So when they had the opportunity, of course,
they jumped in the water.
Some could swim.
Most got shot in the back, we know that.
And we know that when they got shot in the back,
and that blood went in the water,
something else was going to happen.
The sharks are going to come, and they're
going to consume that body.
But the sharks are now being taught
to follow the ships all the way across the Atlantic Ocean.
And I am, I hope, a good person.
I try to be, to tell you the truth.
But every time I see a shark attack in the United States,
it makes me happy.
It does.
Because if you had left me where I belong,
the sharks would have stayed on the African coast,
and you could have swam in your waters.
But now--
[LAUGHTER]
So it's good for the sharks.
Let's go, you know.
Every time I see an attack, go sharks!
These (LAUGHS)--
[LAUGHTER]
It's what's happening.
[LAUGHTER]
Now we watched the trade.
And so we watch it.
We get to that third and fourth day.
And they're bringing the Africans up,
and they're throwing the salt water on them, right.
And they're jumping up and down.
And the Africans are still looking out.
They cannot see the land, but they can look back and they can
see the heat coming off the land.
And I always like to point out, if you only
have one way to see Africa, you should see it by ship,
because you'll see the heat before you see the land.
There's a shimmer that goes on.
It's really wonderful.
So they still knew where home was.
Because everybody keeps trying to say, oh they didn't know.
They knew where home was.
And as long as they knew where home was, they kept thinking,
there's going to be a way to get back.
When we get to that fifth day, that sixth day,
and they're brought up, and the water is thrown,
and they're jumping up and down, and they're looking around.
They can now no longer see-- because the Earth is round--
they can no longer see the land, and they cannot see the heat.
But they can still look up and they can see the clouds.
And as we all know, clouds over land
are different from clouds over water.
So they still knew where home was.
But we're going to get to that 10th day--
which we know from the study of the ship's captain's logs--
when we get to that ninth and tenth day,
and they're brought up, and they look around,
there's nothing that they can see that indicates
where they used to be.
And this is going to be the point that it's
going to be a very dangerous point for the ship,
because the Africans are going to have to rebel.
And they're going to have to try to find a way to contain them
without killing them, because if you start to kill them,
then the whole purpose of what you were doing
is going to be lost.
Right?
And so we have them on that 10th day.
And they have to make a decision.
And this is what bothers me very much.
Nobody wants to give those people
credit for making a decision.
Didn't it ever occur to anybody how unusual
it is that these people arrived on the shores,
and they were still sane?
That these people arrived on these shores,
and they had dignity, that they held their heads up.
That somehow they went through all of that,
and still managed to hold on to themselves,
because they made a decision.
If they had been singing a song, they would have said,
I made my vow to the Lord that I never will turn back.
I will go.
I shall go to see what the end may be.
These were great people.
And we don't like to credit people
with being a great people if they don't raise armies,
if they don't kill people.
But these were great people.
Because they have to come to these shores, where
they stood on auction blocks.
And I've always hated the way Hollywood shows slave auctions,
because they always show the women
in their little colonial outfits,
and that's not what was happening.
What was happening is that all the raw parts of your body,
they put tar on it, so that it didn't look like you
were as sick as you were.
And they also, just for the women, you were naked.
They rubbed you with oil and shined you up.
And men came, and put their hands
in your mouth, or any other orifice that they felt like.
And everybody kept saying, oh, they
didn't know what was going on, but they understood sold.
And they understood the tattoos that they were having.
They understood being chained, marked to a plantation
with some other fool that they didn't know.
They understood that all of a sudden, whatever it was,
they were going to have to deposit their dreams
on this very hostile soil.
And they were going to have to find a way
to believe that there is going to be a better day.
And it's going to be 300 years before that day comes.
But these were a great people.
They found a way to love, knowing
that when they had their children, as soon as they
were able to toddle, somebody was going
to take them and sell them.
And they had to find a way to say to the child,
that they would never see again, that they love them.
So they used to sing a song to the children, didn't they?
And they said if anybody asks you who you are,
tell them you're a child of God, that there
is no person-- no enslaved person-- that
ever told their child that they were enslaved.
They told their child, you're as good as anybody else.
We heard it all the way.
For 300 years they did that.
This was a great people.
When we look at America, where would we
be without the belief in the American dream
that Black Americans have shown?
And nobody wants to give us credit for what we did,
but they are a great people.
And a part of what made the American dream work
is that these people worked very hard.
They did the labor, but they also did the belief.
They did the promise.
They deposited those dreams, and they continue.
We watch it now with those young rappers.
They continue to watch it grow.
And this is a wonderful thing.