October 18, 2024 • 30 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, author James Ward (Zero Victim: Overcoming Injustice With a New Attitude) describes the pivotal moment in third grade that transformed his life.
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue with our American stories. Pastor and author
James E. Ward Junior came to national prominence after Jacob
Blake Junior was shot during an incident involving the Kenosha,
Wisconsin Police.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
What made his response so unique.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Was his call for prayer, peace, healing, and forgiveness. In
his book Zero Victim, Overcoming Injustice with a New Attitude,
James Ward describes the pivotal moment in his life while
in third grade.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Here's James Ward.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
You grow up in the South as a kid in Tuscaloos, Alabama,
knowing somehow as a kid that is black people against
white people. The city that I lived in, Tuscaloosa is
physically and geographically split with the Black Warrior River, And
you knew that the white kids kind of lived on
the north side of the city, the black kids lived
on the south side of the city. And before third grade,
(01:07):
I don't really recall having any relationships with white people.
It was just the norm of being in the black community.
The streets were sometimes dirty, there was kind of garbage
on the streets, cars jacked up on cinder blocks, and
things of that nature. That was our way of doing things.
Even before that, I was fortunate to grow up in
a Christian family. I did have the typical praying grandmother
(01:31):
that you hear about, but also a praying grandfather. Our
family was probably the professional Christian family that you would
think of, in the sense of the dads.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Involved in church, the moms involved in church.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Both my sister and I were involved, and I like
to say we were professional Christians in the sense that
it's just.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
What we did and what we knew how to do.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
But there's also a pitfall in that is that you
can do the professional side church and not have a
relationship with the Lord. Something you know, life changing happened
for me in third grade, right at the tail end
of the school system being integrated. I remember the day,
(02:14):
just like yesterday, when we were put on a bus
and bussed to the white side of town, and I
thought that was going to be a hostile day. I
thought that was going to be a very challenging day
going to the white side of town and didn't know
what to expect. I didn't have favorable expectations of that day.
But something great that was really interesting to me is
as we made that journey across town, across the Black
(02:38):
Warrior River, I noticed that the scenery changed. I noticed
that the landscaping on the homes that we were passing
by was much different than the side of town that
we lived on, where there was, you know, dirt in
the front yard, no flowers, trees, and shrubs were not kept.
But as we moved to the white side of town,
things were so much nicer. And that bus ride became
(02:58):
encouraging to me because I said to myself, I want
to live on this side of town.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
This is where I should be, and this is where
I want to be.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
We get to this elementary school, which was Werner Elementary School,
brand new school. The playground equipment worked when you walked
into the building, the smell of fresh paint, the smell
of fresh chalk on the chalkboard. It was just a
different experience than what it is that I experienced up
until that point. And I'm just thankful that my third
(03:25):
grade teacher happened to be a friend of my praying grandmother.
She was a pastor's wife from a I think an
Ame or Baptist church on the Black side of town.
But I didn't realize until later that she preceded me
in the integration of the school system. That she herself
was one of the first black teachers actually working in
(03:47):
a white school, and she seems to have, you know,
during that time, just kind of taken responsibility for me
making the transition well and going into this environment thinking
that it's going to be, you know, pretty hostile and
the white kids and there's going to be fights and
things like that. One of the things that Missus Pitts did,
which was so amazing, she would put your name on
(04:08):
the board if you scored well on a spelling test
or something like that. She would always put your name
on the board with a star next to it. And
I began to notice that my name was on the board.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Often, you know.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
I kept seeing my name on the board for good reasons,
you know, not for punitive reasons. And something happened inside
me internally. When I began to see that my performance
was not hindered by the white kids around me, and
I began to understand that they were not holding me back.
Something changed inside of me that disarmed any hostilities I
(04:44):
had against those white kids. And the moment I recognized
that they were not against me and they could not
stop me from performing well, something shifted in terms of
my own self worth, my own identity, me understanding my
own capability, and it changed the quality of my relationships
with those kids. So, in other words, the turmoil was internal.
(05:05):
It was something that I was perceived that was not
a reality around me, And that really became the basis
of the zero victim message. A change happened inside me
before a change could happen around me, or I could
say a change inside me, it initiated a change happening
around me. So Mss Pitts, she made an incredible impression
(05:27):
on my life. Again, from the black side of town,
there was a certain culture that we experienced. But when
I encountered Missus Pitts, I noticed that she was a
very disciplined woman.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Her posture was very erect.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
She was one of the kind of women that there
was not one hair out of place. She had this
salt and pepper hair and there was never one hair
out of place. Her posture was erect, She always had
her feet together, she would speak with elegance. She was
a very gracious woman, a very kind woman, and to
this day and remember what it's like to be in
(06:02):
her presence, and that made a tremendous impact on me.
I said to myself that she's not.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Like most other women.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
She's not most she's not like most other black women
in the sense that she's so refined and she's so regal.
And I saw something in her that I just kind
of described to be at the time, black excellence. There
was a different way of speaking and talking and really
at that time and even to this day, I think
it's unfortunate in some situations, if I'm honest, when Black
(06:31):
people sometimes speak eloquently and we don't necessarily use the
kind of language that we use in the inner cities,
we sometimes are accused of talking white and sounding white,
or you know, selling out in all these things, which
is most unfortunate. But I look back and I think
about Missus Pitts's life, and I see that she was
really a forerunner to enter into her space, and she
(06:53):
took me on, I think, being just the grandson of her,
of her close friend, I think she took me on
as her project to teach me how to integrate. I
think she was teaching me the power of integration and
how to develop relationships and how to function, you know,
in this new space that I was being called to
in the education arena at the time, she seemed to
(07:15):
be a lot harder on me than the other kids,
and I kind of thought to myself, sometimes it felt
as though she was picking on me a little bit.
