What It Takes is a podcast series featuring intimate, revealing conversations with towering figures in almost every field: music, science, sports, politics, film, technology, literature, the military and social justice. These rare interviews have been recorded over the past 25 years by The Academy of Achievement. They offer the life stories and reflections of people who have had a huge impact on the world, and insights you can apply to your own life. Subscribe to the What It Takes podcast series at iTunes.com/WhatItTakes

Social Justice

What It Takes

"There is no such thing as an average human being. If you have a normal brain, you are superior. There's almost nothing that you can't do." When Benjamin Carson was in fifth grade, he was considered the "dummy" of his class. His classmates and teachers took it for granted that Ben would take an entire quiz without getting a single question right. He had a temper so violent that he would attack other children, even his mother, at the slightest provocation. "I was most likely to end up in jail, reform school, or the grave," he remembers. But Benjamin Carson turned his life around. He graduated from high school with honors, went on to Yale University and to medical school. At age 32, he became Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, a post he held for 29 years. He is internationally recognized as a pioneer in his field. In his operation on the Binder Siamese twins in 1987, he succeeded where all predecessors had failed, in separating twins joined at the head. Through his books and lectures, Dr. Carson has eagerly shared the story of his success with young people. In his own words: "You do have the possibility of controlling your own destiny if you are willing to put in the appropriate amount of time and effort." Or, as he tells young people everywhere, "Think Big." Since retiring from Johns Hopkins, he has emerged as a major political figure, and in May 2015 he announced his intention to seek the nomination of the Republican Party for President of the United States. In this podcast, recorded at the 2014 International Achievement Summit in San Francisco, he discusses the state of health care in the Untied States and shares his views on the Affordable Care Act.

Ben Carson (HD)(2014)

Ben Carson (Audio)(2014)

Ben Carson (SD)(2014)

Andrew Young was the pastor of a small country church when he faced down the Ku Klux Klan to organize a voter registration drive in South Georgia. He became the leading negotiator for the national Civil Rights Movement, enduring death threats, beatings and jail time to win for African Americans the rights of full citizenship they were promised by the Constitution, rights they had been long denied. Alongside his friend, Martin Luther King, Jr., he marched through the most dramatic episodes of the great struggle: from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to the streets of Birmingham and Selma, and finally to Memphis, where an assassin's bullet ended Dr King's life. Young fought on, winning election to the United States House of Representatives, as the first African American to be elected to Congress from the Deep South since Reconstruction. As a Congressman, he supported a little-known former Governor of Georgia in his long-shot bid for the Presidency, and when Jimmy Carter became President, he named Andrew Young to serve as his country's Ambassador to the United Nations. At the UN, Andrew Young maintained his commitment to universal human rights, plunging into the most challenging controversies of the day, including the liberation struggles of Southern Africa and the search for peace in the Middle East. He capped his career in public service with two terms as Mayor of Atlanta, Georgia. Once again, he proved himself an able negotiator, balancing the interests of the business community with the needs of the city's poorest citizens, completing the city's transformation from a battleground of the Civil Rights era to the proud showplace of the modern South. Half a century after the battles of the 1960s, Andrew Young remains an outspoken champion for the rights of all mankind.

Andrew Young (SD)

Anthony Romero had led the ACLU for only four days when the attacks of September 11, 2001 presented civil libertarians with their greatest challenge in decades. Since then, Romero and the ACLU have waged a continuous struggle in the nation's courts to ensure that the Constitution does not become a casualty of the war on terror. A son of Puerto Rican parents, and the first member of his family to graduate from high school, Romero earned law and public policy degrees at Stanford and Princeton. He is the sixth director to lead the ACLU since it was first founded, to combat the abuses of civil liberties that arose during the First World War. Romero has presided over the most explosive growth in the group's history, doubling its national staff and tripling its budget, enabling it to win significant court victories in defense of personal liberties, and restraining the warrantless surveillance of American citizens. He tells the story of this campaign in his book In Defense of Our America: The Fight for Civil Liberties in the Age of Terror.

Anthony Romero - Part 3

A daughter of Korean immigrants, Michelle Rhee graduated from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and began her career in education as an outstanding member of Teach for America. She founded the New Teacher Project in 1997, recruiting and training teachers for disadvantaged communities. In ten years, the Project had expanded to 40 programs in 20 states and recruited more than 10,000 teachers. In 2007, she was appointed Chancellor of the Washington, D.C. public school system by newly elected Mayor Adrian Fenty. She immediately drew fire from critics who resented her as an outsider, but she has persevered in the face of all resistance, replacing entrenched teachers, principals and administrators whose performance she found unsatisfactory. In the face of determined resistance to change, he has won national acclaim for her efforts to turn around one of the nation's most troubled school systems.

Michelle Rhee - Part 1 (SD)

Michelle Rhee - Part 2 (SD)

A graduate of the University of Virginia and Stanford Business School, Jacqueline Novogratz began her career in international banking with Chase Manhattan Bank before founding Duterimbere, a micro-finance institution in Rwanda. She initiated and led The Philanthropy Workshop and The Next Generation Leadership program at the Rockefeller Foundation. In 2001, Novogratz founded the Acumen Fund to finance small-scale businesses that supply life-changing goods and services to underserved communities in the developing world. By 2009 Acumen Fund had invested $40 million in over 35 enterprises. Today, locally controlled businesses with Acumen financing are providing energy, health care, housing and running water to 25 million people in Pakistan, India, Kenya and Tanzania. She related her experiences in the bestselling memoir, The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World.

Jacqueline Novogratz (HD) - Part 1

Jacqueline Novogratz (HD) - Part 2

Jacqueline Novogratz (SD) - Part 1

Jacqueline Novogratz (SD) - Part 2

Anthony Romero - Part 2

Michelle Rhee - Part 1 (HD)

In 1995, when retired General Colin Powell took himself out of the running for President of the United States, he was leading every candidate in every poll. At the time, his autobiography, My American Journey, was a national bestseller. Millions of Americans have been inspired by his life story, from his boyhood in the South Bronx, through service in Vietnam, to his term as Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. General Powell was the first African-American and the youngest officer ever to serve as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, ranking officer in the United States military. Most Americans got their first vivid impressions of General Powell in this role, at his televised press briefings during the 1991 Gulf War. His articulate, forthright manner and unassuming dignity made him a favorite of statesmen, journalists and the general public. In 2001, President George W. Bush appointed him Secretary of State, a position that placed him at the head of America's foreign policy, and fourth in line of succession to the Presidency itself. He served throughout the first term of the Bush administration, a period that included the September 2001 attacks on the United States and the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He remains one of the most admired Americans, a leader whose prestige transcends party and ideology. For over 20 years, he has been at the center of the most momentous events of our time.

Colin Powell 2010 - Part 1(HD)

Explore the timeless pursuit of social justice and learn what it takes to become an effective advocate for the cause that inspires you. Learn how champions of human rights have empowered the powerless and given voice to the unheard and excluded.

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Social Justice

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