House passes SAVE Act, MAGA budget blueprint passes, HBCU Talladega College,Black Voters Matter doc

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:24):
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Speaker 1 (01:38):
Today.

Speaker 3 (01:38):
It's Thursday, April tenth, twenty twenty five, coming up on
Roland Martin Unfiltered streaming live on the Blackstar Network. More
calls to investigate these crooks in the Trump administration when
it comes to who knew the tars were going to
be paused and who made off like fat cats. Also,

(02:01):
some members of Congress have also done the exact same
thing inside of trading. Is that's what's going on.

Speaker 4 (02:07):
Also, Donald Trump caught recorded talking about how his rich donors, oh,
how much they made, said how one person made two
and a half billion dollars, two point.

Speaker 3 (02:21):
Five billion dollars. When the news changed, another one Nate
nine hundred million dollars. And I told all these idiots,
the working class. They he didn't give a damn about y'all.
Speaking of the tars, A lot of people got opinions
on tars. Don't know what the hell they talking about. Ooh,

(02:42):
did reci have a couple of words for Steven A. Smith.
Also crucial votes the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility or the
SAVE Act passed by Republicans in the House. Massive voter
suppression bill will tell you all about it. Also, a
budget blueprint for MAGA narrowly passes because two Democrats died

(03:03):
in the last couple of months, making it easy for
Republicans to pass that particular bill. An HBCU in Alabama
is on the rebound. We'll talk to the interim president,
my brother, doctor Walter Kimbro how he is bringing back
Talladega College from financial disaster. Also, the Black Voters Matter

(03:24):
co fundals will be joining us, talking about a crowdfund
they're doing for a documentary that they have been working
on for the past five years called Love Joy and
Power Tools for Liberation. Plus, we'll introduce you to the
two co hosts of our new Blackstar Network show, The
Other Side of Change, and talk about how they want

(03:44):
to speak to millennials in gen Z about making deposits
of what I call that Black Bank of Justice. It's
time to bring the funk a roll up unfilter on
the Black Star Network. Let's go.

Speaker 5 (03:59):
Whatever it is. He's it, whatever it is.

Speaker 6 (04:02):
He's got the school, the fact, the fine and it
believes he's right on time and is rolling best believe
he's going putting it out. Frank's Loston News to politics
with entertainment just bookcase.

Speaker 1 (04:16):
He's going.

Speaker 6 (04:24):
It's Strolen Mantea.

Speaker 7 (04:29):
Rolling He's poky stressed, she's real, good question, No, he's
rolling Martin.

Speaker 8 (04:46):
Martin.

Speaker 3 (04:50):
Two big votes in the US House today. The Saved
Guard American Vote Eligibility or SAVE Act, is a major
voter suppression measure that, if it becomes law with disenfranchised
millions of LG voters and badly undermine US democracy. A
lot of women are not happy at all about that
particular bill as well. Plus Republicans, they are able to

(05:13):
battle their own members when it comes to this other
particular bill that deals with the budget, Democrats like Stacy
class get They say some seven billion dollars is going
to be added to the deficit as a result of
this bill. They are challenging Republicans as well on how

(05:36):
much this bill is going to impact regular ordinary Americans. Now,
let's just be real clear. Let's deal with the SAVE
at first. Married women are really upset about this particular
bill because of the impact on them. Republicans keep claiming,
with no proof whatsoever, voter fraud, voter fraud. You got

(05:56):
an idiot in the White House who believes in voter
fraud as well, that he cheat out of the election.
But the other Republicans who want to say in ballot
somehow that worked with these fools. He didn't. So this
bill's going to change how we register to vote. So
the Safeguard American Vote Eligibility Act require documentary proof of
citizenship for you can register or update your voter info

(06:20):
now on service. That may sound real, but let's talk
about that really means, especially for black folks, women, young folks,
rural communities, and anyone who's ever had to jump through
hoops just to get basic paperwork, if this bill becomes law,
you would need to show a passport which cost your money,
a birth certificate, or something like a real ID just