And I look back in hindsight now and she was
not picking on me. She was actually favoring me. I
remember my parents were working during that time. I took
the bus to school again, and the bus would leave
(07:36):
pretty much immediately right after school, and missus Pitts would
tell me, James, you need to get involved in more
activities here at school. I didn't really want to do that,
you know, And my excuse was that, hey, the bus
has to leave at three twenty five whatever school lets out,
the bus has to leave.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
I don't have a ride.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
Well, I didn't know that. Missus Pitts, you know, she
had an answer for my excuse. She called my grandmother
without me knowing about it, and made an arrangement with
my parents for her to bring me home from school
every day. So instead of me taking the bus, she
made arrangements for me to leave like later on during
the day, just so that I could get involved with
(08:14):
the math team, you know, with the spelling team. He
wanted me to be involved with safety patrol because those
experiences were enrich and enhance my life, and that was
different again coming from our culture growing up most of
the times, you know, you want to play basketball, you
want to play football, but actually getting involved with the
spelling team, the math team, being involved in the safety
(08:37):
patrol team, those were some of the things that missus
Pitt's really pushed.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Me to do.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
That at the time, I didn't even really want to do.
But again she was cultivating and bringing something out of
me and didn't seem to give me any wiggle room
really in terms of my behavior and my conduct at
that time. Growing up in the South, you know, it
was really kind of a community parenting kind of that
it was not just your parents and your grandparents that
(09:03):
would discipline you. Anybody in the neighborhood could discipline you.
I mean a friend of a friend, and if you
got in trouble somewhere that you weren't supposed to be,
I mean, you had been corrected and got a spanking
three or four times before you got home to get
the last spanking from your parents. And that's the way
that missus Pitts related to me that she was right there.
She was hard on me and I can see now
(09:24):
that she was cultivating and trying to draw something out
of me that would really be necessary in life.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
And if we're lucky enough, we all have a Missus
Pitts or two in our lives, black, white, brown, whatever.
When we come back more of this unique voice, this
unique story. Pastor and author James E. Ward continues with
his story here on our American Stories, and we continue
(10:09):
with our American Stories and James E. Ward and his
story about his life in the third grade in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
Let's pick up where he last left off.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
So as I fast forward through, you know, my middle
school years, my high school years, my mother was active
duty military, and I heard my father relocated our family
from Tuscaloosa, Alabama to Decatur, Illinois, and again going to
an area always being in a space that was you know,
I was a minority. So many occasions I found myself
(10:42):
as the only black student or one of just a
few black students. And I really began to do very
well with music. I got recruited by DePaul University to
come to Chicago. That continued through my graduate years. The
concept of zero victim thinking itself really became crystal lives.
When I begin to work for a racially diversed church,
(11:03):
but a rather large church on the south side of Chicago.
We took what's called an attitudinal assessment, and one of
the categories that this attitudinal assessment measured was the degree
to which you see yourself as a victim. And so
I took the assessment not thinking much of it. The
results of the assessment actually came back and in the
(11:26):
area of victim thinking, my score comes back zero. And
the guy who was facilitating the assessment called me. He says,
you know, Am, I many many years of giving this assessment,
I've never seen anyone score zero in the area of
victim thinking. He says, James, everybody has some degree of victim.
(11:47):
Everybody has experienced certain things in life that makes them
feel like a victim. He says, I had to call
you and find out who you were, to get your
story to understand how this is possible. I like to
say that I'm now certified and it's documented that I'm
zero victim.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
I think about Bible stories.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
One of the Bible stories of Jesus, you know, being
on this boat with his disciples, entering into this understorm
or hurricane or whatever it was, and his disciples felt
that they were going to perish, and the Bible says
that Jesus was sleeping, And I really began to understand that,
even with that story as a great example for me,
that Jesus was the only one not fearful about entering
(12:28):
into the storm because there was peace inside him. And
it seems that the peace in him was superior to
are greater than the storm around him. So our church
congregation has become known pretty much as the zero victim
Church family, because I'm always teaching the concept of zero
victim thinking, because it represents the mind of Christ himself.
(12:50):
And so for many years I've been explaining to our
church that, as a pastor, certainly that Jesus was a
zero victim thinker. So if you imagine that the only
innocent man lived suffered the greatest injustice that the world
has ever known, and while in the act of still
being victimized, or experiencing this injustice of crucifixion and being
(13:11):
crucified for someone else's sins and not his own, while
the nails are still being driven in his hand, he's
already praying Father, forgive them, for they don't know what
they do. That is the standard of how we deal
for injustice in life. And so I've been teaching this
for many, many years in our church. It just so
happens that there's a two ladies in our church, Janie Johnson,
(13:34):
as well as her daughter, Julia Jackson, and they've been
with us from the very beginning. And one day on
August twenty third of twenty twenty, I get a phone
call from Julia Jackson and as Julia saying, Pastor, my
son has been shot seven times by the police in Kenosha, Wisconsin,
(13:55):
August twenty third of twenty twenty. And immediately we just
begin to pray that he would live and he would
not die. We began to pray for God's peace and
God's intervention in that situation. And of course the world
now know, all of America, i should say, now know
that incident on August twenty third of twenty twenty as
the Jacob Blake Junior shooting. And we've all seen the
(14:18):
video that was Julia's son. And so that connection with
Julia and her son being shot brought myself and my
wife directly into Kenoshaus situation. So this is in the
wake of the George Floyd situation, the riots happening in
the street, those storms that I talk about. America was
(14:38):
really in a very, very tense place the summer of
twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
We're gearing up for.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
The presidential election, and so you have this tension between
folks on the left and the right, between Democrats and Republicans,
and now you have this Jacob Blake shooting on top
of the George Floyd shooting, and America was just in
a really, really tough position. And my wife and I
were drawn into the Kenosha situation because of our connection
with Julia and her son, Jacob Blake. I'll never forget
(15:09):
on that same evening we were going to go up
the following day to be with her and to spend
time in the area to support her. But I remember
on the same evening, shortly after her son was shot,
she sent a message to my wife and I and said, Pastor,
I need another zero victim T shirt because I want
everyone to know that I.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Am not a victim. That lesson is so important for us.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
Again, we can't control what we go through, but we
can't control how we go through it. It was a
press conference a few days later and at Julia's request,
he asked me to open the press conference with prayer
and to speak a word of calm over Kenosha. And
(15:53):
we're expecting that Kenosh's just going to go up in
flames because there was so much.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Tension in the nation. And so the very first press
conference that was.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
Held after the Jacob Blake shooting, I was able to
open by speaking just a few words of encouragement to
our nation, calling for peace and beginning to speak this
zero victim message over our nation. And it pretty much
went viral that the news outlets and folks from a
Cause America began to pick up on it, and we
(16:21):
begin to get hundreds and hundreds of messages from people saying,
what you're saying is different, you sound different that instead
of them, I think, frankly, instead of them saying a
black man who was angry and a black woman who
was angry calling for more destruction, we were calling for peace.
