just don't have the power. He said, we just

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Speaker 1: as to create another civil rights He didn't want to

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Speaker 1: meet with you, right, he he he avoided, tried to

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Speaker 1: avoid Dr King UH in an official meeting. Well, I'm

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Speaker 1: not sure about all of that. He delayed us to

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Speaker 1: the media left, but no until the the people that

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Speaker 1: were in there with him when we got there, all

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Speaker 1: the people in Vietnam. They were the generals and the

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Speaker 1: senators who were provoking the war. UH. And it was

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Speaker 1: about seven o'clock at night and the press had gone home.

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Speaker 1: The meeting wasn't long, but it was very friendly and

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Speaker 1: very respectful because even though Dr King disagreed with him

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Speaker 1: totally on the war in Vietnam, in private he tended

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Speaker 1: to agree and say that he was this was something

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Speaker 1: that he didn't start. He he inherited it. Let me say,

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Speaker 1: Johnson privately agreed privately privately, he and Martin Luther King

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Speaker 1: never disagreed. It's a little known fact, and because Lyndon

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Speaker 1: Johnson was a poor boy from the Hill Country in Texas,

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Speaker 1: and he had been a school teacher, and he taught

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Speaker 1: uh poor Mexican kids who had not had anything to

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Speaker 1: eat before they came to school, and and he he

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Speaker 1: had identified with him. And when he finally signed the

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Speaker 1: Civil Rights Bill, he said that when he was a

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Speaker 1: teacher in the Hill Country in Texas, he often wanted

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Speaker 1: to be able to do something for those poor kids

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Speaker 1: that win his class, who couldn't learn because they hadn't

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Speaker 1: had anything to eat. He said, I'm now in a

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Speaker 1: position where I can do something about that, and I

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Speaker 1: intend to. But when we were in the office, he

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Speaker 1: agreed with everything, but said I just don't have the power.

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Speaker 1: So when we when we left, I said, Dr King, well,

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Speaker 1: what are we gonna do? He said, We're gonna get

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Speaker 1: the presidents and power, he said, And I said, you

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Speaker 1: more houseman. That's where he went to school. I said,

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Speaker 1: they say you can tell a more house man, but

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Speaker 1: you can't tell him much. But that's the most arrogant

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Speaker 1: thing I've ever heard. You say, you are five ft

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Speaker 1: seven in just all said, don't wait but about a

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Speaker 1: hundred and sixty pounds. Don't have any money, don't have

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Speaker 1: an army. We we barely got a pot to piss

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Speaker 1: in on the window to throw it out of And

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Speaker 1: and you're gonna get the presidents of power. That is

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Speaker 1: more nerves. And I mean, I know, I know you're great,

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Speaker 1: but just because you've got a Nobel prize doesn't mean

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Speaker 1: that you can manipulate the universe. Well, that wasn't true.

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Speaker 1: What I said wasn't true because he wasn't counting on

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Speaker 1: political power. That's what Johnson was talking about. He was

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Speaker 1: talking about spiritual power. And two days after we got

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Speaker 1: back into Atlanta, Mrs Amelia boy in Selma came over

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Speaker 1: to see us. Well, Martin Luther King's wife and my

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Speaker 1: wife were born and raised thirty miles from Selma, so

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Speaker 1: that was tempered. That was places we knew about. When

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Speaker 1: Mrs Boynton told r. King all of the mistreatment that

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Speaker 1: Jim Clark was afflicting on the people of Selma, he said, well,

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Speaker 1: don't worry, we'll be there to help you right after Christmas.

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Speaker 1: And that was about the twentie of December, and we

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Speaker 1: went to sell them on the second of January, and

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Speaker 1: everybody pay attention to you, about to get some history

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Speaker 1: lesson here, No one to Lyndon Johnson was standing up

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Speaker 1: making a speech saying we shall overcome and introducing a

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Speaker 1: voting rights bill before the first of April. And that's because, uh,

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Speaker 1: you told me before. Dr King got the date wrong

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Speaker 1: for a march, right, Well it was. It was a

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Speaker 1: combination of a lot of things that we didn't control, coincidences,

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Speaker 1: God remaining anonymous. One one was that it was a

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Speaker 1: leap year. So when we said we'd have them march

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Speaker 1: on this second Sunday in March, um, that was every

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Speaker 1: everybody agreed, but the poor folks in the country didn't

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Speaker 1: count Sundays like preachers do. So this is the march

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Speaker 1: on the Pettis Bridge, the famous march. And so when

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Speaker 1: I got over there, well I was I wasn't even

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Speaker 1: planning to go that day. And I finally got plane

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Speaker 1: and got to Selma. And when I drove through there,

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Speaker 1: I saw all the policeman gathering. But when I got

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Speaker 1: to Brown Chapel, a church, um there must have been

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Speaker 1: a couple of hundred people, and the number kept growing.

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Speaker 1: They and they were march. They were coming from all

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Speaker 1: over the Black Belt with their knapsacks and the Bibles,

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Speaker 1: and they were there to march from Selma and Montgomery,

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Speaker 1: which is about fifty miles. Dr at wasn't there. M hm.

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Speaker 1: And I said, you know, we really can't hold up

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Speaker 1: the movement in the march because we made a mistake.

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Speaker 1: I said that that. I said, they probably just gonna

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Speaker 1: turn everybody around. Uh they didn't, and everybody around. They

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Speaker 1: beat everybody up. That's what John Lewis, John Lewis, Jia

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Speaker 1: Williams and Missus Boynton and many others got beat up.

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Speaker 1: The only reason I wasn't in the front of the

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Speaker 1: line was he told me not to get arrested. Doctor

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Speaker 1: King never wanted your arrested. We really wanted me to

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Speaker 1: get arrested. Which the strategist. We'll talk about that in

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Speaker 1: a minute. Well, I don't know about He wanted me

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Speaker 1: to be outside if he was in jail, and he

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Speaker 1: figured if everybody went to jail, he'd have to come

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Speaker 1: over the next day and go to jail. So my

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Speaker 1: job was out of jail. But but the point of

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Speaker 1: this story is if Dr King actually got the date

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Speaker 1: right and had been there, they wouldn't have been as

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Speaker 1: are said, maybe maybe they this was Jim Clark. It

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Speaker 1: was a sheriff and he was kind of nuts mentally unstable. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but he's not crazy. He wouldn't have beat up Dr King. Well,

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Speaker 1: he wouldn't. He wouldn't have because if Dr King had

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Speaker 1: been there, Lyndon Johnson would have sent the Justice Department

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Speaker 1: there you go, and the Justice Department would not have

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Speaker 1: let him beat up Dr King. And so because that

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Speaker 1: didn't happen, because Dr King wasn't there, the date was incorrect.

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Speaker 1: You showed up, the march went forward. They beat everybody

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Speaker 1: to enter their life as a result of that. The

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Speaker 1: team Will watched that on the TV where were enraged

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Speaker 1: by that, insulted by that, and all of a sudden,

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Speaker 1: you guys gave Dr King, and you gave President Johnson

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Speaker 1: more power, where he then up and said I want

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Speaker 1: another civil rights bill and every it's the way the

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Speaker 1: Lord works. Judgment at Nuremberg it was a story of

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Speaker 1: Hitler and Jews in the Second World War. And that

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Speaker 1: was on prime time news in New York and Chicago,

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Speaker 1: all over the North. And we had a terrible snowstorm,

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Speaker 1: so everybody had to be home looking at television, they

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Speaker 1: couldn't go anywhere. Uh, and so the Lord works in

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Speaker 1: mysterious ways. And because everybody was home looking at this,

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Speaker 1: and they saw the tragedy of Germany, and then they

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Speaker 1: saw the same sort of thing happening in Selma. That

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Speaker 1: awakened the nation and it began to give President Johnson

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Speaker 1: more voting rights power that we needed him to have.

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Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting that happened recently. The Lord working

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Speaker 1: in mysterious ways, the universe working mysterious ways, because there

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Speaker 1: was a time like Nuremberg, like that environment wherebody's watching TV.

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Speaker 1: In the last two years, it was a murder of

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Speaker 1: George Floyd because of the pandemic. Everybody was at home

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Speaker 1: doing what they normally wouldn't do, kids, students, blacks, wives, rich, poor, billionaires,

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Speaker 1: millionaires might trying to buy some are. Everybody's at home

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Speaker 1: watching a public lynching, which then enraged everybody's soul in sped.

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Speaker 1: We wouldn't have seen it if it hadn't been for

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Speaker 1: the young lady with her cell phone who photographed that

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Speaker 1: nine minutes and forty one seconds and sent it around

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Speaker 1: the world. I mean, they were they were marching the

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Speaker 1: next day in New Zealand all the way around the

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Speaker 1: bottom of the earth. It's probably take you twenty four

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Speaker 1: twenty six hours to fly from Minneapolis to New Zealand.

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Speaker 1: But on the airwaves, cell phones, instantaneous. It was almost instantaneous.

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Speaker 1: And really think about it, the media actually helped you,

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Speaker 1: dr king ultimate leaders of the movement, the leading The

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Speaker 1: media protected you guys. You wouldn't march after two three

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Speaker 1: o'clock in the afternoon, when't march before ten because you

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Speaker 1: needed the media to come recorded and get that film

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Speaker 1: in order to New York in time to be processed

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Speaker 1: for the news. They don't have to do that now.

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Speaker 1: I think that's my point is that it's it's now.

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Speaker 1: We had sustantaneous because when the newsmen filmed it, they

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Speaker 1: had to get on a plane and fly the film

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Speaker 1: to New York and they had to leave by two o'clock.

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Speaker 1: Took him two hours to get there to try to

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Speaker 1: make the six o'clock news. So the media has always

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Speaker 1: been a powerful vehicle for justice and fair play, very

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Speaker 1: much like we are using the media right now, thank

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Speaker 1: you our heart, to get this message out because people

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Speaker 1: are depressed and bastelor young. Very much like in the sixties,

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Speaker 1: very much like out of the Civil War, very much

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Speaker 1: like during World War two. People are confused and distressed

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Speaker 1: and depressed. They diffused and depressed and stretched out for

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Speaker 1: many good reasons, which includes purpose. And I want you

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Speaker 1: to tell the story of you in that mountaintop, but

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Speaker 1: I want to I want to tell the story of

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Speaker 1: the songs. And it's not it's an old spiritual but

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Speaker 1: it was. It was from the fifties and sixties, Brother

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Speaker 1: James Cleveland, Lord, I don't feel no ways tired. We've

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Speaker 1: come too far from where we started from. And nobody

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Speaker 1: told me the way it was gonna be easy. But

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Speaker 1: I don't believe he brought us this far. There's always

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Speaker 1: been a song in the hearts of and oppressed people,

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Speaker 1: especially those of us of African descent. Well, even when

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Speaker 1: I was in college from sixteen years though, and hadn't studied,

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Speaker 1: I'd get in the shower and saying, nobody knows the

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Speaker 1: trouble I've seen. Nobody knows my sorrow, and I'm sorry.

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Speaker 1: My sorrow was that I was sorry and hadn't been studying.

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Speaker 1: But sometimes I'm up, sometimes I'm down, Oh yes, Lord,

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Speaker 1: But still my soul is heavenly bound. That means let

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Speaker 1: me get out of the shower and not just on

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Speaker 1: my knees, but behind my desk and try to learn

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Speaker 1: something by morning to pass those tests. So and actually

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Speaker 1: tell them that you were as a young pastor in development,

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Speaker 1: you had went with a friend yours to uh seminary school,

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Speaker 1: seminary camp or something, and you were really frustrated actually

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Speaker 1: about your purpose in life. They're gonna help a lot

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Speaker 1: of people right now who are struggling with their purpose. No,

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Speaker 1: the thing was that I had finished college. But MS,

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Speaker 1: it's a complicated story that I was well. I went

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Speaker 1: to a church nursery school. They just let us learn

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Speaker 1: and we were surrounded by loving people, so that when

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Speaker 1: I went to six when I became six years old,

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Speaker 1: it was old enough to go to public school. They

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Speaker 1: didn't put me in first grade. They put me in

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Speaker 1: third grade. And because I could read, and I could write,

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Speaker 1: and I could add and subtract, even because I've had

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Speaker 1: a good foundation, That's why I think the nursery schools

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Speaker 1: we put our children in. The priest pre k is

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Speaker 1: one of the most important parts of our preparation. And

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Speaker 1: if you learn that, it's fun to learn and so

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Speaker 1: children are never too young to start learning, and then

364
00:23:32,560 --> 00:23:37,280
Speaker 1: never too young to start learning uh math, and then

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Speaker 1: never too young to start learning history. That's why when

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Speaker 1: children ask a question, UH, it's important to take the

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Speaker 1: time to tell them the best answer you can give them.

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Speaker 1: Most of the time, and we don't know how to

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Speaker 1: answer because we don't know to answer, but we have

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Speaker 1: to keep their curiosity alive and make them want to learn.

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Speaker 1: And nowadays, even my little children, UM six and seven,

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Speaker 1: they got iPhones and they know how to talk to Syria, Google, Google,

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Speaker 1: Google or somebody, and they will They don't ever show

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Speaker 1: me what they're doing. But when when I started talking

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Speaker 1: about something they don't know about, I'll see him take

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Speaker 1: the phone and whispering it or something. And then the

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00:24:24,840 --> 00:24:27,520
Speaker 1: next thing you know, they got an answer better than

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Speaker 1: the one I gave him. Well, God gave you an

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Speaker 1: answer that in the one that you had given yourself.

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Speaker 1: Um again, I don't know how old you were when

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Speaker 1: you took a walk up on the hill. Well, and

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Speaker 1: you were frustrated and concerned, a little distressed about life.

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Speaker 1: But I was guilty. I was guilty because I had

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Speaker 1: a college degree from Howard University, and I didn't know ship.

