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Transcript on deposit at The Southern Historical Collection, The Louis Round Wilson Library
Citation of this interview should be as follows:
“Interview K-0172, in
the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern Historical
Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill”
The dynamic John W. Love Jr. offers his thoughts on the history and culture of West Charlotte High School. Integration was no longer a significant issue by the time Love entered high school—he was in third grade when the process began—but Love, who is an African American, remembers the integration process and offers his thoughts on its long-term effects. Love, an actor, speaks with a great deal of élan about the remarkable cultural diversity of West Charlotte, but also the disagreements created by that diversity. Despite some problems, Love left West Charlotte with a strong sense of belonging.
Former student remembers West Charlotte High as a place where diversity created both opportunity and conflict.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
This is Pamela Grundy, and I am here interviewing John W. Love Jr. in Charlotte, North Carolina, and we are talking about West Charlotte High School, and it is the seventeenth of February, 1999. Well, John, I just thought I would start by asking you what is your first memory of West Charlotte? I know your parents went there.
Oh my goodness. What is my first memory of West Charlotte ? I would have to say my earliest memory of the school is long before I ever even was of age to go to the school, because my parents went to West Charlotte and aunts and uncles went to West Charlotte, and, obviously, my parents' closest and dearest friends went to West Charlotte, and my parents were, and still are, very, very social. Big picture takers, the whole bit. My first real memories of West Charlotte are actually from the yearbooks that my parents had. I always looked through those, and I always flipped through those, and considering the fact that I was born my parents' senior year of high school, it's like my memories of West Charlotte and the whole vibe of West Charlotte, and what that all means is so entrenched in who and what I am, from the very beginning. So cognitively, I would have to say it's from at a very early age me flipping through the yearbooks of West Charlotte Senior High School with the same fervor and excitement that you flip through family albums. And, what, two, three years old?
That is an early period of time. When you say sort of the vibe of West Charlotte as being part of you, can you describe that?
You know it's really interesting because when I think about the African American community at large, or people of the African Diaspora, the history, the culture, in so many ways is so dissipated. And it's so much about putting pieces together in order to create a through line, as opposed to an emotional/psychological through line that just exists from being there. And so when I talk about the vibe of West Charlotte, West Charlotte as a high school is pretty entrenched in the community that it's in, and I come from that community and my parents come from that community and the whole west side kind of thing. So, really the vibe of West Charlotte is really about pride, and it's about a real sense of pride. It's about a sense of belonging, a real sense of belonging. It's about a real sense of ownership in something in your community. And schools when they're at their best are actually about achievement. So you've got more than a symbol. You've got like a living kind of ritual, or living shrine to achievement and then to the achievement of a people, and then to the achievement of a very specific group of people in a very specific community in a very specific part of the country, and it goes on and on and on like that. So, not to be clichéd, but it's actually about pride, and on a deep, deep level, pride and belonging.
Is this something that you thought about at the time you were going to the school, or is this something you've come to think about later as you've reflected back?
We all knew that we were lucky to be there, and for most of us we knew
that we were going to go to West Charlotte, because there were people in
different parts on the west side of Charlotte, which is basically
African American that were bussed to different schools and that kind of
thing. But there were also people that did whatever
You mentioned that there was this time when you were in junior high school when this early bussing began.
There was some kind of exchange thing that happened at West Charlotte with students from different parts of the country, but, actually, when bussing began, the first year of bussing, I was in the third grade.
What did your uncle talk about? You mentioned he was there at West Charlotte at the time. Did he talk to you at all about what was going on there?
He talked to me about it, but the entire community was talking about it,
too. I mean having very young parents and then my uncle was my father's
youngest brother so he was young, too. So in a lot of ways a lot of his
friends were my friends, and so everybody talked about it, and everybody
talked about just what was happening, and what was changing, and dealing
with the white people, and dealing with the white people in ways that
were very different. And then, I think it's one thing to be bussed out
of your neighborhood into a community and you deal with the integration
process in that way,
Well, what was it like when you were in third grade when you were younger and you got bussed out to these other schools? What was that like for you?
