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of my time as a Regent in the last ten years on this issue. It reminds me --as/if I had to concentrate my time on the care and treatment of witches, or punishment of witches. But you knew that.

It's a God damn shame, you know! it's a waste of intelligence, I think.

Well, the people who put you in as a Regent certainly knew you.

I would never have been elected as a Regent within the last five or six years.

The very last time that it was possible to elect someone like myself as a Regent was when I was (elected), I think. We have been going steadily downhill, in the political and social and racial realities of this state, since.

The Assembly and the Senate, on the basis of their experience with me, I guess, will be sure that the next black whom they elect -- if I were to die or something were to happen to me between now and 1984 -- will be “safe.” And won't -- well, argue.

Are you telling me here that at the time of your election, the majority felt that you would behave more or less like an Uncle Tom?

No, no. No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that at the time of my election, the racial-ethnic polarizations were not as clear and as dark as they are now.