Transcripts For CSPAN3 John 20240703

Following school, palmers joined princeton and williams and smiled. Continue williams gain gibson. He was the first africanamerican at the firm. He is now a retired partner of the firm of hunt andrews. In 1983, he was appointed to the Supreme Court of virginia, becoming the first africanamerican and being 32, the youngest person of any race to serve. There. In 1995 of this time, as received his lifetime image award. In 2005, thomas was named a member of the court of arbitration for sport, which is based in lausanne, switzerland. So settling International Sports with global jurisdiction. In 2006, he was appointed the board of visitors of william and mary and was reappointed to 39. He is a published poet and as we will discuss today, now a maurice. Jones thomas will be in conversation with risa goluboff, who is the first female dean of the university of india, Virginia School of law. Dean ghalibaf is a renowned legal historian with scholarship and teaching focused on american constitution and civil war, especially their development in the 20th century is a distinguished scholar and author of multiple Award Winning books and a brilliant choice to share the stage with page thomas. When i know when he and dynamic and riveting discussion and simply delighted to have you both here, please join me in welcoming judge John Charles Thomas and dean risa goluboff. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you, sarah. Can everyone hear me . Okay, great. Its harder to see me. I know its. Thank you, sarah. For those lovely introductions. Its such a pleasure to be here and such an honor to be in conversation with Justice Thomas. And we were talking before about how last year the justice interviewed chuck robb when his memoir came out. And i just want you all to know, i dont have any memoir on the way. So this pattern will not continue. So justice, i wanted to start. Let me just if you havent already gotten your copy, this is the book that were talking about and it is a beautiful and moving book of this amazing trailblazer. And when sarah gives your introduction, there is the first of this and the first of that and so many others that werent necessarily first, but were early. Right. So when you came to the university of virginia, there were very few black students. And so you have been a trailblazer for your whole life. And i guess i want to start back early on and say, what in your childhood enabled you to take on all of the challenges that you did . I think if anything enabled me, it was my family. I was used to a very big family and my mother was one of 15 children and i had like 40 cousins that to play with and to live up to and to, you know, to learn things with. And so the story was that almost all of the sears children in the family was the sears family from norfolk could talk because we had to talk all the time. We had to do bible verses at the dinner table. And we had to do christmas plays for our grandparents and we had to sing songs at church. And so we were always on our feet and always talking. And so i think we thought we could do that. And so that thats probably the enabling thing that i could stand in front of a crowd. And of course, my grandfather figures out when im a baby. In 1954 that i had a pretty spectacular memory and he was right. And so he decides not to teach me mary had a little lamb, but to teach me the poem. Fan autopsies, which is a view of death at age four by William Cullen bryant. And then he would make me recite it to his friends who would lean up against the banister to come see him as he set their on the side porch and and he would say, say that poem. And so if from four years old, im reciting poetry in front of an audience and i guess thats an enabling thing, too. And well come back to the poetry because thats something youve done all your life since then. So some of your your early firsts, i think were in your childhood, right . So you grew up in segregated norfolk, virginia, and and you were one of the people who integrated the schools there. Can you tell us a little bit about that, how that came about and why you. Well, i was the first you know, there was the norfolk seventh team that went in the fifties when they closed the schools and all of that. I come along in the next wave when the state of virginia in 1965, as part of the implementation decision in brown versus board went to what they call the freedom of Choice School desegregation plan. I dont know what i see. Some people shaking their heads they might know about it, but here was the plan anyway. White child could leave their neighborhood, school and could choose to go to any black school in the city and any black child could leave their Neighborhood School and choose to go to any white school in the city. We are integrated people. We dont need the courts. We dont need no bussing. Leave us alone. We got this. And of course, nobody changed. Schools. And so the black teachers at my junior high school, i went to a place called jay cox junior high school. One day we hear this announcement and the students could tell that the names being called were the kids with pretty good grades. And they called us to a room and they when we get there, whats going on . Yall have to go to white school next year. Why now . Were 17 years because were fighting for integration and if you dont go, its going to fail. And we need volunteers. Raise your hand. Thats how i wound up, i think today. Thats called volunteer world. You were told that you were and we werent fighting with our teachers. I mean, they told us. Right. But but what happened . I mean, you know, theres a little mortar that theres violence and alcoholism in my home and life and and in that moment, right at that time when im finishing junior high school, my father is violent against my mother one more time and she decides shes going