With, but thank you so much for being anyhow you doing . Im doing well. This black History Month is sure is. And eddie is history. We have all made as americans. But why is it significa today in the 21st century that we keep a focus on knowing black history . Well, first of all, its such a delight to be in with you. Its just a blessing. And to see all of you, i think its its crucial that we understand in the past that has made us who we are. And there is this kind of parallel, these parallels stories, the story we tell ourselves. The myths and legends that affirm our sense of who we are as the shining city on the hill. And then theres the actual lived experience, the stories that dont come into view, what we might do, what we might describe it as the undisclosed features of American Democratic life. And it seems to me that when we you know how let me put it differently, the stories we tell reveal who we are and what we choose to leave out of leave out of our stories all too often reveal the limits of our conceptions of justice. So who and what we choose to leave out actually reveals, expose causes, you know, moral shortcomings. So its important for us to tell this story and africanamerican History Month, which was history week, is this moment in which we tell the story not only of black achievement, but we also tell the story of the complex contradiction at the heart of the american experiment. I couldnt agree more. And along those lines of telling this history, its also about the narrative and shaping that narrative as part of telling our story. What is the narrative of the 21st Century Black experience is . Is it different from the 20th century or the 19th century . And it brings me back to, and im a quote, James Baldwin or misquote baldwin so that they can correct me because he is the premier historian and writer and James Baldwin. But can we tell this story . Can we write a narrative in the 21st century that exclude racism as part of our story . Oh, no, no, no. Sadly not. You know, to quote ralph ellison, the author of invisible man, he talks about what he calls this tricky magic that this country really doesnt understand who and what it is that we dont really know who we are. And in the moments in which those contradictions bubble up, we have to consult the notion of whiteness so that our differences are lost in this idea that we are all white. Right. And that we, as a complicated we coming out of my mouth. Right. So but the tricky magic is that tap means by way of a procedure of scapegoating these black folk, these other folk allow us to consolidate a notion of whiteness. So here we are in the 21st century, facing the terror and panic of demographic shifts, the browning of america the discomforting reality that, you know, these folk elected the first black family to be in the white house. These folk got these racially ambiguous children on cheerios commercials and all of this and this, and they dont know what the hell to do with it. And so what do we see in response. In some ways, the First Century is wash, rinse and repeat. Same thing over and and over again. Echoes even though we have this historic these, historic achievements. Because in some ways, the country, in my view and im going to ask you a question next is the country, in my view, refuses to grow the hell up. Its stuck in a kind of perpetual out of lessons and by virtue of that fact, right, it refuses to look itself in the mirror. Now, what do you make of the state of things and you youve been from Jesse Jackson campaign 1984 to all the work from that moment on, you have seen the shifts in our Political Landscape scape. You have been privy to the political discourse. What you make of this moment in the 21st century when it comes to race and democracy. What you you know, as a black woman who grew up in the segregated deep south, i spent much of my childhood wondering if i would live long enough to see my old age or my senior years or even my middle age. Ill never forget when i wrote in my diary and by the way, im catholic, said i will always my diary always started, dear god, because i was afraid that if i talked to the priest and confessed what i was feeling, he would tell the man singer and then my senior would get so confused. He would tell the Bishop Bishop would talk to the archbishop before, you know, the cardinal will be in my business and the pope. So i went straight. God, im like, im not messing with you, man. You just aint time enough for me. So i know i in time, but, you know, im still a good catholic girl. Now i go to church every time i can and love it because you see, unlike some people who go to mass as i go to church and saint mattress is probably the most Beautiful Church on the planet, thats when you get on your knees next to your bed. That st mattress and the living witness that you all should visit. Saint mattress on a daily basis. It will make you feel better. So how do us feel. I, i really did believe growing up and we didnt grow too well. We grew up, what, less than a hundred miles from each other. But i would have. Yeah. And you know, we share that, that muddy river, that golf course breathes heat and humidity. We share all of those things together. Musky, those snakes. But we also have four delicious seasons crab, crawfish, oysters and shrimp. So. And