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00:06parking for the free clinic fills days early people sleep in their cars for a chance at
00:13medical care if you didn't have remote area medical what would you do
00:24with millions losing insurance we saw desperation meet compassion
00:38californians got on board for a 33 billion dollar high-speed train that was supposed to connect
00:43la to san francisco by 2020. instead they have this an unfinished line connecting wait for it
00:52bakersfield and merced why have 20 other countries managed to build high-speed rail
00:58while america hasn't we've heard people saying what happened in the past is the past
01:02failure is not an option failure is always an option
01:11every year on mardi gras day an extraordinary sight emerges from the back streets of new orleans
01:17they call themselves mardi gras indians or black masking indians and they roam the neighborhoods
01:24in dazzling hand-sewn suits this easter sunday take in the sights and sounds of one of america's last
01:34true secret societies
01:39i'm leslie stahl i'm scott pelly i'm anderson cooper i'm sharon alfonsi i'm john wertheim i'm
01:46cecilia vega i'm bill whitaker those stories and in our last minute an article of faith by evangelist
01:53franklin graham tonight on 60 minutes
02:04about one-third of americans say they have skipped meals borrowed money or cut back on utilities to pay
02:13for health care that's in a gallup poll released in march the trump administration has lowered prices
02:19on more than 50 drugs but it also let premiums rise even double in the affordable care marketplace
02:27and made the biggest cuts ever to medicaid already three million have lost insurance and it's estimated
02:35it'll be 10 million in three years all of this reminded us of our story in 2008 about a charity
02:42called remote area medical ram started out parachuting doctors into south american jungles
02:50but in the 1990s it turned to another isolated people americans cut off from health care by the cost
02:58recently we returned to ram at one of its free pop-up clinics for americans long on pain and short
03:06on hope
03:07ram is a ray of mercy in the darkness the parking lot in knoxville tennessee began to fill early in
03:18a frigid
03:19february many drove hundreds of miles in desperation nearby remote area medical would open a clinic
03:27inside an empty exhibit hall but ram can take only so many patients on a weekend so they joined the
03:35line days before we met sandra talent at 5 a.m sandra where'd you come from huntsville alabama and how
03:45long have you been in the parking lot here since 4 30 wednesday night wednesday night yeah so wednesday
03:54night thursday night and this is friday morning two nights sleeping in her car a 200 mile drive
04:02all for lack of dental insurance if you didn't have ram how would you get your teeth taken care of
04:09i wouldn't a few spaces over dave bird spent the night in his truck aching for a full set of
04:18dentures
04:18what happened to your teeth uh several things i had a uh uninsured drunk driver run a red light
04:25doing 80 hit me head on almost killed me two years of rehab and three surgeries and 140 000 later
04:33i was
04:34able to go back to work at work one day i'm drilling through a basement wall and the drill hangs
04:39up on a
04:39piece of rebar and it comes around smacks me in the mouth cracks my jaw and broken back out again
04:45by then i was uh pretty uh pretty thin on money to do much about it so i didn't have
04:53a lot of choices
04:53i just kept working but working was rare employers on construction jobs just assume he lost his teeth
05:01to meth addiction burge told us his only habits are nicotine and caffeine and right now he could use a
05:09cup
05:10he's wrapped in four layers against 27 degrees if you didn't have remote area medical what would you do
05:19what's up what's up no other way around they're uh life changing life changing
05:32when they hand you your life back that's life changing
05:37that's what teeth mean to me i can be a normal human again
05:42i sure do appreciate you yes sir thank you good luck your dentures okay you're going to be over
05:50here he had the luck of being near the head of the line which stretched to 1200 patients in knoxville
06:00over a friday saturday and sunday hold on to that when you go up there for service you got to
06:06bring
06:06on that ticket brad sands a former paramedic is a ram clinic coordinator i'm number four number four
06:13head on up who are the people in the cars everybody i mean it's your neighbors it's your parents it's
06:20it's your friends it's the community around you it's everybody and it's nationwide somewhere in america
06:29brad sands sets up a clinic like this most every weekend it's all comers
06:35mm-hmm no questions no insurance needed you don't even have to give me your real name
06:40we met a woman at a ram expedition who was so grateful for the help she received but she said
06:49i just hate to ask i'm not going to judge your story nobody here that's working or volunteering
06:56today is going to judge any person that comes through that door we are here to help
07:02can you see any of those lines out there about half of the patients have no insurance the rest
07:08have insurance they can't afford to use because of co-pays and deductibles and many health insurance
07:16plans have no dental correct no vision care correct no hearing care correct this is our triage area so
07:23chris hall volunteered at ram when he was 12 years old now he's ceo so when you look at the