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Speaker 1: And I had majored in biology and chemistry and I

386
00:24:55,520 --> 00:24:59,040
Speaker 1: but I didn't I didn't want to go into medicine,

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Speaker 1: and I didn't want to be a dentists like my

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00:25:00,840 --> 00:25:04,679
Speaker 1: father wanted me to be. Uh. And I had a

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Speaker 1: good science background, but I didn't know what life was

390
00:25:08,160 --> 00:25:13,080
Speaker 1: all about. We went in North Carolina and my parents

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00:25:13,119 --> 00:25:16,040
Speaker 1: wanted to stop and go to a church meeting, and

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Speaker 1: I decided to go out and run up the mountain.

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Speaker 1: And the thing is, when you're running in hilly territory.

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Speaker 1: I was on hollows track teams. I was in very

395
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Speaker 1: good shape and swimming team, so I was I mean,

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00:25:28,960 --> 00:25:33,040
Speaker 1: I didn't have to worry about physical fitness, but I

397
00:25:33,080 --> 00:25:36,760
Speaker 1: was running too fast and I decided I needed to

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Speaker 1: push myself to the top of the mountain. And it

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00:25:40,119 --> 00:25:45,280
Speaker 1: it well. It was a beautiful day and I was

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00:25:45,480 --> 00:25:48,199
Speaker 1: in good condition. But by the time I got to

401
00:25:48,240 --> 00:25:51,159
Speaker 1: the top of the mountain, I almost couldn't breathe. I was,

402
00:25:51,320 --> 00:25:53,760
Speaker 1: I was out of breath, and I might have even

403
00:25:53,760 --> 00:25:58,560
Speaker 1: blacked out for a little while. Uh and um. But

404
00:25:58,640 --> 00:26:03,040
Speaker 1: when I got together and my breath leveled off, and

405
00:26:03,680 --> 00:26:07,359
Speaker 1: I looked out, the world just look different and it

406
00:26:07,560 --> 00:26:14,840
Speaker 1: it um Everything I saw had a purpose, And I said,

407
00:26:14,880 --> 00:26:18,679
Speaker 1: you know, these clouds have a purpose. Uh, the trees

408
00:26:18,760 --> 00:26:22,280
Speaker 1: have a purpose, The corn fields have a purpose. The

409
00:26:22,359 --> 00:26:27,399
Speaker 1: cows know what that purpose is. Everybody thinks everything I

410
00:26:27,440 --> 00:26:30,600
Speaker 1: see that God put on this earth has a purpose.

411
00:26:31,600 --> 00:26:35,080
Speaker 1: And he couldn't have made everything with a purpose except me.

412
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Speaker 1: That's what I'm talking about. And I decided I didn't

413
00:26:39,240 --> 00:26:42,000
Speaker 1: know what it was, and I didn't care what it was,

414
00:26:42,680 --> 00:26:47,399
Speaker 1: but the Lord put me here for something, and the

415
00:26:47,440 --> 00:26:50,280
Speaker 1: way I defined it is, there's something I can do

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00:26:51,320 --> 00:26:54,359
Speaker 1: that nobody else in this world can do. And I

417
00:26:54,359 --> 00:26:56,080
Speaker 1: don't know what it is, and I don't have the

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Speaker 1: slightest idea. I just do the best I can, one

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Speaker 1: day at a time. And it was the one day

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00:27:01,680 --> 00:27:07,199
Speaker 1: at a time now. Fortunately, when I got home, we

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00:27:07,240 --> 00:27:10,640
Speaker 1: had a new preacher and he just graduated from Yelle

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00:27:10,680 --> 00:27:14,120
Speaker 1: to Entity School and he had been invited to come

423
00:27:14,119 --> 00:27:23,160
Speaker 1: out to Texas, UH to an interracial youth conference and

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00:27:25,200 --> 00:27:28,440
Speaker 1: he had never been South before. So he said, look,

425
00:27:28,480 --> 00:27:33,160
Speaker 1: I don't know how to act down here, and I'm

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00:27:33,200 --> 00:27:36,639
Speaker 1: really I'm frankly scared of driving driving alone in the South.

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00:27:37,000 --> 00:27:39,800
Speaker 1: Would you drive with me? Would you go with me? Well,

428
00:27:40,520 --> 00:27:44,399
Speaker 1: I wasn't anxious to go, except that he said. I said, well,

429
00:27:44,400 --> 00:27:47,480
Speaker 1: where are you going? He said, it's near San Antonio. Well,

430
00:27:47,880 --> 00:27:51,000
Speaker 1: the coincidence is that that was Well, my roommate at

431
00:27:51,000 --> 00:27:54,240
Speaker 1: Howard was from. So I figured I'd take the preacher

432
00:27:54,320 --> 00:27:56,680
Speaker 1: to the meeting his meeting, dropped him off, and go

433
00:27:56,760 --> 00:27:59,879
Speaker 1: a party with my roommate for a week. Except that

434
00:28:00,040 --> 00:28:02,640
Speaker 1: Texas is so big, and we we when we drove,

435
00:28:02,720 --> 00:28:06,400
Speaker 1: we drove from Houston up towards the Panhandle of Texas,

436
00:28:06,600 --> 00:28:09,000
Speaker 1: and we were driving all day long and didn't see

437
00:28:09,040 --> 00:28:17,639
Speaker 1: anybody black. And when we got there at Lake Brownwood, Um,

438
00:28:17,680 --> 00:28:20,280
Speaker 1: there was nobody black there. He and I were the

439
00:28:20,320 --> 00:28:23,240
Speaker 1: only two black folks there. And he said, you're not

440
00:28:23,240 --> 00:28:26,919
Speaker 1: gonna leave me here alone, are you? He said? I

441
00:28:26,960 --> 00:28:29,280
Speaker 1: said no. I said there would be probably be some

442
00:28:29,359 --> 00:28:33,200
Speaker 1: more black folk coming the next day, but nobody else came.

443
00:28:33,960 --> 00:28:38,000
Speaker 1: And so I'm sitting around with white people who come

444
00:28:38,040 --> 00:28:40,360
Speaker 1: up to me telling me, you know, if my parents

445
00:28:40,440 --> 00:28:45,400
Speaker 1: knew I was here, they would probably disown me. I'm

446
00:28:45,440 --> 00:28:48,720
Speaker 1: not supposed to be in any meeting with colored people.

447
00:28:49,360 --> 00:28:51,440
Speaker 1: And I said, well, why are you here? And they

448
00:28:51,480 --> 00:28:54,600
Speaker 1: said because I think this is what Jesus would have

449
00:28:54,760 --> 00:28:58,600
Speaker 1: me do. And I said, damn, I ain't never met

450
00:28:58,640 --> 00:29:03,560
Speaker 1: no white folk at that. That translated Jesus love in

451
00:29:03,760 --> 00:29:07,760
Speaker 1: the love of people who are different on this earth.

452
00:29:08,880 --> 00:29:12,280
Speaker 1: They and and they, They were in the process of

453
00:29:12,320 --> 00:29:16,560
Speaker 1: trying to do that. So I was just the man

454
00:29:16,600 --> 00:29:24,000
Speaker 1: of color in residence. And I mean whatever they asked,

455
00:29:24,120 --> 00:29:29,479
Speaker 1: I answered the discussions we had. They had white foolish

456
00:29:29,680 --> 00:29:32,200
Speaker 1: folks point of view and I had a black folks

457
00:29:32,240 --> 00:29:36,440
Speaker 1: point of view, but never had the two engaged like that.

458
00:29:36,960 --> 00:29:39,440
Speaker 1: And so I ended up staying that whole week, and

459
00:29:39,480 --> 00:29:41,400
Speaker 1: at the end of the week they wanted they offered

460
00:29:41,440 --> 00:29:44,320
Speaker 1: me a job. It wasn't a paid job. It was

461
00:29:44,360 --> 00:29:48,360
Speaker 1: a volunteer position where they gave me expenses. And but

462
00:29:48,480 --> 00:29:51,280
Speaker 1: I didn't know what else to do, and I knew

463
00:29:51,280 --> 00:29:53,560
Speaker 1: I didn't. My daddy wanted me to go to dental school,

464
00:29:54,400 --> 00:30:00,840
Speaker 1: and well, I it was for me to say that

465
00:30:00,920 --> 00:30:05,680
Speaker 1: because I really love my daddy and all done. Everybody

466
00:30:05,680 --> 00:30:08,120
Speaker 1: wants to say say yes to their their parents, but

467
00:30:08,280 --> 00:30:13,040
Speaker 1: that was not for me. Mainly the only reason I said,

468
00:30:13,080 --> 00:30:15,640
Speaker 1: I said, Daddy, I said, you in an office all

469
00:30:15,720 --> 00:30:17,840
Speaker 1: day long. I don't know what I want to be,

470
00:30:17,920 --> 00:30:19,760
Speaker 1: but I don't want to be in anybody's office all

471
00:30:19,840 --> 00:30:23,800
Speaker 1: day long. Building the good life is brought to you

472
00:30:23,800 --> 00:30:27,080
Speaker 1: by Prudential Financial. For over one and forty five years,

473
00:30:27,200 --> 00:30:30,200
Speaker 1: millions of people have counted on Prudential to help solves

474
00:30:30,360 --> 00:30:33,880
Speaker 1: for life's most important financial means. Because at Prudential they

475
00:30:33,920 --> 00:30:37,280
Speaker 1: lived their purpose to make life better by solving for

476
00:30:37,360 --> 00:30:41,040
Speaker 1: the financial challenges of our changing world. Prudentials Who's Your

477
00:30:41,120 --> 00:30:44,120
Speaker 1: Rock campaign is also about helping people reach new heights

478
00:30:44,240 --> 00:30:47,959
Speaker 1: and providing a platform for people to reach their financial goals.

479
00:30:50,160 --> 00:30:53,880
Speaker 1: It's it's obvious to me, a why uh that? Why

480
00:30:53,960 --> 00:30:55,760
Speaker 1: Dr King selected you? Now? I didn't put all the

481
00:30:55,800 --> 00:30:58,440
Speaker 1: pieces together. Sorry, Why God selected you to be with

482
00:30:58,480 --> 00:31:01,080
Speaker 1: him with Dr King is obvious to me now, and

483
00:31:01,080 --> 00:31:03,360
Speaker 1: I hadn't put the pieces together yet. You used to

484
00:31:03,400 --> 00:31:05,720
Speaker 1: talking to people for whom nobody else could talk to.

485
00:31:06,040 --> 00:31:09,160
Speaker 1: You used to diffusing conflict with your head and your heart,

486
00:31:09,240 --> 00:31:13,480
Speaker 1: not your braun and your fists. You used to be exactly.

487
00:31:13,560 --> 00:31:15,680
Speaker 1: You used to step an over mess and not in it.

488
00:31:15,960 --> 00:31:19,320
Speaker 1: You're you're You're comfortable talking to white people when everybody

489
00:31:19,320 --> 00:31:20,920
Speaker 1: else was and Dr King was the only black lad

490
00:31:20,920 --> 00:31:22,720
Speaker 1: you're talking to white America. Most black leaders were just

491
00:31:22,760 --> 00:31:25,240
Speaker 1: talking to black America. But but you work for a

492
00:31:25,320 --> 00:31:27,800
Speaker 1: church that sent you down to work with Dr King

493
00:31:28,320 --> 00:31:31,560
Speaker 1: to do some training for non violent training. Abanathy and

494
00:31:31,560 --> 00:31:34,720
Speaker 1: others thought you were competition and sent you packing because

495
00:31:34,800 --> 00:31:37,080
Speaker 1: Dr King wasn't in the office. He's always giving speeches.

496
00:31:37,560 --> 00:31:39,440
Speaker 1: You came back talking about the power of economics, and

497
00:31:39,640 --> 00:31:41,840
Speaker 1: this pivots to you how you build Atlanta and I

498
00:31:41,880 --> 00:31:44,040
Speaker 1: think the message for the day about social justice with

499
00:31:44,040 --> 00:31:46,360
Speaker 1: the economic lens they sent. The church sent you back

500
00:31:46,400 --> 00:31:49,800
Speaker 1: with the six contract to do three years of of

501
00:31:50,040 --> 00:31:52,840
Speaker 1: non violent training. That meant you were on the payroll

502
00:31:52,920 --> 00:31:55,840
Speaker 1: for Dr King with no cost to them. Dr King

503
00:31:55,840 --> 00:31:57,480
Speaker 1: then just said, is I get the story right? Go

504
00:31:57,560 --> 00:32:00,360
Speaker 1: sit right over there, free employee. The beautiful heart, though,

505
00:32:00,480 --> 00:32:02,960
Speaker 1: was that no one could now fire you. There was

506
00:32:03,000 --> 00:32:06,160
Speaker 1: before you were subject. Doctor King wasn't in town, aberatic

507
00:32:06,160 --> 00:32:10,960
Speaker 1: whoever else. I actually came there with the money and

508
00:32:11,280 --> 00:32:17,000
Speaker 1: with and UH, with Mrs sept Mclark and Mrs Dorothy

509
00:32:17,040 --> 00:32:22,719
Speaker 1: Cotton and Ms and nol Ponda. I we we were

510
00:32:22,800 --> 00:32:30,200
Speaker 1: supposed to teach people, train leaders, not unlike your operation Hope.

511
00:32:31,320 --> 00:32:35,760
Speaker 1: But we couldn't get into institutions. And so we paid

512
00:32:35,880 --> 00:32:41,040
Speaker 1: people thirty dollars a month to conduct voter registration classes

513
00:32:42,160 --> 00:32:47,000
Speaker 1: in their barbershops, in their beauty polace, and or in

514
00:32:47,040 --> 00:32:55,160
Speaker 1: their living rooms. And it wasn't pay except that in

515
00:32:55,200 --> 00:32:59,760
Speaker 1: Mississippi there I was a month was just about as

516
00:32:59,800 --> 00:33:04,920
Speaker 1: much because you could make chopping cotton. So it wasn't

517
00:33:04,920 --> 00:33:12,960
Speaker 1: to be dismissed. And but people like Mrs Fanny Lheima

518
00:33:14,160 --> 00:33:21,600
Speaker 1: uh and uh, James Bevel, and I mean most of

519
00:33:21,600 --> 00:33:25,520
Speaker 1: the people from Mississippi that that that we know about

520
00:33:26,120 --> 00:33:29,120
Speaker 1: came through our program that history knows about now yet.

