Elizabeth Coleman and John LeSar

00:00 Okay, let's start this conversation by looking at question 1.

00:08 And Jack if you feel comfortable asking that to Elizabeth or Elizabeth, if you feel comfortable asking that to Jack you can one of you can start.

00:18 Have a preference.

00:23 Lsq

00:27 Jack who has been the most influential person in your life.

00:34 Well, I I thought about this a little bit and I'll I would say to people not one both my parents really my father was influential in motivating us to do our best and

00:53 Reach Beyond where we were.

00:57 And he was very sensitive person.

01:00 My mother was a represent farm girl. She was watching brothers and no sisters and she was a Fearless woman who basically like the world like to get out and see things and I picked all those things up from her.

01:17 Okay. Okay. Okay. Let's play who's been the most influential person in your life. And what did they teach you?

01:24 I think it's a toss-up between my mother and Jesus because that's as a young person. I spent a lot of my family spend a lot of time reading through the Bible and my father was a pastor. So Jesus became a very real person in my life and I feel I have always felt that he has influenced me in ways above what any human being could ever influence me. But secondly, I would say my mother because we were very very close. In fact, I just finished a biography of her life in the process of editing that book because she was an extraordinary woman. She was a poet. She was a Civic leader in our community. She was a high school teacher. She was a Sunday School.

02:24 Pianist and just so many many other things and she showed me what is possible. She was a very strong woman in the midst of all kinds of you know things that were not so pleasant going on around us in our community in Alabama in the 50s and 60s. She was very strong very positive and came out of that era a very positive person encouraging others and never losing hope and and I've learned from her to keep the faith.

03:10 Okay, I'm going to ask you a question and I'd like you to tell me a story about any lessons. You can learn. I'm sorry. Could you describe one of the experiences you had that have shaped your politics?

03:27 Yes.

03:35 Well, I guess just growing up in the south in Anniston Alabama in the 1950s and 60s. I was surrounded by the civil rights movement and it was pressing in on every side. You know, I grew up only an hour from Birmingham where the four little girls who are around my age at the time were bombed in their church and

04:07 I I I heard that over the radio in my

04:12 In our kitchen at home after coming back from church and had been sitting in a Sunday school class just like they were and wondered to myself, you know, am I safe?

04:28 And all of the things that happened during that time.

04:33 Cause me to know that that there were people out there that did not like me and that were dangerous to me and that wanted me to be afraid of them. And even though I felt great love from my parents and my family at home whenever I left home.

04:56 It there was this sense of being unsafe.

05:03 And unwanted and unloved. So the balance trying to balance those two things and and still come out loving my neighbor as I'm taught through the word of God with a balancing act for me. And so it shaped my politics because I learned when President Kennedy was elected and when Robert Kennedy became the attorney general that there were people that wanted to help people like me people that wanted us to go to school and have a

05:40 Have adequate

05:44 Text books and a decent place to learn and wanted us to be integrated into the public school system safely and they did things to try to make that happen. And when I saw what politics could do that the schools were integrated and that we no longer had to float down the hall because there was so many people in the hallway that you sometimes my feet did not touch the ground when I was changing classes that many people in our school and finally integration happened and even though it was a very slow process. It did not happen right after the the Civil Civil Rights Act was passed.

06:32 It took a long time because immigration in our school meant bringing in white teachers and black teachers losing their jobs. That's what Integrations look like for the first few years and there were few African-Americans who went to the white school, but

06:54 Not many not any zero white students that came to our school. So my politics was shaped.

07:04 In a way that led me to

07:09 Move toward the Democratic party because I felt that these were the people who could help us.

07:18 The great answer by the way.

07:24 My grandparents on my

07:30 Mother side came to America from England in 1870s Farm in Ohio. And so they came and got a piece of land owned the house and work with their neighbors. I think people tended to end up knowing people from back in Germany or whoever was in the England both so they will grow up as Farmers taking care of themselves and their neighbors.

08:07 We're strong Protestants my grandpa 65 years and got a pin for what?

08:17 And he's also a politician he was a county commissioner in this world County.

08:23 But it was all about taking care of your own family. It was about being independent.

08:31 We didn't have feelings of fear or lack of safety. I was Merrick was land of opportunity for folks something from Germany and England who came in on my dad's side and I'm already down from Canada more French Connection there then was a small.