07:31patients
07:32that come through our door 65 of those patients are requesting dental service 30 of those patients are
07:37requesting eye exams and glasses only five percent are requesting medical care dental and vision are two
07:43things that are isolated that people do not have access to or can't afford the access to
07:47are you a diabetic there's also screening for blood sugar blood pressure breast cancer skin cancer and
07:55more depending on the size of the clinic ram will spend between 100 000 and half a million dollars
08:02over a weekend how do you pay for all of this it's the generosity of the public over 81 of
08:09our
08:09supporters are individual donors people that write five ten twenty dollar checks every month
08:15those checks are leveraged with donated clinic space donated supplies and volunteers 887 volunteers on
08:26this knoxville weekend alone this sheet here is extremely important medical professionals paid their
08:33own way from 30 states and brought medical students with them treat these patients with dignity with respect
08:41talk to them like they're human beings please if you ever lose faith in humanity go spend 10 minutes
08:47at a ram clinic you're gonna see hundreds of people there that are donating their time and they're coming
08:54out and they're donating large swaths of their own money slash time to help their neighbors i remember
09:02there was a guy many years ago who had a broken tooth and he told me that he tried to
09:08remove it with a
09:08screwdriver so if that doesn't move you to help you know that's the desperation let's see what we got
09:17here dentist glenn goldstein volunteered from new jersey he sees patients suffering from a past without
09:25health care and no hope for the future you know i've had young people in you know i said well
09:31you know some
09:32of these teeth can be saved you know that right because yeah i don't care please i i don't have
09:37any money i don't have any way to get these fixed so please please take them out i got a
09:43bunch of loose
09:43food and gross food and it doesn't bother me because i'm ready to get them all out and it's heartbreaking
09:48to
09:49take all the teeth out it's it's it's terrible patients ask you to take all of their teeth out all
09:56their teeth let's see one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve thirty four
10:03sixteen because they know going forward they will not be able to take care of them 100 percent
10:10relieving pain was the mission of ram's late founder an eccentric englishman daredevil pilot and amazon
10:20cowboy tell me about stan brock stan was a magnificent leader magnificent man humble we've
10:29basically had we met stan brock and ram in 2008 we're very happy that you're here this morning
10:37we've got a lot of really fine volunteer doctors dentists eye specialists it was built stan was an
10:46adventurer who once walked 26 days in the amazon to be treated for an injury so he started his airborne
10:56medical charity with an army surplus c-47 that flew on d-day when we met he was 72 had
11:05no family took no
11:06salary lived in an office donated to ram and showered with a garden hose he died in 2018
11:15in the office he was perhaps the most dedicated person i've ever met i agree with you completely
11:23on that i joked around a lot when i tell people working with stan it was really hard to ask
11:27for
11:27a day off when your boss hadn't had a day off in 20 years when we met in 2008 stan
11:33brock was staging 12
11:34clinics a year after our broadcast four million dollars in donations poured in along with thousands more
11:43volunteers ram has grown from a dozen to 90 clinics a year it's because of you and your story back
11:52in 2008
11:54that brought me to almost the tears and as soon as your segment was over about this organization
12:00i immediately went online looked it up and registered down here i'm from jersey i understand that
12:09volunteering at ram has become a family thing yes sir yes sir got one left so my son who's here
12:17with me
12:17now my wife has been here my daughter-in-law my daughter my other son we've all they've all been
12:23here a multitude of times sounds like you get as much out of this as the patients do maybe more
12:28do you have high blood pressure or anything like that only when i'm in pain remember sandra talent the
12:36woman we met in her car and dave burge who lost his teeth in two accidents they're here for dentures
12:45a process that would take weeks were it not for this trailer and the 22-year-old engineer who helped
12:55build it connor gibson uses computer design to make dentures with 3d printers they can print a set
13:03in an hour or so gibson has slept in here to keep the printers running non-stop he's inspired by
13:12something he calls the mirror moment we say it's worth a million dollars but truly it's priceless when
13:20you give them that mirror you just see all that stress melt away and no matter if they're 18 or
13:2880
13:30we see grown men cry sitting in the chair
13:38and so it was for dave burge the man who told us in the parking lot that he wanted to
13:44be
13:45a normal human again you're a new man thank you there we go all right
13:54and the mirror smiled on sandra talent looks good yeah
14:05happy tears yeah what does this moment mean to you i don't know what i do
14:12you know the lord would make a way but i feel like he has made a way through ram over
14:19the knoxville
14:20weekend ram allowed more than 500 patients to see 700 live without pain and restored the smiles of 24.
