¶ Intro / Opening
From Cutco Media, hello, friends and fellow car lovers, welcome
¶ Prologue - Robert introduces 'The Jenkins' Bus' and introduces some of the key figures in this episode.
to Cars that matter. This is Robert Ross.
A lot goes into the history of a car. Who designed it, who made it, where it was a manufactured. And then there's everything that happens during the life of a car. Who drove it? What was it used for? What races did it win? How did it change the automotive landscape? Well, today we're going to talk about a remarkable car, one with some unusual origins, one with a few changes of fate and one that will be preserved in the annals of American history. It's not an impressive
vehicle on its own. It's a simple Volkswagen type to a VW bus in the United States, a VW camper in the United Kingdom and a Kombi where it was made. Other places you might see it called a transporter or a microbus. But the reason why this car matters is a combination not just of its history and the people who created it, but most importantly, the people who owned
it and the mission that it served. Today, we're going to be diving a bit more deeply into exactly how this car came to be and exactly why it was so important.
Listeners may have noticed a similar thread through a few episodes released earlier this year. Brian Howard of B.R. Howard and Associates and expert art conservation specialist explained the distinction between conservation when compared to restoration. Brian happen to have worked on the conservation of the automobile in question, just the history.
There was a piece that had served as such an important function and South Carolina.
Then we had Diane Parker as a guest, vice president of the Historic Vehicle Association, who discussed why the car was accepted into the National Historic Vehicle Register, the 1966 Volkswagen Type two deluxe station wagon. And finally, Russell Hayes, author of Volkswagen Beetles and Buses Smaller and Smarter, joined us recently to discuss the legacy of the world's most ubiquitous cars. And during our conversation, even he mentioned the vehicle in question.
That bus is actually called the jenkins' bus, the jenkins' bus.
Clearly, there was an important story coming to light and one that we wanted to take an extra bit of time to examine. So using some clips from those episodes, along with some additional interviews we've recorded since, we want to look at the history of this one average, yet truly exceptional automobile.
¶ The History of Volkswagen - Russell Hayes explains how Volkswagen survived World War 2 and how its image was reshaped when it came to America
Let's rewind the clock to just before World War Two and uncover the origins of the Volkswagen mark, Volkswagen Authority Russell Hayes, author of Volkswagen Beetles and Buses, explains the idea that's under German people's car had been around since the 1920s and there was a real determined campaign that there should be an affordable German pronunciation folks out, which was car of the people that people could actually afford
the pressure for. That led to an imposter who set up his own design consultancy, I think 1931, to start pedaling around a design for a new type of folks out to the various manufacturers. There were two motorcycle manufacturers that were interested and took him on design prototypes, Jundah and and as you both wanted to move from motorcycles into small cars. And he presented a design of a rearrangement to the simple platform to both of them. But neither of them in the end had the money to
go through with it. But all this incremental design were testing a prototype started to give them more and more improved model. And of course, the person who came along and gave the greatest push to it was Adolf Hitler. Hitler was so determined that there should be a people's car to run on the new autobahns as a symbol of modern Germany and also as a vehicle for export that he pushed and pushed the design. But he really gave Porsche a really hard time trying to screw him
down to the lowest possible production price. And Porsche, I think, was really under pressure to try and get this car manufacturer of the lowest possible price. But what ended up benefiting the eventual design is that millions of miles were covered in development work by the time the car was presented in its final form, ready for production just before the outbreak of war. It was a very well tested car already, possibly one of the biggest test programs that
any car had ever had to date. So when it came out after its course for the war, it was already a very well developed car and likely to be very reliable.
But Germany lost the war allies, moved in and were tasked with the well-nigh impossible task of rebuilding the country they had just defeated. As different countries were given different responsibilities and geographic sectors in the recovery effort, Great Britain was given a difficult choice of what to do with car manufacturing and what would eventually become Volkswagen.
