 Welcome again to New America. I'm Ted Johnson, Director of the USET 250 Initiative here. And this is an initiative that's thinking about the semi-quincentennial, the moment when the country turns 250 years old, just a few years from now in July of 2026. And we are thinking about the semi-quincentennial in the terms of pride, reckoning, and aspiration. And we bring these three words together on purpose. A lot of the inspiration for this framework comes from what we're celebrating today, the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington. They also, the folks there at the march, the folks in the movement believed in pride, reckoning, and aspiration, and asking the country to be a better version of itself. And so for us, pride means pride in the nation's progress. It means reckoning with the nation's shortfalls. And it means aspiring to a new America together. And if you go back to the speeches here in the nation's capital 60 years ago, you'll see that those same themes ring true through all of them. We also know that when we have these kinds of conversations, that there are other people that are going to take the history, that are going to take the spirit of our words and these movements and speeches, and use them for their purposes. There are folks that look at Dr. King's speech and see it as a call to no longer think about race or ethnicity, as a call to a colorblind America where race no longer matters. And that's not what King was asking for. King was essentially saying, it shouldn't matter what the color of my skin is, I should be treated equally. And it shouldn't require me to suddenly have an experience, a race and ethnicity that no longer matters. King wanted to be black and American, not just American. He didn't want to have a colorblind America. He wanted an America that saw everyone for who they were, for who their histories are, for who their people are. And America loved them anyway, for equality to be extended to them anyway, for them to have a real sense of justice anyway. So these hijack purposes are why it is so important that folks gathered here in the room that are in the work to make a stronger America speak up and loudly, to show that you don't have to choose between the divided arguments, that there is a way to do both things and stay true to the nation's principles. Looking at the, I have a dream speech, because it's the 60th, of course, I had to reread it. And it always strikes me how much of it was a policy speech. And that part of the speech is paid less attention to, the beautiful ending, the flourishes there. But King was very much making a policy argument to the country. And he did so by beginning with pride in the nation. He is saying, we are only here because we believe the same things that you say, you believe it, we believe in equality, we believe in liberty, we believe in the promise of America that we are all created equal, that we have these unalienable rights among these are like liberty and the pursuit of happiness that government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed. We believe this too. So in that statement is a strong pride in the United States. And then he follows that up. He says, the founders, great ideas. Next sentence he says, the founders, they wrote a promissory note in those beautiful things that founded the country. And we are here to cash that promissory note. We are here to now experience the thing that we have bled, died and sweat for, to be fully American. Just as everyone else is. And that is the reckoning. King is therefore a reckoning, that March on Washington wasn't just March on Washington, for you know, this was about God, this was about secure housing. So this reckoning was necessary because you can only reckon with something that you want to see better, that you want to have a little pride and believe it can change. If we didn't believe the nation can change, then it's hard to demand of it to be better. We know that these beautiful ideals encompass all of us. We know that if we reckon with our shortfalls, that the nation can be a better, stronger place. And at that moment, or as we build to this moment, we can aspire to a shared vision for the country. Again, sometimes people read King's speech and think that he's arguing for a world where a sort of complete meritocracy, where race doesn't matter. King aspired to a world where race very much mattered. And not just the question of race, but economics, housing, foreign policy, national security. He aspired to a particular vision of a new America. The conversation about who we should be next is why we do the work we do. We have a very particular vision and we want to deliberate on that vision so that we aspire to a shared one just as the folks who gathered here 60 years ago today did. So thank you again so much for joining us. Now I'd like to introduce one of our us at 250 Fellows in the Sonago Year of the Fellowship, Jaha Cummings, who is the founder of the Blanchard House Institute. Ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests and future leaders for tomorrow. Today we gather to reflect upon the boundless hope and unwavering resilience, the time in which communities took as beacons of excellence, fostering their spirit of unity and shared purpose. As a witness to these very last days of this golden age, as a member of Generation X, I'm honored to stand before you to introduce Mr. Nelson Mulden, close colleague and trusted barber to the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Mr. Mulden is a man representing the echoes of that era and the values that defined it. I'm also honored to introduce Mr. Stan Pierre-Louise. President and Chief Executive Officer of the Entertainment Software Association, the voice and advocate for the $56.6 billion US video game industry. Video games are the storytelling language of the current generation, and Mr. Pierre-Louise provides invaluable insight to how these values of excellence, resilience, and hope can be successfully passed on to younger generations. In the years before urban renewal, we saved our landscapes, communities from more than just physical spaces. They were crucibles of character. Where excellence was not just a lofty aspiration, but expectation. Young people were nurtured with the belief that their dreams were within reach, that the sky was the limit. Optimism for the future was not just a mere sentiment, it was driving force that propelled us towards progress. The ethos of those times taught us that resilience was not a choice, it was a way of life. We weathered the challenges and still united in the face of adversity, drawing strength from one another and the bonds we shared. We understood that each other's success was not isolated, but interwoven with the success of the entire community. I look out into this room, I see the torchbearers of a new era, the torchbearers of hope and determination. It is our collective responsibility to ensure that the values of excellence, resiliency, and hope, which once formed the bedrock of our communities are not lost to the pages of history. We must pass these values on to the younger generation as they were passed on to us. Excellence, my dear friends, is not a solitary pursuit. It's a tapestry woven with the threats of diligence, dedication, and community support. Our purpose then and now is to provide the scaffolding for each other's aspirations, to offer the helping hand that allows dreams to take flight. In the spirit of those who came before us, let us persist with unwavering hope and with an insistence on personal and community excellence. Let us cultivate the mindset that propels us to reach higher and strive for greatness and to leave an indelible mark on the world. As we gather here today, let us remember the resounding echoes of the bygone era, echoes that remind us of boundless potential within each of us and the transformative power of a united community. May we be inspired by the past to shape a future that honors the values of excellence, resiliency, and hope for generations to come. I introduce you, Mr. Nelson Mulden and Mr. Stan Pierre-Louise. Thank you. And to be having a conversation with Nelson Mulden, such a legend. I was listening to a little bit of Jaha's comment and he talked about the importance of resiliency and hope and excellence. And it's important that those values get passed on and that's what makes this conversation especially humbling and pertinent today, someone who's lived a life of excellence, of resiliency, and of hope in all that he's done. So Mr. Mulden, thank you for being here and maybe for the benefit of those who haven't had a chance to hear some of your past. You might share with us a little bit about where you grew up, when you moved to Montgomery, Alabama and your profession. I was born in Monroeville, Alabama in 1933. I'm the youngest of six brothers. My father was a barber and he was stationed in Germany for two years. I guess how he learned to cut hair, especially white people there was by being stationed there at that time. He moved to Pensacola to further improve in his business and he's in 1934 and he opened up a barber shop there. And when I finished high school in 1952, I was going to go to Alabama State College and I had a brother. He was in 10 Alabama State in 1946 and the other brothers finished high school in 1948 and then the barber shop. My first brother did his hair cut and my brother told him, he said, if you want to go to school, I got a, where I get my hair cut, they're looking for new bobbers. And so that's when he took a job. So when I finished high school in 1952, my brother was drafted into the army and he told me if I wanted to go to school there, I could get a job in the barber shop. And so that was the barber shop. I cut Rubber King hair for the first time. So that was my name kind of popping by cutting the hair for the first time. Wow, so did you choose to become a barber or did barbering choose you? I was raised in the barber shop. I was raised in the barber shop. My dad and dad would tell me how to hold a clip or anything. I just, every day I was in the barber shop, when I'm not in school. So I learned all of my practice through observation and I didn't even teach them after at all. And he said something interesting there. You said that your father, when he was in Germany, was cutting the hair of white people. Was that