| Recorded at | February 02, 2002 |
|---|---|
| Event | TED2002 |
| Duration (min:sec) | 35:10 |
| Video Type | TED Stage Talk |
| Words per minute | 182.47 fast |
| Readability (FK) | 66.36 very easy |
| Speaker | Bill Strickland |
| Country | United States of America |
| Occupation | writer |
| Description | American community leader |
Official TED page for this talk
Synopsis
Bill Strickland tells a quiet and astonishing tale of redemption through arts, music, and unlikely partnerships.
| 1 | 00:12 | It's a great honor to be here with you. | ||
| 2 | 00:15 | The good news is | ||
| 3 | 00:18 | I'm very aware of my responsibilities to get you out of here | ||
| 4 | 00:21 | because I'm the only thing standing between you and the bar. | ||
| 5 | 00:25 | (Laughter) | ||
| 6 | 00:28 | And the good news is I don't have a prepared speech, | ||
| 7 | 00:31 | but I have a box of slides. | ||
| 8 | 00:33 | I have some pictures that represent my life and what I do for a living. | ||
| 9 | 00:39 | I've learned through experience | ||
| 10 | 00:42 | that people remember pictures long after they've forgotten words, | ||
| 11 | 00:47 | and so I hope you'll remember some of the pictures | ||
| 12 | 00:50 | I'm going to share with you for just a few minutes. | ||
| 13 | 00:56 | The whole story really starts | ||
| 14 | 00:58 | with me as a high school kid in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, | ||
| 15 | 01:02 | in a tough neighborhood that everybody gave up on for dead. | ||
| 16 | 01:05 | And on a Wednesday afternoon, | ||
| 17 | 01:08 | I was walking down the corridor of my high school | ||
| 18 | 01:12 | kind of minding my own business. And there was this artist teaching, | ||
| 19 | 01:18 | who made a great big old ceramic vessel, | ||
| 20 | 01:20 | and I happened to be looking in the door of the art room -- | ||
| 21 | 01:23 | and if you've ever seen clay done, it's magic -- | ||
| 22 | 01:25 | and I'd never seen anything like that before in my life. | ||
| 23 | 01:30 | So, I walked in the art room and I said, "What is that?" | ||
| 24 | 01:34 | And he said, "Ceramics. And who are you?" | ||
| 25 | 01:36 | And I said, "I'm Bill Strickland. I want you to teach me that." | ||
| 26 | 01:39 | And he said, "Well, get your homeroom teacher to sign a piece of paper | ||
| 27 | 01:43 | that says you can come here, and I'll teach it to you." | ||
| 28 | 01:46 | And so for the remaining two years of my high school, | ||
| 29 | 01:49 | I cut all my classes. | ||
| 30 | 01:50 | (Laughter) | ||
| 31 | 01:51 | But I had the presence of mind | ||
| 32 | 01:53 | to give the teachers' classes that I cut the pottery that I made, | ||
| 33 | 01:57 | (Laughter) | ||
| 34 | 01:58 | and they gave me passing grades. | ||
| 35 | 02:01 | And that's how I got out of high school. | ||
| 36 | 02:04 | And Mr. Ross said, | ||
| 37 | 02:06 | "You're too smart to die and I don't want it on my conscience, | ||
| 38 | 02:11 | so I'm leaving this school and I'm taking you with me." | ||
| 39 | 02:13 | And he drove me out to the University of Pittsburgh | ||
| 40 | 02:16 | where I filled out a college application and got in on probation. | ||
| 41 | 02:20 | Well, I'm now a trustee of the university, | ||
| 42 | 02:23 | and at my installation ceremony I said, | ||
| 43 | 02:27 | "I'm the guy who came from the neighborhood | ||
| 44 | 02:31 | who got into the place on probation. | ||
| 45 | 02:34 | Don't give up on the poor kids, because you never know | ||
| 46 | 02:37 | what's going to happen to those children in life." | ||
| 47 | 02:41 | What I'm going to show you for a couple of minutes | ||
| 48 | 02:44 | is a facility that I built in the toughest neighborhood in Pittsburgh | ||
| 49 | 02:49 | with the highest crime rate. | ||
| 50 | 02:51 | One is called Bidwell Training Center; it is a vocational school | ||
| 51 | 02:56 | for ex-steel workers and single parents and welfare mothers. | ||
| 52 | 03:00 | You remember we used to make steel in Pittsburgh? | ||
| 53 | 03:02 | Well, we don't make any steel anymore, | ||
| 54 | 03:04 | and the people who used to make the steel | ||
| 55 | 03:06 | are having a very tough time of it. | ||
| 56 | 03:09 | And I rebuild them and give them new life. | ||
| 57 | 03:12 | Manchester Craftsmen's Guild is named after my neighborhood. | ||
| 58 | 03:16 | I was adopted | ||
| 59 | 03:19 | by the Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese during the riots, | ||
| 60 | 03:22 | and he donated a row house. And in that row house | ||
| 61 | 03:25 | I started Manchester Craftsmen's Guild, | ||
| 62 | 03:27 | and I learned very quickly that wherever there are Episcopalians, | ||
| 63 | 03:33 | there's money in very close proximity. | ||
| 64 | 03:35 | (Laughter) | ||
| 65 | 03:39 | And the Bishop adopted me as his kid. | ||
| 66 | 03:44 | And last year I spoke at his memorial service | ||
| 67 | 03:48 | and wished him well in this life. | ||
| 68 | 03:52 | I went out and hired a student of Frank Lloyd Wright, the architect, | ||
| 69 | 03:58 | and I asked him to build me a world class center | ||
| 70 | 04:01 | in the worst neighborhood in Pittsburgh. | ||
| 71 | 04:04 | And my building was a scale model for the Pittsburgh airport. | ||
| 72 | 04:08 | And when you come to Pittsburgh -- and you're all invited -- | ||