It could have possibly gone to a third of America, but Henry Ford came and visited, tried one out Volkswagen from the war years, and it did think it could be a possible car for sale in Europe with a bit of refining, but backed off because it was too near the Russian border. But the British were sent in to assess what the factory could be turned to, and that was quite a contingent of them, wanted the factory just to be used as industrial units, not to go
back to manufacture. But Britain needed the German economy to get back into gear. And one of the ways of doing this was to help them restart production of this car, which was kind of ready to roll before the war. And the factory wasn't as badly damaged. So eventually it was put back into action. But the British were certainly
conflicted about what they were doing. A very small team of people realized that they were potentially going to damage the British motor industry, but that was their job to get this car running.
So Volkswagen was saved and the well tested Beetle more properly there. Kafer went into production. However, the odd German vehicle proved a bit difficult for America to swallow.
But the turn the Volkswagen arrived in the early 1950s. The idea of the small car in America just completely gone. That had been the crossly just after the war. But as soon as people could afford bigger cars, they abandoned that. It got off to a slow start in the States when it was first imported in the very early fifty fifty fifty one. The Dutch importer bought one or two over and they were just ridiculed. The press called it Hitler's car and he touted it round to various dealers
in terms of trying to to take it on. They weren't interested.
Volkswagen initially had to retreat and rethink and then come back to America with a much more considered offering. What they did was they started getting all the dealers in place and the service in place and the parts in place so that you had this car, which wasn't the latest thing. You could get parts anywhere. They were cheap. It could be readily serviced, which is what a lot of the imported cars the 1950s failed to grasp. They bought the cars in cheaply enough, but then there was
no back up. But by getting this organization in place and this sort of service ethos and back, which was so new, it started a really good foundation and it did start to trade off the Polish name. It got a following amongst people who needed a cheap car. And that's what was interesting. It wasn't bought by people who needed a cheap car, was bought by people who wanted an honest, small, reliable second car. And also at that time, European things were starting to make their influence felt. People
were travelling abroad again on European holidays. It traded in that kind of wave of interest in European things as well. And it became an antique car. In a way, it became well, I could afford a big Packard, but I don't want one. I want this nice, modest little car because it's not going to be out of date when the model changes, it's not going to look completely different.
My neighbor won't be able to tell what I'm got, a fifty six or fifty eight people, the Volkswagen of America, long before car companies were thought of as brands, represented a lot of things precision, practicality, rugged durability. One Volkswagen that had a huge impact was the bus, the camper, the transporter, the deluxe station wagon, the big box on wheels, which really became a ubiquitous feature in America, especially during the 1960s.
The two went on parallel tracks. The bus took off in a different direction to the company in America. Certainly they really didn't know what to make of it at all because small vans did not look like this. And when they tried to sell the company with seats and windows,
it just couldn't work out what it was. One great story was apparently that when people started buying the companies and using them as station wagons, some parking lot attendants wouldn't park them because they said they didn't park trucks. But that didn't deter sales. The early contrabands really took off. They really were seen as something new, as a way of escaping and exploring this big country. And of course, they could do it because albeit very slowly, but they
could do it reliably. And early camper van conversions were so ingenious, managing to squeeze all these little cabinets and washbasins and folding down beds into this tiny space.
And as a result, the VW bus took on a brand new reputation.
It was often used as transport for young people to go across continents. It was used by people who were on UN humanitarian missions as well, quite a lot in the 60s, people dispensing words of peace to people around the globe.
So VW survived World War Two, thanks to the British and their buses come to America and taken root.
But the next part of the story requires a bit of a change in scenery. We'll be right back. On cars that matter.
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¶ The Jenkins - Elaine and Bill Jenkins share the story of their parents and the microbus, explaining the purpose of the car in the community, and the meaning behind its famous slogan: "Love is Progress, Hate is Expensive."
Welcome back to cars that matter. As we've detailed a unique history of the car that is now known as the Jenkins' VW Bus.