When I was in the second grade, and we heard that the integration things
was going to happen and everything, we were upset because we were sort
of confused, and we didn't really know what that meant, and you know
that you may go to school with your friends. You may not go to school
with your friends. Different people may go to different schools. And so
that whole thing. Just kind of the fear of the unknown. But once it
happened, for me, I mean I'm a pretty adventurous spirit, and I would
say that I'm somewhat of a survivor, so my whole thing was about just
kind of sitting back and looking at the situation and then figuring out
what was it, how did I fit in it, and how could I survive in it. And it
brought up some really, really interesting issues. Issues of being
separated into groups, academic groups like the fast reading group or
the intermediate reading group, and the slow reading group, and
invariably at that time say there were only three black children in the
highest, quickest, fastest reading group, and I was one of them. So then
you begin to deal with these issues of separation, perceived or implied
elitism, tokenism, all that kind of stuff, and kind of feeling
displaced. Kind of
That was something you could focus on.
Yes. Very much so.
So did you stay outside the neighborhood for most of your schooling prior to high school, or were there years you were in outside schools and years that you were closer to home?
Well, okay. Let's see, third grade Rama Road, fourth grade Pawtuckett, so both of those were away. Fifth and sixth grade University Park Elementary School which was in the neighborhood, and then seventh, eighth, and ninth grade, those were the years that Piedmont Middle Open School began. It was sort of a lottery, and it was optional, and it was the whole open education thing which my parents thought would be really good for my sister and I, which it was. Which to this day I say in terms of encouraging me to be responsible for my own learning was one of the most significant educational experiences I've ever had. And simultaneously the open school thing was also happening at West Charlotte. So it was that, and the Piedmont was a bussing situation, and then back to West Charlotte for tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grade.
Now, were you someone who had to maneuver to get into West Charlotte, or were you in the part of town where you were going to go?
We were in the part of town where we were going to go so there wasn't
like maneuvering that necessarily had to happen. But also [sound of someone walking through the room] [JL laughs.]
Had your grandmother gone to West Charlotte?
No. But, actually, she did get her high school equivalent thing at West Charlotte, after the fact, which was really nice, because she went and took her classes at West Charlotte, I think and stuff.
That is nice. Well, when you were coming back, this would have been tenth grade?
Tenth grade, yeah.
To come to West Charlotte, how did you feel about that? What was your state of mind then?
It was great, but I always thought it was just so understood that we'd go, just in terms of looking at how the bussing situation was going, looking at how different neighborhoods went different places, so that had been established for a pretty long time. People would always get a little freaked out though when there would be like yet another rerouting of people. But it was great. I mean it was great to be there. And my first years at West Charlotte, well, my sophomore year at West Charlotte, I was enrolled in the open school because I'd just come from Piedmont and wanted to explore the whole open education thing on the high school level. But I also took classes in the regular school as well. And then my junior year and senior year I just took most of my classes in the regular school because the open school wasn't the same at West Charlotte as it was at Piedmont. Personally, I don't think it was as successful at least not for my purposes. So since I was going to be going to West Charlotte anyway, then I was in the regular school.
Had you ever at any point during that time prior to going been concerned that the school might be closed by the school board?
No, never. That never entered when I was there as a real concern, because it was entirely too vibrant. There was too much energy in the neighborhood for the school to, too much energy in the school itself. At the time also West Charlotte may have been like the only metropolitan sort of high school in that people from all over the city came to West Charlotte, and that had a lot to do with the open school component as well. And that's interesting that happens, too, because there were people from very moneyed parts of town that came to West Charlotte, and money talks and bullshit walks. And so, the money thing, yeah.
How did all those different people get along?
For the most part it was pretty good, and then there became sort of class issues and race issues, and sometimes there was overt prejudice or racism from both sides. But people pretty much endured. And I had great relationships there, great intracultural and intercultural relationships.
Was this something that you were actively seeking out at this time in your life?
Actually, we didn't have to because by this time we had done the whole
integration thing ever since third grade, so that wasn't something that
we had to seek out. It was just about seeking out, dealing with the
group of people that you liked to deal with. And in high school I was,
and I guess all through my educational, primary educational life and
secondary educational life, I was always pretty social, popular, that
kind of thing. Not because I set out to be, but just because of my
personality and how important it is for me to communicate with people
openly and honestly and straightforwardly and all of that. So then I
found myself being president of the student body my junior year, and
president
Do you think that the students that came to West Charlotte from outside that community, to what extent do you think they understood that history?
