>> This is November the 8th, 2023.
I'm Tom Scott, and this is
for our Cobb County Oral History Series,
is part of the Kennesaw State University's
collection of oral histories.
And the interview today is with Senator Michael Rhett,
Dr. Rhett as he's known in the community.
And you've got a middle name.
I found it just one place.
You don't use it very much,
but there's an A, Michael A.
>> Anthony.
>> Yeah.
>> Okay.
>> When I was small, my mother used to
watch the Millionaire show.
And Michael Anthony who was the one who
delivered the million dollar check to people.
And they had to sign that they
couldn't disclose where they got it from.
He said, Hi, I'm Michael Anthony,
and I have a million dollar check from
you from a benefactor,
but you can't disclose who that person is.
>> I remember that show.
>> Yeah.
>> And so she got in.
>> So that's where the Anthony came from.
>> Michael Anthony.
>> How about that?
>> Except that I don't have the million dollars.
I'm still waiting on it.
>> Well, I thought it may be a good place to
start was with your background.
And I know you grew
up and you published as the fact that you
grew up in public housing in New York on 125th Street.
And I saw a picture that was on one of your I guess
your website with the Apollo theater
and the public housing,
General Grant public housing.
>> That's right.
>> Civil War General and President Grant.
>> Not far from there,
him and his wife were tuned in Grant's tuned.
>> Oh, that's close to.
>> Right bottom.
It's right there by the Hudson River.
Just probably a few blocks from the house.
>> So we looked like
a pretty congested area to
me like a lot of traffic around there.
>> That's New York City for you.
>> Okay. So you grew up in
public housing and I thought I'd start
by just asking you about that neighborhood that you
grew up in and what it was like
growing up in public housing.
And I got some interviews
now with some people that were in
public housing in Marianna
and some of them had
very warm memories of public housing,
and the community atmosphere and what have you.
That's not the common opinion about public housing,
I guess, but what was it like growing up there for you?
>> Back then, you had a lot of working class families who
lived in public housing
back then when they first came out.
You can pretty much set your clock,
your watch to the fathers
going out to work in the morning
and then coming back in the evening.
So there's a lot of working class people
there living in public housing.
This was before I think it was
a lawsuit to allow Section 8 to move into public housing.
>> Yeah.
>> So there's a lot of working.
>> It took a lawsuit for Section 8 housing?
>> I think it was the NAACP, if I remember correctly,
were the ones who had a suit because for the most part,
public housing back then you have to be working.
It wasn't particularly for Section 8,
like that came kind of.
>> You had to be working.
So if you didn't have a job,
you couldn't get into public housing?
>> Right but then that changed somewhere in about
the mid to late 60s where they
started letting people in who were on Section 8.
>> Okay. So everybody was working class,
basically, when you were growing up there.
>> Right. Mothers and fathers,
you can see them all go to work morning and
come back just like my father
would come back at six o'clock.
You can set your watch to that.
Then the church bell rang and the street lights came on,
and it was time to go upstairs.
>> What was your father's name?
>> Harold. H-A-R-O-L-D.
>> Oh, okay.
>> He was a Korean war veteran decorated purple heart.
>> Wow. What did he do to get the purple heart.
>> He came came in with that group
behind MacArthur and Inchon.
>> MacArthur?
>> Right. He came in with that group
because MacArthur had taken
the UN troops all the way up to the Chinese border.
And then the Chinese got involved and pushed them back.
And so MacArthur did a landing on
Inchon through rough waters and cut their lines in half.
And my brother was a part of
the group that followed MacArthur.
>> Your Father.
>> My father. They followed MacArthur.
>> And so if he got wounded while he was doing that?
>> Right. Shrapnel on the leg and
back and the wrist also.
>> Man. Do you have any thoughts about the Korean War?
>> It left an impression on him
for sure because he was right there in
action but one of the things he always
did was I always wondered why he was
always friendly towards stray dogs in
the community [NOISE] because during Korea,
he would feed the stray dogs and
the stray dogs would let him know if
somebody came around him that he didn't know.
>> How about that?
>> Yeah. [LAUGHTER] because sometimes
you couldn't tell the difference between
the North Koreans or the South Koreans.
But because of those dogs,
he was able to point that out or if somebody tried
to sneak up at night
or when they weren't paying attention.
>> Pretty smart.
>> Yeah.
>> Did he volunteer for the military?
>> No. He got a personal invitation from
[LAUGHTER] that was President Truman and he got drafted.
And he was in Charleston, South Carolina.
He was a chauffeur for a doctor.
And then when he got drafted,
his mother was afraid to look at him because when he was
leaving because she thought
that might be the last time she saw him.
So but what she did she gave him
a small Bible and
a picture of her and put it in the 23rd Psalm.
And he would always read that.
And I do that myself now.
Every day in the morning, I get up,
I read the 23rd Psalm and I have
a picture of my mother in the Bible,
and I put it in my father's shoes.
I got a pair of his shoes.
So that way, when I leave in
the morning when I come back in the evening,
I look at the shoes and I look at my mother's picture
and I try to see how I've
walked in their footsteps during the day.
>> What's your mother's name?
>> Lillie. L-I-L-L-I-E.
>> Oh. Okay. Your father would have been in
the military in the early days of integration.
Do you have any thoughts about how that worked out?
>> They had some [LAUGHTER] brawls over that.
Different people of different cultures,
tried to because you got to think for 100 well,
many decades, people were used to being separate.
And now you're trying to bring them together,
it's almost a band.
When we used to play a band, when we warmed up,
we sound and disharmony.
But then once we've been practicing together,
we have get good music.
It was the same thing.
That was because Truman integrated
the military in 47 and this was
the first action that
black and white had to come together and fight.
So there was different thoughts of mindsets
about different cultures and
this that but now they have to try and work together.
For the most part, it worked well,
but then there were some bumpy
rides people arguing fighting.
Then you get a bunch of men drafted.
They're going to fight over anything.
[LAUGHTER]
>> So he's spent his two years in the military
and then what did he do for a living?
>> When this list man was up,
he went to use the GI Bill to go to North Carolina A&T.
>> Oh, we did.
>> He went there a few years.
And he studied I think it
was he wanted to be a working a funeral home.
But the body one time he was
in there and the body had the last breath,
[NOISE] and he got scared and ran out.
[LAUGHTER] So he went into he took
different trades while he was in school and.
Then when he did he
did about two or three years, I think.
Then he moved out to New York City,
worked in the textile industry.
The GI bill was important
for a lot of African Americans,
because for the first time,
they were able to go and get
educated beyond just high school.
And that experience brought
in well, see, you got to think about it.
It's just like if you have a dog on
the leash and you have them on there for a year.
And you let the dog off the leash.
You're going to have a hell of a time
trying to put that dog back on the leash.
So they were release World War II and Korea and Vietnam,
they were taken off the leash of Jim Crow.
And they were able to go around the world,
be treated in a different perspective.
Then come back home and go to
college for free because of the GI bill.
So now you're trying to put
the same people back on the leash of Jim Crow,
they're not going [LAUGHTER].
>> There's a fair amount of research now on the impact of
the GI Bill and certainly for everybody,
it was transform for higher education,
it was transformative made it who made it possible for
a whole lot of people to go to
college that would not have gone otherwise.
But I guess part of the research has indicated that
there's a slightly higher percentage of
whites who took advantage of the GIP than Blacks.
I don't think it's maybe four percentage points,
something like that difference,
but a lot of people used it for going for the trades as
well and for vocational education
as well as for college education.
Like Ernest Barrett learned
the laundry business on the GI Bill after World War II.
And I think whites and blacks either way,
there's an incredibly high percentage.
That took advantage of the GI Bill for some education.
>> Well, not only was it good
for the African Americans but
your lower working class whites who
lived in places like
the Hills of Tennessee and places like that.
They got a chance to go to school.
And it broadened their perspective,
serving overseas, and then
coming back and going to school.
And in the case of African Americans,
they became a large part of
the new civil rights movement
because their perspective and experiences had
broadened and they also a number of them also went to
law school went into
college for other areas besides trade,
and they became the leaders
when it came a different type of civil rights leader.
They knew just as much as the person [LAUGHTER] who
would for lack of better word pressing and they knew.
So that created a whole different perspective.
You had more educated and experienced force.
>> Well, say something about your mother or Lillie.
Did she work outside the home or.
>> Yes, she did. She was a nurse's aide.
And she was also domestic.
Then she also was
the board of elections supervisor at a post.
She was a jack in many trades.
[LAUGHTER] And she always made sure everybody in
the community whether they were drug addicts or whatever,
always had food to eat.
Matter of she always
took care of people in the community.
Matter of fact, when we had her funeral was
more young people [LAUGHTER]
there than people around her age.
I was like, where did all these young people come from,
but they started talking
about how she never shunned them,
no matter if they were crackhead or whatever.
Then she was pretty good at giving my brother and
a good start in terms of learning
how to read and write and do math,
and that gave us a hit start in school.
>> You have one brother?
>> I have one brother and one sister.
My brother's retired school
administrator in New York City.
>> He older or younger.
>> Younger. He's younger than me.
And now he's on the school I
got elected to the School Board in Middletown, New York.
>> What's his name?
>> Curtis.
>> He worked in the South Bronx for
30 years as a teacher and an administrator.
And I remember one time I went well,
I would go help him out when I was in town.
I went to school one time.
And all the furniture was to one side of the room.
And I was like, what is that about decorating.
He said, No. He said, Look up there.
There were bullet holes in the wall from
people shooting across the street from his office.
[LAUGHTER] So we sat on
the side of the room so they
couldn't get a good shot at us.
But the community loved him.
Then he said it wasn't personal.
They weren't shooting at him.
It's just that was his attitude about that.
>> So he's on the school board now?
>> Middletown, New York. He retired
from New York City as administrator.
And now he said Middletown,
New York, just got to the school board.
>> And what about the your sister?
>> My sister, she works for
the in Pennsylvania for the City of Bethlehem.
And what she does is she goes out and visit
senior citizens and help
them get improvements done to the house,
a modification up to $20,000,
furnish a roof or whatever they need.
So she helps goes to visit them,
help them with their paperwork to fill it out?
And then help them get the services they need.
>> What's her name?
>> Sheila S-H-E-I-L-A. She's the youngest.
>> She's going by red.
>> Yeah.
>> Wow.
