An interview with the Queen of Creole Cuisine | Leah Chase and Pat Mitchell

47,344 views ・ 2017-12-14

TED


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00:12
Leah Chase: Oh, this is beautiful.
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Oh, gosh, I never saw such a room
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and beauty and strength like I'm looking at.
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That's gorgeous. It is.
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It is a beautiful room.
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Pat Mitchell: I almost said your age, because you gave me permission,
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but I realized that I was about to make you a year older.
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You're only 94.
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(Laughter)
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(Applause)
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LC: Yeah, I'm only 94.
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(Applause)
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I mean, you get this old and parts start wearing out.
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Your legs start wearing out.
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The one thing that my children always say:
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"But nothing happened to your mouth."
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(Laughter)
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So you've got to have something going, so I've got my mouth going.
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(Laughter)
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PM: So Mrs. Chase, the first time we were there,
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I brought a group of young women, who work with us at TED,
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into the kitchen,
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and we were all standing around and you had already cooked lunch
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for hundreds of people, as you do every day,
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and you looked up at them.
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You have to share with this audience what you said to those young women.
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LC: Well, you know, I talk to young women all the time,
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and it's beginning to bother me,
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because look how far I came.
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I'd come with women that had to really hustle and work hard,
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and they knew how to be women.
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They didn't play that man down.
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And, well, we didn't have the education you have today,
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and God, I'm so proud
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when I see those women with all that education under their belt.
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That's why I worked hard,
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tried to get everybody to use those resources.
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So they just don't know their power,
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and I always tell them, just look at my mother,
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had 12 girls before she had a boy.
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(Laughter)
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So you know how I came out.
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(Laughter)
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Now, she had 14 children.
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She raised 11 of us out of that 14,
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and up until last year, we were all still living,
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a bunch of old biddies, but we're still here.
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(Laughter)
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And sometimes we can be just cantankerous and blah blah blah blah blah,
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but we still go.
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And I love to see women.
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You don't know what it does for me
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to see women in the position that you're in today.
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I never thought I'd see that.
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I never thought I'd see women
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be able to take places and positions that we have today.
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It is just a powerful thing.
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I had a young woman come to me.
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She was an African-American woman.
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And I said, "Well, what do you do, honey?"
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She said, "I am a retired Navy pilot."
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Oh God, that just melted me,
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because I knew how hard it was to integrate that Navy.
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You know, the Navy was the last thing to really be integrated,
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and that was done by Franklin Roosevelt
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as a favor to an African-American man,
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Lester Granger, that I knew very well.
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He was the head of the National Urban League back there,
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and when Roosevelt asked him,
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he wanted to appoint Lester as maybe one of his cabinet members.
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Lester said, "No, I don't want that.
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All I want you to do is integrate that Navy."
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And that was what Franklin did.
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Well, Franklin didn't live to do it,
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but Truman did it.
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But when this woman told me,
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"I have flown everything there is to fly,"
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bombers, just all kinds of planes,
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it just melted me, you know,
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just to see how far women have come.
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And I told her, I said,
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"Well, you could get into the space program."
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She said, "But Ms. Chase, I'm too old."
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She was already 60-some years old,
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and, you know, you're over the hill then.
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(Laughter)
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They don't want you flying up in the sky at 60-something years old.
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Stay on the ground.
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When I meet women,
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and today everybody comes to my kitchen,
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and you know that,
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and it upsets Stella, my daughter.
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She doesn't like people coming in the kitchen.
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But that's where I am,
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and that's where you're going to see me, in the kitchen.
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So when they come there, I meet all kinds of people.
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And that is the thing that really uplifts me,
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is when I meet women on the move.
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When I meet women on the move, it is good for me.
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Now, I'm not one of these flag-waving women.
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You're not going to see me out there waving.
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No, I don't do that.
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(Laughter)
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No, I don't do that, and I don't want any of you to do that.
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Just be good women.
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And you know, my mother taught us ...
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she was tough on us,
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and she said, "You know, Leah,"
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she gave us all this plaque,
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"to be a good woman, you have to first look like a girl."
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Well, I thought I looked like a girl.
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"Act like a lady."
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That, I never learned to do.
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(Laughter)
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"Think like a man."
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Now don't act like that man; think like a man.
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And "work like a dog."
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(Laughter)
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So we learned that the hard way.
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And they taught you that.
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They taught you what women had to do.
