 Well, I was born in Bronx at Lincoln Hospital, raised at 626 Lenox Avenue, which would be between the Cotton Club and the Savoy Bar Room, Friday which was the two greatest clubs in the United States of the world for that matter. For me it was great because my brothers and I, we could lay in the bed at night and listen to, not only listen to great jazz or great music, but by extraordinary people that made it mark throughout the legacy of music, to receive that music and actually can say that that music grounded me for whatever challenges I had to encompass in my life. It was a second language in the house. My mom spoke Spanish. My mom didn't teach her Spanish based on my father's theory that he didn't want the kids to be speaking a language that he didn't understand based on the fact that they might be talking about them or saying something they don't want them to understand. So he just had my mother teach us English. And I remember telling my father when I was a little kid that I thought he was making a big mistake. But it gave me, my mom gave me the opportunity to share with her and get a feel at a very early age what it means to live outside of this country, outside of this world I might say at that particular age, you know, because my mom had an accent. She spoke two languages. She was progressive. You know, my mom and her sister years ago when they came to America, their job was to clean the abortion offices. And I remember my brother and I would go with them to clean up the after birth in the whole nine. And I remember telling my mother one day, she said, mom, you know, you can go back to school and you could be a doctor. And my mother took me up on it. She became a nurse at Bellevue Hospital for 35, 40 years. So in that sense, I had a war-rounded growth in the city. I don't know whether I wanted to be an athlete, other than the fact that I wanted to go to the Olympics because I felt that I was the best Harlem bathtub swimmer there was at the time. So, you know, I wanted to go to the Olympics. I heard about this young lady on the radio at that time. The radio was the big thing. The TV was just coming on. And I would listen to the radio and they were talking about this woman swimming in the English Channel. Well, I didn't know what the English Channel was, but I knew what swimming was. So I asked my dad, I said, Pop, what's the English Channel? He explained to me. I said, well, why is this woman trying to swim in the English Channel? Does she get a trophy? Does she get a name in the paper? Does she get money? He said, well, probably get a little bit of all of that. I said, well, why does she do that, daddy? And then at the same time, I got a couple of questions. Does she swim with a knife in her mouth? And he looked at me kind of strange. He said, well, why would she swim with a knife in her mouth? And I said to her, I said, well, daddy, isn't it sharks in the water? I said, and before he could die just that, I'm asking the next question. The next question is, for daddy, what happens when she have to go to the bathroom? You know, I didn't realize it would take about the water a little bit. They're dropping back in that same spot to carry on. But he said to me, he said, son, well, I see you're serious about this woman because the question you asked, you're very serious about it. So I said, yes. I don't know. I'm gonna go find answers. By the time he turned around and come back with answers, they had mentioned the Olympic games on TV on the radio. Then I went and I said to him, I said, daddy, what's the Olympics? He told me, son, that's when the greatest athletes come together, a stronger mind and a stronger body to see who's the greatest. And I said to him, I said, daddy, did they have swimming in the Olympics? And he said, yes. I said, have they ever had a black swim in the representative America? And he told me, no, I said to him, I'm gonna be the first. I'm gonna be the first with excitement. I'm gonna be the first. And roughly about a year and a half, give or take money to he called me to my old man with a shoemaker, a cobbler. And he was in there working at the shop that day. And I was standing at the petition talking to him. And he looked at me and you know, you can tell when your dad or your mom have something to tell you and it's hurting them to have to tell you that. And I looked at my Swiss man, daddy said, well, son, I hate to tell you this. I said, but you're never going to go to the Olympics as a swimmer. And I kind of was offended and pushed back off the petition. What are you talking about? I'm the best swimmer in New York. And he said to me, he said, nah, son, you're not going to go. And I said, why not? And I said to him, I said, why can't I go and he put his arm out like this. And he rubbed on his arm when he rubbed on his arm. I thought he was rubbing a bug bite. But in essence, he was telling me merely because of the color of my skin, I would not be able to go to the Olympics to represent America. Now, you know, to say I can't go to the Olympics is one thing. But to say that I can't represent the country that I live in, based on the color of my skin, that really rocked me. It was a learning process for us all. But through that, it didn't deter me in terms of saying something needs to be done. A statement needs to be made. So after we got to run the quarter semi, I told Mr. Smith that I was disenchanted by the fact that the Olympic boycott was called off. And I wanted to make a statement. Wish you'll take on it. He agreed. When he agreed, then the next thing was, let's get us some artifacts that we need to bring out to exhibit issues such as bias, prejudice, hunger, you understand, the need to survive. So then we came out, we said, all right, well, Mr. Smith had the gloves, bring the gloves. I had the beads, bring the beads. Mr. Smith had the black scarf. I had the black jersey. We both were wearing black socks through the races. We went out barefoot to illustrate poverty. We tried to illustrate the way I was dressed. I wasn't dressed in protocol because I had my jacket open so forth. And I was representing my mom and dad and all the blue collar workers that I've met throughout my life in New