We were speaking, oh, we were calling for prayer. I
(16:43):
began to hear from people who were saying that I'm
not religious, I'm atheist, I'm not a Christian at all.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
I'm not a person of faith.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
But what you're saying about faith, and what you're saying
about the nation makes sense. It's logical. We need to
hear more. And during that prosess was contacted by major
news anchors to do interviews about the Kenosha situation, and
apparently one of the viewers of those interviews was someone
(17:12):
in the White House, maybe President Trump himself, And eventually
he did come to Kenosha on September first of twenty
twenty to hold a round table, and you called an
asked that we would be involved with that round table
and working with some community leaders, and we're grateful for
the opportunity.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
We're grateful for the invitation to do that.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
And we tell folks all the time that we're a
political we're not on the left or the right. Our
nation has become, i think more obsessed was right versus
left instead of right versus wrong. And so we were
honored to share that space and to share that stage
with President Trump and Attorney.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
General Bill Barr.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
And if President Biden or anyone else had been in
office at the same time, we would serve our president,
whoever the sitting president was, to do what we could
to impact the nation. It seems anything that can possibly
be used to bring division in our nation is being
used to divide us, and the soil from which these
(18:13):
things spring is always victim thinking. Victim thinking is being
weaponized and being used to divide people.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
And we've been listening to a unique voice, James E.
Ward's voice. And by the way, he's the author of
zero Victim Overcoming Injustice with a New Attitude. I urge
you to go to Amazon or anywhere else you get
your books and buy it and read it. And when
we come back, we're going to talk more with James E.
(18:42):
Ward about his story and my goodness, imagine getting an
assessment that you have a zero when asked about attitudinal
assessments as it relates to victimhood. By the way, I'm
married to a wife who's at a zero, and she
was molested for five years in the younger part of
her life, and it is an absolute zero. When we
(19:03):
come back, learning how to live with well, what you
have to live with, and how to do it with peace.
More of James E. Ward's story here on our American Stories,
(19:38):
and we continue with our American Stories and the story
of James E.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
Ward.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
Let's pick up where we last left off.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
In the days here in our nation where the narrative says,
the cultural narrative says that white police officers are out
to get black men, and there's this constant war between
white police officers and black men. You know, there there
are incidents that are that are most unfortunate that happen
(20:06):
in our in our society. I like to remind people,
even as a pastor, that we have a sin problem
and not a skin problem. I think that when we
when we only talk in terms of race, and we
make things about black versus white, it is such a
surface level conversation. For example, you know, even even biologically speaking,
(20:29):
the human skin is you know, something like point zero
five millimeters thick, and we're letting something so thin and
something so inconsequential as skin color define our lives to
such a degree. How can something so insignificant become so
significant to define every aspect of our life and it's
(20:50):
only point zero five millimeters thick. And so I think
that having a conversation about race and racism in America,
it's a reality, but it's a shallow conversation, and we
don't go deeper into the hearts of people, We don't
go into the character of people to really unpack the
issues and the evils that reside within people that caused
(21:10):
them to relate to each other the way that they
do that are damaging and that's not beneficial. In my
own life, I can give you several several stories, one
of which I was driving home, you know, on a
weekday morning, dropping my kids off at school.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
And we happen to live.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
Right now in the in the northwest suburbs of Chicago,
which is you know, somewhat of a I should say,
an influent area. I can go through our community for
three or four weeks and never see another black man.
I'm driving home from from school to drop my kids
off on a weekday morning and made somewhat of a
minor illegal you know, maneuvering traffic.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
It's something that people do all the time.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
If someone is waiting to make a left term, you
just kind of, you know, slowly proceed around them. And
that particular morning, there was a police officer behind me.
He pulls me over from making that maneuver. Now, in
today's society, with the narratives that are happening, immediately in
my mind has to think I'm a black man being
(22:14):
pulled over by a white police officer, and the society
has already told me how this encounter is supposed to happen.
It's already conditioned my mind to think that this is
not going to turn out well, whether I made an
illegal maneuver or not. The narrative tells me that this
police officer stopped me because I'm black. And so this
(22:36):
is just the realistic side of dealing with these encounters
because of the narrative that's happening in America. So the
police officer has a narrative in his head that I'm
going to be defiant, I'm going to be rebellious, that
I hate him, that I think the worst about him.
