TED2002
Bill Strickland: Rebuilding a neighborhood with beauty, dignity, hope
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Bill Strickland tells a quiet and astonishing tale of redemption through arts, music, and unlikely partnerships.
Bill Strickland - Social innovator
As a Pittsburgh youth besieged by racism in the crumbling remains of the steel economy, Bill Strickland should have been one of the Rust Belt's casualties. Instead, he discovered the potter's wheel, and the transforming power of fountains, irrepressible dreams, and the slide show. Full bio
As a Pittsburgh youth besieged by racism in the crumbling remains of the steel economy, Bill Strickland should have been one of the Rust Belt's casualties. Instead, he discovered the potter's wheel, and the transforming power of fountains, irrepressible dreams, and the slide show. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
00:12
It's a great honor to be here with you.
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The good news is
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I'm very aware of my responsibilities to get you out of here
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because I'm the only thing standing between you and the bar.
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(Laughter)
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And the good news is I don't have a prepared speech,
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but I have a box of slides.
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I have some pictures that represent my life and what I do for a living.
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I've learned through experience
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that people remember pictures long after they've forgotten words,
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and so I hope you'll remember some of the pictures
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I'm going to share with you for just a few minutes.
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The whole story really starts
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with me as a high school kid in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
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in a tough neighborhood that everybody gave up on for dead.
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And on a Wednesday afternoon,
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I was walking down the corridor of my high school
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kind of minding my own business. And there was this artist teaching,
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who made a great big old ceramic vessel,
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and I happened to be looking in the door of the art room --
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and if you've ever seen clay done, it's magic --
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and I'd never seen anything like that before in my life.
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So, I walked in the art room and I said, "What is that?"
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And he said, "Ceramics. And who are you?"
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And I said, "I'm Bill Strickland. I want you to teach me that."
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And he said, "Well, get your homeroom teacher to sign a piece of paper
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that says you can come here, and I'll teach it to you."
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And so for the remaining two years of my high school,
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I cut all my classes.
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(Laughter)
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But I had the presence of mind
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to give the teachers' classes that I cut the pottery that I made,
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(Laughter)
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and they gave me passing grades.
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And that's how I got out of high school.
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And Mr. Ross said,
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"You're too smart to die and I don't want it on my conscience,
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so I'm leaving this school and I'm taking you with me."
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And he drove me out to the University of Pittsburgh
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where I filled out a college application and got in on probation.
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Well, I'm now a trustee of the university,
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and at my installation ceremony I said,
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"I'm the guy who came from the neighborhood
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who got into the place on probation.
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Don't give up on the poor kids, because you never know
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what's going to happen to those children in life."
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What I'm going to show you for a couple of minutes
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is a facility that I built in the toughest neighborhood in Pittsburgh
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with the highest crime rate.
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One is called Bidwell Training Center; it is a vocational school
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for ex-steel workers and single parents and welfare mothers.
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You remember we used to make steel in Pittsburgh?
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Well, we don't make any steel anymore,
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and the people who used to make the steel
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are having a very tough time of it.
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And I rebuild them and give them new life.
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Manchester Craftsmen's Guild is named after my neighborhood.
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I was adopted
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by the Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese during the riots,
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and he donated a row house. And in that row house
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I started Manchester Craftsmen's Guild,
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and I learned very quickly that wherever there are Episcopalians,
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there's money in very close proximity.
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(Laughter)
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And the Bishop adopted me as his kid.
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And last year I spoke at his memorial service
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and wished him well in this life.
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I went out and hired a student of Frank Lloyd Wright, the architect,
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and I asked him to build me a world class center
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in the worst neighborhood in Pittsburgh.
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And my building was a scale model for the Pittsburgh airport.
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And when you come to Pittsburgh -- and you're all invited --
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you'll be flying into the blown-up version of my building.
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That's the building.
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Built in a tough neighborhood where people have been given up for dead.
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My view is that if you want to involve yourself
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in the life of people who have been given up on,
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you have to look like the solution and not the problem.
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As you can see, it has a fountain in the courtyard.
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And the reason it has a fountain in the courtyard is I wanted one
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and I had the checkbook, so I bought one and put it there.