521
00:33:29,720 --> 00:33:36,600
Speaker 1: And like Jim Clyburn, the majority leader, his mother and

522
00:33:36,680 --> 00:33:41,240
Speaker 1: father were in our program when he was a little boy,

523
00:33:41,480 --> 00:33:44,280
Speaker 1: and his father was one of the pastors who led

524
00:33:44,320 --> 00:33:50,480
Speaker 1: the program in South Carolina. And so that that we

525
00:33:50,480 --> 00:33:55,240
Speaker 1: were laying the foundation. But what's going on now? And

526
00:33:55,400 --> 00:33:58,560
Speaker 1: I was so proud of last night of Bennie Thompson

527
00:33:59,360 --> 00:34:04,880
Speaker 1: from a town so small in Mississippi that you have

528
00:34:05,000 --> 00:34:08,920
Speaker 1: to know it's there to slow down and find it

529
00:34:09,080 --> 00:34:13,680
Speaker 1: right between Jackson and Bicksburg and and he uh and

530
00:34:13,760 --> 00:34:19,080
Speaker 1: right on the Mississippi Ruba. But he was in charge

531
00:34:19,120 --> 00:34:24,719
Speaker 1: of the Conscience of the Nation last night. Now I

532
00:34:24,719 --> 00:34:29,719
Speaker 1: don't know directly, um, but I wouldn't be surprised at

533
00:34:29,840 --> 00:34:33,120
Speaker 1: the January six Committee by everybody by the way. So yeah,

534
00:34:33,160 --> 00:34:34,959
Speaker 1: so we're trying to cover a lot of ground here

535
00:34:35,040 --> 00:34:37,800
Speaker 1: and and you're beautifully pivoting to the trying to relate

536
00:34:37,840 --> 00:34:41,640
Speaker 1: it all to each other. Now, what I did was

537
00:34:42,120 --> 00:34:45,160
Speaker 1: always when I when I left the top of that mountain,

538
00:34:45,880 --> 00:34:48,359
Speaker 1: I said, there's something I can do that nobody else

539
00:34:48,400 --> 00:34:53,440
Speaker 1: can do. So when I got to Dr King's office,

540
00:34:54,320 --> 00:34:56,239
Speaker 1: my wife had just had a baby, so she went

541
00:34:56,280 --> 00:35:01,840
Speaker 1: to Alabama to stay with our parents. Dr In Secretary said, no,

542
00:35:02,400 --> 00:35:05,600
Speaker 1: you don't need to be alone here in Atlanta. You

543
00:35:06,040 --> 00:35:09,520
Speaker 1: idle mine as a devil's workshop. Your wife's not here.

544
00:35:09,560 --> 00:35:11,880
Speaker 1: You be getting in trouble. I said, no, man, I

545
00:35:11,880 --> 00:35:15,760
Speaker 1: won't get an entry, but we really need your help.

546
00:35:16,360 --> 00:35:18,520
Speaker 1: And I said, well, anything I new to help. I

547
00:35:18,600 --> 00:35:22,640
Speaker 1: was staying at the y m c A. And she

548
00:35:22,719 --> 00:35:27,200
Speaker 1: gave me a great big egg crate full. Let us

549
00:35:27,400 --> 00:35:31,919
Speaker 1: probably had a thousand letters tied in packages that Martin

550
00:35:32,040 --> 00:35:36,759
Speaker 1: Luther King had received from a variety of people over

551
00:35:36,800 --> 00:35:39,520
Speaker 1: the last couple of years, and it bothered him that

552
00:35:39,600 --> 00:35:44,200
Speaker 1: he wasn't able answer them, so that became my my

553
00:35:44,200 --> 00:35:50,279
Speaker 1: my time answering the letters. Uh, and he she would

554
00:35:50,320 --> 00:35:57,160
Speaker 1: type him up, and when she typed him up, he'd

555
00:35:57,160 --> 00:35:59,719
Speaker 1: read them and sign him. And he didn't know me,

556
00:35:59,760 --> 00:36:03,080
Speaker 1: but he wondered how I knew so much about him

557
00:36:03,120 --> 00:36:05,920
Speaker 1: and just met Dr King at this point, really we

558
00:36:05,960 --> 00:36:08,719
Speaker 1: had met. We had really just met. We only met

559
00:36:08,760 --> 00:36:11,920
Speaker 1: once before. But now his wife and my wife grew

560
00:36:12,000 --> 00:36:14,640
Speaker 1: up in the same little town. But he grew up

561
00:36:14,640 --> 00:36:17,279
Speaker 1: in New Orleans, I mean in Atlanta, and I grew

562
00:36:17,360 --> 00:36:20,480
Speaker 1: up in New Orleans. And we both kind of had

563
00:36:21,320 --> 00:36:25,040
Speaker 1: rather privileged families. And when I say privileged families, I

564
00:36:25,040 --> 00:36:29,040
Speaker 1: mean it was understood when he was born that he

565
00:36:29,080 --> 00:36:32,400
Speaker 1: had to get a PhD. In something. He couldn't just

566
00:36:32,440 --> 00:36:36,239
Speaker 1: get a college degree. He had to be he had

567
00:36:36,280 --> 00:36:40,560
Speaker 1: to be a black intellectual. His mother had a master's degree,

568
00:36:41,320 --> 00:36:48,719
Speaker 1: his sister had a master's degree. So he was his destiny, uh,

569
00:36:49,680 --> 00:36:51,719
Speaker 1: was that he had to know as much as he

570
00:36:51,800 --> 00:36:56,840
Speaker 1: possibly could. He too, was pushed into college at fifteen,

571
00:36:58,080 --> 00:37:01,920
Speaker 1: and Dr King was, Yeah, in fact, I don't know

572
00:37:01,960 --> 00:37:05,200
Speaker 1: how that I know how I I ended up at Howard.

573
00:37:05,239 --> 00:37:09,279
Speaker 1: I'm in a Dillage in New Orleans at fifteen, and

574
00:37:09,320 --> 00:37:13,960
Speaker 1: then went to Howard my sophomore year. Both of you

575
00:37:14,000 --> 00:37:16,320
Speaker 1: guys went to college at fifteen years old. Yeah, managed

576
00:37:16,360 --> 00:37:18,440
Speaker 1: Jackson went in fourteen and I was still in crayons

577
00:37:18,440 --> 00:37:23,080
Speaker 1: and yeah, but you're about purpose, and even even back

578
00:37:23,080 --> 00:37:25,399
Speaker 1: then you had you had a sense that you want

579
00:37:25,480 --> 00:37:29,080
Speaker 1: to be about something. Well, I didn't. I mean I

580
00:37:29,560 --> 00:37:35,120
Speaker 1: was frankly, I was not a good student. I ken

581
00:37:35,200 --> 00:37:37,799
Speaker 1: got a C minus in public speaking from crozer Seminary. No,

582
00:37:38,239 --> 00:37:42,440
Speaker 1: he he got a a C a C in public

583
00:37:42,480 --> 00:37:48,840
Speaker 1: speaking at Morehouse really and at Crozier, Okay, and consistent.

584
00:37:49,719 --> 00:37:56,440
Speaker 1: And we were we were young, too young, uh And

585
00:37:56,480 --> 00:37:59,480
Speaker 1: we were always trying to well with me. It was sports.

586
00:37:59,520 --> 00:38:03,520
Speaker 1: I was trying and to make you know, the basketball team,

587
00:38:03,600 --> 00:38:07,240
Speaker 1: I wasn't big enough. And I was a good swimmer,

588
00:38:07,800 --> 00:38:11,319
Speaker 1: mainly because there weren't that many people who could swim,

589
00:38:11,360 --> 00:38:15,080
Speaker 1: and that we didn't have a lot of competition. But

590
00:38:16,480 --> 00:38:19,680
Speaker 1: and I was on the track team. Uh No, in

591
00:38:19,800 --> 00:38:26,480
Speaker 1: track Howard and Morgan. Morgan had two world record holders. Okay,

592
00:38:26,880 --> 00:38:31,120
Speaker 1: I was in real good competition. La that that was

593
00:38:31,239 --> 00:38:37,160
Speaker 1: just trying to establish my confidence in my manhood. So

594
00:38:37,239 --> 00:38:39,840
Speaker 1: how do you translate this? So these are great life lessons.

595
00:38:39,880 --> 00:38:42,400
Speaker 1: Anybody listening to this is just just it's just washing

596
00:38:42,440 --> 00:38:46,759
Speaker 1: over them, like the wisdom of Ages. They also say, well,

597
00:38:46,880 --> 00:38:49,440
Speaker 1: I'm not Andrew Young, I'm not Dr King. And I

598
00:38:49,440 --> 00:38:52,799
Speaker 1: think what we're trying to say is that Andrew Young

599
00:38:52,840 --> 00:38:56,799
Speaker 1: wasn't Andrew Young, Doctor King, wasn't Dr King. That they

600
00:38:56,840 --> 00:38:59,600
Speaker 1: had to believe in something larger and more important than

601
00:38:59,640 --> 00:39:01,960
Speaker 1: themselves else but also I mean his trying to get

602
00:39:01,960 --> 00:39:04,880
Speaker 1: people to find their purpose. And when he went to

603
00:39:05,000 --> 00:39:07,880
Speaker 1: Montgomery because he didn't want to stay in Atlanta, because

604
00:39:07,880 --> 00:39:10,400
Speaker 1: he said, in Atlanta, they're gonna put me in politics,

605
00:39:10,960 --> 00:39:13,320
Speaker 1: and everybody's gonna want me to be the leader because

606
00:39:13,360 --> 00:39:16,279
Speaker 1: my daddy was a leader and my granddaddy was a leader.

607
00:39:16,320 --> 00:39:18,560
Speaker 1: And they didn't take him seriously in Montgomery. That's why

608
00:39:18,600 --> 00:39:21,040
Speaker 1: they gave the job. Nobody else wanted it. Well, you know,

609
00:39:21,480 --> 00:39:24,279
Speaker 1: they were fighting over it and the women and he

610
00:39:24,360 --> 00:39:27,000
Speaker 1: was in the back, wasn't even trying in the meeting,

611
00:39:27,719 --> 00:39:30,280
Speaker 1: and he was in the back running the mimiograph machine

612
00:39:30,840 --> 00:39:35,279
Speaker 1: printing the the pamphlets for the boycott. And when the

613
00:39:35,320 --> 00:39:38,520
Speaker 1: Baptist and the Methodist preacher got into an argument over it.

614
00:39:39,040 --> 00:39:43,439
Speaker 1: The women said, look, these guys have been fighting over

615
00:39:43,520 --> 00:39:47,279
Speaker 1: who's the most important. That that's a bright young man

616
00:39:48,000 --> 00:39:52,560
Speaker 1: back in the back. Let's elect him a spokesman. And

617
00:39:52,719 --> 00:39:56,680
Speaker 1: he got elected spokesman for the Montgomery Improvement Association at

618
00:39:56,680 --> 00:39:59,120
Speaker 1: seven o'clock at night, and he had to stand up

619
00:39:59,160 --> 00:40:03,719
Speaker 1: at eight o'clock and give a speech defining what the

620
00:40:03,760 --> 00:40:05,960
Speaker 1: movement was all about, the change the world. Really had

621
00:40:06,000 --> 00:40:08,600
Speaker 1: no time and he only did eighteen hours of preparation

622
00:40:08,640 --> 00:40:10,759
Speaker 1: for us for for Sunday lectures. This is he here

623
00:40:10,880 --> 00:40:12,799
Speaker 1: thirty minutes to get us get his act together. But

624
00:40:12,880 --> 00:40:15,520
Speaker 1: he had a good background, he had a good heart,

625
00:40:15,640 --> 00:40:20,120
Speaker 1: and he was chosen by God to be them. I

626
00:40:20,120 --> 00:40:24,239
Speaker 1: mean normally he would have been pastoring in in Atlanta

627
00:40:24,840 --> 00:40:30,000
Speaker 1: or gone to another big city. But Montgomery was was

628
00:40:30,040 --> 00:40:33,480
Speaker 1: the most conservative, was the headquarters of the Confederacy, and

629
00:40:33,520 --> 00:40:37,120
Speaker 1: he went there thinking that that would keep him out

630
00:40:37,160 --> 00:40:43,440
Speaker 1: of trouble, trouble. Chelsea Clinton says, uh, John, we got

631
00:40:43,440 --> 00:40:45,000
Speaker 1: to figure out how to how to get into and

632
00:40:45,040 --> 00:40:47,319
Speaker 1: get caught doing We need to try to get caught

633
00:40:47,400 --> 00:40:50,600
Speaker 1: doing good. And John Lewis would say, getting a good,

634
00:40:50,719 --> 00:40:52,799
Speaker 1: good trouble. So you you got into a lot of

635
00:40:52,880 --> 00:40:55,319
Speaker 1: good trouble. You tried Dr King try to keep you

636
00:40:55,320 --> 00:40:57,560
Speaker 1: out of trouble. You almost had your life snuffed out

637
00:40:57,560 --> 00:41:00,520
Speaker 1: of you. And in Florida where you a beat between

638
00:41:00,520 --> 00:41:02,160
Speaker 1: the inch of your life. People don't know about that

639
00:41:02,239 --> 00:41:04,160
Speaker 1: in the movement. Other than that though. Dr King really

640
00:41:04,239 --> 00:41:05,920
Speaker 1: was trying to get you, keep you the slack as

641
00:41:05,920 --> 00:41:08,480
Speaker 1: you were the negotiator, you were the strategist, you brought

642
00:41:08,480 --> 00:41:13,600
Speaker 1: all that as the only mayor. It really Dr King Atlanta.

643
00:41:13,800 --> 00:41:17,479
Speaker 1: I ended up leading that march because the men didn't

644
00:41:17,520 --> 00:41:21,799
Speaker 1: want to go you mean Florida. In Florida, In saying Augustine,

645
00:41:22,160 --> 00:41:24,920
Speaker 1: the men walls and I'm I can't be none violent.

