 He's sitting on 714. That was pretty neat. Good evening. My name is Larry Temple. As chairman of the Lyndon B. Johnson Foundation, it is my privilege to welcome you tonight to the Tom Johnson Lecture. The Tom Johnson Lecture was created by the LBJ Foundation to honor and recognize our friend Tom Johnson and his 30 years of service as chairman of the LBJ Foundation. He'd still be chairman today if he had acquiesced in the insistence of all of us on the foundation, but he wanted to step aside. He's still on the foundation. Tom Johnson's career reads like a book on Walter Middy or maybe even a Forrest Gump movie. The difference is his accomplishments are not mythical, they're real. Tom Johnson was in the very first class of White House Fellows, came to the White House in 1965. The White House Fellows Program was created by President Johnson, so people in early career or mid-career could come back and do a stint in government and see what government was all about and add their expertise to government. Well, Tom was so good, he stayed on. And LBJ kept him on and he served under the mentorship of a whole series of people. Primarily, Lyndon Johnson. And after Lyndon Johnson left office, he came back to Austin with President Johnson and served as the chief of staff for the former president. At about the same time as the death of President Johnson, he went to Dallas and he was the publisher and CEO of the Dallas Times Herald. The Dallas Times Herald during his tenure was picked by Time Magazine as one of the five best newspapers in the South. People could see the talent and he was picked to go to California and he became the ultimately the publisher of the Los Angeles Times. During his time at the Los Angeles Times, he'd achieved an all-time record in distribution and all-time record in income. And along the way, it had six, not one, not two, but six Pulitzer Prizes. From there, he was absconded by Ted Turner to go back to his home area of Atlanta and he became the president of CNN. CNN achieved its all-time height during his service as the head of CNN. He was picked as publisher of the year when he was at the Los Angeles Times. He was picked as the outstanding executive in cable television when he was at CNN. And since he retired as president of CNN, he's continued to do just myriads of things. He is probably the best Boy Scout of wanting to help people of anybody I know. He raises money for and tries to build up the stature of the Vietnam veterans. He raises money for and tries to build up the stature of the people in the program in the White House fell. He raises money and tries to build up the stature of the Secret Service. He's been very, very active at MD Anderson in raising money for the curing and treatment of cancer. And he still continues to serve on the LBJ Foundation. But I will say that for me, the outstanding thing that he has done, does do and continues to do is to acknowledge the fact that he has battled with depression for more than 20 years. And he will tell you, he tells everybody, there's nothing to be ashamed of. There's nothing to be embarrassed about. It's a disease. It's a disease that can be handled and people come out of hiding and acknowledge that disease can be treated. And I think he's the biggest hero in the country in dealing with depression. And so I want to introduce to tonight him, but before I do, he has had one great asset over 50 plus years. And if I had been injected with trucearum before I got up here, I would say that asset was not only is equal, but is superior in talent and ability. But since I want to be polite and I haven't had the trucearum, I would just say that Edwin and Tom Johnson are two of the most talented, remarkable, caring, giving people this country has. So let's recognize Edwin and Tom Johnson, please stand. Now to introduce the program tonight, it is my honor to introduce not only the winningest baseball coach in collegiate history, but the best coach in collegiate history. Not just currently, but ever, Augie Guarido. Wow. When somebody said to me, you get to introduce Hank Aaron. My heart stopped for a moment. I heard that home run. I think I might have saw it on a 10-inch Foco screen, black and light. But it was an unbelievable moment. And this is an unbelievable moment for me. Around here, Walter Cronkite and his beautiful one-of-a-kind voice said, what starts here changes the world. In addition to that, a part of our mission statement at the University of Texas is educating one student at a time for a better society. The man I'm introducing tonight, on the top of his bio, it says, activist, civil right activist, and baseball in that order. He's a man of integrity that has moved mountains on behalf of his friends and the people in this country. He has changed the world for the better. And he has affected our society and made it better. One man, one game, one bat, 755 home runs. Let's take pleasure in a one-of-a-kind night with Mr. Henry Aaron, number 44. Thank you. It is a true honor to have you here. Well, thank you very much. As Augie Guerrero suggested, you have had a remarkable life, which has had a profound effect on many of us. It started in Mobile, Alabama. Right. And I wondered if you could start by talking about your background and what led to your career in baseball. Well, first I'd like to say