that man. Thats right. I grew up knowing the history of black people, not because it was taught to me in fourth grade by miss eugene of fifth grade history. Well, mr. Lee, i grew up because i had grandparents who wanted us to know as much about our condition, our environment. There was a reason for everything. And the thing that they stirred and all nine of us, there were nine of us. Did i tell you we were catholic . My grandmother had 12 children. My dad was number 12. I said the one thing he never had to accuse us of is, you know, leaving somebody behind. We just have more children. But i grew up thinking, listening them that i could create the change, create the environment that would be totally different from the one i was experience in, meaning that i would be able one day not to you have to cross the street when a white person appeared on the block, i could be the kid that, you know, could walk on any side the sidewalk. I was when i got on a public bus, the airline bus that i would sit wherever i wanted to, like rosa parks. I did. I didnt know that she had to go to the back. Hill no, im sitting right on that road. Im sitting right here because i believe that i can make change possible. When i was a little girl, i used to have big dreams i mean, i still have big dreams and i dont know, being out here in california with these big mountains might have bigger dreams next week. I mean, these are bigger than levees. But my dreams were big. Part of what i was dreaming was, well, you know, i mean, Abraham Lincoln is is a great guy. I really like lincoln. But what if we try having our own black president so we didnt have to rely on lincoln to be the only black one. And i would ask my grandmother because i thought she knew lincoln. I thought she knew everybody, including jesus, my grandmother. So i never knew she had any of the colored hair but gray. And look at me. But i just knew i could do it because in telling our history, they told me a history where they survive all of their adversity and that they saw a way out of no way and they had hope. They never gave up hope. And my grandmother, because she really read that bible, she loved the lord. I learned the scriptures that she would recite it every day. I every night because im like, she must know something because shes reading that bible. So i read the bible and do not grow weary in doing for and do season your people harvest if you dont give up what has happened in america. Well, we cannot read that harvest. What has happened in this country when we want to stop and turn back the clock and go back, nobody going backwards, you. Are not going back. Im not going back to the back of the bus. Im not going back to being 3 5 anything. And i am not going back and settling for those old stereotypes. That is essentially defined me as something that was not even human. So that when people beat me with me and threaten me, they didnt see me, they did not see me. And so i thought my entire life to be seen, to be heard, to be known as a human being. What i hate but with love, because thats what my grandparents taught me. Love how could these people love folks . They did all of this to you and you still love. There was a night at the dr. King died. But i do i knew what i had to do. This was a thursday afternoon. I turned and it was raining. Ill never forget it was raining. And grandma told us to take off our good clothes. You know, when you came home, take off your school clothes, they were good. Good clothes. Like your Church Clothes you only worn once a week, a once a day period. You put on, you play clothes, whatever, and grandmom said, you all got to get on your knees and pray who when you had to get on your knees and pray during the day to somebody else, somebody was done. I mean, look, we knew enough at that point. And of course, being the curious kid, the third of nine, while we prayed, donna, i shut up. Really . While we pray, dr. King has been shot. And of course, even at eight years old, i understood that. I understood that. And i wanted to go into a fit of rage. A kid who would shoot dr. King, why would dr. King be shot . I mean, at that point, we didnt know if he had died from his wounds or whatever. We learned that later that night. But as we were praying, my grandmother us to pray for dr. King and pray for his family, mrs. King. But this was the one that got to me, eddie she told us to pray for whoever did it. Im like, oh hell. Oh. And here come my grandmother. Back with matthews about loving the enemies, loving. And im like, here we go. Back to love and people. How can we love people who hate us . How can we pray for people who want us dead . And so for me, i have measured my life by how much progress can we make . How do you pushing how do you keep turning . How do you keep staring . How do you keep loving people . And that is ultimately my test as a human being, but that is the test we all have as americans. How do we keep this american experiment going . You about democracy. Yesterday, you and doris and you know douglas, i mean, you guys were like, yeah, yall pretty bad. Yall brought it back. But fundamentally, as a country, were out of sync with all of that so called values that we uphold and enshrined even in the words in our document, were not in sync. The majority of us. And yet