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Hello, Leslie. Hello. Hello. Nice to meet you I'm Vernon. Vernon?

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Like Mount Vernon Thats one of my favorite names. Vernon Jordan. I'm not quite that fast. Maybe one day. Anyway, I'm a team member with the Humanities Truck and as you can see we deal with certain issues that concern humanity and of course changing things for the better and we are compiling these interviews for the archive. This is Cinnamon.

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Okay, I heard you Cinnamon. These interviews that we put in the archive and we are going to share them, hopefully, with the world. Oh wow. Anyway, we are asking everyone this question and is very broad questions, but let's just get right to it. Everyone has something they have worked on in their life. What is something valuable you have contributed to and can share with others when thinking about the work you have done in your life, thus far, what are you proud of? What can you point to? I'm originally from Oklahoma, and I'm very proud of myself that I escaped racism and bigotry and segregation. I'm an American Indian, of course, it's nothing. But when I was a young girl, I was always profiled and made fun of and spit on and I'm glad that I got the gumption to flee at 16 and come to Washington DC and start my career, well, after college.

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Where you from? I'm from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. And it's a very oppressive state now. And he's so proud. But I went on and I went on to school and majored in and I went out to school and majored in foreign relations and languages. And I served in the United States Army. I was trained as a Russian Linguist so I went to school for two and a half years. And then I also, and I was accepted and I worked for the United States Army as a Russian Linguist, As a linguist? Uh huh. Primarily, primarily in Germany. I loved the language and I traveled a great deal around the world and I also worked on Capitol Hill for a U.S. Senator to continue on with relations aspect of my interests. And so I saw the Legislative Branch and then I felt like I wanted to study more languages and I really wanted to, I love writing and I love translating. So I really felt like I was, I wanted to go in that direction again, so I was blessed to get a job with the National Security Agency and who send me to school school after school, after school to learn Arabic. It's just given me wonderful opportunities, the jobs that I've held there, you can never meet. You could just shut your eyes and point your finger. And they're just so many wonderful opportunities at that agency at the intelligence agencies. And I served my country. And I just feel very strongly that I want to give back to the world. I mean, to my nation, and to the world, and to make a difference. And I hope in a small way, I made a difference in the world.

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I'm sure you have. [unintelligible] You came a long way, you came a long way. And that is something to be very proud of. And you should share that. I don't, I don't share that bigotry and hatred and you know, I was always put in the back of the room and always given, I'm just treated like dirt, just absolutely, they don't treat, at that time they didn't treat the American Indians. You're very much profiled and I didn't get the opportunities and I'm so glad that, I don't know what was inside me, but something tough. I've always wanted to leave and seek a better life and and hopefully, I want to live a life of justice and I'm trying to teach my children to be children of the world, and be citizens of the world, and they've now taken that on themselves and they traveled the world and I just think that it's so important. And I have also, my greatest, what I am most proud of now is my activism. [unintelligible] My activism, my political activism

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Your activism. Is what I'm most proud of now. And it was before Donald Trump and this dog and I have been in 20 protests I told you since Trump assumed office. And I am, I just, and I was just met a friend that I just met a friend at hat black lives matter over there that I met in Tulsa because I went to the Tulsa, Tulsa-Greenwood area and she was exhibiting at the Library of Congress and we struck up a friendship and then I happened to see her over there. Isn't it a small world, you know, because activists kind of congregate in the same places The injustice in the world is just heartbreaking, the police brutality and the black lives. I just, I just feel drawn to that right now and [unintelligible] Its important. [unintelligable] And just for the record, how many languages do you speak?

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Six, some I used to work in some I don't. But the only way you understand people is if live in their culture, experience them and live there and then you, you learn their language and you can never be, you can never be the linguist that you want, because you'll never be a native. And I pass that on to my children, which I'm very proud of, the love of languages and travel and mostly justice, and seeing and trying to see the world through someone else's eyes trying, trying. That's really important to me. Speaking up speaking happen. I just saw this Justice that worker AFL-CIO and I just submitted was reading on the New York Times and how that's becoming more of a topic for people think aging. It is front and center. Thank you so much.