001[Music] so [Music] hey we're trying happy black history month everyone did you forgot is the oh my gosh what do you mean florence did you forgot today is the second annual black history celebration happening right here [Music] do you want us to keep going all right i'm just gonna practice what do you mean florence did you forget today is the second annual black history celebration happening here in our very own kennedy high school performing arts center yes girl everyone is super excited [Applause] so let's get started oh and looking up i see some very special people here thank you to our principals auhd board of trustees auhsd executive cabinet [Music] no no no [Music] now [Music] check one two two tests one two check one two two two check one two test all right [Music]
002me [Music] no [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] my [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] so [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] wow [Music] no [Music] hello [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] so [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] do [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] welcome welcome welcome everyone oh cynthia girl what are you doing here what did you forget today is the second annual black history month celebration happening here and our very own kennedy high school performing arts center uh it's 6 30 already and everyone's here on time on a friday night okay then yeah that's all i'm saying and everyone's super excited to see our special
003guests so let's get started wait wait before we get started we must thank our amazing organizers mr davis and the black lives matter task force [Applause] oh and looking up i see some very special guests thank you to our principals aucd board of trustees our auhd executive executive cabinet i'm sorry and our assistant superintendent for joining us and also a huge shout out to everyone at home for joining us virtually [Applause] okay cynthia girl you ready to get started yeah let's go okay so for our first performer we have northern wisdom on stage he'll be drawing everything he sees and hears so if you see him on stage just know he's hard at work wait can he draw me no cynthia girl we gotta get started oh maybe next time okay so girl can i
004tell you a little fun fact about myself wait we need to give a warm welcome to our amazing singer kalia jackson kylia jackson who will be singing the black national anthem so let's give her a big round of applause let's hear clear [Applause] lift every voice and of liberty let our rejoicing rise high as the glistening let in resound loud as the roar in the season [Music] full of the faith that the dark past has brought us singing a song full facing the right sun of our new day begin let us march on till victory is one let us march on till victory is one let us march on till victory [Music] is [Music] [Applause] wow that was a beautiful beautiful performance by khalia jackson she really does have a beautiful voice yes lawrence i
005100 agree hey cynthia girl can i tell you a little something about myself yes go ahead florence okay so i'm nigerian and wait wait wait [Music] what does this have to do with our black history month celebration though okay girl you gotta let me finish so i'm nigerian and that is located in the west part of africa so i am pleased to announce our next performance le ballet de bayer joining us right now [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] i don't know about you florence but i got goosebumps just by watching our west african performers so let's give them a big round of applause [Applause] that really was amazing and look at norden wisdom with his amazing description of our west african dance can we give it a round of
006applause yeah we are very absolutely beautiful my goodness okay so now we have our next performer this is just the beginning of our show but we have an amazing art of artist of his words and mayberry who'll be giving us a beautiful spoken word can we hear for ed mabry please but let's first acknowledge northern wisdom once again [Applause] wow this painting is really really beautiful it really represented everything west africa stands for okay so for the next performance he'll also be he'll also be drawing that spoken word so hold on i was just told about some great news the west african performers aren't done and they'll be coming back and let's give them another round of applause [Applause] [Music] come on hello can you hear me okay because here's the deal i can't really
007see you but i can't hear you either so i need help if you like the music maybe we could rock like this a little bit in your chairs you see this okay maybe if everybody does that i can see your mask oh okay what about clap clap okay see this makes us feel like we're in the right place you might say you don't know how to dance i guess i don't believe it as long as you keep this going we'll stay a little bit longer yes is there anybody that thinks they can stand up and move a little bit can you stand on your feet maybe for three minutes stand up let me see stand up let me see okay okay get keep your rock though you had a rock going a rock a rock