08:49 And shopkeepers and businesspeople and end up in more of a city where I grew up in a small town Ypsi story there we should goes along with the other side of our family what shape my belief was that my parents my dad and his sister. I want you kids neither had gone to the first in the family to go to college in the 30s family work really hard to make that happened a move right two three four houses away from Ohio State University. So they could be around the school all the time. Even they were high school and social programs that I have saved games all I got to stop and then my dad went to Ohio State undergrad and I'm telling the stories because he got accepted a good medical school Western Reserve in Cleveland have much money in the depression.

09:37 So my grandparents moved to Cleveland so I can look at home. So we're used to that kind of feeling of taking care of our own the common feeling in Ohio in our small town where I grew up as well as small town feeling to take care of your own people and a lot of German Protestants were basically didn't like central government should be honest with you. They like local government. Take it off. I want to have your hand in things. You can see that right around here in Tampa downs we have here but this was an opportunity and you just have to work hard and study hard and do the right thing and life would be okay for you.

10:22 When I got the college one book stands out. There was a book written by an author named Edward Bellamy Looking Backward, and he basically the book was about having created it Utopia where everybody was equal at nice housing the stuff and what happened to the 15 years after he was concerned with it. And he basically showed that how it all do Diversified and some people suck yourself some didn't and so you ended up with kind of their kind of neighborhood later on that you you would have had if you hadn't done that in a sense, so that made a big impression on me. Oh my my local police come from that and my my belief that

11:19 Our economic future are background and I found my future house the economics work for everybody is necessary and essential for all the other social programs and thinks he can do to help people and I've actually work in government and then go to my life and work for the federal government was in the Army in the foreign sovereign state department overseas or for State of Florida and I work in the nonprofit sector so I know government real well and my foot ankle brace on the conservative side are that government takes on too much. I can always deliver the goods.

11:55 These days where you spend more money than we have and it's going to hurt our kids and grandkids down the line and so my conservatism is related mostly to economics politically my daughter and her spouse or up a lesbian couple of California been dealing that was a big issue that was never spotted has that kind of stuff. I worked in 60 70 countries did a lot of work in Africa among others. So I'm used to talk about kind of folks and I respect that respect them, but I think government has a high bar for itself and if they're going to pick something up they have to do it well and they don't always do it well and if you know the school system should know some of that big bureaucracy that is more pro-labor and protecting the teacher than they are sometimes educating the kids. So those are the kind of things that bother me.

12:54 Take a little break if you want to compose your thoughts a little.

13:06 Very good stock price

13:14 Okay, when you're ready, let's go to question 4.

13:32 So we should ask each other the question.

13:36 So I ask you this time. Can you tell me a couple things? You want me to understand about you?

13:41 Yes, I would like for you to understand that I've worked very hard all of my life. I also have a Columbus Ohio connection when I graduated from high school salutatorian of my class. I was accepted at Capital University, which is on the other side of Columbus from Ohio State. And so that's where I did my undergrad and did my junior year abroad studying in Paris at the sorbonne.

14:26 And my experience in the reason I went to Capital is because I wanted to get as far away from the south in 1969 as I could and so that was my escape and it was the most wonderful experience because in Columbus, I found people who cared about me people who are not afraid of me people who befriended me. My professors were wonderful.

14:58 I just I made so many friends of all Races and cultures. And so I I'm very grateful for that experience of being able to be in Columbus, Ohio because it it was a Saving Grace for me at that time. And what made it even better was the opportunity to go to Paris for a year because in and I'm being in Paris I moved from the box of black and white into the beautiful rainbow array of cultures in in Paris because it's such a global City.

15:40 And they are I learned about all of the other different cultures that I had never come in contact with living in Alabama. So that was a life-changing experience for me and. After graduating from capital. I join Peace Corps. So I served also in West Africa and was and taught English as a foreign language over there. So that was an even more exhilarating experience because I was able to experience a culture of my ancestry.

16:22 I'm by the way I have ancestry from

16:27 Senegal Cameroon Nigeria, but also from Great Britain from Ireland and from the Cherokee Nation. So when I had my DNA done all of that was present and I I I feel a sensitivity to all of that. I feel all of that and I've made a point of visiting as many of those places as I could.

16:58 So what I want to you to understand about me is that I am a varied person with so many aspects because of the mixture that is in my blood and because of my experiences in my lifetime.