646
00:41:25,040 --> 00:41:28,759
Speaker 1: I didn't do this that another and they wouldn't march.

647
00:41:29,280 --> 00:41:33,120
Speaker 1: And so there was a group of mostly women and teenagers,

648
00:41:34,400 --> 00:41:38,160
Speaker 1: and there was a couple of hundred clansmen out there

649
00:41:38,280 --> 00:41:41,360
Speaker 1: and in the park, and they wanted to march around

650
00:41:41,360 --> 00:41:46,000
Speaker 1: the park. And I was trying to prevent a bloodbath, right,

651
00:41:46,360 --> 00:41:48,200
Speaker 1: So I left them on one side of the street

652
00:41:48,480 --> 00:41:51,080
Speaker 1: and I crossed over by myself, thinking I could reason

653
00:41:51,160 --> 00:41:54,520
Speaker 1: with the clan right. The guy would negotiate with anybody,

654
00:41:54,560 --> 00:41:56,880
Speaker 1: talk to anybody, and and and I was doing all

655
00:41:57,000 --> 00:42:02,960
Speaker 1: right because I mean, I know poor white people. But

656
00:42:02,960 --> 00:42:05,759
Speaker 1: what I didn't know was the sheriff had deputized them

657
00:42:06,040 --> 00:42:09,839
Speaker 1: the clan. Yeah, the sheriff had deputized the clan. Deputized

658
00:42:09,880 --> 00:42:13,759
Speaker 1: the clan, and they were supposed to beat us up.

659
00:42:13,840 --> 00:42:17,960
Speaker 1: It's hard to plass America like it's just sat Augustine

660
00:42:18,040 --> 00:42:24,600
Speaker 1: and and Florida somebody. I mean, I was doing all

661
00:42:24,680 --> 00:42:27,160
Speaker 1: right with the people I was talking to, but somebody

662
00:42:27,200 --> 00:42:29,879
Speaker 1: came up behind me and hit me with a black

663
00:42:29,960 --> 00:42:33,600
Speaker 1: jack or something. I don't know how long I was down.

664
00:42:33,880 --> 00:42:38,280
Speaker 1: You're out, but I was out. But when they pulled

665
00:42:38,320 --> 00:42:41,440
Speaker 1: me up, I immediately came to my senses and said, no,

666
00:42:42,480 --> 00:42:45,919
Speaker 1: you cannot stop now. And we had to go down

667
00:42:45,960 --> 00:42:48,440
Speaker 1: to so I took but you weren't angry. You weren't

668
00:42:48,440 --> 00:42:53,279
Speaker 1: You didn't swing back. This was that is they can

669
00:42:53,360 --> 00:42:56,719
Speaker 1: be non violent. It's full of ship because when you

670
00:42:56,840 --> 00:43:01,560
Speaker 1: got two hundred clans, when wet bricks and bottle and blackjacks,

671
00:43:02,040 --> 00:43:04,400
Speaker 1: and you're gonna go by yourself and be violent, No,

672
00:43:04,600 --> 00:43:07,720
Speaker 1: you you ain't got that. I mean, nobody is that stupid.

673
00:43:08,480 --> 00:43:12,400
Speaker 1: So I could do it, not because I was trying

674
00:43:12,440 --> 00:43:15,239
Speaker 1: to beat him, but I was trying to believe that

675
00:43:15,360 --> 00:43:19,360
Speaker 1: even in the worst of God's children, there's a colonel

676
00:43:19,400 --> 00:43:24,200
Speaker 1: of good. Now the thing is on the next corner.

677
00:43:24,280 --> 00:43:27,640
Speaker 1: I found it because the next corner some of the

678
00:43:27,719 --> 00:43:30,160
Speaker 1: same people were down there. They had filled the park.

679
00:43:31,000 --> 00:43:35,200
Speaker 1: And this time though, when they swung at me, it

680
00:43:35,280 --> 00:43:37,800
Speaker 1: was from her side, and I can see it's uh.

681
00:43:38,000 --> 00:43:40,839
Speaker 1: I got out of the way and they kicked at man.

682
00:43:41,560 --> 00:43:45,520
Speaker 1: I turned and I mean, I was doing one of

683
00:43:45,560 --> 00:43:50,480
Speaker 1: your soul train moves up there. I was. I was,

684
00:43:50,520 --> 00:43:53,520
Speaker 1: I was quick stepping, you know. And they were swinging

685
00:43:53,560 --> 00:43:57,279
Speaker 1: and they were kicking. And there was this great, big

686
00:43:57,320 --> 00:44:02,840
Speaker 1: policeman who was about six six, and he was different

687
00:44:02,880 --> 00:44:06,000
Speaker 1: from the sheriff that the sheriff was the one had

688
00:44:06,280 --> 00:44:11,040
Speaker 1: deputized the workers, i mean, the clan to beat us up.

689
00:44:11,520 --> 00:44:14,919
Speaker 1: But he stepped in and he said, all right, that's enough.

690
00:44:16,040 --> 00:44:19,080
Speaker 1: You're gonna kill somebody and then you're gonna really be

691
00:44:19,120 --> 00:44:23,240
Speaker 1: in trouble. Let these people through. And so a colonel

692
00:44:23,280 --> 00:44:28,120
Speaker 1: of good, colonel common sense, one out of five d right.

693
00:44:28,200 --> 00:44:32,279
Speaker 1: But fortunately he was had a uniform on and he

694
00:44:32,360 --> 00:44:35,439
Speaker 1: had a stick in the gun. But they weren't gonna

695
00:44:35,480 --> 00:44:38,439
Speaker 1: mess with him, so they wouldn't have messed with any

696
00:44:38,480 --> 00:44:40,919
Speaker 1: of the big guys that were in the city. There's

697
00:44:40,920 --> 00:44:42,200
Speaker 1: a couple of things though, I know you won't lose

698
00:44:42,239 --> 00:44:43,680
Speaker 1: your track of your thoughts, and couple things that hits

699
00:44:43,719 --> 00:44:45,719
Speaker 1: me though about what you're saying when you guys were

700
00:44:45,760 --> 00:44:47,960
Speaker 1: non violent, not only because he was godly and and

701
00:44:48,120 --> 00:44:50,600
Speaker 1: moral and right, he was also just good comments sense

702
00:44:50,640 --> 00:44:53,160
Speaker 1: of strategies. You still remember you telling one of the

703
00:44:53,920 --> 00:44:56,279
Speaker 1: j Williams or somebody in the movement wanted to go

704
00:44:56,800 --> 00:44:59,080
Speaker 1: beat everybody up and wanted he said, look, they got

705
00:44:59,160 --> 00:45:01,800
Speaker 1: the armies, got banks, and they got a military budget.

706
00:45:01,880 --> 00:45:03,920
Speaker 1: The police have got guns, and they got they got

707
00:45:04,040 --> 00:45:06,440
Speaker 1: police cars, and they got armies, and we just got

708
00:45:06,560 --> 00:45:08,600
Speaker 1: it's just sixty of us, at sixty sixty or seventy

709
00:45:08,640 --> 00:45:10,680
Speaker 1: of you in the entire movement with a budget and

710
00:45:10,760 --> 00:45:13,719
Speaker 1: more like forty fifty. Yeah, well a couple of volunteers.

711
00:45:13,800 --> 00:45:16,080
Speaker 1: And you said, look, it is ridiculous for us to

712
00:45:16,120 --> 00:45:19,800
Speaker 1: think that we're gonna beat them, uh, militarily, always violence.

713
00:45:19,920 --> 00:45:22,000
Speaker 1: We've got to do this with common sense, with love,

714
00:45:22,160 --> 00:45:27,000
Speaker 1: with with with and believe it or not, I didn't

715
00:45:27,040 --> 00:45:29,920
Speaker 1: hold anything against them. I knew I'd grown up with

716
00:45:29,960 --> 00:45:34,319
Speaker 1: white folks like that. Yes, and over mass not in it. Yeah,

717
00:45:34,480 --> 00:45:36,960
Speaker 1: and and and and talk without being offensive, listen without

718
00:45:37,000 --> 00:45:39,520
Speaker 1: being defensive, always lead even your adversary with their dignity.

719
00:45:40,239 --> 00:45:42,840
Speaker 1: And so I was not trying. I was trying to

720
00:45:43,719 --> 00:45:46,480
Speaker 1: educate them and put out the best in them at

721
00:45:46,520 --> 00:45:50,320
Speaker 1: the opportunity moment. First place, looking back, now, this is

722
00:45:51,120 --> 00:45:55,239
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty four, those just two thousand and two. H

723
00:45:56,239 --> 00:45:59,120
Speaker 1: that's a long time, you know, the children of those

724
00:45:59,200 --> 00:46:03,239
Speaker 1: clans when a still poor and raggedy down there, and

725
00:46:03,360 --> 00:46:05,799
Speaker 1: saying many of them were on the on the mall

726
00:46:05,920 --> 00:46:08,879
Speaker 1: on January six, seventy six percent of all those who

727
00:46:08,920 --> 00:46:11,919
Speaker 1: attacked the capitol had a financial crisis in their life.

728
00:46:12,120 --> 00:46:14,520
Speaker 1: They would be an ideal operation, hope, client for coaching

729
00:46:14,560 --> 00:46:16,719
Speaker 1: if they would just settle down and let us to

730
00:46:17,160 --> 00:46:19,440
Speaker 1: push through the depression and help them get some in

731
00:46:20,320 --> 00:46:23,000
Speaker 1: There's one of the pictures, and probably the children of

732
00:46:23,120 --> 00:46:24,919
Speaker 1: the folks that you're talking about, the grandchildren the folks

733
00:46:24,960 --> 00:46:26,880
Speaker 1: are talking about one of the pictures that they found.

734
00:46:27,520 --> 00:46:30,760
Speaker 1: It's interested in enough. They didn't find these pictures until

735
00:46:30,840 --> 00:46:35,840
Speaker 1: ten years after it happened, and Flagla College started a

736
00:46:36,280 --> 00:46:39,400
Speaker 1: Southern history program, and it turned out that one of

737
00:46:39,440 --> 00:46:42,719
Speaker 1: the young women in the class there was the daughter

738
00:46:42,880 --> 00:46:48,080
Speaker 1: of the police chief, and she came up looking through

739
00:46:48,160 --> 00:46:51,080
Speaker 1: there and she found the pictures of Dr King being

740
00:46:51,200 --> 00:46:54,560
Speaker 1: arrested and all of the records that they There was

741
00:46:54,640 --> 00:46:57,040
Speaker 1: no press there the night say I got beat up,

742
00:46:57,719 --> 00:47:01,800
Speaker 1: but it was a police camera that showed it, so

743
00:47:02,360 --> 00:47:05,360
Speaker 1: there was almost no record. If you've gotten about no

744
00:47:05,440 --> 00:47:09,400
Speaker 1: one better known about it. The thing was that that

745
00:47:09,600 --> 00:47:14,640
Speaker 1: made a difference. You could always make a difference. And

746
00:47:15,000 --> 00:47:18,240
Speaker 1: again Dr King sent me down then not to march,

747
00:47:19,320 --> 00:47:21,680
Speaker 1: and I tried to convince the people not to march.

748
00:47:22,400 --> 00:47:25,160
Speaker 1: Jose Williams was trying to convince me. He said, Andy,

749
00:47:25,200 --> 00:47:28,680
Speaker 1: you can't stop this movement. I said, Jose, the Congress

750
00:47:28,800 --> 00:47:33,400
Speaker 1: is in session then the middle of of of the filibuster.

751
00:47:34,520 --> 00:47:37,040
Speaker 1: They want to vote this out within the next two

752
00:47:37,200 --> 00:47:41,000
Speaker 1: week if we have a riot here. And that was

753
00:47:41,080 --> 00:47:43,279
Speaker 1: what he was afraid of, that if we have a

754
00:47:43,440 --> 00:47:46,440
Speaker 1: riot and black folk and white folk get the fighting,

755
00:47:47,080 --> 00:47:50,560
Speaker 1: that'll kill a civil rights bill nationwide. So I was

756
00:47:51,640 --> 00:47:59,360
Speaker 1: I mean, I waged weighed the cost of an ass weapon,

757
00:48:00,560 --> 00:48:04,480
Speaker 1: and it was it was, it was very inexpensive for me,

758
00:48:04,640 --> 00:48:08,400
Speaker 1: in fact, for good. The thing, the thing that about

759
00:48:08,520 --> 00:48:12,600
Speaker 1: that I remember was I didn't even have a headache

760
00:48:13,160 --> 00:48:14,359
Speaker 1: after they hit you over the here with the black

761
00:48:14,560 --> 00:48:17,120
Speaker 1: and and I'd been I'd been kicked and beaten. Now

762
00:48:17,719 --> 00:48:21,000
Speaker 1: a couple of days later, you know, the bruises started

763
00:48:21,080 --> 00:48:23,200
Speaker 1: coming out. Run. A couple of years later, I had

764
00:48:23,280 --> 00:48:26,200
Speaker 1: to have a couple of tumors removed that I assumed

765
00:48:26,280 --> 00:48:31,160
Speaker 1: might have come from that. But at the time my

766
00:48:31,360 --> 00:48:37,480
Speaker 1: concern was only saving these people and keeping them marching. Now,

767
00:48:38,000 --> 00:48:42,120
Speaker 1: they like black people do. The clan couldn't get us

768
00:48:42,560 --> 00:48:45,040
Speaker 1: to fight back and couldn't get us to act crazy,

769
00:48:46,000 --> 00:48:47,960
Speaker 1: and so they decided they were gonna come down in

770
00:48:48,120 --> 00:48:53,160
Speaker 1: the black community on a Saturday in uniform, and they

771
00:48:53,239 --> 00:48:58,600
Speaker 1: gonna marched down the middle of Lincolnville. And I said,

772
00:48:58,640 --> 00:49:04,839
Speaker 1: oh ship, because I don't know, you know, I don't

773
00:49:04,880 --> 00:49:07,520
Speaker 1: know what people are gonna do. And they got her right,

774
00:49:08,040 --> 00:49:11,320
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, after the weapons that people have

775
00:49:11,480 --> 00:49:14,760
Speaker 1: been taken, you know, when you come on our territory,

776
00:49:14,880 --> 00:49:19,520
Speaker 1: I don't know what's love will happen. But I talked

777
00:49:19,560 --> 00:49:21,359
Speaker 1: to the lady, one of the ladies that was leading

778
00:49:21,440 --> 00:49:30,760
Speaker 1: that movement, Um, yesterday was her birthday, Um, Mr Cora Tyson.

