Joel Buchanan Archive of African American History: http://ufdc.ufl.edu/ohfb
Samuel Proctor Oral History Program
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Program Director: Dr. Paul Ortiz 241 Pugh Hall PO Box 115215 Gainesville, FL 32611 (352) 392-7168 https://oral.history.ufl.edu
AAHP 280B Jefferson Rogers African American History Program (AAHP) Interviewed by Paul Ortiz on August 21, 2012 1 hour, 12 minutes | 35 pages
Abstract: Rev. Jefferson Rogers is being interviewed by Paul Ortiz on 21 August 2012 for the second time. Rev. Rogers shares the story of how his brother reacted when his grandmother was cussed at by a White man in a store. He comments on the connection between Blacks and Native Americans in Quincy, Florida and how there was much fear in the Black community of White people. Rev. Rogers expands on the trauma of watching chain gangs everyday next to his grandmother’s house. Rev. Rogers spends the majority of the interview sharing his insights on the life of Howard Thurman, his education, character, love of music and more. He also shares about Mordecai Johnson and Doug Lee, key figures of influence during the Movement. Rev. Rogers elucidates how he started the Howard Thurman Lecture Series at Stetson University and discusses the election and administration of the first Black President.
Keywords: [African American History; Segregation; Quincy, Florida; Howard Thurman; Stetson University; Howard University; Mordecai Johnson]
For information on terms of use of this interview, please see the SPOHP Creative Commons license at http://ufdc.ufl.edu/AfricanAmericanOralHistory. AAHP 280B Interviewee: Jefferson Rogers Interviewer: Paul Ortiz Date: August 14, 2012
O: So we’ll start, Reverend Rogers. Thank you again for taking time to speak with
me, and I had some follow-up questions from our first interview, and then I also
wanted to move ahead to talk about your time as Race Relations Secretary, your
worked with Howard Thurman. But I wonder if we could back, at the outset, to
Quincy. And there were two stories you told me that I wanted to see if I could get
a little more information on.
R: Sure.
O: One was a story that involved your grandmother, Mrs. Hattie Parramore, and an
incident where she went to a store. I think you said it was owned by George
Knowles, or Mr. Knowles, and he had cursed at her. Do you know what he said
to her?
R: No. I don’t know what the word was. Well, I guess a better way to say it is, the
atmosphere of race forty years ago, or more, I think it’s fair to say, was different,
in some measure, to what it is now. However, a qualifying thing to say would be
that—I think I touched on it last time—Quincy had a sociological quality that had
the stuff of alertness. Which is why I deliberately used generalisms that James
Weldon Johnson made famous when we were talking the last time, because it
has sociological significance. The term “bad nigger” has sociological meaning.
Another more nice way of saying it is that you had, in places, a given kind of
toughness that identified the atmosphere. The incident about my grandmother
would be a good way of saying what I just said in a different way. The
nomenclature “bad nigger” was simply a sociological situation in which you had AAHP 280B; Rogers; Page 2
to think twice. In a situation with a White man, was the White man, and you were supposed to do what he said or he’d kill you. Quincy was the kind of place where that was true but it was also true that you had to think twice. Now my brother was two things. First of all I told you how bright he was. He was probably the brightest man in town, Black or White. He was gentlemanly. He was well-liked. With the odd fact that if he moved in the wrong way, in the direction of the slavery syndrome, John’s ordinance was, that on the one hand he was the best kind of person you could be; on the other hand, he’d kill you. Which is a way of saying that this a part of the “bad nigger” syndrome: Little John was not afraid of anything. Again, I reiterate. He was as nice as you could find a man, and he would kill you as a “bad nigger” would. Now, Mr. Knowles was in a town which was a Southern town, where the normal relationship between Blacks and Whites would be what you would have to enter in on. The character of the community was one which involved Blacks and Indians, of course during that same moment that the United States had to move in, and you had an odd kind of situation like that. I would not say that this was a regularity, but there was always the possibility. And if you ran into the fellow that I called by the nomenclature, it didn’t matter how White you were, you would be in a situation that you’d have to watch.
Now Little John never killed anybody, but he was the kind of man that could do that. To add again what I tried to say the last time: my grandmother was almost the kind of person that carried huge respect, and she was tough—with the other odd kind of thing, that she had a kind of guile. You could call her Hattie if you wanted to. It didn’t disturb her at all. She could play her side of the fence in such AAHP 280B; Rogers; Page 3
wise that your insulting approach would be meat in her hand. Instead of you
controlling her, she would control you. She didn’t care enough about your thought
along that line to respond in a way that other people might respond to want to kill
you. I mean, you were playing in her hand. It was on the basis of that kind of
situation that enabled her, while acting like what a nigger was supposed to be,
that made her bossman. What is the phrase they used to use? “Putting Mr.
Charlie on?”
O: Yeah.
R: She was perfect at that. And instead of it bringing the kind of response that would
demean her in her own mind, she was boss lady. She could walk into the—did I
mention the Coca-Cola syndrome to you?
O: Right. Yeah.
R: We had about seven millionaires. Of course, they were all White. My
understanding is that if you were in such position as to have been able to have
gotten Coca-Cola stock, you were moving in that regard. So that the odd
combination, in my effort to describe my grandmother, she was top dog because
of the odd kind of respect Whites had for her in terms of what she could do and
her movement as a member of the community despite how oddly I describe it.
She did have power and the character of that power was revealed in the incident
that you’re making me talk about again—was, you couldn’t tamper with her. She
had the kind of respect that involved a skillful Black person who had the kind of
brightness to be able to ignore what other kinds of Blacks would have been
insulted by. Again I’d reiterate: she did not have enough respect for White folks’ AAHP 280B; Rogers; Page 4
guile to insult her in the first place, because she didn’t care about the mentality of that kind of White. Therefore, Mr. Knowles, again, was a bad White man, you see, who got respect because he was a bad White man. Again tempered by the fact that you had, again, what I’d call the “bad nigger.” And there were more people similar to mine, my brother, who were not as bright as he was. Little John had the unusual combination of in effect being what I call again the “bad nigger”; at the same time, he was probably the brightest individual in town. And that was the character of that moment and the reason Mr. Knowles left. Because he knew
Little John, and so he stayed away from the store that was right in front of our house for almost ten days until things were over. And then they back to normal.