Our story shifts to post-World War Two America, an America that is suffering from the racism and attitudes that flourished prior to and sparked the civil rights movement he saw and Chaney B. Jenkins are living on Strawn's Island, South Carolina. In 1948, the couple founded the Progressive Club. That co-op offered their community financial assistance, legal aid and education. The building housed a grocery store, gas station and a community center.
Esaw in Jany B worked tirelessly to help their community overcome the oppression of the Jim Crow era.
Sonobe saw Johnny B.. Bill Jenkins at 90 years of age, shares his family's history.
You start back in 1948.
1948 is when we started the Progressive Club, when a white man shot a black man, Olvido, that my daddy was hustling in the market in Charleston and people came down into that 70s show. But he's not dead. And so he went to the hospital and you go to Scottsbluff and that same them and trying to find a judge that will handle the case. And a lawyer never
came up. And eventually they got called a meeting at the Moonshine and Sam turned progressive club formed an named Progressive Club because it was people from the Hollywood community. So we had enough of this. People can shoot us like dogs. And so this could have been a progressive club and two months and school, we can make it across the street. And that piece of property was for sale. And that is when they just got more people from Dallas.
Geldzahler And that part of what law enforcement are people to do, a player in Georgia and all that fertilizer plant. To have some latest on a plan that didn't have to be worked out early in the morning, should have stayed on the bus until about nine o'clock. So that's what I was talking about. Why are we letting this happen to us? And we don't say anything. We're going to continue to just like an elephant in the room. Do you even know his own strength when he found
out people were listening to him? And that's when I told one voter registration was really all started.
But the famous green bus that the drink purchased in 1966 wasn't the first car to be of use to the Jenkins. Elaine Jenkins, youngest daughter of Esaw and Jenny B explains.
With Bill, there was a fleet of buses that our parents had before we get to the Volkswagen bus. And yeah, and so those buses we used to transport people to and from work, the islands did not have a connecting bridge until the mid 50s. There was a ferry and the buses were used to transport Islander's into Charleston to work. The buses were also used because there was no high school lunch on silence for African-Americans. The Black High School
was in Charleston. So then probably use the buses to transport the children who wanted to go to high school, including his own children. My brother here and my two older sisters would ride in one of the buses or the truck into Charleston to go to school. And then a lot of the schools on the island would have excursions and says, my father had the buses. He would
take the children on outings in the area. The beaches were segregated, but also so the buses were used to transport people to two of the black beaches in the area, Mosquita Beach and Atlantic Beach. Those were the two black beaches. The buses did a lot of things. And as my brother said, my parents began organizing people on those buses during that time to talk about the conditions in which
they were living on these islands. And one of them was the issue of voter registration and education here in South Carolina.
At the time, you had to be able to read a portion of the US Constitution not to up and pay a poll tax. So what my parents did was they helped the people to read that portion of the Constitution that they needed to know.
I mean, they memorized it and how to write their name. That's the backdrop of these two Volkswagens. Now, when we fast forward at the time of purchase, the 1966 minibus, most of the fleet of buses, he had maybe one or two left.
He started off with one he bought from a horse with a Chevy, but then he bought a Chevy was right.
You come out the fleet, the larger buses.
But when we get to the Volkswagen bus, he only had one of those long lines. And I wanted to go around the community and try to talk to people to let them know what being a citizen mean more than any other citizen.
I think in nineteen sixty six, the sea of. Federal credit union was established. My father had gone to a year earlier to a meeting in Washington, D.C. He went there for one purpose, but then he heard about a community meeting that was being held, hearings that were being held on Capitol Hill. And he went there and he spoke about the fact that for African-Americans in South Carolina,
they had to buy expensive money. It was they had to go to individual individuals instead of banking institutions to borrow money. And they started for about a year. They discussed the possibility of starting a of federal credit union in Charleston.
So once that credit union was up, then part of them got the first Volkswagen Volkswagen bus and it had set a federal credit union on it.