weve got to keep pushing and keep stirring and keep moving forward. Because ultimately, i do believe theres a theres a force in this society that will move when we start moving. But as long as we sit back and just accept the status quo, were not going to change. And i must say something, and i hope this aint awful. See, i told this to area i was doing my confession yesterday, you know, give me a glass and ill tell you, any dampened. And dont criticize me because what was jesus first miracle he turned one into one. He listened to his mother, got the party, started. So im a christian woman, period. So by the time i reached my twenties and i had, you know, i was stern as much as i could organize and anything that needed to be organized, getting things done that people say can never happen. Like my first campaign, National Campaign was to help make Martin Luther kings birthday a holiday, because they told me it couldnt happen. I said, really . Bull. Two years we got us a holiday. Yall. Okay, so i was on to something coming out of Jackson Campaign and that was the year that i said, do lent. I went to church. You to. Thats why i tell my priest and you to and my priest. What are you giving up . This why people. I say i had to give up this whole concept of whiteness and why people because you know what the in my mind and they dont know who they are so im going to heres what im gonna do for my parents. Im going to europe and figure out who white people are because theyre not they dont know themselves. Theyre not telling me nothing about themselves. And how can i love people that dont love themselves . Because thats why they hate me. They dont love them. So so, you know, i really i spent that year in europe and let me tell you, i came back telling everybody you are irish. Oh, i think im irish to let me tell you why. Oh, italians. Oh, terrible. And that to me i would tell you too. And then the french and the art and i fell in love with white people. And then i had to come back to america and tell them why you were great to him. Why are you mad . Why . People dont know why people and you have a nerve to hate me and you dont know yourself. Did you . Not loving yourself. So how far . If we cant . Weve come a long way, but we still each other. We dont love meeting each other. We dont love knowing each other. We dont learning that were complex and crazy too. Just like you. But you dont see us. You dont know our humanity. And then it brings me to what just occurred this past month. The beaten and deaf of mr. Nicholls and we thought after the death of george floyd that america work to some reckoned some moment when we can start to see each other as one start to heal, start to address systemic racism, what happened and why didnt we fulfill that socalled pledge, a commitment to do better . Its the americans theater of race. Thats what we do. You know, i mean, we see the ugliness, we see the horror. We clutch our pearls, we cry crocodile tears. Baldwin, echoing emerson, says sentimentality is the mask of cruelty. Richard wright said he wanted to draw character that didnt get they didnt call for crocodile tears. So you cry your crocodile tears and you say, oh my god, thats horrible. And then youd go back to your lives. And policing never changed. In fact, in the midst of it all, in the midst of hundreds of thousands of people risking their lives after george floyd was lynched, and they risked their lives in the midst of a pandemic that was that swung low death whole. Thats right. In a way. What did we hear . We started hearing the rhetoric of law and order from the 1980s, start hearing talk about crime as the principal threat and demands for more policing. I mean, the very rhetoric i mean, i thought i was right back in the the nineties, listening to, you know, watching bill clinton in front of Stone Mountain with all of those black men in white. You remember that image, right . And shackles in shackles, right . Not just simply reagan and not just simply nixon, but the safe streets act of 1968 under Lyndon Baines johnson. So what we did in that moment, we thought we were in a space. We were going to get the George Floyd Justice in policing act, and we got the irony of tim scott playing my good friend cory booker like, like a like, you know, like a toy nothing was generated we started seeing again those special squads. Thats why i wish chief bratton was right here. Those special police units that terrorize black communities, because in the united states, forgetfulness is our arch nemesis is we forgot about ramparts in los angeles, we forgot about the black box and the special unit in chicago. We forget about all the things that we and what do we do . Wash, rinse, repeat. And so my baby, whos 26 years old, whom i only child studying in law at berkeley, wants to be a public defender. Im going to have to make some more money. Hes going to be broke. Ill had to take care of my grandbabies. He has degrees growing up in an environment where if hes having a bad day, i tell you this story. Yeah, i wrote about this in democracy in black. I was elected to be the president of the American Academy of religion, the largest body of scholars of religion in the world. Im a country boy from moss point, mississippi. My mom had her first baby in the ninth grade. I grew up near the