John Earl: Alright, well let me ask you, first, I am looking at your website alight and I am reading the quotes from your website and there is a quote here from…somewhere from Martin Luther King?
Jim Gilchrist: Yes, about…uh…repaving the street. Actually it’s…um…I can’t quote it verbatim. It’s about turning pessimism into…uh…uh…a positive thing.
Earl: Yea, it says “We can transform bleak and desolate valleys into sunlit paths of joy and bring new light into the dark caverns of pessimism.” Alright, do you really think that Martin Luther King would be supporting you today in demanding the deportation of 7 to 10 million undocumented or as you call them illegal immigrants? Would he be behind you?
Gilchrist: Umm…you know, I don’t know that’s a good question. Umm…and that wasn’t…umm…that wasn’t the reason for using his quotes. It’s more because…um…because I admire his stoicism, his tenacity in accomplishing something peacefully…umm…uh…through the first amendment. And…
Earl: How does what he did back up what you’re doing? Or…cause that’s why you are putting the quote there really is to back up what you’re doing.
Gilchrist: Right…yea…umm…assemble and speak under the first amendment and do it repeatedly. Do no harm. You…if you’re…if you’re pushed out of…uh…uh…a neighborhood or beaten up and pushed out of there you come back again. You still…and you become…become the victim, come back again and speak and…and…and dissemble and if they beat you up again or wash you down with fire hoses…whatever they did to the Blacks in Selma back in the 60’s.
Earl: Ok and you’re gonna keep…
Gilchrist: It’s…it’s a…they use it as…uh…uh…oh what’s the phrase…the term…to…to um…um…to utilize… uh…stoicism in what you’re doing. You don’t take bats and clubs to get your way. You just keep assembling, keep pushing the idea, keep reminding those who represent you politically and those who live in you’re neighborhood, keep…uh…preaching that same…uh…mantra and just keep going. And…and…and it was very successful for him.
Earl: Who are the…
Gilchrist: Go ahead.
Earl: Who are the victims in this case that you equate with the victims that Martin Luther King was organizing and standing up for? I mean who is getting…getting beaten down with the water hoses? Who is getting lynched?
Gilchrist: It’s…well, anyone who assembles under the first amendment regarding the…uh…immigration law enforcement is getting…literally getting beaten, they’re physically attacked. Umm…this is not good.
Earl: That happened to you’re…you’re people.
Gilchrist: Yes, yes.
Earl: You have been physically attacked by police?
Gilchrist: No, no it’s been…uh…protected by the police so that we would have our first amendment. Umm…been attacked by…uh…Duane Roberts from Garden Grove a member of the Green Party…uh…who by the way I supp…voted for one of his candidates…uh…two years ago.
Earl: Who was that?
Gilchrist: Uh…Camio
Earl: Camejo.
Gilchrist: Yes, Camejo. Peter Camejo. Yea, umm…I like Peter. I don’t like all of his…his…uh…positions, but…uh…the one about putting more of a tax burden on the ultra wealthy and relieving the lower and middle class of that tax burden, the working bees…uh…the worker bees…uh…I like that and I remember he was on television.