14:32with insurance out of reach for growing millions ram will hurry to another city to make health
14:40in america a little less remote oh you look beautiful do you think they look pretty yeah you look gorgeous
14:48good seriously good thank you for being here honey have a great day you too have a great life get
14:55some sleep
15:05it's hard to exaggerate the role of the train in the american story or the romance of train travel
15:11those iron horses galloping down tracks of steel why then has high-speed rail so common in other
15:18countries not tracked in the u.s an ambitious state-run project connecting la and san francisco has lurched
15:25derailed cost billions and may never happen one private company is betting that it can succeed
15:31where the public sector is not but that too has had its bumps as u.s high-speed rail remains
15:37a mirage
15:38a ghost train it's become a stand-in for a broader question can america get its act together and still
15:44build big things
15:47the very model of modern engineering it hums across the fruited plains at a top speed of 200 miles an
15:53hour
15:55it's revolutionized travel it's a source of national pride in morocco here in the u.s high-speed rail
16:04looks like this hardly passenger ready america's hopes for its first high-speed rail were kindled in
16:112008 when california voters approved a ballot measure for a train connecting los angeles to san francisco in
16:18less than three hours the estimated price tag 33 billion dollars completion date 2020 it would cut
16:26pollution revitalize local economies clear gridlock status update today the state's high-speed rail
16:34authority is preparing to lay its first tracks at roughly the same cost only slight course correction
16:41here instead of l.a to san francisco it will run one-third of that distance connecting wait for it
16:48the metropolis of bakersfield and merced population 96 000 oh and when will it open 2033 maybe i think
16:59that the california high-speed rail nightmare is the public quintessential example of government waste
17:04mismanagement you say this needs to stop you saw congressman vince fong a republican from bakersfield
17:10sits on the house transportation committee he says that when california voters first approved high-speed
17:16rail the promise and price tag were more marketing campaign than realistic projection we're now in 2026
17:24there are no trains there's no track laid there's a complete bait and switch if i vote for a mansion
17:30in
17:30malibu by next year and someone says actually you know what in five years we're going to have a doghouse
17:34in
17:35modesto how do things go so off the rails the business plan that was put out in 2008 was very
17:41theoretical you know this is what we think is going to happen and it became very clear that they didn't
17:45have the specifics it worked worked out this project on that point management doesn't disagree
17:52toks amashakin is california's secretary of transportation and anthony williams a rail authority
17:57board member both are relatively new to the job left to answer for their predecessors there were
18:03mistakes made some of the criticism on this on this project i think are very fair what happened i don't
18:10think the voters fully understood and neither did we in the public sector what it was going to take to
18:16actually get this project delivered to get the necessary political buy-in from the whole state
18:21the plan called for the train to run inland threading the farmland of the central valley
18:27yet the rail authority hadn't answered basic questions like precisely where it could lay
18:32down its tracks what's known as right-of-way 3 000 parcels had to be negotiated just for the
18:39segments that we're working on today in the central valley it seems to be one one farmer doesn't want
18:44high-speed rail going through his field and you've got a guy that can gum up the works for for
18:49a long
18:49time yeah that's what happens uh sometimes in these processes more snarl california's exacting
18:56environmental regulations which triggered all manner of reviews lawsuits and delays as anyone
19:02who's renovated a home knows delay adds to price so did the high u.s labor and construction costs at
19:09least compared to many other countries and while the federal government contributed modestly under the
19:15obama and biden administrations the burden fell largely on the state when construction started was the
19:21financing there to complete this this rail it wasn't let's be real we had a lot to learn and
19:28we had a lot of growth to do and you know there's it's arguable whether you know we should have
19:32been
19:33clearer about that by 2019 cost ballooning in the timeline years off schedule bipartisan political
19:40pressure mounted newly elected governor gavin newsom said this in his first state of the state
19:46right now there simply isn't a path to get from sacramento to san diego let alone from san francisco
19:54to la under newsom who didn't respond to repeated interview requests california decided to focus on