| 73 | 04:10 | you'll be flying into the blown-up version of my building. | ||
| 74 | 04:14 | That's the building. | ||
| 75 | 04:16 | Built in a tough neighborhood where people have been given up for dead. | ||
| 76 | 04:21 | My view is that if you want to involve yourself | ||
| 77 | 04:24 | in the life of people who have been given up on, | ||
| 78 | 04:27 | you have to look like the solution and not the problem. | ||
| 79 | 04:32 | As you can see, it has a fountain in the courtyard. | ||
| 80 | 04:35 | And the reason it has a fountain in the courtyard is I wanted one | ||
| 81 | 04:39 | and I had the checkbook, so I bought one and put it there. | ||
| 82 | 04:42 | (Laughter) | ||
| 83 | 04:43 | And now that I'm giving speeches at conferences like TED, | ||
| 84 | 04:46 | I got put on the board of the Carnegie Museum. | ||
| 85 | 04:50 | At a reception in their courtyard, I noticed that they had a fountain | ||
| 86 | 04:55 | because they think that the people who go to the museum deserve a fountain. | ||
| 87 | 05:00 | Well, I think that welfare mothers and at-risk kids | ||
| 88 | 05:04 | and ex-steel workers deserve a fountain in their life. | ||
| 89 | 05:07 | And so the first thing that you see in my center in the springtime | ||
| 90 | 05:10 | is water that greets you -- water is life and water of human possibility -- | ||
| 91 | 05:16 | and it sets an attitude and expectation | ||
| 92 | 05:19 | about how you feel about people before you ever give them a speech. | ||
| 93 | 05:24 | So, from that fountain I built this building. | ||
| 94 | 05:30 | As you can see, it has world class art, and it's all my taste | ||
| 95 | 05:35 | because I raised all the money. | ||
| 96 | 05:37 | (Laughter) | ||
| 97 | 05:38 | I said to my boy, "When you raise the money, | ||
| 98 | 05:41 | we'll put your taste on the wall." | ||
| 99 | 05:44 | That we have quilts and clay and calligraphy | ||
| 100 | 05:47 | and everywhere your eye turns, | ||
| 101 | 05:49 | there's something beautiful looking back at you, | ||
| 102 | 05:51 | that's deliberate. | ||
| 103 | 05:53 | That's intentional. | ||
| 104 | 05:55 | In my view, it is this kind of world | ||
| 105 | 05:59 | that can redeem the soul of poor people. | ||
| 106 | 06:04 | We also created a boardroom, | ||
| 107 | 06:09 | and I hired a Japanese cabinetmaker from Kyoto, Japan, | ||
| 108 | 06:13 | and commissioned him to do 60 pieces of furniture for our building. | ||
| 109 | 06:17 | We have since spun him off into his own business. | ||
| 110 | 06:20 | He's making a ton of money doing custom furniture for rich people. | ||
| 111 | 06:23 | And I got 60 pieces out of it for my school | ||
| 112 | 06:26 | because I felt that welfare moms and ex-steel workers | ||
| 113 | 06:29 | and single parents deserved to come to a school | ||
| 114 | 06:34 | where there was handcrafted furniture that greeted them every day. | ||
| 115 | 06:37 | Because it sets a tone and an attitude about how you feel about people | ||
| 116 | 06:41 | long before you give them the speech. | ||
| 117 | 06:44 | We even have flowers in the hallway, and they're not plastic. | ||
| 118 | 06:50 | Those are real and they're in my building every day. | ||
| 119 | 06:53 | And now that I've given lots of speeches, | ||
| 120 | 06:55 | we had a bunch of high school principals come and see me, | ||
| 121 | 06:58 | and they said, "Mr. Strickland, | ||
| 122 | 07:00 | what an extraordinary story and what a great school. | ||
| 123 | 07:03 | And we were particularly touched by the flowers | ||
| 124 | 07:06 | and we were curious as to how the flowers got there." | ||
| 125 | 07:08 | I said, "Well, I got in my car and I went out to the greenhouse | ||
| 126 | 07:11 | and I bought them and I brought them back and I put them there." | ||
| 127 | 07:14 | You don't need a task force or a study group to buy flowers for your kids. | ||
| 128 | 07:20 | What you need to know is that the children | ||
| 129 | 07:23 | and the adults deserve flowers in their life. | ||
| 130 | 07:26 | The cost is incidental but the gesture is huge. | ||
| 131 | 07:29 | And so in my building, which is full of sunlight and full of flowers, | ||
| 132 | 07:35 | we believe in hope and human possibilities. | ||
| 133 | 07:37 | That happens to be at Christmas time. | ||
| 134 | 07:39 | And so the next thing you'll see is a million dollar kitchen | ||
| 135 | 07:45 | that was built by the Heinz company -- you've heard of them? | ||
| 136 | 07:49 | They did all right in the ketchup business. | ||
| 137 | 07:52 | And I happen to know that company pretty well | ||
| 138 | 07:54 | because John Heinz, who was our U.S. senator -- | ||
| 139 | 07:57 | who was tragically killed in a plane accident -- | ||
| 140 | 08:00 | he had heard about my desire to build a new building, | ||
| 141 | 08:03 | because I had a cardboard box and I put it in a garbage bag | ||
| 142 | 08:06 | and I walking all over Pittsburgh trying to raise money for this site. | ||
| 143 | 08:09 | And he called me into his office -- | ||
| 144 | 08:11 | which is the equivalent of going to see the Wizard of Oz | ||
| 145 | 08:14 | (Laughter) -- | ||
| 146 | 08:15 | and John Heinz had 600 million dollars, and at the time I had about 60 cents. | ||
| 147 | 08:19 | And he said, "But we've heard about you. | ||