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(Laughter)
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And now that I'm giving speeches at conferences like TED,
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I got put on the board of the Carnegie Museum.
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At a reception in their courtyard, I noticed that they had a fountain
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because they think that the people who go to the museum deserve a fountain.
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Well, I think that welfare mothers and at-risk kids
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and ex-steel workers deserve a fountain in their life.
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And so the first thing that you see in my center in the springtime
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is water that greets you -- water is life and water of human possibility --
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and it sets an attitude and expectation
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about how you feel about people before you ever give them a speech.
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So, from that fountain I built this building.
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As you can see, it has world class art, and it's all my taste
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because I raised all the money.
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(Laughter)
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I said to my boy, "When you raise the money,
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we'll put your taste on the wall."
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That we have quilts and clay and calligraphy
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and everywhere your eye turns,
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there's something beautiful looking back at you,
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that's deliberate.
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That's intentional.
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In my view, it is this kind of world
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that can redeem the soul of poor people.
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We also created a boardroom,
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and I hired a Japanese cabinetmaker from Kyoto, Japan,
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and commissioned him to do 60 pieces of furniture for our building.
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We have since spun him off into his own business.
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He's making a ton of money doing custom furniture for rich people.
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And I got 60 pieces out of it for my school
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because I felt that welfare moms and ex-steel workers
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and single parents deserved to come to a school
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where there was handcrafted furniture that greeted them every day.
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Because it sets a tone and an attitude about how you feel about people
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long before you give them the speech.
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We even have flowers in the hallway, and they're not plastic.
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Those are real and they're in my building every day.
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And now that I've given lots of speeches,
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we had a bunch of high school principals come and see me,
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and they said, "Mr. Strickland,
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what an extraordinary story and what a great school.
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And we were particularly touched by the flowers
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and we were curious as to how the flowers got there."
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I said, "Well, I got in my car and I went out to the greenhouse
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and I bought them and I brought them back and I put them there."
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You don't need a task force or a study group to buy flowers for your kids.
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What you need to know is that the children
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and the adults deserve flowers in their life.
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The cost is incidental but the gesture is huge.
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And so in my building, which is full of sunlight and full of flowers,
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we believe in hope and human possibilities.
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That happens to be at Christmas time.
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And so the next thing you'll see is a million dollar kitchen
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that was built by the Heinz company -- you've heard of them?
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They did all right in the ketchup business.
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And I happen to know that company pretty well
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because John Heinz, who was our U.S. senator --
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who was tragically killed in a plane accident --
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he had heard about my desire to build a new building,
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because I had a cardboard box and I put it in a garbage bag
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and I walking all over Pittsburgh trying to raise money for this site.
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And he called me into his office --
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which is the equivalent of going to see the Wizard of Oz
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(Laughter) --
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and John Heinz had 600 million dollars, and at the time I had about 60 cents.
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And he said, "But we've heard about you.
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We've heard about your work with the kids and the ex-steel workers,
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and we're inclined to want to support your desire to build a new building.
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And you could do us a great service
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if you would add a culinary program to your program."
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Because back then, we were building a trades program.
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He said, "That way we could fulfill our affirmative action goals
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for the Heinz company."
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I said, "Senator, I'm reluctant to go into a field
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that I don't know much about, but I promise you
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that if you'll support my school, I'll get it built
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and in a couple of years, I'll come back
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and weigh out that program that you desire."
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And Senator Heinz sat very quietly and he said,
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"Well, what would your reaction be
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if I said I'd give you a million dollars?"
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I said, "Senator, it appears that we're going into the food training business."
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(Laughter)
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And John Heinz did give me a million bucks.
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And most importantly,
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he loaned me the head of research for the Heinz company.
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And we kind of borrowed the curriculum from the Culinary Institute of America,
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which in their mind is kind of the Harvard of cooking schools,
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and we created a gourmet cooks program for welfare mothers
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in this million dollar kitchen in the middle of the inner city.
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And we've never looked back.
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I would like to show you now some of the food
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that these welfare mothers do in this million dollar kitchen.
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That happens to be our cafeteria line.
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That's puff pastry day. Why?
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Because the students made puff pastry
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and that's what the school ate every day.
