one of the last things my mom told me when i left for college is, "don't come back to the neighborhood." she knew her health was failing and that now i had a chance to do something with my life. but i had to come back. i don't know if i want to call it a "fire" or whatever, but it's just in me. how i grew up, what's happened to my city, my neighborhood, maybe, more importantly, the people that i grew up with -- that's the fundamental reason i'm doing this. when i was a kid, i saw the [1968] riots firsthand, saw stores in my neighborhood burned to the ground, saw a man murdered when i was 9 years old. my mother sent me away to prep school to get me out of the neighborhood. right after i went, my friend that used to help me academically was robbed in our neighborhood. thrown in the trunk of a car overnight. when he got out, he was fine, physically; mentally, he was never the same. so, i'm able to go on to cornell and georgetown law school, and he's never worked a day in his life. i'm one of the few guys still alive from my neighborhood -- literally. so to try to equalize it out for people so that everybody has a chance; to try, in a sense, to make up for that loss -- that drives me. look, there was a point in time, as a young adult, when i lost the things i had valued -- all of them. i loved my parents; they were gone. i had a great scholarship to college; i lost it, dropped out. i bought a car; it was gone. i lost my income; i couldn't find a job. i couldn't sleep at night, and then i would sleep during the day -- i'd just given up completely. i just existed. i got on food stamps, and then my food stamps were cut off. i didn't know when i was going to end up on the street, but i knew it was going to happen.
tony abbott: daring to doubt