experience the same in the US when you got back here, when he got back here? Well, my father, my father built his own barber shop. And he has a German farm that was stationed by, lived about 40 miles from Pensacola. And they had a vegetable farm. And so by my father had some communication with the German people. He would let them sell their vegetables in front of his barbershop, barber millers and counters and stuff. So that's how the line of communication was because my father previous stationed in Germany. So he was able to communicate with some of the German people that was gonna hit the farm in the police car for the Alabama. So it's really interesting. At a time of segregation, where establishments were frequented by different races in different places, you had the experience young of being able to cross those lines and new familiarity of the human behind the person, as opposed to all the things that were going around through the legal barriers. It's very interesting. When you moved to Alabama, you said you were a student and you were able to both cut hair and go to school. How did you start that business? Because there were economic barriers to entry at the time where you were coming up, but you were still able to own a business. How were you able to make that happen? My first opportunity was to wake them another barbershop, which was a block from Alabama State College campus. I did not own a barbershop. So in 1958, my other two brothers, which were barbers, we decided we'd go and build the five ourselves. So we moved, I would build it in 1958 to the Bedman Hotel. The Bedman Hotel was on the black, large facilities for black people, and we had quite a bit of volume of business and results of people living in the hotel. That's how basically we built our business. But basically, we started in another barbershop called the Collegeier Barbershop, which was one block from Alabama State on Jackson Street. And so we moved our business with two other brothers to the same street. And that was where Reverend Cain was a half a block from where I have a new barbershop located. Reverend Cain lived on Jackson Street. I have a barbershop on Jackson Street. In the first shop we worked in was on Jackson Street. That's so interesting. I talked about the resiliency of starting that business up by birth working it and then owning it. And then we're gonna get into a little bit of Dr. King coming into the shop. Before we do that, the barbershop, it'd be really important for our audience to understand the importance, the political, the cultural, and the social certificates of the barbershop in the black community, particularly during civil rights. What was it about the barbershop? What was it like? And what did it mean to the community? The barbershop, when that time was on the facility that black men could discuss anything they wanted to discuss, you know, religion, finance, you know. You know, some of them discussed sex, but that was the only place that we call it the really, the black man country club with the black barbershop. So we had no other facility that we could discuss. I was building and I was feeling about segregation and other issues within the black barbershop. Basically, you know, like the country club, you know, for white men, the black barbershop or black men, that was it. And you guys could talk about anything. Could it be community related, could it be political? Could it just be jokes? It could just be, what's the best restaurant? Right, that's right. That's interesting. Now you mentioned that Dr. King lived not far from your barbershop. Tell us a little bit about your early encounters with him, why he was in Alabama. Well, Rubin King came to Montgomery in 1954 to take over the palaces next to Avenue Blaster Church. And really, he took it on a part-time job because when he came to Montgomery, he was in school at Boston Theological Seminary working on his PhD. And so the church was in such a dire need for a preacher at that time, so they took him on a kind of a rare basis and he only charged us $5,000 a year. When he got there, when he finished his dissertation at Boston Theological Seminary, then they put him on a full-time salary. So the first time I could his half when he came to the barbershop that morning, I had a 10 o'clock class. And I never liked to cut another head after 20 minutes of the Holocaust. I was a student there to walk to the class. So when I got ready to go back and get my books, and I saw this blue pony egg pulled up and this young man got out. And I looked at his head and I said, oh, hey, I can knock him out in 15 minutes. He came in the barbershop, asked what was his name, he told him his name and he asked where he was from, he said from Atlanta, so I said, good to meet you. So I thought he was cutting himself. For the first time I gave him, since he was a new customer, I gave him in the mirror to say, like the back was haircut. So he told me, pretty good. Then I said, pretty good? He said, yeah, pretty good. I said, dog, who is this cat here talking to? I thought I was the hottest bob in my room. He telling me, pretty good. So he came home back two weeks later. I was busy and the other bob was