779
00:49:31,520 --> 00:49:34,799
Speaker 1: And she's ninety eight now, and she's still her mind

780
00:49:34,920 --> 00:49:40,160
Speaker 1: is still so sharp. Uh. And I thanked the for

781
00:49:41,280 --> 00:49:43,480
Speaker 1: you know, all she did to keep back. Dr King

782
00:49:43,600 --> 00:49:46,200
Speaker 1: stayed at their house because we couldn't. There were no

783
00:49:46,280 --> 00:49:53,200
Speaker 1: hotels that would let us stay. And but we started talking,

784
00:49:53,320 --> 00:49:57,600
Speaker 1: and I reminded her that when the clan came down there,

785
00:49:58,719 --> 00:50:01,760
Speaker 1: instead of booing him and hitsing them and calling them names,

786
00:50:03,200 --> 00:50:07,560
Speaker 1: folks started singing, I love everybody. I love everybody in

787
00:50:07,680 --> 00:50:10,360
Speaker 1: my heart. You can't make me doubt him because I

788
00:50:10,440 --> 00:50:13,040
Speaker 1: know too much about it. I don't. I got the

789
00:50:13,120 --> 00:50:16,720
Speaker 1: love of Jesus, and my heart said, oh, mercy kindness.

790
00:50:18,120 --> 00:50:23,040
Speaker 1: I mean they but the contrast, see, this was on

791
00:50:23,120 --> 00:50:26,400
Speaker 1: a Saturday, so they see people us getting beat up

792
00:50:26,440 --> 00:50:30,360
Speaker 1: on a Friday, and they put it together with the

793
00:50:30,480 --> 00:50:33,400
Speaker 1: response to the black community on a Saturday, and they

794
00:50:33,520 --> 00:50:37,680
Speaker 1: showing in a Sunday and Monday news and that Tuesday

795
00:50:38,239 --> 00:50:41,880
Speaker 1: they passed the sixty four Civil Rights Act. And so

796
00:50:42,440 --> 00:50:44,360
Speaker 1: I figured that was the best asked weapon. I have

797
00:50:44,480 --> 00:50:46,279
Speaker 1: a god. There you go. And this and this was

798
00:50:46,320 --> 00:50:48,520
Speaker 1: a pivotal part of the civil rights movement that most

799
00:50:48,560 --> 00:50:51,600
Speaker 1: people don't know of. They know of Bloody Sunday, they

800
00:50:51,640 --> 00:50:53,680
Speaker 1: know if he's certainly, they don't know of this, of

801
00:50:53,800 --> 00:50:57,000
Speaker 1: this huge we don't get that point in St. Augustine,

802
00:50:57,040 --> 00:51:00,319
Speaker 1: Florida well, and and they don't know, and and there's

803
00:51:00,320 --> 00:51:04,800
Speaker 1: no reason why they should know the thousands of people

804
00:51:05,960 --> 00:51:10,279
Speaker 1: that suffered. I was with a young lady yesterday and

805
00:51:10,400 --> 00:51:13,839
Speaker 1: I hadn't I didn't realize she was now principal, right

806
00:51:13,880 --> 00:51:17,840
Speaker 1: down the street from me, and but her mother was

807
00:51:17,920 --> 00:51:20,920
Speaker 1: one of those that was beaten up in Mississippi with

808
00:51:20,960 --> 00:51:23,560
Speaker 1: Fanny Luheima. And I had to go get a mother

809
00:51:23,600 --> 00:51:31,080
Speaker 1: out of jail. Uh and they had beaten They were

810
00:51:31,160 --> 00:51:38,080
Speaker 1: but women, and the sheriff got the deputies too to

811
00:51:38,200 --> 00:51:45,760
Speaker 1: beat him. And they because they wouldn't say sir wow,

812
00:51:47,320 --> 00:51:50,239
Speaker 1: and they were polite, they will And when they came

813
00:51:50,320 --> 00:51:54,160
Speaker 1: out of jail, I I was there to try to

814
00:51:56,239 --> 00:51:59,040
Speaker 1: bond them out, but they didn't even require any bond

815
00:51:59,360 --> 00:52:05,759
Speaker 1: because chaf of knew he was guilty. And they were

816
00:52:05,840 --> 00:52:11,640
Speaker 1: so sweet and so polite mm hmm to everybody. And

817
00:52:11,760 --> 00:52:15,440
Speaker 1: I said, who wasn't it beat you all up? He

818
00:52:15,560 --> 00:52:20,000
Speaker 1: said them. I said, damn, you know and they were

819
00:52:20,080 --> 00:52:25,439
Speaker 1: so strong and loving, and it was things like things

820
00:52:25,560 --> 00:52:32,080
Speaker 1: like that that make for great people. Fanny Lhama's famous quotation,

821
00:52:32,600 --> 00:52:35,560
Speaker 1: I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired, but

822
00:52:36,440 --> 00:52:39,640
Speaker 1: I ain't gonna bow down norm And people don't know

823
00:52:39,719 --> 00:52:42,000
Speaker 1: that half of the of the of the supporters of

824
00:52:42,040 --> 00:52:44,239
Speaker 1: the civil rights but half the volunteers were white, and

825
00:52:44,320 --> 00:52:46,759
Speaker 1: half of those were Jewish. This was we were We

826
00:52:46,880 --> 00:52:49,080
Speaker 1: realized we were the better together. And that's a that's

827
00:52:49,080 --> 00:52:52,000
Speaker 1: a lesson that I think that you've got for this generation.

828
00:52:52,360 --> 00:52:54,640
Speaker 1: We got to figure out whether we're better together and

829
00:52:54,719 --> 00:52:56,440
Speaker 1: we're gonna live as friends and brothers and sisters, that

830
00:52:56,480 --> 00:52:59,239
Speaker 1: we're gonna die as fools. That that that too, plus

831
00:52:59,280 --> 00:53:02,800
Speaker 1: two here cools six, So as we pivot here and

832
00:53:02,840 --> 00:53:04,880
Speaker 1: bastel young. This is called building the good life, and

833
00:53:04,960 --> 00:53:07,120
Speaker 1: we do need to give people some tools and some

834
00:53:07,239 --> 00:53:10,319
Speaker 1: direction to build in this current situation. I'm gonna say

835
00:53:10,400 --> 00:53:12,200
Speaker 1: something you said to me and repeat something you said

836
00:53:12,239 --> 00:53:16,400
Speaker 1: to me a decade ago that I thought was absolutely nuts.

837
00:53:17,239 --> 00:53:20,000
Speaker 1: And but because you're such a genius and my mentor,

838
00:53:20,120 --> 00:53:21,960
Speaker 1: my friend, I just kept my mouth shut and figured

839
00:53:21,960 --> 00:53:23,960
Speaker 1: it would maybe something would hit me in time, or

840
00:53:23,960 --> 00:53:27,200
Speaker 1: you'd get some counseling. I now realize you're a genius again.

841
00:53:27,760 --> 00:53:29,319
Speaker 1: You won't know what I'm about to say. I'm gonna

842
00:53:29,360 --> 00:53:31,800
Speaker 1: drop this, Mike. You're gonna either shut me down or

843
00:53:31,840 --> 00:53:34,200
Speaker 1: open me up. Open this conversation up. I think this.

844
00:53:34,440 --> 00:53:36,520
Speaker 1: I think you said something that's about why we have

845
00:53:36,640 --> 00:53:38,960
Speaker 1: such pain and problems in this country right now. And

846
00:53:39,040 --> 00:53:41,399
Speaker 1: it's a guy who built modern Atlanta to the tenth

847
00:53:41,560 --> 00:53:45,279
Speaker 1: artist economy in the country, focusing on we not just me,

848
00:53:45,600 --> 00:53:48,600
Speaker 1: focusing on not black or white, but the color green economics.

849
00:53:48,840 --> 00:53:51,160
Speaker 1: As a guy who found a way to negotiate with

850
00:53:51,200 --> 00:53:53,400
Speaker 1: business leaders in the South to take down the whites

851
00:53:53,440 --> 00:53:56,040
Speaker 1: only signs which nobody knows about. Dr He would sut

852
00:53:56,080 --> 00:53:58,560
Speaker 1: down the economy by marching, would send you in to

853
00:53:58,640 --> 00:54:00,759
Speaker 1: me with the hunted business leaders the business deal or

854
00:54:00,840 --> 00:54:02,799
Speaker 1: rational business deal to take the whites only signs down

855
00:54:02,800 --> 00:54:05,279
Speaker 1: from those businesses. It was businesses that integrated the South.

856
00:54:05,640 --> 00:54:08,720
Speaker 1: Is the guy who's been at every really intersection of history,

857
00:54:09,640 --> 00:54:13,319
Speaker 1: um in the last seventy years. I'm about to drop this, Mike.

858
00:54:13,400 --> 00:54:16,760
Speaker 1: You tell me what I'm wrong. You said something, maybe kidding.

859
00:54:17,120 --> 00:54:19,480
Speaker 1: I think it's genius now you said, the reason we

860
00:54:19,560 --> 00:54:23,640
Speaker 1: have this obsession with guns today is that because of

861
00:54:23,719 --> 00:54:25,520
Speaker 1: slavery and because it was done the black folks with

862
00:54:25,560 --> 00:54:28,680
Speaker 1: two hundred almost three d semost three hundred years that

863
00:54:28,760 --> 00:54:30,880
Speaker 1: when black folks finally got free after the after the

864
00:54:30,960 --> 00:54:33,360
Speaker 1: Civil War was over, white folks in the South, in

865
00:54:33,400 --> 00:54:36,320
Speaker 1: these small towns with no lights, no no no protection,

866
00:54:36,360 --> 00:54:38,960
Speaker 1: I guess, no security or whatever, they figured that if

867
00:54:39,120 --> 00:54:42,319
Speaker 1: they had done, if if they had done, if if

868
00:54:42,400 --> 00:54:44,600
Speaker 1: they had done, if blacks had done to whites, what

869
00:54:44,880 --> 00:54:47,279
Speaker 1: what whites had done the blacks that blacks are coming

870
00:54:47,280 --> 00:54:49,680
Speaker 1: back for come for payback, and they needed some guns

871
00:54:49,719 --> 00:54:52,160
Speaker 1: in their house, their church, they pick up truck, they

872
00:54:52,239 --> 00:54:54,480
Speaker 1: store front wherever, because they were gonna be paid back.

873
00:54:54,520 --> 00:54:57,160
Speaker 1: Of course, we never did that. We never went for

874
00:54:57,200 --> 00:55:00,400
Speaker 1: payback as they have session of guns. I know that

875
00:55:00,800 --> 00:55:03,120
Speaker 1: you're right. And I found the same thing in South

876
00:55:03,160 --> 00:55:05,520
Speaker 1: Africa when I when never healed. By the way, the

877
00:55:05,560 --> 00:55:07,600
Speaker 1: second part of this is during the Civil War because

878
00:55:07,640 --> 00:55:10,680
Speaker 1: Dr Lincoln was was exhausted. He never called for me

879
00:55:11,000 --> 00:55:13,640
Speaker 1: any kind of of commission or something. He was killed.

880
00:55:13,920 --> 00:55:16,840
Speaker 1: He was right, he was killed. My bad. But I mean, well,

881
00:55:16,920 --> 00:55:19,160
Speaker 1: you know that story better than I do that he

882
00:55:19,360 --> 00:55:23,040
Speaker 1: had created just created with Frederick Douglas, the Freedman's Bank,

883
00:55:23,480 --> 00:55:27,120
Speaker 1: the Freeman's Bureau, which created the hospitals and institutions to

884
00:55:27,239 --> 00:55:32,160
Speaker 1: develop an economy for the former slaves. When I when

885
00:55:32,320 --> 00:55:35,080
Speaker 1: when I went to South Africa, but Jimmy Carter sent

886
00:55:35,160 --> 00:55:36,560
Speaker 1: me and wanted me to talk to all of the

887
00:55:36,880 --> 00:55:40,240
Speaker 1: UN ambassador. I was you an ambassador and he wanted

888
00:55:40,280 --> 00:55:43,239
Speaker 1: me to talk to as many African leaders. Well, when

889
00:55:43,280 --> 00:55:45,879
Speaker 1: I got to South Africa, they wanted me to talk

890
00:55:45,920 --> 00:55:48,000
Speaker 1: to the black leaders and I said, you know, all

891
00:55:48,080 --> 00:55:50,160
Speaker 1: of them were friends of mine. They come to the

892
00:55:50,280 --> 00:55:53,759
Speaker 1: lianta back and forth all the time. I said, I've

893
00:55:53,800 --> 00:55:57,160
Speaker 1: been knowing these guys since I was in college. I

894
00:55:57,280 --> 00:56:00,520
Speaker 1: need to find out what white folks were thinking and

895
00:56:00,680 --> 00:56:04,759
Speaker 1: wanted the So I said, well, I said look, and

896
00:56:04,800 --> 00:56:07,160
Speaker 1: they said who do you want to talk to? I said, look,

897
00:56:07,440 --> 00:56:09,200
Speaker 1: who is the meanest son of a bit you got

898
00:56:09,280 --> 00:56:14,919
Speaker 1: to deal with? And they said, p W Boltha. I said,

899
00:56:15,360 --> 00:56:18,919
Speaker 1: well why not, let's talk to him. Oh, we don't

900
00:56:18,960 --> 00:56:21,160
Speaker 1: talk to him myself. Somebody needs to talk to him.