On the side of it, the back hatch had let everybody knew this, but the Charleston County, whenever they saw their bus, then there was this jenkins' coming about something. But he loved that Volkswagen that sixty six and a several years later, he bought a blue Volkswagen personally. But it was that Volkswagen that was for the Citizens Committee that he went around, talked about voter registration, encouraging people to register and vote and to join the failed Federal
Credit Union. And he still took people around in that.
And the Volkswagen and stuff even went to a lot of them walking back to a role in that Volkswagen.
But as time went on, the bus became not only a member of the community around it, but of the Jenkins family itself, some type of something.
And I just didn't know what he was going to he had to be going to such and such a place. And I got to with such. And he just going to take a nap while I'm driving. Once you get there, he's over talking. And he said, come on, wake up. We've got a lot of things to do and we don't have a whole lot of time to play role. He will stand at times, but he knew how to deal with people. I know he used to call all of these islands in Charleston County. There were many islands, five, five.
I see islands still.
But you go to Mount Pleasant, some of those others to MacLellan. Well, and what they used to get people from each of those islands that you could identify and instead talk to the ones that I want you to give me a report on how far you've got and how could I help you. And you go from one island, especially in Charleston County. You started off with James Island because that was the largest island in population. Jones Island was the largest island in the area.
Everything was the smallest island and the farthest away and the farthest away, the last part of Charleston County.
And it had young and all those islands for this one from here, MacLellan bill. But that was not in Charleston County. It was in Charleston County, but not in the south. So he had key people in each one of these islands that he could call. And everybody was a joke after he died. So the phone rang on Sunday morning. What church? Somebody would get a call from my dad and say that I want you to do so. He never asked you told you I want you to go to Sunday school during the announcement. You I want
you to say this. We've got to get our people to register. And most of this was happening in the little book, and this was 67, 68.
That little green bus became memorable not only for the family inside, but because of the writing on the body of the vehicle itself. Citizens Committee was painted bright white letters on the side. And as Elaine and Bill mentioned earlier on, the tailgate was painted. Love is progress. Hate is expensive.
It means racial tension in this area. That particular time you have a figure. If you would put something on the back talking about love and hate, that may draw attention to a lot of people because they could be most of my experience, both love because they were a few white folks around here. The problem could get some money from. And if you couldn't get the money from those people, you can do anything at all because you couldn't go to the bank and you mentioned it earlier.
And hate means that they're going on as though you don't exist until they did so. And so if you go around trying to hate them because they are treating you as though you are less than a dope, you're going to end up dying from hypertension or something because you've got to stop building up. And so he put on his love, his progress, if you can love them. But I don't mean that you have to hate them. Would you just make sure you know who you are you don't want them to take advantage of? You know,
more than you have done. Really?
I always thought it had a real. Religious aspect, as well as the very practical aspect of it, when we were growing up for the people on the islands. Religion was the way of life and it impacted everything, every area of life, really. And one of the greatest commandments is to love thy neighbor. The epistle of John talks about God is love. And then, on the other hand, how hate destroys the human spirit, but then is also something very practical.
As I heard people say a lot of times, when you spend all that time trying to have two unequal things, I mean, you're wasting money. A white water fountain, a black water fountain full for whites is all for blacks separate. Definitely not equal. But you're spending money just to maintain that apartheid state. Right.
And that once you open up the love and not that sentimental kind of love, but the Agape love that the Bible talks about, the love that you can have for a person who you perceive as an enemy, that you can then begin making progress.
But what made them keep the bus all these years?
My mother did.
We saw it was Poppa's bus. They had done a lot together with that bus. She said that she never wanted it. So we were looking at restoring the progressive club after Hugo did a lot of damage to it in 1989 and maybe finding funds to renovate the progressive club itself, the building. So we were looking at some point perhaps starting a museum there and putting the bus there. But that never happened. It just took longer than we anticipated.
