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• Q & A with Mr. Hall and Mr. Moore
• About Same Kind of Different as Me

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Tavis: Denver Moore was homeless in Ft. Worth, Texas, when he met Ron Hall, a successful art dealer from Dallas. The two developed a lasting friendship as Ron's wife battled cancer. A friendship that grew stronger after her death. Their unique and empowering story is told in the new book, "Same Kind of Different as Me." All the proceeds from this book go to the Union Gospel Mission in Ft. Worth. Denver and Ron, nice to have you both on the program.

Denver Moore: Thank you.

Ron Hall: Thank you very much.

Tavis: Deborah must be smiling down on this project.

Hall: Oh, I think - she never knew we'd be on the 'Tavis Smiley Show', and this is maybe her 15 minutes of fame in Heaven.

Tavis: Aw. (Laugh) Tell me, before I get into the story of the two of you, since it is this unlikely woman, Deborah, who brought the two of you together, a homeless man and a wealthy art dealer, tell me about Deborah.

Hall: Oh, Deborah was a gutsy woman with strong convictions. She had a heart for the homeless. I was always out trying to make money and be successful in the art business, and she was always trying to help the down and the outers. But she was tuned into that. She was the most godly woman I've ever known, had a really, a heart for people that just really couldn't help themselves. She was always willing to help out with (unintelligible).

Tavis: That love, that connection to homeless, to those who are disenfranchised, where did that come from?

Hall: Just, she had a heart, a big heart. And she had more friends than anybody I've ever known. In fact, I would say there were probably 15 or 20 people that considered her their best friend. So she was a best friend to many, and so she had a big heart. And she just, she never, she hated to see any suffering. She hated to see any poverty. And she just would try to do her little part about that.

She started working initially when AIDS first became a problem; she started working with babies with AIDS, and bringing them to our home. And so, I think her heart was just molded to help people.

Tavis: All right, so you can be honest with me. How does an art dealer respond when his wife, this do-gooder, is out helping homeless people and making friends with people like Denver, and then you look up one day, and she's trying to bring babies with AIDS into your house? Honestly, how did you, at the time, process this woman who was, in fact, your wife? (Laugh)

Hall: Well, I was very proud of her. And so, I was always willing to write the checks, and she was always willing to do the work. So we had a good partnership there. And she encouraged me to do what I loved, and I encouraged her to do what she loved. And therefore, we were able to have a 31-year marriage. So, a great marriage.

Tavis: So Denver, we now know Ron's connection to Deborah. Tell me how you met this saint of a woman, (laugh) Deborah.

Moore: I didn't meet Ms. Debbie, she met me. (Laugh) And I used to try to avoid her when I come through the line, because it was just something about her that was different.

Tavis: Let me stop you right quick. When you same come through the line, you mean the line?

Moore: The chow line.

Tavis: The chow line at the homeless shelter.

Moore: Yeah, yeah.

Tavis: Okay.

Moore: At the mission.

Tavis: At the mission, right.

Moore: And she was serving at the mission, and every time I would come through the line, she says, what's your name? So, most of the time, I didn't say anything. I just got what I wanted to get, and just passed her by.

Tavis: So you just ignored her, initially.

Moore: Initially, yeah.

Tavis: Okay.

Moore: Until after a while, I came through the line, she says, what's your name? So I never did tell her, and she had to ask somebody else what my name was. Because when people are homeless, they don't necessarily want to tell anybody their name, because they figure that that would make any difference. So, they don't want to do something like that. But she kept, and was consistent, and after a while, one day, she come out behind the line. Come out behind the line, and pointed her finger in my face. I said, now, she's got a lot of nerve. (Laugh) Pointing her finger in my face. A lotta nerve. It embarrassed me.

Tavis: Yeah.

Moore: In front of all the homeless people that lived in the mission, those was eating, and embarrassed me, and broke me down. So I had to start talking. And then after that, she showed me that a person could be loved regardless of what state of being that they might be in. Because we don't never know what happens to people to make them become homeless, or to get away from the world.

Tavis: Give me an example. Tell me how, just one example of how she, to your phrase, broke you down with her love. When you say that she convinced you that you were loved, how did she convince you of that?