that thanks, Tom, you and Ed Winiford invited me here. Thrilled and delightful to be here. And I wanna thank you very, very much for giving me this opportunity, really, all these students and friends of yours here. This is wonderful. Well, I started out in Mobile, Alabama. Of course, before I start there, that's like to say the reason I was walking the way I was, my wife told me, said if I had a hit one more home run, I wouldn't have broken my leg. I'd have been able to step around the bases rather than slide. But now that's kidding. I started out in Mobile, Alabama, 1934, I was born. Born of a, from Herb and Estella, Aaron. That was eight of us, eight kids. And we lived in the country, of course. Father was a man that worked from week to week. Sometime he made $14 and sometime he made $8. But I tell a lot of people that I was a vegetarian before many people knew what a vegetarian was. Because that's what all, that's the only thing that we ate was vegetables. We ate what we grew in the field. But I had a very, it was a very good childhood, you know, really. My mother was very strict. To this day, I can honestly say, even back then, long, long, long time ago, that I never remember her being out of the house at eight o'clock. When dark came, she was there for us, you know, really. So my father, he was somewhat of a confused athlete. Wanted to play baseball and never got the chance to play. And, but he had a baseball team himself. A little baseball team. In fact, I was talking to a friend of mine about a week ago, I was telling them, they wanted to know how I got started playing baseball. And I said, well, I got started playing baseball because my father had a baseball team and he had a pickup truck. You know, in the back of the pickup truck, he had a little small Coca-Cola freezer that he kept Coca-Colas in. And as we would go play baseball, he would tell me, he said, now until you sell all the Coca-Colas in this box, you can't play baseball. And sure enough, when I got to the ballpark, that's the only thing I wanted to do was sell those Coca-Colas because I wanted to play baseball. And sure enough, about the fifth inning, all the Cokes were gone and in come some friend of mine, I said, hey, well, Henry, it was called Henry, you are up next, you're the one that's gonna be at bat. And I walked up to the plate and I started hitting the ball. And so I started playing with people that was much, especially baseball players, that was much older than me. And so that was the start of my baseball career, the start of my life. But now that, you know, that if we move forward quickly is that I said there was eight of us and now there are only three of us. I've lost five siblings so far, you know, they've no longer here with us. And of course, my sister who is in Atlanta, and a brother in Atlanta, and myself. So there's only three that we, that is alive right now. And that house you grew up in is an historic monument in Mobile Alba? Yes, it's been moved from the place in which I was born to the baseball park. So that's where it's here now, you know, sits in the baseball park. In fact, inside of the house is my mother's dress that she cherished very much. It's an old dress and she loved it and it's now in the house in which I was born in. You, as, again, as Augie suggested, you were a hero to so many of us for your excellence and your grace. Who were your heroes growing up? Well, in sports, of course, Jack Robinson, who was my hero, of course, it's about that. And I don't know that we had many heroes, you know, really. I would have to say my mother and my father was probably my biggest hero, you know. My mother was someone that she didn't tell you to do things, you know, tell your story about my mother, she was just true. She never would spank us. She wouldn't do anything. You know, if you did something wrong, she would just say, I'll wait till the weekend when your dad is here. And sure enough, you'd be lying in bed and you could hear them talking and your mother would say, my dad's name was Herbert. And she would say, Herbert, she said, you know what you gotta do tomorrow? You gotta go in there and get that boy. And she said, which ones, it's called me man, but Henry, I want you to go in there and get at me. Stella, that's what she called my mother. My mother was Stella. She said, I'm gonna go in there. So the next day I wake up, I'll try to be as good as I could. You know, I had water and everything, but anyhow, he called me in his room. Come here boy, come here a minute. I want to talk to you. I said, oh my God. Then he would tell you to go outside, get a switch. And he would depend on you getting the right kind of switch because if it broke, if it break, then that means that you got twice as big a whooping coming, you know, so he would get it and he would tie it up. And he said, well, he said, you know what you did. Come on. And then he would start beating on you. You know, I mean, really. But that's the way my mother would chest ties us. You know, she never would spank us because she just said, I don't have time. I have to chest ties them a different way. You mentioned Henry that Jack Robinson was a hero to you. Yes. Why so? How did he inspire you? You overlapped in the major leagues for two years, three years. Right. Talk about your experience with Jack Robinson. Well, I