water. This is big. This is something huge. So i want to call my mom after, find out that i won. But i get a call from my baby. Hes at brown. And as soon as i hear his voice, i said, what happened . He said, daddy had i was doing an assignment for my anthropology class in this upscale neighborhood in providence and im sitting there and the police drive by and hang a uturn. And he pulls up and they get out the car. And he comes up to me. He says, who are you and why are you here . And he says, sir, my name is langston and im here doing an assignment. And leans over and he says, the park closes at such and such a time. And he says, yes, sir, i know. But its only its only. And then the officer leans over again, touches his gun and says, the park closes at such and such a time. He touches his girlfriend. They get up and have to leave. And so im thinking, okay, what if he had a bad day, right . And he didnt follow instruction, then the boy comes home for the summer hes going to work for. Hes working for a nonprofit lobbying the state legislature around Capital Punishment stuff, criminal justice reform. He had on one of those tight h m suits. I dont know how these kids wear these things means they wear them. They hide. And so hes got this. He got his h m suit on. Hes go getting this little honda civic and hes driving. So i send him off. Nice. Wow. He walks in my son six, too. He walks into the house and i immediately see something wrong. What happened . This big division one, caleb, a basketball player fighting on the back of his to sit there. I was to get to the to the capitol cop stops me black cop who are you what youre doing youre just going to drive past me . I mean, you lost your. No, no, no, sir. Im just trying to find a parking spot. Im trying to get here. Well, go over there and park. He tells him so then he said, dad, i do. I followed the instructions. Then i get stopped by another cop and. He starts grilling at me and i said, well, im just trying to fight. Did i . He said, go over there. And so i pull over and dad got stopped by another mother cop. And at this my baby is crying. My only child. And he said, you know what, this man asked me, daddy . He asked me, whos my p. O. . Oh. Whos my p. O. Daddy parole officer . Some of you who dont know what im talking about. And hes crying. So im having to figure out in that moment, what do i do to keep this from turning inward . Mm hmm. From this anger . Yeah. Beginning to consume him. What do i do . I reach for the mccallum 25. Thats some good stuff, too. Yall know that some good stuff. You dont drink mccallum every 25 every day. Yeah, right. But the point that im making that here it is went through it. Mm. As a boy am my dad went through it as a boy, his dad went through it. Now my babys going through it and he had to sit there and watch five black men exact that kind of evil. And so, you know, when i think about it, as long, as theyre as long as were in a country where there are folks who believe they have absolute authority to use legal wise deadly violence, combined with the belief that some People Matter than others, and that leads them to devalue and disregard particular bodies as such, that if i tell you do anything and you ask question, you are immediately threatened. And what happens to every black parent in the country at that moment . It is that we become terrorized again. Again, because the first thing you start doing is worrying about your baby again. So i hear what youre saying about love and moving forward. I do. But it is an external. Requires unimaginable work and then we need to be very, very clear when your grandmother told you, we have to love the man who killed dr. King king, when my great grandmama, ruby wilson, we called her mama, told me something similar, not about Martin Luther, but about hatred and the importance of love. On a certain level, it had nothing to do with white folks. Is about us. Thank you. That we could not become the people. That was doing this stuff too. And as baldwin would say, you know, love keeps us keeps rage from literally overwhelming us. Yeah. So we got love so that we can so that we become that which we despise. And thats what my grandmother ultimately i figured it out because when she first said it, i didnt want to hear it. I didnt understand it. But i understand. And i loved her so much and i knew she had gone through so much and had seen so much in her 87 years. At that point that i couldnt trust her and believe her. And i have to tell, as the aunt of 17 nieces and nephews and i love all of them i mean, i love them enough that i put a lot of them through college. As our students say, auntie donna is broke. Im thinking about the one whos going to get his white coat in a couple weeks. And, you know, were going to have the first doctor in 400 years. We just got the first lawyer. I am so happy. I and my niece, my the one i raised. My sister was 16. My mom passed away early and my dad looked and he said, well, i dont dont have any children. I might. Reason and and you know, when youre raising children, its a huge responsibility. And i knew exactly why i did not want to have children. I was afraid that my children grow up in a world that where would hate them and i could not be there to protect them. I was so afraid as a child that i ruled it