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We were taught that women controlled the behavior of men.
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How you act, they will act.
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So you've got to do that, and I tell you all the time.
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You know, don't play this man down.
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It upsets me when you may have a husband
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that maybe he doesn't have as much education under his belt as you have,
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but still you can't play him down.
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You've got to keep lifting him up,
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because you don't want to live with a mouse.
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So you want that man to be a man, and do what he has to do.
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And anyway, always remember,
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he runs on cheap gas.
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(Laughter)
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So fill him up with cheap gas --
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(Laughter)
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and then, you got him.
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It's just so --
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(Laughter)
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It's just --
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PM: You have to give us a minute to take that in.
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(Laughter)
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LC: When I heard this young lady speak before I came out --
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she was so beautiful,
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and I wished I could be like that,
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and my husband, poor darling --
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I lost him after we were married 70 years --
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didn't agree on one thing,
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never did, nothing,
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but we got along together
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because he learned to understand me,
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and that was just hard,
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because he was so different.
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And that lady reminded me.
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I said, "If I would have just been like her,
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Dooky would have really loved it."
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(Laughter)
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But I wasn't.
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I was always pushy, always moving,
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always doing this,
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and he used to come to me all the time, and he said,
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"Honey, God's going to punish you."
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(Laughter)
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"You -- you're just not grateful."
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But it isn't that I'm not grateful,
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but I think, as long as you're living, you've got to keep moving,
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you've got to keep trying to get up
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and do what you've got to do.
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(Applause)
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You cannot sit down.
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You have to keep going,
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keep trying to do a little bit every day.
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Every day, you do a little bit,
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try to make it better.
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And that's been my whole life.
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Well, I came up in the country, small town,
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had to do everything, had to haul the water,
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had to wash the clothes, do this, do that,
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pick the dumb strawberries, all that kind of stuff.
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(Laughter)
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But still, my daddy insisted that we act nice,
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we be kind.
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And that's all.
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When I heard this young woman --
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oh, she sounds so beautiful --
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I said, "I wish I could be like that."
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PM: Mrs. Chase, we don't want you to be any different than you are.
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There is no question about that.
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Let me ask you.
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This is why it's so wonderful to have a conversation
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with someone who has such a long view --
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LC: A long time.
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PM: to remembering Roosevelt
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and the person he did that favor for.
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What is in your head and your mind
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and what you have seen and witnessed ...
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One of the things that it's good to remember, always,
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is that when you opened that restaurant,
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whites and blacks could not eat together in this city.
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It was against the law.
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And yet they did, at Dooky Chase. Tell me about that.
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LC: They did, there.
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Well, my mother-in-law first started this,
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and the reason she started is,
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because her husband was sickly, and he would go out --
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and people from Chicago and all the places,
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you would call his job a numbers runner.
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But in New Orleans, we are very sophisticated --
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(Laughter)
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so it wasn't a numbers runner,
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it was a lottery vendor.
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(Laughter)
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So you see, we put class to that.
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But that's how he did it.
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And he couldn't go from house to house to get his clients and all that,
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because he was sick,
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so she opened up this little sandwich shop,
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so she was going to take down the numbers,
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because he was sick a lot.
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He had ulcers. He was really bad for a long a time.
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So she did that --
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and not knowing anything,
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but she knew she could make a sandwich.
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She knew she could cook,
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and she borrowed 600 dollars from a brewery.
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Can you imagine starting a business today with 600 dollars
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and no knowledge of what you're doing?
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And it always just amazed me what she could do.
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She was a good money manager.
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That, I am not.
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My husband used to call me a bankrupt sister.
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(Laughter)
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"She'll spend everything you got."
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And I would, you know.
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PM: But you kept the restaurant open, though,
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even in those times of controversy, when people were protesting
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and almost boycotting.
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I mean, it was a controversial move that you and your husband made.
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LC: It was, and I don't know how we did it,
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but as I said, my mother-in-law was a kind, kind person,
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and you didn't have any African-Americans on the police force at that time.
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They were all white.
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But they would come around,
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and she would say,
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"Bebe, I'm gonna fix you a little sandwich."
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So she would fix them a sandwich.
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Today they would call that bribery.
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(Laughter)
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But she was just that kind of person.
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She liked to do things for you.
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She liked to give.
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So she would do that,
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and maybe that helped us out,
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because nobody ever bothered us.
