Probably the professor that influenced me the most in college
was Dr. Abraham Holtzman.
And he was a dynamic teacher.
and he would teach about the Constitution
and he would teach about the leaders who had led the country politically,
the decisions of the Supreme Court, all of that,
and you learned how politics worked at the national level and at the state and local level.
And again, he would talk about the issues
and you'd learn about what was happening in the country,
what was happening in the Congress, and you'd often say, that's wrong.
That's not right. That's unfair. And I did that a lot.
My political philosophy was developed there
and my activism was developed there.
And of course a lot of that comes from
what you believe about what's right and wrong in the world.
I believe that God loves us all
equally
and wants us all to have a good life and be treated fairly.
It's wrong to mistreat people
and it's wrong to be mistreated,
and I've spent my life trying to correct that
and to see that people are given a fair opportunity to have a good life.
But Abe Holtzman made a profound impact on me
and I think stimulated me to political activism,
to run for office,
to choose the issues that I thought were important
and treating people right and giving them an opportunity
to be all they can be. I sometimes say, all that God wants them to be.
I had started - in my senior year in high school
I had written a senior paper
laying out why I thought Brown v. Board of Education,
which ruled segregated schools to be unconstitutional,
I wrote a paper in high school saying why it was wrong.
I thought that separate but equal, really equal, ought to be enough,
and it took me some time during college,
reading books like "Black Like Me" and a lot of others,
to realize that segregation, enforced segregation, is inherently wrong.
You can't have that. It just doesn't work.
When you're forced to be separate not only are there practical consequences
but the fact that you are forced to do it is wrong.
And it is legally wrong and it is constitutionally wrong.
And of course I began to meet black students, black leaders,
as I said read books, hear speeches by people that I admired and was impressed by.
I began to hear stories of
how badly people had been treated.
And I knew a little bit about enforced segregation,
the rigidity of it, the unfairness of it,
but I didn't really understand enough about how
people who were segregated and discriminated against felt.
I learned that at NC State
from many of these professors, some of the speeches I heard, things I read,
had a profound influence on me,
and of course with the
interest in politics that was developing in me
I began to see that this is a political issue.
You have to do something about this politically.
The laws are wrong; they have to be changed.
The customs are wrong; they have to be changed.
And if you're going to get active and try to
be a force in the public policy arena
you've got to be a force to change segregation
and permit equal opportunities.