I think during the time a lot of them had no real understanding of that
history, because it's sort of like, why would they? I think they were
consumed with their own—people often times are much more consumed with,
obviously, what's going on at the present and what's considered just
recent or just past history, than they are with the real implications of
what they're stepping into and the real history of any situation or any
person or any whatever. This is a little tangential, but I talk to a lot
of my friends and they talk about relationships. And I'm the kind of
person, I'm pretty inquisitive, and I wouldn't say that I'm nosy, but in
all relationships with people I think that what happens with a lot of
people when they get in trouble is that they never asked enough
questions so they have all these surprises. And just because you ask
questions doesn't mean that you're going to get real answers, but people
often times just don't even ask questions because they're consumed with
what the most recent history was, or where they're coming from, or what
they just heard about, or what they're getting from the situation at
And was there not anything done at the school at the time to attempt to talk about the school's history or explain this to people? Is that just not something that happened?
I don't think so. I don't remember that. I don't think that that was a real concern for anybody at that time. You know it was really interesting. One of my most favorite teachers was Mertye Rice, and she taught my parents. It's funny because our, my relationship with her and my sister's relationship with her was, I mean our friends knew, and some other people knew, but it was kind of one of those unspoken, or unaggrandized pleasures.
So in a sense would you say that those of you who were from the community and those students who were not in some ways were attending different schools even though you were there together? Is that going too far to say that?
It's not. It might be. It's close to going too far. It's like if you take you and Peter. Peter is Pam's husband, and you take your culture and the way that you grew up and Peter's, and you both come together and you've created something or you're participating in something, so you're both participating in this house, or you're both participating in whatever. Well, on a certain level you all are participating in very different ways because you have these different histories, but then in another way, the way that you all actually participate together is what it is at that time and at that moment. And I think that that's what happened for us who were at West Charlotte at that time. Those that were from the community certainly came to the school with a different perspective than those outside of the community. But being there, being in there, dealing with each other—well sometimes, not well sometimes—working together, creating history by living in the present, that kind of thing. So that was very real and very shared and very specific and unique to us, which was something that, say, my parents were not necessarily a part of. You see what I'm saying?
Um-hum. How do you think your parents viewed this transformation of the school that they had gone to?
Actually, I think that they viewed it with a nice bit of interest, but I
also think that they still had the ability to participate in the school,
and I think if that had been taken away, if the school had changed so
much or so drastically that, for a lot of people, it really just would
have become some other thing. My father still goes to West Charlotte
basketball games and football games. It's like a community thing. It's a
community institution. He went to basketball games and football games
and that kind of thing when my sister and I were there, but he probably
would have gone if we weren't there, because [JL laughs.]
Do you still go to West Charlotte football and basketball games?
No.
Did you ever go?
Yeah, I did. I did. I was in the marching band, too, so I sort of had to be there.
You were in the marching band?
Yeah, so I went. Some of my friends will go to homecoming because that's a big event, so they'll go to homecoming or things like that. People turn out for the big events. It's kind of like with the Johnson C. Smith University, because it's this fixture in the African American community on the west side once again. My father goes to Smith's games, and as a kid I went to Smith's games and so did my sister, and West Charlotte was like in the same loop as that.
And did the community, you've talked about athletics, did the community come to other kinds of events, like plays, and things like that?
Like plays and stuff at the school? That was less. Athletics was actually the way that a lot of people came together. No, I can't say that the community was really big or gung-ho about going to plays. Well, even when I was at West Charlotte, the school wasn't even necessarily that big about going to plays.
I heard an interesting story about a production of The King and I.
Yeah. When did that happen? Did that happen before I was there or right after I left? That may have happened right before I got there. Maybe.
With The King and I where they had to cast two kings.
Right. I remember that because that stuff would happen, too. Like there would be all these quotas and ratios about how many black people, how many black cheerleaders there were and how many white cheerleaders there were. How many black letter girls, how many white letter girls. And the thing is, is that when we were at West Charlotte, the ratio of black to white was forty-nine/fifty-one, depending on who came to school that day. People often times look at those kind of racial quotas things as being beneficial to black people, but at West Charlotte they were actually more beneficial to white people because there were many times when there might have only been one white girl on the cheerleading squad or things like that. But, yeah, there were these things. The homecoming situation would come up, but we didn't have a white homecoming queen and a black homecoming queen.
What did you do?
I mean it was just the homecoming queen. But I remember hearing about all of that in, say, the generation before we got there, and those kinds of things. Because I remember those kinds of things happened at other junior high schools when I was in junior high.
What did you think about those quotas when you were there?
