00:00So Morehouse, right? The world sort of heard that Saturday morning what you did and the love and the outreach and the outpouring of disaffection and understanding of the impact that what you did was going to have on the lives of those students, I think was just was just tremendous.
00:23And we've talked a lot about that, but some of the things that I haven't heard as much of and that I know that you think about a lot is the impact, right?
00:32And what is the impact that you expect to have that those kids will have on society, right?
00:41So you didn't just do this to make them debt free.
00:44Right. No, that's right.
00:46You know, like like all, you know, things that I like to do, I like to make sure it's purposeful and intentional.
00:56And as I thought really about Morehouse graduation, 2019, you know, 400 years after 1619, you know, haven't been involved in 1619 project, et cetera.
01:10And thinking about, you know, what is it that I could do?
01:15And the thing that I would say that I have learned that there's probably no more beautiful thing than than I call it the, you know, the unleashing of the of the human spirit.
01:24Right. And the liberation of the human spirit.
01:28You know, we talk this our panel, I guess, is the unleashing of the human spirit, but the liberation of the human spirit.
01:32And sometimes you see the human spirit liberated through music.
01:36You know, Harry Belafonte talked about Mahalia Jackson, right?
01:40And watching her and hearing her and how it her unleashing her spirit unleashed a spirit that really was a lot of the movement behind the civil rights movement.
01:50OK, if you recall, it's her who spoke with Martin before, you know, he went through his riff on I Have a Dream.
01:58He said, you know, speak to your heart and say what your heart says.
02:02And if you think about unleashing the human spirit comes in so many forms.
02:06And I was fortunate in growing up in a household where my father loved music and my mom was a very talented district academician.
02:15And and, you know, the dynamic helped me understand this whole thing of, you know, what it is to live and what it is to to be your best self.
02:25And when I thought about this, these young men, you know, these 400 young men being spoken to by this African-American businessman that they probably never heard of, maybe four of them heard of me.
02:37I thought about how can I.
02:39Well, they've heard of you now.
02:41Well, they have now.
02:42Yeah, their spirit and it's to unleash their spirit, Rich, to be you, to be me, to go find the thing that will change our community by their own hands.
03:01And too many of us, of course, and we we you know, we were raised, got to go to school, got to go to college and, you know, all this.
03:08And then all of a sudden you have the burden of debt that inhibits your ability to actually, you know, in many cases, give to your communities in the most effective ways.
03:19And I thought if I were able to to relieve that that burden from them, these 400 students, 400 years later, and now 400 families, 400 years later, what might that lead to?
03:31And I have an expectation that they will do great things to uplift our community.
03:39Now, I can't point to exactly what it is.
03:41And I always tell people I hope a quarter of them become chemical engineers because, you know, I think chemical engineers are just brilliant.
03:47I think a quarter of them, you know, I hope become entrepreneurs.
03:51I hope a quarter become teachers and go back in their neighborhoods and colleges and teach everything that they can.
03:59And hopefully focus a lot on STEM education for our kids.
04:05And I think I hope a quarter of them become politicians and actually think about how we could make our society a more just society in the context of capitalism.
04:16Because I think capitalism actually, by its very nature, unleashes the human spirit.
04:29So, I think—