008rock rock hey okay now can we clap clap clap [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] thank you so much for dancing with me [Music] [Applause] so [Music] so [Music] oh my goodness that was amazing that was such a beautiful performance i'm about to hit the itigi my little west african dance myself yeah now let's look at norton wisdom's work i see is that a lion florence it looks like it but it looks amazing i really like it i'm not the best at artwork so this is just mind-blowing i think we have someone joining us right yes we have an amazing amazing amazing speaker ed mabry who'll be giving us an amazing spoken word are you ready ed [Applause] [Laughter] hey how are we doing i'm gonna
009complain to the union about me bringing my own microphone stand out here if i get injured [Laughter] okay uh let's get it out of the way real quick i do not perform anywhere or i do not feel comfortable i don't feel comfortable yet because y'all look kind of scary especially you so um i'm gonna ask how we doing tonight that we are right the proper response is aight i understand you're in school but it's spelled a-i-i-g-h-t and it's a schwa put it anywhere you want to change how you say it all right beautiful how we doing tonight are we all right that was whack let's try again look at your neighbor say neighbor it's all right to say aye [Applause] you guys are cringing english majors are cringing at eye just deal with it suck
010it up let's try it again how we doing that are we all right okay who said we alright some put extra word in there i didn't ask yeah you're overachievers no one likes overachievers go sit in the back in five four three two one uh it's february it's black history month um i don't know if y'all knew that did you all two of you that's what's up uh say it loud i'm black and i'm proud you should always say it loud i'm black and i'm proud i'm like buck shot like a glock click like a 41 to your body cliche i'm loud like no uh let's try i'm loud like [Music] kirk like soldier in his breast grip like satchmo swollen lip i'm loud like hilly p neutron dance like el hajj malik shabazz like
011last name ever first name greatest like ollie gorilla thump like disco club girl you better do the bump like [ __ ] like crooked cop like mother scream when the firstborn die like crooked letter crooked letter crooked letter i black like night black like death black like room exit baby first breath man i'm black like that turner's toe jam i'm black like play another slow jam black like spook sitting by your door like playing domino spades and i d clear war i'm black like jimi hendrix p sign and star string of bama scream i'm black like obama carrying king's coma vision dream i'm black like white kids might as well be black now too why because white kids buy more hip hop than you i'm back like ted danson and blackface like whoopi goldberg's disgrace see i'm
012black like mr m-i-s-t-e-r mister black like playing uno and that's my car like back in the day we was dumb enough to call somebody in african booty scratch see them black like rick james slapping margaret thatcher and black like war what is it good for and marvin gaye's piece then where's paul made all in the coffee can they use grease i'm like like hot comb like viet cong wee bong i'm black like you better wait till your daddy get home i'm like like single income wave and ghetto housing i'm loud like a german shepherd barking civil rights fire hose dowsing like reading rainbow kunta can take nappy roots versus 15th money on your prison books cornerstone liquor and cadillac crooks i'm not like snapping the spine of black history books i'm black i like my
013lawyer my true president and my priest like you reap what you sow and there's blood on them leaves pause for the kanye i know there's blood on the leaves i know there's blood on the leaves i say that we to do slaves i know that's blood on the leaves play i'm black like being there still see shackles on their feet i'm not like bell hook tipping point in hud house i'm black like willis milk and crack now different shows what you talking about like wizzy sits up in two chains master i'm [Music] own me i'm black like survival so black we clear i'm loud like started from the bottom and now we're here we're here so yeah y'all might be old overweight hell i might even be ugly but i can say it loud i'm
014black and i'm proud you better always say it loud i'm black and i'm proud if that's how i say all right if y'all like what mr norton wisdom is doing say ooh baby let's keep this thing going uh i really want to say something so wrong just because it'll make john turn different shades of red we'll keep going um it is black history month times two times two just means that my mom is alive and she's black and it's black history month and my mom's black and she's alive so this piece is for her if that's okay say okay if not you can take it with my mother you will lose um after doing a lot of scientific research i have come to the fallen conclusion that conclusion is just that women are not human
015especially black women extra unhuman they're water because they're constantly adjusting to their surroundings see to know a black woman is to know power to see a black woman is to see power however to be raised by a black woman is to know fear take for example my mom and probably some of y'alls uh standing on the porch in the projects in dating ohio wearing that bathrobe they didn't have the belt no more it should have been burned into a long time ago like tossed away burn hide bury somewhere uh standing where she said the the property outside gave away to her property her ears were tuned to the sound of electric generators used to come on miles away she could hear the street lights come on a millisecond before they started to glow pause sorry
