Candy Lightner

These folks, it overcame some really incredible circumstances, and a lot of people would've just given up.

Um, whether it's, you know, again, education Avengers or people like Candy Lightner who started MADD.

Like, what, did, are these people like born with this? Like, what, what sets these people apart? Um, each one of your stories is so unique and different, but there's that, that you, you weave it together that, that these people just did not give up.

I mean, the fight in them is incredible.

In 1980, a 13-year-old daughter was, uh, struck, uh, by a drunk driver crossing the street near Sacramento, California.

Four days after burying her daughter, Candace Lightner started petitioning the governor of California every day for a year because in 1980, drinking and driving is legal in some states in the United States.

Eight years later, drinking and driving is illegal in all 50 states.

Blood alcohol levels dropped to .08.

10,000 fewer children-

Wow

... families, communities, schools torn apart because of the cour- courage and heroism of, uh, Candace Lightner.

I'm sitting in New York City and outside my window we can see a nice brick wall.

So listen for those as I go along.

The first one is Candace Lightner.

In 1980, her 13-year-old daughter, Cari, was killed by a drunk driver, a man who'd already been arrested multiple times for drunk driving and was out on bail from a hit-and-run just days before he killed Cari.

Candace Lightner took that unbearable loss, and within months founded an or- orga- and within months founded an organization you've absolutely heard of, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, or MADD.

Now, MADD didn't just raise awareness.

It changed laws in state after state, forced drunk driving from something treated as a minor offense into something the entire country now takes seriously.

I want you to notice something about all four of these stories because it's a thread that ties this whole episode together.

None of these people skip past the pain to get to where they landed.