To repeat again, there was an odd—I say “odd”; maybe it wasn’t so odd—Blacks and Indians, because you may have run into this in stuff that you wrote. I don’t know whether you did or not. But Blacks and Indians, in an odd kind of way, were together. This kind of sociological strength that that brought laid a foundation that was almost always there. It was there when I was growing up. Of course, Black folks did catch hell, but the battle was still there. Again I add that there were as many Black, sometimes more Blacks, than there were White people. That, added to the Indian group, created a kind of complex that was the foundation for the growth that you see there today, which is categorically different from what it was before. Almost, I won’t say all, the strength of Black people in Quincy is so high now that it’s not unwise to say that the Black folk are here almost while the White folk were here. Almost all, I think you will find in so short a time since you’ve been there, almost all the power facts in Quincy are White: mayor, owners of AAHP 280B; Rogers; Page 5
various places. I of course said White folk, because of the cumulative character
which I am trying to describe, would still be on top, but the political growth it’s not
unwise to say.
O: Well I think that’s why Patricia Stephens Due and John Due, I think we talked
about this last week, why they moved back from Miami to Quincy. And they tried
to explain to their friends in Miami who said, “Why would you want to move back
to that backwards area?” And they said, “No, you don’t understand Quincy.”
R: Well that’s correct. We had, I told you the one Black doctor that was in town that
you wrote about. He was my doctor when I was growing up. There was one
doctor then, and he went there to—what is it they do? Intern or something?
O: Internship.
R: And the Black folk got on him and begged him to stay, and he stayed, he was
there. Now there are at least six doctors in Quincy, and they also own stuff like
the drugstores and things, and the pharmacies. They are really on top in a major
way, and sociologically, you would have to go back to that early beginning when
they were on the bottom, the kind of strength that they had then, that was the
foundation for where they are now.
O: Reverend Rogers, I wonder if we could talk about, just for a few more minutes,
those ten days. I want to make sure that I understand what happened. Now, Little
John, his surname was Parramore, John Parramore?
R: Yeah. Little John was my half-brother.
O: Your half-brother ok. So he was John Parramore.
R: Yeah. AAHP 280B; Rogers; Page 6
O: And this particular incident that we’re talking about happened, how old were you
when it happened, about?
R: I guess I was about, I had to be—. I lived in Jacksonville from birth. I was born in
Quincy. I told you about my grandmother’s industry.
O: Yes sir.
R: She had property in a great number of places, and she owned property in
Jacksonville. And we went to Jacksonville when I was born, and I stayed in
Jacksonville, from the time I was born, although I would be going to Quincy every
summer, until my father died. He died when I was eleven or twelve years of age,
and then we moved back to Quincy. So I had two places that could easily be
called home: Jacksonville and Quincy. And the incident that you are asking about
happened maybe two or three years after we moved back to Quincy. So I don’t
know what the exact age was but it was around, say, thirteen or fourteen.
O: So when this was happening, you were old enough to know what was happening.
R: Oh yeah. Quincy was a little bit odd, and we were a little bit odd. I knew
everything that happened. The character, the sociological character; how can I
say this? There was little, if any, significant type of fear that we normally describe
when we are making an effort to do justice between the chasm between Blacks
and Whites—I’m trying to be as accurate as I can—aside from sensible respect
for power in a given municipality. I’m not trying to make my family look great on
the one hand. On the other hand, there was almost none of the kind of fear that
you would use in a general description of the relationship between Whites and
Blacks. Aside from the stuff of routine common sense in knowing what the AAHP 280B; Rogers; Page 7
strength is here and the strength is there, I had no fear that was fundamentally
described, a kind of characterological decorum that would govern normal growth.
My family did not have, in a given area of sociological and cultural growth, any
significant fear of the White public. If anything, the decorum that would define the
regularity of the kind of action that would be typical of us, you couldn’t put fear in
that at all, on the one hand. On the other hand, the ableness of cultural
decorum—it might sound like I’m bragging, but the truth is: if there were any
comparison between the White community and better than a handful like Dr.
Stevens’ family, like the fellow who own the Ice House. If you would compare
people on that level, it would be like playing marbles. I couldn’t honestly say to
you that there was an academic inferiority of a wide gap on the White side. It just
wasn’t so. And because of that, again I reiterate, the cultural level as it is now
grew out of that kind of foundation. I’m not saying that we, in terms of overall
power, were superior to the Whites. I’m not saying that. I’m saying that what you
see now grew out of what there was then. Does the name LaSalle D. Leffall
mean anything to you?
O: Oh yeah, the famous surgeon, and he also knew Dr. Stevens. Yeah.
R: He finished A&M college with a straight “A” average. He finished med school at
Howard University with a straight “A” average. He was well enough known for
more than once for the White House to send for him. That is a kind of accurate
description of what was the basis for, what adequately defines what Quincy was.
And I think your book lends some credence to that. AAHP 280B; Rogers; Page 8
O: It all came out of—Quincy is just so—key. But Reverend Rogers, just a couple
more questions about the ten days. So Little John came out on the porch that
first evening after he’d heard that his grandmother had been cussed at, and he
had a shotgun. He sat on the porch, with the shotgun. Is that correct?
R: That’s correct. That’s absolutely correct.
O: Okay. And did he just sit on the porch with his shotgun that evening, or—?
R: I can’t say how long. I’m saying that for a number of days, Little John did what I
said he did. It would be fair to say that most people knew Little John; it was not
as accidental as it seems. And this is [inaudible 16:11]. Little John was both
normal and not normal. He wasn’t somebody you’d be scared of. He wasn’t
crazy. If anything, he might have been considered as gentle a man as you’ve
ever seen. I have his picture, and I’ll show it to you. [Laughter] He was a funny
dude. Overwhelmingly well-liked. But his boys would say—how would I—he did
not take any crap. None.
O: None.
R: No insulting him, on the one hand. On the other hand, he was easy to get along
with. He had a kind of ego, because, he was bright. He was head man of his
class in Jacksonville, Florida. They would exempt him from all kinds of
examinations. He was just that kind of brilliant. I’ve never seen him get in a fight,
except in Jacksonville once. But he’s somewhat normal. But I’m telling you about
him that he is, and he was.
O: No, he sounds like a human being. Who loved his family.
R: He was well-liked. AAHP 280B; Rogers; Page 9
O: Yeah. And he loved his grandmother.
R: Yeah, well, that was something else. The dude was moving down the wrong
street then. He was moving down the wrong street. So’s you know, we were
afraid of Little John. He wouldn’t do a lot of talking to you. He would act, you
see? And on the other hand, he was not dangerous at all. You ever run into a
dude, when you were growing up, that you just didn’t bother?