>> She came out the womb with a book reading.
She came out my mother's womb reading the books.
[LAUGHTER] She always reads.
Everywhere she goes, she always goes for recreation,
she go to library to read.
[LAUGHTER]
>> Well, it sounds like your
family background really prepared you for
public service that there was a strong commitment
to doing things for people in the community with.
>> Yeah. My father worked in the textile industry,
but he also part time work in the barbershop,
doing a lot of different things.
So he got a grasp of what was going on in the community.
>> Did you go to
the Apollo Theater while you were growing up?
>> Oh, yeah. I remember I went there.
First time I went James Brown was.
And he had his show the theme was don't be a dropout.
And don't do drugs.
He had that song king Heroin,
cause heroin addicts were real bad in the community.
Even though you had a working class
presence among the African.
[NOISE] Heroin was rampant.
And I remember my brother and sister and I,
we would go in the morning.
We would go down the steps.
If we didn't take the elevator,
we had to dodge heroin addicts trying to shoot
dope or trying to get you to shoot it because,
when they have a cold turkey.
Because they hadn't had it in a while, they [NOISE].
So they can't hold
the needle ring so to say, can you shoot me?
[LAUGHTER] So you knew how quickly
to sidestep them go
down the other staircase and keep it moving? [LAUGHTER]
>> Well, it sounds like you started in a public school
125 but before very quickly,
it sounds like you were in Catholic
schools for your education.
>> The first three years I went to
public school and then they skipped me one grade,
but my mother decided to retain me,
and then they decided to even though they skipped me,
she let them skip me, but she had them retain me.
>> She had them retain you.
So you got two years of public school.
>> Reason why she did that is because I started
school at four years old.
>> So no preschool back then, I guess.
>> She was our preschool.
We could do the work because she taught us to
read and tables and all that.
But then they skipped me a grade from
second to third but she figured.
>> [inaudible].
>> Because I could do the work. Then it
was a lot of times I was bored,
so I could be a little problematic sometimes in school.
But then because of the maturity factor,
she decided to have me retained
so I could be a little bit closer to
the age group that I was.
>> Yeah. It could be a problem
if everybody was older than you.
>> Two, three, four years older.
So then they decided to place us in Catholic schools.
>> So why Catholic school?
>> She just thought we'd get a bit of
education than going to public school.
>> You weren't Catholic, I get that.
>> At the time, we weren't,
but then we did become Catholic.
>> Did you?
>> Yeah. We staerted to walk down
the street with a white shirt and
a red tie if you were in grades one through three,
you wore red tie,
four through eight, you wore blue tie white shirt.
And so you had to balance between
talking proper English to the nuns and
the pastor and coming back
home and talking street language with your friends.
You couldn't be too proper.
And then because you had a tie and the white shirt on,
you were a target, so they wanted
to see what you made out of.
>> So you knew two languages?
>> Yeah.
>> Well, I've got you
started St. Joseph Elementary when you
went to the Catholic schools and
then Bishop Dubois High School.
And we talked before the interview started.
Depending on who you were talking to,
how you pronounce that now you might gather.
>> Bishop Dubois Just depends.
>> But when you were in school,
how did you pronounce it?
How did the nuns pronounce it?
>> Well, some of them pronounced it both ways.
Just depend on who I was around.
If they said Dubois just
for a point of not having to correct their grammar,
I say, yeah, I go to Bishop Dubois.
If somebody say Bishop Dubois,
yeah I go to Bishop Dubois you know what's worth.
I did a little checking on Bishop Dubois.
He was actually back in the early 1800s.
He's from France originally and was
the third Bishop of the Diocese of New York.
I guess now New York was a diocese, is that thing?
>> Yeah. It still is.
>> Is it? The Archdioce of New York.
>> So you went all the way through high school,
and let's see if you were born in 56,
it must have been about 74 that you graduated?
>> I turned
17 when I graduated.
>> You just turned 17.
>> My birthday came next to
the last day of the year so that always pushed me back.
>> What happened to the high school?
I saw that it closed in 76.
>> Yes, it did. A lot of
the Catholic elementary schools and high schools.
They closed down.
Some of them was because of the money they had to pay for
these lawsuits pertaining to
the infidelity with priests and young boys.
Then also, you started to have
more mega churches and so they had to consolidate.
But the parochial schools were
the schools people trying
when people nowadays set up their own school.
>> Just private school religious you mentioned parochial?
>> They had they had a lot of
them throughout the neighborhood.
>> I see. So competition.
>> So competition from the lawsuits,
other people setting up
private schools and then the mega churches.
But they still enforce
just don't they had to consolidate.
>> Well, it must have been a financial burden for
your parents to send you to a private school?
>> They did part time work in the school to help
out with Bingo help
clean the classrooms and the bathroom.
They were very good at doing that.
>> So the school itself was trying
to encourage a diverse student body.
>> They just needed help and my parents said,
I can help clean the bathrooms for you.
Well, I can help you with Bingo and save
you time from having to pay someone.
Therefore, they gave us a discount on the tuition.
>> Sure. And it's
ironic that the school colors
were blue and gray, it seems to me.
>> Yeah.
>> That's the North and the South.
But that may not be what they had in my mind.
>> No. It wasn't.
I still have my leather jacket and
sweater at home with the big D on it.
I played varsity basketball for three years.
I remember when I first tried out for the junior varsity,
I had my hip socket
fell out of place so they had to pin it back
together and then eventually took it out
and I went to try for the junior varsity basketball team.
And I told my parents I was
nervous and they gave me some advice.
They said, chew gum
and always stand next to the best player.
And that's what I did, and I became one of
the star junior varsity basketball players
because I always
stayed next to the best player and then became
his confidant and he taught me
a few things about the game.
>> And it was the Dubois High School Lions.
>> That's right. So I played little [inaudible].
So we were Lions.
>> But you were pretty good athlete senor, right?
>> Yeah. I played football,
basketball, baseball, track and field.
One of the things I use sports is some other things
to give me an audience
with certain leaders in the community.
My parents always told me there's
more than one way to skin a cat.
And sometimes if you can't beat them,
join them so I learned what they like to do.
If they liked Lily baseball. I would go upstairs.
My parents had some used encyclopedias.
And I would learn, read
encyclopedia on how to throw a ball,
how to throw a curveball.
>> You got that out of an encyclopedia?
>> Yeah. And then I'd ask get
my father to take us outside so we could practice.
Mm hm. Same thing with football and basketball.
They used to laugh at my jump shot.
It was consistent, but it didn't have any spin
because when I read it in
the encyclopedia it didn't say anything about a spin.
It just supposed to hold it like that.
But by doing that, I was able to surround myself.
Athletes in the community usually get a revered.
And because I was hanging out
with these different athletes,
that kept different factions that might
be adverse towards my well being.
That kept them at bay
because they saw I was playing football.
Some of them tried to play football with us,
but when we started knocking them upside the head,
they figured I don't know if I
want to mess with this guy.
But then some of
the community gang leaders like to play chess,
learn how to play chess with them.
So then that way we played chess a lot together.
And I got a chance to see how well thought out they were.
Some of them would make one move
and didn't realize that one move,
you got to think, two, three,
four, five moves down.
So by surrounding myself with them,
doing things they like that gave me an audience to
them and they taught me a lot about leadership, teamwork.
So I use sports as an avenue.
>> I think you told me you ran the
440 back then [inaudible]
>> We used to call it the straw Man's race
because there's one loop all the way around.
>> Remember what your times were?
>> I think it was about 47.
>> Pretty good?
>> I was pretty good sprinter,
but also had endurance.
So that's why they put me in the 400.
>> In fact, it's real good in high school.
>> No, I run track in college not high school.
>> Really?
>> I run in college, in high school.
I run long distance,
my freshman year but then I switched
over to basketball junior.
>> Well, this sounds you learned a lot from your sports
and a whole lot about leadership and what have you.
>> You can always tell where you go and I learned from
sports by the people you surround yourself with.
If you want to get better, you can't
hang out with people not as good
as you you got to hang out
with people who are better than you.
Sometimes it leads to
ridicule because you're trying to fit in,
but you don't pay attention to that,
you pay attention to the message
they're trying to tell you.
Hey, knucklehead, what are you doing?
You're supposed to fill the lanes,
not come down the middle when you pass the ball.
So I've listened to what they wanted me to know,
and then take the other stuff personally,
I just took it professionally.
>> Did you ever meet Leroy Otis?
>> He was one of our main coaches.
>> He was a coach? I was trying to
find a little bit about him and San he
did a whole lot of good work with
kids and sports in the New York area,
you remember anything that you'd like
to say about him, Leroy Otis?
>> He gave a lot of kids an opportunity to play
sports and visit places they might have never visited.
Just like when I played baseball and football,
my brother and I would visit
teams in Philadelphia in Dallas Texas.
Or when my brother,
when he was about 12 he would take them to
Puerto Rico and play basketball tournaments.
And when we play Little League baseball,
we're trying to get to the world
Little League World Series,
so he provided a lot of opportunities for the kids
in the community to excel and
grow in an environment that is not as toxic
or consequential because it's in sports so,
if you do something wrong, you can still learn.
So he's always encouraging.
>> I saw two different ways to spell Otis,
do you know which one is supposed to be right?
>> I think it is O-T-I-S,
I think, if I remember correctly.
>> I saw spelled O-T-I-S also.
>> I guess that.
I never paid much attention,
but he helped out
a lot of kids in the community and he was well revered.
>> And I saw let's say,
you also are doing
basketball and football with Riverside Church.
So this is outside of school?
>> Right.
>> So this is just after
school league that they had or what's Riverside Church?
>> Mr. Lloyd, Riverside Church is
one of the big churches where they have
a large seminary and
train different people to go into the seminary.
It's right next to Columbia University.
>> That's a famous church, isn't it?
>> Yes. That's one of
the unique things about growing up where
I grew out on 125th street.
You had Columbia University, Ivy League.
I remember going up there,
my brother and I sneaking in
the gym to play basketball and
seeing the SDS students protest and riot.
And we were having then up the other street a few blocks.
You had City University of New York,
then you had Riverside Church,
then you had the Apollo Theater and the Theresa Hotel.
The Theresa Hotel was the main hotel
that African Americans could stay
at because of segregation,
they couldn't stay in the hotels.
>> Theresa Hotel?
>> Right there. I was on seventh avenue and 25th Street.