to leave and bleed california. And so in norfolk, where the great naval base is, if they move a ship from the Atlantic Fleet to the pacific fleet, the sailors cant drive their cars and they leave their cars with these consignment companies. And if you have a license, you can deliver their car. And so my mother gets one of those cars packs up her children, and we slip out of the house and we go to california. In the summer of 1965, and we go to South Central l. A. To a motel on sago raw with coal haze, western motel. My mother gets a job as a night duty nurse, and we stay in this room with the sterno stove, and the riot breaks out because if it werent for bad luck, wed have no luck at all. So when you were when you when you were in the white schools, then there was a lot of responsible party on you. There was a real burden. And you write about how you felt like youve really carried the weight of your people, of your race on your shoulders. And can you talk a little bit about how it was to to be one of those few black students in the white schools in norfolk at the time . Well, the weight came from several things, but one of one of the things that happened in the segregated schools in that area, this is in the sixties, is our teachers told us that its our job to change the world. You have got to go out and change the world and nobody is going to help you. Nobody is going to give you a break. You have to be better than the bad. I mean, we got that all the time. And so we were duty bound. We thought when we got to white school to do the best we can and and show, you know, all that we could do and and so forth. But you would you said, what . Why did i feel duty bound . How did you how did you how did you handle it . But any other thing that happened was some of yall may remember the argument was no black child is good enough to study with a white child. And so even in school, if we faltered or made a mistake, curiously, it would make the news. Now, you would wonder how the newspaper could find out that a black kid failed a class at a high school. But apparently some of the teachers were talking to some of the reporters. And so the black kids knew that if we didnt do well, even inside the school, it would wind up publicized. And that leads to another story about how i got caught not remembering an assignment, but you go ahead. You could ask me. And i was going to ask about that. And i was. Ill let you ill let you have a moment and have a sip of water if you want. But i was going to i was going to ask you about that. You know, you were from the way you describe it, you were on display. Right. And everything you did was being judged and and often not judged fairly. Right. You were you were up against peoples biases and prejudices and their underestimation of you. I think time and again. So would you tell the story about the teacher and the and the assignment and and and and and the poem. So back again to granddaddy in 1954 teaching me poetry. Im four years old. Im born in 1950. And so from the time im four years old, for the rest of my life, including now im reciting poems, you know, at church, they find out a kid can recite poems. You got to recite a ball at school. They find out this kid can recite of youre going to do it. Youre going to do it on the like, on the on the loudspeaker for four where the morning the voice and devotions and so forth. So anyway, by the time im at high school now, im 17 years old, ive been reciting poems for 13 years, but it had never occurred to me to write a poem. Im in advanced english because i could speak and write pretty well, and im the only black kid there. I come to school one monday, which i remember for particular reasons, and theres a study hall prior to the english class, and im sitting there just twiddling my thumbs. I aint thinking about enough. And next thing i know, i look up and my white classmates in the english class are all holding these things in their hand. They, you know, the the covers, the little plastic covers with the strip that went down. And i think to myself, oh my god, the class assignment is due today. And we had to write a poem, a short story or an essay for this class, this time it and i knew that if i went to class and i didnt turn in the assignment, it would be in the newspaper colored chow not able to compete in advanced english at white high school. And so im sitting there 25 minutes prior to class when i realized this, and i think to myself, i have to write a poem. Its the only option i thought i had. And i go to write this poem and i write a poem so fast i actually have the papers that i wrote this on. Still, i may show people one day, but i write this poem so fast that i can do it again in print. You know how you printed a meter and then youre going to turn it in. So im going to need your hand. I go to class, my white classmates put their themes in the box on the desk. I had the teacher just one piece of paper. She can read it. Its just a sheet and she calls roll. She walks to my desk, which is on the front row, because if you were black kid at white school in 1967, youre going to be on the front row because you were being watched all the time anyway, she walks up, holds the paper by the edge. She throws it in my face in front of the class, and she says, i reject this. I do not believe a colored child could write this. Yes, i did. I reject it. All right. Isnt there a piece, a postscript to that story when i became Justice Thomas and im in my chambers at the Supreme Court, i get a call from this teacher who sounded Something Like this, john thomas. Yes, maam. This is joe. Yes, maam. Will you send me a copy . That poem you wrote when you were in my class . Yes, maam. I never sent it. Will you recite it for us . The poem was called the morning and when i was 17 and i said in those 20 minutes the morning is the time for a man to rise, review the things that form his past, make all his disappointment and sad mistakes quite clear so they will be his last. The morning is the time for man to think of all the things to come, to plot, to plan, to try his best to be ahead when day is done, the morning is the time for man to dream of things not yet conceived, to gather his thoughts and ideas around the things that he alone believes. The morning is the time for man to rise and think and dream and see that although world depends on men who with thoughts of hope, the day began. 