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But the concept was that I wanted to take the stigma out of food.
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That good food's not for rich people --
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good food's for everybody on the planet,
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and there's no excuse why we all can't be eating it.
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So at my school, we subsidize a gourmet lunch program
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for welfare mothers in the middle of the inner city
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because we've discovered that it's good for their stomachs,
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but it's better for their heads.
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Because I wanted to let them know every day of their life
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that they have value at this place I call my center.
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We have students who sit together, black kids and white kids,
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and what we've discovered is you can solve the race problem
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by creating a world class environment,
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because people will have a tendency to show you world class behavior
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if you treat them in that way.
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These are examples of the food that welfare mothers are doing
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after six months in the training program.
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No sophistication, no class, no dignity, no history.
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What we've discovered is the only thing wrong with poor people
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is they don't have any money, which happens to be a curable condition.
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It's all in the way that you think about people
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that often determines their behavior.
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That was done by a student after seven months in the program,
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done by a very brilliant young woman
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who was taught by our pastry chef.
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I've actually eaten seven of those baskets and they're very good.
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(Laughter)
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They have no calories.
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That's our dining room.
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It looks like your average high school cafeteria
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in your average town in America.
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But this is my view of how students ought to be treated,
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particularly once they have been pushed aside.
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We train pharmaceutical technicians for the pharmacy industry,
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we train medical technicians for the medical industry,
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and we train chemical technicians for companies
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like Bayer and Calgon Carbon and Fisher Scientific and Exxon.
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And I will guarantee you that if you come to my center in Pittsburgh --
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and you're all invited --
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you'll see welfare mothers doing analytical chemistry
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with logarithmic calculators
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10 months from enrolling in the program.
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There is absolutely no reason why poor people
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can't learn world class technology.
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What we've discovered is you have to give them flowers
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and sunlight and food and expectations and Herbie's music,
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and you can cure a spiritual cancer every time.
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We train corporate travel agents for the travel industry.
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We even teach people how to read.
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The kid with the red stripe was in the program two years ago --
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he's now an instructor.
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And I have children with high school diplomas that they can't read.
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And so you must ask yourself the question:
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how is it possible in the 21st century
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that we graduate children from schools
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who can't read the diplomas that they have in their hands?
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The reason is that the system gets reimbursed
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for the kids they spit out the other end, not the children who read.
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I can take these children and in 20 weeks,
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demonstrated aptitude; I can get them high school equivalent.
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No big deal.
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That's our library with more handcrafted furniture.
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And this is the arts program I started in 1968.
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Remember I'm the black kid from the '60s who got his life saved with ceramics.
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Well, I went out and decided to reproduce my experience
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with other kids in the neighborhood,
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the theory being if you get kids flowers and you give them food
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and you give them sunshine and enthusiasm,
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you can bring them right back to life.
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I have 400 kids from the Pittsburgh public school system
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that come to me every day of the week for arts education.
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And these are children who are flunking out of public school.
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And last year I put 88 percent of those kids in college
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and I've averaged over 80 percent for 15 years.
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We've made a fascinating discovery:
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there's nothing wrong with the kids
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that affection and sunshine and food and enthusiasm
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and Herbie's music can't cure.
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For that I won a big old plaque -- Man of the Year in Education.
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I beat out all the Ph.D.'s
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because I figured that if you treat children like human beings,
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it increases the likelihood they're going to behave that way.
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And why we can't institute that policy
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in every school and in every city and every town
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remains a mystery to me.
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Let me show you what these people do.
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We have ceramics and photography and computer imaging.
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And these are all kids with no artistic ability, no talent,
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no imagination. And we bring in the world's greatest artists --
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Gordon Parks has been there, Chester Higgins has been there --
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and what we've learned
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is that the children will become like the people who teach them.
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In fact, I brought in a mosaic artist from the Vatican,
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an African-American woman
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who had studied the old Vatican mosaic techniques,
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and let me show you what they did with the work.
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These were children who the whole world had given up on,
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who were flunking out of public school,
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and that's what they're capable of doing
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with affection and sunlight and food and good music and confidence.
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We teach photography.
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And these are examples of some of the kids' work.
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That boy won a four-year scholarship
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on the strength of that photograph.