O: Oh yes.
R: That was what I’m talking about. That was Little John. So I don’t want to make
him sound—[Laughter]—like he was a goon. That was not the case. He was
almost too nice in some senses. But he wasn’t one to fight with. Because when I
said Little John would kill you, I mean that. And I’ve seen a whole lot of people
like that. I could name people in the Movement that you’ve lived through who
were like that. A fellow who was as calm as Little John was—he was not as
dangerous in the ways that little John was—one of my best friends, was Stokely
Carmichael. You didn’t play with Stokely. On the one hand, if you knew him, you
couldn’t find a nicer guy than Stokely. When he came here, I brought him here to
Stetson. And I couldn’t get him out of the mall. The White folk just mobbed him.
He was an overwhelmingly beautiful dude. But when he came—. You know who
was responsible, in my judgment—and I was close to all of them—for Martin
King’s movement against Vietnam? Stokely Carmichael. The incident we talk
about all the time, Stokely and Martin—as much as they seem to be different,
they were just like that—Martin called Stokely on a given Saturday night. Stokely
had been the fellow who was most impressive, for Martin, in terms of the AAHP 280B; Rogers; Page 10
temptation to confront the Vietnam War. On this Saturday night, Martin called
Stokely. Now this was during the Movement. I don’t know if you know enough
about the movement to be aware that Stokely Carmichael was the person most
responsible for voting growing in the South, because he led the movement.
Martin and Stokely were—a lot of people didn’t know it, but they were just like
that. And of course, Stokely had been trying to get Martin to oppose the Vietnam
War. And Martin, he didn’t do it. And on this Saturday night, during the moment
when Stokely was doing the voting in the South, and he was the principal person
doing that, Martin called him. He said, “Stokely, I want you to be in church
tomorrow.” Stokely said, “I’ve got work to do.” He was organizing the movement
and all that. “I don’t have time to be in church. I have work to do.” Martin said,
“Well, I want you to be here, because I’m condemning, and I’m going to act, on
the war in my sermon tomorrow morning.” Incidentally, one of the books that we
have on that day, the book said there was two minutes of silence. Nobody said
anything. [Laughter] Stokely said, “Reverend, I’ll fill the first seat.” And it was the
next day that Martin actually, at his church in Atlanta, condemned the war. And
two weeks from then, he also condemned it at the big church in New York City.
O: Oh, Riverside. That’s where Riverside is.
R: But, you had people, like Stokely, who played a major role in the success of the
efforts that led to—because Martin knew it all the time, we used to follow him, to
surround him, to keep him from getting shot at. But what I’m trying to say, now
that I can’t say it well enough: that was the moment. AAHP 280B; Rogers; Page 11
O: Reverend Rogers, let me ask you one more question about Quincy. You had
mentioned that your grandmother’s house was burned down. How old were you
when that happened? Do you remember?
R: The house was burned before I moved back to Quincy. I wasn’t there when the
house burned, I was in Jacksonville. Because as I said, from the time of my birth
until my father died—I think I was about 12 or 13 years of age—I was in
Jacksonville. And the house burned during the while I was in Jacksonville. So I
did not see the burning, because I moved back to Quincy after that first twelve
years.
O: And by then the house had been rebuilt?
R: Yeah.
O: And what street was that on? I forget, I think you may have told me, but—
R: Allen Street. My address there was 314 South Allen Street.
O: [Laughter] And that’s very near—is that near the courthouse?
R: It’s two and a half blocks from there, from the courthouse.
O: From the courthouse.
R: I could almost spit on the courthouse. And between the courthouse and my
house, there was the jail. Chain gang. So I could almost take a brick, and stand
on my porch, and I could almost hit the chain gang. And one of the—I guess it’s
close to a trauma, for me, was having to see them going out and coming back,
chained up. I saw it every day. Every living day. And again, the chain gang was
about as far from the courthouse as, you see, as my house was from the chain
gang. If I had to mention what came closer to a trauma for me than any regular AAHP 280B; Rogers; Page 12
thing, it was that chain gang. And you hear: [sings/murmurs]. You could hear
them coming back to the place where they had to stay at. And they had, I don’t
know if you’ve ever seen the kind of uniforms they would wear. But it would be
stripes.
O: The stripes. What made it so traumatic for you as a young boy to see? What
made it so scary, or—?
R: It was an overt, unavoidable sign of complete disregard for humanity. That was
as close to trauma as any childhood experience that I had. Because it was right
downtown—right downtown. I kid you not. I could have stood in front of Dr.
Singleton’s drugstore, and blown your brains out if you come [inaudible 23:54].
That’s as close to a traumatic experience that I could point to. It was an
unavoidable sign—or it was for me—it was a complete disregard of Black life.
That’s the best I could put that. Because I had to see that everyday. Everyday.
There wasn’t any way for me to get around seeing that. And to see a bunch of
human beings, and a lot of times they would have chains on their legs. It was as
close as you could symbolize as slavery. It was complete disregard. You’ve
never seen a chain gang, have you?
O: Just on the movies.
R: Yeah. Well, that was every day for me.
O: Reverend Rogers, I wonder if we can jump ahead. I know of no other individual,
in my lifetime, who is able to express, or talk about, the character, and the impact
and the being of Howard Thurman, as yourself. I mean, you have a knowledge of AAHP 280B; Rogers; Page 13
Reverend Thurman that is deep and profound. Can you tell me about him, when
you first got to know him, and what kind of a man he was?
R: That’s a good question. Thurman was a man with the kind of character and
insight whose spiritual and sociological ableness that would defy the capacity to
predict what made him as unusual as he was. You could say opposite things
about Thurman that would also be true. He was like Leffall was, and different
from him, in that, he grew up in Daytona when the highest that the city afforded
for students who were Black was eighth grade. He was reared by grandmother—
he had [inaudible 25:57] grandmother—grandmother was Sadie. The
environment was a poor environment, even though they did have a house; like
Dr. Leffall from Quincy, he was an A-student, from beginning to end. He was a
valedictorian of the eighth grade, valedictorian of the high school, valedictorian of
Morehouse college, he was the top—he was a straight-A student in seminary. All
As. If you never heard Thurman talk, you wouldn’t think he came from Daytona.
You might have thought that—what’s that great school in England?
O: Cambridge, or Oxford, or—?