out. Oh, hell no, i dont want that. Ill change the. But im not going to have children in this world. And here comes anika. Lord hammers. But shes growing up with my values, my value system. Shes now a principal and what i love best about this challenge, im digressing, but i have to tell you because im so proud of her is that when katrina happened and, she went back to the city of new orleans. She could teach anywhere, but she went to the poors area of the city in the ninth ward. Thats right. And shes now principal. And she tells me auntie, i bring them food in the morning i bring them we play classical music, you know, we talk before the School Day Start and that is her way of calming them from the lives that theyre experiencing at a young age today. The renamed her Elementary School where shes vice principal after Dorothy Heights they her school from powell havens to Dorothy Height from a segregationist a confederate to a civil rights champion and i think about how janika is now me. She said, im in class given my students to talk. Now, eddie, i ask you this earlier today because i said im opposed this. Question how are we going to give that talk . I mean, how long are we going to have to give the talk . You know, i mean, Vice President harris said this at the funeral yesterday. Every mother has a child. The first thing that they want for the child is for this child to be safe. Yeah. So were going to give some version of the talk, you know, as long as we bear children because, you know, as my momma told me when we first had langston, hes named after langston hughes, langston ellis, his middle name is shortened for ellis. And we put lot on that boy show how you did. He said, youre not going to start worrying about him into your bath until he puts you into the ground. And its so and so you know. But then i said i said this on alex wagner the other day on msnbc. Theres nothing i can say to my boy and theres nothing your your baby can say to her students that could save if a cop is having a bad day. Nothing. Theres not everything that Tyree Nichols did initially was right. Mm hmm. Hold up what you are doing. Okay. All right, calm down now. Yall doing it a lot. Now im sitting down. And then he realized they were trying to kill him. Mm hmm. And then you get fight or flight. Yeah, thats the psychological response to the realization, you know . So theres nothing. I could do. Im on. Keep talking to boy. Take that down off of instagram. You dont need to do that. Stop, stop you got to express yourself differently that rage cant go inward. It has to go outward. Yes, weve got to change to use the word rage to manifest itself to change the world. But you know, i wanted to return to something you said earlier. Well, you know, were walking mysteries to each other. Yeah, we we. Thats all you need to do is think about your last wedding. Who was there . Mm hmm. Im at the top of my career when i go home. Its not a very integrated space. My golf partners, the people i share my most intimate concerns. Im most vulnerable, segregate it spaces or mysteries to each other. And what we have to begin tackle are the intimacies of our hatred, how intimate the hatred is. And when i teach this to my students, i say this people knew who killed emmett till because they played checkers with him. Yeah, they drink beer with him. They love them. People know who stormed the capitol on january six, dont they. Mm. How do they know . Because theyre you, they, your family members, they coach the soccer teams and you know what you hear around the tables, your kitchen table, you know what you hear in your day to day lives. I know what i hear. You know what you hear . The fact that were walking mysteries to each other. Yeah. And what stands in the place of it all are these stereotypes that stand in the stand and spit for human beings. So theres no basic knowledge, so theres no sense of mutuality. No sense of obligation. Just these flat characters like on it. And its flat, no depth, you know, and so cried crocodile tears, grab your pearls, affirm your virtue, then go back and let the world be exactly what it was that produced. The horror and cruelty in the first place, if thats what we do, then were all implicated in it. Were all complicit in it, it seems to me. And so part of what i try to do in my work is to say that as as powerfully and as lovingly as i can possibly say it, because thats the only way were going to get to a place where we where we perhaps dont have to give that talk, but were going to have to give some talk because the world is dangerous. And i dont think its ever going to stop being dangerous because human beings are dangerous to seems to be beyond passage of the george floyd policing act. If if Congress Allows it to go through. And there are other ways to implement some of the particular pieces of it some states can do it some state legislatures are already moving in that direction. Citizens clearly can begin an initiative and put something on the ballot in certain states. But by and large, Congress Bears Responsibility to ensure that we have a 21st Century Policing policy guidelines, efforts to make sure were all practicing the same efforts when it comes to Community Policing and Police Relations with the Community Train and qualified immunity, making sure that their