| 148 | 08:21 | We've heard about your work with the kids and the ex-steel workers, | ||
| 149 | 08:24 | and we're inclined to want to support your desire to build a new building. | ||
| 150 | 08:29 | And you could do us a great service | ||
| 151 | 08:31 | if you would add a culinary program to your program." | ||
| 152 | 08:36 | Because back then, we were building a trades program. | ||
| 153 | 08:39 | He said, "That way we could fulfill our affirmative action goals | ||
| 154 | 08:41 | for the Heinz company." | ||
| 155 | 08:43 | I said, "Senator, I'm reluctant to go into a field | ||
| 156 | 08:48 | that I don't know much about, but I promise you | ||
| 157 | 08:51 | that if you'll support my school, I'll get it built | ||
| 158 | 08:54 | and in a couple of years, I'll come back | ||
| 159 | 08:56 | and weigh out that program that you desire." | ||
| 160 | 08:58 | And Senator Heinz sat very quietly and he said, | ||
| 161 | 09:02 | "Well, what would your reaction be | ||
| 162 | 09:04 | if I said I'd give you a million dollars?" | ||
| 163 | 09:07 | I said, "Senator, it appears that we're going into the food training business." | ||
| 164 | 09:12 | (Laughter) | ||
| 165 | 09:19 | And John Heinz did give me a million bucks. | ||
| 166 | 09:22 | And most importantly, | ||
| 167 | 09:24 | he loaned me the head of research for the Heinz company. | ||
| 168 | 09:27 | And we kind of borrowed the curriculum from the Culinary Institute of America, | ||
| 169 | 09:31 | which in their mind is kind of the Harvard of cooking schools, | ||
| 170 | 09:34 | and we created a gourmet cooks program for welfare mothers | ||
| 171 | 09:38 | in this million dollar kitchen in the middle of the inner city. | ||
| 172 | 09:42 | And we've never looked back. | ||
| 173 | 09:44 | I would like to show you now some of the food | ||
| 174 | 09:48 | that these welfare mothers do in this million dollar kitchen. | ||
| 175 | 09:52 | That happens to be our cafeteria line. | ||
| 176 | 09:55 | That's puff pastry day. Why? | ||
| 177 | 09:58 | Because the students made puff pastry | ||
| 178 | 10:00 | and that's what the school ate every day. | ||
| 179 | 10:02 | But the concept was that I wanted to take the stigma out of food. | ||
| 180 | 10:07 | That good food's not for rich people -- | ||
| 181 | 10:10 | good food's for everybody on the planet, | ||
| 182 | 10:12 | and there's no excuse why we all can't be eating it. | ||
| 183 | 10:15 | So at my school, we subsidize a gourmet lunch program | ||
| 184 | 10:20 | for welfare mothers in the middle of the inner city | ||
| 185 | 10:23 | because we've discovered that it's good for their stomachs, | ||
| 186 | 10:25 | but it's better for their heads. | ||
| 187 | 10:27 | Because I wanted to let them know every day of their life | ||
| 188 | 10:32 | that they have value at this place I call my center. | ||
| 189 | 10:36 | We have students who sit together, black kids and white kids, | ||
| 190 | 10:42 | and what we've discovered is you can solve the race problem | ||
| 191 | 10:47 | by creating a world class environment, | ||
| 192 | 10:50 | because people will have a tendency to show you world class behavior | ||
| 193 | 10:54 | if you treat them in that way. | ||
| 194 | 10:57 | These are examples of the food that welfare mothers are doing | ||
| 195 | 11:02 | after six months in the training program. | ||
| 196 | 11:05 | No sophistication, no class, no dignity, no history. | ||
| 197 | 11:11 | What we've discovered is the only thing wrong with poor people | ||
| 198 | 11:15 | is they don't have any money, which happens to be a curable condition. | ||
| 199 | 11:21 | It's all in the way that you think about people | ||
| 200 | 11:24 | that often determines their behavior. | ||
| 201 | 11:26 | That was done by a student after seven months in the program, | ||
| 202 | 11:30 | done by a very brilliant young woman | ||
| 203 | 11:34 | who was taught by our pastry chef. | ||
| 204 | 11:36 | I've actually eaten seven of those baskets and they're very good. | ||
| 205 | 11:39 | (Laughter) | ||
| 206 | 11:40 | They have no calories. | ||
| 207 | 11:42 | That's our dining room. | ||
| 208 | 11:44 | It looks like your average high school cafeteria | ||
| 209 | 11:48 | in your average town in America. | ||
| 210 | 11:51 | But this is my view of how students ought to be treated, | ||
| 211 | 11:55 | particularly once they have been pushed aside. | ||
| 212 | 11:58 | We train pharmaceutical technicians for the pharmacy industry, | ||
| 213 | 12:04 | we train medical technicians for the medical industry, | ||
| 214 | 12:07 | and we train chemical technicians for companies | ||
| 215 | 12:11 | like Bayer and Calgon Carbon and Fisher Scientific and Exxon. | ||
| 216 | 12:15 | And I will guarantee you that if you come to my center in Pittsburgh -- | ||
| 217 | 12:21 | and you're all invited -- | ||
| 218 | 12:23 | you'll see welfare mothers doing analytical chemistry | ||
| 219 | 12:25 | with logarithmic calculators | ||
| 220 | 12:27 | 10 months from enrolling in the program. | ||
| 221 | 12:30 | There is absolutely no reason why poor people | ||
| 222 | 12:35 | can't learn world class technology. | ||
| 223 | 12:38 | What we've discovered is you have to give them flowers | ||
| 224 | 12:41 | and sunlight and food and expectations and Herbie's music, | ||
