This is an I-Heart podcast.

And we continue with our American stories.

Pastor and author James E. Ward, Jr. came to national prominence after Jacob Blake, Jr. was shot during an incident involving the Kenosha, Wisconsin Police.

What made his response so unique was his call for prayer, peace, healing, and forgiveness.

In his book, Zero Victim, Overcoming Injustice with a New Attitude,

James Ward describes the pivotal moment in his life while in third grade.

Here's James Ward.

You grow up in the South as a kid in Tuscalo, Alabama, knowing somehow as a kid that

it's black people against white people.

The city that I lived in, Tuscaloosa, is physically and geographically split with the Black Warrior River.

And you knew that the white kids kind of lived on the north side of the city.

The black kids lived on the south side of the city.

And before third

grade, I don't really recall having any relationships with white people. It was just the norm of

being in the black community. The streets were sometimes dirty. There was kind of garbage on the

streets. Cars jacked up on cinder blocks and things of that nature. That was our way of doing things. Even before that,

I was fortunate to grow up in a Christian family. I did have the typical praying grandmother that

you hear about, but also a praying grandfather. Our family was probably the professional

Christian family that you would think of in the sense of the dad's involved in church, the mom's involved in church.

Both my sister and I were involved.

And I like to say we were professional Christians in the sense that it's just what we did and what we knew how to do.

But there's also a pitfall in that is that you can do the

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