It was so funny, because those quotas were a reality, then I accepted
them as a reality. So after accepting them as a reality, I was acutely
aware of how unfortunate they were because of how they had to be. But,
and not necessarily because, because I never
Looking back, do you think it was helpful to have those at that time?
I think it was a transition, and I think at the time it was the best thing that the culture knew how to do, meaning America's culture. So, sure.
When you say it was the best thing the culture knew how to do—.
Knew how to do. It was kind of like what I say about America. America to
me is like a spoiled rotten adolescent that's got entirely too much
money, especially compared to the rest of the world. If you look at the
rest of the world and you say that some cultures are adult cultures and
then some cultures are elders, America's like really, really young. And
so in terms of dealing with difference and trying to deal with
difference in somewhat of an effective manner, and trying to make people
happy or not piss people off or, any of that stuff, given the history of
the culture it was the best thing it could come up with at the time. My
thing is, well, what would have happened if not? Because, really, the
intent with all of that was one that was about people trying to tolerate
Were there other kinds of things that were done at the school while you were there in an effort to try to make things run smoothly, to make people feel that they were being treated fairly, those kinds of things?
Oh, there was always something like that coming up. Specifically, I mean I can't think of any right now. I can't think of any specific sort of things that were implemented, policies or whatever that were implemented to ensure that. But at the time the school was really about making, or creating a space or a place were people felt like things were happening fairly. But it's also high school. For example, I remember we had some problems on the senior class council. There were more problems between the students and, say, the teachers and the administrators and those kind of power struggles than there were between students being treated a certain way because they were black or white, or Asian, or Latin, or whatever. I mean it was kind of like high school stuff.
Were you able to go to McDonald's?
Oh, yeah. That stuff. Like, "Why should I get suspended for going to McDonald's?" Or, "Why can't I go off campus? It's right up the street." That kind of thing. So it was more that kind of stuff than anything else.
Well, as president of the student council when you were, were there issues that you had to resolve? Were there situations that came up that you were challenged to find solutions to?
Yeah. My whole way of looking at it was, because, of course, I alone never made any decisions, and nobody in government does, but in terms of sort of being a leader in that particular situation, my whole thing was to lay everything out and assess what's fair and what's right given my own paradigm that I'm living in and existing in at the time. And then being brave enough to do what you think is right or fair. And sometimes people liked it, and sometimes people didn't, but I always knew that people enjoyed it when you tried to please them, but that was never the first and foremost thing, or first and foremost part of my agenda was to try to please everybody. Yeah, so there were things that happened, but in terms of policies that govern how the school is run, usually students are put in a very reactionary position because nobody really consults us about those things. Now and then we would act, especially as seniors, our senior year there were things little things, like how the invitations would look, and the design of them. Things like that, which is back to students trying to have a voice, and teachers saying, "Well, it's been done like this before, and we're going to do it like this now." Now what does come in is that when you come from different cultures, there are different aesthetics that you respond to. So I do remember conversations or voting things that would happen, and most of the white kids would vote for one thing and most of the black kids would vote for another thing, so it was very clear to me and to everybody else that that rift or disagreement or separation of the ways was just about coming from different cultures.
What would be an example of something?
I think there was one thing that happened even with the invitations. It
came up about the invitations and how they looked, and one of the
Caucasian students said,
You said you knew this was going to be a long battle, did you feel that this was in some ways a kind of battle to in a way educate people? Were you educating people, white students about things they didn't know?
Hum. I don't know if I was that presumptuous. [JL laughs.]
Do you think that in those battles or whatever you want to call them, that it was helpful to you to be at West Charlotte High School where your tradition was in a way the dominant tradition?
Oh yeah. Very much so. Very, very much so. Because for a school like
West Charlotte--say you take the band uniforms. You see any uniform that
comes from any school and it says so much about the school to a
community way beyond what the school is. But say you look at those band
uniforms, and the present design of the band uniforms was based on the
design of the uniforms that came before, which was based on the design
of the uniforms that came before that, which was based on the design of
the uniforms that came before that. Well, if you're a part of that
culture then you have an understanding of the history of those uniforms
and what it means, and your attachment to it is different. You see what
I'm saying? So, you have a different kind of power. And you certainly
have more of a leg to stand on just psychologically and emotionally if
some debate happens about what the uniform should be. And if someone
says, "Well, in the tradition of [unclear] [unclear]
I think the UPS person. [apparently in reference to someone outside]
Yes.
I gather from everybody that I've talked to that the band was a very important part?
Oh yeah.