And then I have this narrative in my head that
he hates me and he's out to get all black people.
(22:59):
But I can say that it was it was I
who initiated the change and our interaction by not being
a victim, and then he responded. But when the officer
approached me in my car, in my car, I look
him directly in the very center of his eyes, as
I would anyone, and instantly it changes the dynamics of
(23:19):
our encounter. I speak to him with confidence, I speak
with him with respect. I'm not fearful. I'm not disrespectful.
I'm compliant, polite, I'm cordial. And so immediately the officer
was able to pick up that this guy is a
quality guy. He's not going to cause me any problems.
There's just a way that it disarmed the interaction. I
(23:40):
gave him my license, I gave him my registration. He
went to his car. He came back and says, I'm
just going to give you a warning. He saw my registration,
saw that I lived.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
In the neighborhood. Hey, I see that you live in
this area.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
And the next thing, you know, we started having conversation,
and you know, I invited him by and said, you
know what, anytime you're in the neighborhood, why don't you
stop buying for coffee.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
I loved to have a time to get to know
you and your family.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
So I invited this white police officer over to my
home for coffee. So now he's really kind of saying,
wait a minute, this is not how this is supposed
to go according to the cultural narrative.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
He asked me, what do you do. I said, well,
I'm a pastor.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
Oh my goodness, you're a pastor, he said, you know,
I have a really good friend who's another police officer.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
He's just been diagnosed with cancer. Would you pray for him?
I said absolutely, I love to pray for him.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
And so now this encounter with this white police officer
that you know, according to the latest report on the
evening news, was supposed to end with some kind of
violent interaction. It's now ending with a prayer meeting and
ending with a positive interaction for me to actually be
of service and to be a blessing to him and
(24:47):
to his friend who was going through a traumatic situation.
I can give you another encounter that didn't end as well,
with a white police officer again living in the same neighborhood.
Once a year, around Thanksgiving, they do a five k
run through our neighborhood and they closed down the roads
except for the people who live in the neighborhood. I
(25:10):
wake up that morning to go to health club as
I normally would, and on my way back, there are
policemen set up to screen and to make sure that
only folks that live in the neighborhood are able to
proceed down these roads.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
And so I come.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
To the first checkpoint, there was a police officer of
Asian descent I rolled down my window. He says, hello,
how are you good morning. Do you live in the area. Yes,
I do live in the area, right around the corner.
I name my street, and he says, okay, no worries,
have a great morning, just stay over to the left
side of the road and keep an eye out for
(25:46):
the runners. I get to the second checkpoint and there
was a black American police officer, same procedure. I rolled
down my window. He says, good morning, Hey, how are
you do you live in the area. You know, sure,
I live right around the corner. I named my street.
He says, no problem, be careful, look out for the runners.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
Have a great day. Well.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
The third police officer was a white gentleman, and I
rode down my window, thinking that this is going to
be easy, and I said, hey, you know, good morning.
I'm on my way home, and he was very rude
to me. He really barked orders at mean, you know,
do you live in the area. Yes, I live in
the area. Do you have a driver's license? And I'm
(26:27):
thinking to myself, number one, I've gone through two checkpoints already,
and not only that, I've just communicated to you where
I live. He asked me what street do you live on?
I had to name my street. He asked me, how
far down is your street? I had to explain to
him how far down my street was, and then he
asked me for a driver's license to prove that I
(26:49):
was not lying. I'm compliant, but at the same time,
I'm becoming angry, you know, And I'm not a person
who gets angry quickly. But when I watched the cars
before me go through his checkpoint, and there was no question,
there were no questions. He didn't ask for driver's license,
he didn't hold them up at all. That's an unfortunate
(27:11):
encounter that happens. We can't deny it happens. But again,
I think we have a sin problem and not a
skin problem. It was my zero victim thinking, my zero
victim understanding me, embracing this message, the lessons in third
grade that prepared me for that moment to not overreact,
because that is the moment that if I had responded
(27:34):
with anger, that situation would not have ended well for me.
Even though I'm right, he's wrong. He has authority that
I don't have. So another black man, or any person
for example, in that situation, you don't just have to
be a black man, any person. If they had reacted
out of anger and out of frustration, the situation would
have escalated and become something much much more disastrous and
(27:57):
something undesirable. Even from a organizational standpoint, I sometimes teach
our leaders and any CEO, any organizational leader, knows that
you can't stop people in your organization from offending of
the people. But you can stop the people in your
organization from being offended. And if you can stop them
(28:19):
from being offended, it changes the culture of your church,
it changes the culture of your business community. It'll change
the culture of your community and your nation. And I
believe that this message right now is something that's critically
important in America. We've gotten away from building better people.
When we build better people, will build better communities and
(28:41):
will build a better nation. But the attempt to build
a better nation without building better people will be futile.
And I believe that the zero victim resource is the
thing that we need right now that helps tremendously in
building better people.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
So that we can build a better nation.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
And great work is always by Greg Hangler on the
production and the storytelling. Here, what a voice you've been
listening to James E. Ward, and the formative experience in
his life comes when he's in the third grade, and
the fundamental transformation in his life comes from a lady
named missus Pitts, who, as he put it, what she
(29:19):
had done for him was pick him out and get
him prepared for life to become a better person and
ultimately a part of a church community and trying to
teach people how to become better versions of themselves, that
the best way to change a community is to build
up people and make them better people. And by the way,
(29:39):
the book Zero Victim, Overcoming Injustice with a New Attitude
is James E. Ward's book. Pick it up at Amazon
for all the usual places. A beautiful voice, a beautiful story,
James E. Ward's story from Tuscaloosa, Alabama to Chicago, A
remarkable life's journey, a great story. Here on our American
(30:00):
Stories
And we continue with our American stories. Pastor and author
James E. Ward Junior came to national prominence after Jacob
Blake Junior was shot during an incident involving the Kenosha,
Wisconsin Police.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
What made his response so unique.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Was his call for prayer, peace, healing, and forgiveness. In
his book Zero Victim, Overcoming Injustice with a New Attitude,
James Ward describes the pivotal moment in his life while
in third grade.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Here's James Ward.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
You grow up in the South as a kid in Tuscaloos, Alabama,
knowing somehow as a kid that is black people against
white people. The city that I lived in, Tuscaloosa is
physically and geographically split with the Black Warrior River, And
you knew that the white kids kind of lived on
the north side of the city, the black kids lived
on the south side of the city. And before third grade,
(01:07):
I don't really recall having any relationships with white people.