played against Jack for about five years when he's with the Brooklyn Dodgers. And what he taught me, he taught me that baseball was a game that no matter what you did today, it was only good for he would always say for good for wrapping dead fishing. Because he said that people didn't think about what you did today. You could have maybe 7,500 people at the ballpark tonight. And those 7,500 people may see you hit one grand slam or may see you hit two or three base hits. But the next night, he said, those same people who come out to the ballpark will be booing you. And simply because of the fact that that's the way baseball is, it's what you do for me today. And he said, that's where you have to approach the game. He said, until you realize one thing in baseball that the only way you're going to help your ball club is that when you leave this batter's box that you can touch all the bases and come back and touch home plate and you've made a run for your team. And he taught me that. And so I live with that because for many years, I think I led the league and runs batter then and not home run, but runs batter then and also runs scored. And simply because I always thought about what Jackie always said. So that was one of the things that he taught me how to do. But he also used baseball to achieve something greater. And that seems to be a lesson that you took to heart as well in your career. He, the thing that I think that I learned from Jackie was the fact that in spite of all the thing that he went through, he wanted the playing field to be level, you know, he thought that at times that things was not equally as fair with him as they could have been. Yeah. You were the last player in the major leagues to have played in the Negro Leagues. Right. Talk if you would about the transition from the Negro Leagues to the majors. Well, in the Negro League, you know, we had, there were four teams. That was the Indianapolis Clowns, the Montgomery Ballmer, Barons and so forth. And I played with the Indianapolis Clowns. And the money that we made, we made $200 a month and we got a dollar and a half. We got a dollar a day for meal money. I had a friend of mine's named Jenkins, who sat beside me and the two of us. And what we would do, we would take the dollar, I would give him my dollar, he would put his dollar together and then we would buy our big jar of peanut butter and I mean a huge jar of peanut butter. I don't know whether any of these kids know what I'm talking about, but this peanut butter, it was huge and it was so stiff. I mean, somehow, you know, when you taste it, it get right here and it's almost choke you. But what I learned in playing in the Negro League was the fact that, and we would play three games a day. Wouldn't play one double header. We would play three games. We play, for an example, we play a double header in Washington D.C. and then go to Baltimore and play a night game. But at 18, I was 17, 18, just out of high school, it didn't matter to me. I could play five games, it didn't matter to me. But playing in that league taught me the discipline of saying, hey, you know, the thing that Jack had taught me before is that, what baseball, what you see in baseball today is not what you're gonna see tomorrow. Right, right. What made you unique as a ball player? I think what made me unique as a baseball player was the fact that I approached every game a little bit different than just the average ball player. I used to see baseball players sometimes standing in the mirror or make sure that their socks was this high, the comb, the hand, et cetera. I felt like, you know, that there was absolutely nobody that walked out on the pitch in the mound that could probably get me out. Now, that's what's true all the time. But I felt confidence in my ability to play the game. I felt like that was absolutely nothing in baseball that I couldn't do. What gave you that confidence when other ball players lack the confidence? Because I don't think, I think they didn't understand their skills, a lot of them, you know, and a lot of them would read what happened yesterday. You know, if they hit a game winning the home run tonight, they thought that they could go on and live off that for the rest of the week. And that's what strikes me about in looking at your numbers, the numbers you posted is the consistency. You always put up great numbers year over year over year over year. Every day you got up to the point, you did something. And it's remarkable to hear in your 22 year history, home runs are consistent. You know, you've got a consistent number of home runs every single year. There's a work ethic there. Where did you get that prodigious work ethic? I think I got it within myself, you know, really. I learned a long time ago that in baseball, if you didn't bring something new to the plate, or do something new, then you wasn't making it in progress. You know, I felt like, you know, my first year in baseball, of course, I mean, the salary was $5,000 a year. That's what we made. I got $5,000 a year and that was, it's much more than, that was a lot of money for me. I never seen that much money, $5,000, it's a lot of money. And when I got $5,000, I said, now, you know, if I can just have me myself three or four more good years, I can probably make $15,000. You know, I looked at it