016this is a high school uh most you guys are like mad young okay before apps and cell phones and where is mykid.com and where are you sinned don't worry about where i am i'm at where i be send i don't want to go home early forget her i'm just i could cut up with my battery drain sorry mom um see before you could lie there was a this thing called a curfew and everyone said curfew and your mom didn't trust you with the watch because you're you so your curfew was when the street light came on amen i got a witness over here amen amen i got some witnesses in the building so uh you had to be on your property when the street lights came on because there's always someone afterwards i don't understand
017how come his mom didn't just text him because there weren't self-helps when i returned to the pool my mom could hear the sound of electric generators coming on miles away she could hear the street lights come on a millisecond before they started to glow see she could hear my labor breathing my runny nose we're gonna be honest tonight y'all my mom can actually hear the blood running through my veins as i would try to make it on that front porch in vain her hands would be casually wrapped around my church belt which is wrapped around her neck at the time and she checked her watching out of her head in approval of my trying the translation is that black women know that freedom is in your trying see a black woman is equal part serena
018williams back hand and a bible across your backside every woman in this room is five foot three when she's smiling but six foot eight when she is angry but equally beautiful in both of those moments when she's to whoop you it was like mr miyagi lesson to be the emergency broadcast system this is only a butt whooping it is just a regular old butt whooping he'd have been a real emergency butt whooping you'd be dead by now i would look up to see her crying more than me and she tell me baby it's better that i whoop and correct you in here and you go out into that world thinking you want anything more to your hopes and your dreams and went up in a hearse out there see she knew every piece of policeman's
019chalk was eager to make me street payment paparazzi famous wanted to outline my existence as if an outlet of a human is all i ever was she simply wanted to teach me the color within my lifelines learn how to fill up that space first before i start learning how to dance on the edges of razor blades see a black woman is cornbread from scratching keep your feet off my furniture [ __ ] on the mean of the phrase hard work all a black woman knows his work his job is two jobs is get up on the good foot his car public bus is walk if i have to moonlight waitress tips and cash under the table to do whatever i got to do to keep food on this table see everybody wants to beat her these days
020and everybody wants to judge her these days but last time i checked out nobody want to help her these days a black woman knows better than to ask the world for help she can smell or know a mile away she might sometimes come up short on her tithing at church but she's never once come up short on her life insurance policy because unfortunately most of all these days from her history a black woman has been trained to understand and comprehend the art of death shows that highs in the space of a house a broom and never reach it whispers in the ears to her children across the right street at the wrong time since she knows her mortality and that's what makes her immortal she hides her own wings from her own babies so i
021don't think she ever fly without them but in spite of that whenever hesitate they put on some horns and plays the devil that means keeping her children alive for one more day she's in the evil of men on her block in her white house and oftentimes even in her own bedroom every single black mother lives with post-traumatic stress disorder because she has to kick out the same man and she had to kick out restraining order so just trying to tell me from away from middle night and still love them even when his words mature because out of their mouth she is queen sniper negros ninja the swallow of the ugly truth and the holder of all your unbroken promises she is a righteous reflection she's the reason why 300-pound football players on sunday are gonna
022look dead in the camera and say hi mom at super bowl cameras she is america with the soul she's a constitution with a heart she's a dream that you can actually hold on to a black mother goddess queen a smart mouth or get your lips switching don't you stop away from me roll your eyes and i give you something to roll them for she is step on a crack and break your mama's back i dare you she says what makes you think my back ain't already broken she says i am more than just your mother she says i'm a rose trying to teach you how to bloom and how to grow and how to rise but that's how i say all right everybody got all super quiet john way right that's a good job [Applause]