And that was the hotel that
the prominent African American stayed at.
So when they come out and they would give
speeches out there in the corner,
we would listen to people like Jackie Robinson,
Joe Lewis, Muhammad Ali,
Malcolm X, Martin Luther King.
Met my friend, that's where he
got stabbed by the lady with the scissors.
But so we had a wide variety of perspectives
from people in the community.
>> Where was Kim when he got stabbed?
>> Theresa Hotel.
>> He was at the hotel.
>> The lady stabbed him in the lungs with some scissors
and if she had moved
an inch or two over, she could have killed him.
We had a broad section
of people from different backgrounds and cultures that
were articulating their views so it just makes you
think beyond the immediate had a pretty good education.
>> Now, did you go straight
into the Air Force from high school?
>> No, I went to the State University of New York at Albany.
And I played football and run track.
And they still have the program,
matter of fact, I gave a speech there a few weeks ago.
Educational opportunity programs where they looked for
low income kids across
New York State and provided grants
and scholarships for them to go to school.
Matter of fact, it was instrumental in building
the Black and Hispanic middle class of
New York State because they
were able to we were able to go to college.
>> So how long did you
stay at State University of New York?
>> I took the five-year plan.
It took me five years and I had
a double major Rhetorical communication
in African American studies.
>> So, I guess I had
my list backward on
when you got your different degrees then so.
So State University in New York at Albany.
>> Rhetorical Communications in African American studies.
>> So that would have been 74-79 that you were there?
And then you got your bachelor's degree?
And so why did you do community college in the Air Force?
>> That was when I wanted to go back to school.
Well, in the Air Force,
that's a degree that they offer based
on your experience and then taking your core subjects.
And it helps you when it comes to time to promotion to
show that you have community [inaudible]
>> That you have a bachelor's degree.
>> Right. But I didn't tell them that,
I just needed on my resume.
So when I tied for promotion it
shows that you participated
in the community college at the Air Force.
>> But you didn't really participate,
you were they just took all those credits?
>> I had to go to class.
>> And then you went to class?
>> I was working at the airport
doing customer service in Oklahoma.
I had switched over Air Force Reserve in Oklahoma.
I was active duty, but then I went to reserve then
I had a day job
or a night job working at
the airport for budget rent a car doing customer service.
So I had to rent the cars,
clean the cars, when I had a break,
I would go over to the Oklahoma City Community College
and take classes.
Then after class, I would come back off
after my lunch break and go back to work.
Matter of fact, last year they installed me into
their college Hall of fame
in the Oklahoma City Community College,
and they came out here to visit me.
And then since I was on a roll,
I went to University of Central Oklahoma
and I got a degree in business education.
>> Yeah.
I've got teacher education and business education.
Those are two different degrees.
>> Right.
>> Okay.
>> And then I went to get
master's degree in school administration.
>> Okay. I'm getting a little confused on the time line.
You graduated from Sunni in '79,
did you go into the Air Force immediately?
>> No. I worked insurance.
I used to sell insurance.
>> Okay.
>> And then I had an opportunity.
The company liked my work
and they said, What do you want to do?
You want to stay in Albany New York?
You want to go back home to New York City?
Where do you want to go?
I said, Well, send me somewhere I've never been before.
So they sent me to Oklahoma.
>> So that's how you got to Oklahoma.
>> Yeah.
>> Okay.
>> Talk about a cultural shock.
But it paid off for dividends later on
because when I was out there,
the job I had there was a shoe shot man in the building.
And he would listen to country music all day.
And after a while, I learned how to sing a lot
of Country Western songs.
So when I went in the Air Force and I had
to work and supervise guys from,
like, Tennessee, Kentucky, Texas.
They were surprised that I could sing
country Western songs in the morning.
In the morning we wake up,
I'd be singing Live and on Tulsa Tap,
Living on Tulsa Tap.
All the interest rate is up in the stock market down.
You only get mug.
If you go downtown.
Or all my exes live in Texas,
that's why I reside in Tennessee.
[LAUGHTER] And then I would help them,
you got to always take care of people,
so I would help them make get prepared for
inspection if they were late
coming back from an additional duty.
>> Yeah. Now,
I skipped over it earlier,
but you were a drummer at 1.2,
I guess. Played the drums?
>> My brother and I when we were in New York City,
the community center had a steel drum.
Person was teaching people how to play,
Carribean steel drums, Clypso.
So he taught us how to play.
He taught us how to keep rhythm.
And we used to tour around New York City.
His first name was Kim.
>> Kim?
>> Kim, K-I-M.
>> K-I-M.
>> Right. They called him Kim.
This was at Grant Houses Community Center.
And we used to travel around New York playing
for people and they
were in nursing homes or sick or to the community.
And have a good time doing that.
>> Okay. So let's see, now,
you're working in insurance after '79 for how many years?
>> I worked in insurance probably for about let me see.
About two years.
>> Okay.
>> About two years.
>> So you're in Oklahoma about 1981, man?
>> Right.
>> And then what happens then?
>> I always wanted to go to the Air Force.
And that's when I decided, well,
I'm still young, I taught my parents to say you're young,
you don't have any responsibilities. Just go for it.
But it took a while for them to get to that point,
because what happened was
playing the game of pool with the recruiter.
And if I won, I was supposed to get 50 bucks.
And if I lost, I was supposed to enlist.
And that's how I got started, so I let them know.
First, they were concerned about it,
but they said, if that's what you want,
let the chips fall where they made.
>> So you're about 25 years old at this point.
>> Let me see. Right.
>> And so you go into the Air Force,
you got a college degree.
Did you ever think about going in as
an officer as opposed to enlisted?
>> I thought about it, but I made a lot
of friends with people who were enlisted.
And I figured it's a lot more fun that way.
>> Okay.
>> My first supervisor,
he joined the Air Force in 1947,
old Serge, Bobby Hignite.
>> What is it?
>> Bobby Hignite, H-I-G-N-I-T-E.
He was part Caucasian, part Native American.
The funny thing in Oklahoma,
you can see somebody as black as me.
So you're African American?
No. I'm partially Black,
but I have a card here that says I'm 60% chalk taw.
>> Okay.
>> And that entitles you to a lot of benefits.
Bobby Hignite was that way.
He looked Caucasian, but he had a car.
And he just kind of took me under his wings.
And we had a great lifelong friends.
He showed me the roads.
>> So you were in the Air Force for 25 plus years.
So we're '81 to 2006, '07?
>> Actually, when I moved over to
the reserves in the guard of going
back and forth when I came out of active duty,
I retired actually in 2015.
>> Okay.
>> So it was actually I say 25 plus years because I
try not to say was 33 years,
six weeks, four days.
>> That's more like 33 years.
>> Thirty three years, yeah.
>> Okay. So when do you go
from regular Air Force to Air Force Reserve?
>> When I came out of active duty.
Well, before I went to basic training,
that's when I met Bobby Hignite,
then also another friend of
my supervisor her name was Pat Hill, Patricia Hill.
>> Patricia Hill.
>> And we just got along so well.
And they were in the reserves.
And so when I came back out before they had
an opportunity for people to
go active duty or go reserve.
Because of my friendship with the [inaudible] group.
>> You mean after basic training,
you could go to reserves?
>> So you spent most of your time in the reserves then?
>> Reserve and active duty.
Active duty I would go from
time to time depending on when I was on orders,
but Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve.
So most of my time was between those.
And then while I was doing that, I was an educator.
I taught for 22 years and retired.
I taught everything from K
through 12, computer programming,
accounting, business, math, reading, writing, science.
You name it all, I taught it all.
>> And where were you teaching?
>> I was teaching in Oklahoma
then I taught here in Fulton County.
>> In Fulton County. Okay. So you're
teaching in the public schools?
>> Yeah. And so I did that.
I taught and then in the Air Force,
I managed personnel for aircraft maintenance.
And then the Air Force talked me into going
to the University of Georgia
to think about working for a doctorate degree.
And I said, You sure you got
the right person because I ain't that bright.
They said, no.
Before the Air Force asked me to follow through on that.
I was a vice president of a teachers organization
called Mace Metropolitan Association.
>> Mace.
>> M-A-C-E of initials,
but it's the metropolitan association
of classroom educators.
>> Okay.
>> And the chairman was the late Dr. John Trotter.
>> Okay.
>> T-R-O-T-T-E-R.
>> Okay.
>> And he was the one that started talking with me
about going to the University of Georgia
to get a doctor degree.
But I told him that's 90 miles one way.
I'm not going there. He said,
no, you need to think about it.
And so then when I was in the Air Force, you know,
I was I had a chance I retired as a master sergeant.
I had a chance if I to be a chief master sergeant,
but I was like at a crossroads because I said,
Well, I could be
a chief master sergeant or a master sergeant.
But if I go this way and get this doctor degree,
I can still be a master sergeant and
retire and get a doctor degree.
And so we sat down
and then they encouraged me and I was trying to
find out what makes what made these people
John Trotter in the Air Force think I could do that.
[LAUGHTER]
>> Now, what year did you get the doctor?
>> I started in '98,
and I did six years that was 2004.
>> Okay.
>> I know it took six years.
It was either '94 or '96.
No '96. Let me see.
I know I started at '98 and I went six years.
>> 2004 will be six years.
>> Yeah, it was because my father passed in 2006,
so I get those mixed up.
And that's when I met Professor Dr.
Sally Zepeda, Sally Z-E-P-E-D-A.
And she was my major professor.
When it comes to research,
she was pretty top notch,
but she could come down and be a regular person.
And we used to go over to
the house and she would help me.
She taught me how to write.
[LAUGHTER] And we would eat lunch,
she would give me suggestions.
She was surprised how
prompt I was about getting stuff done.
And she showed me
how to write and help me with my dissertation.
And I remember when
it was time to defend my dissertation,
she said to me, you and your friends in
Air Force Reserve y'all show up in your uniform.
So we showed up.
>> Show up in your uniform for graduation?
>> No. To defend my dissertation.
>> To defend. Well, nobody going to mess with you then.
>> We came in there.
Tim Hunt Addis.
I said Mask Sergeant come here has
requested to defend
his dissertation, so I went in there.
They asked me a few questions,
then you know how they tell you to go back out to
decide that they want you to come
back in if you know what the heck you're talking about.
So I went back in,
and the guys were sitting like this.
I was like, okay.
They would ask me a question and answer for me.