R: Oxford. If you heard him talk—mind you now, Thurman grew up in Daytona,
raised by a slave grandmother, I talk to my grandson a lot all about him and that,
how would you pronounce the term, O-N-L-Y? How would you pronounce that?
Pronounce it for me.
O: Only. [Ohwn-lee]
R: You know what his pronunciation was for that? Only [AhWN-lee]. Now listen to
me: Thurman was raised in Daytona Beach, Florida. I thought that was—this is AAHP 280B; Rogers; Page 14
odd. So I did what he did. I got the dictionary, just to see what the pronunciation
of it would be. And you know what it was? Only [as written above].
O: [Laughter]
R: There was a jazz orchestra—there was a jazz tenor saxophonist that you may
have heard of. Adderley? What’s his name? Cannonball?
U1: Cannonball.
O: Oh, Adderley, yeah. He played with Miles, and—yeah.
R: Cannonball Adderley, like Dr. Thurman, was a straight-A student. We were
friends. And a friend of mine, who was not my teacher, but she was formerly the
president of Lincoln—Lincoln University in Pennsylvania—and she told me one
day, she said, “Cannonball does things to hide his brightness.” I thought she was
putting me on. But if you’ve ever heard him play, he talks a lot. And he likes to
talk. I think I was in Boston, because we knew each other, and I listened to the
way he pronounced words. And one day, like Thurman, he was running off his
mouth, and he said, “Well, this was only [Ahn-lee]—.” [Laughter] You don’t know
that Cannonball, Cannonball Adderley, was a straight-A student! These things
just fascinated me. Now, Howard Thurman was crazy about music. And he was
our guest on a couple of occasions. My son can tell you that I’m a music hound,
and a jazz fan. Thurman stayed with us that night because there was a [inaudible
28:37] to meet the next day. And I put on some music. Dr. Thurman—it was early
in the morning—Dr. Thurman was in bed, and I put on some great stuff. In two
minutes, I heard him huffing, putting on his shoes, coming out and singing. Now,
his broadness, in an academic way, was just out of this world. AAHP 280B; Rogers; Page 15
O: What kind of jazz music did he like?
R: Oh, I like it all.
O: No, I mean with Dr. Thurman. Who were his favorite musicians?
R: Well, he was fond of most of the stuff. He would like blues. He would like jazz.
On the other side of the fence, was classical music. But probably, if I had to be
arbitrary, and say what could conceivably that something would move him most,
it was spirituals. And he was expert in that area. But any kind of music that was
well known, Thurman was the man. He wasn’t—I’m trying to say it in the right
way, he wasn’t a square. At all. He would have even known blues. And if you
heard him talk, you would be completely arrested by his ability to hold you. He
wasn’t ostentatious. You would just be as much drawn by the beauty of his
speech as you would be about Ray Charles if you liked to listen to the blues. In
addition to that—I’m trying to answer your question—he was as relaxed, and
unostentatious, as any man you’d ever met in your life. If Thurman were walking
downtown or something, and he ran into somebody he didn’t know who looked
like a bum, the rapport between Thurman and that man would be as close as our
talking together. His unusualness was in a kind of naturalness that was not
ostentatious. He was attractive, overwhelmingly, in the sense that you would be
as completely relaxed with him as you would with your granddaughter. It’s hard
to describe a man like Howard Thurman. He was not a beautiful man physically.
He was cow-toed. When he would walk on the stage to speak, you would be
coerced into listening to everything he said. It’s hard to describe Howard
Thurman. AAHP 280B; Rogers; Page 16
O: What was this—now you mentioned that you had asked him to come and preach
at your church. What was your favorite sermon that he gave?
R: Well, he didn’t have a favorite sermon; I can’t answer that question the way you
want me to. But one of the things I can say that might interest you, almost all
his—well, not all of them. His favorite texts would often be taken from the Old
Testament. And his favorite texts, in terms that he’d use it often—[Laughter] I
don’t know how much of a Bible student you are—but Thurman could make you
sit as still as a mouse when he would recite the 139th psalm. You would not have
heard the 139th psalm unless you had heard Howard Thurman just recite that
psalm. And the psalm would almost become like a text. If you heard someone
else read the 139th psalm, and then you would hear Thurman do it: another
ballgame. [Laughter] I can remember when I was a student at Howard. The
largest Baptist church in town had about 5000 people in it. And they invited
Thurman to read—the preacher at, what do you call it? The weeks when you’re
inviting people to join the church?
U1: Revival.
R: Revival. Now, Thurman was no ordinary preacher. And when you had Revivals,
you’d have people who would be routine speakers. For the sermon, let’s say
they’d be down here. Thurman was possibly the most polished preacher that you
could ever find in that sense. And when they invited Thurman to be the speaker
at one of the revival meetings, the true thing to do was just chuckle, with the
understanding here: you don’t invite a fellow like Thurman. But Thurman went.
And I’d describe Thurman this way: Thurman would throw up a flag here. Throw AAHP 280B; Rogers; Page 17
up another one here. Working towards the end. In a revival, if you know anything about revivals, and Black life—rightly, and justifiably I guess, often people don’t understand it—you can go to a revival meeting, and it sounds like just routine stuff that people in a given psychological category would do. So you’re supposed to get the people started up. So the brothers were chuckling. “Dr. Thurman going to be a pretty good candidate.” And he went. And my description of the way he preaches, he would throw up a given kind of insightful flare here, and another one here. And when you’re working toward the end—if you know anything about what preachers are supposed to be—you’re supposed to get the folk, throw ropes right here—he would be working towards his end. He was an odd preacher. And the folk were quiet. And as he often did as he was working toward the end of his sermons, he would either use a text like the Lord’s Prayer, or the
139th psalm. And he was doing what the boys would call “going home,” if he were using the Lord’s Prayer as his text. Paul, he would say, “The Lord be my shepherd…” The quality of the voice. The spell that he could bring in turns, using the same words. If you used those same words, it would say one thing. Him using them, another ballgame. If you would get to the last—if you would do the
139th psalm, or the Lord’s Prayer, in a typical African American, Black church, you’re supposed to get the rising. And he would work until you would get to the last statement. He’d be saying, “The Lord be my shepherd—.” [Laughter] Did you hear the, what do we call [inaudible 34:38]. The kind of reaction that you would get to normal preaching would come the moment that he would reach that point where he was physically safe. A man like Thurman was not supposed to be able AAHP 280B; Rogers; Page 18
to do that, the way he preached. But there was that, what you’d call almost
indescribable charisma. He could do it almost every time he made a speech. One
of the others, I’ll give you one more example. Again, Thurman was about five-six,
and he did more preaching, he probably did more college preaching than anyone
you ever heard. And he was in Nebraska for the week of prayer. And he would
walk slowly. When he stood up to get behind the pulpit, there were a couple
thousand students—this was a White school. He walked slowly to the pulpit. And
they looked at him, somebody giggled. Thurman looked at them, only, he walked
behind the pulpit, and there was a huge picture of Jesus. And after they laughed,
everyone looked at him, and he turned around, and faced the picture of Jesus.
