This is-- I'm so proud of this.
This is my latest book actually.
And it's a biography of Rosa Parks.
And I had the privilege of knowing Mrs. Parks
for like 24 years.
And I say that-- and I actually I think I could fairly
say we had a friendship.
But having a friendship with Mrs. Parks
is probably like having a friendship
with Queen Elizabeth.
She's somebody and you're not.
[LAUGHTER]
And so it works as long as you understand that.
And I did.
As she was kind enough to mention,
I am the first recipient of the Rosa Parks
Woman of Courage award.
And the Rosa Parks award is an academic award.
And for those of us who don't know
if I may be indulged for a moment, an academic award
you have to go and receive them.
So I have a Grammy nomination.
When I was nominated for the Grammy I didn't have to go.
If I would have won or didn't as I didn't, well, it's
a 4 in 1 chance of losing a 1 in 5 chance of winning.
What are the odds there?
It's why I don't play the lottery.
I don't.
But nonetheless you have to go to receive this.
You don't have to go to the Oscars either.
You don't have to go to Golden Globe.
Do you miss a lot?
You don't.
But anytime you win an academy award
you have to actually show up.
This man is James Tate.
And Montgomery, Alabama is a small--
it's the capital of Alabama, but it's a small city.
And the day that I flew into Montgomery to receive the Rosa
Parks, the headlines-- because nothing else going
on, the headline going this way says,
"Giovanni in town for Rosa Parks award," because it was--
an inaugural award.
The column coming down says, "James Tate died."
Bus driver who had Mrs. Parks arrested,
he died on the same day.
There is a God.
So when I got off the plane quite naturally,
the reporters got nothing else to do so they said to me--
they call me Dr. Giovanni and he said, "Dr. Giovanni,
James Tate died.
But I know who James Tate was.
And so I'm like, yeah.
And I said, "Well, do you have anything to say?"
And I said, "Well, yeah, I'm glad."
[LAUGHTER]
I didn't kill him and it didn't mean anything to me
and another one bites the dust.
[LAUGHTER]
It meant nothing.
But of course, what they did they went to Mrs. Tate
and they said, "Dr. Giovanni says she's glad--
[LAUGHTER]
"She's glad James is dead."
Well, I'm not exactly.
You know what I'm saying?
That's not exactly what I said.
But Mrs. Tate took exception and I was sorry
because I wasn't trying to hurt her feelings.
I had no stake in hurting her feelings.
And she said, "Well, what Dr. Giovanni doesn't understand."
And so now I got to tell you, Mrs. Tate
is in dangerous ground because Dr. Giovanni damn well
did understand.
She said, "What Dr. Giovanni doesn't understand
is that James was just a man of his time."
And so that comes back to me and I said, "Oh, no.
Oh, no, no, no.
Nobody."
What Mrs. Tate doesn't understand
is that nobody should be a man of their time.
To be a man of your time in 1700s
is to engage in the slave trade.
To be a man of your time in the 1800s
is to take smallpox in places and blankets
and give him to the Indians.
To be a man of your time in the 1900s
it's the lynch on the average of 1 black person a week.
To be a man of your time in the 1930s
is to don, you see what I'm saying, a brown shirt
and round up Jewish people and put them in a Holocaust.
But mostly, to be a man of your time at the beginning of time
is to stand in the crowd and shout, "Give us Barabbas."
Nobody should be a man of their time.
And we thank God that Rosa Parks was not a woman of her time.
[APPLAUSE]