WEBVTT

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^(blues-style music)

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^- My mother told me,

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^"Raye, you'll have three strikes against you.

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"First, you're female.

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"And you're black.

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"And you'll have a Southern, segregated school education.

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"But you can do or be anything you want to be."

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I was born right here in Little Rock, Arkansas.

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I didn't realize that I was in a segregated area.

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I was talking with some of my friends

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about what we wanted to be when we grew up.

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And they laughed at me

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when I said I wanted to become an engineer.

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And one of my teachers said,

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"Raye, aim for the stars.

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"At the very worst, you'll land on the moon."

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And the day after I graduated college,

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I marched off to Washington, DC.

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And the first group of people to call me in for an interview

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was the Department of the Navy.

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President Nixon was in office.

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And he called the Navy and he told them

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that there was a new ship design coming up.

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And instead of it taking the two years

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that it normally takes,

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he wanted the Navy to do the rough draft of it

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in two months.

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I brought that rascal in in 18 hours and 26 minutes.

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And for that, my career just took off.

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I had revolutionized the design process

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for all Naval ships and submarines.

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I broke a lot of glass ceilings.

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I was the first female program manager of ships

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in the history of the Navy.

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I had five field activities reporting to me.

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I had a staff of roughly 250 people.

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You see, only in the United States

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would we have had an opportunity to do these things.

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In spite of the system, I was able to accomplish,

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not because of the system.

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(blues-style music)