I Write To Try To Find Out

But Let Us Say He Was (guilty). Let Us For A Moment Say He Was (guilty). What Justice Would There Be To Take His Life? Justice, Gentlemen? Why, I Would Just As Soon Put A Hog In The Electric Chair As This.

How Do People Come Up With A Date And A Time To Take Life From Another Man? Who Made Them God?

And I Thought To Myself, What Am I Doing? Am I Reaching Them At All? They Are Acting Exactly As The Old Men Did Earlier. They Are Fifty Years Younger, Maybe More, But Doing The Same Thing Those Old Men Did Who Never Attended School A Day In Their Lives. Is It Just A Vicious Circle? Am I Doing Anything?

I Have Learned As Much About Writing About My People By Listening To Blues And Jazz And Spirituals As I Have From Reading Novels. The Understatements In The Tenor Saxophone Of Lester Young, The Crystal, Haunting, Forever Searching Sounds Of John Coltrane, And The Softness And Violence Of Count Basie's Big Band - All Have Fired My Imagination As Much As Anything In Literature.

Anytime A Child Is Born, The Old People Look In His Face And Ask Him If He's The One.