17:18 So, can you tell me a couple of things? You want me to understand about you?

17:23 Yeah.

17:26 My dad said was first in our family to go to college and went to medical school and then turn Woods into surgery and move to the small town. Just south of Columbus Lancaster. You probably heard the name not too far from Capital robot Capital all the time. So I was thinking I wasn't very clear about what I want to do it. So medicine was so nice profession and her stories at home course all the time about it. So I decided that's what I would do. So I went to Ohio State medical school and 65 +.

18:02 I was busy. We got married earlier. I had a child of my wife and I had a child. So I was working part-time studying if I wasn't very conscious of a lot of the Civil Right Stuff. I really started in 63 when JFK was assassinated.

18:19 That was bad, but it wasn't very clear. What all that was about to me, but you know and Martin Luther King's assassination.

18:30 Made a terrific impression on me and the cities were on fire and Washington and others burning.

18:39 And I'm not saying there is a black neighborhoods actually, but that's the that was the frustration and coming out and showing itself. Then RFK was also Seth made it and let you know where black people on the streets excetera excetera excetera. So.

18:56 I decided right there my jewelry or medical school that I need to do something different. So I found a professor who had some connection to model cities in Columbus. And so I talked to him I said, you know, I just got to do something here are the countries Fall Apart, you know, it's terrible. I don't like it when I feel I should make a contribution. So he said well I'm connected to some people or administrating the model cities program that you were from Chicago that came into Columbus and they're like Regional people. He said, let me call when I'm going to see what what's up.

19:42 So he called one in the guy said he'd be happy to have you for a month like it was one month. And what you do is you basically it would reduce you to all the folks who are doing stuff for you go to something to meetings and meet some of the leaders Life church leaders, of course in those days and things like that. So I did that and it was a mixed experience I would say because to be honest with you African Americans who this was directed toward for president seemed like they were charged but in fact two white guys from Chicago really read everything, so I got a little I had a little cynicism build up there.

20:26 But I still think said okay if that's okay. I was just keep trying too long. I decided I would go to Public Health and I do Army first and so I went in the Army and I got sent to Iran and

20:42 With is a doctor to the army unit. I was taking care of so we were way out in the rural areas.

20:49 Not any Rock border and because I was so armed US Army Dock of the people from villagers kept coming up here we know.

21:02 So I had no idea. They asked me to see if your patience so the first patient and it's what's going on too long. Let me know the first patient I saw was.

21:12 A little girl whose about 4 she was a size of a two year old and her chest was going to

21:19 And she had a big heart defect and I said all we got to get this minute and got to the hospital and I'm not a mean way, but there's a lot of the hospital around.

21:36 So then another boy that affected me and he was way underweight and parents said he couldn't eat and this out no villages.

21:48 And so I checked him out and he has something else crops yellow. It's just TV at a glance at that age and it showed off his food tube. Esophagus a couldn't swallow Dry Dock. They don't have any hospitals around here. I think so.

22:06 Then after that was over, I went back to Fort Bragg where I was based and started thinking that

22:13 Maybe I should do International stuff cuz it was bad enough here. But what times does you know from Senegal International Public Health experience that led me into that and I did a lot of work and not the country's two projects really stood out one was training illiterate women in Afghanistan who did Midway free but they are untrained. If you do I'll probably knows of your the country of the week, which we create a look like horse for them 6 week course, they never left home before but they were placed there to get out of the building and they had to get their husbands permission to be away 6 weeks really good. Everything was done by their memory cuz I couldn't read or write and they were great.

23:13 Anyway, so that led me to a great love of ruler is number one in feeling that there's so many people around or Alive tree filters to him here in Africa who don't have this ability. Not everybody has a Billet, you know, it's a shame her if we got a lot of people who they are, but there's a lot of people around this great potential and realized, you know by circumstances.

23:46 So that led me to a pretty long career in that field over many years and kept me motivated at a lot of work on Maternal Child Health around the world.

23:57 And later on some other kind of stuff. But anyway, that was sucked.

24:01 Is a conservative person in and imma conservative his reach certain ways.

24:09 That

24:11 Experience led me to feel

24:15 That you can have the best social program in the world.

24:19 Could we have some really good ones, but I can set it all the same way that I'm sure Kenya and Uganda smell out of there. There wasn't much money money.

24:29 So they couldn't do much. So where I came out of all that is so you got to get the money.