breaking. So I remember that psychiatrist's statement. I said, that must have been a pretty good haircut. He said, you all right? I said, dog, go on. All right. And so we had a pretty rough start to the relationship. So after I cut himself seven, eight times, I know that he was lying on the tip. So I decided I used a little psychology on him. I said, rare, when you finish preaching, I said, when you go to the restaurant, have a nice meal and wait to give you a good service and you give her a tip. I said, don't you think they make up for your good? He said, yes. So when he got out of the chair, he didn't say anything else, didn't say anything else. So he grabbed my hand, he shook my hand. He said, do you put timbers in your innocent church? I said, rare, I'm a student at Alabama State College. I cannot afford to put timbers in my innocent church. He said, I'm the pastor next to every Baptist church and I can't afford to tip you either. Now, were you able to attend the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church as well when he was preaching? Yes, I started, I started going to the church under Vernon John, but the pastor before Reverend came. Vernon John left in 1952 and came in 1954. So I was also, I joined the church based on the Reverend came. I'd been going to the church called the shop. I worked there and the man, he was a member of the church. So I would go to church with him and his wife on a Sunday. And so Reverend came and came in 1954. I joined the church on him, based in 1955. How was his preaching? Well, he was an excellent preacher. You know, he had some dynamic son. One of his most favorite Simonian priests was if you cooperate with injustice, it will incorporate you. That's the Simon I remember the most about. If you cooperate with injustice, it would incorporate you. He said, if you have an establishment in your community as a black people, try to patronize them. And if you can, he said that's some case that you cannot patronize them because of other service. And so anyway, that's one of the things he preached about. Then he said that if you cooperate with people that say again against you, then you making them stronger and you making your race weaker. So try to do those things if you can. And so one Saturday night, my boss man said, that's Nelson. So let's go to him and say, you can get some of that fried chicken. That was a white place, you know. And then on the black side, go to the side, though. You go to the side, though, you knock on the door. The waitress is coming to take your order. And you pay for it. You get 30 pieces of chicken, any piece of chicken, potato salad, a roll and tea for five dollars and 25 cents. And so I looked up the street where Reverend came and preached that sermon, caught red with injustice. When I saw that blue point he had coming, I said, the whole gun, I said, that's him, Reverend King. I told him, I told my boss man, I said, I said, one, come on, let's jump in the car. So I went and jumped in the car. And by that time, my boss man got ready to come and get in the car to go up and they said, your chicken is ready. So he had to make up his mind in the spirit of whether you're gonna be embarrassed or whether you're gonna get the chicken. So he went back and got the chicken. And by that time, Reverend King is right in front of the stop sign right on the corner. And then Reverend King, he said, embarrassed my boss man, all of who was a member of the church, he bowed to my boss man. My boss man bowed to him. And the next day of the night, I said to myself, I sure hope you don't come back in the barbershop and say the thing before the customs, what do you saw us do? And the next day of the night, we had 10 customs on the bench, there's three in the chair. And I saw that blue point he had pulled up, I said, dog, go in, I said, there, he come. He came in the shop, I kind of looked me in that and we walked through the door. If you ever got in the chair, when I put him in the chair, he turned his head and I put him the cloth around him like that. He whispered to me, he said, how was the chicken? I said, how do you know that was chicken? I said, how do you know that was chicken? He said, some of my members gave me some one time and they showed what's good. I said, you better stop eating the white full food or it'll make you sick. He said, I said, you pretty healthy. You know what I love about that is it humanizes him but also the relationship and the dozens, right? Of just cutting on each other and just being able to connect. And you know, it's funny, we, when we look backwards, the rest of us who were born after the Corps of the Civil Rights Movement, we look at it as these events and you're really giving us the real back and forth of what everyday life was like. But you were also there for the events. Well before the March on Washington was the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which happened soon after you moved to Montgomery, Alabama. I wondered if you might share a little bit about the beginnings of it and your experience in it and what it was like. Just your experience in Montgomery at the time between 55 and 56. Well the boycott basically was an