cops are not able to go to another jurisdiction and keep it up. Keep it up. But short of congress, show the president what people do in their own individual or community and lives to help educate and help heal so that were not constantly ourselves. And i just want to read this fact that in the aftermath of george floyd, 229 black people were killed at the hands of cops. Black cops, white cop has spent cops. And we dont know many their stories and if you i fear that if we dont see a video or as sky cam or something we just believe it we dont think its happening. And i have to tell you, i live in a pretty decent neighborhood in d. C. I live in some rough ones to and im not afraid to go into the hood, as people would say. But the cops seem now not to want to be involved. They dont want to be engaged in the community. They want a stand off approach. And so how do we, you know, individual in our Community Communities do better . Well, i think, you know, i mean, thats a wonderful question. I think we have to get a broader or we have to develop a broader are different let me say a different frame work for policing and how we talk about it. You know, were all were caught and captured by the discourse, law and order in this country. And law and order really has these various components as, you know, that some communities are to be protected. Other communities are to be overpoliced and overly surveilled and actually are under protected. And then you get the kind of ironic from those very communities for more police because they feel under protected and so what we have to do i think, is move from a discourse law and order to a discourse or a way of talking. Thats rooted in safety and security every Community Needs to be safe and secure. But safety is not just simply about policing and car surreality. Its not just simply about the threat of deadly force and locking people up. Safety has everything to do with opportunities, has everything to do with education, has everything to do with having resources for mental, has everything to do with understanding the role in place of domestic violence. So it requires it of every community, a broader understanding of what it means to protect all of us, all us. Right. And that those resource deprived communities arent contagions that threaten to overwhelm you. So even in in new york, not desantis is this not a not sentence this long and long island a democrat lost he was actually over dcc. Yeah yeah theres over to this is he lost because there was the rhetoric of rising crime and in his district crime was actually on on the decline patrick Sean Patrick Maloney crime actually on the decline. And so part of what we have to do is to stop trading in shorthand is designed to activate our fears and to actually see human beings for who they are right to . Value human beings for who they are,. Im tired of having to convince people that i am just as value out as you are. Thank you. At no more, no less, no. Im tired of people thinking. See, this is the thing. I must say this. I have tenure at princeton. I dont give a. Oh, university professor. I dont care. All right right. I said this in the other panel. The loud races are easy. People wearing the hoods and stuff. It was easy. Easy. Condemn them. We can affirm by virtue, but the ones who believe that equality is their possession to give to someone else. The people who believe that Racial Justice is a fill enterprise. Something that they possess to give to someone else. Were still caught in the frame we need to undo standard equality is not your possession to give to me. And once get that out of the mix then maybe you can and you and i can begin to be human beings together and maybe love can flourish. We all some questions were all human said we. About 5 minutes left and would anyone like to raise their hand . Quest general comment yes, sir. Stand up, if you dont mind, so we can all hear and we repeated the history. In your experience of fox, go, my glass is empty. Oh, oh, it it was i been ive been a tv commentator for over 20 years. And i loved playing the part of being myself if i am so delighted that i did that, it was not the easiest because, you know, when you go on cnn or msnbc or even abc, you know, you get you you get your topics. I got my topics today for sunday. I had three days to think about them. But when you went on fox, man, it was like, whoa, whatever is coming at you right . And youre like, where are they getting this . And so i realized that my reading material was not part of the research that went into it. And once i got comfortable with how things being presented, then i went back to be myself and on the five, especially the five, i was treated very well. First of all, youre not going to mistreat me. Got paid to go. I aint the kind of person you ever want to whip. I even try whip a raise your hands. I am my daddys girl and thats all im going to say. If i write that book about how feminist can become a daddys girl, you are going to be rock when that book come out. But think about it this way. My daddy got four bronze stars in korea, a un medal for valor. I think about a man who went into the first integrated unit and came. Thats who im madea, this girl. So when i got on fox, i used to sit in a bracket, oh, it for me was a joyous experience because im like, is