24:35 To get the programs to work.

24:38 And then one other part of the store, then I'll be quiet but in Uganda and I always like to work in The Villages, so I always chat with you and so

24:52 There when I got there there was a radio program on the radio and there was some health education message and I thought this is great for anything. But she said we need we have these programs a lot and people like you, and it's getting better for us. But we need jobs, then we can make our own choices. So I become very much enamored of the basic reason the American to do some things and therefore I got more than economic side, which led me to more conservative position.

25:51 I didn't want to Rattle the papers.

26:15 Skip

26:32 The whole lot of memory on this this card here, so don't worry.

26:50 Okay, when you feel like you're ready, let's go with question 3.

27:33 Shall I ask you first?

27:37 Is there anything about how people who share your beliefs communicate that troubleshoot?

27:46 Sure, I would say there's plenty about that.

27:53 Not just people share. My belief people on both sides of the issues now have become very polarized about their beliefs and

28:04 The question is not only how they communicate those things. But why is it there so polarized I think in our country.

28:14 Can we ever citizens not progressing the way our government spends money by printing it when they printed has to go to the bankers Bankers put it through the investment.

28:28 Route because that's the way it's set up and they be smart. People are smart about Investments make a lot of money and people don't make so much money.

28:39 So all that's created this broadening of problems that we have.

28:50 I mean, there's no.

28:52 There are political reasons and physical experts who advise both parties personal identity stories and negative political ads stuff like that actually benefit of the building blocks. I must have been talking about election for I shouldn't maybe just limited to that but Lonnie locks inside and so we have a culture now political culture that promotes to divisiveness.

29:20 And these people are very sometimes they don't realize how are listen to so, you know people who don't think about these things all the time pick up on the stuff that's been fed to them. I wasn't Communications for awhile by the way to purchase. So we do the research on people and try to figure out what will motivate them. That's what goes on now. So basically when we pick on people instead of pick on policy issues then becomes hurtful,

29:59 And all

30:03 I think most people as well on their conservative side. Let's say I have felt more that the country was working very well for them.

30:14 And feel like they're going to

30:18 They losing out a bit of there may be privileged position possibly but they feel that and more and more of those folks. No matter what their race is are poor people who are losing out in general anyway, so now we get the name calling and the identity politics rather than and I'm stressing the positive things we do well together. I wish we did a lot well together and I have to say I had some for this region once upon a time. So I work with County Commissioners and stuff on number all five County. So I covered

31:01 And they have pretty good diversity. I'm kind of Commissioners here. I am people in Florida right to light. Like up north. And so

31:10 And they put a lot more stress down here on the positive. We can do this together rather than I'm getting mine because if I don't you're going to take it from me.

31:22 Spectrum how I feel.

31:26 Elizabeth is there anything about how people who share your beliefs communicate that troubles you?

31:33 And my answer to that question would be no because people who share my beliefs are promoting Justice promoting.

31:47 Compassion for poor people

31:52 Promoting understanding among the different cultures countries and other differences and unity, basically and

32:06 That's that's what I believe in and the people who believe in that I think are working to bring that about and I think that that

32:18 A sense of

32:21 Unconditional love which maybe you didn't expect to hear that word and and the setting but unconditional love is the only thing that's going to pull us out of that divisive type of

32:42 Ethos in this nation a sense that we are one that we are all one and and there really is no division at at art at the smallest level of our existence where we're all the same thing and I think when people realize that that what they do to others they're doing to themselves and when one is suffering outside of themselves that will influence them in some way in the future, but nobody gets away clean without being influenced by what another person does. We're all influenced by everything that each person does and so from my perspective, the only way that you can communicate that is by living the kind of life that

33:41 Acknowledges that unity and chooses to love

33:50 Let's go to question 6.

33:58 And Elizabeth, why don't you start but this one answering this one?

34:14 So will he ask me I should I just answer answer answer it. Okay. So the question is when you think about the future, what are you most scared of?

34:28 Actually, I have no fear of the future. I have overcome fear. I have transcended fear. I've lived long enough at age 68 that I'm

34:44 Aware that all things are in God's hands and that nothing happens without

34:52 God knowing about it.

34:55 And already having a solution to it. So my trust and my faith in God is such that I realized that there's nothing for me to be afraid. I have no fear of anything not even death.