20:00that initial central valley segment a route few clamored for and fewer are likely to ride though the
20:07ultimate goal remains connecting northern and southern california when you have a project like this and when
20:13the when the budget no longer permits you to finish it the way you wanted to you start cutting off
20:19your arms and legs lou thompson helped found amtrak in the 1970s and until 2024 sat on california's high
20:27speed rail peer review group we've heard people say time to cut bait we've heard people saying what
20:33happened in the past is the past failure is not an option failure is always an option
20:39is that what's going to happen here uh no i don't think so but i think what will happen in
20:45the short
20:45range is that they will cut back and do the best they can with the money they have available here
20:51outside fresno in california's central valley one of the few signs of concrete progress literally
20:56structures like this locals here jokingly refer to it as their own stonehenge ideally these bridges and
21:04viaducts will one day be used to support california high-speed rail but for now these are curiosities
21:10in a field monuments to promises that haven't been met and plans that haven't been executed
21:17ironic because american rail was once the world's envy in the 1800s the u.s government oversaw the birth
21:24of the transcontinental railroad stitching the country together as it expanded westward we turn to the
21:30future in the 1950s the eisenhower administration decided that the transportation vanguard was off
21:37the tracks creating and critically continuously funding the interstate highway system and the
21:44family car is in tip-top shape fueling the world's proudest car culture meanwhile japan's famous bullet
21:50train opened in 1964 and today more than 20 countries have high-speed rail generally defined as cruising at 150
21:58miles an hour or more yes germany and france and china but also turkey indonesia egypt has broken ground
22:06the obvious question there is like how can it be that we can't get it done and they can get
22:12it done
22:12right we know we can do this it's an economic engine mike reininger is managing director of bright
22:19line west a private company that believes it can achieve what california has it oh wow next stop zurich
22:27it's like a european trade system this train which opened in 2018 and runs between miami and orlando
22:34hits top speeds of around 125 miles an hour not quite high speed but close it's akin to a beta
22:41test for
22:42bright lines next project a bullet train connecting la and las vegas in just over two hours a trip
22:48that can take five hours by car bright line west will be true high speed rail first time in the
22:54country and we'll operate at speeds of about 200 miles an hour maximum out west bright line is solving
23:01the right-of-way issue by running on the median of the i-15 highway construction has already begun on
23:08some of the station structures the plan is to start service in 2029 what are you telling people to get
23:14them out of their cars or getting them to avoid the airport it's more enjoyable it's safer it's
23:20reliable this really is all about changing people's behavior you don't think we're just this car culture
23:26is intractable it's so hardened and it's so much a part of the american psyche it just can't be cracked
23:32i i don't think so at all cultural questions aside bright lines florida trains run at street level
23:39through crowded neighborhoods and according to numbers compiled by the miami herald and local
23:43public radio more than 200 people have been hit and killed by the trains in the near decades since
23:49operations began bright line says that running rail in the desert out west where track crossings won't
23:55be at street level will be a safer proposition then there are the finances the stratospheric costs of
24:03building and running a rail line vastly outstrip revenues analysts have downgraded bright lines
24:09debt to junk raising questions about private rail as a business to what extent big picture do you
24:15worry about the future financial viability of bright line the business has built slower than we
24:21originally expected it to build we thought we would be carrying more passengers today than we are
24:26the business is in fact growing month over month year over year that's a great thing that solidifies in
24:33our mind the viability of the business bright lines west coast project has already received some federal
24:39funding and is hoping for a six billion dollar loan from the trump administration if you look around
24:44the world for the most part the infrastructure systems are funded by the public sector you do see
24:51a role for government here absolutely we we welcome it back in california the rail authority insists state
24:57funds can cover the cost of the central valley leg as for the rest just to be clear as we
25:03speak right