that what you really . So i will unravel it and try to bring it back and repackage it and see if i can get a different reaction from some of them. Now, some of them were last sean hannity said to me, and by the way, dont you ill talk about john johnson, the case of why he said, dont i like you. My views dont like when youre on. I say because i tell him what i think of you. And chuckled. Came up to me and he said, you know, my viewers dont like you. I say, well, tucker, its okay. It means that i the 7 00 i dont have to work in the 8 00 hour on the 9 00 hour where i can start my cocktails. And but laura laura, she wanted me. I said, girl know by then im having a glass of wine. I aint talking. Its too late, too late, too late. But i love that. I love sitting on the couch for the morning and i went out and bought me, you know, how fox the foxy girls always hit on the foxy lipstick . I said put the foxy lipstick on me i let my hair go white cook. I want to be known as the silver. Everything was going good until january six, and that that was the day i said, i cant do this no more. Got a to god, cant do it. That was the day i realized that i cared more about my country than anything else. And thats when i knew again i was a daddys girl. My dad loved this country than anything else in the world. And so i said, i my contract will expire and when it expires, i love you, but i cant do this because i will never lie. Get ahead. I would never kill to be better than anyone else and i would never, ever do anything that would promote people line in trying to kill. Theyre trying to kill people. I worked with. Im a former hill staffer. I thought my old boss, Eleanor Holmes norton, 81 years old. Who the hell is going to get her out of that mess . I started . Think about pelosi and everybody else. So, no, i. I love fox, but fox wasnt doing it for me anymore. I retired, but im on abc. You can catch me on sundays. Something. Something great. One more question before we. Yes, stand up. Oh, yes. When did you get this . Two you wanted to do with your life. I you got a ten. You professor. Im an adjunct. No, no, no. We go to work. Yeah. Probably. Really quickly. Probably. There are two moments when i was in the 10th, fourth grade, 10th grade, fourth or fifth grade. Miss davis, i remember her in the fourth grade, 10th grade. I did my first marking thing. So i knew i wanted to be i wanted to i had a calling to do something in the public. And then i realized when i was at morehouse, im a morehouse man. Cant you tell . I realized at morehouse that i was a fish out of water if i couldnt read. Oh, so i get paid to read. Write and run my mouth. So i knew i found out what i was. I went to college or 16, so i thats about 17, 18 years old. And i said, i want to i want to do this. That is to think for a living. And so thats where. Yeah, wow. I knew that night when my mom made and my dad, a janitor, came home and told us king was dead. Oh, i knew that that was my moment, i cried, and i said to my mom, it was wrong, but i would. Dr. Kings work. Come on, ida. And when you see jesus in john f kennedy, and then they put dr. The kings picture near the altar, thats what we had in our house. I went to that altar and i said to dr. King, i would help finish his work. And while it may take different and turns, you know, ive had careers, reinventions, ive fallen down, i get my black as back up keep talking, keep writing, keep stirring the pot. But when they told me when i was a little girl that i could do anything in the world i said, are you sure. Seriously and thats when i said, well, Abraham Lincoln aint gonna be the only black president. In may have taken me. Seven president s, all campaigns, 55 congressional, state and local or federal campaign. It may have taken me 49 states. One more. Ill be miss usa without the backing that will god put me on a path to help that dream a reality. And you know, when we elected barack obama i got on the dnc got on the rules committee, pretended to be a lawyer i understood what i had to do. Fannie lou hamer taught us what we had to do. I just kept movin and kept building and it kept organizing. And so when i finished dead, i said, oh, lets see what happened. I tried to get a woman. I tried to get hillary one successful. I tried and but last year when i thought god was finished, me, i said, well, you know, i can just retire and drink my wine like a come cations. You brown jacks . Mm hmm. I said, well, i got one more. Im. Go ahead. And thats how i feel. Every day i wake up i feel like still trying to complete dr. Work because was work that would heal us, that were builders and that would help create a more perfect union. Dr. King went to that mountaintop. And when i heard al sharpton yesterday time when when when black preachers preach, i was, you know, im catholic, i listen to ya. But then but he said, im a mountain climber. Thats im a mountain climber. Im sitting out here. Im a mountain climber. Im going help. Im going to help finish that work. But all of you, each and every one of you, you you are also obligated to finish that were asked. Right. How do you want to trailblazers . How do you want people . You finish their work so help me finish the work you do thank you i went out with this pollster to dinner one night when i was covering the white