023uh let's do this make it short make it sweet and get out your way everybody say hey i can't if norway's going good job say ooh that was extra for that one door i don't know why but you did something special do whatever you just did again all right let's do this bit and get out the way uh don't pause we're time restricted i point at you say a word good good that's the word is good good good as in is it good enough for me as in the room and the space we have here with these people is exactly enough to keep my heart filled in spite of running behind schedule from idiocy moments that happened in downtown lake cause downton late is kind of synonymous with dumb things happening so we always have
024to feel good about where we come from louder strength i don't know if i have much of that anymore left in his body as much as getting older and things are starting to sag this shouldn't sag anymore but looking across this space i see an unlimited amount of strength the capability don't need to wear a cape to be a superhero understand we need more than superheroes these days we need you each of you sitting here massed up showing your strength and solidarity is one strong not letting something as simple as a cough get between us strong making sure that you recognize that empty spaces aren't empty but actually filled with spirits that need to be part of this event this evening wrong we are here together not just to exemplify and glorify a race of
025people because there's only one month but all the other 11 we still have the same color and hue but we have come in a space to show that we can actually lift up and uplift one another in this process we will find a way to get through this every single day like we have before together hands will always be good enough to hold with strength for each one of us to make sure we pick up the weaker person around us and let them know that they are valuable they are necessary they are important so today make sure before you leave here you make a promise to yourself to don't leave the good deeds for only the strong people when each of us has an accountability and a responsibility to love so in closing i see
026you and i love you and i see you sport coat and i love you i see you blue work shirt and i love you i see you sound engineer and i love you i always see norton and i love him i see you blue and i love you what if we simply started to move and pass love around even faster than covet what if we started to find a way instead of being afraid of what's behind someone's mask of greeting each person with a smile that they could feel even when your face is covered because some of us have been wearing masks even before covet hit some of us wear a mask every day in front of a mirror so what if today we simply make a promise to greet each other in the name
027of love before i even ask your name i must say i love you what you doing later i love you you wanna get some food i love you what about del taco i love you i hate in-n-out burger i can't lie about it i love you anybody some orange tic tacs i love you marvel's better than dc i love you except for comic books and dc's better than marvel i love you lead with love beyond all the moments let's make sure that we can start eliminating something like a black history month so much so because we start to forget and forgive and move on and we start to apologize who needs to give up and we move on let's move on to something much bigger and better than ourselves we don't need superheroes we just
028need you thank you [Applause] oh [Music] thank you ed maverie for those words of wisdom they truly filled me with the right energy to continue on with our black history month celebration yes cynthia girl i definitely agree now can we direct our focus to nordstrom wisdom with his amazing painting of ed mabry's spoken word wow oh it's amazing i like it it does reflect what and mary was talking about about love and people and how important it is to be all together here for one greater cause today yeah cynthia i definitely agree now i am pleased to invite our next guest on stage we have an amazing speaker from raytheon technologies and engineering director named mark anthony thomas who'll be joining us today right now and giving this little speech and educational thing and right
029after that we have our q dogs up in the house who's going to come and do a little performance for us so stay in tune thank you thank you ladies that was amazing is everybody having a good time all right so just like my guy said right before me i love you so i'm here because i love you and i want to go through this journey i want you to go through this journey with me because i'm going to tell three stories all at one as a people we're creative i'm i'm gonna try to show my creativity by telling you three stories all at one time and you'll see hopefully how it all comes together at the end and by the way this is an outline of a book that i'm gonna actually release so
030you're the first ones that get to see this so fly with me come with me on this journey uh first chart please is it me hello okay gotta give it some time to warm up and and and what what i'm going to do is i come from raytheon technologies and it's important that you guys know that i sat in some of the same auditoriums and chairs as you at as a youngster uh the the youngest of five i didn't have much so don't think that i'm some some guy that came up here that had it had it easy you're gonna go through this journey with me and it wasn't easy but in the end i'm gonna tell you all my secrets and i want you to walk away with all of these secrets so um