Moore: She convinced me with quite a few things. She told me I was going to a retreat, and I didn't wanna go to no retreat, 'cause I didn't know what no retreat was. And I definitely wasn't going off in the woods (laugh) with her and all her friends.

Tavis: Right. (Laugh)

Moore: So I kind of rejected that, and she kept being consistent and consistent. And I used to look at Mr. Ron, I said, he sure ought to tell his wife to leave a man alone.

Tavis: Yeah. (Laugh)

Moore: But he wouldn't say it. He'd stand with his arm folded in the corner. (Laugh)

Tavis: Yeah.

Moore: So I couldn't get any help from him. And eventually, she convinced me into going to a religious retreat with her. And they came and I think it was about five or six White women in the car. Nary a man. All (unintelligible) with nary a man in there. So I said now, wait a minute. I don't believe that this would be a good idea, for me to ride (laugh) off like this.

Tavis: This sounds like a set-up. (Laugh) Five White women asking a brother to ride in a car with them.

Moore: Yeah, (unintelligible) ride.

Tavis: To the woods, to a retreat.

Moore: In the woods. (Laugh)

Tavis: Yeah, yeah, I feel you on that. I feel you. (Laugh)

Moore: (unintelligible)

Hall: Actually, he hid from them.

Tavis: (unintelligible)

Moore: And she got me, I got in, and we went on the retreat. And she was just a person that didn't have no fear. Love overthrows all bad understandings. And it takes love to conquer the world. So we can replace and replenish that love through loving someone that seems to be unlovable, to bring about a change in their lives. And when you do that, then by them being changed, that'll make them become a product, and which you produced it through them. And you pass it on. And taught me the sense that this love that she gave me should be recycled. Just like anything else. (Laugh) Everything we got, we know we have a recycling plan.

And what made me understand that very much more better, I did a little work out at the labor force at the steel plant. And they would bring all those old cars in there, and they'd drop them in the ‘veyor, and the ‘veyor go through and cut ‘em up. And when they come out on the other side, it'd be a brand new piece of steel. So all the trash that was in the steel goes down in the bin.

And then maybe two or three days later, you'll be driving a brand new Mercedes Benz. (Laughs) Now you think you got a new car. You got a new car, but it's old steel.

Tavis: Recycled love.

Moore: Recycled love.

Tavis: I like that.

Moore: This is just the way life is.

Tavis: It's powerful, powerful, powerful. I assume, Ron, to have turned Denver on to this abiding faith that he now holds on to, Deborah must have been a person of faith herself. Talk about her faith.

Hall: Her faith is - she woke up early in the mornings, every morning, and had what she called her quiet time with God. She read God's word, and she memorized it. She stored her in, stored it in her heart. And in fact, one of the last nights that she was in the hospital, she began reciting whole books in the bible that she had memorized. But more than that, she didn't really go out and talk to the people about that.

She was very quiet in her faith. But she put it to work. She did the work that God really wanted us to do to helping people and putting - I like, a friend of mine told me that she loves people that live their life every day like God is watching them, and cares. And that they care, and know that he's watching. So.

Tavis: You and Debbie have kids.

Hall: We have two children.

Tavis: Two children. How did your children process their mother and her connection to these strange characters like Denver?

Hall: (Laugh) Their mother had done this before, had raised them, and they participated very freely and openly. And Denver is - actually, when we have a brand-new grandchild, and when we sent out an announcement about my new grandchild, Denver also sent out the announcement he had the grandchild. So, Denver has - shares a grandchild. (Laugh) My daughter considers Denver the other grandfather.

So he is really part of our family. Our family really accepted him, and no one in our family ever feared. I was the only one that feared Denver, and I was scared to death of him. I really thought, the first four or five months that I pursued the friendship, that he might actually kill me.

Tavis: Why did you think that?

Hall: Well, because the first time I ever saw him, he was threatening to kill 20 people around him. A fight broke out in the mission, and chairs were flying, and obscenities flying. And the only person standing after the fight was the lion of the homeless jungle, Mr. Tall, Dark and Handsome right here. (Laugh) At that time, he was shirtless, shoeless, and in just some old, raggedy britches, and threatening to kill everybody.