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We had Jim Dombrowski, Albert Ben Smith,
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who started all kinds of things right in that restaurant,
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and nobody ever bothered us.
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So we just did it.
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PM: Excuse me.
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You talked to me that day
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about the fact that people considered the restaurant a safe haven
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where they could come together,
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particularly if they were working on civil rights,
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human rights,
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working to change the laws.
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LC: Well, because once you got inside those doors,
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nobody ever, ever bothered you.
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The police would never come in
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and bother our customers, never.
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So they felt safe to come there.
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They could eat, they could plan.
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All the Freedom Riders,
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that's where they planned all their meetings.
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They would come and we would serve them a bowl of gumbo
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and fried chicken.
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(Laughter)
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So I said, we'd changed the course of America
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over a bowl of gumbo and some fried chicken.
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(Applause)
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I would like to invite the leaders, now,
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just come have a bowl of gumbo and some fried chicken,
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talk it over and we'd go and we'd do what we have to do.
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(Applause)
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And that's all we did.
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PM: Could we send you a list to invite to lunch?
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(Laughter)
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LC: Yeah, invite.
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Because that's what we're not doing.
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We're not talking.
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Come together.
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I don't care if you're a Republican or what you are -- come together.
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Talk.
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And I know those old guys.
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I was friends with those old guys,
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like Tip O'Neill and all of those people.
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They knew how to come together and talk,
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and you would disagree maybe.
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That's OK.
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But you would talk, and we would come to a good thing and meet.
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13:11
And so that's what we did in that restaurant.
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13:14
They would plan the meeting,
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13:17
Oretha's mother, Oretha Haley's mother.
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13:20
She was big in CORE.
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13:21
Her mother worked for me for 42 years.
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13:25
And she was like me.
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13:27
We didn't understand the program.
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13:29
Nobody our age understood this program,
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13:33
and we sure didn't want our children to go to jail.
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13:37
Oh, that was ... oh God.
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13:39
But these young people were willing to go to jail
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13:42
for what they believed.
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13:43
We were working with Thurgood and A.P. Tureaud and all those people
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13:48
with the NAACP.
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13:50
But that was a slow move.
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13:52
We would still be out here trying to get in the door, waiting for them.
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13:55
(Laughter)
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13:57
PM: Is that Thurgood Marshall you're talking about?
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14:00
LC: Thurgood Marshall. But I loved Thurgood.
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14:02
He was a good movement.
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14:03
They wanted to do this without offending anybody.
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14:08
I'll never forget A.P. Tureaud:
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14:10
"But you can't offend the white people.
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14:12
Don't offend them."
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14:14
But these young people didn't care.
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14:16
They said, "We're going. Ready or not, we're going to do this."
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14:21
And so we had to support them.
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14:23
These were the children we knew, righteous children.
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14:26
We had to help them.
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14:28
PM: And they brought the change. LC: And they brought the change.
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14:31
You know, it was hard,
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14:33
but sometimes you do hard things to make changes.
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14:36
PM: And you've seen so many of those changes.
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14:39
The restaurant has been a bridge.
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14:41
You have been a bridge between the past and now,
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14:45
but you don't live in the past, do you?
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14:48
You live very much in the present.
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3009
14:51
LC: And that's what you have to tell young people today.
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14:54
OK, you can protest,
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1985
14:56
but put the past behind you.
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14:58
I can't make you responsible for what your grandfather did.
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15:03
That's your grandfather.
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15:04
I have to build on that.
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1945
15:06
I have to make changes.
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15:08
I can't stay there and say,
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15:10
"Oh, well, look what they did to us then.
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1999
15:12
Look what they do to us now."
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15:13
No, you remember that,
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1687
15:15
but that makes you keep going on,
347
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2285
15:17
but you don't harp on it every day.
348
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15:20
You move,
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1164
15:21
and you move to make a difference,
350
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15:23
and everybody should be involved.
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15:27
My children said,
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1215
15:28
"Mother, don't get political," you know.
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2106
15:30
(Laughter)
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1991
15:32
"Don't get political, because you know we don't like that."
355
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3056
15:35
But you have to be political today.
356
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2699
15:38
You have to be involved.
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2364
15:40
Be a part of the system.
358
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1780
15:42
Look how it was when we couldn't be a part of the system.
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3294
15:46
When Dutch Morial became the mayor,
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3666
15:49
it was a different feeling in the African-American community.