35:15 So the question is what do you think about the future? What are you most scared of?

35:21 Well, I like one of the things that Elizabeth has and which is Faith in a Supreme Bean. That's not my way of thinking. I think it's unfortunate much more in the hands of humans.

35:33 And two issues really bother me. I'm not frightened person. To be honest with you. I watch these things all the time and I've already taken actions that will make sure that I cannot okay my family and I thought as a senior provider my family have a lot of influence other family members. So we're going to be fine no matter what economic lyrics so

35:59 Did you make your shoes? I think they're more than two. But let me say tree first is climate. We have to deal with the climate.

36:08 It's an enduring problem. I'm pretty confident. We will actually come out. Okay, I'm not kind of a sky is falling that of climatology person, but we need to keep looking at it and keep dealing with that didn't use engineering and other things to get safe use of resources. And otherwise, you'll regret it.

36:31 Secondly for America. I have great concerns that we are on an unsustainable path economically print money like crazy the economies pretty good right now because basically you put a billion dollars of money out of the sky and to the economy and it gets spread around but this isn't going to be able to keep up for the long term.

37:00 I think that we are the most generous country since World War II and we always after the war we were obviously the richest country and we didn't have any damage from the war or were here in America or Europe was a mess. I live in a couple communist countries. They really basically with a real communist. They can't produce any Now Chinese of transcended Communism doesn't work economically very well sounds good, but doesn't work. So we had a great life in the 60s 70s and you know economic Improvement.

37:40 Enhance actually the Civil Rights Movement other kinds of things as well cuz when people don't have money, they're not very generous. So we're due for a pretty serious recession maybe worse than 2008. I watch the date all the time for average French person Alice for than the average Mississippian hard to believe but that's what it is right now. So

38:15 We basically for

38:18 50 years or more we we try to overspend about 3% a year in terms of our trade deficit we would purposefully buy more for other countries. And then for some of our allies we bought even more but that was helped develop the real nobody else ever did that and so what happened was that two things have one is a our generosity work in most cases and we brought a lot of countries Mexico particularly is so great and your example

38:51 And secondly

38:54 Alyssa play developing world is getting better. If you look at the data slow, but sure but the question is whether can be sustained so unfortunate and set up a system and basically I got into the International Trade Organization and abused it. There are definitely competition. Now, if you look at what they really are doing they would like to rule the world. I don't think we would like it there very by the way for a racist extremely racist people actually Africa's you like they're going to try to live that's not pleasant. So I think this is why I support the trade issues like the other stuff he does.

39:45 But I think if we can get the ears to give us a better trade balance, it will be strong enough economically then to do the social service things that we want to do put money in education and other kind of things I've even do I help for all Medicare D on Medicare models for everybody was just too expensive watch right now. But so we have to we have to deal with that and that's the one I think for the country is the most dangerous thing to be fine, though.

40:17 Can you send me the final question? Let's go to question 7.

40:40 I asked you this time.

40:43 Okay, what is one thing you respect about the way I see the world?

40:57 That's a difficult question.

41:04 One thing I respect.

41:10 I respect that you look at the statistics and the numbers and that your assessment is.

41:22 Through those tangible means that you can put your hands on and

41:30 I respect your practicality and trying to

41:38 Make sure that your family is supported and the end taken care of.

41:45 I would invite you to broaden your scope, but I I respect that.

41:57 So unless you want to have to push it or you're still there, but okay. What is one thing you respect about the way I see the world?

42:05 I agree respect for your face number one.

42:10 Not sure if that's something that can be did off or just kind of happens to people it gives you comfort but a sense of place in the world picture.

42:26 You know if I assume you're probably a Christian that Christian values are good ones.

42:34 And I hope that you're right about God taking care of things for us.

42:41 But I respect more than that about you.

42:44 You had a life. Now that giving you a chance to see lots of things and you use that life really well to my thinking probably help focus and sharpen your thinking about the world.

43:03 I wish that I saw human beings as

43:08 People capable of unconditional love

43:11 I was out some hatred other the other side of that mirror Love and Hate.

43:17 I think those are motions unfortunately in primates animals putting us both exist, but I appreciate that I didn't get a chance to talk to you.

43:32 Thank you both. Thank you. Both has been very good.

43:37 Thank you all know French when you went to France or if you are done with your there. I majored in French and then I learn to speak it fluently when I was living in Paris, France.