17 and 20 minutes with time to spare right . I mean, thats just thats amazing. So, you know, that wasnt the only time that you were underestimated or, you know, encountered someone who, you know, i think when we think trailblazer, it might not always be apparent that really what were saying is you went into all these environments where you were the only black person or one of very few black people, and there were a lot of white people who didnt want you. There or didnt think you belonged there or didnt think that you could do whatever the job was that youd come to do. And and you face this down, you know, in your book again and again and i wonder if you can share a little bit about how you navigated those those institutions and those circumstances and and and how you how you were you and also helped the people you came into contact with, you know, grow and change. And, you know, this is a book about a person who changes the world and changes so many different institutions and so can you tell us a little how how do you do that justice . I, i didnt think there are a couple of times in my life when i thought that something i was doing might be world changing most of the time in my life, i was trying to keep a job. I was trying to help mama pay bills. I was trying to do things like that. I was trying to complete the assignment. I, i wasnt thinking of anything grand. I mean, not that the two times that i remember thinking that something was really big was the day that i sat at my desk at the law firm and i signed the Partnership Agreement for houghton all by myself. And i open that document and i look back with all the additions and amendments to it, and i could see justice files signature on the firm from a long time ago, and i could see other names. And i thought, no black person has ever seen this document till this day. And so i knew that as i sat there, that was something my mentors, i knew what i stood at the Supreme Court and raise my hand with my wife holding the family bible. I knew that day, but most of the other days i was just like, oh god, i got to finish this assignment. And i got to make this filing at court before 5 00 today. And so most of the time it was like, but i did want to get the job done. I didnt i didnt want to fail. I didnt want to i didnt want to commit malpractice, is it . But more than that, i just didnt want to be late and have somebody say, you didnt get the job done. I that would have hurt a lot from where i came from. So when we we did an interview a couple of months ago on Martin Luther king day. And you also spoke at that time about reverend king and his legacy. And you talked about the difference between law and justice. And, you know, i hear you saying you didnt think you were doing anything grand in the quotidian of your work life. I still think what you were doing was grand. Right. Even if you werent thinking it was grand. But but i know there were there were definitely moments when you know, people following the law werent thinking about justice and you were intent on doing justice. And i wonder if you could talk a little bit about that. Well, i in no particular event comes to mind along those lines, dave, but i do. You were talking a minute ago about people doubting you. And i can remember being in court. Im a brand new lawyer just out of Uva Law School in in 75. And im at hunting and i get sent to court in federal court in maryland. And im on a case which was about taxing that coal because pepco had put some kind of sensors on the maryland side to set something coming from virginia. And so the question was, can you tax that co in maryland because of these small things that they had put on their site, which leads to for all the lawyers in the room, the international suitcase and whether go ahead avail themselves of maryland and benefit from is a Technical Area in constitutional law anyway i write this brief and im a first year associate at hunton and when youre a first year associate at a big law firm, nobody works for you. You have nobody who writes for you. And i turn this brief and then this federal judge is sitting on the bench and he goes, did you write this. And im like, yes, sir. And i said, i dont have anybody working for me. I had to do this myself. So im he might have said, well, this is pretty good, but im like, yeah, i wrote it and stayed up all night to. Well, but anyway, yeah, you know, thats what i had it what comes to mind. I guess theres stories about justice that are in the book that i just cant remember right now. Well, stories about justice and also about equity, right. So you talk about equity jurisdiction and using equity to talk about write law versus equity, right . I had but i did. I did that the other day. Oh, i know what it was that i was talking yesterday at another setting. People are talking about repo operations and i was talking about the concept in equity. Theres law and equity. I dont know if Everybody Knows what that means, but equity was fairness. Equity was supposed to be exercise sizing the conscious of the king. And so law says that if you steal a loaf of bread, your hands must be cut off. This was lining england a long time ago. Equity might say if you still a loaf of bread because you have eight children who are on the verge of starving. And if you dont steal this loaf of bread, theyre going to