One had jokes, and he never had
jokes all year because I knew him.
>> [OVERLAPPING] the faculty on your committee?
>> Right. And I had to go back in and defend it.
Then they said, congratulations.
>> So they didn't ask hard questions?
>> No. But Sally prepared me very well too.
But when we left and we had lunch,
I said, Sally, those guys there,
we get along well, but didn't really bother me that,
but she said because I took care of
that when you went out. [LAUGHTER]
>> Really? Wait minute.
So they send you out before they questioned you?
>> You come in and your faculty is there.
I'm going to meet professor,
and they ask you a few questions.
>> So you answered a few questions and when you went out.
>> And at that point, they're trying to determine if they
were really want to go forward with you or not,
if you know what you're talking about.
And so then you go out and then
they conversate among themselves,
well, do you think this person ready or not?
What questions should we ask?
Then they ask you come back in.
Then they get deeper into your dissertation,
they'll review the literature, your data.
Mine was on principals preparation
to become a principal while
they were assistant principal.
>> I was going to ask you that. What was the title?
>> Assistant principals preparation
before I became a principal.
>> Wait a minute. Assistant principal's preparation
before becoming a principal.
>> And I interviewed all women.
If I remember, I know a couple of them were Gwinnett,
but I think all three of them were
in Gwinnett County school.
So I went and interviewed them.
It was qualitative.
It wasn't quantitative.
So I had to have a tape record and listen.
Then I had to have member checks because
sometimes you can influence
what you think you're receiving,
you have to have somebody objective to say,
well, I don't know.
I don't think I saw that.
I think this is what I saw from the response.
Then you go back and you answer questions a different
way or same way or a
different way and trying to get
a better perspective on it.
>> So 2004, you got that.
Now, when did you get that degree from Georgia
, the specialist degree?
>> I've got from Georgia, that was '96.
I was teaching, and then I went there in '96.
>> So that was '96.
Now, those degrees out
at Central Oklahoma, when were they?
>> '88 was the business aid degree.
>> '88 for business aid.
>> '89 was for the elementary.
>> And I've got a educational leadership master's degree
from University of Central Oklahoma.
>> Well, I had a dual undergraduate.
'88 was business, '89 was elementary aid.
>> Business aid was '88 and the teacher aid was '89?
>> Right.
>> And then when did you get the masters?
>> '91. I went '90,
'91, and that's when I got the masters.
>> Now, Oklahoma City Community College,
that was back when you first got there in '81?
>> That was '88.
>> '88?
>> I was going to three colleges at one time.
>> My goodness. I was going
to Oklahoma City Community College,
Community College of the Air Force,
and University of Central Oklahoma.
I was carrying about 25 credits. That's a master.
>> Now, when did you get
transferred to Dobbins Reserve Base?
>> '92, I left Oklahoma and came on to Dobbins.
And I listed in the Air National Guard.
When I was in Oklahoma, they enlisted,
they asked me to come outside,
came on out this way.
When I got here, I was able to enlist
the same day in the Air National Guard,
get a job teaching in
the Fulton County Schools and get an apartment.
I had to trifector all in one day.
>> In one day.
>> I went back to my partner who we played
varsity basketball in high school,
and in college, he played basketball, I played football.
And when he came back home, I was gone.
He said, where's your truck at? What happened?
I said, I had a job. I got enlisted in
air guard and have an apartment.
So I was pretty fortunate.
>> Damn. So you were living in Fulton County then?
>> No. The apartment was then in Cobb County,
down the road from Dobbins.
>> So '92, you come to Dobbins and
then you retire from Dobbins?
>> Well, what happened
was they moved our Air National Guard Unit
to Walter Robins Air Force Base.
They took away our fighter jets and gave us B1 bombers.
So they gave us new planes,
and then we had to move
120 miles south to Walter Robins.
>> But you didn't want to go?
>> I did. I went with them.
And I served down there for about eight or nine years.
I managed personnel for aircraft maintenance.
I also managed fitness
and health for the pilots and navigators.
And also for the commanders I used to
make and pour coffee.
Would you like cream and sugar [inaudible]?
Very good choice.
[LAUGHTER] So I served there for by eight or nine years.
And then one day I was helping this young airman.
She wanted to go into
an Air Force program where she
could consolidate her training.
And so she had to go into the Air Force Reserve.
So I called up there.
Recruiters can be like a pit bull with lock jaw.
And so the recruiter and I,
we both hit it off because he grew up in New York City,
but he grew up on the lower West side,
and I grew up in upper west side.
So, hey there, remember this that.
So he kept calling me.
I said, no, I'm not interested.
But one day I was driving from Marietta
to Robbins Air Force Base and my thermostat acted up.
And I was in the middle of the highway on the side of
the road changing thermostat. I said, you know what?
Maybe I do need to get back closer
because Dobbins was only
like about eight miles from home compared to under 20.
So I listed in the Air Force Reserve and there I managed
personnel for the pilot navigator school,
C130, did that for about 10 years.
And that's where I retired from.
>> Now, you were teaching in Fulton County.
Which schools did you teach in?
>> Brookfield Elementary School.
And then Hapeville Elementary School.
>> Hapeville?
>> That's what my email says,
H-A-P-E-V-I-L-L-E-E-S. Hapeville because the ES
is for elementary school.
>> Okay. And how long did you teach there,
at these two elementary schools?
>> I taught all together 22 years and retired.
I retired because well,
I didn't really intend to
stick around that long in teaching.
But my parents said time is too valuable to throw away.
You got 10 years invested.
You might as well do another 10
and build up a retirement.
And so that's when I decided,
I actually did 12 more and that gave me 22.
Then from there, what I did was,
I got hired by Fulton County government.
>> Okay. So that's where
the City of Refuge and Jefferson Place come in?
>> Right. At first,
when I went to those places and they showed me around,
I said, this is interesting.
I don't know if I really want to do this.
But they convinced me they said it's something different.
You never know your talents.
But in Jefferson Place,
we would go into Rice Street prison,
and recruit inmates out for the program I had.
Also, we would sort people out from
the homeless program and put them in
the program I had where I
would teach them how to use a computer,
how to interview, how to apply for a job online.
Drug rehab, I co-facilitated the drug treatment program.
And then I would help them find a job and housing.
But if they were in our program,
they could stay in the housing we had there
for up to almost 18 months.
>> Okay. So this is part of Jefferson County government,
Jefferson place, excuse me,
so these are people who are actually incarcerated or?
>> They were, but they were
eligible for parole or they were homeless.
And so we would interview and try to screen them.
We'd go in to Rice Street prison and interview inmates
who would get ready to get out and see if they would
be a candidate for our program.
>> I see.
>> Then we had a homeless counterpart
in the program where we would bring
people in and we would interview and screen and see if
they were eligible for the program I had.
And we would do the same thing at
City of Refuge with the women.
The only other thing we had a component of.
>> So City of Refuge is the homeless women,
or battered spouses and whatever?
>> Right. And so we had a federal grant,
and so I did that for about four years.
>> And that's a faith based group.
>> City of Refuge.
>> The City of Refuge. I did a little research on that.
Bruce Deel, D-E-E-L founded it.
Was he still active when you were there?
>> A little bit, in and out.
My group, we was from the Fulton County government.
So mainly when I came in,
I was focusing on my program,
and he was mainly working with
the induction process of bringing
women in and finding them a place to live.
But we still would interact and I would help them out
sometimes with the social worker case.
>> So what years were you involved with Jefferson Place?
>> 2011. I'm sorry, 2012-2014.
>> Okay.
>> Then, while I was doing that,
I was working with the,
Cobb County Schools adult education
program where I would
help prepare people for the GED test.
Learning how to help them learn the language.
Even while I was still in the Senate,
I did that for about six years.
Because I really enjoyed that and it was
right in the middle of my district.
That's Cobb County Schools adult education.
And funny thing happened.
The people in the programs,
I used to always say, it's like playing sports.
Things aren't going your way you caught
up in the other teams movement.
So coach has to call a time out and sit you on
the bench and try to give you some strategies,
so when he or she put you back into the game,
you can make a better adjustment and not get caught up
into the other teams rhythm
which is causing you problems.
And that was metaphoric
because they made some choices in life
and got caught up with those bad choices.
So now we were trying to give them skills so that
when time for them to go back out into the world,
they'd be ready and I said, one of these days,
coach Mr. Woodson was one of the head instructors.
I said, When Mr. Woodson blows the whistle,
it's going to be time for you to get
back out there in the game of life.
So we'll see if you're ready,
and it was interesting when it was time for them to go.
Also in the program, if they work,
we would save their money
for them and some of them when they get
out there get five,
six, seven, 10,000 dollars.
But we were discrete on how much we gave to them
because it's like giving
somebody who was an addict dynamite.
They got $5,000 now
they don't have any rules or regulation.
But anyway, when it was time for
a lot of them to go back out, it was like,
they literally trying to pull them off that wall
to tell them coach's
blowing the whistle it's time for you to get
back out in the game of life.
But we had programs, too,
where we would find them either
a boarding room or an apartment,
and we would pay their first month's rent
half the second and
then a third of the
third and slowly give them some of their money back.
They didn't know too much about
me because most of the time I just came in,
I was Mr. Rhett and when we had
the meetings in the morning spirituality,
you might say, I'm John,
I'm a recovering addict.
I'm Bob, I'm a recovering alcoholic.
And I would say, I'm Mr.
Rhett and I'm a recovering human being.
And that fascinated them.
They was like, what's a recovering human being?
I said, we all have our crypt tonight.
Yours is a little more toxic than mine,
but we're all trying to cope.
But anyway, somehow or another,
they found out that I had
an opportunity to run for the Senate.
And they said, are you go to run? I said are you crazy?
They said, how do you know it's not
Coach Woodson isn't blowing whistle,
it's time for you to get back
out there in the game of life.
And I thought about that.
And when you're responsible for people
[OVERLAPPING] or a leadership and they look up to you,
I think you got to practice a little bit what you preach.
>> Sure.
>> And to this day,
I have some of my ex clients
who worked there at the State Capital.
I don't tell anybody about their business or anything,
but we see each other and laugh and talk and have lunch.
And we said, who would have thought that
nine years ago that
we would be working in the State Capital?
If you'd have told that to us,
we'd have thought you were all drugs.
>> Yeah.
