Oh, I think I'll read this.
I wasn't going to.
OK.
I just come up with stuff for you.
I spent a semester in Memphis, Tennessee,
at what was then called Memphis State,
is now University of Memphis.
Anybody from Memphis, here?
Anybody been through Memphis?
[LAUGHTER]
Oh.
[LAUGHS] Anybody been to Memphis?
A whole different thing.
Well, Memphis-- oh, I have to read a couple of Memphis things
then.
For instance Memphis has something called Auction Street.
Do you know Auction Street?
Now in Memphis-- tell me if I'm wrong--
in Memphis, they say they don't know
why it's called Auction Street.
Now, I'm from out of town, and I know
why it's called Auction Street, you know.
And there is an auction block there.
It has a fence sitting around it,
but it doesn't have-- do you know it?
It doesn't have a plaque.
And it's shiny, almost, on top, with the feet
of people who were sold there.
And I always think--
I believe in vibes, you know?
And I always think that the vibes are still there.
And now that has--
there is a trolley that goes down this street.
Anyway, I was taken to Auction Street and stood by the block.
I didn't get on it, because you never know.
[LAUGHTER] And I felt--
I felt something, you know.
"Auction Street."
Consider the drum.
Consider the auction street, and the beat throbbing up
through our shoes through the trolley,
so that it rides as if propelled by hundreds, by thousands
of fathers and mothers led in a coffle to the block.
Consider the block.
Top side smooth as skin, almost translucent,
like a drum that has been beaten for the last time and waits now
to be honored for the music it has had to bear.
Then consider brother Moses, who heard from the mountaintop--
take off your shoes.
The ground you walk on is holy.