And when the Smithsonian came to us, they had heard about you saw Jenkins and that the bus was in the backyard. We thought it was a godsend. We saw the bus deteriorating. Mama asked us never to sell the bus and we didn't know how to preserve the bus. So when they came, we thought, here is something that we really can do to honor our mother's wishes. And they took the hat back of the bus.
The margin for error was coming to be because she had gone somewhere that we could that. But we didn't know how and when and when we got a chance to talk to some of the people from the museum first. And we got 19 people started the historic sites and this was one of those historic sites. And, you know, you are on the right track. You are training people to learn about books.
And from that point on, and it was all one of the tailgaters currently on display at the Smithsonian National Museum of African-American History and Culture. But the question still remained about what was going to happen to the rest of the Jenkins bus.
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¶ The Conservation Process - Braeden and Collin Howard join Diane Parker to explain the conservation process and the future of the car.
Welcome back to cars that matter.
For decades, the Jenkins' bus had been sitting in the union's backyard, the tailgate painted with the slogan Love is progress, hate is expensive, had just been taken to the Smithsonian. But then some new characters that are our story. First, Diane Parker, vice president of the Historic Vehicle Association.
We got a call from very Steeple and Grant Gilmor from the College of Charleston, and they said, We know what you're doing and we think it's great. We have wonderful local story that we believe should be preserved. And so they put us in touch with Jirina Jones from the family. And from there we went down and met with the family and took a look at the bus. College of Charleston met us out. There was a young man that wrote a paper on it, as a matter
of fact, in the college. And that's how we were introduced to this wonderful story.
And what makes the historic vehicle association so important?
I would say, first of all, our why why we are here, why we are the VA is because we believe that America's automotive heritage is worth saving, that the stories are worth telling, and the human interest aspect of it is worth bringing forward to people. And it's not just about car guys and car girls. This is for everyone, because you may not be a car person, but everyone
loves a really great story. And that's what we're doing here, is we're saving history and we're telling some really great stories. We are connected through the Department of Interior's historic American engineering record, who then is connected to the Library of Congress. And that is through our programming, which is the National Historic Vehicle Register. It can be complicated. So to simplify,
everything is we're filling a gap in our history. We have over eighty thousand buildings covered, bridges, aircraft and other objects that have been covered as part of our cultural past. But the vehicle had never been included until the VA came along and started filling that gap in 2014 and we were created in 2009. So we don't want to get listeners confused. Initially, when the VA was created, it was more of a legislative watch, kind of this overall
what was going on. And then we discovered that there was this huge gap in our history and our cultural heritage and we thought no one else is doing it. So we're going to fill this one car at a time. So we did an agreement with the Department of Interior. Suddenly we are filling this long gap that has never been filled. People are really astonished when they find out. What do you mean? The cars have never been a part of our documented heritage. They've been a part of
our lives for hundreds of years. It's one of the greatest technological advancements and will continue to be and it was never recovered. It is the human interest story behind the horsepower, and that's what makes this bus so incredibly significant. Isaw met with people like Martin Luther King, leaders like that. Martin Luther King actually consulted, wanted to know, what are you doing that's working? You're kind of getting people behind
this movement. And that's because you saw Jenkins was working with the people and he was working up where Martin Luther King was kind of working from the top down. It's where these leaders came together. So this little bus rested in the backyard of the Jenkins home. It survived many a storm where buildings and homes, including the progressive club where saw Jenkins had many of his meetings, didn't last.
This little tiny bus lasted until we came along and we took it out so that we could share the story. This bus was almost up to the axles. It was sunk into the backyard. We brought in some talent from the NBA Center for American Automotive Heritage, and they helped us stabilize the bus so that it could actually be moved because we didn't want the roof caving in naturally because we had to get it from South Carolina to
our lab in Allentown, Pennsylvania. And once we got it there, then we called Broward Howard in to take a look and see what needed to be done, because the family does not want this to be restored. They want it to be preserved. Broward did a spectacular job. They brought out some things underneath the finishes and the paint once they got the dirt off where you could see just a little bit of lettering about the community on the side.