>> And so when I see them,
it motivates me sometimes
when you have good days, you have better days.
>> Yeah. And now you were doing English as
a second language also?
>> That, and then helping them learn English, math,
read, some of them we had to go pretty much from scratch,
and we would graduate them at levels.
Some were able to maybe get their GED, but some,
if they've been out of school a long time,
we wanted to at least help them to
be able to be functional literate,
and then make them feel good about themselves.
Oh be moving up this level, this level.
And it was right in the middle of my district.
So funny people.
My state senator is helping me get
my GED helping me with math.
It was just a good feeling for all.
>> Is there anything like Jefferson Place and Cobb County?
>> Well, the closest I can come to that,
but probably Must Ministry may
open for some program similar to that.
But that was a unique program.
It was a federal Tri J grant.
>> What's the company? Federal what grant?
>> It was called Tri grant.
I think it's T-R-I-A-G-E. That was the name of the grant.
>> Tri A-G-E.
>> I think that was how you spell it.
And that was a unique program,
and we had a cafeteria there and a dormitory and a gym.
I remember when we had the ice storms.
Both times, I stayed at the Jefferson Place.
>> You stayed there.
>> For 72 hours, both times.
We had food,
we had a kitchen, we had a gym.
We had a dormitory.
But it was very unique in itself. It was funny.
Interesting thing is,
when they got to personal reliability,
when we talked people about self esteem and things of
that nature relationships, dating.
When we got to the self esteem
part and I showed them pictures of
unhealthy and self esteem, we discussed it.
Then when we showed
them pictures or posters
of what a healthy self esteem is like,
and we discussed that and never failed.
That's when I won all of them over.
Some people would start crying because they didn't
realize that they were
living an unhealthy lifestyle in terms of self esteem.
They didn't have to put up with that stress.
At first, some of them, they said, who's this guy?
Most of them had a little street ethics to them,
so they figured they were smarter than me,
which is not hard.
But they had that street element
but when we talked about personal liability,
talked about self relationships,
healthy self esteem, how to argue with their spouse.
That would win them over every time.
So that was a very interesting part of the class.
I remember some people crying,
and I remember one guy in particular
Lee was a professional gambler.
>> Lee?
>> Lee. He had a poker face.
Hardly ever his face even when he talked,
his face never moved.
But I was one of the only ones who can get Lee to laugh.
And his face still didn't move. He was like.
But when we got the personal development,
he had his head down.
I said, you all right, Lee?
He said, Yeah, I'm all right but it's
just interesting the effect of that on him.
Then from there on.
But the interesting thing apart about working there,
didn't have much of a problem with
Jessica reminded me of growing up in
New York City because I grew up around
a lot of drug addicts,
people of a criminal element so just kind of in
a funny sense reminded me of being
home. I was kind of used to.
>> When you're doing the adult education
for Cobb County Schools,
where were the classes held?
>> They used to be over there across
the street from Fair Oaks, Elementary school.
But now they tore it
down and they built a middle school there.
So now the classes are conducted in
Smyrna right off of
Windy Hill Road and they're still there now.
It's just that I had to kind of
transition because being in the Senate I've
been promoted on a lot
of committees that take up a lot of time.
Like the rules committee,
they're the ones who decide whether
or not votes get to the floor
for I mean bills get to the floor for a vote.
Judiciary deal with all the top Judiciary matter of fact.
That was one of the reasons I got asked to sit in on
the study committee when Rudy Giuliani and then came,
talking about election irregularities.
And I walked in there and I sent a lot of people in here.
So I sat across was a table right here where you had,
I said, this guy looks farmilia. Who is this guy?
I said, Oh, man, this is Rudy Giuliani.
And finance, development authority.
They've take up a lot of my time, but I don't mind.
I enjoy work with people,
but I just can't give the time I used to
trying to balance being in the Senate and doing the GED.
>> What persuaded you to run for the Senate?
How did that come about?
>> I always had done a lot of work
like my parents for people in the community.
And kind of ingratiated
me with a lot of people and my name became familiar,
I would join organizations and
run for a secretary because I was the secretary,
I would look at their organization design and
program and come up with a plan to try to help them.
And one of them was to publish their
electronically publish a newsletter to
go out to their constituents.
But a lot of times the newsletters came from
me produced by Doctor Rhett.
So that that helped to push my name
out along with helping
the organizations with their goals.
Then somebody asked me
to run for commissioner and I lost.
I only came in third,
but I got 17% of the vote.
>> For which year would that have been? You got a-
>> 2008.
>> 2008. So who were you running against in 2008?
>> Was Anette Censincy.
She defeated Woody the year before the turd before.
And then Woody challenged her.
>> She was kind of controversial, as I recall.
>> She had her challenges.
And then I ran a second time.
This time it was like a plethora people.
Lisa Cupid was the notable one.
>> Lisa Cupid was running.
Is this the year she got elected?
>> Right, to County Commissioner
in the southwest part of the county.
And I remember she came to
me and I always tell the story.
We joke I tease,
but she's telling about
she's running for commissioner and she's going to win.
I said, I bet you $1.
You won't win. Well, I lost that bed,
just like I lost the ball with the recruiter.
I'm not on bet anymore.
The only bed that I do is I go play a lottery ticket.
>> But you were in that race when she was elected?
>> Yeah, she was.
And so third time was the chart,
but I was down to my last third strike
playing baseball get three strikes.
And somebody said, why don't you run
for a state senator againt Steve Thompson.
I said, Steve Thompson? Are you kidding me?
I said, no, what do you got to lose, you know?
It's the perfect storm.
Everybody else is caught up in their own race,
and he doesn't really want to stick
around because he's been there 30 something years.
>> He was at the end regardless.
>> Right. And we were good friends, and I told him.
>> You were?
>> Yeah. Because when I lost to Woody,
I'm the type of person if something doesn't work out,
I don't run away pow.
I try to learn from it.
And Woody and Steve taught me a lot about politics.
And matter of fact, Steve's wife,
first I told her I wasn't going to
run anymore. They said, no.
She said, I see something in you.
You need to stick around.
Your turn is coming.
I said, okay.
>> Steve's wife persuaded you to run.
>> Not to give up.
>> This was before I ran against Steve.
When I got elected,
somebody tapped me on the shoulder and it was her.
She said, I told you, I prophesied, didn't I?
I said, yeah, you did.
So the third time was [inaudible] down to
my third strike and if you lose three times,
that's like striking out
you don't want to get to lose the tag.
But I felt good because I had
a young man by the name of Lance,
who was a campaign coordinator.
>> Lance.
>> L-A-N-C-E.
>> That's his first name?
>> The last name was Jones.
>> Jones.
>> He was in the second election I ran for commissioner.
He was helping Lisa Cupid with her campaign.
And so when he heard I was going to run for Senate,
he came and said, I think I can help you out.
At that time, had never he was young, yeah.
He said, I've never lost the race.
And I've analyzed your race because
you know I ran was working against you,
and I think if we make some adjustments,
so he I said,
What I got to lose, you know?
>> What kind of adjustments did he suggest?
>> Technology. And so I could know
which doors to knock on and which ones not to,
which people call and which people not to.
It's interesting, I got on my phone.
I can pull up names or addresses and
tell on the street figure how I got a program,
who more likely to vote for me and who
doesn't vote and who may not vote for me.
So I can know where to go to and some people say,
yeah, Doc I voted for you. I go to my phone.
Hey, he hadn't voted since Nixon.
[LAUGHTER] I being facetious,
but it's true. Come on.
>> So you got all those records.
>> So I can pull he taught me how to do that,
and he worked with me and I won by 150 votes.
>> That's what I sound. Yeah that's close race.
>> Yes, it was. Hundred and fifty votes.
Steve was very gracious,
like I said, we were friends,
and he he told everybody at the Capitol,
even the security guards to take care of me, good man.
>> That is nice.
I found a quote from him in
the Atlanta Journal Constitution after the election,
and he was saying that he knew that
the district's minority population was increasing.
And he says, and
so he knew that he might be in trouble in the election,
because of the demographics.
But he said that if anything,
"I'm proud of the support from minority voters.
We must have done well to come that close,
and I'm grateful for that.".
>> Steve, he was very good politician.
You know, he was instrumental in
changing the Georgia flag,
and Roy Ball Governor Bam.
>> I think I told you that he got money from
me once for the oral history project.
From from Zell Miller when Miller was governor.
They got me $13,000 and back in the 90s,
that went a long way.
>> Yeah, that's a lot of way.
[LAUGHTER] But we were good friends and he showed me
the ropes and sometimes
we all have to think about when when it's time to
transition when it's time to do something different.
Because he was the governor's chief floor leader
when Roy Barnes was there.
But then when the Republican wave took over,
he was irrelevant for the most part.
He ran he stuck around because when
Governor Barnes ran again in 2010.
He thought just in case
when do you think he ran against Deal?
>> I'm trying to think Roy was Governor 1998 to 2002.
>> And then Sonny Perdue.
>> And then Sonny Perdue would have been 2002 to 2010.
>> Right.
>> Yeah.
>> But then the Governor Barnes didn't win,
so he was just trying to
figure out what he was just going through the motions.
>> My own take was that he did too much as Governor.
He accomplished so much in
those four years they created a lot of enemies out there.
>> You talking about Governor Barnes?
>> Yeah.
>> Governor Barnes when he took away teachers.
>> Yeah. He upset the teachers.
>> He upset them tenure.
When he when he adjusted that tenure,
that's like stepping on
a fire hand hell or hornet's nest.
That was matter of fact,
when I talked with Governor Barnes,
he's a good supporter.
And he always tells me,
whatever you do, don't mess with those teachers.
Because it's like touching the third rail of
a train track and he said he knows he's done it.
>> Well, he changed the flag
also and that upset the flaggers
that like the old Confederate symbol
on those on the Georgia flag.
>> That's right. That didn't help him either.
>> And he also upset
the environmentalists when he wanted to put
an outer loop from 75 over to 85.
>> Some people, I wish they would have built that loop.
[LAUGHTER] Look at the traffic,
I'm trying to dodge trucks coming up here from Columbus.
>> So what's Steve Thompson doing nowadays?
>> Every now and then I see him,
he spend a lot of time with his grand kids.
He goes back and forth between here and North Carolina.
And he's pretty he's happy.
His legacy in matter of fact,
we invited him and the family down to the capital.