that way, you know. I felt like that's the way I had approached the game. You know, I approached the game and said, I gotta do the very best that I can to reach my goal, you know. And what did it occur to you that you could beat Weber's all-time homerun record? I think about four years before I did it, before I broke the record. About 1970? Yeah, I thought I could break his record. What made you, what gave you that confidence? I felt like if I stayed healthy and didn't get hurt seriously, that I could play, that I could play for a long time. You know, I played 23 years and the last two years, it was just, it was nothing, you know, really. I couldn't get myself up to play like I could, say, when I first got into the league. Yeah, that record, of course, was the most hallowed in sport, that's sports, that all-time homerun record. But reflecting on that moment, which we heard at the top of the program, you said, what should have been the best time in my life was the worst, all because I was a black man. Something was taken from me, I've never gotten back. Can you talk about that experience of overtaking the babe and securing that record? I think that most people thought that I was in the game just to try and break a record, you know, and I think that in some of the things that bothered me about that was the fact that so many sports writers thought that, you know, the only thing I wanted to do was break the record. And that was not true. I wanted to have good years, you know. But some of the most important thing that happened to me was that the last two years of before I broke the record, whether the last year before I broke the record, was one that, you know, I don't talk about that much because it bothers me because at that time, I had two kids and both of them was in college. They wasn't allowed to walk home from school. They had to have a escort. I had to live off, away from my teammates. I had to live in another part of the hotel. I had to have someone bring meals to me. And so all of these things, you know, I just felt like the whole thing, the whole system was backwards, you know. And it wasn't because of me breaking the record, it wasn't because of the color of my skin. And I thought that was what I thought, the reason that they were so against it. And you tied the record at the end of the 1973 season and you broke it in the beginning of the 1974 season. So there was a long off season there. Where you felt the sting of virulent racism regarding to the record and regarding to a black man challenging the legendary Babe Ruth white man. What was that off season like for you? It was terrible. Well, of course, I got married. My wife is a big dude, you know. Great for me. That is to say it was right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. This is, if I may, Henry, this is Billy Aaron, the wife of Henry Aaron who was here for the Civil Rights Summit last year. And unfortunately, Henry Aaron could not be here due to some surgeries that he was having. But Billy, it's wonderful to have you back. Thank you. So it was a great time in your life is what you would say. Yes, it was a great time. But you know, one of the things that everybody started saying, don't walk across the street. Make sure you walk with the lights. Don't be careful, be careful, be careful. But my life was, I had a wonderful one. I did, things were just great. You know, I started out in spring training and I hit the home run in Cincinnati. And of course, the thing that bothered me about that was the fact that the commissioner got so involved in it, you know, Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, you know, he got so involved. He had said that if I didn't play two out of the three games in Cincinnati that he was gonna find me and probably suspend me for a few games, you know. And I couldn't figure that one out. But I did hit a home run over in the day in Cincinnati and God would have it that I hit the home run in Atlanta when we opened the season there. Yeah. With Jimmy Carter in attendance, Jimmy Carter. Yes, all of, we had a lot of celebrities in there. Yeah, you sure did. What was, when you hit that ball, did you know it was gone? Oh yeah. I got, yeah, yeah, yeah. You hit so many of them, you got a feeling that went in. So list don't know that feeling. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you knew it. I knew it was gone, yes. Well, I really knew I was gonna hit the home run that night. Was it a relief? It was, oh, it was tremendous relief. No question about it. I was under so much pressure. I mean, not only the pressure from what the commission, but it was just pressure from people thinking that that was the only thing that I was out there to do was to hit home run, you know. And was it a moment you could enjoy? I enjoyed it for a little while, but then after a while I started thinking that, you know, that this record too shall one day be broken. I mean, hey, records are made to be broken. So I felt like enjoyed and just let the other people to say what they wanna say about it. Right, right. I mentioned Jimmy Carter who was here for the Civil Rights Summit on what was the 40th anniversary of your breaking the record. He was here on April 8th of last year and was supposed to be with you and extended an invitation to the summit and I think he said your