361
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3880
15:54
We felt a part of things.
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2524
15:56
Now we've got a mayor.
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1510
15:58
We feel like we belong.
364
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2230
16:01
Moon tried before Dutch came.
365
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3281
16:04
PM: Mayor Landrieu's father, Moon Landrieu.
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2015
16:06
LC: Mayor Landrieu's father, he took great, great risks
367
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2883
16:09
by putting African-Americans in city hall.
368
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4204
16:13
He took a whipping for that for a long time,
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3484
16:16
but he was a visionary,
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2255
16:19
and he did those things that he knew was going to help the city.
371
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5071
16:24
He knew we had to get involved.
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2285
16:26
So that's what we have to do.
373
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1983
16:28
We don't harp on that.
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1282
16:29
We just keep moving,
375
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1584
16:31
and Mitch, you know, I tell Moon all the time,
376
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3356
16:34
"You did a good thing,"
377
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1687
16:36
but Mitch did one bigger than you and better than you.
378
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3817
16:40
When he pulled those statues down,
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1728
16:42
I said, "Boy, you're crazy!"
380
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1423
16:43
(Applause)
381
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2691
16:46
You're crazy.
382
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1521
16:47
But it was a good political move.
383
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3994
16:52
You know, when I saw P.T. Beauregard come down,
384
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2972
16:55
I was sitting looking at the news,
385
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3024
16:58
and it just hit me what this was all about.
386
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3567
17:02
To me, it wasn't about race; it was a political move.
387
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4205
17:07
And I got so furious,
388
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1308
17:08
I got back on that kitchen the next morning,
389
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2056
17:11
and I said, come on, pick up your pants, and let's go to work,
390
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3088
17:14
because you're going to get left behind.
391
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2056
17:16
And that's what you have to do.
392
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1509
17:17
You have to move on people,
393
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1730
17:19
move on what they do.
394
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1738
17:21
It was going to bring visibility to the city.
395
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3415
17:24
So you got that visibility -- move on it, uplift yourself,
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3917
17:28
do what you have to do,
397
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1634
17:30
and do it well.
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1841
17:32
And that's all we do.
399
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1242
17:33
That's all I try to do.
400
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1303
17:34
PM: But you just gave the formula for resilience. Right?
401
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4162
17:38
So you are clearly the best example we could find anywhere of resilience,
402
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5378
17:44
so there must be something you think --
403
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2239
17:46
LC: I like emotional strength.
404
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1595
17:48
I like people with emotional and physical strength,
405
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3799
17:52
and maybe that's bad for me.
406
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2642
17:55
My favorite all-time general was George Patton.
407
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4192
18:00
You know, that wasn't too cool.
408
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2184
18:02
(Laughter)
409
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2244
18:05
PM: It's surprising.
410
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1192
18:06
LC: I've got George Patton hanging in my dining room
411
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3529
18:09
because I want to remember.
412
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2462
18:12
He set goals for himself,
413
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1875
18:14
and he was going to set out to reach those goals.
414
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3661
18:18
He never stopped.
415
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1663
18:19
And I always remember his words:
416
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2297
18:22
"Lead, follow, or get out of the way."
417
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2595
18:25
Now, I can't lead --
418
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1506
18:26
(Applause)
419
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1142
18:27
I can't be a leader,
420
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1782
18:29
but I can follow a good leader,
421
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2055
18:31
but I am not getting out of the way.
422
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2318
18:34
(Applause)
423
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1459
18:35
But that's just what you have to do.
424
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2413
18:38
(Applause)
425
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2416
18:40
If you can't lead --
426
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2077
18:42
leaders need followers,
427
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2247
18:44
so if I help you up there, I'm going to ride on your coattails,
428
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5010
18:49
and I can't count the coattails I've ridden upon.
429
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2850
18:52
(Laughter)
430
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1578
18:54
Feed you good. You'll help me out.
431
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1650
18:56
(Laughter)
432
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1090
18:57
And that's what life is all about.
433
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2460
18:59
Everybody can do something,
434
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3039
19:02
but please get involved.
435
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2297
19:05
Do something.
436
1145024
1182
19:06
The thing we have to do in this city, in all cities --
437
1146230
4515
19:10
mommas have to start being mommas today.
438
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3651
19:14
You know?