So maybe you could just talk a little bit about that.
Yes. The band, I mean before integration and before desegregation, the band was really the bomb. It was really it, and then afterwards things changed. So, a lot of the thing about the band now, and even when we were there, was based on nostalgia, because as far as I was concerned the band wasn't really that great when we were there. It wasn't really that exciting, but the history of it was still something that a lot of us were still working out of. One of the interesting things that happened was our band teacher when I was there had actually just gotten there because he used to do the band thing at Johnson C. Smith University. It was just really kind of interesting how things went back and forth. At one point he had asked me to be the drum major, and I told him no.
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
Basically the whole thing with the band was when I told him no, it was a real indication to me what I felt about the band at that time, because to be asked to be the drum major of West Charlotte's band and you say no.
Were your parents shocked?
I don't even think that they know that I was ever asked because I don't
think I told them. I was doing enough stuff anyway, but that was very
specific to those years, too. There are just, even within the history of
anything, there's some years when the band is really good and then there
are some years it is not. There's maybe one year when the drum major is
great and one year when they're not. And I think that for me during my
junior and senior year in high school, or in sophomore year also, the
band wasn't this huge, huge priority at the time. [Long pause on tape.]
It's not—well, we're just going to have to have to go with it.
All right.
Well, tell me about your memories of the band when it was really something.
The most vivid memories of the band when it was really something was the way that the band would show out at the square on the Thanksgiving Day parade. Because the band just got down. The drum major got down. The majorettes got down. The band got down. I mean it was just funky and jamming and it. And very exciting. For me—this might be a far fetching kind of analogy or juxtaposition, but when you think about the energy at carnival and you associate a certain kind of energy with Latins and the Brazilians at carnival and that whole thing? Well, with the band that same kind of energy and the association with a kind of vibrancy of African Americans, it was the same thing. And I think when the band was in its heyday is when it expressed that kind of energy in a very undeterred way. If you want to talk about the purity of something, straight up, no chaser, no excuses. This is what it is, concentrated.
So you think that with integration that that changed?
Yes. With integration a lot of things like that changed. When you take one element and you combine it with another element you might come up with something that is fabulous and wonderful, but you don't have the first element in its pure form or the second element in its pure form. And it's just different.
Were there some other places where you think that happened?
Specifically? Specifically in just what is the manifestation of what is
the culture of high school. Like I said before, from first about how the
prom is done to how
Did you, or do you ever wish at all that you had been able to go to West Charlotte when it was all black?
Hum. I think—no, I never wished that. The fact that West Charlotte existed, and the fact that it was all black, and the fact that my parents and relatives were there when that happened, I feel like I benefited from that. But I also feel like I benefited from all of the positive things that happened when West Charlotte was integrated. So if I had felt like I missed something, then maybe I would wish that I was there when it was all black. But I don't feel like I missed anything. I feel like I hit the mother load.
Well, what did you gain from going when you did?
I think I gained a more realistic sense of how the world works outside
of my own community that I grew up in. I think I gained a sense and
skills about how to deal
There are certainly a lot of people who can't say that about their high school education, so really that's a wonderful thing for you to say, when some people talk about desegregation and the sort of hopes that people in the community have, what desegregation could accomplish.
Yeah.
One of the things some people talk about is the idea that by desegregating the schools that the city could somehow create a larger community. Is that something that you ever thought about, and do you think that that happened?
I think that, yes. It is something that I thought about because we were
in the midst of that. Because that statement and statements like that,
the one that you just made, were bandied about the whole time. And this
whole thing of sort of the only metropolitan high school and all these
people from all these different places in the city coming to this
school, it did happen. I don't think it happened in every way that
people wanted it to happen, but on some level it did happen. That level
of it happening wasn't sustained, but it happened. It never became
static because life isn't static. Things move, change, mutate,
transform, metamorphoses, all of that. It's like glimpses of things. It
happened in some ways. It didn't happen in others. And then the paradigm
would shift and the way that it didn't happen before, maybe it happened
that way thirty percent, or thirty percent
Did that happening at West Charlotte have wider ramifications for the students' lives or for the city itself, or was this something that happened ( )?
I think it did. But I think it did in very, very subtle ways that I
think are really, really hard to measure. But in terms of maybe shifting
just the ease and the comfort in which someone deals with somebody
that's different from them, someone that was affected by that West
Charlotte experience, which, in turn, affects the way that that other
person deals with somebody else, and it affects the way that other
person deals with somebody else. And I think it's kind of like anything
in life. I mean, especially when you're in high school and when you're
that age, anything that is happening to you at the
What you're saying is that it was affecting individuals.
