PENNY NANCE: In late May, the nation went from coronavirus lockdown to racial unrest in a matter of moments. After George Floyd's tragic death by a white policeman, we watched in horror as day after day peaceful protests turned at night into violent riots and looting.

"The senseless and completely unjustified killing of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, by a white police officer in Minneapolis should shock the conscience of America." Those are the words of my guest today on Concerned Women for America's podcast. I'm Penny Nance, CEO and president. Today I'm joined by my close friend and Heritage Foundation President Kay Coles James. Kay, thank you so much for being willing to take time out of your busy schedule to talk about just this hard subject matter of race in America.

But what people don't know about you is that you started out in public policy at National Right to Life Committee. So before we even talk about current events, I'd love for you to share your personal story and why you're pro-life. Go back in time and introduce our listeners to you and your life.

KAY C. JAMES: First, I didn't know being pro-life was a thing. I mean, when I started out, I didn't know that good gracious, you mean people would actually reach inside their bodies and kill babies. Are you kidding me? It never occurred to me. We were just pro-life and never had a conversation about it. And then when I began to realize, well, see, you have to remember how old I am too. I mean, I got married the year that Roe v. Wade became law. So way back, way back when in my community, we didn't even think about, talk about an abortion was just something that was unheard of that we wouldn't do.

And so when somebody says, "Oh my gosh, you're pro-life." I was sort of like, well, isn't everybody and no, they weren't. And so I got a call once that someone asked me if you would mind going on a television program and sharing your views on the life issue. I will tell you, I was so scared, mortified, horrified, petrified, and I really didn't want to do it, but my children and my husband encouraged me to, and I did. It was in the middle of that conversation that my story came together. I had never put all the pieces together or even thought about it, but the woman that I was having the debate or the discussion with says, "How dare you with your middle class sense of values think that you should bring a child into the world when they are poor, or their mother doesn't have resources."

It clicked inside my head and I said, "Well, let me ask you this. How would you counsel a woman who came to you and said, 'My husband is an alcoholic. I already have four kids. I just found out I'm pregnant today, and I don't know what to do.'" And she said, "I would certainly tell her that among her options is the option to have an abortion because what loving mother would bring a child into the world under those circumstances?" And I was able to say my mother, because I was that child and my mother chose life. And so it was only then that I realized that I had a voice, I had a message, and I wanted to speak out on behalf of unborn children. That's when I became very, very active first in the crisis pregnancy movement. And then as the spokesperson for the National Right to Life.

NANCE: Your account of being one of the first black children to be integrated in the Richmond, Virginia school district in the 1960s. Tell my listeners, what was that like?

JAMES: Well, most junior high schoolers are sneaking blue eye shadow past their moms in the morning to go to school and wondering what shade of lipstick to wear or what the new fads are. But when I went to seventh grade, I had to walk past angry parents who were screaming, past police barricades and lines, walked up the front of the steps, and I was scared, but I knew that what I was doing was important for my race. I knew that someone had to be on the front lines and it was not easy. The teachers there didn't want us there.

I will never forget, and I won't say her name right now. I'm sure she's long since passed on, but my homeroom teacher read the menu of what was for lunch that day and pulled down her glasses, as she said, "And for dessert, they're serving brownies." And she said, "I don't know why they're serving those. We have enough of them here already." And I just sunk deeper down into my chair and tried to hold back the tears.

NANCE: This is seventh grade, Kay?

JAMES: Yes. Yeah, it was a time when one of the ways that the students could get us is when we were changing classes, the hallways were crowded. And so the students would take pins and stick us as we went through the hall and you couldn't tell where it was coming from. It was frightening. It was horrifying. Those were difficult days. There were members of my family that had crosses burned on their yards. My own children have experienced it. My son and my daughter were driving through a neighborhood one night looking for a house to visit a friend, and they were stopped by the police. Someone called the police and said they didn't belong in the neighborhood and why were they there? Incidentally, as you know, we have a God that has such a sense of humor. Twenty years later, we moved into that very same neighborhood.

NANCE: I can't imagine as a seventh grader, all you want to do in junior is to blend in, right? And you were so brave and so courageous at that young age to be able to speak forth truth, to go into the lion's den so bravely at great personal cost. Clearly God had set you aside for great work.