| 225 | 12:47 | and you can cure a spiritual cancer every time. | ||
| 226 | 12:52 | We train corporate travel agents for the travel industry. | ||
| 227 | 12:57 | We even teach people how to read. | ||
| 228 | 13:00 | The kid with the red stripe was in the program two years ago -- | ||
| 229 | 13:04 | he's now an instructor. | ||
| 230 | 13:06 | And I have children with high school diplomas that they can't read. | ||
| 231 | 13:11 | And so you must ask yourself the question: | ||
| 232 | 13:14 | how is it possible in the 21st century | ||
| 233 | 13:19 | that we graduate children from schools | ||
| 234 | 13:22 | who can't read the diplomas that they have in their hands? | ||
| 235 | 13:25 | The reason is that the system gets reimbursed | ||
| 236 | 13:28 | for the kids they spit out the other end, not the children who read. | ||
| 237 | 13:33 | I can take these children and in 20 weeks, | ||
| 238 | 13:38 | demonstrated aptitude; I can get them high school equivalent. | ||
| 239 | 13:42 | No big deal. | ||
| 240 | 13:45 | That's our library with more handcrafted furniture. | ||
| 241 | 13:51 | And this is the arts program I started in 1968. | ||
| 242 | 13:55 | Remember I'm the black kid from the '60s who got his life saved with ceramics. | ||
| 243 | 13:59 | Well, I went out and decided to reproduce my experience | ||
| 244 | 14:02 | with other kids in the neighborhood, | ||
| 245 | 14:04 | the theory being if you get kids flowers and you give them food | ||
| 246 | 14:08 | and you give them sunshine and enthusiasm, | ||
| 247 | 14:11 | you can bring them right back to life. | ||
| 248 | 14:13 | I have 400 kids from the Pittsburgh public school system | ||
| 249 | 14:16 | that come to me every day of the week for arts education. | ||
| 250 | 14:21 | And these are children who are flunking out of public school. | ||
| 251 | 14:24 | And last year I put 88 percent of those kids in college | ||
| 252 | 14:27 | and I've averaged over 80 percent for 15 years. | ||
| 253 | 14:31 | We've made a fascinating discovery: | ||
| 254 | 14:33 | there's nothing wrong with the kids | ||
| 255 | 14:36 | that affection and sunshine and food and enthusiasm | ||
| 256 | 14:41 | and Herbie's music can't cure. | ||
| 257 | 14:44 | For that I won a big old plaque -- Man of the Year in Education. | ||
| 258 | 14:48 | I beat out all the Ph.D.'s | ||
| 259 | 14:50 | because I figured that if you treat children like human beings, | ||
| 260 | 14:53 | it increases the likelihood they're going to behave that way. | ||
| 261 | 14:56 | And why we can't institute that policy | ||
| 262 | 14:59 | in every school and in every city and every town | ||
| 263 | 15:05 | remains a mystery to me. | ||
| 264 | 15:08 | Let me show you what these people do. | ||
| 265 | 15:11 | We have ceramics and photography and computer imaging. | ||
| 266 | 15:15 | And these are all kids with no artistic ability, no talent, | ||
| 267 | 15:20 | no imagination. And we bring in the world's greatest artists -- | ||
| 268 | 15:24 | Gordon Parks has been there, Chester Higgins has been there -- | ||
| 269 | 15:27 | and what we've learned | ||
| 270 | 15:29 | is that the children will become like the people who teach them. | ||
| 271 | 15:33 | In fact, I brought in a mosaic artist from the Vatican, | ||
| 272 | 15:37 | an African-American woman | ||
| 273 | 15:39 | who had studied the old Vatican mosaic techniques, | ||
| 274 | 15:42 | and let me show you what they did with the work. | ||
| 275 | 15:46 | These were children who the whole world had given up on, | ||
| 276 | 15:50 | who were flunking out of public school, | ||
| 277 | 15:52 | and that's what they're capable of doing | ||
| 278 | 15:54 | with affection and sunlight and food and good music and confidence. | ||
| 279 | 16:04 | We teach photography. | ||
| 280 | 16:06 | And these are examples of some of the kids' work. | ||
| 281 | 16:10 | That boy won a four-year scholarship | ||
| 282 | 16:13 | on the strength of that photograph. | ||
| 283 | 16:16 | This is our gallery. | ||
| 284 | 16:18 | We have a world class gallery | ||
| 285 | 16:20 | because we believe that poor kids need a world class gallery, | ||
| 286 | 16:24 | so I designed this thing. | ||
| 287 | 16:26 | We have smoked salmon at the art openings, | ||
| 288 | 16:28 | we have a formal printed invitation, | ||
| 289 | 16:31 | and I even have figured out a way to get their parents to come. | ||
| 290 | 16:34 | I couldn't buy a parent 15 years ago | ||
| 291 | 16:37 | so I hired a guy who got off on the Jesus big time. | ||
| 292 | 16:41 | He was dragging guys out of bars | ||
| 293 | 16:43 | and saving those lives for the Lord. | ||
| 294 | 16:45 | And I said, "Bill, I want to hire you, man. | ||
| 295 | 16:49 | You have to tone down the Jesus stuff a little bit, | ||
| 296 | 16:51 | but keep the enthusiasm. | ||
| 297 | 16:53 | (Laughter) (Applause) | ||
| 298 | 16:56 | I can't get these parents to come to the school." | ||
| 299 | 17:00 | He said, "I'll get them to come to the school." | ||
| 300 | 17:02 | So, he jumped in the van, he went to Miss Jones' house and said, | ||
| 301 | 17:04 | "Miss Jones, I knew you wanted to come to your kid's art opening | ||
| 302 | 17:07 | but you probably didn't have a ride. | ||
| 303 | 17:10 | So, I came to give you a ride." | ||
