And then you ask me whether I approve of violence. I mean that just doesn’t make any sense at all to whether I approve of guns. I grew up in Birmingham, Alabama, some very, very good friends of mine were killed by bombs, bombs that were planted by racists. I remember from the time I was very small, I remember the sound of bombs exploding across the street, our house shaking. I remember my father having to have guns at his disposal at all times because of the fact that at any moment someone we might expect to be attacked. The man who was at the time in complete control of the city government, his name was Bull Conner, would often get on the radio and make statements like “n**gas have moved into white neighborhoods, we better expect some bloodshed tonight.” and sure enough there would be bloodshed. After the four young girls who lived next door to me, I was very good friends with the sister of another but my sister was very good friends with all three of them. My mother taught one in her class, my mother in fact when the bombing occurred one of the mothers of one of the young girls called my mother and said “Can you take me down to the church to pick up Carol? You know we heard about the bombing and I don’t have my car.” and they went down and what they find is limbs and heads strewn all over the place and then after that all of the men in my neighborhood organized themselves into an armed patrol. They had to take their guns and patrol our community every night because they did not want that to happen again. I mean that’s why when someone asks me about violence, I just find it incredible because what it means is this person asking the question has absolutely no idea what black people have gone through, what black people have experienced in this country since the time of the first (volume cuts out)