901
00:56:21,719 --> 00:56:24,560
Speaker 1: And so I said, you might getting him on the phone,

902
00:56:25,160 --> 00:56:27,080
Speaker 1: And they got him on the phone and I went

903
00:56:27,200 --> 00:56:30,839
Speaker 1: by to see him and he yes, I mean, he said,

904
00:56:31,480 --> 00:56:33,880
Speaker 1: are you coming by yourself? I said yeah. He said, oh,

905
00:56:33,960 --> 00:56:36,719
Speaker 1: come on. I said, I'd like to bring them back.

906
00:56:36,760 --> 00:56:39,239
Speaker 1: And he said no, no, no, you come along. So

907
00:56:39,320 --> 00:56:41,080
Speaker 1: I go to see him and he's supposed to me

908
00:56:41,160 --> 00:56:46,320
Speaker 1: to mean his man in South Africa. The question that

909
00:56:46,480 --> 00:56:50,319
Speaker 1: he asked me that was most revealing was how long

910
00:56:50,400 --> 00:56:53,560
Speaker 1: do you think we'll have before the blood bath? And

911
00:56:53,640 --> 00:56:56,480
Speaker 1: I said what blood bath? And he said, surely these

912
00:56:56,520 --> 00:56:58,680
Speaker 1: black people are gonna rise up someday and kill us

913
00:56:58,719 --> 00:57:02,480
Speaker 1: all uh. And I said no, I don't think so.

914
00:57:02,920 --> 00:57:05,360
Speaker 1: And you got really agitated. How can you say that?

915
00:57:05,480 --> 00:57:07,439
Speaker 1: How can you say that? I said, I can say

916
00:57:07,520 --> 00:57:12,439
Speaker 1: that because Gandhi formed the Indian National Congress the same

917
00:57:12,600 --> 00:57:18,880
Speaker 1: year that Nelson Mandela and Um Bishop too too, and

918
00:57:19,280 --> 00:57:24,080
Speaker 1: um all of the Tambo formed the African next to Cagos.

919
00:57:24,400 --> 00:57:30,000
Speaker 1: I said, Gandhi went back to India and he negotiated

920
00:57:30,840 --> 00:57:35,080
Speaker 1: independence for for India. And I said, I don't think

921
00:57:35,160 --> 00:57:41,240
Speaker 1: a single not one oh white British Englishman was killed.

922
00:57:41,840 --> 00:57:44,680
Speaker 1: And I said, and they had, they had, They were

923
00:57:44,840 --> 00:57:48,760
Speaker 1: leading the British a billion to one, had a billion

924
00:57:48,840 --> 00:57:51,880
Speaker 1: Indians and they didn't kill a single Indian, I mean

925
00:57:52,040 --> 00:57:56,560
Speaker 1: in Englishman, and I said, I have never heard anybody

926
00:57:56,680 --> 00:58:02,560
Speaker 1: talk about anything, but how can we have a multiracial

927
00:58:02,720 --> 00:58:07,120
Speaker 1: democracy where everybody has a vote, where everybody gets the

928
00:58:07,240 --> 00:58:10,560
Speaker 1: right to an education, where everybody can own their own business.

929
00:58:11,960 --> 00:58:15,560
Speaker 1: And black folks and brown folks and underserved folks didn't

930
00:58:15,600 --> 00:58:18,440
Speaker 1: want payback. They wanted a level playing field. They want

931
00:58:18,480 --> 00:58:21,919
Speaker 1: an opportunity to succeed in the prosper like everybody else.

932
00:58:22,000 --> 00:58:24,960
Speaker 1: They didn't want to. There was one one story I'll

933
00:58:25,000 --> 00:58:29,000
Speaker 1: mentioned that ought to be known that when the boycott

934
00:58:29,120 --> 00:58:34,000
Speaker 1: came um Cola Cola was one South Africa boycott of

935
00:58:34,040 --> 00:58:36,840
Speaker 1: South Africa. Everybody was pulling out of South Africa. Well,

936
00:58:37,080 --> 00:58:41,040
Speaker 1: Coca Cola sent Carl Ware who was from an HBCU.

937
00:58:42,400 --> 00:58:50,120
Speaker 1: It's in negotiating with South Africans blacks. He didn't pull

938
00:58:50,200 --> 00:58:57,440
Speaker 1: out Coca Cola. He sold Coca Cola to South African Breweries.

939
00:58:58,200 --> 00:59:03,480
Speaker 1: South African Breweries was founded by five black brothers that

940
00:59:04,200 --> 00:59:08,120
Speaker 1: had gone to Adams College. Now that Adams College is

941
00:59:08,280 --> 00:59:13,640
Speaker 1: John Adams, the second president of the United States uh

942
00:59:14,320 --> 00:59:18,360
Speaker 1: and it was formed at the same time. In fact,

943
00:59:18,400 --> 00:59:21,840
Speaker 1: it was formed a little ahead of Howard and Morehouse

944
00:59:21,920 --> 00:59:26,560
Speaker 1: and spellwan Uh and the HBCUs. There was an HBCU

945
00:59:26,760 --> 00:59:33,080
Speaker 1: network in Africa. Carl Ware coming out of Clark Atlanta University,

946
00:59:33,680 --> 00:59:37,960
Speaker 1: hooked Coca Cola in with the black business community and

947
00:59:38,240 --> 00:59:44,760
Speaker 1: they agreed to pay the money into Bishop tutus Um

948
00:59:45,680 --> 00:59:49,680
Speaker 1: Children's Fund to care for the often children that was

949
00:59:49,720 --> 00:59:54,200
Speaker 1: suffering because of the war. And so Coca Cola is

950
00:59:54,240 --> 00:59:57,800
Speaker 1: probably the largest employer on the African continent. And they

951
00:59:57,880 --> 01:00:00,160
Speaker 1: did well because they not only because they in a

952
01:00:00,200 --> 01:00:02,480
Speaker 1: great product that people enjoyed, but because they stood for

953
01:00:02,600 --> 01:00:06,440
Speaker 1: something larger and more important than themselves. And Justrofit that

954
01:00:06,640 --> 01:00:10,560
Speaker 1: was a black executive who wasn't afraid the other black

955
01:00:10,960 --> 01:00:15,720
Speaker 1: executives in South Africa, and instead of trying to control

956
01:00:15,840 --> 01:00:22,120
Speaker 1: and run things, he organized an honest and fair business deal.

957
01:00:22,960 --> 01:00:26,920
Speaker 1: And any good business deal, everybody makes money. And that

958
01:00:27,080 --> 01:00:29,040
Speaker 1: is and that is where I want to pivot because

959
01:00:29,360 --> 01:00:31,840
Speaker 1: versus all this struggle and pain and and friction, and

960
01:00:31,920 --> 01:00:34,200
Speaker 1: black people and white people at each other's throats, and

961
01:00:34,240 --> 01:00:36,560
Speaker 1: Republicans and Democrats each other's throats, and as I keep

962
01:00:36,600 --> 01:00:38,960
Speaker 1: saying that in the world like that, the only people

963
01:00:39,000 --> 01:00:41,520
Speaker 1: who win are the folks who who are waiting for

964
01:00:41,640 --> 01:00:43,880
Speaker 1: us to destroy ourselves. Everybody wants to be an American,

965
01:00:44,200 --> 01:00:48,160
Speaker 1: but Americans. You built Atlanta not by arguing over who

966
01:00:48,160 --> 01:00:50,720
Speaker 1: went to a water fountain, but by arguing who would

967
01:00:50,880 --> 01:00:53,120
Speaker 1: get the contract. That was the only argument of the

968
01:00:53,160 --> 01:00:56,760
Speaker 1: city too big, busy to hate, and and and every

969
01:00:57,000 --> 01:01:00,400
Speaker 1: city in this country that is successful is diverse and inclusive.

970
01:01:00,480 --> 01:01:05,640
Speaker 1: Let me say something about Atlanta that's different. We wanted

971
01:01:05,680 --> 01:01:09,640
Speaker 1: to build an airport the same time New York Laguardy

972
01:01:09,800 --> 01:01:15,479
Speaker 1: was trying to build a new airport, and I guess

973
01:01:15,600 --> 01:01:18,160
Speaker 1: New York was trying to build it with government funds.

974
01:01:19,880 --> 01:01:23,000
Speaker 1: We didn't go to Washington asking for money for an airport.

975
01:01:23,920 --> 01:01:28,439
Speaker 1: We went to Wall Streets. There's endless volumes of money

976
01:01:28,560 --> 01:01:32,640
Speaker 1: at Wall Street, on Wall Streets for good investments. And

977
01:01:33,080 --> 01:01:36,600
Speaker 1: and we we when we decided on the airport we wanted,

978
01:01:37,560 --> 01:01:40,720
Speaker 1: we signed up everybody that wanted to be in it.

979
01:01:41,120 --> 01:01:47,720
Speaker 1: Delta Eastern United American. Marryott had the concessioncy and the

980
01:01:47,880 --> 01:01:52,960
Speaker 1: parking lot, and everybody was on the building of the

981
01:01:53,560 --> 01:01:57,480
Speaker 1: was called a tombstone. Everybody's on the tumbstone. But the

982
01:01:57,520 --> 01:01:59,840
Speaker 1: city of Atlanta is at the bottom. As a guaranteur,

983
01:02:00,520 --> 01:02:03,800
Speaker 1: you know, which means we don't become the guarantea unless

984
01:02:03,880 --> 01:02:08,160
Speaker 1: all these other people go broke. When Eastern went broke,

985
01:02:08,840 --> 01:02:11,960
Speaker 1: it didn't hurt us a bit. Well, it meant we

986
01:02:12,040 --> 01:02:15,440
Speaker 1: had to make an adjustment. So we closed down one

987
01:02:15,520 --> 01:02:19,600
Speaker 1: of the concourses and it took Delta about a year

988
01:02:19,640 --> 01:02:21,240
Speaker 1: and a half to two years to grow in to

989
01:02:21,360 --> 01:02:23,760
Speaker 1: fill them up. But but, but Atlanta's airport is now

990
01:02:23,800 --> 01:02:26,320
Speaker 1: the busiest in the world. It's the busiest in the world.

991
01:02:26,400 --> 01:02:29,320
Speaker 1: And and and and create jobs and opportunity for everybody.

992
01:02:29,320 --> 01:02:31,880
Speaker 1: And you actually got Delta Airlines who thought you were

993
01:02:31,920 --> 01:02:33,880
Speaker 1: crazy to suggest they should go in to Africa. You

994
01:02:34,000 --> 01:02:35,360
Speaker 1: got them to go into Africa when you're on the

995
01:02:35,400 --> 01:02:37,680
Speaker 1: board and it's not one of their their most profitable

996
01:02:37,800 --> 01:02:42,240
Speaker 1: routes of the entire airline, you can't do. The most

997
01:02:42,800 --> 01:02:48,480
Speaker 1: profitable route is Atlanta. The Legos Wow, Legos Nigeria. Yeah,

998
01:02:48,640 --> 01:02:52,640
Speaker 1: the second most profitable route is Atlanta. That Johannesburg can't

999
01:02:52,640 --> 01:02:54,760
Speaker 1: get a seat. You can't get a seat. So look

1000
01:02:55,320 --> 01:03:00,400
Speaker 1: and and and it's working. The airport has en up

1001
01:03:01,120 --> 01:03:04,160
Speaker 1: all of the islands. So we we we, I mean,

1002
01:03:05,960 --> 01:03:09,960
Speaker 1: you used to have trouble. They had to Bamba Airways

1003
01:03:10,040 --> 01:03:18,000
Speaker 1: had two planes going to uh two Bahamas, one from

1004
01:03:19,120 --> 01:03:24,920
Speaker 1: Baltimore and one from Miami. And I said, give me

1005
01:03:25,040 --> 01:03:29,760
Speaker 1: two flights a day in Atlanta and I will fly

1006
01:03:30,720 --> 01:03:36,040
Speaker 1: more people that are Bahamas. Then Baltimore and Miami put together,

1007
01:03:37,040 --> 01:03:42,080
Speaker 1: and I said, just try it for ninety days. In

1008
01:03:42,240 --> 01:03:47,400
Speaker 1: ninety days, they not only got more that was Bahamas there,

1009
01:03:48,080 --> 01:03:51,960
Speaker 1: but Delta realized it was a good market and they

1010
01:03:52,080 --> 01:03:54,680
Speaker 1: came in and they fly in the Bahamas three or

1011
01:03:54,720 --> 01:03:59,120
Speaker 1: four times a day, so so that that we're flying

1012
01:03:59,280 --> 01:04:03,160
Speaker 1: wealth all over the world when when people are going

1013
01:04:03,360 --> 01:04:07,080
Speaker 1: to Turks and Cagos, I had never heard of that place.

1014
01:04:07,600 --> 01:04:10,280
Speaker 1: But it's got something the cleanest, most beautiful water in

1015
01:04:10,320 --> 01:04:15,120
Speaker 1: the world. This is Dominican Republic. Everything is working well.

1016
01:04:15,280 --> 01:04:19,680
Speaker 1: And the one thing we can't get right, and I

1017
01:04:19,880 --> 01:04:23,000
Speaker 1: don't understand it, and it hurts me, and that is Haiti.

1018
01:04:23,560 --> 01:04:27,520
Speaker 1: Healing works better than hurt and and I'm thinking about healing.