This was the only project to date where we have actually been involved and got other qualified subject matter experts involved to stabilize, preserve and conserve the automobile. And we're very glad that we did. It's a spectacular story.
We contacted Broward and Associates, a company that specializes in the conservation of priceless art and artifacts. Think of the carriage that took Lincoln to Ford's Theater on the night of his assassination. Brothers Braden and Colin Howard were the two experts who spent the most time working on the bus.
We were actually doing work down at the National Museum of the United States Army Museum is still being constructed. And we were working on a lot of macro sized military vehicles and Casey, Max. And. From the historic vehicle association, I believe you sent me a text telling me he would send an email and he sent a whole bunch of photos of the bus and saying, please give him a call when we had a chance. So he's such an enthusiastic guy, as well as Diane Parker over there.
So we were excited to see what this bus was and get a little bit more information on the history and what they were looking for from us in terms of work or consulting.
Seeing the vehicle for the first time was more along the lines of like an archaeological relic that had literally just been dug out of the ground. Everything was rotten on it and there was no solid metal to be found. The roof was collapsing. There was biological growth and lichens all over the vehicle. It truly was a quite scary thing to look at as far as something we might be working on. Our primary concern was just handling it and moving it because of the paint.
The paint was so oxidized and friable and then there were areas that were flaking. We weren't sure exactly how we were going to remove the biological growth without in some way disturbing the paint. Whether that is kind of leaving finger marks on the oxidized, really almost or burnished or areas would flake. So our first problem was to find a way to remove safely the biological growth without impacting or changing the way that old paint looked on the vehicle.
And we ended up kind of having to think outside the box. We kind of developed this misting system, which is typically used in conservation of historic either sculpture or building facades. They will put it up even several stories high, and they put a very gentle misting system on the building. So that marble in stone where it becomes powdery, they can't pressure wash it. They can't scrub it because it will continue to deteriorate masonry. They'll put these very gentle
misting systems on. And that's what we did with the bus. We set up scaffolding. We made a climate control room where there was air movement and large dehumidifiers. And then we put articulating misting arms. We created kind of a system where these mister's could be articulated and projected onto the bus. And we programmed it to come on for a few minutes, then to go back off. It was all environmentally safe product that was used to kill the
biological growth. And we also introduced AMS, which would not cause additional corrosion to the bus. So that was the first stage which removed the biological growth very slowly. And then we saw just the rust coming through onto the page and we used gel kilolitres, which removed the iron staining but left for the paint untouched. So we didn't have to physically wash it or scrub it or handle or touch the paint in any way. Professionally, it was
a challenge. It really had to think outside the box using approaches that would be typically applied to buildings used for an automobile. But from a historical perspective, I hadn't even heard of Isaw Jenkins and Jamie Jenkins. You go to school and you hear of civil rights leaders and figures and you learn about Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, Nelson Mandela. But I hadn't heard more localized stories of people like the Jenkins making an impact on
the community. It was like peeling back the onion, realizing there's so many more things happening in these movements than just the big names that you hear and read about.
I was really scared to take on the project being in the circumstances that the bus was in, but then to be able to send it out the doors really with it looking wonderful and being sick, the bus was stable now to a point where it could be shown and the people could enjoy it.
Like Braden said, historically, we've got to learn how other people they sacrificed, these people sacrificed and worked really hard. And I think that's something that we're losing now. So I think that's a good life lesson that can be taught personally. It was touching to see the family to be able to work on Thomas Edison's car is cool and to sit on a chair that Abraham Lincoln sat on is cool.
But we don't ever get to interact with the families of these objects. That was something that was different. We got to actually interact with family members and that brought the object to life in a whole different light.
The vehicles that are inducted into the National Historic Vehicle Register by each VA each year are displayed at an event on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., called Cars at the Capitol. The cars are placed in beautiful glass display cases with informational signs that explain the importance of each car. Braiden and Colin actually had the opportunity to travel to the Capitol to see the end result of their work.
