I do a comic strip called Jump Start, there's a whole bunch of people in my studio right now it's my garage, I don't want to make it sound like a fancy studio, there's a car in here.

One of the things I'm so excited about right now is my involvement with the Armstrong project.

The Armstrong project is at its heart something that allows dreams to come true.

The Armstrong project is an opportunity for the peanuts brand to help make a difference and change things in a positive way for young students who want careers in illustration and art.

Um specifically at historically black colleges, we don't know who the next brilliant artists is going to be.

We have to make young people treat their aspirations.

The dreams is real, the power that um we all possess to change our own circumstances and to change the world itself cannot be overstated.

It's embodied in Harriet Glickman.

She was an ordinary woman witnessing this world go through one of the most chaotic periods of its existence, the death of dr king, the separation, the rage and she just felt, I have an idea and I want to share it with the creator of peanuts.

If he can add a black character to that platform.

I bet he can calm the waters a little bit.

He said you know what?

I think it's a noble cause, but I'm just gonna come off condescending to black people if I do that, that's a rational, that's that's yes, good answer.

Harry Glickman said no it's not a good answer.

She had a plan B.

She kept pressing.

He thought better of it and said, you know what, I'll do it.

And when he submits his work, he's got a black character Franklin in it with a beach ball.

Hey, Charlie Brown, I think he lost this very sweet was 1968 and they said uh the scripture just submitted with the blue black boy franklin, I'm not running Schultz said I will quit before I allow you to segregate out a character from peanuts.

If you don't run these comic strips, just as I submitted them, I quit doing peanuts.

It was perfect timing for this world to see, wow, the peanuts has integrated its cast, the world desperately needed that one person can make a difference.

It's a very little difference, not earthshaking, but it's a difference.

She was such a force of nature, Her determination clearly affected Charles schulz strangely, I wasn't brought in into that fold because of franklin.

I was just brought into the fold because jumpstart appealed to sparky schulz.

My connections with sparky was very powerful because he supported what I was doing so early on.

I didn't have fans or anything.

It was puzzling to me, I'm meeting my hero and he's like, you know what I love about your your comic strip, it's got great characters and great characters, that's the whole thing.

There are times when I'm sitting here without ideas or anything.

I didn't hear him saying that and he was like, no, you're Strip is great.

And in 1994 he asked rob if it would be okay to call Franklin Franklin Armstrong and rob describes it as an incredible honor and an excitement to have a peanuts character named after him.

We have an obligation to be a blueprint for someone else to be that example and to show someone the way to shine a light on an otherwise dark path.

It wouldn't be the same if rob wasn't interested in helping us with this.

He's been mentored in his own career and now he offers that back to many, many students, this was a clear expansion of my whole purpose on earth.