He had a conversation with Jesus, with his back turned to the audience, for half
an hour. Then he sat down. You know what the president did? The president
asked Thurman, could he manage to stay at the school for another two days for
conferences? That’s as good an example as I can answer your question with. He
had drama, he had quality, he had humility, he had everything it took to focus you
on what he was trying to get you to hear. It was for that reason that Thurman was
possibly—he probably spoke to more people than any other preacher you could
name. With all of that, he was as calm and relaxed as he could be. I don’t know
of many men who could be in his category. I think of two or three other men with
the kind of talent that he had, that could come as close as a man could to
shaping and changing your mind.
O: Reverend Rogers, what kind of an impact did Dr. Thurman have on people like,
say, Dr. King, for example? AAHP 280B; Rogers; Page 19
R: Thurman’s impact on almost any person who would be listening to material like
sermons and lectures. The thing that’s difficult to say well, is because my
description of the impact of his drama on you, if anything, is less convicting than
the quality of what he would be saying. Your listening to me up to this point might
cause you to think you’re listening to a man who’s a kind of academic trick-
master. That’s not the case. If you weighed what I told you, thus far, against the
depth and the quality, and the conviction, of what he would say, that would be
superior in my judgment, than what would appear to be the tricks of an able
speaker. You would enjoy reading Thurman’s autobiography as much as you
would enjoy listening to him. You had the combination of brilliance and depth,
and the ability not to be able to breathe loud when he was speaking. All of those
things came together. All of them. That is what people ultimately come out
understanding. Thurman could change your life. Alay and I talk about another
man who speaks differently from Thurman, but who could do the same thing to
you. You ever hear of Benjamin Elijah Mays?
O: Oh yes, sir.
R: He could do that to you. I think I mentioned him to you the last time.
O: Yes.
R: Howard Thurman, Benjamin Mays—you’ve not heard of Mordecai Johnson.
O: Oh, yes.
R: But Mordecai Johnson was the greatest preacher I’ve ever heard in my whole
life. When we dropped the bomb on Japan—I was at Howard University then— AAHP 280B; Rogers; Page 20
Mordecai Johnson was president of Howard University, which was a school
owned by the United States. That’s difficult to begin with.
O: [Laughter] Right.
R: But they dropped the bomb, America dropped the bomb on Japan. Mordecai
called together the entire student body and the faculty. This was the day after
they’d dropped the bomb on the Japan. Do you know what Mordecai did? He
justified the Japanese dropping the bomb on America. I sat there. Your head
could have been blown off for that! He talked an hour and a half, and we came
out of the chapel, and we just stood there and looked at each other. If you’d
heard the sermon, you would not have had any choice than to justify what he
said, apart from the nerve of the man who could make a speech like that with no
other expectation than getting your brains blown out. All of which is to say, when
you have the luck of being exposed to men like Dr. Thurman, and Mordecai
Johnson, and Benjamin Mays, and Martin Luther King, that kind of a moment can
change your whole life. I didn’t expect you to ask me questions like this. But that,
in my judgment, is part of the stuff of the kind of change we’ve seen in a moment
of life that both you and I have lived through, my long term “both” over yours.
O: And I think what’s also very outstanding to think about is, when we think of social
change, and when we think of the Civil Rights Movement, how it’s taught today,
and most people would recognize that name of Martin Luther King, they would
not recognize Howard Thurman’s name, they would not recognize Mordecai
Johnson’s name, they would not recognize Benjamin Mays’s name. And yet,
there was organic connection between the four of them, was there not? AAHP 280B; Rogers; Page 21
R: Well, there’s an almost unavoidable connection.
O: Yeah.
R: Going back to the time I met you, there’d be hardly anybody that would know
Doug Lee. Now what I’m saying now might surprise you: I’d put Doug Lee in that
time. There’s something that ought to be included in the word “charisma” that
changes the world. You’d think I sound like a fool, if I told you that I thought Doug
Lee is in that class. He is! First thing I’d say about him is, he’s a quiet man. He’s
as good a listener, as I would be listening to the new Armstrong. You didn’t have
the time to watch him when you were there, but he would be right in there when
you were there. I could sit down with Doug Lee, and talk to him like I’m talking to
you, and all these things would come up. Not because he wanted to talk to you—
he was a very quiet man, on the one hand. On the other hand, if he had to move
you, he could do that as easily as he could listen to you—when he had to do it.
Doug Lee had genius. All of these men had that. So the names that you called
when you said folk wouldn’t recognize them, these were the people who were the
unconscious architects of change that you wouldn’t believe could come. I was
born—again, I reiterate—just a little less than fifty years after slavery. Deep
thought will take you to men like these—and women like these, for that matter,
too. They are the basis for the unbelievable change. Who would have thought
that my grandmother could have been a slave? And now we have a Black
president. I think the genius of change comes from places that you can’t
anticipate, and that you don’t expect. To go back as far as Martin King. Despite
the fact that we have a Black president, Martin was unbelievable. He did a lot of AAHP 280B; Rogers; Page 22
the wrong things—if you look at “wrong” from the point of view of the way the
world looks at it. I mean, Martin didn’t have the slightest thought that he was
going to be leading anything, except to be a preacher and a PhD. Of course,
everybody ought to be aware of it. Martin didn’t have any way in his mind, as far
as you could see, that he was going to be anything except to be a PhD and a
good preacher of some type. Martin had no manifest idea that, to come to the—
that he was going to lead anything except to be successful. And they named him.
So the world is a funny thing.
O: You know, this summer, Reverend Rogers—I’m really glad you mentioned that
speech that Mordecai Johnson gave, because this summer, I was doing some
research, and I came across Mordecai Johnson in the 1920s, I want to say. And
it was soon after he had assumed the leadership at Howard, and he was giving a
series of radio lectures. And he was giving them against American imperialism.