JAMES: Well, as I look at my life, starting even then, when I was debating the life issue on college campuses, and it was during a very volatile period in our country, and I had to be escorted off campus with security. All through my life, all through my entire life, if I could choose, I would not have chosen to be involved in any of those. By nature, I am an optimist. I won't start a fight, but I was taught not to run from one. And if I could live my life if I chose, I would be in the house planning what to have for dinner and having friends over, going to my Wednesday night Bible study. I would not have chosen this, but it's what God has asked me to do. And so I do it.

NANCE: Man, I know that's so true. Many of the hardest fights and I think the most important things that I think many of us leaders have done are not things that we wanted to do. But if you are listening to the Holy Spirit, you go do it, right? And sometimes it costs you.

JAMES: Well, when I speak to women's groups, I tell them that I have no sympathy for those who say, "I can't speak up. I'm nervous, I'm shy. I don't feel like I have anything to add to the conversation." And I say none of that is an excuse. All I need from you is a willingness to go where God calls. Because if you have that willingness to go where He calls, He will equip you for the fight. I can tell you with certainty, with absolute certainty, if you leave your life in the palm of His hands, you have no idea the opportunities that you will have to do kingdom work and to bring about change in this country. But all you need is a heart that's open to be used by God.

NANCE: I wanted to take a moment, Kay, and just talk about a piece you recently wrote in foxnews.com, in which you discussed the difficulty of race issues in America.

And I know we talked earlier about how personal this is for you, because you have actually walked the walk. There's a lot of people that like to talk about change. They like to talk about racism in America. They like to talk about hard issues of the day, but that's what it is, right? That's talk often. You actually have walked it out. I'd just love to get your take from your perch on what you're seeing on the national news every night.

JAMES: Oh gosh, it breaks my heart, and it breaks my heart for several reasons. One, there are real and legitimate problems surrounding the issue of race in our country. But I do not understand why people cannot grasp that you can make that statement and say, "But America is not a racist country." That was so misunderstood. I tried to explain it to someone today by saying, if you've been a parent, you know that your child may do something bad, but that doesn't mean you have a bad child, right? And so I genuinely believe that this is the greatest country on the planet. And I believe that our founders gave us a gift.

They gave us a gift of a constitution and the declaration of independence, and the bill of rights, all the founding documents, which created the framework for when we have problems, but how to work them out. And America has done more than any other country on the planet towards liberty and freedom and providing hope and opportunity. I honestly believe that people don't make the distinction between systemic racism, which I believe we have done such a phenomenal job in this country of changing the laws of the land.

And as a result of that, what we're left with are not systemic problems. We're left with problems of the heart. We're left with people who still harbor ill will. And if you don't believe those people exist, just look at the trolls on some of the comments section on some of the social media platforms. Oh, they are there and they are vocal. And that's all I was saying, we have a great nation that deserves better.

NANCE: I would love to also hear, and you were prescriptive I think sort of at the end of your piece. And I just love to hear your take on, what's the answer? How do we navigate this moment?

JAMES: Penny, I think your audience will understand this. I'm not sure everybody would, since the laws of the land are there, people, civil rights lawyers and activists worked for years and got the laws of the book. What we're left with are individuals and people who need their hearts changed. I honestly believe that the answer to all of this lies within the gospel of Jesus Christ. It lies with changed hearts. The hateful things that I see on Facebook and Instagram and Twitter, you cannot tell me those people don't exist because they're there. The hateful things that can be changed in a nanosecond when you allow Christ into your heart. So I believe that the church has a special and a unique responsibility to share the gospel of Christ and among all people. And that's our only hope.

I'll tell you something else I learned in the last few days, and that is that language matters. When I talked about protest and the ability of people to protest, people misinterpreted that as I was condoning the violence.

Not in the last few days, for 50 years, since I tried in my dorm rooms to talk my friends out of violence and to talk them into peacefully protesting. When I say protests, in my head, I'm thinking those brave people who sat at the lunch counters. I'm talking about the people who locked arms black and white and peacefully walked across the bridge and sang hymns together. I'm talking about a woman who had such conviction, Rosa Parks. Those are the kinds of things that are so traditional. I mean, it's as American as apple pie to protest that way. We do it every January 22nd, when we march [for life].

NANCE: That's right. I was thinking while you were saying that. Listen, as a pro-life person, as a pro-life protestor, we must stand firmly on behalf of the right to protest. And certainly you and I understand that, and I understood what you meant by that certainly, that there's a huge difference between ...

JAMES: Zero patience for those anarchists that are on the streets, hurting people and property, who are destroying people's livelihoods. It was mind boggling to me that anyone could think that I possibly had any sympathy for that at all. None. None.