stokely carmichael was "black is beautiful." black power, civil rights movement still there. and there were a lot of white bigots who were extremely reactive. so i was the one in the company that received the death threats, the hate mail, and so on. and, you know, it was jarring, but i-- given the time that we were living in, it was understandable. and what happens when you get death threats, when you're an actress and you're playing a role and the mail arrives and somebody's threatening your life? how does it change what you do? it doesn't change what you do, but, you know, every once in a while, i'd have a nightmare about being shot onstage or something. i think that that comes with the territory, any public figure. did that experience come into play at all later when you were running the n.e.a., understanding that there's a really different mind-set out there sometimes? yeah, well, i've known there's a different mind-set for a very long time. but i, mean-- i think i was a born democrat. my family were all republicans, and all my mother and father's friends were republicans