And

I came there with a job offer in hand.

I was like, I can't wait.

It was so exciting because, you know, leaving something, a business that we created that was our dream – Knowing that I was going to have to leave it and come back home to care for my mom, it was tough.

But I also took it as an opportunity to say, okay, what have you done all these years that you really love, that you've done consistently, that's been a part of your life, and you didn't have to think about it? And I'm like, well, Lord, I've been designing houses forever.

That's the only consistent thing that has paid my bills.

I mean, of course, I've had other jobs at the school and the ministry and my own businesses.

Mm-hmm.

There were so many bullets that George Denning first thought someone had thrown dynamite into the house.

His children would later testify, a couple of them, that they You know, witnessed bullets sail through the air, through their cabin.

Uh, Denning's 12-year-old daughter would testify in court that a bullet went through her hair.

And as soon as the gunshots started, he went for his own, uh, his own rifle.

You know, not far away, uh, in Memphis, Tennessee, Ida B.

Wells, the Black journalist, was, um, was writing right around this time about the importance for Black people in the rural South to arm themselves, uh, because lynching was so common and, and was, and was getting, it seemed to her, more frequent.

You know, she said famously, "A Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every Black home, and it should be used for that protection which the law refuses to give." So, uh, whether Denning had a rifle for hunting, which was common, or for his own protection, which may also have been common, I don't know.

After he got dressed, George Denning ran half a mile to the house of one of his white neighbors, a man he considered a friend.