031at raytheon we build a lot of things that protect the country some stuff i can't even tell you or i have to kill you so i'm not going to talk about my work i'm gonna talk about how i got there so fly with me let's go let's go let's go okay so here's the first chart i'm not going to spend a lot of time but i come from los angeles and i and i come from john c fremont high school i just actually saw that school on the news the other day so it wasn't an easy life and and i know for sure it's probably similar to a lot of the things that you guys are going through but you can make it and i'm going to show you how i graduated from john c
032fremont with a 3.8 gpa i went on to cal state northridge for my mechanical engineering degree and then i got my master's degree in one year at stanford university but we're going to come back to stanford because even though i did that in a year it's something happened there that i got to share with you i've done so many things at general motors use aircraft boeing as well as raytheon but again i'm not going to go through what i'm doing now it's important what did i do to now own a 23 million dollar contract what did i do to get to where i am today that's the part i want to leave with you so let's do it okay so here's the thing everything i did it i i really believe everything started kind of
033like in middle school where i i played sports and i i did academics very well i used to go to a summer internship at ucla while playing football and basketball but an important thing happened during that time frame in about the ninth grade um i was in a algebra class and my teacher gave us homework i turned the homework in and he's going over to homework and he got a different answer to me you know i'm a respectable kid right you know we all grew up with respect but i told him he was wrong not only is he wrong but the book is wrong and so he's like dude the book got this answer i got the same answer maybe you're not right so three weeks later he's doing some more homework and he calls
034me up to the in front of the class and he says i want to apologize to you mark because i called the publishing company and you actually were right and so so what i want to tell you and the rest of the kids here when i teach you something and you know what you're doing whether it's an adult or even a teacher like myself you make them prove you wrong because if you know what you know you stick with it and that stuck with me for a long time and that's when i first thought for the first time maybe i am a little smart maybe just a little bit and then all of my friends start calling me the professor so if you call me the professor and you say i'm smart now i have
035to live up to what you're saying and i'm telling you that was the motivation to to boost me to say okay we can do this so then a pivotal point came in my life because now i had matriculated to high school and i was playing on the football team but i also loved the academics part and i had to choose between the two i had to choose and i chose the academics and the only reason i chose the academics because i was slow i went that fast i mean i had a few little moves right that's all i have right there and and and that's it so i said i'm not gonna play pro i'm five foot four 144 pounds back then um but i know i'm not going to play pro so academics was
036it and at that time i made myself of the machine that no matter what is put in front of me i have to make it through academics and that was a pivotal moment in my life so now i'm at the end of high school applying for college and see i had a college advisor that you have to understand my whole family all wanted me to go to ucla all my brothers wanted to go to ucla i'm the youngest of five ucla is the thing but my advisor says you still better apply to two cal state schools two uc schools two historical black colleges two private schools you have to do that with the grade point averages that that you have and i'm telling you guys all of this because don't think you know exactly what
037you're going to do this is about options it's about options in your life because even though i knew i was going to go to ucla i needed options i applied and i got into every school except stanford i told you we're going to go back there i didn't get into stanford at undergrad so i was a little pissed i got into ucla but i was still you know a little salty about stanford but three weeks before school started i said i need to go to a smaller school i feel like i had gone to ucla for seven summers and i felt like it was a big lecture halls and i needed to know my teachers so i changed my mind changed everything that my family wanted for me and i went against them and i
038went to cal state northridge smaller school but here's the thing if i do well at a smaller school it propels me for graduate school so i chose northridge at cal state northridge i want mechanical engineering and what i did was i developed what i called the six-pack what i mean there is every the the the five guys you could barely see them here the five guys there and myself we did everything together in undergrad we made a promise to ourselves this is not the thomas promise i'm gonna get there but we made a promise to ourselves that we're gonna make sure that every one of us made it through undergraduate school so we studied together we played basketball together we ate together we had a chalkboard in our dorm every every high school i mean
