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PW: I accidentally skipped over this. So you testified yourself in '81, is that correct?

MY: Yeah, that's right.

PW: Where, and tell me about that experience.

MY: The San Francisco hearings in 1981, August, I think it was.

PW: And where was the hearing held?

MY: I can't remember. I think it was at Golden Gate law school or something. Big auditorium, there were about five hundred people there. There were three days of hearings, and I testified partly because of my parents. As I said, I was doing outreach to churches to invite people to come to the hearings and get involved and speak. And my parents were not enthused about testifying. But they came to the hearings, and my uncle came, too, and my uncle was in the 442. They were all really glued to the testimony, and it was a very catalytic experience, I think, in our lives, and particularly in my life. And that was probably a key, not the only, but a key catalyst for my going to seminary and then later becoming a pastor.

PW: Can you tell me about the process of applying to be a testifier, to do this? Because I've never asked anyone that.

MY: I was volunteering with NCRR at the time, and they were organizing outreach in a sense to the Bay Area. So there were volunteers like myself who would, we would sign up to go to different places and do outreach with folks. And then if people were interested to sign up, then we would forward them to the organizing group. And there were handfuls of folks who said, "Yeah, I'd like to testify." I know that in the Berkeley Methodist church, there were a number of people that testified.

PW: Did you go to multiple days of the hearings, or just...

MY: I went to all three of the days, yes. I was just gripped by everything.

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