And he was protesting the American occupation of Haiti, and Nicaragua, and I
believe Honduras—or no, I’m sorry, the Dominican Republic. And the newspaper
reports were quite flabbergasted that he would use the radio to speak out against
the American occupation. [Laughter] And I just wanted to share that with you.
R: He would do anything he thought was necessary. And that’s why I mentioned—
not only was I stunned at Howard University, everybody—the man condemned
the United States of America! I think—comparison’s odious, I know that—but if
you asked, if I had to mention who I thought—I know these sorts of statements
are usually off the wall, but including everybody I had to mention, if you made me
name the man who I thought was the greatest preacher of all time, it’d be AAHP 280B; Rogers; Page 23
Mordecai Johnson. It’d be Mordecai Johnson. He would talk for seven or eight
minutes, and then he’d stop. And the place would be as quiet as a [inaudible
44:57]. Now, you’d be almost scared to move. The character of the truth that he
would make explicit would just stun the daylights out of you. I don’t know why
there isn’t more written about Mordecai. He was the first Black president of
Howard University. But the man could be—he’d say, “Oh, Mordecai talks too
long.” But if you didn’t get there an hour ahead of time, you wouldn’t get a seat!
[Laughter] It would just be packed. And I think that men of that type—and women
too, for that matter, because there’s some great women speakers—the biggest
crowd we ever had at Stetson was when—Aley, what’s the name of—
U1: Angela Davis.
R: Angela Davis.
O: She’s a great person. She’s amazing.
R: You know what we had to do when we had her there? We had to close the halls
on them. If you didn’t speak with her, she’s a—We brought her to the big
auditorium. And we couldn’t get people in the building. Of course, she was a
great person, too. I’m deliberately saying this because I do not want an
unconscious feeling that I’m overlooking.
O: And Sue Bailey Thurman was a great person in her own right.
R: Who?
O: Sue Bailey Thurman.
R: Oh yeah, oh yeah. She was a different kind of person. You would have enjoyed
watching Dr. Thurman and Mrs. Thurman work together. They were an AAHP 280B; Rogers; Page 24
overwhelmingly beautiful couple. Overwhelmingly beautiful. She was a pianist,
you know. And she had a reputation in her own right. After she married Dr.
Thurman, she still had a career. But it would be—it’s tough for two brilliant people
to be together and, however much it might sound wrong, it would be hard to be
Dr. Thurman’s wife, and shine as much as you might shine if you weren’t his
wife. Because all of these people that we’ve been talking about today are
overwhelmingly unusual people, and that’s one of the reasons I’m glad I was
lucky enough to come along at the time that—.
O: Well, you did some remarkable things. I wonder, with the few minutes that we
have remaining, if you could tell me about—what was your original goal with the
Howard Thurman lecture series at Stetson? What was the spark that kind of led
you to do that? I mean, it’s unusual at a place like Stetson. Stetson had no pre-
history that I’m aware of that would have led it to create, on its own—.
R: Well, the answer to that is easy. I was just the kind of preacher that I needed to
be, in addition to the fact that, like many of us, I’m more indebted to the people
I’m talking to you about, than I am about anything that I can say about myself. I
think I told you about my encounter with Dr. Mays. That was a first-class miracle.
So, in my trying to answer that question, I would have to say the same things to
you. Whatever justification at all for me, for what I’ve tried to do, credit belongs to
these men. Bennie Mays’s relationship to me was a first-class miracle. I had no
more intentions of doing what Dr. Mays wanted me to do than I do of jumping off
a mountain. These men were makers of men. Martin Luther King, Jr. has to say
the same thing about Bennie Mays that I said. These men were visionaries. Dr. AAHP 280B; Rogers; Page 25
Mays knew more about me than I knew about myself. I had no intentions to
follow. And after he wrote those three letters to me, I felt like calling myself a fool,
for running from a man like this. And then after that, as I told you, he had the
damned audacity to write to my grandma. I picked up my bags, and I left. Who
gets the credit for that? Bennie Mays gets the credit. And in doing that, they
taught people. I might have learned some of it because it was my inclination to
be a preacher, or a history teacher, or a lawyer. After—Aley and I talk about this
a lot—after I read Bennie Mays’s books, especially his autobiography, I knew
why he worked on me the way that he did. He was similar to me ambition-wise.
He had to make his own way. He could see my kind of doubt in what was really a
goal. Bennie Mays’s greatness is as much present in his humility as in any other
characteristic. How many men you know would have spent that damned much
time with me? You see? He came out of a little country town like Quincy. And my
ducking the man; in a way, that was almost insulting. He had more humility than I
did! And it has been people like that who are responsible for growth, and it made
me want to do what they did. I did a little bit of it, you see? And that’s why I’m
happy for this moment. I never thought I’d see a Black president.
O: Do you remember where you were when you first heard the news that Barack
Obama had been elected President? What kind of feeling did you have when you
first heard?
R: Well, I will confess that I did not think that was going to happen. I was wrong that
time. Justifiably wrong. I thought that America was both too powerful and too
ignorant. But I’m good at seeing backwards. [Laughter] I knew who was not going AAHP 280B; Rogers; Page 26
to be president, one of my very best friends—I’ve been close to a whole lot of folk—Jesse Jackson was a good friend of mine. Although I wasn’t that fond of
Jesse, I had enough insight to know that Jesse wasn’t going to be president, even though I lauded his ableness. But I didn’t laud what he lacked. In a wrong way—but you’ll see the point in a second of my saying, “in a wrong way”—Jesse was too ambitious to be top man. I was not surprised at Obama becoming president, because he had the type of ability which included—how can I put this—which included getting impossible things done, with the beginning understanding that he couldn’t do it himself. Right or wrong, I don’t think, you’ll see him turn proud in my own time. I don’t think Obama is what I normally consider being proud. I think that Obama’s real interest was not, first of all, to wanting to be president. I think his first interest was to do what was needed—not to take vows, but to get it done. I think it—that Jesse Jackson, on a scale, of what we routinely call “ableness,” in that sense—was about as able as anybody that
I’d ever seen. By the same token, I knew that he would never become anybody’s president. To use the term dangerously, Jesse couldn’t be what he might have wanted to be, because he wanted to be that more than he wanted to do the thing that could be done. Jesse is not a humble man. Not by any stretch of the imagination. He’s probably as bright as anybody that you could put a finger on. I worked with him. My church was one of the first churches of any significance that invited him to speak. He was very fond of Dr. Thurman. Dr. Thurman couldn’t get rid of Jesse sometimes. He did not have the kind of equipment that could have possibly resulted in his becoming president, because of how he was, and AAHP 280B; Rogers; Page 27
because of how the American background is. You see? America had to believe in
Obama. They had to believe in him in terms of what he could do to you, in terms
of your appraisal of him. He could draw you on the basis of the brilliance of what
he was trying to focus on, in terms of what he wanted America to be. And, right
or wrong—.