regrets. We were one of the, we were very glad he was here, but he was there that night as I mentioned and he said of you that you did as much to legitimize the South as any of us. And I'm wondering, were you conscious of playing a greater role beyond that of outfielder for the Atlanta Braves? I felt like I had done my job, you know, really in some ways, you know. That was, you know, it's a funny thing about baseball. You know, baseball has its ups and downs, but one thing about it is that most people who go to the games and watch you play, if you're watching, if you're watching you're in Atlanta, you know, they'll go out to the ballpark and no matter where they're sitting at, they're rooting for the same team, black and white, you know. Right. It somehow has a way of gluing people, bringing people together, you know. And I felt like my plan in Atlanta had healed some wounds, had done some things, you know, really. I know that Dr. King was out with his civil rights movement and et cetera, but I felt like I had done my part. You think that athletes have a responsibility to be role models? I'd say, oh yes, I do, I really do. And I get angry with them when I hear one of them say, oh, I hear them say that they're not role models because it is tough for you to tell me that you walk around and I've seen this happen time and time again, that when kids see an athlete with tobacco in his pocket that he don't think that the reason that that athlete is being successful is simply because he's chewing tobacco or doing something that he shouldn't be doing. Yes, we all have what we call some responsibility to our children. Right. Yes. Did you broke the record in an era of sports where performance enhancing drugs weren't a factor? How should we view the 20 year steroid era of baseball? Well, I think what you have to remember is that if you're talking about certain ball players, certain ball players, because they were able to accomplish, how much does this happen to have the effect on children? I mean, when you see things, especially on television now more than anything, you see kids on, you see kids, you see someone on television chewing tobacco or something. That kid is probably thinking the reason that that ball player is successful is because he's chewing tobacco. I think that most athletes feel that they are, they should be responsible to our youngest. Henry, those records that were posted during the steroids era from athletes who were clearly taking steroids, how should we view those records? I think we should view them the same way that the Hall of Fame is just looking at them now. I mean, really, if they were mean, they'd cheat it, then they should pay for it. Right. There should be an asterisk. There should be. I don't know whether there should be an asterisk and let them go into the hall. Is that what you mean? Well, that's not so much the hall, but how should we view those records? And including the hall? I think they ought to be forgotten about. Really, that's what I think. Yeah, I think they should be forgotten about. Yeah. They're simply not legitimate. They're not legitimate, really, when you see somebody, because I played the game 23 years, and I know how hard it is for you to hit 20 home runs, 30 home runs. But what we were seeing back in the era in which you were referring to, is players hitting 65 and 70 home runs. That is impossible to do. It is, now I'm telling you, I know it. You can do it with the help of somebody helping you or something, but you can't go out here and play the game of baseball and hit seven or some home runs, especially in the major leagues. You might do it, it'd be hard for you to do it in the little leagues. Right. You can't do it in the big leagues. You just can't do it because you're playing with guys, you're playing, you're hitting against pitchers who is probably as good as you are as a hitter, and you just can't do that. That's a lot of home runs they hit. Yeah. One of your contemporaries on the field was Pete Rose. Should Pete Rose be inducted into the Hall of Fame? Well, I think Pete Rose have to feel the same way that the guys that was taking steroids. Yeah. You know, it's a funny thing. And Pete and I, I know Pete, I played, I happened to play against him and he was a damn good ball player. I mean, a very good ball player. And I had a long talk with Pete. This is, I talked to Pete and I told Pete, I said, Pete, I said, if you were guilty in any kind of way, I said, what you should do is to come clean. Just say, I did something wrong. I ask for your forgiveness. And I said, you be surprised at this country. This is the most forgiving country in the world. I said, all you have to do is say you're sorry because we all have done something wrong. Right. But he decided that he didn't want to do that. And that's where he is today. Right. The lesson is, listen to Henry Aaron. I don't know, I don't know, I don't know whether you want to listen to me. Evidently he didn't. What athletes do you admire today? There is quite a few of them. We, you know, it's fortunate this country, especially here in the United States, we are some very good, very good athletes. I mean, these kids today is just absolutely great. I mean, I, when I played baseball, I weighed 170 some pounds. The most I ever weighed in my life in baseball was 185 pounds. Of