| 304 | 17:12 | And he got 10 parents and then 20 parents. | ||
| 305 | 17:15 | At the last show that we did, 200 parents showed up | ||
| 306 | 17:19 | and we didn't pick up one parent. | ||
| 307 | 17:21 | Because now it's become socially not acceptable not to show up | ||
| 308 | 17:26 | to support your children at the Manchester Craftsmen's Guild | ||
| 309 | 17:29 | because people think you're bad parents. | ||
| 310 | 17:31 | And there is no statistical difference | ||
| 311 | 17:33 | between the white parents and the black parents. | ||
| 312 | 17:37 | Mothers will go where their children are being celebrated, | ||
| 313 | 17:42 | every time, every town, every city. | ||
| 314 | 17:48 | I wanted you to see this gallery because it's as good as it gets. | ||
| 315 | 17:56 | And by the time I cut these kids loose from high school, | ||
| 316 | 17:59 | they've got four shows on their resume | ||
| 317 | 18:02 | before they apply to college because it's all up here. | ||
| 318 | 18:05 | You have to change the way that people see themselves | ||
| 319 | 18:09 | before you can change their behavior. | ||
| 320 | 18:12 | And it's worked out pretty good up to this day. | ||
| 321 | 18:17 | I even stuck another room on the building, which I'd like to show you. | ||
| 322 | 18:23 | This is brand new. | ||
| 323 | 18:25 | We just got this slide done in time for the TED Conference. | ||
| 324 | 18:29 | I gave this little slide show at a place called the Silicon Valley | ||
| 325 | 18:34 | and I did all right. | ||
| 326 | 18:36 | And the woman came out of the audience, | ||
| 327 | 18:38 | she said, "That was a great story | ||
| 328 | 18:40 | and I was very impressed with your presentation. | ||
| 329 | 18:42 | My only criticism is your computers are getting a little bit old." | ||
| 330 | 18:45 | And I said, "Well, what do you do for a living?" | ||
| 331 | 18:48 | She said, "Well, I work for a company called Hewlett-Packard." | ||
| 332 | 18:52 | And I said, "You're in the computer business, is that right?" | ||
| 333 | 18:55 | She said, "Yes, sir." | ||
| 334 | 18:57 | And I said, "Well, there's an easy solution to that problem." | ||
| 335 | 18:59 | Well, I'm very pleased to announce to you that HP | ||
| 336 | 19:03 | and a furniture company called Steelcase | ||
| 337 | 19:06 | have adopted us as a demonstration model for all of their technology | ||
| 338 | 19:10 | and all their furniture for the United States of America. | ||
| 339 | 19:13 | And that's the room | ||
| 340 | 19:15 | that's initiating the relationship. | ||
| 341 | 19:17 | We got it just done in time to show you, | ||
| 342 | 19:19 | so it's kind of the world debut of our digital imaging center. | ||
| 343 | 19:23 | (Applause) | ||
| 344 | 19:24 | (Music) | ||
| 345 | 19:32 | I only have a couple more slides, | ||
| 346 | 19:34 | and this is where the story gets kind of interesting. | ||
| 347 | 19:37 | So, I just want you to listen up for a couple more minutes | ||
| 348 | 19:40 | and you'll understand why he's there and I'm here. | ||
| 349 | 19:45 | In 1986, I had the presence of mind to stick a music hall | ||
| 350 | 19:49 | on the north end of the building while I was building it. | ||
| 351 | 19:52 | And a guy named Dizzy Gillespie showed up to play there | ||
| 352 | 19:57 | because he knew this man over here, Marty Ashby. | ||
| 353 | 20:01 | And I stood on that stage with Dizzy Gillespie on sound check | ||
| 354 | 20:05 | on a Wednesday afternoon, and I said, | ||
| 355 | 20:07 | "Dizzy, why would you come to a black-run center | ||
| 356 | 20:10 | in the middle of an industrial park with a high crime rate | ||
| 357 | 20:14 | that doesn't even have a reputation in music?" | ||
| 358 | 20:16 | He said, "Because I heard you built the center | ||
| 359 | 20:18 | and I didn't believe that you did it, and I wanted to see for myself. | ||
| 360 | 20:21 | And now that I have, I want to give you a gift." | ||
| 361 | 20:26 | I said, "You're the gift." | ||
| 362 | 20:28 | He said, "No, sir. You're the gift. | ||
| 363 | 20:30 | And I'm going to allow you to record the concert | ||
| 364 | 20:32 | and I'm going to give you the music, | ||
| 365 | 20:34 | and if you ever choose to sell it, you must sign an agreement | ||
| 366 | 20:37 | that says the money will come back and support the school." | ||
| 367 | 20:39 | And I recorded Dizzy. And he died a year later, | ||
| 368 | 20:44 | but not before telling a fellow named McCoy Tyner what we were doing. | ||
| 369 | 20:48 | And he showed up and said, | ||
| 370 | 20:50 | "Dizzy talking about you all over the country, man, | ||
| 371 | 20:52 | and I want to help you." | ||
| 372 | 20:54 | And then a guy named Wynton Marsalis showed up. | ||
| 373 | 20:57 | Then a bass player named Ray Brown, | ||
| 374 | 21:00 | and a fellow named Stanley Turrentine, | ||
| 375 | 21:03 | and a piano player named Herbie Hancock, | ||
| 376 | 21:06 | and a band called the Count Basie Orchestra, | ||
| 377 | 21:12 | and a fellow named Tito Puente, | ||
| 378 | 21:15 | and a guy named Gary Burton, and Shirley Horn, and Betty Carter, | ||
| 379 | 21:20 | and Dakota Staton and Nancy Wilson | ||
| 380 | 21:23 | all have come to this center in the middle of an industrial park | ||
| 381 | 21:28 | to sold out audiences in the middle of the inner city. | ||