25:03now are the funds there to complete la to san francisco the entire amount of money we need not there
25:10today
25:11but do we believe we can get those funds to get the project done absolutely how much do you estimate
25:18it's going to cost to connect high-speed rail san francisco to la today we estimate with the right
25:23optimization just over 125 billion dollars i think 126 billion dollars is the current estimate for
25:29that that's more funding than amtrak has received in its history and still leaves a shortfall of
25:35roughly 90 billion dollars that's a big gap to fill it is a big gap to fill but again we
25:41have an
25:42understanding of how to get there and to fill that gap a gap the authority hopes to fill with a
25:48new
25:48plan to cut costs lure private investment and connect to bigger cities much sooner
25:54but there's another challenge to building anything today the swirling winds of a political climate
26:00in which one party pushes and the other reflexively polls remember gavin newsom's pessimism in recent
26:07months he's championed the project this is not just a transportation project this is about reimagining
26:14the future of this region meanwhile in 2025 president trump canceled four billion dollars in federal grants
26:21for the train swiping at a political nemesis in the process did you ever hear of gavin newscom he has
26:27got that train is the worst cost overrun i've ever seen in a statement to 60 minutes secretary of
26:34transportation sean duffy said the administration is in favor of high-speed rail but this project has
26:40quote wasted billions in taxpayer dollars yet delivered nothing can this be done without help from the federal
26:47government this initial segment we believe so the ultimate 494 miles of building this out without
26:55the federal government's help will be challenging there's no doubt about that is this a non-starter
27:00to build a project like this without federal funding well not only can't it be done it shouldn't be done
27:07uh because a lot of the benefits of the project the reason why you build a project is public pollution
27:13reduction uh congestion reduction improved safety comfort reliability all of those things are public
27:22benefits there are other ideas for u.s high-speed rail say dallas to houston but nothing else in the
27:29building stage leaving that uneasy overarching question morocco has high-speed rail and serbia
27:36and china and japan and western europe why don't we what's your simple answer well the simple
27:42answer is they've decided they want to do it and pay for it and we haven't you think we will
27:46in our
27:47lifetimes i don't know i'm dubious i'm dubious absent a national political will to work with the states
27:55to create some of these systems i think it's going to be in of course my lifetime almost certainly not
28:01but maybe yours i don't know
28:15every year on mardi gras morning something extraordinary emerges from the back streets of new orleans
28:21groups of black revelers most tourists will never see they call themselves mardi gras indians or black
28:28masking indians and they roam the city's neighborhoods in dazzling hand-sewn suits the tradition dates to
28:36the 1800s as a way to honor their ancestors and according to mardi gras indian lore is rooted in
28:43profound respect for native americans said to have sheltered enslaved africans who had escaped it's an
28:50expression of joy protest and pride passed from generation to generation on this easter sunday you'll
28:58meet the artists and musicians preserving the culture and take in the sights and sounds of one of
29:04america's last true secret societies
29:14if you're lucky enough to find them you'll discover a vibrant tapestry of african caribbean and native
29:22american threads part of the cultural gumbo that is new orleans
29:30these extravagant suits plumed bejeweled beaded and sequined are handcrafted in secret for an entire year
29:39to be unveiled on mardi gras day
29:46that's big chief demand melanson of the young seminole hunters announcing his arrival
29:53chawa who the best who got the best b work who got the best rhinestones who could sing the best
30:00who got the biggest tribe who don't that's what it is there are dozens of groups calling themselves
30:07tribes the leader is known as the big chief who along with his big queen and their crew strut through
30:14historically black neighborhoods searching for other tribes when big chief demand meets another big
30:21chief chief they square off in mock battle competing to show whose suit is in their words the prettiest
30:32we saw demand face down tribes all over the city what just happened back there looks like he just
30:39found out but you won yeah i think i did yeah yeah because we don't fight we don't fight
30:51who are you on mardi gras day when i put that suit on i'm big chief demond malone song is
30:57that different
30:58from the mon who's sitting here in front of me yes indeed yes how different somebody that's ready to
31:03honor everything that i was taught by my elders and i'm ready to kill you day with the needle and