It was just the norm of being in the black community.
The streets were sometimes dirty, there was kind of garbage
on the streets, cars jacked up on cinder blocks, and
things of that nature. That was our way of doing things.
Even before that, I was fortunate to grow up in
a Christian family. I did have the typical praying grandmother
(01:31):
that you hear about, but also a praying grandfather. Our
family was probably the professional Christian family that you would
think of, in the sense of the dads.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Involved in church, the moms involved in church.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Both my sister and I were involved, and I like
to say we were professional Christians in the sense that
it's just.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
What we did and what we knew how to do.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
But there's also a pitfall in that is that you
can do the professional side church and not have a
relationship with the Lord. Something you know, life changing happened
for me in third grade, right at the tail end
of the school system being integrated. I remember the day,
(02:14):
just like yesterday, when we were put on a bus
and bussed to the white side of town, and I
thought that was going to be a hostile day. I
thought that was going to be a very challenging day
going to the white side of town and didn't know
what to expect. I didn't have favorable expectations of that day.
But something great that was really interesting to me is
as we made that journey across town, across the Black
(02:38):
Warrior River, I noticed that the scenery changed. I noticed
that the landscaping on the homes that we were passing
by was much different than the side of town that
we lived on, where there was, you know, dirt in
the front yard, no flowers, trees, and shrubs were not kept.
But as we moved to the white side of town,
things were so much nicer. And that bus ride became
(02:58):
encouraging to me because I said to myself, I want
to live on this side of town.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
This is where I should be, and this is where
I want to be.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
We get to this elementary school, which was Werner Elementary School,
brand new school. The playground equipment worked when you walked
into the building, the smell of fresh paint, the smell
of fresh chalk on the chalkboard. It was just a
different experience than what it is that I experienced up
until that point. And I'm just thankful that my third
(03:25):
grade teacher happened to be a friend of my praying grandmother.
She was a pastor's wife from a I think an
Ame or Baptist church on the Black side of town.
But I didn't realize until later that she preceded me
in the integration of the school system. That she herself
was one of the first black teachers actually working in
(03:47):
a white school, and she seems to have, you know,
during that time, just kind of taken responsibility for me
making the transition well and going into this environment thinking
that it's going to be, you know, pretty hostile and
the white kids and there's going to be fights and
things like that. One of the things that Missus Pitts did,
which was so amazing, she would put your name on
(04:08):
the board if you scored well on a spelling test
or something like that. She would always put your name
on the board with a star next to it. And
I began to notice that my name was on the board.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Often, you know.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
I kept seeing my name on the board for good reasons,
you know, not for punitive reasons. And something happened inside
me internally. When I began to see that my performance
was not hindered by the white kids around me, and
I began to understand that they were not holding me back.
Something changed inside of me that disarmed any hostilities I
(04:44):
had against those white kids. And the moment I recognized
that they were not against me and they could not
stop me from performing well, something shifted in terms of
my own self worth, my own identity, me understanding my
own capability, and it changed the quality of my relationships
with those kids. So, in other words, the turmoil was internal.
(05:05):
It was something that I was perceived that was not
a reality around me, And that really became the basis
of the zero victim message. A change happened inside me
before a change could happen around me, or I could
say a change inside me, it initiated a change happening
around me. So Mss Pitts, she made an incredible impression
(05:27):
on my life. Again, from the black side of town,
there was a certain culture that we experienced. But when
I encountered Missus Pitts, I noticed that she was a
very disciplined woman.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
Her posture was very erect.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
She was one of the kind of women that there
was not one hair out of place. She had this
salt and pepper hair and there was never one hair
out of place. Her posture was erect, She always had
her feet together, she would speak with elegance. She was
a very gracious woman, a very kind woman, and to
this day and remember what it's like to be in
(06:02):
her presence, and that made a tremendous impact on me.
I said to myself that she's not.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Like most other women.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
She's not most she's not like most other black women
in the sense that she's so refined and she's so regal.
And I saw something in her that I just kind
of described to be at the time, black excellence. There
was a different way of speaking and talking and really
at that time and even to this day, I think
it's unfortunate in some situations, if I'm honest, when Black
(06:31):
people sometimes speak eloquently and we don't necessarily use the
kind of language that we use in the inner cities,
we sometimes are accused of talking white and sounding white,
or you know, selling out in all these things, which
is most unfortunate. But I look back and I think
about Missus Pitts's life, and I see that she was
really a forerunner to enter into her space, and she
(06:53):
took me on, I think, being just the grandson of her,
of her close friend, I think she took me on
as her project to teach me how to integrate. I
think she was teaching me the power of integration and
how to develop relationships and how to function, you know,
in this new space that I was being called to
in the education arena at the time, she seemed to
(07:15):
be a lot harder on me than the other kids,
and I kind of thought to myself, sometimes it felt
as though she was picking on me a little bit.