| 382 | 21:31 | And I'm very pleased to tell you that, with their permission, | ||
| 383 | 21:35 | I have now accumulated 600 recordings | ||
| 384 | 21:38 | of the greatest artists in the world, | ||
| 385 | 21:40 | including Joe Williams, who died, | ||
| 386 | 21:44 | but not before his last recording was done at my school. | ||
| 387 | 21:49 | And Joe Williams came up to me and he put his hand on my shoulder | ||
| 388 | 21:59 | and he said, "God's picked you, man, to do this work. | ||
| 389 | 22:07 | And I want my music to be with you." | ||
| 390 | 22:10 | And that worked out all right. | ||
| 391 | 22:14 | When the Basie band came, the band got so excited about the school | ||
| 392 | 22:19 | they voted to give me the rights to the music. | ||
| 393 | 22:22 | And I recorded it and we won something called a Grammy. | ||
| 394 | 22:27 | And like a fool, I didn't go to the ceremony | ||
| 395 | 22:30 | because I didn't think we were going to win. | ||
| 396 | 22:32 | Well, we did win, | ||
| 397 | 22:34 | and our name was literally in lights over Madison Square Garden. | ||
| 398 | 22:36 | Then the U.N. Jazz Orchestra dropped by and we recorded them | ||
| 399 | 22:45 | and got nominated for a second Grammy back to back. | ||
| 400 | 22:50 | So, we've become one of the hot, young jazz recording studios | ||
| 401 | 22:53 | in the United States of America | ||
| 402 | 22:55 | (Laughter) | ||
| 403 | 22:56 | in the middle of the inner city with a high crime rate. | ||
| 404 | 23:02 | That's the place all filled up with Republicans. | ||
| 405 | 23:08 | (Laughter) | ||
| 406 | 23:12 | (Applause) | ||
| 407 | 23:13 | If you'd have dropped a bomb on that room, | ||
| 408 | 23:15 | you'd have wiped out all the money in Pennsylvania | ||
| 409 | 23:17 | because it was all sitting there. | ||
| 410 | 23:19 | Including my mother and father, who lived long enough | ||
| 411 | 23:22 | to see their kid build that building. | ||
| 412 | 23:25 | And there's Dizzy, just like I told you. He was there. | ||
| 413 | 23:29 | And he was there, Tito Puente. | ||
| 414 | 23:32 | And Pat Metheny and Jim Hall were there | ||
| 415 | 23:35 | and they recorded with us. | ||
| 416 | 23:37 | And that was our first recording studio, which was the broom closet. | ||
| 417 | 23:42 | We put the mops in the hallway and re-engineered the thing | ||
| 418 | 23:45 | and that's where we recorded the first Grammy. | ||
| 419 | 23:48 | And this is our new facility, which is all video technology. | ||
| 420 | 23:52 | And that is a room that was built for a woman named Nancy Wilson, | ||
| 421 | 23:56 | who recorded that album at our school last Christmas. | ||
| 422 | 24:04 | And any of you who happened to have been watching Oprah Winfrey | ||
| 423 | 24:06 | on Christmas Day, he was there and Nancy was there | ||
| 424 | 24:10 | singing excerpts from this album, | ||
| 425 | 24:12 | the rights to which she donated to our school. | ||
| 426 | 24:16 | And I can now tell you with absolute certainty | ||
| 427 | 24:18 | that an appearance on Oprah Winfrey will sell 10,000 CDs. | ||
| 428 | 24:23 | (Laughter) | ||
| 429 | 24:25 | We are currently number four on the Billboard Charts, | ||
| 430 | 24:28 | right behind Tony Bennett. | ||
| 431 | 24:30 | And I think we're going to be fine. | ||
| 432 | 24:32 | This was burned out during the riots -- this is next to my building -- | ||
| 433 | 24:36 | and so I had another cardboard box built | ||
| 434 | 24:39 | and I walked back out in the streets again. | ||
| 435 | 24:41 | And that's the building, and that's the model, | ||
| 436 | 24:44 | and on the right's a high-tech greenhouse | ||
| 437 | 24:47 | and in the middle's the medical technology building. | ||
| 438 | 24:49 | And I'm very pleased to tell you that the building's done. | ||
| 439 | 24:52 | It's also full of anchor tenants at 20 dollars a foot -- | ||
| 440 | 24:57 | triple that in the middle of the inner city. | ||
| 441 | 24:59 | And there's the fountain. | ||
| 442 | 25:01 | (Laughter) | ||
| 443 | 25:03 | Every building has a fountain. | ||
| 444 | 25:05 | And the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center are anchor tenants | ||
| 445 | 25:08 | and they took half the building, | ||
| 446 | 25:10 | and we now train medical technicians through all their system. | ||
| 447 | 25:13 | And Mellon Bank's a tenant. | ||
| 448 | 25:15 | And I love them because they pay the rent on time. | ||
| 449 | 25:18 | (Laughter) | ||
| 450 | 25:19 | And as a result of the association, | ||
| 451 | 25:21 | I'm now a director of the Mellon Financial Corporation | ||
| 452 | 25:24 | that bought Dreyfus. | ||
| 453 | 25:29 | And this is in the process of being built as we speak. | ||
| 454 | 25:33 | Multiply that picture times four and you will see the greenhouse | ||
| 455 | 25:38 | that's going to open in October this year | ||
| 456 | 25:40 | because we're going to grow those flowers | ||
| 457 | 25:44 | in the middle of the inner city. | ||
| 458 | 25:46 | And we're going to have high school kids | ||
| 459 | 25:48 | growing Phalaenopsis orchids in the middle of the inner city. | ||
| 460 | 25:53 | And we have a handshake with one of the large retail grocers | ||
| 461 | 25:57 | to sell our orchids in all 240 stores in six states. | ||