course you can't tell it now. But, but, but, but, but, these athletes, these kids today, these kids today, even my grandson, my little guy, boy, he is 16 years old and I'm telling you, he's much taller than I am, much bigger than I am. All these kids are just absolutely fabulous. You know, really. Is there someone who you think is the role model that you'd like to see athletes be today? Is there somebody who sort of exemplifies what being a role model is all about today? Derek Jeter in baseball, I would say. I don't know too much about basketball, but I would have to say Jeter as far as an athlete probably would be somebody that I think that I would like to have my kids copy and be as. It strikes me that he has your work ethic. Yeah. He came out there to play every single time he played. Andrew, he was a member of a team. He was never the, never made himself the star, yeah. You know, I was, you know, I consider myself being very lucky at playing baseball. You know, I played 23 years as I've said before and I played about eight of those years in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. And the reason I bring that up is because even back then in playing with players like Warren Spahn, Hader Matthews and et cetera, who is now in the Hall of Fame, I felt like I was lucky. We didn't make much money in Milwaukee. I think, and this is a true story, I remember after I had been in the big leagues for a few years, I remember that Matthews, Warren Spahn and myself said, look, I said, why don't we, you know, I was making, I think it was $23,000, I think I was making. And I think Spahn was making somewhere about 60 or something like that. And Hader was making about 40. And I said to myself, I said, you know, I've never made this much money in my life. I don't know what I'm gonna do with it. And I said, I'll tell you what I'm gonna do. What we're gonna do, we're gonna all write the commissioner baseball and have him be gonna deduct all, I'm gonna take $15,000 of my money and I'm gonna tell the commissioners to have it where I can draw it once in my retirement come. And you know, he sent us a letter back and he told us say, I cannot let you guys do that. Time $15,000 for Matthews, $15,000 for Spahn, and $15,000 for Mew. He said, I can't do that. He said, what happened if the team go bankrupt? And I never thought about that. But $45,000 is what he was talking about. He couldn't do it. And nowadays, what do these players make now? These players make a million, $800,000. And I couldn't do it for $15,000. But it was a funny story. After that, we played for a few years and we won two championships in Milwaukee, two championships. And I never forget that after we won the first beat the Yankees seven games, I remember that, oh, I was trying to raise a family and I needed my money and they were slow at bringing the money. And our cut, each player cut for winning the World Series back then was $8,000. And I said, my son, I said, boy, I need my money. I need it bad. So I went to John Mullen, who was, no, John Quinn, who was the general manager. And I asked him, I said, what is the check gonna come? He said, just take your time, it's coming. So sure enough, about three weeks, it was three weeks late, but I got it. But I got all my money, it was $8,000, I think. And I carried it to the bank and I never forget, I put it up to telling the teller, I said, Mr. Aaron, I said, what would you like to do? What, checking account or saving account? I said, no, nothing. I said, I want you to count every nickel of it out and put it on the counter and I'm gonna put it in a sack and I'm gonna carry it home with me. I'm gonna have a chance to look at this for a while. And no way. He counted it out and gave it to me, I put it in a sack, carried it to my house, closed all the doors and put the money in the bank. Put the $8,000, I put all the money on the bed and I looked around and made sure nobody was looking at me. You know, and I said, I looked at it for a while and I said, oh, this is the one money I ever had in my life. $8,000, you know, I mean, this is, whoo. I said, oh, I called my mama up and I called everybody up and then finally I decided, well, Hank, you better start paying some bills, son. And when I start paying bills, I ended up, I think, with a $150. But that's a true story, that's a true, that's a true. What is your most indelible baseball memory? A lot of people will say, you'd think the homerun, I think that, but, I think the one thing I think about most and the thing that I am proud of is the fact that I was in my baseball career, the 23 years that I played and you mentioned this before, is the consistency in which I played the game. You know, what you could see, you could go out to the ballpark today and see me hit a homerun. You might come out two days and see me hit another one. Those are the things that I think that made me feel proud of my career more than anything was the fact that I was consistent in what I was doing. As Coach Garrido suggested, we not only admire you for your grace on the field, but because you're a civil rights hero. Given what's happened in Ferguson and the fact that racial strife is alive and well and the United States of America, what can we be doing to heal the racial divide? Oh, I don't know. I think we can do several things. I think we