We had Steve Thompson day,
and we had a big plaque and let him say a few words.
Because like I said,
his reputation is in tack
his legacies in tack and
he did some significant things down there.
>> Were there any particular campaign issues
when you were running in 2014?
>> My main thing in 2014,
I was just telling people don't forget Senator.
[LAUGHTER] That was my campaign slogan and that worked.
But it was built on because I had done
a lot of work in the community
and I would be more responsive to their needs,
phone calls, or if they
had needed some direction to go and guidance.
>> So you're saying you're implying that
Steve Thompson was losing touch with his district,
maybe as the demographics change?
>> And give you an example of that Woody Thompson.
>> Same thing with Woody.
>> That's what happened. He was
a Republican and he ran
against Anette testing as a Democrat.
And Steve had tried to tell what he
shouldn't change to Republican
because of this district makeup,
Anette won by a landslide.
>> Yeah. He changed from Democrat
to Republican, didn't he?
>> Right.
>> Then district changed.
>> And then when he ran against her the second time,
he changed back to a Democratic.
>> So he ran in the Democratic primary again,
and won that one?
>> Right.
>> But I can't remember now, but it was-.
>> It was a runoff. She came in second.
He came in first and he wanted to
run off by a landslide a lot.
>> There's a lot of controversy about her.
I remember at the time that you know,.
>> Didn't didn't help.
>> So I guess what well,
everybody was a Democrat that was white at one time,
and then he switched from
the Democrats or Republicans to back to the Democrats.
>> What he switched from Democrat,
Republican and Republican to Democrat.
And with the closing down
of public housing and working class housing in Marietta,
a lot of African Americans were pushed out towards
Austell Powder Springs, Lydia Springs, Douglasville.
And when you look at the government leadership,
it reflects that African American changed
and it changed under
and they weren't what he did
wasn't aware of how that had changed.
Then people were moving out of the area
towards paulding but now
they're moving further out than that.
>> Yeah, it seems like Marietta
has been trying to get rid
of affordable housing for as long as they could.
>> Well, it's expensive.
We talk about 6,7,800000 dollars.
[LAUGHTER] If I can't loan you that much, by.
>> So no particular campaign issues
except that you're appealing to
people that know that you
know about them and you've got their interests at heart.
>> And be more responsive
because you've been hearing from me.
>> And I once asked Joe Mac Wilson about
campaign issues and he snarled at me [NOISE] and said,
issues, who can deliver what for
their constituents? You agree with that?
>> Yeah. That's part of it or
at least maintaining communications.
One of the things, as I said earlier,
I have a degree in communications.
I've utilized it pretty well,
keeping in touch with people in the community,
a large swash of
people and then Rhett is not a common name.
When you get closer to South Carolina,
you'll see a lot more reds
but when you go around
the country and you look at phone books,
you don't see that many reds.
It's not a hard name to remember.
Then when you put
a little marketing behind it don't forget Dr. Rhett.
I developed that when I ran for
it in the State University in New York.
I ran for a student counsel.
But my slogan was, don't forget Mike E Rhett.
>> Is that right?
>> Mike Rhett.
>> Mike?
>> Right.
>> You want by Mike?
>> A lot of people call me that.
>> M-I-C-K?
>> M-I-K-E like, give it to Mike?
>> M-I-K-E why?
>> M-I-K-E-E. Mike, give it to Mike.
The old serial commercial.
So it just stuck. So I said,
don't forget Mike Rhett.
>> When I get your newsletter,
the online newsletter, it still says,
don't forget Senator Rhett.
>> I made that adjustment.
>> So that's been ever since you were
running as for student counsel.
>> A State University in New York and Alden.
>> How about that?
>> But just being responsible communication,
people hear from you and they see you
makes me then I've been very fortunate
to now being at the state legislature
to be able to get significant bills signed into law.
That's not easy for Democrats, but, you know,
I've gotten bills like
Senator Jack Hill veterans bill where it
provides scholarships for disabled veterans
who go to the technical colleges.
I got past another one,
just a few past
the Vective program with
Dobbins and Chattahoochee Technical College
where the active members in
the military or veteran can go over to
Chattahooe Hoochie Tech a college degree.
Also change their military certification
into a civilian certification.
>> And what did you call them?
>> Vectr, V-E-C-T-R,
Veteran Education Training Resource. V-E-C.
>> Veteran Education.
>> Training resource.
>> Now, I've got V-E
>> But if you if you type in V-E-C-T-R.
>> V-E-C-T-R. The C for?
>> Counseling, I think.
>> Okay. I'll find it.
>> Yeah. And then I Another bill.
People living in nursing homes,
their personal allowances.
I got it increase from $20 a month to
$70 a month because if I give you $20,
say, go buy some toiletry.
You may come out with deodorant.
Maybe it's take a touch.
[LAUGHTER]
>> What's that bill come?
>> That was the personal allowance.
People are living in nursing homes on Medicaid.
And then the famous hot car bill.
>> Hot car?
>> You know how people every summer,
they leave child or animal in the car.
And the police will come and rescue the kid or the pet.
But people say, thank you,
but here's a lawsuit.
You shouldn't have broken my window.
Or you shouldn't have scratched what.
>> My goodness.
>> Interesting thing about that to show how
I was blessed to be able to work in a bipartisan manner.
Senator K. Patrick and I
both wanted to do a hot car bill.
>> Senator.
>> K. Patrick. And we're seat mates.
And so we said, I'll tell you what, K,
you take the hot car bill
from the civilian standpoint of rescuing,
and I'll do it from the police standpoint.
Hers made it to the house floor for vote,
but it didn't pass because some people were
skeptical about just anybody breaking in their car.
Because what you may think is hot,
I might think is cool.
Where with mine, it was covered
police liability in the scope of doing their job.
And they better trained to know if
somebody is under duress
or if they have to go in.
>> And so what you're really saying is you're
in the minority party as a Democrat and generally,
you don't get your name on the bill,
but you're getting a lot of bills?
>> No. Those are bills that my name is all [OVERLAPPING]
>> Well, that's what I'm saying.
You're getting a lot of bills passed anyway,
but it ain't easy if you're in the minority party.
>> I have a good working relationship.
When you look at the committees that I'm on,
I'm probably only one who
formed those type of committees.
And a lot of that is because I try just just like,
rules committee, finance, judiciary,
regulated industry, sent and redistricting.
Those are all top tier committees.
But like I said,
I learned in air force is teamwork,
working together as a team to get
the goal done can accomplish.
So I've been very fortunate and
blessed because I learned that from
the air force team work and how to work with people,
agree or disagree,
just like in air force.
I remember at one time,
I was the first sergeant and
my commander and I
never tried to get out in front of people in public.
Every now and then, my commander,
we go behind closed door and have
a frank passionate argument.
And on occasion, referred to each
other as mother and it was a mother's day.
But when we came out,
we were on the court.
And it's something I learned from my parents.
I don't care how bad
my parents were disappointed they were in someone,
they still found a way to work with the person.
And so that's what I try to do.
So I've been pretty fortunate to get
probably more bill signed as a Democrat from
Cobb County than
all the other Democratic legislators combined.
But my first two years, what I did was I studied
the rule book every day for about a year, two years.
Then I also work at
developing relationships with my colleagues.
I'd spend some time with them.
If I see a bunch of my colleagues from
the other side of the aisle sitting
down having lunch, I join them.
And same with my colleagues on
my side of the time, side of the aisle.
I always say don't take things
personally, take it professionally.
And you'd be a lot better.
So that's what I do. Then I
want to try to keep a sense of humor that helps a lot.
>> I guess we should have mentioned that you were
the first African American resident of
Cobb to be elected to the State Center?
>> That is correct.
I didn't realize that until somebody brought
it to my attention.
I forgot who it was.
If you had people who district might extended it,
but they weren't from Cobb County.
>> There were several that lived in Fulton County,
but the district ran into South Cobb County.
>> Right. Cobb County was
a tough place for Democrats to get elected,
but of course, that's changed now.
>> What I thought maybe you could talk a little bit
about the changes taking place in Cobb County,
and the time that you've been here?
>> Well, Cobb County has opened up.
Some people have a certain amount of
foresight and other people can't
see it just like you mentioned Ernest Barrett.
Many years ago, he was on the commission chair,
I guess of the Co Commission.
He talked about running sewer lines
and water lines out towards Kinsa.
And people thought are you crazy? Now, look.
>> Just going to East Cobb was crazy back
when '64-'84 when he was commission chair.
They used to have the honey wagons
that ran out to East Cobb County.
Before when people had the septic tanks.
And so that was really a big step for Ernest Bar and
the development of East Cobb
to run those sewer lines out there.
>> And then you had Tim Lee who said,
well, let's have the braves.
People are, are you crazy? But now look.
>> Lost some reelection
to support the Braves coming to Cobb,
but now everybody thinks it was an act of genius.
>> Right. And so you're bringing in with Battery Atlanta,
the Braves and the area.
You're bringing in a lot of
younger people with a different perspective on things.
Then like a better worthy old guard.
A lot of times, South Cobb County has
become not single turn a chap in a choir we visit choirs.
I can tell if there's
a mixture in leadership of young and old,
or if it's just elderly.
If it's just elderly,
the church, there's hardly anybody in there.
But if you have that mixture,
you have more of a congregation.
And that's what's happening with Cobb County,
you're bringing in people not only just here,
but for the metro area and they're moving into the area,
and they have a different perspective for all life.
And then the ones who've been here who go
back to like you're talking about 60 or 50,
they're starting to transition.
Some of them don't like the fact that Cobb is
now urban suburban and not suburban rural.
So they're trying to move further up North,
Cherokee, North, and polding etc.
But the further up you go,
you have to think in terms of
the services you need to be able to get them.
So it's right now we're in a transition in Cobb,
and I think it's important that we
all get together not only as politicians,
but as citizens and have these town hall meetings
and purposeful discussions on
which direction we want to go.
And how to shape that.
Because Cobb is going to evolve.
And we can be a part of that,
or we can just let it grow,
but it's better to be a part of it.
And so I see a lot of that
happening when we have these town hall meeting,
just like we think Lisa Cupid had one up,
like Chairman Kupi not too long ago Kennesaw.
It's all for the better.
Change comes, you got
younger people different perspective on things.
You look at life differently.
I know I've been working with
the movie industry with their tax credit,
and I've been around
a lot of young people here this summer.