(06:40):
to register to vote in person. That means no more
online sign ups, number of registration drives at churches of barbershops,
no more signing up by mail. It also means if
you get married and change your name women, you could
be blocked from voting unless you track down your marriage license,
and that ain't easy. Check this out. Nonsenizens already can't

(07:01):
legally voting federal elections. It's a crime, but big piemp
is like prison time and deportation. But according to Republicans
like Chip Roy of Texas, who introduced the bill. This
is going to stop voter fraud, except actual cases of
voter fraud are essentially non existent, like smaller, smaller than that.

(07:24):
The bill passed the House with four Republican support and
even four Democrats. Now goes over to the United States Senate.
Let's talk to our pound. Doctor Nola Haynes, Georgetown University,
School of Foreign Service, out of d C. Doctor Greg Carr,
Department of Africa American Studies, Howard University, rece Colbert. She
is the host of the rec Cobert Show on Serious

(07:44):
XM Radio, joining us from DC as well. So, Recie,
you're married, I'll deal with you.

Speaker 1 (07:51):
First.

Speaker 3 (07:53):
I was on my way here and I was talking
to a brother of mine and he was like, yeah, bruh,
my wife is really pissed about that particular bill, he said.
So I said, I think, well, we talked about it.
He was just saying how she was just going off
this is the latest BS from these Republicans and when
we talk about this, how this means. I remember, So

(08:14):
I have I have TSA pre and I have clear
well for the longest my wife didn't have TSA pree.
I'm like, yo, what in the hell, what is taken
so long. Well, she needed the marriage the marriage license
for tsa pre and it was taken forever, and she
had to get it when we went back to Texas,

(08:36):
because not only would they say what they need, they
also want a certain type. So this is all about
shrinking the electorate.

Speaker 9 (08:46):
Yeah it is. And you know, I don't think it's
a good idea to pissed off a bunch of married women,
because at the end of the day, it's people gonna
do what they got to do. Most of the people
are going to do what they got to do. But
it's just it just feels like an attack. You know,
you already took away abortion rights, you already took away
all kinds of other stuff, and now you're going after

(09:09):
our ability to vote. I think this is actually gonna
hurt men more because people are gonna women gonna be like,
fuck it, I'm.

Speaker 10 (09:15):
Not taking your last name. I gotta do all.

Speaker 8 (09:17):
This this thing now just to have your last name.

Speaker 9 (09:21):
Sorry, not sorry, I'm gonna be my mom made a
name till forever. So maybe if women did that, then,
you know, then maybe men would think twice about forcing
women to have to jump through hoop after hoop after
hoop after hoop just to do things that are within
our right as citizens. So it's really really really jacked up.

(09:43):
But you know what, cheat now, cheat now let us
know what you're gonna do. Pull out all these tricks, now,
pull out all the stops. Now, give us time to
prepare real ideas going into effect that may everybody get
your documentation together, especially black people. I'm not saying that
alone will say because these people don't give it down
about the law. But the more documentation that you have,

(10:04):
I'm not justified what thesee we're doing, but I'm saying
for our survival purposes, the more documentation that we have,
the more ducks in a row that we have, the
more accessordally access we have to our birth certificate, social
security passport, realize the all that stuff.

Speaker 10 (10:20):
Then maybe maybe.

Speaker 9 (10:21):
If I'm being optimistic, that might save us a little
bit of a headache elsewhere. So I'm trying to see
the silver lining here and the fact that this is
just another way that is shown us that we got
to get ready to go to war in this country.

Speaker 3 (10:36):
But it's not just married women. Nola Janessa Goldbeck is
the CEO of the Vet Voice Foundation, and this here
was a video that the vote vets posted. I'm sorry
that VET Voice Foundation posted on their Twitter feed because
this bill is going to impact the military.

Speaker 10 (11:01):
Hi.