die. Tonight, we will say. We will give you a break. Equity, well say you were up against the wall. And so just out of, you know, fairness and in a sense of justice, we will not cut your hands off this time. Thats the nature of of of the difference. But anyway, theres a concept called Constructive Trust in equity that says if somebody stole your property and built on it and increased it and made a hotel out of it and it belonged to you, but it was stolen from you and your family. When equity finds that out, equity will stop that person and impose a Constructive Trust on that and take back the ill gotten gains and give them back to you. And i have thought along the way that in america there was stolen labor from black people, which helped build america. And so equity actually has a way to cope with that. If we were to use equity in the way that it was meant to be used, that thats all i got on that you had more to say before, but thats okay. Ill leave it there for now. So you already mentioned, you know, youre youre amazing memory and and you know, given all all of the trails that youve blazed and all that youve been through and what you said before, if you if you didnt have bad luck, you would never go back. You know, memory can can be a hard thing, right . It can it can make a person bitter and angry. And, you know, it doesnt take very much time talking to you or watching you talk to see just the immense joy that you have and the positive way you go through the world and, you know, with all these memories of all these people who underestimated you and all the the challenges that you faced, how how do you how do you come to the world with this joy and with this positivity . I think that that what happened with me was this i can i can surmise that if you were in a tough spot and you were doing all that, you could to resolve the situation you were in and to make change, but nothing ever happened. If you were just leaning up against like the great wall of china, trying to push it over and it just never moved. It never was. You could become hopeless and then you could become bitter and you could become angry and you just might have a whole nother change in your personality. I think for me, along the way, i saw enough change, little tiny bits of change just so small that i go tomorrow and i wind up being elected to student government. The only black kid in a class. What they said, the teacher said, anybody want to be in on Student Council . And i go and my white classmates elected me the Student Council. Now i dont remember anybody running against me. I think nobody else wanted to do it. And i said, yeah. And so and then im on Student Council and i suggest something. And next thing i know is a little change here and a little change there. So i think that it made me have hope. And i think that if you pushing hard and you have hope, you can still retain joy. And i think thats what happened with me. I think thats it. So important, right . You have to see change happening even if its not enormous. Right. Right. And grand. Just little. Little pieces of change. So you write that you often felt yourself to be caught between two racial worlds, a black racial world and a white. For example, when you went to the university of virginia and then coming home for vacations for summers and other times, i wonder if you can tell us more about about what that was like for you. Well, i actually found i can remember coming home the first time from uva, and ive been up here, you know, in three black guys in my interim class of 68 out of 1400. And, you know, im in school here and im doing things here and im listening to the music that the guys in my class are listening to. And i go back home and its a whole nother world. I mean, its a whole nother language, even. And so i can remember talking to somebody. I was raised with and this person says something would be about the sound of my voice, like, i cant talk to you anymore. You are. You sound too smart or Something Like that. And so i decided a long time ago that when im home, ill talk like i always did at home. And when im not at home, i would talk another way, which makes you have more than one identity. But its something that i did is almost like peacemaking. But when i was at the law firm, all of the white lawyers were in the various white bar associations. But i had to be in those and in the black bar association, sue, because they were separate. And so if i hadnt been in both associations, that would have caused difficulty and so theres this bridging that you have to find a way to do, which i was able to do and i still do some sometimes today people call that code switching today, right. Okay. Yeah, but you were doing it long before we had a word to describe it. I think so. When you when you were doing that code switching though, you were still you. Right . You still brought each world to the other. And, you know, youve written about and ive heard you talk about, you know, the perspect of that you brought into these white worlds where you were and i wonder in particular, right, being a member of the Supreme Court of virginia to bring your perspective into that institution and exercise power there. You know, it is a huge thing. And i wonder if you can tell us a little bit about, you know, what what what your perspective offered to other people and and how and how they how they received you and and how that reception maybe changed over time. Well, when i get to the court, im 32 years old. Im born in 1950. You know, this was 83, but im born in september. And so im going on the court in april 83. Im still 32. The next youngest justice is 21 years old. Chris compton is 53. They are oldest justice is 70 years old. That was cochran from stanton. The chief was 68 years old. All of these other justices are from a different everybody is old enough to be my daddy and they are all