And I look back in hindsight now and she was
not picking on me. She was actually favoring me. I
remember my parents were working during that time. I took
the bus to school again, and the bus would leave
(07:36):
pretty much immediately right after school, and missus Pitts would
tell me, James, you need to get involved in more
activities here at school. I didn't really want to do that,
you know, And my excuse was that, hey, the bus
has to leave at three twenty five whatever school lets out,
the bus has to leave.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
I don't have a ride.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
Well, I didn't know that. Missus Pitts, you know, she
had an answer for my excuse. She called my grandmother
without me knowing about it, and made an arrangement with
my parents for her to bring me home from school
every day. So instead of me taking the bus, she
made arrangements for me to leave like later on during
the day, just so that I could get involved with
(08:14):
the math team, you know, with the spelling team. He
wanted me to be involved with safety patrol because those
experiences were enrich and enhance my life, and that was
different again coming from our culture growing up most of
the times, you know, you want to play basketball, you
want to play football, but actually getting involved with the
spelling team, the math team, being involved in the safety
(08:37):
patrol team, those were some of the things that missus
Pitt's really pushed.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Me to do.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
That at the time, I didn't even really want to do.
But again she was cultivating and bringing something out of
me and didn't seem to give me any wiggle room
really in terms of my behavior and my conduct at
that time. Growing up in the South, you know, it
was really kind of a community parenting kind of that
it was not just your parents and your grandparents that
(09:03):
would discipline you. Anybody in the neighborhood could discipline you.
I mean a friend of a friend, and if you
got in trouble somewhere that you weren't supposed to be,
I mean, you had been corrected and got a spanking
three or four times before you got home to get
the last spanking from your parents. And that's the way
that missus Pitts related to me that she was right there.
She was hard on me and I can see now
(09:24):
that she was cultivating and trying to draw something out
of me that would really be necessary in life.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
And if we're lucky enough, we all have a Missus
Pitts or two in our lives, black, white, brown, whatever.
When we come back more of this unique voice, this
unique story. Pastor and author James E. Ward continues with
his story here on our American Stories, and we continue
(10:09):
with our American Stories and James E. Ward and his
story about his life in the third grade in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
Let's pick up where he last left off.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
So as I fast forward through, you know, my middle
school years, my high school years, my mother was active
duty military, and I heard my father relocated our family
from Tuscaloosa, Alabama to Decatur, Illinois, and again going to
an area always being in a space that was you know,
I was a minority. So many occasions I found myself
(10:42):
as the only black student or one of just a
few black students. And I really began to do very
well with music. I got recruited by DePaul University to
come to Chicago. That continued through my graduate years. The
concept of zero victim thinking itself really became crystal lives.
When I begin to work for a racially diversed church,
(11:03):
but a rather large church on the south side of Chicago.
We took what's called an attitudinal assessment, and one of
the categories that this attitudinal assessment measured was the degree
to which you see yourself as a victim. And so
I took the assessment not thinking much of it. The
results of the assessment actually came back and in the
(11:26):
area of victim thinking, my score comes back zero. And
the guy who was facilitating the assessment called me. He says,
you know, Am, I many many years of giving this assessment,
I've never seen anyone score zero in the area of
victim thinking. He says, James, everybody has some degree of victim.
(11:47):
Everybody has experienced certain things in life that makes them
feel like a victim. He says, I had to call
you and find out who you were, to get your
story to understand how this is possible. I like to
say that I'm now certified and it's documented that I'm
zero victim.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
I think about Bible stories.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
One of the Bible stories of Jesus, you know, being
on this boat with his disciples, entering into this understorm
or hurricane or whatever it was, and his disciples felt
that they were going to perish, and the Bible says
that Jesus was sleeping, And I really began to understand that,
even with that story as a great example for me,
that Jesus was the only one not fearful about entering
(12:28):
into the storm because there was peace inside him. And
it seems that the peace in him was superior to
are greater than the storm around him. So our church
congregation has become known pretty much as the zero victim
Church family, because I'm always teaching the concept of zero
victim thinking, because it represents the mind of Christ himself.
(12:50):
And so for many years I've been explaining to our
church that, as a pastor, certainly that Jesus was a
zero victim thinker. So if you imagine that the only
innocent man lived suffered the greatest injustice that the world
has ever known, and while in the act of still
being victimized, or experiencing this injustice of crucifixion and being
(13:11):
crucified for someone else's sins and not his own, while
the nails are still being driven in his hand, he's
already praying Father, forgive them, for they don't know what
they do. That is the standard of how we deal
for injustice in life. And so I've been teaching this
for many, many years in our church. It just so
happens that there's a two ladies in our church, Janie Johnson,
(13:34):
as well as her daughter, Julia Jackson, and they've been
with us from the very beginning. And one day on
August twenty third of twenty twenty, I get a phone
call from Julia Jackson and as Julia saying, Pastor, my
son has been shot seven times by the police in Kenosha, Wisconsin,
(13:55):
August twenty third of twenty twenty. And immediately we just
begin to pray that he would live and he would
not die. We began to pray for God's peace and
God's intervention in that situation. And of course the world
now know, all of America, i should say, now know
that incident on August twenty third of twenty twenty as
the Jacob Blake Junior shooting. And we've all seen the
(14:18):
video that was Julia's son. And so that connection with
Julia and her son being shot brought myself and my
wife directly into Kenoshaus situation. So this is in the
wake of the George Floyd situation, the riots happening in
the street, those storms that I talk about. America was
(14:38):
really in a very, very tense place the summer of
twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
We're gearing up for.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
The presidential election, and so you have this tension between
folks on the left and the right, between Democrats and Republicans,
and now you have this Jacob Blake shooting on top
of the George Floyd shooting, and America was just in
a really, really tough position. And my wife and I
were drawn into the Kenosha situation because of our connection
with Julia and her son, Jacob Blake. I'll never forget
(15:09):
on that same evening we were going to go up
the following day to be with her and to spend
time in the area to support her. But I remember
on the same evening, shortly after her son was shot,
she sent a message to my wife and I and said, Pastor,
I need another zero victim T shirt because I want
everyone to know that I.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Am not a victim. That lesson is so important for us.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
Again, we can't control what we go through, but we
can't control how we go through it. It was a
press conference a few days later and at Julia's request,
he asked me to open the press conference with prayer
and to speak a word of calm over Kenosha. And
(15:53):
we're expecting that Kenosh's just going to go up in
flames because there was so much.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Tension in the nation. And so the very first press
conference that was.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
Held after the Jacob Blake shooting, I was able to
open by speaking just a few words of encouragement to
our nation, calling for peace and beginning to speak this
zero victim message over our nation. And it pretty much
went viral that the news outlets and folks from a
Cause America began to pick up on it, and we
(16:21):
begin to get hundreds and hundreds of messages from people saying,
what you're saying is different, you sound different that instead
of them, I think, frankly, instead of them saying a
black man who was angry and a black woman who
was angry calling for more destruction, we were calling for peace.