can start judging people for the way they act rather than by the color of their skin. I think people can start understanding that we are all our brother's keeper, you know, no matter who we are. Judging people simply because of the color of their skin is certainly not what you should be doing, you know, really. I think there's things that no matter who you are, no matter how you look, you know, I mean that's, I think you should be judged on your character rather than by what you do. Just what Dr. King said, just what Dr. King said. So how do we achieve that? I think you achieve that by, well I think one thing you can do is to understand who is next to you, who's sitting beside you, who's your brother's keeper, you know, and rather than judging someone simply because of the fact that, you know, he doesn't have as much as you have, not as, don't have a car, not driving the same car as you drive, you know, today I heard you talk about Tom Johnson, you know, I mean, Tom I remember when I first started working at CNN and I went to him and talked to him about what I should do and he did one thing for me. He said, we're gonna create an airport channel with another friend and the two of us, we started, he gave me the chance to do that. So I think that that's what we need to do. We need to understand that although all of us don't have the knowledge of doing all the things that we wanna do, but it's given the opportunity, I think we can, that's all. You gotta make the plan for you just a little bit level. Have we progressed on the issue of race as much as you might have imagined when you hit that ball and to begin the 1974 season to break them? I think there's a lot of things, that's a lot of, we still have a long way, we have a ways to go. We still have a ways to go, you know, in spite of and I don't, you know, of course I'm not here to talk politics or try to get involved in politics, but I do know that in watching when I first started, well, when I first started playing baseball, there was absolutely no one in this country, no one that I can think of would ever say that we would have a black president, you know, no matter who you talk to, you know, and regardless to whether he is or the people out here think that he's doing a good job, I have some things that I don't exactly like the way that he's doing, but by the same token, you know, I think that we've come a long ways in that regards in some ways, you know. Yeah. You were given the Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush in 2002. I wonder what is your greatest hope for America? For, I would like to see before this, well, let me just say I would like to see, I would like for people to understand that as I mentioned before, the playing field, just make the playing field level for everybody and just give everybody a chance because I look at my situation, if I had not had someone like Jackie Robinson come in before me and given me an opportunity to play the game, then I would have, that was been lost talent, been lost. So I think that in some ways, I think that that's what happened. Yeah. The montages I mentioned to you earlier included a picture of you being greeted by President Johnson in his Oval Office. And that's after a tour that you made in South Vietnam visiting with troops with four of your major league baseball counterparts. Can you talk about that experience of meeting President Johnson? By the way, I will mention to you that Henry has not seen that photo and we'll see it later tonight. But that's one thing that hasn't made its way to your office. And I haven't seen it. Yeah. What do you remember about that? I remember going to Vietnam, it was Joe Ture, myself, and who else? Killabrew, Stan Musial. And that was one or two other, we went on what we call a high neighborhood. Here's the story. The president at that time made all of us Lieutenant Colonel's in the Army. And the reason for that is because he said that if something happened, that we would get the same pay. If something happened while we were there, we were in danger. That was things that happened that I can tell you that I was a little shaky about. But anyhow, I went on with all these guys. And at that time, Stan Musial only one of us had a Nikon camera. That was when Nikon first came out with the cameras. And I remember Stan Musial taking all these pictures, all these pictures over there. We stayed over there 14 days. And every one of them was in the front line, the front line. We wasn't in the back, we was on the front. That's where we were. And we were over there to entertain the troops. When I say entertain me, I don't know what I was doing. We was talking baseball. But they were happy to see us. They were very happy to see us. And I'm so happy that I'm so glad that I was over there. And I stayed over there 14 days. And the most amazing thing, the scariest thing about the whole thing was the fact that when I was over there, I saw little kids, not American kids, these kids that was Vietnam, little kids over there must have been 12, 13 years old. And this is what really hate me more than anything. When I saw these kids carrying guns, 13 years old, carrying this some years ago, carrying automatic rifles and having scaps on their pelts, on their heads and all this, you know. So I kind of felt kind of bad. And I thought that, I