31:08trade needle and thread to do the work of his heart and hands big chief demand and his wife alicia
31:16meticulous as surgeons sew beads the size of chia seeds on a canvas and stitch rhinestones in place
31:23with dental floss painting with beads making artwork for his suit what to you makes a suit pretty
31:32the hookup what do you mean how it's laid out how the velvet gets around it how you break the
31:38feathers
31:39how you manipulate the feathers how many rows of rhinestones you have around the beadwork that's the
31:43perfection of knowing your hookup if you that good oh wow this year's suit tells the story of the amistad
31:51a slave ship seized by the captive africans in 1839 led by a man called sin k
31:59this panel shows when the africans won their freedom in a case that went to the u.s supreme court
32:05look at
32:06this john quincy adam he was one of the lawyers on the case my god so you're doing this like
32:13non-stop
32:13i sold some six in the morning to 12 at night and this is every day every day every day
32:19why
32:21that's it man it's it without these beads i couldn't breathe and every breath is hard-earned
32:31it can take thousands of dollars and thousands of hours to design and sew a suit for years big chief
32:37demand was laying concrete and cooking lobsters pouring all his spare time and money into his
32:43creations he now makes a living as an artist this year's suit cost 25 000 but this flamboyant display
32:52is not a beauty pageant it's the flowering of deep roots the community is what makes me it's my fuel
33:00the people your fuel yeah it fuels the fire because you're doing it for them like you do this for
33:08your community and your people it is the greatest kept secret in america been throughout the world
33:14today is the mardi gras indian culture this culture is date back to slavery days i have hope howard miller
33:22is the president of the mardi gras indian council a governing body for the tribes and chief of the creole
33:28wild west he told us it's a culture shaped by resistance to oppression and sustained by resilience
33:36how would you explain the mardi gras indians to people who don't have a clue what they're about
33:42well we weren't allowed to go to those big parades and stuff so this in our community was about a
33:48lifting our people in a proudly manner there's no one definitive origin story but historians have found
33:56references to the tradition dating back to the mid-1800s according to stories passed down through
34:02generations when enslaved people escaped new orleans native americans in the bayous gave them refuge
34:09today many tribe members claim indigenous and african roots masking some say began as a way to honor
34:17those indigenous tribes while disguising or masking their african identity because here in america especially
34:25here in the south everything about africa was forbidden so we went behind a mess as innings to
34:31practice our culture was it easy to join a tribe no it wasn't in 1969 it took then 12 year
34:38old howard miller
34:40six weeks just to get in the door of a big chief's house the tribe's headquarters i had a friend
34:46of
34:46mine he was in it and i would um go around there with him trying to get in but they
34:52wouldn't let me in
34:53the gate i wouldn't even let you in the gate no i had to stay outside of york while he
34:56go in there
34:57eventually i got on the porch and i was watching all this hip magic with the suits and what they
35:02was doing and started rainstorm thunder lightning raining hard i'm getting wet and the chief said
35:10that boy's still on the porch and somebody said yep tell that boy to come on in here that's how
35:15i got in
35:16the house we visited the home of joseph pierre boudreau better known as big chief monk of the
35:23golden eagles tribe big chiefs aren't just heads of their tribes they're mentors and community leaders
35:29and big chief monk is one of the most respected but the working class neighborhoods that sustain the
35:36tribes have been thinned and scattered by hurricane katrina and gentrification 84 year old monk boudreau
35:43is determined to hold on to the community and legacy and is preparing for his 72nd year of masking
35:51we don't do it we can't do it but the world know that we're here and we've been here we
35:59ain't just
35:59got here we've been here we joined the boudreaux in a sewing circle before mardi gras for decades big
36:07chief monk sewed suits for his children and grandchildren this year they gathered and helped
36:13him sew his my whole family's talent you know by just sitting there watching me for all these years
36:20you know as kids it was always right there while i was sewing sitting right there
36:31all those long hours of sewing inspired a song
36:39in the 1970s
36:42monk was one of the first to marry mardi gras indian chants to new orleans funk his albums earned two
36:49grammy nominations his son joseph and grandson juwan often sang back up we met them monk's daughter