accident when it happened. The bus company had an audience, the city had an audience in Montgomery. If a black person asked to give a black seat to a white person, there must be an available seat back for black. Now for a white person, ask to give up that seat to a black person, there must be an available seat front for white. You had 10 black seats and 15 white seats. You do not have white seats and black seats, but you have a black section and white section. So if you had nine black people on the bus and 16 white people, the bus driver had the authority from the city audience to ask that black person to move further back as he can and get that white person to seat. And vice versa, if you had 14 white people on the bus and 11 black people, the bus driver had the authority to move that white person closer to the black line as far as to the front as he can. So the day Mrs. Parks was arrested, she was seated in the proper racial seat. The bus driver and the bus went one block and picked up a white man and was asking Mrs. Parks to get up. There was no available seat. And so then the bus pulled off a half a block in the middle of Montgomery Street. And if you ever go to Montgomery, where the historical mark is for Mrs. Parks, that's where the bus stopped to have her arrested. And Mrs. Parks was charged with this all in the condo. But what happened, she was fined $10 and she paid the fine. That would mess the case up for Mrs. Parks. So Mrs. Parks was not a plaintiff in the case that went to the United States Supreme Court. The attorneys could not use it because her case was pending. So they were rushing to get another case. So the attorney went and got five black women who had been arrested for refusing to get with the seat to a white man who had bought in the 14th Amendment. And so the case went to the United States Supreme Court with Browdy and Mrs. Browdy was one of the plaintiffs. And Mrs. Parks was unable to admit to any suit. That's a fascinating history around it. And tell us about the experience during that year. How did people get around? How did the community rally around one another? Well, we had tax grabbers lowered the prices. And if you see a black person standing on the corner, we knew the boycott to actually stay out of the bus. And every person, every black person that ever been on the bus, they had always been humiliated and embarrassed. And so it was the spirit and the people that made it so successful because every person that ever had a bag, my first relationship that gave me the spirit was one day I was on the bus, a black lady got on with a bag of gross in one hand and a baby in the other hand. And before she could get to the seat in the black section, the bus driver pulled off and she almost fell. And that really hurt me because she could have fallen with her baby. And so that energized me. And one of the ladies who started the boycott was Mrs. Joanne Robinson. She was very fast-skinned, the lady. And she was teaching, she had just started working at Alabama State. And she was not familiar with the bus scene in the rain. So she said pretty close to the front. And the bus driver said, get out of that seat, girl, you ain't no white woman. And the worst thing you could say to a fast-skinned person to get in the pressure that you kind of passed with white. And she said that when she jumped off that bus, the first thing that popped in her mind was boycott, boycott, boycott. Wow, wow. And you made it through the year and then what happens after the boycott ends? Well, the boycott ended, you know, the day at the end that we was wondering whether the boycott went away. And across the street from the barbershop, this man had been catching the bus every morning. He went to the hotel and every morning he would catch the bus. He had a little seat out there in front of his restaurant where he was. And so that morning, one of the customers ran to the one and said, heck on the bus, heck on the bus, we're gonna see what's going away. And when the bus stopped to pick up the man, when the bus pulled along, the man was still in that seat. And we hollered, oh boy, it worked, it worked, it worked cause he did not get on that bus. Every morning he'd been getting on that bus. And we thought Joe Lewis had not done maximum, we hollered so loud in the barbershop. That's such a deep impact. So it was a very exciting day for that day for that happened. And when we see the boycott working, every day the boycott really got more and more affected. So the bus driver did more to bring about the integration of the bus. Then Rosa Parsons came and put it together. Cause if he had not violated the city ordinance, the city ordinance said that must be an available seat. But he violated the city ordinance, had arrested, then the prosecutor, charged Mrs. Parsons with this all in conduct. Her mistake was she paid the $10 fine. She did not pay the fine. And she gave the indication that she was guilty. She did not pay the fine. Then they had been a better case for her, but then the attorneys couldn't use the case because it felt judge was very, he went stricken by the constitution for the Franklin Johnson. And then he went to court. He was coming up