We were speaking, oh, we were calling for prayer. I
(16:43):
began to hear from people who were saying that I'm
not religious, I'm atheist, I'm not a Christian at all.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
I'm not a person of faith.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
But what you're saying about faith, and what you're saying
about the nation makes sense. It's logical. We need to
hear more. And during that prosess was contacted by major
news anchors to do interviews about the Kenosha situation, and
apparently one of the viewers of those interviews was someone
(17:12):
in the White House, maybe President Trump himself, And eventually
he did come to Kenosha on September first of twenty
twenty to hold a round table, and you called an
asked that we would be involved with that round table
and working with some community leaders, and we're grateful for
the opportunity.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
We're grateful for the invitation to do that.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
And we tell folks all the time that we're a
political we're not on the left or the right. Our
nation has become, i think more obsessed was right versus
left instead of right versus wrong. And so we were
honored to share that space and to share that stage
with President Trump and Attorney.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
General Bill Barr.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
And if President Biden or anyone else had been in
office at the same time, we would serve our president,
whoever the sitting president was, to do what we could
to impact the nation. It seems anything that can possibly
be used to bring division in our nation is being
used to divide us, and the soil from which these
(18:13):
things spring is always victim thinking. Victim thinking is being
weaponized and being used to divide people.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
And we've been listening to a unique voice, James E.
Ward's voice. And by the way, he's the author of
zero Victim Overcoming Injustice with a New Attitude. I urge
you to go to Amazon or anywhere else you get
your books and buy it and read it. And when
we come back, we're going to talk more with James E.
(18:42):
Ward about his story and my goodness, imagine getting an
assessment that you have a zero when asked about attitudinal
assessments as it relates to victimhood. By the way, I'm
married to a wife who's at a zero, and she
was molested for five years in the younger part of
her life, and it is an absolute zero. When we
(19:03):
come back, learning how to live with well, what you
have to live with, and how to do it with peace.
More of James E. Ward's story here on our American Stories,
(19:38):
and we continue with our American Stories and the story
of James E.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
Ward.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
Let's pick up where we last left off.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
In the days here in our nation where the narrative says,
the cultural narrative says that white police officers are out
to get black men, and there's this constant war between
white police officers and black men. You know, there there
are incidents that are that are most unfortunate that happen
(20:06):
in our in our society. I like to remind people,
even as a pastor, that we have a sin problem
and not a skin problem. I think that when we
when we only talk in terms of race, and we
make things about black versus white, it is such a
surface level conversation. For example, you know, even even biologically speaking,
(20:29):
the human skin is you know, something like point zero
five millimeters thick, and we're letting something so thin and
something so inconsequential as skin color define our lives to
such a degree. How can something so insignificant become so
significant to define every aspect of our life and it's
(20:50):
only point zero five millimeters thick. And so I think
that having a conversation about race and racism in America,
it's a reality, but it's a shallow conversation, and we
don't go deeper into the hearts of people, We don't
go into the character of people to really unpack the
issues and the evils that reside within people that caused
(21:10):
them to relate to each other the way that they
do that are damaging and that's not beneficial. In my
own life, I can give you several several stories, one
of which I was driving home, you know, on a
weekday morning, dropping my kids off at school.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
And we happen to live.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
Right now in the in the northwest suburbs of Chicago,
which is you know, somewhat of a I should say,
an influent area. I can go through our community for
three or four weeks and never see another black man.
I'm driving home from from school to drop my kids
off on a weekday morning and made somewhat of a
minor illegal you know, maneuvering traffic.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
It's something that people do all the time.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
If someone is waiting to make a left term, you
just kind of, you know, slowly proceed around them. And
that particular morning, there was a police officer behind me.
He pulls me over from making that maneuver. Now, in
today's society, with the narratives that are happening, immediately in
my mind has to think I'm a black man being
(22:14):
pulled over by a white police officer, and the society
has already told me how this encounter is supposed to happen.
It's already conditioned my mind to think that this is
not going to turn out well, whether I made an
illegal maneuver or not. The narrative tells me that this
police officer stopped me because I'm black. And so this
(22:36):
is just the realistic side of dealing with these encounters
because of the narrative that's happening in America. So the
police officer has a narrative in his head that I'm
going to be defiant, I'm going to be rebellious, that
I hate him, that I think the worst about him.
And then I have this narrative in my head that
he hates me and he's out to get all black people.