039every homework assignment that we got we had to rotate in front of that that chalkboard so just if one person knew all of the answers we wanted to make sure everybody knew the answers and knew the right approach that's pulling each other up to make sure that we all succeed i'm dropping science to you while i'm telling my story okay next so we did the six-pack doing well at cal state northridge i'm about at about a 3.6 grade point average mom is still mad that i didn't go to ucla but will hold that story and then a pivotal moment comes and the reason i'm telling you this i'm telling you some secrets that i haven't even told too many people my roommate gets a phone call and it's it is hugh's aircraft calling for to
040give him a fellowship to go to grad school so i answer the phone hey this is mark how are you what we're calling for trevor is trevor there oh no uh trevor's not hearing that right now can i take a message well we're calling him about a fellowship this is hugh's aircraft oh trevor works for northrop grumman but but i'll make sure he gets the call so trevor had an already had a fellowship at northrop grumman and two weeks later he tells hughes aircraft i'm not interested but because your boy opened up the door and made some some noise and told them that i was interested i get a call the next day and it was somebody different too and they try to play like i was the first choice oh mr thomas uh we're
041so proud to tell you that you you got the fellowship and i'm like oh my god i did it oh my god knowing that i was the second fiddle but that's okay and what i'm trying to tell you sometimes it it sometimes it may take luck but a closed mouth don't get fed so so sometimes if you have to do some things to let everybody know where you want to go things like this can happen and my whole life changed there then because this is the reason why now i have a fellowship and what that means is i have all the money i need to pay for the schooling to go to grad school that means i get a thousand dollar stipend per month that means all of the schooling is done and if any
042school knows that you have the money now they're listening to you so okay mr stanford yeah remember remember me four years ago right i choose stanford and my whole freaking life changed i go to stanford freaking amazing now remember i thought i was smart so i'm continuing to think i'm smart until i got into those classes when i got into those classes it hit me hard but then i thought about the things i did in the past i formed a pack i may not know everything but together we can learn this this together so i did the same thing i said okay i'm gonna find some other guys that are taking the same classes as me and we will do this together we got two twins that i met that was on a general motors
043fellowship we got together we did the same thing we ended up with a 3.6 grade point average from stanford the darn school that didn't accept me for undergrad and now with a master's degree finished in one year i can go anywhere i want i'm talking about this is that little kid from south central los angeles i get a phone call from general motors and they say i want you i'm like general motors detroit okay let's let's sum it up i got los angeles and i have detroit you want me to come to the troy but then this girl is in in my life that and that wasn't part of the deal i don't supposed to be falling in love and and things like that right but gm said if you don't want to deal with
044a long-distance relationship and guys i'm telling you this is in the interview they hire me and my fiance in the interview so i was on my way to detroit so we go to detroit right i leave my mom though see i'm the youngest of five and and there's so many things everything that motivated me was was my mom related but my mom got mad at me so i can take the job in general motors she had to make me mad to take you talking about love i i'm trying to make sure i don't cry because what she did was amazing so i leave and i go to general motors i got the new wife all of that stuff and now gm asked me what are some of the important things that you did at stanford
045and i said i brought stanford's community together because everything that i've done is not about me it's about us it's always been about us everything that i told you when i tutored um i i put the pack together it's always about us so i got general motors to give me money for five high schools to design and build cars and teaching young people engineering principles while building the cars and that that picture there is out of the first book that i wrote an algebra book that got released across the country with the kids that built the cars with general motors so so so so now gm lets us build at five high schools so that we can use the cars to make people love engineering after that we wrote a grant for the national national
046science foundation grant and i got a 27 000 grant to do the program more that led me to winning the u.s black engineer of the year for community service can you believe that can you believe that that that's just doing what's in my heart with what we learned as a people growing up and to get that kind of exposure but here's another pivotal point my mom starts to get sick now i'm all the way in detroit i'm doing so well i got all of these vps as mentors and everything but family comes first so i have to leave gm i transferred to a company called hughes aircraft remember hughes aircraft was the company that gave me that fellowship so now i'm back and they transfer all of my uh years that i worked at general