York City that do the work to make this nation strong, but at least people just recognize for the work they do. So I wanted to recognize them because I remember my mom and dad. They were blue collar workers and they worked to the bone to make this country as great as it could be. So that was the essence to set a precedent and say, you know, we would no longer accept the things that's being put upon us. And we wanted to do it in a very stern way, but yet in still a very nonviolent way. Because when I was a kid, about seven, eight years old, the creator of this universe gave me a vision. Why did he come to me? Give me the vision? I'll never know until I meet him or her. But the bottom line is he gave me this vision and showed myself at a field, a grass field. I can hear people out there, Yippee-ki-yay in with excitement. I couldn't see them in the vision, but I could hear them. I was standing on this box by myself in this grass field. It took a second or two before it dawned on me that I must have did something to make these people happy. And you know, as a little kid, when you think you did something to make some adults happy or proud of you, boy, you got so much excitement. You wanted to get up on your toes to wave to the people that, yes, it's me. And just as I went and raised my hand when you see it in the portrait today, it froze in time. You know, many people asked me, well, why didn't it freeze in time? I said, because it's like somebody hit a light switch. All the happiness and joy and Yippee-ki-yay and vanished. And in turns came in hate and anger. They were spitting. They would call me names. They were throwing things. Let me tell me where to go. And it scared me to death to be honest with you at that age. And it affected me all day long until we went to dinner that night. And I remember my dad saying, he said, Johnny, what's the matter? I said, daddy, I was in a movie. He said, he was in a movie. I said, yeah, daddy. He said, what happened? You see, I was destroyed. I said, everybody was happy about something I did. And then they got mad at me. They started throwing things at me and calling me names and spitting at me. And I remember my father brought me into his rib cage. And he said, son, no one's going to bother you. My job is to love you, protect you, house you, feed you and see that you get a good education. No one's going to bother you. And I remember he reached over my head, leaned over my head and he said to my mother, he said, bye. It looks like God has something special for this kid. We have to wait and see what it is. Now, I don't know whether it was to that day in Mexico City. But I'll tell you, if you look at me on the victory stand in that picture, you're Mr. Smith, you look a little rigid. You don't see no stress on me whatsoever. And if you look into my eyes, you can see that I'm seriously thinking about something that was that vision before anything else. Because I said to myself, oh, shit, this is what that movie is about. Because everything that happened in that childhood vision happened on that victory stand. Well, I think the greatest thing that any young individual can do is take education very, very, very, and I can't express it enough. So I'll repeat very, very, very seriously about getting an education. Because I try and make youngsters understand that, you know, if I had been going by a water fountain, and every day I wouldn't get a glass of water, I wouldn't fill up my canister of water. And then one day the water fountain is broke, and that's 100 degrees, and I'm out there, and I don't have no water. Everybody else has got water in their little canteen with me, because I chose not to get in. And I had the same opportunity to get in as everyone else, but I chose to keep walking by. And that's the way education is. If you have the knowledge, if you suck up that knowledge in your brain, which is the sponge, you can go anywhere on planet Earth and be successful. But you have no knowledge, and someone rides by a splash water on you because you stand on the curb. Don't be mad at them because they got this. And you mad because you stand on the curb, you could have got yours too. So my preference to youngsters is to tell them that education is the food for life. I tell them I say, if you stop eating beans and rice or steak, if you stop eating, period, you die. I tell them if you don't eat the education of food or knowledge, they say, what happened, Mr. Carlson? I say, you wish you were dead. Why do you wish you were dead because you had such a pitiful life? Through knowledge, then you have a chance to evaluate what you are surrounded by. Whether it's a good feel or bad feel, you can express yourself if you correct yourself. And the way you correct yourself is to make sure that you cover all bases. And when you're with your friends, make sure they understand each one, teach one. If I learn something, man, let me teach you what I learned so we can move together to build something bigger and higher. I'm working on this right now to have people to evaluate the word love and to be able to feel good about expressing their love and to bestow their love upon as many people as possible. Those that might be griping, those that might tell you, I don't want your love. I don't need your love. Or you tell them, say, well, I didn't give you the love and you can't give it back to me. What you do is digest it all over your body and then see if you can find someone else that you can share it with. I say, but that's what we need in this world right now is love and direction. Well, you know, the task is to us to get serious and roll up our sleeves. You know, you know, any situation we have is an equation just like mathematical astrology is all in the map. If we have this equation before us, how do we stretch out and do a job, a better job with our kids educationally? How do we do a better job in the streets of New York? We have to sit down collectively, put everybody at the table and let's solve the equation. Let's put egos on the side. Let's put economics on the side. And let's just focus on fixing the problem that we have at hand. It's very easy to fix if we would just take the time to do it. Be committed.