O: No, Reverend Rogers, I think that’s a really excellent point that you’re making. It
reminds me—now, we were talking about Angela Davis. Now, I worked very
closely with Angela Davis when I taught at Santa Cruz. We were on the same
dissertation committees with students. And I was surprised at first, because—I
mean, obviously, I knew who Angela Davis was. But when I came to the
University, I thought, "Wow,” Angela Davis is here; that’s an amazing thing. But it
wasn’t until I got to know her—and at the core of Angela Davis, you find that
same kind of humility. She would be very quiet, an outstanding listener—
R: That’s my description of the president. That fits him.
O: Yeah, and very humble. And people would be surprised. They’d say, “Wow, you
worked with Angela Davis! She must have been a shining star.” And so very
often, she was the last person in the room to say a word, because she would
wait, and she wanted to hear what the student would have to say. And she was
just that kind of person—is that kind of person, I guess I should say. That
humility—
R: Well, some people have it.
O: Yeah. AAHP 280B; Rogers; Page 28
R: Some people have it. And I, again—I hate to keep mentioning my former
president—but I do put him—
O: Doug Lee. [Laughter]
R: But I do put him in the class of Bennie Mays. I mean, I—
O: Well, I’m sure there must have been a lot of opposition to the lecture series. I
mean, [Laughter], right?
R: Yeah. I think I told you, I didn’t want to go there. We had two years of
conversations, because I’ve been in racial activist work all my life, and you get
tired. But then my common friend told me, “You need to know Doug Lee.” So we
talked for two years. And after I got to work with Doug Lee, I’d jump over
anybody’s fence, to work with Doug Lee anytime. I mean, we were—one of my
ambitions, we were trying to get close to the White House. And my appraisal of
Doug Lee is, if there is any shot that you will get a chance to listen to Doug Lee,
I’ll say it: he’s bound to attract you. He’s bound to attract you, because it is simply
the honest-to-God truth that Doug Lee wanted to get things done that were
meaningful. He didn’t give a quarter about your stroking his head. And he know
how to go. And that says, I guess, that those are the kinds of people that we
need to find whenever they’re available. And I’m not just putting you on about
Doug Lee, I thought he was a very great man. So I’m glad you’re still in the mill.
O: Well I was looking at that list of speakers that you and he brought to Stetson.
R: That’s the one thing I give myself credit for.
O: That’s incredible.
R: I thought I had the best outline in the country. AAHP 280B; Rogers; Page 29
O: Better than Harvard. Better than Berkeley. I mean that list of speakers in that
time period. That’s the premiere intellectual force or whatever metaphor you
could choose. I mean there’s no other series like that.
R: I’m sorry but I have to say that I agree with you, and that is what I was trying to
do. I was trying to raise the standard of insight with regard to the kind of learning
necessary for the insight to develop, with reference to what ought to be done
apart from miles of fellows trying to do it. Quiet as it’s kept, the people who were
my best helpers were the people, more often than not, that I managed to get
there the first time. My speakers did more to bring in folk that I wanted than I did.
And if I had any secret, I had read all the people I had invited, and I used that. I
used that because of a deep thing and a routine thing. My feeling was if talking to
a man who has something on the ball, and I can let him know that I know what he
has on the ball. I’d say to you, “I read your book.” I read everybody’s book. And
my spiel to them was their spiel, not mine. If I call you and say, “Look man, you
got a hell of a book here.” You say so-and-so-and-so, at least you’re going to
listen to me. [Laughter]
O: Right.
R: And then, a lot of these people would point to other people for me. And I haven’t
invited one speaker whose books I had not read, and that helps.
O: Well and the quality of those speakers you bring out. I was thinking of this
because the speaker that came out after I spoke that year was Leon Litwack and
I just love Leon. Leon had a special relationship with John Hope Franklin, who I
think you knew. And John Hope and Leon, you’d see them at the Southern AAHP 280B; Rogers; Page 30
Historical Association and the only reason I would go to that conference would be
to see these two men, well into their mid-eighties.
R: Well you earned that to begin with. That’s the point.
O: They would lean on each other. They would walk arm and arm, Leon and John
Hope, and they just had this incredible relationship with each other. Leon, his
students loved him at Berkeley. It was so unusual because Berkeley had become
such a big almost factory of education, very little interaction between the
professors and the students. Leon was an exception. The year he retired, every
lecture that he gave at Berkeley, was just a packed theatre. Students who did not
major in history, who knew nothing about Black Studies, would come just to see
him because he had that kind of reputation. He loved his students. I mean he
would come in with the leather jacket—[Laughter]—quoting blues songs. I’ll
never forget a lecture he gave at the Southern Historical Association. He talked
about the rise and fall of the Civil Rights Movement. He used music. He used
jazz. He used Motown. And then he got to the [19]80s and he said, “You know,
you could tell the quality of the society was changing by the name of the bands.”
R: Yeah, that’s true.
O: Public Enemy. He said “Earlier you had the Supremes, the Marvelettes.” And
now you had a new kind of band, new kinds of musicians who were only
responding to the changes in society that they were seeing. And the music got
more skeptical.
R: Music is a big thing now. AAHP 280B; Rogers; Page 31
O: Big thing now yeah. And he was quoting lyrics, hip-hop lyrics [Laughter]. Man, he
was eighty years old quoting hip-hop lyrics. And these other historians were
saying, “What?” [Laughter]
R: Well, we talk about music incessantly here. My son is a music student unaware. I
mean if it’s music of a given level, you’re likely to find some of it here. And the
promotion of people who have the desire to learn. We had a fellow who lives right
next to Miami. You know where he would be every one of our nights of speaking?