047motors i get those years back so i'm starting off fresh i'm 27 years old and i'm a manager and so so i'm excited i'm back here i'm starting to tutor more um the director of my uh uh unit at hughes aircraft they asked me to tutor her son who's doing bad and math and at the end of the year i get him a b-plus and they're like oh my god this is great so but before i left i made a promise to my mom that when i come back she always said i always wanted you guys to go to ucla of course but she's still on that right i'm gonna go to ucla i really want that bruins okay i went to stanford mom okay but she always said i wanted one of you guys
048to go so far even to get a phd or a doctorate and so now i have that on my heart and i'm gonna do whatever i can to make it so that's the thomas promise i'm gonna get you a doctor mom a thomas doctor i'm gonna do that for you two years later she passed and and i i just i just was so hurt but now i'm motivated to do even better i continue my whole career i'm tutoring middle school students there's this young girl that i start tutoring she wanted to know everything how i got there all the little tricks and i'm gonna show you on the last page all of the tricks but this girl she knew all of that stuff because i kept grinding and telling her all of these things as
049as i tutor now raytheon does like general motors they make me an offer that i really i just couldn't refuse because i was running manufacturing at hughes aircraft and and i'm gonna tell you this because when we get to the other pages i'm showing you that if you're good no i'm i'm spilling it no just wait till we get the other page if you're good and passionate about everything you do i'll wait till we get to the next page anyway i go to raytheon now i've been there 17 years they've flown me everywhere all over the the world i've done so many things but i can't tell you about it right because at least one of you i may have to take you up so so some of the stuff that we even build is
050going to be flying over the super bowl on sunday too so but i can't talk too much about it now i tell you what i've done where i've gone but how did i make it here's the seven get your pencils ready here's here's my method and everybody that i tutored this these are the guiding principles that i've had throughout my whole entire life and it's aim high these are the things that i believe in a is for attitude have a positive attitude things will always happen to you but it's how you respond to them that allows you to move on i is for intelligence as you can see i made sure that i knew i wasn't going to play football so i made sure that i made myself a machine and i tried to learn
051and go as far as i can through school be a mentor not only a mentor but a mentee i'm i'm sharing this stuff it's gonna be in the book you guys getting it for free be your mentor and and be a mentee always lift each other up because just like people i'm helping people others did the same for me work ethic when it comes to hard working work ethic is probably the most important thing that people overlook they think that if you're gifted and you have all of this i know so many people that knew way more than me in class but you're not gonna all work me you're not gonna work out work me and every time i do tutoring i explain that you gonna get your butt at that chalkboard right get at
052the chalkboard you're gonna outwork everybody that it's almost like that kobe mentality nobody's gonna outwork me indispensable that's the one i wanted this when gm wanted me so bad and when they do that and will fly you out i didn't even tell you about the limo picking me up and and take me around all of that stuff and then offer me and the fiance a job when you when you've got it like that and you do things with passion and make them desperately want you you you're a winner and that's what we need to strive for last two god keep him in your heart and live by his principles but the last one is hope and that's being inspired by others and inspiring other people because if i never i'm telling you as i was
053growing up i always thought i was i i i would be something i mean i wanted it really bad because i used to just sit in this in in the in this chairs at in school and i used to want to be something so bad i didn't know what it was going to be but i wanted to be successful you got to want it you got to want it you guys so life is a marathon it's not a sprint don't try to cheat life but embrace the journey and if you aim high and reach for the sky even if you don't make it to the sky you're going to always be amongst the stars that is it but wait there's one more slide i told you guys about the promise right i told you about
054a young girl that i used to tutor right we've been talking about the whole 15 minutes right that young girl name is ariane she was she was named after ariane rocket that her dad the first job that he had at hughes aircraft she was named after that aircraft because he wanted her to be an astronaut but she went to ucla right oh not only did she went to ucla she was pre-med and finished 3.85 grade point average huh and guess what on march 18th she becomes dr ariane s thomas howard university sports medicine and guess what you guys she fulfills the thomas promise thank you [Applause] thank you mr thomas i am sure everyone enjoyed listening to your insightful words as much as i did now can we direct our focus to the amazing painting