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This is our gallery.
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We have a world class gallery
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because we believe that poor kids need a world class gallery,
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so I designed this thing.
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We have smoked salmon at the art openings,
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we have a formal printed invitation,
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and I even have figured out a way to get their parents to come.
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I couldn't buy a parent 15 years ago
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so I hired a guy who got off on the Jesus big time.
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He was dragging guys out of bars
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and saving those lives for the Lord.
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And I said, "Bill, I want to hire you, man.
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You have to tone down the Jesus stuff a little bit,
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but keep the enthusiasm.
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(Laughter) (Applause)
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I can't get these parents to come to the school."
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He said, "I'll get them to come to the school."
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So, he jumped in the van, he went to Miss Jones' house and said,
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"Miss Jones, I knew you wanted to come to your kid's art opening
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but you probably didn't have a ride.
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So, I came to give you a ride."
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And he got 10 parents and then 20 parents.
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At the last show that we did, 200 parents showed up
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17:19
and we didn't pick up one parent.
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Because now it's become socially not acceptable not to show up
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to support your children at the Manchester Craftsmen's Guild
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because people think you're bad parents.
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17:31
And there is no statistical difference
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between the white parents and the black parents.
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Mothers will go where their children are being celebrated,
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every time, every town, every city.
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I wanted you to see this gallery because it's as good as it gets.
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And by the time I cut these kids loose from high school,
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they've got four shows on their resume
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before they apply to college because it's all up here.
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You have to change the way that people see themselves
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before you can change their behavior.
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18:12
And it's worked out pretty good up to this day.
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I even stuck another room on the building, which I'd like to show you.
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18:23
This is brand new.
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We just got this slide done in time for the TED Conference.
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18:29
I gave this little slide show at a place called the Silicon Valley
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18:34
and I did all right.
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And the woman came out of the audience,
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she said, "That was a great story
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and I was very impressed with your presentation.
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My only criticism is your computers are getting a little bit old."
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And I said, "Well, what do you do for a living?"
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She said, "Well, I work for a company called Hewlett-Packard."
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18:52
And I said, "You're in the computer business, is that right?"
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She said, "Yes, sir."
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18:57
And I said, "Well, there's an easy solution to that problem."
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18:59
Well, I'm very pleased to announce to you that HP
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and a furniture company called Steelcase
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have adopted us as a demonstration model for all of their technology
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19:10
and all their furniture for the United States of America.
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19:13
And that's the room
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that's initiating the relationship.
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19:17
We got it just done in time to show you,
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19:19
so it's kind of the world debut of our digital imaging center.
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19:23
(Applause)
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19:24
(Music)
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I only have a couple more slides,
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and this is where the story gets kind of interesting.
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So, I just want you to listen up for a couple more minutes
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19:40
and you'll understand why he's there and I'm here.
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19:45
In 1986, I had the presence of mind to stick a music hall
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19:49
on the north end of the building while I was building it.
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19:52
And a guy named Dizzy Gillespie showed up to play there
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19:57
because he knew this man over here, Marty Ashby.
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20:01
And I stood on that stage with Dizzy Gillespie on sound check
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20:05
on a Wednesday afternoon, and I said,
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"Dizzy, why would you come to a black-run center
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20:10
in the middle of an industrial park with a high crime rate
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20:14
that doesn't even have a reputation in music?"
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20:16
He said, "Because I heard you built the center
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20:18
and I didn't believe that you did it, and I wanted to see for myself.
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20:21
And now that I have, I want to give you a gift."
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20:26
I said, "You're the gift."
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20:28
He said, "No, sir. You're the gift.
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20:30
And I'm going to allow you to record the concert
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20:32
and I'm going to give you the music,
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20:34
and if you ever choose to sell it, you must sign an agreement
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20:37
that says the money will come back and support the school."
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20:39
And I recorded Dizzy. And he died a year later,
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20:44
but not before telling a fellow named McCoy Tyner what we were doing.
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20:48
And he showed up and said,
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20:50
"Dizzy talking about you all over the country, man,
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20:52
and I want to help you."
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20:54
And then a guy named Wynton Marsalis showed up.
