Elizabeth Coleman and John LeSar

- J: Both parents influential. Do your best; reach beyond. Sensitive. Mother was a farm girl. Fearless.

- E: Jesus and mother influential. Spent time reading bible. Mother was a poet and high school teacher. Sunday School pianist. Strong woman in the midst of racial unpleasantries - in Alabama of the 1950's.

- E: South in 1950's and 1960's - Civil Rights Movement. 4 little black girls killed in bombing - she heard that on radio in the kitchen and as a young black girl asked herself "am I safe"? People out there who did not like me and who were dangerous. She felt unsafe, unwanted, unloved. But God asked her to "love thy neighbor". John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy were people who wanted to help people like her - keep her safe. Integrated schools. Integration meant black teachers losing their jobs. White kids didn't necessarily go to black schools.

- J: Ancestors came from England. Grew up in a farming family; strong Protestants. Grandfather sang in church choir. His father's side of family immigrated from Canada. Father got accepted into a good medical school. "We take care of our own" - German Protestants. Germans preferred localized governments, not national ones. USA was "land of opportunity". Edward Bellamy book "Looking Backward" - made impression. Economic future is essential and necessary. Was in army, worked for gov't. Gov't takes on too much, and can't deliver the goods. Conservatism is economics. Daughter is a lesbian. Gov't does not do school systems well.

- E: Worked hard all her life. She was high school Salutatorian. Wanted to get away from the south in the 1960's. Columbus, Ohio was not "scared of me" (for being a black woman); befriended me and all races/cultures. Moved to Paris for a year. Global city - different cultures. Joined Peace Corps and served in Central Africa. Taught English in Senegal, Great Britain.

- J: Also lived in Columbus, Ohio. Ohio State Medical School. Was not too conscious of what Civil Rights was about back then. Got sent to Iran as an army doctor. Encountered a 2 year old with a heart defect. They had no hospitals to send the boy too. Trained illiterate women in Afghanistan. Love of rural areas. When in Senegal, he realized what people really needed were jobs and a means to make a wage, not handouts.

- J: Beliefs are polarized. Investment bankers make money, salaried people do not. Political culture promotes divisiveness. Jack also worked in communications industry. Picking on people becomes hurtful.

- E: Doesn't much admire other side of political spectrum. People who share her beliefs promote justice, compassion. Unity, unconditional love. "We are one."

- E: No fear of future. In God's hands. She's "transcended fear". No fear of death.