And that's when my wife starts jumping up and down like a cheerleader on the side of a football game, saying that's him, that's the man. I had a dream about him. That's how it all started. She had a dream. She saw Denver in her dream, and asked me to go into the inner city and help her find him. And when the fight broke out and she could see his face, she said that's the man that was in my dream.

Tavis: So, I can assume at some point you thought about committing your wife. (Laugh) There's something strange, something's wrong with my wife when she wants me to go find this crazy man who's throwing chairs.

Hall: I told her that - she told me she had heard from God on that, and I said well, Honey, you're gonna have to trust me. I was not at that meeting when you heard from God, (laugh) and I need to wait till I hear from him before I start trying to be friends with this guy. Because people had warned me, don't mess with him. This man is bad to the bone, and he'll hurt you.

Tavis: So tell me how you were turned in your admiration and love for Denver? How did that happen? 'Cause Debbie can only do so much.

Hall: Well, it took months. That's true. It took months. And Deborah had turned that responsibility over to me, to bring Denver into our friendship, into our family. And the first time that she saw him, in her dream, she said, 'There was a wise man in the inner city' - a verse in Ecclesiastes - 'There's a wise man in our city. He's poor, but he's wise, and he has wisdom for our city. And our city will be transformed by this man's wisdom.'

We have to find this man. And the face that she saw in that dream was that of Denver Moore. She had never seen him, ever, physically before. This was truly a dream from God that I would not have believed had not she been so credible, nor had I.

Tavis: Denver, talk to me about how you spend your time these days. It seems to me that one who has been exposed to this kind of love and the power that it holds has a charge, a mandate on his life, to then talk to other people about what it is that he's experienced, and I assume you do that all the time. (Laugh)

Moore: Yes, I do that quite often.

Tavis: So you out talking all the time.

Hall: All day, every day.

Moore: All the time, every day. And I've learned one thing, that when God takes someone and give them the light of love inside, that they can see who you are inside. She didn't look at me for how I looked. She knows who I was inside. And she seen the spark of light, that I was real. I was bad to the bone, but real to the good. (Laugh) And this is just the way it happened. My life has changed, and now I'm in the business of recycling that love to other people who seems to be unlovable.

And my understanding is that God want us to love the unlovable, because this is the only way that we can do the will of God, is to love the unlovable. And that is the perfect will of God; because normally, naturally, we would love someone who we think love us.

So that's transferring love, one from another. But when it gets where you can love the unlovable, then the Christ in you is the hope of glory.

Tavis: You better stop, Denver. You better stop. (Laugh) You'll get me shouting up in here like I'm in a Pentecostal church in small town, Indiana, somewhere. (Laugh) Tell me about the work of the mission ongoing today, Ron.

Hall: Ongoing. Well, Denver, without telling the whole story of the book and everything, Denver now goes back. After Deborah passed, I invited him to move into my guest house. And he's lived in my guest house now for five years. And he goes back into the mission, into the inner city, into the streets, and he takes care of the homeless people. He takes them food; he takes them a little money.

If somebody needs, he doesn't judge anybody, where they are. And he just helps keep hope alive for these people. He gives them a few dollars, and it doesn't matter. Whenever I give him money, he doesn't spend it on himself. He takes it, goes, breaks it down, spreads it around the streets.

Tavis: If I've ever not done justice to a text, I think this would be it. The book is called "Same Kind of Different as Me." And I'm sure at first hearing that title, you perhaps thought that I had mispronounced it. Now that you've heard their story, you understand the title of the book. 'Same Kind of Different as Me: A Modern-Day Slave, an International Art Dealer, and the Unlikely Woman Who Bound Them Together.'

The slave part we didn't get into, but Denver was a sharecropper back in the day, so you understand that. The book, written by Ron Hall and Denver Moore. You will not be disappointed. Ron Hall, an honor to meet you, and Denver, what a blessing it is to meet you, as well.

Moore: Yes, sir.

Hall: Thank you, Tavis.

Moore: Thank you.

Tavis: Thank you for being here.

Hall: Thank you so much.

Tavis: Glad to have you. Up next on this program, actor Duane Martin. Stay with us.