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20:57
Then a bass player named Ray Brown,
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21:00
and a fellow named Stanley Turrentine,
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21:03
and a piano player named Herbie Hancock,
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21:06
and a band called the Count Basie Orchestra,
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21:12
and a fellow named Tito Puente,
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21:15
and a guy named Gary Burton, and Shirley Horn, and Betty Carter,
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21:20
and Dakota Staton and Nancy Wilson
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21:23
all have come to this center in the middle of an industrial park
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21:28
to sold out audiences in the middle of the inner city.
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21:31
And I'm very pleased to tell you that, with their permission,
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21:35
I have now accumulated 600 recordings
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21:38
of the greatest artists in the world,
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21:40
including Joe Williams, who died,
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21:44
but not before his last recording was done at my school.
385
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21:49
And Joe Williams came up to me and he put his hand on my shoulder
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21:59
and he said, "God's picked you, man, to do this work.
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22:07
And I want my music to be with you."
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22:10
And that worked out all right.
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22:14
When the Basie band came, the band got so excited about the school
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22:19
they voted to give me the rights to the music.
391
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22:22
And I recorded it and we won something called a Grammy.
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22:27
And like a fool, I didn't go to the ceremony
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22:30
because I didn't think we were going to win.
394
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22:32
Well, we did win,
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22:34
and our name was literally in lights over Madison Square Garden.
396
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22:36
Then the U.N. Jazz Orchestra dropped by and we recorded them
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9000
22:45
and got nominated for a second Grammy back to back.
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22:50
So, we've become one of the hot, young jazz recording studios
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22:53
in the United States of America
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22:55
(Laughter)
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1000
22:56
in the middle of the inner city with a high crime rate.
402
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5000
23:02
That's the place all filled up with Republicans.
403
1370000
6000
23:08
(Laughter)
404
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4000
23:12
(Applause)
405
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1000
23:13
If you'd have dropped a bomb on that room,
406
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23:15
you'd have wiped out all the money in Pennsylvania
407
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23:17
because it was all sitting there.
408
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23:19
Including my mother and father, who lived long enough
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23:22
to see their kid build that building.
410
1390000
3000
23:25
And there's Dizzy, just like I told you. He was there.
411
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23:29
And he was there, Tito Puente.
412
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3000
23:32
And Pat Metheny and Jim Hall were there
413
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3000
23:35
and they recorded with us.
414
1403000
2000
23:37
And that was our first recording studio, which was the broom closet.
415
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5000
23:42
We put the mops in the hallway and re-engineered the thing
416
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3000
23:45
and that's where we recorded the first Grammy.
417
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3000
23:48
And this is our new facility, which is all video technology.
418
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4000
23:52
And that is a room that was built for a woman named Nancy Wilson,
419
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23:56
who recorded that album at our school last Christmas.
420
1424000
8000
24:04
And any of you who happened to have been watching Oprah Winfrey
421
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24:06
on Christmas Day, he was there and Nancy was there
422
1434000
4000
24:10
singing excerpts from this album,
423
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2000
24:12
the rights to which she donated to our school.
424
1440000
4000
24:16
And I can now tell you with absolute certainty
425
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24:18
that an appearance on Oprah Winfrey will sell 10,000 CDs.
426
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5000
24:23
(Laughter)
427
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24:25
We are currently number four on the Billboard Charts,
428
1453000
3000
24:28
right behind Tony Bennett.
429
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2000
24:30
And I think we're going to be fine.
430
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24:32
This was burned out during the riots -- this is next to my building --
431
1460000
4000
24:36
and so I had another cardboard box built
432
1464000
3000
24:39
and I walked back out in the streets again.
433
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2000
24:41
And that's the building, and that's the model,
434
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3000
24:44
and on the right's a high-tech greenhouse
435
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3000
24:47
and in the middle's the medical technology building.
436
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2000
24:49
And I'm very pleased to tell you that the building's done.
437
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24:52
It's also full of anchor tenants at 20 dollars a foot --
438
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5000
24:57
triple that in the middle of the inner city.
439
1485000
2000
24:59
And there's the fountain.
440
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25:01
(Laughter)
441
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2000
25:03
Every building has a fountain.