from a fully segregated virginia. Not one of them has been to school with a black person in their lives, and most of them had not even been in school with women other than in Elementary School because they went to all male colleges. And so forth. And most of them didnt have women. You know, i had one woman in my life. I didnt have any women in my life, that kind of thing. And so they had they were from another world and i can remember particularly maybe the dean is thinking about ive talked about this. I come, as youll see in the book from violence and all that in my home. And i know what its like for your mother to get a restraining order against your father. And i know what its like to fear that somebody is going to come and kill you and, you know, blow up the house. You live in a punch you and hurt you or something. And i can remember us discussing one day some case about a woman wanting a restraining order. And the justices were very technical, all god, john, code section 8. 2, dash 305. Clearly says that the judge only can issue this order for 14 days and then it has to be released and he has the ability extended if he wants to. And i just it was a passion list discussion of a situation where i knew that the people who were seeking these restraining orders were living in horror and terror. And so i can remember saying, yall just dont know what it feels like for somebody to be standing outside your door ready to bust down the door and kill you. And so you misunderstood. Then what this problem is that lady was in terror. You talking about adding 14 days . Shes talking about living it. And so they were like, okay. Okay. What do you think we should do . And so they would listen. And they were. But so they came to understand the difference that i brought. And when i left the court with a brain tumor and some of them cried for for my leaving because they knew that the conversation wouldnt be the same now that didnt make me prevail on every case, but it did get to the point where they were. John, what do you think . And that wasnt always the way it was. When i first got, there was like, this is this young kid who used to practice in front of our court. But then it got to, what do you think . Because they knew that i had seen something they hadnt find justice. Perhaps. Im just saying so now when you talk the experience of the woman seeking the restraining order and your childhood experiences, you tell us the story of when you were six. And you know, today i think people talk about resilience and grit and and, you know, i think this was a really formative story for your own sense of self and efficacy in the world. And i wonder if can you can tell its a brutal story. Yeah, it reminds me of a question you asked earlier about how do i feel with the memory i have part of the memory that i have which is strong. Can create basically posttraumatic stress, as i felt when i was writing the book, because i went back to things that i had not dealt with for a long time. But the story shes talking about is my mother to raise money. When we were little, she did what she call dramatic recitals at churches and she had what she called props that she would take around. But we lived in the housing in norfolk and they were little. I mean, like we lived in a whole unit might have been like half that space over there and she would keep her props in the living room in this place, which was a lot of stuff. I mean, it was junky and my father hated it. And so hed takes all her props one day and takes them and throws them in the swamp behind the house. Well, my mother goes and get some out of the swamp, brings some back. Now theyre muddy and dirty in house and they get enough fight about it. And hes punching my momma. A man with the fists. And i thought he was going to kill my mother. And so i go in the kitchen and i get the biggest knife i can find. And i get between my mom and dad. And i say to my father, you hit my momma again and ill kill you. And even though i was a little kid, you know, the army talks about the command boys. He must have thought i had to command boys. He stopped at the moment. I mean, he could have just punched me and broken my neck, but he stopped and left and he spent the rest of his life not knowing whether i might kill him at any minute. You were formidable, even at six. And unfortunately, you had to be right. I was just a little kid. But you werent. I mean, you were, but you were forced to also be a man in a way, right . Very, very early. So youve youve made so much history and, you know, when i think about the history of the university of virginia and our law school, you know, youre youre part of that history here. Youre part of yet. Thats why theres a portrait of you in our in our in our in our building. Youve also spent time in in later life thinking about how history is told. And you were on the board at monticello and youre on the commission here at and rose highland. And why why why do you why why do you spend your time thinking about how we tell Early American History of these Founding Fathers who, you know, are challenging . Im drawn to history in general. I recognize that theres no perfection in the human condition. Its just not. I know that these imperfect men like monroe and jefferson had something to do with building this nation that has evolved and has become better then it started out and is fascinating. How do you do that . You know, how do how do you come up with principles . You know, like all men are created equal that you dont live by, but then that have the transformative power to make it so that i do become the first black justice. And so and so its an amazing story and i want to be part of it. But i also want to be part of telling it correct and not whitewashing it. If you will, and not burying the story. I want the story to be as truthful and as forthcoming as it can be, which is