And it is just interesting looking at
the technology and listening to
their perspective on things we're right now.
When I first ran the Cobb commission,
when I first ran for commissioner,
I didn't see anybody who look like me up there.
I didn't see anybody look like you up there.
But now, it's a whole different ball game.
And they're doing a great job.
>> So no women and no blacks,
is that what you're saying?
>> But when I first ran in 2008.
>> County has changed a lot.
What about the State of Georgia?
It's transitioning, too, isn't it?
>> Yeah. Because young people when they go away to
college and they get exposure
to people from different persuasion,
they say, you're not not what I thought you were.
Or with young people,
if you go to rural Georgia and you don't
have Wi-Fi or Internet,
they ain't sticking around,
they're coming to the metropolitan area.
The jobs, look at that also.
They try to locate not too far from
major metropolitan areas in
terms of resources or delivery of
goods or access to transportation,
like from the airport,
the three main highways, rail system.
So let's change it
also because the younger people want to
be where they can have Internet,
like I said, Wi-Fi,
then be around people who about,
looking to enjoying life and trying to look past.
We all sometimes have
these little stereotypes in our mind.
I remember when I ran track in college.
I told you I ran a 400
but my friend of mine was Rich Schrader,
who was Caucasian, he ran the 220,
which is a quick race.
>> Rich Schrader.
>> Rich R-I-C-H S-C-H-R-A-D-E-R.
>> So he runs the 200 and he's white.
>> And I remember watching track and field most of
the people who won track
and field for the United States were African Americans.
>> Sure.
>> So I say, well, I know I can outrun him.
So we started out.
I looked he was and I was running.
I looked behind me. I didn't see him.
I said he must be slow.
I looked ahead of me. He was at the finish line.
So they go that stereotype but we became good friends,
and he taught me techniques
about track and field and I helped
him with the stamina because I
was a little more distant running.
And that's what's happening, meet different people.
Different background. That's just, for example,
I remember a childhood friend of mine, Terry Simmonds.
>> Terry.
>> Simmonds. Terry, I think it is
S-I-M-M-O-N-D-S. We played football
together and played baseball.
And we knew he threw the ball a little different,
but heck, we didn't care as long as we were winning.
How do you want it?
Anyway, make a long story short,
he he came out and said
he was gay but because of that experience of growing up,
buddies, we used to not only play sports,
we have fights with each other, fight other people.
And so those are things to help
break stereotypes people may have.
And he was my lifelong friend.
He got sick some years back and passed away.
But I just say all I had to
say when you bring more people coming in,
they see people from different perspective and
then start to explore more and say
we got a lot in common more than you realize.
>> Let me ask you about something
that's very current and it's redistricting,
the legislature is going to have
a special session coming up in what, 28th of?
>> 29th is when is starting.
>> 29th. So we're three weeks away from there, I guess.
And that's because of a court order to make
Georgia districts conform with
the Voting Rights Act more,
I guess, and make sure that a certain number
of districts where African Americans
are in the majority and so on.
Can you talk a little bit about
what you foresee with that?
What do you think is going to happen?
>> I'm on the committee.
>> I know. That's why I'm asking.
>> You know what when I was on
the committee two years ago
and they did three districts,
how some of the most stress I've
dealt with a pin in the Senate.
>> Because of the way they drew their veins.
>> Well, everybody has a stake in their districts,
how they wanted to look and how it can affect them.
It also affect the constituents.
But I don't see them doing like
Alabama trying to fight it.
I think from what I've been hearing,
they're going to go ahead and follow the court order
and set up what the judge wants because if you don't,
and they bring in a special mite master,
he or she don't care if your uncle was boss Hog or
Barrett or Joan Burrell or Lisa Cupid.
They're going to come in and draw that district
to the T where they want it.
And they're not going to take any
of that in consideration.
And so I don't see them wanting to do that.
So they're just going to go along and do it.
They know exactly what they need to do.
Then they know which districts are involved.
Now while they're at it,
who knows they may tinker with a few other areas.
It's like somebody going and get plastic surgery.
The doctor may say, while I'm at it,
let me tighten up under your eyes or maybe move that war.
The Supreme Court says that
redistricting is a partisan affair.
As long as there's not an issue about
race or the areas are not evenly populated,
and that was the case here was race.
When you look at those areas,
they're majority African American.
And so that's what he was looking at,
but I think they're going to do what he wants.
They may tinkle with a few other areas,
but it's one of those things that it
can get pretty hot because you move her forward,
what their district is going to look like, constituents.
And just like for example,
Senator Kate Patrick the last redistricant,
she had Sandy Springs and was more into Cobb.
They pushed her up to a Cherokee and
she picked up 90,000 new people.
>> Which helped her going to Cherokee, I would think.
>> But they don't know who you are,
you have to introduce yourself.
So she had a lot of work cut out.
So they could well, who's Kate Patrick?
And I think me, I had,
about 3,000 or 4,000 or 5,000 new people,
so I had to work let them know.
And when we find
out it is like probably we found out it was
probably December or November,
but then you have Thanksgiving
and Christmas, you ain't doing much.
But then when you come back,
you got to try and balance between being
at the Capitol, January, February,
March, then get out April,
part of May to try and get people to know who you are.
So it can be somewhat challenging,
then you have to know what
these new people what's important to them.
You may think this is important, but over here,
it may not resonate with them.
People need housing. People need rent.
So it's a lot of work.
>> Well, two years ago,
when they drew the lines,
they basically took
Lucy McBath's congressional district away from
her and she had to move
to a different district in order to get elected again.
>> Moved to Gwinnett.
>> And so you think that
the legislature is going to
maybe restore that old district,
the way it was,
what is that six congressional districts?
>> Six.
>> The sixth congressional district maybe
restored to more like it was.
>> Well, but that area up there is not Black,
where was that? Not majority Black.
So you're probably going to have to move
into parts of Cobb and towards Douglasville,
moving to get that Black population
because where I was at before
this election was North Cobb,
North Fulton, and a little bit of Gwinnett.
Not a large Black population.
So I could be wrong,
but I don't see them drawing that six back there
again if they follow in the court order.
And they said Western Metropolitan.
Just like I talked about earlier
how Marietta closed down a lot
of work in a family house and
working class and and pushed a lot out there.
And you see the reflection in the government,
African Americans and Cobb,
commissioners, the sheriff,
district attorney you go there to Douglasville.
Same thing, and then the city mayor, et cetera.
So if they're trying to find to make
an African American which
is what I believe the judge said.,
you probably going to have to move
a little further West because up there,
where is that, that's not a large Black population.
>> Can get Melissa Fay Green out of
the Powder Springs steel area
and create different lines.
Of course, she's probably very happy to be out of Cobb.
>> I would think so, too.
>> And so anyway,
that's the area that's going to be
affected the most, do you think?
>> That's where you have a large Black population.
Not at the Northern part, the Western.
And he said Western.
The judge said West Metropolitan.
I guess that's somewhere going west,
but it doesn't have the population
that he's talking about.
>> Have you run for Congress before?
>> That's funny but you never know.
Things happen, but right now I'm pretty
comfortable doing what I do because I'm able
to deliver the goods and services,
help people keep them connected.
And then I'm able to work with people to get stuff done.
When you go to Washington,
most of the time they're trying to raise money.
And it's hard to get anything done,
just like representative Carvin Spire was
supposed to be ambassador to Dominican Republic.
Then they switched it to the Bahamas.
But because Congress didn't move on it,
they ended up putting him as
an ambassador in the United Nations.
So up there, it's a whole different ball game.
But at least in the Senate,
you only have what, 56 of us.
It's a little easier to develop
a relationship in Washington.
>> And you're happy where you are?
>> Yeah. I didn't think I'd be here.
>> Do you think that Georgia is going to have
a big day Democratic majority
in the legislature in the foreseeable future?
>> Eventually, I could
see that happening because it's creeping closer
now because the Republicans are reluctant
to set up any districts in
the metropolitan area because they'll be turned blue.
So they pushed up North and pushed South,
but then in the South,
they lost the seat because of demographics,
leaving South Georgia and they
brought it up here and became a Democratic seat.
So they're losing population,
just like if you go up here to North on 85,
then you go to where,
I can't think of it now,
where chicken coops are at.
>> Dansville area?
>> How many young people want to work in a chicken coop?
>> Not a lot.
>> They won't come to the big city,
and work a job.
So eventually it happened as gradual, but also,
I think you have to have a platform
that reaches out to
a broad section of people who may not
necessarily see what you're
trying to talk about right away.
You have to work at that.
Can't be one issue or two.
You have to have an array
of issues that people
are concerned about and try to address them.
That's just like in my office,
people call me and talk about somebody got
too many cars parked on the lawn or the dogs barking.
That's not my job. No. But I'm like,
well, let's talk about it we can.
Now, this is who you need to talk with if you can.
>> Let me ask you a question.
Environmental Georgia gave you
legislator of the year from Cobb County, when was that?
>> That was I think
in I want to say '18, but don't quote me.
>> Roughly 2018?
And environmental Georgia,
part of I guess there's an environmental America that
they're part of that
obviously interested in environmental issues.
But what I wanted to ask you is,
what did you do to get
them to recognize you as the legislator of the year?
>> Worked with them on different legislation,
and I remember I have passed a banking bill,
that the governor signed into law,
but before I got it to that point.
The year before in the house,
somebody tried to strip it and put coal ash on it.
And so dealing with coal ash, will you burn coal?
And so then they tried to pass it,
but I was fortunate that my colleagues and
my caucus and another caucus in
the lieutenant governor stopped it.
And we let time run out.
So then the next session came,
we stripped it and put my bill back on it,
and then it went through onto the governor's test.
So that's the one that
stands out and then voted on other bills.
See what happens with coal ash,
if they put him in a pond and you don't have a lining,
it seeps into the water table
and then eventually gets into the drinking waters.
So they need to have a liner.
And then we've also been voting on things to try
to get away from coal.
I know it's a thorn of some people's side about
the nuclear last that we were built there cost overrun.
>> But one of them, at least is online now.
>> But that takes away from and depend on coals.
>> So you're in favor of nuclear power?
>> Well, anything that
helps clean air, clean environment,
I'm in favor of those things because
it's interesting how things
can sneak up on you don't know,
just like the Sterigenics plant.
How many people didn't know for years
that they were admitting into air cancer-causing?