055from norton wisdom wow he really did illustrate what mr thomas was talking about that looks like a like a schoolhouse to me what do you think florence um there's so many interpretations to this i see a lot of money symbolism and i also see someone on his back and i i guess that's maybe the influence people had in his life do you hear that hear what the barking the footsteps and the clapping does that remind you of anything in particular oh yeah we have our historically african american omega sci-fi fraternity joining us right now can we give it up for our q-dog [Applause] well let's meet up team [Music] all right all right [Music] are you [Applause] [Music] good evening everybody my name is eugene ediford i'm a member of the 100 unfavorable phylander chapter
056at cal state fullerton right now i'm currently an electrical engineer major there my friend elsie here studies mechanical engineering [Applause] so please enjoy the show and have a great time [Music] [Applause] [Music] are we missing somebody [Applause] yes [Music] how are you doing you doing good okay cool cool so i'mma ask the audience to ask these brothers of omega what can they do for omega so i'm accounting to three one two three i'm asking this dog in particular bro what can you do for old man i don't know dog you're not gonna show us what do you want me to do dawg do whatever all right okay i will jump onto the highest mountain i will swim across the deep blue sea just so that i can be i'll be what be an omega [Applause]
057[Music] right here all right this orange county we got kai beta long beach we got lambda la and we got pai kha away from up north and uh sf so we are uh thank you we are a mega sci-fi fraternity incorporated founded november 17 1911 on the campus of howard university by three undergraduates and their undergrad advisor dr ernest ever addressed professor frank coleman dr oscar james cooper and bishop edgar ames love we have four cardinal principles manhood scholarship perseverance and and we thank you all for being here so a little history about black history month our brother carter g woodson started it way back when at first it was known as nero history week and it had various other names and eventually uh it was known as black history month so shout out to
058carter g woodson does anybody know any famous of mega men anybody this steve harvey that's one right there as well we got michael jordan we got isaiah crosby and we got shaquille o'neal you know this is just a couple of that y'all probably know um but we thank y'all for coming out and we're gonna continue the show right [Applause] it don't attack [Applause] steps [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] dude thank you [Applause] [Music] wow that was truly an amazing performance from our mega sci-fi fraternity come get another round of applause for them thank you so much to our fraternities joining us today and thank you for our thank you again to all our other speakers and performers who came to join us today yes florence are you forgetting anyone in particular oh yeah and thank
059you to our amazing audience who came out and everyone who's watching on tv right now [Applause] and also a special thank you to office of congressman liu korea janet brown special thanks to city council members for raffle ticket donations mayor harry sidhu council member stephen feissel council member gloria meyer council member jose mourinho council member avelino valencia our auhcc board of trustees trustee board president audra barr trustee clerk brian o'neill trustee member anna piercy and trustee member and mary randall trejo and another special thank you to our aussd executive cabinet jared fried brad jason john baptista and to our abc unified school district dr xi shan wise and adrian thompson another thank you to our fly poet john hensey and our black lives matter task force thank you guys so much for putting this event
060together okay okay now it's the moment you've all been waiting for it's time to announce the tickets to our harlem grove charters and this event will be taking place at the honda at the honda center courtesy of mayor harry sitsu and council member stephen fiso so i believe we have six winners we're going to be pulling them out right now randomly close your eyes okay so hold on it's six seats for one winner so oh sorry sixties for one winner so we have coupon number three four two nine three two two three nine okay i'm gonna read it one more time three four two nine two three nine anyone out there maybe you wanna hear that again okay i'm gonna repeat it one more time three four two nine two three nine anyone in our
061audience with that number come on come on don't be shy are you sure six seeds we're gonna pick another one if you're gonna come out we'll do a little countdown for y'all five oh are you do you have your hand raised over there in the back no no okay false alarm five four three two one okay we'll be picking another number maybe this time i win all right next number three four two nine three two four come out anyone out there we have a winner coming up okay we'll arrange something for you i'm super excited congratulations congratulations on being our winner we will be having you talk to mr davis about the tickets and once again congratulations and with that i am cynthia and i'm florence signing off happy black history month everyone [Applause]