part of why i do that. But i actually love history. I actually love walking this property and walking at moneta and going up across the street and being part of it. I love being part of virginia. History, i think is pretty darn cool. I agree. Youre youre not going to get any challenge from me there. So before we open it up to folks in the audience, i wonder if you can just tell us a little bit more about poetry. So weve heard a little bit about poetry as a child and how you first came to write poetry and how how youve recited poetry, but you recited poetry at Carnegie Hall once. And i wonder if you can tell us how that came to be. Well, i was on the board. This comes from being on the board. Weve been married and we i was on the Academic Affairs committee and we were having a dinner at Bruce Hornsby house. His wife was on the board at the time, and everybody was walking in, introducing themselves, hi, im a professor of medieval arts and high. Im a professor of music and im thinking, you know, yeah. And so normally i would say, you know, im judge thomas and stuff like that. But everybody has such cool jobs and cool down. So i go, hi, im a poet. So, so this one professor goes, what kind of poet are you . And and i say, im a lyric poet and a romantic tradition. And so she says, let me hear up on so i start reciting poetry, which i can do. And so by the time the evening is over, it is professor was sophia. She says to me, you know, i think that if you send me your poetry, i can write music based on your poetry. And i go, no, by doing that, i never did that before. So why is it i do that . She persisted. And i do. I send the poetry out. Shes the one that comes up with this idea about why doesnt the muscala sponsor this concert and will use it as a fund raiser and well get judged. Thomas to do portrait and well do music and thats what winds up being what happens and we do this program at Carnegie Hall in february of 2013 and its called the allure of the muse that she had written a piece called allure. And she says after the after she does the thing about i can write music based on your poetry, she says, i wonder if you can write poetry based on my music, which i hadnt thought of. And so she sends me a piece called allure, and i write the allure of the muse, which became the title of this concert, new york and out. Heres the allure of the muse. These are the greek muses that affect all of us and that we we depend on for art and so forth. And so i she cannot be seen directly. She lives just beyond our view. She takes wings on flights of fancy, then vanishes like the morning do. She whispers amidst the birdsong that heralds the awakening day she dances on the sunbeam wings that since the night upon its way, she twirls inside the aromas that suffuse our homes with joy. She floats upon the laughter that floods us through with joy. She skips upon the rainbows that merge softly into the sky. She leaps atop the breaking the safe crash on the beach and die. She sings along the hillsides as the wind blows through the trees, she murmurs words of tender bliss as burdens press us to our knees. She slips into the shadows that emerge at the close of the day. Shes stroked south feral for heads until our dreams come out to play. She clings on to our lingering thoughts and wraps around our hearts. She runs her fingers through our hair, then suddenly she departs the allure of the muse. That was wonderful. And i didnt even have to ask. So we can open it up for question. Sarah has a mic and she will bring it around if if you raise your hand. I was at the university of virginia in 1968 and 1972, and i just wondered if you have a particular memories of your undergraduate years that when you shared well, what one of the things was, there came a time i remember the mixers they used to have when they brought the girls from the girls schools and they put them in the dorms and the guys would go pick a date. Well i went there and you know, remember this is a long time ago and the issue of whites and blacks dating, that was a whole nother thing. And so i went there. There were no black girls in the group and i thought there was nobody for me and all my roommates, we were real happy, you know, we got dates and all that and im thinking, well, that didnt do anything for me. And that and other things, you know, i was a chemistry major and stuff was hard and i decided, im leaving uva, im going back to norfolk and ill go back to hampton and ill go home, ill go to school. And so i get on a bus and go back to norfolk. But next thing i know, i get this phone call from my hall at uva. I was in lefebvre and all the guys from my hall are on the phone and i can hear them all say, john, please come back. We miss you, man. Now, that was kind of amazing. In 1968 for a whole hall white guys to say, come back and and i did. But thats what i remember from that. Thank you pleasure to have you. Thank you for coming. I look forward to reading your book. Two questions. This black folks from maryland and virginia those times. But the real and i add i dont remember i dont i just i was out there all by myself and it and the federal judges i did you write this. One . I was here last year when you were magnificent presenter with senator from you just had a marble house of mine and when i was in the Hospital Hospital with the burns i was wonderful. The wonderful room. And i googled them recently. I cant find any of it. On how deep and she are. Do you have it . Yes, i, i think i get to say that theyre doing better than that. That house they dont live in anymore. They move to an a completely different house. And i have talked to them since and they they are doing as well as they can after suffering. I mean, that sort that he lost, remember the thought he had one from memory thats is gone i dont know that hes gotten another one, but im thinking maybe the marines will