Yeah.
I was intrigued when you were talking about having the light shine. Did you feel that people were watching? Did you feel that the school was a place that people outside the school were watching to see how well things worked?
I think, obviously, in the beginning with the whole desegregation thing,
definitely that was going on. By the time that I was there, I think
people were watching for the things that people, or communities, or
organizations become noted for as in,
Did you ever have a sense that, speaking about people looking for a particular agenda, that there were people elsewhere in the community that were critical of West Charlotte?
In parts of the African American community on the west side, or in parts or Charlotte's larger community?
I would probably say in parts of the white community in particular, or in the African American?
People that were critical? I think so, yeah. Because I think people often times just don't understand. For example, there was an incident that happened at school, and a parent, she just kept putting her foot in it every time she did something. What I mean by that is she said these incredibly racist things. What it was really about was about power. It was about the fact that her son was going to this school that wasn't really being run by people that looked like her, and she had issues with that. The school was being run by people of color, and it had great successes. It had its failures, too. Actually her son was doing great at school. He was doing well at school. He was a friend of mine, very athletic, in all the advanced classes, all that. And this one incident happened, and she kept on and kept on, and it was like, "Oh, so this is about power." So you kind of get to see what makes people comfortable. And some people aren't comfortable with change, especially if that change means that it's affecting the way that they see themselves, or the way that they see how they can affect things, or the way that they see how they're in the catbird seat. All of that kind of stuff. And I think that for lots of people in the white community that was the case.
Were there students at West Charlotte whose parents felt that way, who were uncomfortable with how their parents felt about the school?
Oh, yeah, but then with students that age, that's not really anything that you talk about. They just kind of rolled their eyes if their mother's name comes up or their father's name comes up, but they don't mention it, and just go on and do their school thing.
I guess that's true about many young people, they are uncomfortable with their parents about many things.
Exactly. Exactly. But I think that when you're in the moment of living through anything you might be able to step back and say, "This feels good." Or you might be able to step back and say, "This has never been done before." And so on that level it's important. But you never know what kind of importance and the specificity of that importance that other people are going to apply to it later. You know what I'm saying? You never know, and you're not even really living in that. You're living in the moment at the time, and it is the reality, so this is what it is. And so you don't really take the time to say, "Twenty years from now people are going to be talking about what was happening at West Charlotte when I was there." Because what you're doing when you're in that time is you're just trying to deal with life right now.
It's like the Bill Clinton phase of worrying about the future.
Yeah, which is really interesting because as America gets a little
older, or gets a year older or whatever in its adolescence, gets a day
older in its adolescence—Clinton's thing is really about an obsession,
about how things look, because he's simultaneously obsessed with what
he's doing and then how it's affecting people. And he's got enough
history and enough knowledge of history to know that people look back
and say certain things about the president. But you know what, he can't
even really affect that because he cannot predict what people are going
to say about him. You have to get in there. You have to do the best you
can. You have to go for what you know, and then you have to sit back and
watch the movie, because that's what history becomes. It's funny, too,
when you talk about history and you being an historian yourself. People
talk about revisionist history, and it's funny because with history
people don't realize that the operative word in history is story. It's
somebody's story. It's called his-story. It ain't called her-story, our-
Well, I have asked you about many things, and you have been very gracious to speak to all of my questions. Is there anything that is important about West Charlotte and your experience at West Charlotte that we haven't talked about?
I guess the most important thing about West Charlotte and my experience
of West Charlotte is, and I think I hit on it in the very beginning, is
that for all human beings, whether it's high school or whether it's a
club, or whether it's some organization you're a part of, or whatever,
the bottom line for me, it always comes down to, for human beings and us
on the planet, it always comes down to love. And feeling loved, and
one's capacity for love, and one's capacity to express love and give
love and share love. And when we use words like dignity, respect,
community, all of that stuff, it's really about love. It's about love
and belonging, and feeling like you belong to something, and feeling
like you're a part of something, that's about love. When people talk
about patriotism in America it's about feeling as if you belong. Now,
when you feel as if you belong, as if you have a reason for being there,
you feel protected, and you feel encouraged, thriving,
I think that's a wonderful ending. I won't ask any more.
Okay.
END OF INTERVIEW