HERMAN CAIN: When I was growing up, we didn't have a lot of money. I can remember my dad could only give my brother and I money to eat in the school cafeteria one day a week, on Fridays, and it was 25 cents. SEAN HANNITY: Pizza day.
CAIN: No, hot dog, apple and a carton of milk.
HANNITY: Oh sorry,
CAIN: It wasn't even pizza day. And so we would saying, you know, it would be nice to make $20,000 a year. Why? I had read somewhere that if make $10,000 a year, you could qualify for an American Express card. I wanted two of them. That was my material lifelong American dream. And I'll never forget the day that boss at the (INAUDIBLE) laboratory, when I was a ballistics analyst, called me in and said you're getting promoted, we're creating a new supervisor and mathematician position, you going to get promoted because you got your master's degree, you've done a great job.
HANNITY: He going to pay you?
CAIN: And I said, well, Wayne, thank you for the title, but what is it going to pay? And he said, 20,000 and one dollar a year.
HANNITY: You describe growing up poor.
CAIN: Yes.
HANNITY: In the segregated South. Your father had three jobs.
CAIN: Yes.
HANNITY: Janitor. What else did he do.
CAIN: Barber.
HANNITY: Your mom was a maid?
CAIN: Mom was a maid. My dad was a barber, a janitor, and a chauffeur.
Dad never complained or played the victim card. He was thankful that he had the health to be able to work three jobs. He worked three jobs until he could make it off two. He worked two jobs, once he could make it off one job. He did it the old-fashioned way. We didn't know we were poor.
HANNITY: You tell a story, the segregated South; you were out with your mom and brother, who by the way since passed away. I didn't know that until I read the book.
CAIN: Yes.
HANNITY: Where, you, you mom, you want to get a drink.
CAIN: Right.
HANNITY: With your brother. Your mom says to go get it. Tell the story.
CAIN: My mom used to go to the bargain basement of the downtown department store. That's what we could afford. So, my mom was downtown this particular time, with my brother and I. I was about seven and he was about six. And so there weren't a lot of people in there and so my brother and I said, "Mom can we get a drink of water?" And you have to go over to where the water fountain was. There was one on the left and there was a sign that said, "white," there was a sign over the other one that said, "color." And so my mom said to us, "Now, you boys make sure y'all go to the color fountain." We said, "OK, mom."
So we get to the fountain, my brother and I, and we look around, there wasn't a lot of people there and I said to my brother, "You go first." He tasted the white water and then we looked around and says, "Your turn." We tasted -- I taste the white water. Then we both taste the colored water and we looked at each other, six and seven years old, the water tastes the same. What's the big deal? We had not been taught segregation at the age of six and seven. We wondered what the big deal was about.
Now, that being said and growing in the segregated South, I am not mad at America. I don't have a grudge against America, because one of the things that has made this nation great in the short 235-year history, Sean, is its ability to change. A lot of other countries don't have that ability. We ought to be appreciative of the fact that this country has that kind of resilience.