1019
01:04:27,680 --> 01:04:30,240
Speaker 1: The theme of this healing and opportunity we talked a

1020
01:04:30,240 --> 01:04:32,040
Speaker 1: little bit about and we had spent an hour on

1021
01:04:32,160 --> 01:04:34,440
Speaker 1: this one topic. A little bit about this fact that

1022
01:04:34,520 --> 01:04:36,680
Speaker 1: these guns is obsession in America with guns, which I'm

1023
01:04:36,680 --> 01:04:39,680
Speaker 1: convinced is tied to the fear going back a hundred

1024
01:04:39,680 --> 01:04:42,120
Speaker 1: and fifty two years that black folks were gonna try

1025
01:04:42,240 --> 01:04:44,240
Speaker 1: to get some payback and it was just as an

1026
01:04:44,320 --> 01:04:47,280
Speaker 1: unfounded fear. But nothing else makes any sense why everybody

1027
01:04:47,320 --> 01:04:49,240
Speaker 1: wants a gun everywhere. And then you tie it back

1028
01:04:49,280 --> 01:04:52,920
Speaker 1: to a lack of healing and the Civil War, to

1029
01:04:52,960 --> 01:04:54,680
Speaker 1: the lack of healing after the Civil War, and you

1030
01:04:54,800 --> 01:04:57,240
Speaker 1: got this, this country that has that just needs a

1031
01:04:57,400 --> 01:05:02,480
Speaker 1: huge calonic needs a huge emotional uh cleansing process. And

1032
01:05:02,600 --> 01:05:04,680
Speaker 1: you've cleansed that in your own soul. That's why you're

1033
01:05:04,680 --> 01:05:07,040
Speaker 1: so peaceful. So what do you have to say that's

1034
01:05:07,080 --> 01:05:09,160
Speaker 1: controversial and what do you have to say to America

1035
01:05:09,840 --> 01:05:15,520
Speaker 1: that might be convertible? Part is that guns have to

1036
01:05:15,600 --> 01:05:21,520
Speaker 1: do with manhood, that when you're anxious and insecure about

1037
01:05:21,560 --> 01:05:26,240
Speaker 1: your manhood, you need a gun. I don't need no

1038
01:05:26,320 --> 01:05:30,160
Speaker 1: gun or at n I ain't got a gun. And

1039
01:05:32,080 --> 01:05:34,960
Speaker 1: I'm I'm not afraid to live, but neither I am

1040
01:05:35,000 --> 01:05:40,280
Speaker 1: afraid to die. And how long you live? And you

1041
01:05:40,640 --> 01:05:47,280
Speaker 1: you you know that my grandmama prayed to die. She

1042
01:05:47,560 --> 01:05:50,360
Speaker 1: was angry with God for leaving her here. But for

1043
01:05:50,480 --> 01:05:53,919
Speaker 1: eighty six years until the last five or six years

1044
01:05:54,000 --> 01:05:56,280
Speaker 1: she lost the sight. She didn't want to be blind

1045
01:05:56,360 --> 01:05:59,520
Speaker 1: and helpless. She wanted and she fussed with God about

1046
01:05:59,640 --> 01:06:02,800
Speaker 1: getting reward in heaven. Martin Luther King used to laugh

1047
01:06:02,840 --> 01:06:05,480
Speaker 1: and joke about it dying. He said, yeah, I know,

1048
01:06:05,720 --> 01:06:08,400
Speaker 1: there is a bullet with my name on it somewhere,

1049
01:06:09,040 --> 01:06:11,920
Speaker 1: he said, But what I'm counting on is you all

1050
01:06:11,960 --> 01:06:13,840
Speaker 1: are so anxious to get your picture in the paper.

1051
01:06:14,280 --> 01:06:15,920
Speaker 1: Why don't you all jump in front of me and

1052
01:06:16,000 --> 01:06:20,120
Speaker 1: take it. He said, Then I'll really have a problem.

1053
01:06:20,200 --> 01:06:24,000
Speaker 1: And he said, what what's the problem? Somebody saves your life? Said,

1054
01:06:24,320 --> 01:06:28,320
Speaker 1: then is my responsibility to preach your sorry behind into heaven.

1055
01:06:29,360 --> 01:06:33,160
Speaker 1: And he would start preaching our sermons, our funerals, but

1056
01:06:33,320 --> 01:06:37,160
Speaker 1: he would do the preaching more like Richard Pryor or

1057
01:06:38,320 --> 01:06:43,560
Speaker 1: Eddie Murphy or what's the other fellow's name. I mean,

1058
01:06:43,600 --> 01:06:46,680
Speaker 1: I mean, he didn't use the profanity that they use,

1059
01:06:47,360 --> 01:06:51,400
Speaker 1: but he could signify with the best of him. Well

1060
01:06:51,480 --> 01:06:54,480
Speaker 1: he was really free, uh that last day. But what

1061
01:06:54,720 --> 01:06:57,720
Speaker 1: but what he was doing, See what he was doing

1062
01:06:57,920 --> 01:07:02,040
Speaker 1: was he was helping us to cope with the fact

1063
01:07:02,840 --> 01:07:06,280
Speaker 1: that you're gonna die and he said, Look, death is

1064
01:07:06,360 --> 01:07:11,240
Speaker 1: the ultimate democracy. Everybody's got to die. And he said,

1065
01:07:11,680 --> 01:07:13,720
Speaker 1: you don't have anything to say about when you die,

1066
01:07:13,840 --> 01:07:17,680
Speaker 1: where you die, or how you die. The only choice

1067
01:07:17,720 --> 01:07:19,960
Speaker 1: you have is what is it you're willing to give

1068
01:07:20,000 --> 01:07:25,600
Speaker 1: your life for. And and he said, if you haven't

1069
01:07:25,640 --> 01:07:30,000
Speaker 1: found something you're willing to give your life for, you're

1070
01:07:30,040 --> 01:07:36,000
Speaker 1: not fit to live anyway. See uh. And but he

1071
01:07:36,080 --> 01:07:44,320
Speaker 1: said that death is the ultimate democracy. And I don't know, um,

1072
01:07:45,680 --> 01:07:50,400
Speaker 1: I know Daddy King um, and I never heard him

1073
01:07:50,440 --> 01:07:53,680
Speaker 1: say this, but good friends of his said that he

1074
01:07:53,800 --> 01:07:57,800
Speaker 1: used to say that I'll not let any man no

1075
01:07:58,000 --> 01:08:00,320
Speaker 1: matter what they do to me. I'll not that any

1076
01:08:00,400 --> 01:08:04,880
Speaker 1: man hate me, but me hate any man. And he

1077
01:08:05,040 --> 01:08:10,040
Speaker 1: said there was a white man forced him before that

1078
01:08:10,240 --> 01:08:13,200
Speaker 1: it was a white man that killed my son, he said,

1079
01:08:13,240 --> 01:08:15,800
Speaker 1: but a black man stood up in my church and

1080
01:08:15,960 --> 01:08:19,080
Speaker 1: shot my wife while she was at the organ play

1081
01:08:19,120 --> 01:08:23,479
Speaker 1: in the Lord's prayer. And he said, shot her dead

1082
01:08:23,560 --> 01:08:27,559
Speaker 1: and killed three other people in the tree. Yeah, and uh,

1083
01:08:28,479 --> 01:08:35,280
Speaker 1: he said, because God is merciful, he said, I would

1084
01:08:36,800 --> 01:08:40,080
Speaker 1: I hope to meet them in heaven one day. And

1085
01:08:41,080 --> 01:08:48,040
Speaker 1: that's a kind of forgiveness. But he was saying because

1086
01:08:48,120 --> 01:08:52,120
Speaker 1: he he had been surrounded by death of his family

1087
01:08:53,160 --> 01:08:57,000
Speaker 1: growing up in Stockbridge, Georgia. The same thing happened to Coretta.

1088
01:08:57,720 --> 01:09:01,160
Speaker 1: They burned Corretta's house down when she was swift, and

1089
01:09:01,280 --> 01:09:04,360
Speaker 1: her daddy had them pray to forgive the people who

1090
01:09:04,479 --> 01:09:07,679
Speaker 1: burned the house down. Well, first he prayed that thank

1091
01:09:07,720 --> 01:09:10,960
Speaker 1: God that nobody was home and nobody burned up in

1092
01:09:11,040 --> 01:09:14,320
Speaker 1: the house. And then he had them pray for the

1093
01:09:14,439 --> 01:09:17,560
Speaker 1: people who burned the house down, and he said, we

1094
01:09:17,640 --> 01:09:21,799
Speaker 1: can always build houses. And he came back from having

1095
01:09:21,960 --> 01:09:26,360
Speaker 1: them having burned down his house, and in the next

1096
01:09:26,439 --> 01:09:29,960
Speaker 1: ten years he not only had rebuilt the house, but

1097
01:09:30,080 --> 01:09:33,640
Speaker 1: he had a grocery store, and he had a sawmill, uh.

1098
01:09:33,760 --> 01:09:37,280
Speaker 1: And he had a pope logging chain calling logs. And

1099
01:09:38,880 --> 01:09:42,320
Speaker 1: he was just a talented brother, though he didn't have

1100
01:09:43,400 --> 01:09:47,760
Speaker 1: a lot of education. He was a member of the A. M. E. Church. No,

1101
01:09:48,120 --> 01:09:54,479
Speaker 1: I'm talking about Correcta's father and in Maryon, Alabama. Doesn't No,

1102
01:09:54,760 --> 01:09:58,559
Speaker 1: you don't even know him. But his prayer was very

1103
01:09:58,640 --> 01:10:02,280
Speaker 1: much like the prayer of the pastor the Ami pastor

1104
01:10:03,160 --> 01:10:09,599
Speaker 1: in Charleston when they killed eight people in the Mother Emmanuel, Uh,

1105
01:10:09,880 --> 01:10:11,680
Speaker 1: somebody trying to reach the bash young and saw some

1106
01:10:11,800 --> 01:10:13,360
Speaker 1: for other problem in the world as phone is bringing

1107
01:10:14,280 --> 01:10:16,000
Speaker 1: as we as we wrap up, I mean, we have

1108
01:10:16,120 --> 01:10:18,400
Speaker 1: you kept you for too long? Thank you so much

1109
01:10:18,439 --> 01:10:19,680
Speaker 1: for this, and we don't we want you to come

1110
01:10:19,720 --> 01:10:22,160
Speaker 1: back because there's so many lanes of discussion we need

1111
01:10:22,200 --> 01:10:23,960
Speaker 1: to go down. But as we as we as we

1112
01:10:24,080 --> 01:10:26,240
Speaker 1: leave this in bashelor Young, what is the message for

1113
01:10:26,360 --> 01:10:28,599
Speaker 1: America I talked about I started out and you changed

1114
01:10:28,640 --> 01:10:30,599
Speaker 1: my view. I started talking about the America at war

1115
01:10:30,720 --> 01:10:32,640
Speaker 1: and we're at war. And really what I'm hearing you

1116
01:10:32,680 --> 01:10:34,679
Speaker 1: say is that we need that we need souls at peace.

1117
01:10:35,240 --> 01:10:38,080
Speaker 1: That it just needs about forgiveness and love and stepping

1118
01:10:38,200 --> 01:10:40,240
Speaker 1: over our mess and not in it. And you want

1119
01:10:40,240 --> 01:10:41,240
Speaker 1: to have a little grace, you need to show a

1120
01:10:41,240 --> 01:10:44,719
Speaker 1: little mercy. Uh. What's your message? What's your building message

1121
01:10:44,760 --> 01:10:48,360
Speaker 1: to those listenings? My building messages is that truth is

1122
01:10:48,479 --> 01:10:52,000
Speaker 1: forever on the scaffold. Wrong is forever on the phone,

1123
01:10:52,560 --> 01:10:55,760
Speaker 1: but that scaffold sways the future for behind the dim

1124
01:10:55,880 --> 01:10:59,679
Speaker 1: unknown stand of God within the shadows, keeping watch above

1125
01:10:59,720 --> 01:11:05,360
Speaker 1: his now. What God is watching for us now is

1126
01:11:05,600 --> 01:11:09,400
Speaker 1: what do we do in this next election? See? Um,

1127
01:11:10,680 --> 01:11:15,599
Speaker 1: are the people who are insecure and hateful of America

1128
01:11:16,200 --> 01:11:19,519
Speaker 1: and of each other, going to win the election of

1129
01:11:19,640 --> 01:11:23,719
Speaker 1: the people who feel that America can still lead the world.

1130
01:11:24,040 --> 01:11:27,360
Speaker 1: That I disagree with you on China because I think

1131
01:11:27,479 --> 01:11:31,560
Speaker 1: China is much more insecure than the United States, and

1132
01:11:32,320 --> 01:11:36,120
Speaker 1: that there they have a hundred and forty two different

1133
01:11:36,160 --> 01:11:41,920
Speaker 1: minorities and they spend most of their military old people

1134
01:11:42,960 --> 01:11:47,840
Speaker 1: keeping them down. And so China's got real trouble. But

1135
01:11:47,960 --> 01:11:52,040
Speaker 1: there's nobody with a vision for the whole planet like

1136
01:11:52,240 --> 01:11:55,840
Speaker 1: Joe Biden. And Joe Biden went to Congress with me

1137
01:11:56,720 --> 01:12:00,240
Speaker 1: in Vree and so I've known him. He went to

1138
01:12:00,320 --> 01:12:03,160
Speaker 1: the Senate and I went to the House of Representatives,

1139
01:12:03,760 --> 01:12:12,880
Speaker 1: and he's always been cool, calm, dedicated, and very visionary

1140
01:12:13,000 --> 01:12:17,920
Speaker 1: and unselfish. Now he's not the charismatic speaker that Martin

1141
01:12:18,000 --> 01:12:23,320
Speaker 1: Luther King was, but if you stop and listen, he is.

1142
01:12:24,120 --> 01:12:27,799
Speaker 1: He's a good Catholic boy who grew up and remember

1143
01:12:27,880 --> 01:12:34,479
Speaker 1: the Catechism, and he's trying to grow the faith of

1144
01:12:34,600 --> 01:12:38,280
Speaker 1: this nation, not in the image of Rome, but in

1145
01:12:38,400 --> 01:12:42,120
Speaker 1: the image of the founding Fathers, which said that we

1146
01:12:42,240 --> 01:12:48,240
Speaker 1: should have a country where everybody is free in their beliefs,

1147
01:12:48,960 --> 01:12:53,559
Speaker 1: in their right to serve, but that we either learned,

1148
01:12:53,640 --> 01:12:56,920
Speaker 1: as Martin said, to live together as brothers and sisters,

1149
01:12:57,479 --> 01:13:00,800
Speaker 1: or will perish together as fools. So if we vote

1150
01:13:00,800 --> 01:13:04,479
Speaker 1: for those people who are trying to get us together,

1151
01:13:05,200 --> 01:13:09,000
Speaker 1: yes we'll keep the country going. I think you have

1152
01:13:09,160 --> 01:13:13,720
Speaker 1: to watch closely because there has been some real treachery

1153
01:13:14,720 --> 01:13:18,400
Speaker 1: going on. Yeah, that that was an attempt to create

1154
01:13:18,479 --> 01:13:22,160
Speaker 1: a coup and take over this country. I'm convinced. Yes.