And, I think about people who lived
there or a person and robust person,
how did they come down with cancer?
And now I'm like, oh.
So you have to be vigilant about that.
>> They just settled for $35 million, I think,
which didn't actually sound like a whole lot of
money that they had to pay. I don't know.
>> But you have to be vigilant,
no matter what form of parts
and what form of vintage we use.
They have the good and bad points,
but we have to be vigilant,
and make sure that then no one's
selling us a bill of goods
and what they say is what they're doing.
>> I guess it's really related to the switch
of the Democrats taking over again.
But Georgia is one of the few states that
doesn't take all the federal money for Medicaid.
I know Governor Kemp was
trying to do some things for Medicaid,
but people with limited income, I guess.
But you've done so much work
with the homeless and what have you.
Do you have any sense of
what the future is going to be for Medicaid in Georgia?
>> It's helped a lot of people,
especially people who have chronic health issues.
And one of the things I learned
in the Air Force when we had
the first Gulf War and we
called up men and women from Guard Reserve,
a lot of them before we sent
them to train to do their job,
they go to war, we had to send them to
the doctor and the dentist.
They had no health care.
And it's hard to shoot a gun
and a rifle when your teeth are hurting.
So we made it a part of
their ratings portfolio Military Tricare,
which is a healthcare program and
a dental plan because
good health is equated to the success of admission.
And when you talk about bringing
businesses or companies into Georgia,
people have to have access to
healthcare so that they're not missing work,
and they're able to show up and be healthy.
He's tried to write
waivers to help people who are already
on Medicaid but the people in the gap are still left out.
And I think part of the problem is we got to get past
rhetoric and deal with our most precious human resource,
which is our people,
and get them to help they need because,
if have you ever known anybody who has
a chronic health issue, diabetes,
or you name it,
they're happy because their healthcare
is affordable compared to what they have to pay before.
It was ridiculous I said, how much do you
have to pay? Well, what?
So we hope but see the challenge there is,
we got to try and get control of
both houses because the way they
passed the bill is
that you have to have both houses approved.
So we don't necessarily have to get
the governorship, but that would help.
But they're trying to do this waiver
where they give piece
by piece to people who are already on it,
but it's not dealing with the people who are in the gap.
But eventually, hopefully,
one day people wake up and
realize that, hey you know what?
We all got one thing in common.
We need healthcare.
Just like when I had my knees replaced,
I used to Military Tricare.
And so it was time for your cop and I started sweating.
And then she said was $25.
I was like $25?
I got a piece of paper, I wrote 25?
I spelled it out. She said, yes.
I hurried up and paid it and got out of
there before they changed their mind.
Wait a minute, no.
>> Well, I just had a few quick questions to
end with better community service.
Trustee for Turner Chapel.
You were a Catholic when you were growing up.
How did you get to AME?
>> I was working out in the Navy gym
here and the Navy used to be the Navy station Dobbins.
And a buddy of mine was in
a hurry and he took a military show track.
I said, what's the hurry? He said,
they got a male choir they try to start at Turner.
And that's how I got involved.
And I said, they let you
sing surely, they'll let me sing.
And then the late Dr. Marcus,
I always tell a story one day they were nominating
people for trustee and they were talking about some guy.
This guy's lived a Christian walk,
he's a nice guy, he's faithful.
His heart is after Christ. I said you know what?
He's kind, consider. I said,
I'd like to meet that person,
because maybe he could teach me something.
Then he said my name and I passed out.
>> So that's how you became a trustee.
>> He nominated me. He gave me.
I said I got to live up to this now.
I said, are you sure you talk about me?
>> What do you do as a trustee?
>> Maintain the building,
set up venues for different groups.
Do all those little things,
keep the building running,
for the most part, landscape inside, outside.
I enjoy it gives me a chance to be around a lot of
people who are a lot
of them surprised to find out who I am.
I don't tell a lot of people who I am.
And they're like I need somebody to plunge the toilet.
I need somebody to throw out the garbage.
Then they said, wait a minute.
Are you Dr. Rhett? I said,
What do you need, the toilet fixed?
>> Well, now, how did
Turner Chapel Cathedral come through the pandemic?
Is it the membership as high as it used to be?
>> It's starting to come back.
You still have a lot of people.
>> Because you all had used to have a parking lot
across the street that's no more, I guess.
>> No, we still have it.
>> Do you still have it?
>> We still park people over
there and it's starting to come back.
A lot of people still go Zoom in 11 of
other churches but also with
Turner Chapel and even not only just the Black churches,
but I was reading here about
Roswell Baptist Church because
of the demographic shift and moving
a lot of people out and moving certain demographics
in the congregation numbers aren't what they used to be.
>> About a third of what they used to be.
>> Over there. Turner still has a sizable population,
but it's not as big as it used to be.
>> It was up to thousands at one time,
8,000, something like that, wouldn't it?
>> But they still get a crowd but not.
>> Not that big.
>> Because I remember watching night service before
New Year's used to be packed to the rafters.
I used to be singing on duty it was pretty
interesting and everybody waiting
for the midnight bell thing.
Then you go party.
>> I know you've been active with
Paul Kelley American Legion Post 2906.
Want to say anything about that?
For former Junior Vice Commander.
>> That was me. It was a former Junior
and my Vice Commander.
They do a lot of good work helping veterans
out and helping people in the community,
just like every Veterans Day Memorial weekend.
And we used to do 4th of July.
We didn't do it this year.
We will barbecue and
feed anybody who wants to barbecue in the community.
Then if they're a veteran and they need some help,
we sit them down and help them what they need.
So they do a very good job
of working with people in the community.
Now we're having a generational shift.
The Vietnam group is starting to transition,
and now you're starting to get the Gulf War I
and what I call Gulf War II group coming in.
So we have a generational shift coming in.
>> You've done a lot with the Cobb NAACP?
>> Yes.
>> And Southern Christian Leadership Conference?
>> Yeah. With the NAACP,
I'm a life member,
and Dean Baller suggested that.
>> Suggested that you be your life member?
>> Yeah. I pay $750.
In SCLC, they do a pretty good job,
work with different issues in
the community helping people.
They both do a good job,
reaching out when people need help or guidance,
and that's right up my alley,
working together with them.
>> Cobb County Commission of the children and youth.
>> That was one where I used to work with years
back with Dr. Lee,
the former sheriff, Neil Warren, and wife.
Her myself and some other people formed that committee,
and we used to raise funds
to help children in schools with different needs.
I didn't even know she was
Neil Warren's wife. I don't know what happened.
One day, I guess they had the corn boiling or something.
She said, you don't want me, my husband.
I said okay. I know him.
>> Well, you've been on all kinds of
committees and powder springs,
Six Flags Area, and so on.
>> That's how I learned the community.
A lot of people when they lose an election,
they just run off,
you don't see them anymore
but I've always been a type person,
well, I learned something from it.
I might not like the way I feel but that's how you grow.
>> Well, what have we not talked about that
you want to study?
>> It's probably a lot. I think
that's pretty much about it.
I think one thing I always try to
surround myself by people who are more
knowledgeable than me and put my ego aside.
That's how I was able to why
I'm able to get to where I am
today being able to be
successful with the Senate and
work with these different organizations.
Something I learned from my parents.
They knew how to humble themselves,
whether it was shining shoes,
cleaning the bathroom,
or just to the other job.
And you can learn a lot when
you learn how to blend in like that.
I know some of these functions of these organizations,
I will put on a hat and put on
a janitor's jacket and go sweep around,
listen to people engage
with them and you learn a lot that way.
>> Well, if I've done my math right today,
you're probably about 67 years old, is that right?
>> Sixty-six.
>> Sixty-six. But you don't
seem to have slowed down a bit.
You're just going to keep going as long as you can.
>> Well, I'll say I enjoy it.
That's the same thing he said is what my girlfriend says.
She said you're always on the go.
I say I enjoy what I'm doing helping other people.
I told her I do leave
time for the finding things in life,
and I said,
then you reside in that category. She likes that.
[LAUGHTER] But I think
it was interesting when
Giuliani was the last thing came down there.
As a matter of fact,
I got one of the subpoena letters they gave me.
I would give it to you if you might want to hold.
>> You got subpoenaed on his case.
>> Because I was on the committee and Fannie Willis,
she subpoenaed a lot of people.
I was subpoenaed for that for her side.
But it was funny
because usually when people give you a subpoena,
they want Dr. Scotto here but when it came to mine,
it's like, we'll leave it on your door
and give us a call and let us know you got it.
I said, I think I got it.
Well, I say that
because my presence wasn't that important.
They had enough people but the people pleaded to plea
bargains but it's going to
be interesting to see how that works out.
>> You don't think he's going to
take a plea bargain, do you?
>> That's a good question.
Only time will tell
but I have been doing that because it costs
money to try and do try and go against the grain.
>> I think I asked you once you had on your newsletter.
I think at one time, a picture of
you and Giuliani after he
did his appearance before that sent committee.
>> I've had pictures with Giuliani, Warnock,
Allsof, Congressman, McBath,
Stacy but the one with Rudy
was interesting because growing up in New York City,
we didn't always see eye to eye with Rudy.
>> Well, I doubt if you still do, do you?
>> Not really. No.
>> But you still got the picture,
you had a nice response when I asked you about that.
>> For my friends, I thought it was funny and ironic to
show look who I was because also,
where I lived at was about a few blocks down from
Reverend Al Sharpton's National at Network.
And so we would go out there
and be a part of supporting him,
protest this and that
and so I thought it was interesting for them to see,
look who I'm taking a picture with.
[LAUGHTER] So it was more like a joke to
my friends from New York and people in the background.
It's like Rudy Giuliani of all people.
Some people took it a different way.
How dare you take a picture with him?
>> Well, that's what I was wondering if you
got some flag from that.
>> But like I said,
my style is I try to work with
everyone just like I learned from Martin Luther King.
He would send Jose Williams and
John Lewison there to rile up the crowd.
Then he would send Andrew J.
Young in to negotiate.
Then Martin Luther King would come in.
I try to model myself after
the school of Andrew Young and problem-solving.
You can't problem-solve if he ain't communicating.
And then I learned that from my parents.
Despite what happened in the community,
they were the first to communicate with the other side.
even though they didn't particularly agree with them,
but you have to have that dialogue.
>> Well, I appreciate you talking to me.
>> Well, no problem. My pleasure.