with a case, talking about this all in conduct when the other ladies refused to give her the seat to a white man, which had something to do with the constitution. It was a constitution, of course. Wow. I'm going to fast forward a little bit because we are here on the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington for jobs and freedom. And I wonder if you might share some of your memories from what that was like within the community and for you personally seeing the March and experiencing what it was like to be in a community when this was happening all over the world. Well, the March on Washington was certain for justice and jobs. And so it was very, every person had experienced that. So Rubin Cain was invited to be the speaker. And really, he didn't even have time to write his speech. He had somebody to help him, a man named Sullivan. And so, but when he gave that speech, somebody said, hey, Jackson hollered at him while he was farming with that speech. And she knew he had worked with Rubin Cain before and different other speaking occasion. And so they said, you know, she hollered at him, Ma, and put the green in there. That's when he said, you know, one day, little black children, white children, old hand in hand. And the other day, when that boy shot those three white people, when I said his dream, but it come true because he said, one day, little black children, white children, old hand in hand. And when I saw her coming up here all the day when that boy shot. So anyway, that's another story. But the boycott was successful because of the humiliation and it caused them that, it was one bus line and one bus drive that caused the problem. That was because it was a mixed race to ride that bus, South Jackson, Cleveland Avenue, other bus line that was basically no problem. Called that car with the young black girl, she was riding the Capitol Heights bus, which is another section of town. But when she was arrested, her better case cause she fought the policeman and she was filled to give up a seat to a white woman. But then when she was charged, they charged her with something else because the court, the turn did not want to go to court with a 15 year old black girl and she was pregnant. So they would kind of pick a plaintiff that's gonna make a case effective at that time. So that's when they picked the other five black ladies in special name in case they brought a big deal. Wow, you've experienced so much in seeing the boycott up front, the freedom rides, March on Washington, obviously the March from Summit of Montgomery. Is there a particular moment that gave you hope through all of this that you remembered in the moment? Like is there a time where you said, this is gonna lead to something successful? This is gonna lead to a change? Well, in Selma, Alabama, you had thousands of people from all over the world, from March where Reverend King in that day to Montgomery. And the March was put on a court order not to March that day. And so in Selma, you had very few accommodations to accommodate that many people, thousands and thousands of people. But they put in that, so where Reverend King did not violate that court order, he marched him up to one point and he was wondering why we were put under the court order. But someone had said that they had to get the military more organized just in case there'd be a type coming through that lounge, how we ate air. And sure enough, they had the 101 Albon in Maxwell Field, they had 5,000 soldiers, folk banding there didn't criminalize the National Guard, but he did not violate that order, audience. And so when they got to Montgomery, the last campsite was St. Jude. And when Tony Bennett came out on that stage that night, I was late, I was standing by, she weighed about 300 pounds, she was holding my hand. And when Tony Bennett came out and said, I love my heart in San Francisco, they laid a holler back at him, you don't sound your soul in Alabama. That's a great line. And she liked to broke my hand when you came up there. So we had a lot of fun that night, the same Tony Bennett, John Baez, Sammy Davis, Harold Bella Fonnie, we thought, then plus we marched from my house to the first black United States congressman from Ohio, and the old shepherd gave his name, Congressman Kellogg. And boy, we thought we was in hot stuff and had a march into the campsite with the first black congressman. I thought that, and we were drinking that Valkyrie Cranberry juice too. Moving right along. But we had a lot of fun that night. I bought me a new pair of shoes for that kid, and I had a special over. You know, so many people had a light rain before the cage didn't start. And one of my shoes is still over there, and that got stuck up there. The loaves I had on, they had no shoe strainers, and they got stuck, so I went over one shoe. It was fun, it was just unbelievable fun, but everybody think that all was sad and all, it was not sad, you know, it was just a lot of fun. We were born in a segregated society, and we know the rules, and so we made adjustments, you know, too. It was wrong, but it was unadjustable, you know. I just want to ask you one more question. So as we're thinking about where