give him another one one day. Im like nothing. And i. I just say that im enjoying life very much among the general. Ive become a god in my 80th year, and i think tell them the truth, what he gave and what he didnt understand is really, yes, i do do that. I have something in common that im not broken yet. Ill okay. When i was at my high school in 19, oak schools close down right. And so i was fortunate enough to be with my mother to go north and find some schools. Dont do enough to take the, you know, three or four weeks into the junior year. I did. But my question is really about folk who my peers back in norfolk, white folk that i grew up with, some of them youll know, like ill be dancing, come down. Oh, how do you feel that change has come to these folk in norfolk who were part of that old establishment and were kicking and screaming in some cases to a change of mind . Clyde has that really progressed on it . How do feel about well, i dont know, norfolk that well anymore because ive lived in richmond since 1975, but i mean, norfolk is still my home and i still go to norfolk, but i dont think i know enough about any particular person to say. But i have seen people change and i know that that people sometimes change because they must the you know, that the law makes them do different things. But ive actually seen people change to the point of caring and it makes a difference. And so as i remain hopeful about change and people in norfolk and across the state, i would agree with that because i had some town in richmond and ive seen a lot of changes. Yeah, theres some i served back there. I like. Thank you. Could you take us back to california during the riot and how you got back to virginia . Because i was hanging on that hour. All right. Well i mean, that i write about that in the book were at hays western motel on figueroa, which not far from where the riots started. But one of the things about being in the riot that people dont know who were there is that it smelled like a cookout because the stores were fire. And so the hamburgers and the bacon and the chicken were burning and it smelled like somebody was cooking food. But anyway, at some point i say to my mama, mama, were going to be dead. Nobody is going to know who we are. We got to get out of here. We may as well go back to norfolk. Basically, califor your was it the Promised Land that my mother thought it would be. Know the go west young lady and so so just as we came to california with a call from the navy, we went back to norfolk the same way they were moving our ship to the other fleet. And so we got a car and we drove back to norfolk. But what happened was i get back to school, to norfolk after school has started it later in september. So that group of kids that were in the room where they say raise your hands, we need volunteers. Some of those children had quietly over the summer whilst in norfolk change back to go to the black high School Boogie washington it was and so i get to marry there were some of the kids from that class there, but not all the ones who raised their hands. Day i had no choice. I couldnt change because i was too late and so i had to go to white school, as they said. Its just as time as your poetry is. So im wondering if you had any particular influences or your poets that you particularly admire. I, i speak in and write in the same meter as longfellow and i know several longfellow poems and i know kipling, and i know William Cullen bryant. And so i love those guys who had art to do the complex rhyme schemes. But i, i love the builders and i love the building of the ship and the some of life and, and poems like and if and things like that. Because i was raised with them and found a even. Thank. Well ill that are other comments thank you for sharing your story and its actually the second time ive heard you three years ago its just so inspiring so thank and important i think im curious about your reflection on this given all youve seen, thought about an experience of the rule of law in the country. You know, obviously you became a child and became a professional point of time and change over today. There are who despair about the rule of law the country and i your comment on incremental change and do you see that were making incremental progress and the rule of law in the country or what your reflections. I think we are in what our british friends might call a tough patch and we have been through tough patches before. I think that the founding principles of the nation after being thought out, you know sort it out over time, are viable, strong and useful and they will guide us if we abide by them. And so i think that we have to get through this moment, whatever this moment is, that have us thinking that we really want to be under a dictatorship, but we really want to have authoritarian government. We really dont like the free elections and we really dont care. I think all of those things are wrong headed and i think that what has gotten us so far, this far is that we have trusted in those systems that were created long ago. I dont think the founders got every single thing right and maybe there are some changes that could possibly be made in our government. Indeed, to tell you the truth, the founders thought that we would change things when we needed to. They didnt think that they were writing a constitution and forever. They didnt think that it was holy writ. They thought that they had a changed mechanism and that we would be smart enough as time evolved, that if we needed to change the bill of rights, if we needed to change constitutional provisions, we would. And maybe we just have to get to the point that we stand up on our hind legs and say, here are some changes we need to make for the good of the nation. But i remain hopeful. Maybe one last question, i guess, is one fear. I keep thinking about your grandfather. So