439
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1151
19:16
They have to start understanding --
440
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2004
19:18
when you bring this child in the world,
441
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2501
19:20
you have to make a man out of it,
442
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1776
19:22
you have to make a woman out of it,
443
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2050
19:24
and it takes some doing.
444
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1413
19:26
It takes sacrifice.
445
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1938
19:27
Maybe you won't have the long fingernails, maybe you won't have the pretty hair.
446
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3960
19:32
But that child will be on the move,
447
1172419
2977
19:35
and that's what you have to do.
448
1175420
1524
19:36
We have to concentrate on educating
449
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2162
19:39
and making these children understand what it's all about.
450
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4989
19:44
And I hate to tell you, gentlemen,
451
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2096
19:46
it's going to take a good woman to do that.
452
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2594
19:49
It's going to take a good woman to do that.
453
1189809
3179
19:53
(Applause)
454
1193012
1007
19:54
Men can do their part.
455
1194043
1810
19:55
The other part is to just do what you have to do
456
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2278
19:58
and bring it home,
457
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1173
19:59
but we can handle the rest,
458
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1691
20:01
and we will handle the rest.
459
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1809
20:03
If you're a good woman, you can do that.
460
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2128
20:05
PM: You heard that first here.
461
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1514
20:06
We can handle the rest.
462
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1368
20:08
LC: We can handle the rest.
463
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1735
20:10
Mrs. Chase, thank you so much --
464
1210070
1984
20:12
LC: Thank you.
465
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1158
20:13
PM: for taking time out from the work you do every day in this community.
466
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4159
20:17
LC: But you don't know what this does for me.
467
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2158
20:19
When I see all of these people, and come together --
468
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2682
20:22
people come to my kitchen from all over the world.
469
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2858
20:25
I had people come from London,
470
1225751
2531
20:28
now twice this happened to me.
471
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2307
20:30
First a man came, and I don't know why he came to this --
472
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4016
20:34
Every year, the chefs do something called "Chef's Charity."
473
1234677
4682
20:40
Well, it so happened I was the only woman there,
474
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4691
20:44
and the only African-American there
475
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2520
20:47
on that stage doing these demonstrations,
476
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2895
20:50
and I would not leave until I saw another woman come up there, too.
477
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3594
20:53
I'm not going up -- they're going to carry me up there
478
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2603
20:56
until you bring another woman up here.
479
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1848
20:58
(Laughter)
480
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1730
21:00
So they have another one now, so I could step down.
481
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3047
21:03
But this man was from London.
482
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2833
21:06
So after that, I found the man in my kitchen.
483
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2921
21:08
He came to my kitchen,
484
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1875
21:10
and he said, "I want to ask you one question."
485
1270862
2286
21:13
OK, I thought I was going to ask something about food.
486
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3102
21:16
"Why do all these white men hang around you?"
487
1276298
4016
21:20
(Laughter)
488
1280338
2119
21:22
What?
489
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1151
21:23
(Laughter)
490
1283656
1801
21:25
I couldn't understand.
491
1285481
1603
21:27
He couldn't understand that.
492
1287108
2024
21:29
I said, "We work together.
493
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1786
21:30
This is the way we live in this city.
494
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2579
21:33
I may never go to your house, you may never come to my house.
495
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3047
21:36
But when it comes to working,
496
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1634
21:38
like raising money for this special school,
497
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2761
21:41
we come together.
498
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1810
21:42
That's what we do.
499
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1278
21:44
And still here comes another, a woman,
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2968
21:47
elegantly dressed,
501
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1579
21:48
about a month ago in my kitchen.
502
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2367
21:51
She said, "I don't understand what I see in your dining room."
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3889
21:56
I said, "What do you see?"
504
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1667
21:57
She saw whites and blacks together.
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2751
22:00
That's what we do.
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1565
22:02
We meet. We talk.
507
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1722
22:04
And we work together,
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1706
22:06
and that's what we have to do.
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1894
22:08
You don't have to be my best friend to work to better your city,
510
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3714
22:11
to better your country.
511
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1681
22:13
We just have to come together and work, and that's what we do in this city.
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3968
22:17
We're a weird bunch down here.
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2198
22:19
(Laughter)
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1222
22:21
Nobody understands us,
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2357
22:23
but we feed you well.
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1587
22:25
(Laughter)
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2247
22:27
(Applause)
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4372
22:31
(Cheering)
519
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1012
22:32
Thank you.
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1163
22:34
(Applause)
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1354004
5400
About this website

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