we are today in society, where we're thinking about March on Washington six years ago, and in a few years to 250th anniversary of this nation, what gives you hope and what message would you have in terms of hope for the youth moving forward? I believe we can survive. We had some hard time, slavery, all kinds of problems, you know, women right to vote, you know, all that goes into the state. But like my little analysis that one man on a human being was sitting on the riverbank of a river, and he saw a log float down the river, and next time he was sitting on the riverbank, he saw a monkey on top of the log right down the river. Then later on, he got on the log and rode down the river, and later on he took the log and cut it up in the woods and made him a boat where his family could ride down the river. In another thousand years, he built him a school of navigation and science, and he conquered the world. And now, a thousand years from now, we're going to the moon. So time is the most important factor in the human brain because you cannot stop the brain from activating, and you're gonna keep improving yourself. That's the natural law, that's not anything to do with it. So it's natural for people to look at any incident and how it improved through that brain. If you could start the brain from activating, then you could have another situation, but the brain makes you, you don't make the brain. That's the kind of philosophy of Reverend King, he said, I didn't have enough sense to be a philosopher. So that's where it worked, you know. Well, it has been wonderful speaking to you and hearing some of your recollections, but also your hope for the future and humanizing so much around civil rights, the people and events and giving us a human dimension around it. I think that your example is one of resiliency of excellence, of hope, and I think what you provide us with is not just a window to the past, but a window to what the future might look like of how we might get along better and take away the labels and just focus on that human experience about who we are as humans, which seems like it's important to you. Well, I think the program now in the new world and the organization that's sponsoring this program, I see great hope because they're putting money back into it to make a better society than we was accustomed to. So with the Blank House, they have Blanchard House and what new world. That's right, they're putting money back into it so we'll have a better society because if we could do that, people are really suffering, poor people just catching the hard way to go, uneducated people in the time frame that we live without having a pretty rough way to go. And if we could give some relief to those people and what we experienced today when I was governor, what we've gone through recently has been a very dangerous for democracy and we hope that we could, and I got a little hope for the last few days that democracy might continue to work, but if not, I believe that we could pull, I believe we could pull up through this turmoil we're going through right now with a very more time on the side. I had some questions about it a few or three or four months ago. I got a lot of faith in when, you know, the Johnson point in the third of March is when that Supreme Court was in another camp with another man on Supreme Court. And I said, oh, Lord, back to where we started. So we'll live, we'll just, you know, just hope for tomorrow as long as your keep brain, keep activating, you're going to improve, you know. 225, 250 years ago, the Declaration of Independence. And then, you know, it was built as one of the most powerful nations in the world. A lot of people suffered, you know, black people's slavery was real. And I looked at it and nobody believed, poor white people are suffering now too, baby. I mean, it's a serious problem for those people and they're following the wrong person, the philosophy, you know, and when in March, that January of the sixth, they came here that was in the system itself. So that's going to be severe punishment. But I believe the person who inspired them to do what they did in January of the sixth, I believe that once that, once this power stopped, then I think that we could make it to another. But seems like even through all this, your sense of hope is upward and onward, moving forward, just powerful. I don't know if Jaha's coming back in or... Thank you, Jaha. You have blessed words. Just want to thank the two of you for coming. This has been a wonderful conversation. It's been valuable and I'm sure it's enriched to everyone in the audience and who's watching out there as well. Thank you both for coming. Thank you. And thank you, Mr. Maldon. We could listen to you forever. You have the best stories. I'm jealous of your family, some of whom are out here and it's been a blessing to be just in your spirit and in your line of sight and sharing all the great advice you have for us moving forward. So thank you and keep telling those stories. And I'd like to leave you with one word. Rubby King said, Bobby Shotten Anderson will get you in the cemetery and Bobby Shotten Long will get you in prison. With that, thank you so much.