(22:59):
But I can say that it was it was I
who initiated the change and our interaction by not being
a victim, and then he responded. But when the officer
approached me in my car, in my car, I look
him directly in the very center of his eyes, as
I would anyone, and instantly it changes the dynamics of
(23:19):
our encounter. I speak to him with confidence, I speak
with him with respect. I'm not fearful. I'm not disrespectful.
I'm compliant, polite, I'm cordial. And so immediately the officer
was able to pick up that this guy is a
quality guy. He's not going to cause me any problems.
There's just a way that it disarmed the interaction. I
(23:40):
gave him my license, I gave him my registration. He
went to his car. He came back and says, I'm
just going to give you a warning. He saw my registration,
saw that I lived.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
In the neighborhood. Hey, I see that you live in
this area.
Speaker 3 (23:50):
And the next thing, you know, we started having conversation,
and you know, I invited him by and said, you
know what, anytime you're in the neighborhood, why don't you
stop buying for coffee.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
I loved to have a time to get to know
you and your family.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
So I invited this white police officer over to my
home for coffee. So now he's really kind of saying,
wait a minute, this is not how this is supposed
to go according to the cultural narrative.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
He asked me, what do you do. I said, well,
I'm a pastor.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
Oh my goodness, you're a pastor, he said, you know,
I have a really good friend who's another police officer.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
He's just been diagnosed with cancer. Would you pray for him?
I said absolutely, I love to pray for him.
Speaker 3 (24:26):
And so now this encounter with this white police officer
that you know, according to the latest report on the
evening news, was supposed to end with some kind of
violent interaction. It's now ending with a prayer meeting and
ending with a positive interaction for me to actually be
of service and to be a blessing to him and
(24:47):
to his friend who was going through a traumatic situation.
I can give you another encounter that didn't end as well,
with a white police officer again living in the same neighborhood.
Once a year, around Thanksgiving, they do a five k
run through our neighborhood and they closed down the roads
except for the people who live in the neighborhood. I
(25:10):
wake up that morning to go to health club as
I normally would, and on my way back, there are
policemen set up to screen and to make sure that
only folks that live in the neighborhood are able to
proceed down these roads.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
And so I come.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
To the first checkpoint, there was a police officer of
Asian descent I rolled down my window. He says, hello,
how are you good morning. Do you live in the area. Yes,
I do live in the area, right around the corner.
I name my street, and he says, okay, no worries,
have a great morning, just stay over to the left
side of the road and keep an eye out for
(25:46):
the runners. I get to the second checkpoint and there
was a black American police officer, same procedure. I rolled
down my window. He says, good morning, Hey, how are
you do you live in the area. You know, sure,
I live right around the corner. I named my street.
He says, no problem, be careful, look out for the runners.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
Have a great day. Well.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
The third police officer was a white gentleman, and I
rode down my window, thinking that this is going to
be easy, and I said, hey, you know, good morning.
I'm on my way home, and he was very rude
to me. He really barked orders at mean, you know,
do you live in the area. Yes, I live in
the area. Do you have a driver's license? And I'm
(26:27):
thinking to myself, number one, I've gone through two checkpoints already,
and not only that, I've just communicated to you where
I live. He asked me what street do you live on?
I had to name my street. He asked me, how
far down is your street? I had to explain to
him how far down my street was, and then he
asked me for a driver's license to prove that I
(26:49):
was not lying. I'm compliant, but at the same time,
I'm becoming angry, you know, And I'm not a person
who gets angry quickly. But when I watched the cars
before me go through his checkpoint, and there was no question,
there were no questions. He didn't ask for driver's license,
he didn't hold them up at all. That's an unfortunate
(27:11):
encounter that happens. We can't deny it happens. But again,
I think we have a sin problem and not a
skin problem. It was my zero victim thinking, my zero
victim understanding me, embracing this message, the lessons in third
grade that prepared me for that moment to not overreact,
because that is the moment that if I had responded
(27:34):
with anger, that situation would not have ended well for me.
Even though I'm right, he's wrong. He has authority that
I don't have. So another black man, or any person
for example, in that situation, you don't just have to
be a black man, any person. If they had reacted
out of anger and out of frustration, the situation would
have escalated and become something much much more disastrous and
(27:57):
something undesirable. Even from a organizational standpoint, I sometimes teach
our leaders and any CEO, any organizational leader, knows that
you can't stop people in your organization from offending of
the people. But you can stop the people in your
organization from being offended. And if you can stop them
(28:19):
from being offended, it changes the culture of your church,
it changes the culture of your business community. It'll change
the culture of your community and your nation. And I
believe that this message right now is something that's critically
important in America. We've gotten away from building better people.
When we build better people, will build better communities and
(28:41):
will build a better nation. But the attempt to build
a better nation without building better people will be futile.
And I believe that the zero victim resource is the
thing that we need right now that helps tremendously in
building better people.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
So that we can build a better nation.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
And great work is always by Greg Hangler on the
production and the storytelling. Here, what a voice you've been
listening to James E. Ward, and the formative experience in
his life comes when he's in the third grade, and
the fundamental transformation in his life comes from a lady
named missus Pitts, who, as he put it, what she
(29:19):
had done for him was pick him out and get
him prepared for life to become a better person and
ultimately a part of a church community and trying to
teach people how to become better versions of themselves, that
the best way to change a community is to build
up people and make them better people. And by the way,
(29:39):
the book Zero Victim, Overcoming Injustice with a New Attitude
is James E. Ward's book. Pick it up at Amazon
for all the usual places. A beautiful voice, a beautiful story,
James E. Ward's story from Tuscaloosa, Alabama to Chicago, A
remarkable life's journey, a great story. Here on our American
(30:00):
Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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