It was a very surreal experience because you had this relic of us in this state of the art glass sort of vitrine on the mall. And if you read it from the east, you had the US Capitol behind it. And if you viewed it from the West, you had the Washington Monument. There was just all the modern cars driving by on the streets and construction and cranes building. So time was moving on as you have this still relic sitting in the mall and the people walking through
the mall, you know, everybody's busy. So they're looking at their iPhones, but all of a sudden they kind of catch a glimpse and it just stops them in their. The iPhones went back into their pockets. People wanted to see what this was. It just caught our attention and they just stood there and appreciated it for what it was. And just to see the family's reaction all coming together, traveling back to the mall to see this thing and reminisce about playing in the bus as children, wiping tears
and seeing them laugh. It was a really wonderful experience.
¶ Epilogue - Robert ends the episode with some final thoughts from The Jenkins.
So what happens to the car now?
Right now, it's at the Peterson Museum. It will eventually come back to the family. So the family is very involved in building an African-American museum in Charleston, South Carolina. They're also trying to rebuild the progressive club. And so eventually the Jenkins bus will go back home. Until then, we have a place for it in our very safe and temperature controlled lab in Allentown. And it's our pleasure
to help the family in that way. We've become very close to all the members of the family, which often happens with us because we spend a tremendous amount of time with the stewards or the families of these vehicles in order to do the research. And these families, they share so much of their lives with us. They will pull out the photographs and old films and they'll sit down with us and tell us stories. And consequently, we
become extremely close to the people. I have long lasting family within the community here, and it's a very, very special part of the job that we do. And that really speaks to these human interest stories. It's more than just the car.
The Jenkins were very passionate people. They were very involved in society. So I think that the story of them and the bus should encourage people to get involved in the things that they are passionate about. And they don't need to be a big player to make an impact in their community and that everybody has something that they contribute positively towards impacting other people.
But the Jenkins hope that what we learned from this car goes even deeper than that, though.
When you look at just what you see, that the person that owned the most, everybody is going to hurt you. And when you put the two together, just try to make sure that everyone can live together, that we actually live a long life and enjoy where you live.
I heard former Ambassador Andrew Young say when he came to this area, I don't know how many years ago, but it was the dedication of one of the health clinics on Yeonpyeong Island that was being dedicated in memory of our father. But and that's what he said, was that the civil rights movement started on this little unknown island and a little Methodist church by an unknown gentleman named Esau Jenkins.
What my parents did, they didn't do for recognition. They saw a need and they tried to meet that need. And because I think basically we are an African people and you find your identity in community rather than individual.
And I think that buses that we all have a role to play, no matter who you are, where you are, find that niche, find that place where you can make this world a better place than what you found. That's what my parents really tried to do. And then that's what they instilled in us.
I didn't send you to school there so you can be about yourself. You have to come back. And they told each one of that. You've got to give back to the community because the community has given you so much. You've got to give back to the community. Right. And we all have a role to play. And it's the thing that my siblings tell their children and their children, tell their children, let's discuss how we are, I mean,
and how the community is. You can't leave without trying to make a contribution to make this world better.
From the origins under the Nazi rise to power, to the hard decision by the British to keep the VW more alive, to the rebirth as a symbol of peace and freedom from the hands of a close knit family in South Carolina fighting back against racial hatred through a complicated conservation program to preserve its own history. And finally, to an honored place in the records of America's Library of Congress, no one could have guessed the importance that one unassuming car could have.
So what are you doing with your car right now? Because remember this, you can make a car matter. Come back next time as we continue to talk about the passions that drive us and the passions we drive. This episode of Cars That Matter was hosted by Robert Ross, produced by Chris Porter, written by Chris Porter, edited by Chris Porter, theme song by Celeste and Eric Dick, additional music and sound by Chris Porter, please. Like subscribe and
share this podcast. I'm Robert Ross. Thanks for listening.
Kurt, media, media for your mind.