thought we did a good job and stand musually after taking all these pictures. And I saw Stan, and he's no longer with us. And I saw Stan, I said, Stan, I said, what happened to the pictures? And he told me he took, every one of those pictures that he took was the floorboard of the helicopter. Now there was no pictures of nobody else that was the floorboard of the helicopter. You know. So I didn't have any pictures at all as sure that I had been to Vietnam. But I've been there, I've been, I've been, my wife and I were able to take a tour over there a few weeks ago. I'm not a few weeks, about a couple of years ago with some friends of ours, beautiful country, beautiful and I really enjoyed it. Really, the people were very nice. You've had a truly remarkable life. What is your proudest accomplishment? I think the thing that I think about my accomplishment is what I try to do is try to give back. You know, I felt like God has been good to me. He's given me a chance to do some great things. And I try to give back later on, I guess you might hear about my foundation, the Chase and Dream Foundation. In that foundation, we try to help kids in college. And I feel every day that I can give back to, you know, whatever money or wealth that I have, they don't have that much. But whatever I have, my wife and I have, we try to share with other people. You know, we try to share with those who are less fortunate. And I feel like every day that I'm blessed beyond when I can be able to give other people, no matter what it is, no matter what it is, you know, I feel like it is not mine anyhow. It belongs to everybody who had, had a hand in it and shared with me. Talk about your foundation, the Chase and Dream Foundation. Well, I can tell you how we got started. Mr. Tom Johnson, I have to bring him in. My wife, the two of them, I can tell you the story of how we got started. We, when I retired from baseball, I was trying to keep a foundation called Chase and Dream Foundation. I was trying to fund it by going to card shows, signing autographs, and putting money into the foundation. Till one day, my wife told me, she said, you ain't gonna ever do anything. This is never gonna work. She said, let me handle it. Let me, let me do one thing. Let me try to have a birthday party for you. I said, fine. So I guess she went to Mr. Johnson, Tom. And she talked to Tom and Tom and her decided that they were gonna go to some of the high rollers, Coca-Cola and et cetera, and sell them tables for 50 and $60,000. And when she told me this, I said, I said, for what? I said, we're trying to have a birthday. Well, let's just keep it like a, like $50 or something. You know, she said, let me handle it. And sure enough, Tom and her got together and I'm telling you, Tom, to this day, you know, I feel like I've been blessed to know you. The night, fast forward. The night of my dinner. I've never seen anything, I have never seen anything like it. They had over 1,000 people. They raised over a million dollars. That, was it, am I saying right? Tom? A million 200. A million 200, that's what they raised. Did you put it out in your bed? Hit that like that. She, and Tom, and I have to say that if it's not for Tom, and I mean, sometimes Tom, I cry about it even now, you know, if it hadn't been for you, that foundation, I would still be out trying to sign autograph. Thanks to you that you've done so much for the kids. I mean, you did, you helped them so much. And I certainly appreciate it. And my wife, the two of y'all, did it well. And thanks to you, thank you for lending him to us. Please, thank you. It's a testament to your legacy that there are so many young people in the audience tonight. What would you tell young folks who are chasing their own dreams? I would tell them that no matter what you decide to do, whether it's baseball, football, basketball, whatever it may be, that remember one thing, that there is no shortcut in life, absolutely no shortcut. I think that I've seen too many of our kids think that simply because they look at me and they say, well, not now, they look at me and they say, oh, he had 755 homeruns. How did he do it? I can do it. I can do the same thing. Well, they probably can. But then they'll look at somebody and they say, I got to do it. I got to do it. No matter what happened, I got to do 755 homerun. And they'll do anything to get to that. But I would say that success in life doesn't mean that you'd be successful today and tomorrow. You're successful. That means that you got to take one step at a time. And that's what I would tell them. That's what I try to tell all young people that when you start looking for shortcut in life, that's when you're going to get yourself in trouble. Do the young people that you come in contact with give you hope? Most kids that I've talked to, yes. Yeah. Yes. Well, you mentioned Tom Johnson. And Tom said of you, Henry, you never disappointed us, not once. Long after all of us are gone, your name, the name of Henry Aaron, will symbolize what I believe it really means to be a genuine American hero. I want to thank you not only for coming here tonight, but for all you've done to foster the American spirit by chasing your dreams. Well, I certainly appreciate it. Thank you so much for being here tonight. Thank you so much for being here tonight. Thank you.