as rough as it was back when you were little, it must have been a lot rougher when the grandfather was. So here he is early. I mean, just the worst part of jim crow reading poetry. How does it get . You know, it just it makes me think he was that other family members who somehow broke of everything that was expected of them. And came have been my thing. My granddaddy was born in 1890 in waverley, virginia. He was not an educated man. I mean, he went to the one room schoolhouse was he wasnt a college man, but he became a control actor who built houses and building. And he ran something called the sears arena, where he had boxing matches and like great car races and things of that kind. And so he had this entourage for know your spirit. And as i say, he had 15 children. I mean, his wife, grandma had 15 children. She she had 15 children from 1911 to 19 and 41 with no twins. And so almost every two years, shes having a child from uncle old altima. Lulu is the the youngest one whos nine years older than me and my mother was the middle child born in 1925. But he became a mason. He he became a master mason in the masonic movement. And of the uplift was teaching young kids how to write papers and recite poetry and so basically he gets this one grandkid who he can see has this memory and he says, im going to teach this kid all this school baudry. And so his old buddies what i would recite van autopsies anybody ever heard that autopsies are it a view of anybody want to hear that . Its out of my wife didnt want me to tell you all this is the first poem i ever learned. And this and my grandfather that would put me im a little boy now. Im standing at the banister and all these old guys would lay there and basically i was his windup toy. But when i recited this form, these old guys would say, go coordinate with shouting and scream. And so, you know, were talking about audience approval. But heres that autopsies to him, who in the love of nature holds communion with her invisible forms. She speaks of various language for his gay or ours. She has a voice of gladness and the smile and eloquence of beauty. And she glides into his darkened musings with a mild and healing sympathy that steals away their shop is a he is aware when thoughts of the last bitter hour come like a blight over the ice period and sad images of the stern in agony and shroud and pall and breathless darkness and the narrow house makes the eaters shudder and grow sick it hard. Go forth under the open sky and list natures teachings while from all around earth and her waters and the depths of our comes the steel boys. Yet a few days and the all beholding sun shall see no more and all its course nor in the cold ground where thy pale form was laid with many tears now in the embrace of ocean shall exist this an image earth which nourish the shall claim light growth to be resolved to earth again and lost each human trace. So rendering up nine individual being shall thou go to mix forever with the elements to be a brother to the insensible wrath and to the sluggish clod that the roots wane turns with his share in treads upon the oak will send its roots abroad in pierce thigh mold, yet not to die in eternal resting place. Valerie tyler nor could i wish couch more magnificent thou shall lie down with patriots of the infant world with kings, the powerful of the earth, the wise, the good, fair for arms and all we see as of ages past all in one mighty supplicant of the hills rocked ribbed and ancient as the sun, the veil stretching in pensive quietness between the venerable woods, the rivers that move in majesty, and the complaining rocks that make the metals green and poured round all oceans, gray and melancholy waste all but the solemn declarations, all of the great tumult man, the golden sun, the planet, all the infinite hosts of are shining on the sad abodes of death through the still lapse of ages all that tread the globe of our hand full to the tribes that slumber in its bosom take the wings the morning pierce the bark in wilderness hour lose eyes self in the continuous woods wear a rose the oregon and here is no sound save its own dash yet the day, all day and millions and those solitude spurts the flight of years begun, have laid them down in their last sleep. The day it rained. They are alone. And so, so thou rests. So what if die with joy and silence from the living and no friend . Take note of that departure all that breathes will share thy destiny the game will laugh when thou art gone the solemn rule of care applaud on and each one as before shall chase his favorite phantom yet all these shall leave their mirth and their employment, and shell come to make their bed with the as the long train of ages glides away, the sons of men, the youth in lifes green spring and he who goes in strength of the birds, matron and maid and the sweet babe and the great headed man. So one by one be gathered to die, sighed by those who in their turn shall follow. So live that when thy summons comes to join the in innumerable caravan that moves to that mysterious realm where each shall take his chamber in the silent hold of death, thou go not like the quarries, slave that night scourge to his dungeon, but sustained and soothed by an unfaltering trust approached a grave like one who wraps the drapery of his couch about him and lay as down to Pleasant Dreams tops. Autopsies by William Cullen bryan. A very things and i am sure i am not the only one who felt like your grandfathers friends had learned to say go. So thank you and i know youll join me. Thank you, Justice Thomas gallivan gallivanting you. Hi, everybody. Afternoon. Im john obrien from the department of english and im happy to kick things off. Todays lecture is part of English Department lecture series known as the peters rushton seminars, a series that goes back to 1950. Its a series that included speakers sas