442
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25:05
And the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center are anchor tenants
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3000
25:08
and they took half the building,
444
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2000
25:10
and we now train medical technicians through all their system.
445
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3000
25:13
And Mellon Bank's a tenant.
446
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2000
25:15
And I love them because they pay the rent on time.
447
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3000
25:18
(Laughter)
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1000
25:19
And as a result of the association,
449
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25:21
I'm now a director of the Mellon Financial Corporation
450
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2000
25:24
that bought Dreyfus.
451
1512000
2000
25:29
And this is in the process of being built as we speak.
452
1517000
4000
25:33
Multiply that picture times four and you will see the greenhouse
453
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5000
25:38
that's going to open in October this year
454
1526000
2000
25:40
because we're going to grow those flowers
455
1528000
4000
25:44
in the middle of the inner city.
456
1532000
2000
25:46
And we're going to have high school kids
457
1534000
2000
25:48
growing Phalaenopsis orchids in the middle of the inner city.
458
1536000
5000
25:53
And we have a handshake with one of the large retail grocers
459
1541000
4000
25:57
to sell our orchids in all 240 stores in six states.
460
1545000
5000
26:02
And our partners are Zuma Canyon Orchids of Malibu, California,
461
1550000
4000
26:06
who are Hispanic.
462
1554000
2000
26:08
So, the Hispanics and the black folks have formed a partnership
463
1556000
3000
26:11
to grow high technology orchids in the middle of the inner city.
464
1559000
4000
26:15
And I told my United States senator
465
1563000
3000
26:18
that there was a very high probability
466
1566000
2000
26:20
that if he could find some funding for this,
467
1568000
2000
26:22
we would become a left-hand column in the Wall Street Journal,
468
1570000
4000
26:26
to which he readily agreed.
469
1574000
2000
26:28
And we got the funding and we open in the fall.
470
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2000
26:30
And you ought to come and see it -- it's going to be a hell of a story.
471
1578000
3000
26:33
And this is what I want to do when I grow up.
472
1581000
5000
26:38
(Laughter)
473
1586000
2000
26:40
The brown building is the one you guys have been looking at
474
1588000
3000
26:43
and I'll tell you where I made my big mistake.
475
1591000
3000
26:46
I had a chance to buy this whole industrial park --
476
1594000
4000
26:50
which is less than 1,000 feet from the riverfront --
477
1598000
2000
26:52
for four million dollars and I didn't do it.
478
1600000
3000
26:56
And I built the first building, and guess what happened?
479
1604000
4000
27:00
I appreciated the real estate values beyond everybody's expectations
480
1608000
4000
27:04
and the owners of the park turned me down for eight million dollars last year,
481
1612000
6000
27:10
and said, "Mr. Strickland,
482
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2000
27:12
you ought to get the Civic Leader of the Year Award
483
1620000
2000
27:14
because you've appreciated our property values
484
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2000
27:16
beyond our wildest expectations.
485
1624000
2000
27:18
Thank you very much for that."
486
1626000
3000
27:21
The moral of the story is you must be prepared to act on your dreams,
487
1629000
5000
27:26
just in case they do come true.
488
1634000
3000
27:29
And finally, there's this picture.
489
1637000
5000
27:35
This is in a place called San Francisco.
490
1643000
3000
27:38
And the reason this picture's in here is
491
1646000
3000
27:41
I did this slide show a couple years ago at a big economics summit,
492
1649000
4000
27:45
and there was a fellow in the audience who came up to me.
493
1653000
2000
27:47
He said, "Man, that's a great story.
494
1655000
2000
27:49
I want one of those."
495
1657000
2000
27:51
I said, "Well, I'm very flattered. What do you do for a living?"
496
1659000
3000
27:54
He says, "I run the city of San Francisco.
497
1662000
2000
27:56
My name's Willie Brown."
498
1664000
2000
27:59
And so I kind of accepted the flattery and the praise
499
1667000
5000
28:04
and put it out of my mind.
500
1672000
2000
28:06
And that weekend, I was going back home
501
1674000
2000
28:08
and Herbie Hancock was playing our center that night --
502
1676000
5000
28:13
first time I'd met him.
503
1681000
2000
28:15
And he walked in and he says, "What is this?"