| 462 | 26:02 | And our partners are Zuma Canyon Orchids of Malibu, California, | ||
| 463 | 26:06 | who are Hispanic. | ||
| 464 | 26:08 | So, the Hispanics and the black folks have formed a partnership | ||
| 465 | 26:11 | to grow high technology orchids in the middle of the inner city. | ||
| 466 | 26:15 | And I told my United States senator | ||
| 467 | 26:18 | that there was a very high probability | ||
| 468 | 26:20 | that if he could find some funding for this, | ||
| 469 | 26:22 | we would become a left-hand column in the Wall Street Journal, | ||
| 470 | 26:26 | to which he readily agreed. | ||
| 471 | 26:28 | And we got the funding and we open in the fall. | ||
| 472 | 26:30 | And you ought to come and see it -- it's going to be a hell of a story. | ||
| 473 | 26:33 | And this is what I want to do when I grow up. | ||
| 474 | 26:38 | (Laughter) | ||
| 475 | 26:40 | The brown building is the one you guys have been looking at | ||
| 476 | 26:43 | and I'll tell you where I made my big mistake. | ||
| 477 | 26:46 | I had a chance to buy this whole industrial park -- | ||
| 478 | 26:50 | which is less than 1,000 feet from the riverfront -- | ||
| 479 | 26:52 | for four million dollars and I didn't do it. | ||
| 480 | 26:56 | And I built the first building, and guess what happened? | ||
| 481 | 27:00 | I appreciated the real estate values beyond everybody's expectations | ||
| 482 | 27:04 | and the owners of the park turned me down for eight million dollars last year, | ||
| 483 | 27:10 | and said, "Mr. Strickland, | ||
| 484 | 27:12 | you ought to get the Civic Leader of the Year Award | ||
| 485 | 27:14 | because you've appreciated our property values | ||
| 486 | 27:16 | beyond our wildest expectations. | ||
| 487 | 27:18 | Thank you very much for that." | ||
| 488 | 27:21 | The moral of the story is you must be prepared to act on your dreams, | ||
| 489 | 27:26 | just in case they do come true. | ||
| 490 | 27:29 | And finally, there's this picture. | ||
| 491 | 27:35 | This is in a place called San Francisco. | ||
| 492 | 27:38 | And the reason this picture's in here is | ||
| 493 | 27:41 | I did this slide show a couple years ago at a big economics summit, | ||
| 494 | 27:45 | and there was a fellow in the audience who came up to me. | ||
| 495 | 27:47 | He said, "Man, that's a great story. | ||
| 496 | 27:49 | I want one of those." | ||
| 497 | 27:51 | I said, "Well, I'm very flattered. What do you do for a living?" | ||
| 498 | 27:54 | He says, "I run the city of San Francisco. | ||
| 499 | 27:56 | My name's Willie Brown." | ||
| 500 | 27:59 | And so I kind of accepted the flattery and the praise | ||
| 501 | 28:04 | and put it out of my mind. | ||
| 502 | 28:06 | And that weekend, I was going back home | ||
| 503 | 28:08 | and Herbie Hancock was playing our center that night -- | ||
| 504 | 28:13 | first time I'd met him. | ||
| 505 | 28:15 | And he walked in and he says, "What is this?" | ||
| 506 | 28:18 | And I said, "Herbie, this is my concept of a training center | ||
| 507 | 28:22 | for poor people." | ||
| 508 | 28:24 | And he said, "As God as my witness, | ||
| 509 | 28:27 | I've had a center like this in my mind for 25 years and you've built it. | ||
| 510 | 28:31 | And now I really want to build one." | ||
| 511 | 28:33 | I said, "Well, where would you build this thing?" | ||
| 512 | 28:35 | He said, "San Francisco." | ||
| 513 | 28:37 | I said, "Any chance you know Willie Brown?" | ||
| 514 | 28:40 | (Laughter) | ||
| 515 | 28:42 | As a matter of fact he did know Willie Brown, | ||
| 516 | 28:45 | and Willie Brown and Herbie and I had dinner four years ago, | ||
| 517 | 28:48 | and we started drawing out that center on the tablecloth. | ||
| 518 | 28:51 | And Willie Brown said, "As sure as I'm the mayor of San Francisco, | ||
| 519 | 28:55 | I'm going to build this thing | ||
| 520 | 28:57 | as a legacy to the poor people of this city." | ||
| 521 | 29:01 | And he got me five acres of land on San Francisco Bay | ||
| 522 | 29:05 | and we got an architect and we got a general contractor | ||
| 523 | 29:09 | and we got Herbie on the board, | ||
| 524 | 29:12 | and our friends from HP, and our friends from Steelcase, | ||
| 525 | 29:15 | and our friends from Cisco, and our friends from Wells Fargo | ||
| 526 | 29:18 | and Genentech. | ||
| 527 | 29:20 | And along the way, I met this real short guy | ||
| 528 | 29:24 | at my slide show in the Silicon Valley. | ||
| 529 | 29:28 | He came up to me afterwards, | ||
| 530 | 29:30 | he said, "Man, that's a fabulous story. | ||
| 531 | 29:33 | I want to help you." | ||
| 532 | 29:35 | And I said, "Well, thank you very much for that. | ||
| 533 | 29:37 | What do you do for a living?" | ||
| 534 | 29:39 | He said, "Well, I built a company called eBay." | ||
| 535 | 29:43 | I said, "Well, that's very nice. | ||
| 536 | 29:45 | Thanks very much, and give me your card and sometime we'll talk." | ||
| 537 | 29:48 | I didn't know eBay from that jar of water sitting on that piano, | ||
| 538 | 29:53 | but I had the presence of mind to go back | ||
| 539 | 29:55 | and talk to one of the techie kids at my center. | ||
| 540 | 29:58 | I said, "Hey man, what is eBay?" | ||
| 541 | 30:00 | He said, "Well, that's the electronic commerce network." | ||
| 542 | 30:03 | I said, "Well, I met the guy who built the thing | ||
