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My name is Simon Estes. I went off for a singer and a professor. I was born in Centerville, Iowa, back in 1938 thistles. The voice of the internationally acclaimed bass baritone opera singer Dr Simon Estes. Ah, University of Iowa and Juilliard School of Music graduate, an opera singer who performed in front of global leaders, taught as a professor at universities across the world but for years found it hard to performing the US due to the color of his skin. In the mid seventies, I'd sung in a lot of opera houses like in Rome in London and Vienna. Geneva, Switzerland, Spain. They still wouldn't let me sing in some of the over houses in this country. And I remember I called my mother because I was living in New York and I called my mother. She was out here and I was your mother, and I will leave me in tears. I was crying. I said They won't let me sing it the matter and they won't let me see them out of the opera houses. And I've sung all of these houses and my mother said, Well, son, now you just get down on your knees and you pray you spent a while in Europe. Well, I've lived in New York more than I have in the United States because I started singing in 60 65. Was there a notable difference in how you retreat as a black singer from Europe to America? Yes, that's what made me very sad. I'm not saying there was no discrimination in New York there, waas. But the people they're judged me like Martin Luther King said on my character and all my talent and not my skin color. We were singing out in San Francisco, but they were probably paid 15, maybe $20,000 a performance for singing the lead roles as Tyner's. They paid me $257 a performance. The civil rights movement, right? Did that have any impact on your career? I remember when Martin Luther King gave his great speech. I heard him speak. Actually, I heard him speak in person when I was a student at the University of Iowa, and Martin was somebody who really inspired me and to treat hatred with love. You were a young adult during the civil rights movement, and now a little more than five decades later. We're seeing a movement that occurred last year after the killing of Georgia Floyd and the CEO of what has happened this year. Last year, the year 2020 was a tough year. I just said to my wife, I said, I'm tired. I'm just tired and they say, Oh, we don't have any discrimination in America. It does still exist. What has to change The only way I think that we're gonna reduce discrimination in the United States. His parents need to start teaching their Children at a very young age. A lot of people have called what occurred after the killing of George Floyd, the young people's movement or this generation's movement for the young people who are out there leading. What do you want them to know? You can only drive out hate with love, so my