504
1683000
3000
28:18
And I said, "Herbie, this is my concept of a training center
505
1686000
4000
28:22
for poor people."
506
1690000
2000
28:24
And he said, "As God as my witness,
507
1692000
3000
28:27
I've had a center like this in my mind for 25 years and you've built it.
508
1695000
4000
28:31
And now I really want to build one."
509
1699000
2000
28:33
I said, "Well, where would you build this thing?"
510
1701000
2000
28:35
He said, "San Francisco."
511
1703000
2000
28:37
I said, "Any chance you know Willie Brown?"
512
1705000
3000
28:40
(Laughter)
513
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2000
28:42
As a matter of fact he did know Willie Brown,
514
1710000
3000
28:45
and Willie Brown and Herbie and I had dinner four years ago,
515
1713000
3000
28:48
and we started drawing out that center on the tablecloth.
516
1716000
3000
28:51
And Willie Brown said, "As sure as I'm the mayor of San Francisco,
517
1719000
4000
28:55
I'm going to build this thing
518
1723000
2000
28:57
as a legacy to the poor people of this city."
519
1725000
4000
29:01
And he got me five acres of land on San Francisco Bay
520
1729000
4000
29:05
and we got an architect and we got a general contractor
521
1733000
4000
29:09
and we got Herbie on the board,
522
1737000
2000
29:12
and our friends from HP, and our friends from Steelcase,
523
1740000
3000
29:15
and our friends from Cisco, and our friends from Wells Fargo
524
1743000
3000
29:18
and Genentech.
525
1746000
2000
29:20
And along the way, I met this real short guy
526
1748000
3000
29:24
at my slide show in the Silicon Valley.
527
1752000
4000
29:28
He came up to me afterwards,
528
1756000
2000
29:30
he said, "Man, that's a fabulous story.
529
1758000
3000
29:33
I want to help you."
530
1761000
2000
29:35
And I said, "Well, thank you very much for that.
531
1763000
2000
29:37
What do you do for a living?"
532
1765000
2000
29:39
He said, "Well, I built a company called eBay."
533
1767000
4000
29:43
I said, "Well, that's very nice.
534
1771000
2000
29:45
Thanks very much, and give me your card and sometime we'll talk."
535
1773000
3000
29:48
I didn't know eBay from that jar of water sitting on that piano,
536
1776000
5000
29:53
but I had the presence of mind to go back
537
1781000
2000
29:55
and talk to one of the techie kids at my center.
538
1783000
3000
29:58
I said, "Hey man, what is eBay?"
539
1786000
2000
30:00
He said, "Well, that's the electronic commerce network."
540
1788000
3000
30:03
I said, "Well, I met the guy who built the thing
541
1791000
2000
30:05
and he left me his card."
542
1793000
3000
30:08
So, I called him up on the phone and I said, "Mr. Skoll,
543
1796000
3000
30:11
I've come to have a much deeper appreciation of who you are
544
1799000
4000
30:15
(Laughter)
545
1803000
5000
30:20
and I'd like to become your friend."
546
1808000
3000
30:23
(Laughter)
547
1811000
3000
30:26
And Jeff and I did become friends,
548
1814000
3000
30:29
and he's organized a team of people
549
1817000
3000
30:32
and we're going to build this center.
550
1820000
3000
30:37
And I went down into the neighborhood called Bayview-Hunters Point,
551
1825000
6000
30:43
and I said, "The mayor sent me down here to work with you
552
1831000
3000
30:47
and I want to build a center with you,
553
1835000
3000
30:50
but I'm not going to build you anything if you don't want it.
554
1838000
3000
30:53
And all I've got is a box of slides."
555
1841000
3000
30:56
And so I stood up in front of 200 very angry, very disappointed people
556
1844000
6000
31:02
on a summer night, and the air conditioner had broken
557
1850000
3000
31:05
and it was 100 degrees outside,
558
1853000
3000
31:09
and I started showing these pictures.
559
1857000
2000
31:11
And after about 10 pictures they all settled down.
560
1859000
4000
31:15
And I ran the story and I said, "What do you think?"