He’d be here. I mean just automatically. He learned to love learning and it
dawned on him that when we brought here, there was gonna be somebody on it
here. And I got back to my first person like that was Doug Lee. Did I tell you what
I would never do? I’m radical, but I’m wise. I didn’t want a president who would
be disturbed by the folk I would bring. So when I passed this test I knew I had it
made. I said to Doug, I said, “Doug, what would you think about bringing Stokely
Carmichael here?” He jumped up and kicked both heels. I knew I had it right
then. [Laughter] I didn’t have to ask that question anymore. And when you get
that kind of openness, you are able to promote a reputation that makes it easy for
you to get big speakers. Because when I brought “X” speaker, I knew he was
gonna tell “Y” speaker “That’s the place to go.” What are you writing now?
O: [Laughter] I’m writing a few different things. One is, I’ve recently been asked to
work on the memoirs of Stetson Kennedy and Stetson lived in Jacksonville for a
long time. He worked with Zora Neale Hurston. He worked with Woody Guthrie.
He exposed the Klan in the 1940s. So I’m working on that. I’m also working on a
book. It’s a South-wide book about the Jim Crow period. AAHP 280B; Rogers; Page 32
R: Jim Crow? When you gonna finish that?
O: Probably that four or five years off.
R: I see.
O: The book I’ll probably finish first is, I’m working a text, and I was really happy to
hear you talk about Native American history, but I’m working on a book now
comparing African American and Latino history. Looking at the two histories in
relationship to each other, and Mordecai Johnson came up because—
R: You know you’d be on the right burner. We haven’t had a good book on
Mordecai. I have one book.
O: That’s a great, I’m going to talk to my graduate students about that.
R: I lectured with a guy when I was at Howard who has written the one book on
Mordecai. I don’t think it’s as good as it ought to be. I don’t know when you’re
going to finish these other two books but this is a wise tip: the fact is, I’m taking a
big jump here; I’ve told you what I believe. I believe that Mordecai Johnson is a
better speaker than most of the speakers that we’ve named. There isn’t a good
book out on him.
O: No, there isn’t.
R: You would hit payday if you could come close to doing for Mordecai Johnson
what you did for Quincy. You’d have a bestseller. I don’t know why that hasn’t
been jumped on. But you’re writing two books now.
O: Well I’ll tell my graduate students. I have some good graduate students. Maybe I
can convince one or two of them to start working on it for their dissertations. AAHP 280B; Rogers; Page 33
R: I won’t hold you too much longer. The thing that’s up my sleeve with you is, I’m
not going to be around much longer. We’re getting a new group together
because you know what my luck has been. I’ve been [inaudible 1:05:33]. My wife
and I were closer than you could imagine and I’ve had trouble with that. But the
same dream I had twelve years ago is alive in major way. Largely because of
what we have achieved and because I have a potential to have better staff, most
of what has been done, in the past, I had to do more of it myself than other
people but I got a great staff now. I think that the character of what you have
already done and the ableness that you bring in making life out of important data
in the African American world, as it is coming closer together with other aspects
of our world and because I think that picture is getting better. I’d like to talk to you
about, because my ambition has been to make this area as much as, if not more,
than other areas that have arrived in the doing of what is a continuation of what
I’ve been after. To make over into a regular thrust in the total world of ours here,
with a categorical uplift in the Black world. We are overwhelmingly interested in
that plus two other things, which is what we’ve been working on. My main man is
at Harvard and the big thing that we were working on, as I think I’ve mentioned to
you before, is the prison thing. The second thing is to make the Black world a
center from which we can eliminate functionally, the togetherness of the so-called
Black world and the so-called White world, to create a kind of new world. I was
told, before I tried to come here, that this was the last place I ought to come. But
we’ve done away with that to an extent. The loss of Doug Lee and the coming of
this inept woman taking his place, it was a continuation of what we had done AAHP 280B; Rogers; Page 34
pretty well on in laying the foundation. Making this functional center, not to move
away from lifting Stetson, but Stetson is no longer Stetson, because Doug Lee is
not there and I’m not there. I want to keep all of the doors open on the basis of
the kind of quality of what I put the finger on that’s comparable to the fact that we
now have seen a change that’s comparable to what I’m thinking about, in the fact
that we have, not simply a Black president, but an able president. The lady that’s
supposed to be working with me, I don’t know if you know Inez Reed but she’s a
city judge now.
O: Inez Reed?
R: Inez Reed. She was the person who wrote me my letter at my first big church in
Washington. She we’ve known each other a long time. She has two brothers who
were PhDs; there are three of them, all of them are PhDs. But the significance is
not the PhD, they are overwhelmingly Black people. Now given the fact that
you’ve written one book that is key to what we’re making an effort to do, I’d like to
talk into coming back down here again. With this new impetus, that will be a
continuation of what you’ve already been a part of. Alongside of the intellectual
and political lifting of a community has always been here to do this. We have not
tried the things like this as much as we ought to have, because we’ve been down
here. I want to bring it here. With the “here” including a lifting that is as
academically factual as it is in terms of what we call “class-rising.” I want the
intellectual ableness to be comparable to what also goes along with class-rising.
One of the unkind things that I have to say, I don’t think Stetson has as a ghost of
a chance of doing what we’ve done. I don’t think the President can do that. I don’t AAHP 280B; Rogers; Page 35
think the ambition of lifting a world is there. I don’t think football is gonna do that.
I don’t think basketball is gonna do that. I want learning and ableness that
learning is necessary to become factual in terms of the doing of what needs to be
done. That’s my opening speech to you. I’ve got some new folk too. I don’t know
if you read the books that you looked at the other day.
O: Oh yeah, the Hamilton.
R: That’s a great book. And my interest is to cultivate you even if I have to make an
effort to get you here even before you get these other two books written.
[Laughter] We raise the consciousness in an intellectual way that’s different from
mere big name, but to factual movement. So that the people get excited to find
out they ought to be learning a hell of a lot more than they are learning. I want to
be a kind of thrill in what we’re doing, and again, I won’t keep you. Again as I was
talking about, I think the world might be ready for a dip into the sociological
meaning of what eruditeness in the arena of music can bring. I want to get into
that. I don’t know how much you’ve been reading in that line but we’re at a heavy
point. Think about that for the next two or three weeks. We are going to begin the
new program, which is the same program almost, beginning in the next academic
year. And I want to be talking to you about getting you here, whether or not the
new book is involved, because we could build on what we’ve been talking about
for these years. You’re a little closer than you were last time [Laughter].
O: Yeah. Well, you call and I will come.
[End of Interview]
Final edit by: Ryan Morini, February 22, 2019