Randall Terry Goes to the 1988 Democratic Convention, Lands in Jail
Automatic TRANSCRIPT
So take us back to 1988. You decide to go to the democratic convention in Atlanta and you put in jail, keep tell that story again. All right, so I'm on CNN crossfire with Pat Buchanan and Mark green. Mark green says, what's next? And I say we're going to Atlanta to the democratic invention. We had no plan. Nothing in place, no infrastructure, nothing. So my staff, they just went crazy and we started sending out letters and making phone calls begging people. Please come to Atlanta and join us and go to jail for three or four days during the convention. So we get there. There's a 137 of us that go on the first morning of the convention. We go to an abortion clinic and we sit down and we start praying, the police arrest us, and when they take us into custody, they, they said, what's your name? And we said, all the men said, my name is baby John Doe. In other women said, my name is baby Jane Doe. Because we wanted to identify with the babies who had no name. So nobody had identification with them known had any money. We knew that they would hold us. And they had this huge warehouse facility with cots. They brought us in, they put us there, and they thought, okay, well, they're being smart, Alex, they'll give us their name and we wouldn't do it. So after a couple of days in this big place, they put us in the key road prison facility. Which was another mistake on their part because they gave us an entire wing of the prison. And during the day, the men and women could hang out in a big area together, and we sang and prayed and had preachers in jail, we had prayer meetings, and Bible studies, 24/7. I mean, literally all day long. And while we're there, the police are negotiating with us and they say, okay, on Friday, at the end of the week, we'll just let you all go. Time served. Well, the attorney for the do versus bolt in case. Now we all are familiar with roe versus wade, but it was actually two cases. Roe versus wade, and Doe versus Bolton. The dough case was critical because it defined health of a woman. So when they stay a woman has an abortion for her health, that can mean financial health, emotional health, up to the day of birth. So the attorney for dough versus Bolton, Marjorie Pitts haymes, she said to the city council and to the police, don't you dare let these people go without giving their names. So we found out that she was the problem. And man, you know, I'm in my 20s. I've got a bunch of young advisers around me. And I thought, you got to be kidding me. You picked the fight with the wrong people. So I went on pat Robertson, CNN. They were letting me do interviews from jail. They would bring cameras up to the fence and let me do interviews or do them on the phone.