561
1863000
5000
31:20
And in the back of the room, a woman stood up and she said,
562
1868000
3000
31:23
"In 35 years of living in this God forsaken place,
563
1871000
3000
31:26
you're the only person that's come down here and treated us with dignity.
564
1874000
4000
31:30
I'm going with you, man."
565
1878000
3000
31:33
And she turned that audience around on a pin.
566
1881000
3000
31:36
And I promised these people that I was going to build this thing,
567
1884000
4000
31:40
and we're going to build it all right.
568
1888000
2000
31:42
And I think we can get in the ground this year
569
1890000
3000
31:45
as the first replication of the center in Pittsburgh.
570
1893000
4000
31:49
But I met a guy named Quincy Jones along the way
571
1897000
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31:55
and I showed him the box of slides.
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And Quincy said, "I want to help you, man.
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Let's do one in L.A."
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And so he's assembled a group of people.
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And I've fallen in love with him,
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as I have with Herbie and with his music.
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And Quincy said, "Where did the idea for centers like this come from?"
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And I said, "It came from your music, man.
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Because Mr. Ross used to bring in your albums
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when I was 16 years old in the pottery class,
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when the world was all dark,
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and your music got me to the sunlight."
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And I said, "If I can follow that music,
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I'll get out into the sunlight and I'll be OK.
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And if that's not true, how did I get here?"
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I want you all to know
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that I think the world is a place that's worth living.
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I believe in you.
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I believe in your hopes and your dreams,
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I believe in your intelligence
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and I believe in your enthusiasm.
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And I'm tired of living like this,
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going into town after town with people standing around on corners
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with holes where eyes used to be, their spirits damaged.
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We won't make it as a country unless we can turn this thing around.
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In Pennsylvania it costs 60,000 dollars to keep people in jail,
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most of whom look like me.
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It's 40,000 dollars to build the University of Pittsburgh Medical School.
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It's 20,000 dollars cheaper to build a medical school than to keep people in jail.
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Do the math -- it will never work.
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I am banking on you
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and I'm banking on guys like Herbie and Quincy and Hackett and Richard
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and very decent people who still believe in something.
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And I want to do this in my lifetime, in every city and in every town.
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And I don't think I'm crazy.
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I think we can get home on this thing
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and I think we can build these all over the country
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for less money than we're spending on prisons.
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And I believe we can turn this whole story around
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to one of celebration and one of hope.
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In my business it's very difficult work.
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You're always fighting upstream like a salmon --
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never enough money, too much need --
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and so there is a tendency
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to have an occupational depression that accompanies my work.
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And so I've figured out, over time, the solution to the depression:
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you make a friend in every town and you'll never be lonely.
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And my hope is that I've made a few here tonight.
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And thanks for listening to what I had to say.
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(Applause)
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ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Bill Strickland - Social innovatorAs a Pittsburgh youth besieged by racism in the crumbling remains of the steel economy, Bill Strickland should have been one of the Rust Belt's casualties. Instead, he discovered the potter's wheel, and the transforming power of fountains, irrepressible dreams, and the slide show.
Why you should listen
Bill Strickland's journey from at-risk youth to 1996 MacArthur "Genius" grant recipient would be remarkable in itself, if it were not overshadowed by the staggering breadth of his vision. While moonlighting as an airline pilot, Strickland founded Manchester Bidwell, a world-class institute in his native Pittsburgh devoted to vocational instruction in partnership with big business -- and, almost incidentally, home to a Grammy-winning record label and a world-class jazz performance series. Yet its emphasis on the arts is no accident, as it embodies Strickland's conviction that an atmosphere of high culture and respect will energize even the most troubled students.
With job placement rates that rival most universities, Manchester Bidwell's success has attracted the attention of everyone from George Bush, Sr. (who appointed Strickland to a six-year term on the board of the NEA) to Fred Rogers (who invited Strickland to demonstrate pot throwing on Mister Rogers' Neighborhood). In 2010, President Obama appointed Strickland to the White House Council for Community Solutions, which oversees volunteering and community service on a local and national level. And though cumbersome slide trays have been replaced by PowerPoint, the inspirational power of his speeches and slide shows are the stuff of lecture circuit legend.
Bill Strickland | Speaker | TED.com