1155
01:13:22,560 --> 01:13:24,639
Speaker 1: And to your point, if if if the former president

1156
01:13:24,720 --> 01:13:27,920
Speaker 1: had been re elected, uh, the this democracy would be

1157
01:13:28,080 --> 01:13:30,680
Speaker 1: on his deathbed because he was he wanted to make

1158
01:13:30,760 --> 01:13:33,400
Speaker 1: this country in his own image as an individual marriage

1159
01:13:33,439 --> 01:13:36,879
Speaker 1: like Hitler did. Well, you salute a person, not institutions.

1160
01:13:36,920 --> 01:13:38,920
Speaker 1: He was trying to destroy all the institutions of justice

1161
01:13:38,960 --> 01:13:44,519
Speaker 1: and probably he was. He was, he gave he gave

1162
01:13:44,600 --> 01:13:48,000
Speaker 1: narcissist a bad name, and and so we He wasn't

1163
01:13:48,040 --> 01:13:50,600
Speaker 1: a Democrat or a Republican. He was donaldkrat It was

1164
01:13:50,600 --> 01:13:53,320
Speaker 1: about himself. And that's your point, that that really for

1165
01:13:53,439 --> 01:13:55,280
Speaker 1: all the criticism of President Biden. And I'm and I've

1166
01:13:55,280 --> 01:13:59,880
Speaker 1: served Republicans and Democrats, You've served Republicans and democrats. I

1167
01:14:00,000 --> 01:14:01,960
Speaker 1: think it's not about political parties right now. This is

1168
01:14:02,000 --> 01:14:05,680
Speaker 1: about trying to find a healing presence that when they

1169
01:14:05,720 --> 01:14:09,160
Speaker 1: had the last impeachment of Nixon, everybody in the Black

1170
01:14:09,200 --> 01:14:13,000
Speaker 1: caucus was against geryld Ford. But I had well, I

1171
01:14:13,800 --> 01:14:17,640
Speaker 1: I'd had a pool muscle and he messed up his

1172
01:14:18,200 --> 01:14:22,800
Speaker 1: ankle skiing and we went in to infirmary together and

1173
01:14:23,200 --> 01:14:26,879
Speaker 1: we got to talking about football. And he'd played football

1174
01:14:26,920 --> 01:14:29,920
Speaker 1: in Michigan, and some of the people that he played

1175
01:14:30,000 --> 01:14:34,720
Speaker 1: with I knew, uh, you know that were now successful

1176
01:14:34,800 --> 01:14:38,240
Speaker 1: judges and everything. And even though he was very conservative

1177
01:14:38,760 --> 01:14:43,560
Speaker 1: at that time, we needed somebody that could heal the

1178
01:14:43,640 --> 01:14:48,600
Speaker 1: wounds of the nation and wouldn't exacerbate the problems. And

1179
01:14:48,720 --> 01:14:52,040
Speaker 1: he was it. And I'm I'm glad I not only

1180
01:14:52,160 --> 01:14:58,080
Speaker 1: voted for him um to be vice president, uh, but

1181
01:14:59,720 --> 01:15:02,920
Speaker 1: I it up and spoke in his behalf. Look, the

1182
01:15:02,960 --> 01:15:05,080
Speaker 1: world is changing so dramatically. Again, we need to wrap

1183
01:15:05,120 --> 01:15:06,920
Speaker 1: this up. But I mean a lot of black folks

1184
01:15:06,920 --> 01:15:09,400
Speaker 1: when President George W. Bush were in office called him

1185
01:15:09,479 --> 01:15:11,439
Speaker 1: all kind of things, everything but the son of God,

1186
01:15:11,760 --> 01:15:14,000
Speaker 1: and I mean bad, bad, bad names. They would do

1187
01:15:14,160 --> 01:15:17,040
Speaker 1: anything to get George W. Bush back. Today as president,

1188
01:15:17,240 --> 01:15:22,040
Speaker 1: he was in hindsight, rational, reasonable, love facts, was respectful

1189
01:15:22,080 --> 01:15:24,920
Speaker 1: to people don't and his father was even better. I

1190
01:15:24,960 --> 01:15:27,400
Speaker 1: think we've got to we've got to come back to

1191
01:15:27,520 --> 01:15:31,920
Speaker 1: some except for one thing, than he did a lot

1192
01:15:32,000 --> 01:15:35,679
Speaker 1: for Africa. But the two Bushes still have the burden

1193
01:15:35,760 --> 01:15:39,960
Speaker 1: of leaving us well the terrible Supreme Court. Well, fair enough,

1194
01:15:40,320 --> 01:15:47,040
Speaker 1: fair enough, And so it's important too. It's important to

1195
01:15:47,200 --> 01:15:53,960
Speaker 1: make sure we keep control of the House and that

1196
01:15:54,240 --> 01:16:00,240
Speaker 1: we we don't let people in the Senate veto the

1197
01:16:00,360 --> 01:16:04,439
Speaker 1: future of America because of the fellow buster well and

1198
01:16:04,520 --> 01:16:06,519
Speaker 1: and to be and to listeners listening to this, we're

1199
01:16:06,560 --> 01:16:10,200
Speaker 1: not having a political conversation, to be clear. Uh, I've

1200
01:16:10,280 --> 01:16:14,519
Speaker 1: gotten incredible progress from Republican presidents. Am baschlor Young has

1201
01:16:14,560 --> 01:16:18,240
Speaker 1: gotten uh in predigal, predigal progress with Dr King from

1202
01:16:18,320 --> 01:16:21,360
Speaker 1: Democrats and Republicans. What we have now are people who

1203
01:16:21,400 --> 01:16:24,080
Speaker 1: are selfish. Is like a party that does you can't

1204
01:16:24,080 --> 01:16:25,280
Speaker 1: even have a name on it, and we need to

1205
01:16:25,400 --> 01:16:29,559
Speaker 1: knock that off. We all voted Republican when I moved

1206
01:16:29,600 --> 01:16:34,000
Speaker 1: to Georgia nineteen fifty six fifty four. The first voter

1207
01:16:34,080 --> 01:16:38,240
Speaker 1: registration drive I ran was for Eisenhower. Yeah, I'm just

1208
01:16:38,240 --> 01:16:39,840
Speaker 1: trying to make sure nobody gets their back up and

1209
01:16:39,880 --> 01:16:42,040
Speaker 1: don't listen. They because people who are talking about politics

1210
01:16:42,080 --> 01:16:44,120
Speaker 1: is worse than religion these days, and they stopped listening

1211
01:16:44,160 --> 01:16:46,240
Speaker 1: to reason. What we have got to find is a

1212
01:16:46,320 --> 01:16:49,200
Speaker 1: bridge back to each other. And what what I'm hearing

1213
01:16:49,200 --> 01:16:53,639
Speaker 1: Bastlara Young saying is don't don't vote your party if

1214
01:16:53,680 --> 01:16:56,439
Speaker 1: the person is a nutcase U. You need to vote

1215
01:16:56,800 --> 01:16:59,559
Speaker 1: for the thing that's that that made this country great,

1216
01:16:59,720 --> 01:17:02,120
Speaker 1: which is the spirit of this country and the spirit

1217
01:17:02,160 --> 01:17:04,479
Speaker 1: of good people wherever you find them, republic in our

1218
01:17:04,479 --> 01:17:08,240
Speaker 1: democrat who are rooting for the best of all people.

1219
01:17:08,960 --> 01:17:11,439
Speaker 1: And with that, I just want to say thank you

1220
01:17:11,560 --> 01:17:15,160
Speaker 1: to you for being that spirit of the good of

1221
01:17:15,280 --> 01:17:18,520
Speaker 1: all people who found the goodness even in a klansman

1222
01:17:19,000 --> 01:17:21,680
Speaker 1: in St. Augustine, Florida. And you found a little bit

1223
01:17:21,720 --> 01:17:23,920
Speaker 1: of goodness in this little nut nut knucklehead boy in

1224
01:17:24,000 --> 01:17:26,439
Speaker 1: front of you named John Hopebrian. Because because of you,

1225
01:17:27,720 --> 01:17:32,040
Speaker 1: potential well we're still working on it. But I but

1226
01:17:32,160 --> 01:17:34,760
Speaker 1: I couldn't be me had you not put your arms

1227
01:17:34,800 --> 01:17:37,080
Speaker 1: around me and gave me cover here in Atlanta and

1228
01:17:37,200 --> 01:17:39,360
Speaker 1: around the world. I have credibility to go and do

1229
01:17:39,520 --> 01:17:41,560
Speaker 1: and be because people are like you believed in me,

1230
01:17:41,800 --> 01:17:43,320
Speaker 1: and as a result of that, I'm putting my arm

1231
01:17:43,360 --> 01:17:46,719
Speaker 1: around others because I want to help build the next generation,

1232
01:17:46,880 --> 01:17:49,800
Speaker 1: to to help to unlease the untapped potential of all

1233
01:17:49,880 --> 01:17:52,080
Speaker 1: of us, including my poor wife, brothers and sisters in

1234
01:17:52,240 --> 01:17:55,120
Speaker 1: rural America. As you also believe, we need all of

1235
01:17:55,240 --> 01:17:57,880
Speaker 1: us to add two to three percent of untapped GDP

1236
01:17:57,960 --> 01:18:01,080
Speaker 1: in this country. No, there's no reason for anybody to

1237
01:18:01,200 --> 01:18:05,040
Speaker 1: be poor. As wealthy as this country is that we

1238
01:18:05,320 --> 01:18:09,680
Speaker 1: we we could have a comfortable and we're moving towards it.

1239
01:18:09,760 --> 01:18:12,799
Speaker 1: In Georgia. Georgia is probably one of the easiest states

1240
01:18:12,920 --> 01:18:16,639
Speaker 1: now to get a college education, and we're turning out

1241
01:18:16,680 --> 01:18:20,600
Speaker 1: more college graduates here than maybe in most places. And

1242
01:18:20,720 --> 01:18:24,840
Speaker 1: that wasn't true, Um, even when when I was mayor,

1243
01:18:25,320 --> 01:18:27,760
Speaker 1: there were only four hundred or five hundred students of

1244
01:18:27,880 --> 01:18:32,720
Speaker 1: Georgia State, not at fifty three thousand. And they go

1245
01:18:32,840 --> 01:18:35,800
Speaker 1: into school on the Hope scholarship, so they don't come

1246
01:18:35,840 --> 01:18:40,080
Speaker 1: out deep and dead. Truth on the scaffold and basstranger young. Um,

1247
01:18:40,240 --> 01:18:42,160
Speaker 1: First of all, what you promised to come back, the

1248
01:18:42,280 --> 01:18:45,519
Speaker 1: truth on the scaffold, leave this audience with something to

1249
01:18:45,600 --> 01:18:48,400
Speaker 1: hold on to. People are distressed, they're depressed, they're got

1250
01:18:48,439 --> 01:18:50,200
Speaker 1: too much month at the end of their money, they

1251
01:18:50,479 --> 01:18:53,400
Speaker 1: give them something to hold onto, that rainbow after the storm.

1252
01:18:53,800 --> 01:18:57,280
Speaker 1: Well I said that truth is forever on the scaffold,

1253
01:18:57,920 --> 01:19:01,240
Speaker 1: and wrong seems to be forever the throne. But the

1254
01:19:01,320 --> 01:19:05,360
Speaker 1: scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown standeth

1255
01:19:05,439 --> 01:19:10,160
Speaker 1: God within the shadows, keeping watch above his own. I

1256
01:19:10,360 --> 01:19:13,800
Speaker 1: believe that I heard that from my grandmama all of

1257
01:19:13,840 --> 01:19:17,000
Speaker 1: her life. I heard that from Martin Luther King. I

1258
01:19:17,120 --> 01:19:21,120
Speaker 1: heard that from just about everybody that I have come

1259
01:19:21,200 --> 01:19:26,800
Speaker 1: to respect, that they have a faith that transcends the

1260
01:19:26,920 --> 01:19:32,479
Speaker 1: politics and economics of their daily lives. Because as well

1261
01:19:32,560 --> 01:19:35,920
Speaker 1: you introduced me in part to depat Choprah, he says,

1262
01:19:36,439 --> 01:19:40,320
Speaker 1: we are really not just human beings with a few

1263
01:19:40,400 --> 01:19:46,040
Speaker 1: spiritual experiences. We're spiritual beings and this is a temporary

1264
01:19:46,640 --> 01:19:50,320
Speaker 1: human experience. Again, as you said, and wrapping up this

1265
01:19:50,400 --> 01:19:53,000
Speaker 1: is with a statement, it's not about how long you live,

1266
01:19:53,479 --> 01:19:55,519
Speaker 1: it's about how well you live. If you don't know

1267
01:19:55,600 --> 01:19:57,200
Speaker 1: what's he wanting to die for, where you aren't fit

1268
01:19:57,280 --> 01:19:59,720
Speaker 1: to live, Thank you and Bassi Young for living, but

1269
01:20:00,040 --> 01:20:02,680
Speaker 1: you all might have life, and forgiving your life that

1270
01:20:02,720 --> 01:20:05,040
Speaker 1: when you might all might all have liberty. I love

1271
01:20:05,120 --> 01:20:07,920
Speaker 1: you man. This has been Building the Good Life with

1272
01:20:08,040 --> 01:20:17,400
Speaker 1: John Hobrant and Ambassador Andrew J. Young. Building the Good

1273
01:20:17,479 --> 01:20:19,479
Speaker 1: Life with John Hope Bryant is brought to you by

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