| 543 | 30:05 | and he left me his card." | ||
| 544 | 30:08 | So, I called him up on the phone and I said, "Mr. Skoll, | ||
| 545 | 30:11 | I've come to have a much deeper appreciation of who you are | ||
| 546 | 30:15 | (Laughter) | ||
| 547 | 30:20 | and I'd like to become your friend." | ||
| 548 | 30:23 | (Laughter) | ||
| 549 | 30:26 | And Jeff and I did become friends, | ||
| 550 | 30:29 | and he's organized a team of people | ||
| 551 | 30:32 | and we're going to build this center. | ||
| 552 | 30:37 | And I went down into the neighborhood called Bayview-Hunters Point, | ||
| 553 | 30:43 | and I said, "The mayor sent me down here to work with you | ||
| 554 | 30:47 | and I want to build a center with you, | ||
| 555 | 30:50 | but I'm not going to build you anything if you don't want it. | ||
| 556 | 30:53 | And all I've got is a box of slides." | ||
| 557 | 30:56 | And so I stood up in front of 200 very angry, very disappointed people | ||
| 558 | 31:02 | on a summer night, and the air conditioner had broken | ||
| 559 | 31:05 | and it was 100 degrees outside, | ||
| 560 | 31:09 | and I started showing these pictures. | ||
| 561 | 31:11 | And after about 10 pictures they all settled down. | ||
| 562 | 31:15 | And I ran the story and I said, "What do you think?" | ||
| 563 | 31:20 | And in the back of the room, a woman stood up and she said, | ||
| 564 | 31:23 | "In 35 years of living in this God forsaken place, | ||
| 565 | 31:26 | you're the only person that's come down here and treated us with dignity. | ||
| 566 | 31:30 | I'm going with you, man." | ||
| 567 | 31:33 | And she turned that audience around on a pin. | ||
| 568 | 31:36 | And I promised these people that I was going to build this thing, | ||
| 569 | 31:40 | and we're going to build it all right. | ||
| 570 | 31:42 | And I think we can get in the ground this year | ||
| 571 | 31:45 | as the first replication of the center in Pittsburgh. | ||
| 572 | 31:49 | But I met a guy named Quincy Jones along the way | ||
| 573 | 31:55 | and I showed him the box of slides. | ||
| 574 | 31:59 | And Quincy said, "I want to help you, man. | ||
| 575 | 32:02 | Let's do one in L.A." | ||
| 576 | 32:06 | And so he's assembled a group of people. | ||
| 577 | 32:09 | And I've fallen in love with him, | ||
| 578 | 32:11 | as I have with Herbie and with his music. | ||
| 579 | 32:15 | And Quincy said, "Where did the idea for centers like this come from?" | ||
| 580 | 32:21 | And I said, "It came from your music, man. | ||
| 581 | 32:24 | Because Mr. Ross used to bring in your albums | ||
| 582 | 32:27 | when I was 16 years old in the pottery class, | ||
| 583 | 32:30 | when the world was all dark, | ||
| 584 | 32:33 | and your music got me to the sunlight." | ||
| 585 | 32:37 | And I said, "If I can follow that music, | ||
| 586 | 32:39 | I'll get out into the sunlight and I'll be OK. | ||
| 587 | 32:43 | And if that's not true, how did I get here?" | ||
| 588 | 32:48 | I want you all to know | ||
| 589 | 32:52 | that I think the world is a place that's worth living. | ||
| 590 | 32:56 | I believe in you. | ||
| 591 | 33:00 | I believe in your hopes and your dreams, | ||
| 592 | 33:04 | I believe in your intelligence | ||
| 593 | 33:07 | and I believe in your enthusiasm. | ||
| 594 | 33:09 | And I'm tired of living like this, | ||
| 595 | 33:12 | going into town after town with people standing around on corners | ||
| 596 | 33:17 | with holes where eyes used to be, their spirits damaged. | ||
| 597 | 33:24 | We won't make it as a country unless we can turn this thing around. | ||
| 598 | 33:28 | In Pennsylvania it costs 60,000 dollars to keep people in jail, | ||
| 599 | 33:34 | most of whom look like me. | ||
| 600 | 33:36 | It's 40,000 dollars to build the University of Pittsburgh Medical School. | ||
| 601 | 33:40 | It's 20,000 dollars cheaper to build a medical school than to keep people in jail. | ||
| 602 | 33:44 | Do the math -- it will never work. | ||
| 603 | 33:49 | I am banking on you | ||
| 604 | 33:51 | and I'm banking on guys like Herbie and Quincy and Hackett and Richard | ||
| 605 | 34:00 | and very decent people who still believe in something. | ||
| 606 | 34:06 | And I want to do this in my lifetime, in every city and in every town. | ||
| 607 | 34:15 | And I don't think I'm crazy. | ||
| 608 | 34:17 | I think we can get home on this thing | ||
| 609 | 34:19 | and I think we can build these all over the country | ||
| 610 | 34:22 | for less money than we're spending on prisons. | ||
| 611 | 34:26 | And I believe we can turn this whole story around | ||
| 612 | 34:29 | to one of celebration and one of hope. | ||
| 613 | 34:33 | In my business it's very difficult work. | ||
| 614 | 34:36 | You're always fighting upstream like a salmon -- | ||
| 615 | 34:39 | never enough money, too much need -- | ||
| 616 | 34:42 | and so there is a tendency | ||
| 617 | 34:44 | to have an occupational depression that accompanies my work. | ||
| 618 | 34:48 | And so I've figured out, over time, the solution to the depression: | ||
| 619 | 34:54 | you make a friend in every town and you'll never be lonely. | ||
| 620 | 35:00 | And my hope is that I've made a few here tonight. | ||
| 621 | 35:05 | And thanks for listening to what I had to say. | ||
| 622 | 35:08 | (Applause) |