36:58winoka and grandson marwan at one of monk's favorite new orleans clubs tipitinas what's his impact on the
37:07culture the impact that michael jordan had on basketball yeah i'll put it like like that like
37:11you can't mention mardi gras without mom yeah i'll achieve it i never saw him take a break like i
37:17never
37:17say i never saw him say oh this year i'm not coming you know my father he took something that
37:23was made
37:24for the culture in the streets and he was one of the pioneers that took it global there's not a
37:31person
37:31in the city of new orleans that sows an indian suit and they don't put on his music big chief
37:38demand
37:49included he's moved by the music and the weight of his calling the expense almost left him destitute
37:57you sacrificed a lot to make these suits you lost a house because you were so consumed with making your
38:05suit yeah yeah because it's it's hard i know it's hard but it's hard losing the house didn't make you
38:12stop what why why because you got put out of your house no indeed i i'm preserving the culture and
38:21the
38:21fine art world has taken notice his suits and beaded portraits have been displayed in museums and galleries
38:28all over the world it's allowed him to buy a new house every inch of which was covered with plumes
38:35and patches the evening before mardi gras y'all ready after working through the night big chief demand
38:43emerged transformed in a suit that stood more than 10 feet tall and weighed 120 pounds he used a u
38:51-haul to
38:52move from place to place but he tells us there was something else carrying him along the spirits come
38:59down every time we put it on especially with me you know my elders live through me and it's a
39:04opening of
39:06the gates what do you mean that means they came down they coming through me to walk in their shoes
39:12on the streets of new orleans like they taught us so what we doing is we preserving it for that
39:17next
39:18generation to be able to walk like i walked it's going to change my life the spirits it seems are
39:23opening other gates for him his work will be featured next month at the venice biennale in italy the
39:30world's most prestigious art exhibition do you think your success in the art world will encourage a
39:37younger generation to carry on with this culture i pray it does and i pray one of them picks up
39:44and
39:45you don't want to do what i do you know preserving tradition for the next generation we heard that
39:52a lot here it's what big chief monk lives for but this year he was too weak to march with
39:59his tribe
40:00just before mardi gras he was diagnosed with cancer
40:08but he came out on his porch to see the tribe off with the mardi gras indians most sacred hymn
40:32and the day is coming he told us
40:44for him to pass his crown on to the next chief like i say if you don't keep it going
40:48if you lose it
40:49it's gone forever finished you know i think just disappeared not here in new orleans not here in new
40:58you keep it rolling keeping it rolling and chanting and showing off a culture in full bloom too pretty
41:11too rooted to be too rooted to fade just yet
41:20the anatomy of a showdown it's warfare it's basically a battle
41:25the last minute of 60 minutes is sponsored by united healthcare coverage you can count on for your
41:42whole life ahead evangelist franklin graham has preached in all 50 states and provided disaster
41:51relief to more than 100 countries for tonight's reflections on america we ask graham which value
41:58does he believe shaped the nation the most faith faith in god is the value that most shaped america
42:07remember the pilgrims they came to this land to find freedom to live out their faith
42:11faith and it's people of faith who have been the bedrock the driving force behind our nation
42:17in years past where did people turn after a disaster not fema not to the government it was the
42:23church that took them in fed them gave them shelter clothed them it was people of faith
42:29who established our health care in this country our higher education was started by people of faith
42:35harvard yale princeton were founded to train ministers of the gospel from the remote villages of alaska
42:42to the tip of the florida keys today you'll find houses of worship and people of faith making a
42:48difference as a follower of jesus christ i want all people to know that god loves them that he cares
42:54for
42:54them so i see faith as the most important defining value in our nation and in every single life
43:03i'm bill whitaker we'll be back next week with another edition of 60 minutes happy easter and a
43:10joyous passover anything that's wrong with america can be fixed by what's right in america
43:22we are defined more by our shared values and our differences and we're having a conversation about how
43:30the stars shine brighter on cps morning watching rocky with rocky morning goodbye
43:35gail came in singing for me today cbs mornings weekdays at seven
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