Speaker 11 (11:02):
I'm Janessa Goldbeck, Marine Corps veteran and CEO of Vent
Voice Foundation in the Marines. One of my billets was
voting Assistants officer, helping troops and their families vote no
matter where they were stationed. And that's why I want
to talk to you today about a dangerous bill Congress
will vote on this week, the Save Act.

Speaker 8 (11:17):
Which will make it much harder for people in uniform
to vote.

Speaker 11 (11:20):
The Save Act would require any American registering to vote
or re registering to prove their citizenship first in person
at a government office using a passport or birth certificate.
A driver's license doesn't count, and military ideas don't count either.

Speaker 10 (11:34):
Here's the problem.

Speaker 11 (11:35):
Though less than half of American adults have a valid passport,
millions don't have easy access to a birth certificate. And
if you're deployed overseas or stationed somewhere remote, how are
you supposed to show up in person at an office
in the US with your birth certificate?

Speaker 1 (11:50):
You're not.

Speaker 8 (11:51):
So let's be clear.

Speaker 11 (11:52):
Every state already has strong safeguards to ensure only eligible
citizens vote.

Speaker 8 (11:57):
Our elections are.

Speaker 11 (11:58):
Secure and run locally by bipartisan officials. Essentially, the Save
Act would strip voting access from millions of American citizens,
especially troops, disabled veterans, and military family station overseas. It's
red tape designed to silence the very people who risk
everything for this country. Fed Voice Foundation we represent nearly
two million veterans and military families, and we're telling Congress

(12:21):
absolutely not on the Save Act. If you care about
protecting your vote, speak up, call our tage representatives and
tell them, please stand up for our men and women
in uniform, Please stand up for disabled veterans, and vote
no on the Save Act.

Speaker 3 (12:35):
That's that's what they posted. Oh by the way, if
you're actually trying to get a passport for first time
users NOLA for first time, it's one hundred and sixty
five dollars, which includes one hundred and thirty dollars application
fee plus a thirty five dollars execution fee. If you're
renewing your passport, it's one hundred and thirty dollars. So

(12:58):
Republicans are saying you're going to pay a tax. This
is essentially a poll.

Speaker 12 (13:03):
Tax, absolutely, and you know it's also a tax to
get your birth certificate. I recently had to go through
all of that as someone who has two last names.
You know, I had to get all of my documentation,
my passport, my birth certificate from New Orleans, like it
was a whole thing, and it costs a few coins.

(13:25):
This is yet another blatant attempt. It is what it
is on its face. It is what it is on
its face. It is voter suppression. And it's also designed
to you know, make people all of these things, all
of these things that's shipping away at our rights, at
our liberties, is designed to fatigue us, right because it's

(13:46):
going to be more of this. It's going to be
more of jumping through hoops. It's going to be a
higher cost to pay to dissent and to participate, and
all of this is part of the authoritarian and playbook.
And I know that we are fatigued, especially as women,
like Recie mentioned earlier.

Speaker 5 (14:06):
You know, this started, this started last year, well even
before then. You know, we can go all.

Speaker 10 (14:11):
The way back to Ronald Reagan. But the way that.

Speaker 12 (14:18):
Republicans keep chipping away at women, it's as if we
don't have a voice, that we can't say what we
want for ourselves, you know that somehow.

Speaker 5 (14:33):
And actually I want to say something. I'm also really
offended by.

Speaker 12 (14:36):
The way that Republicans do this thing with branding, the
Save Act, saved from what everybody needs saving from them?
You know, Like that really irritates me. How they how
they do those word tricks like that, because when you
hear you know, when when when when they're when the
cult hears something like to say that, the first thing
they think of is that, oh, Donald Trump is coming in,

(14:58):
you know, to save us again from something.

Speaker 5 (15:00):
And the whole thing just irritates me.

Speaker 12 (15:02):
The vote irritated me, the way that they're messing with women,
like literally all of it.

Speaker 5 (15:09):
Well, here's it irritating.

Speaker 3 (15:11):
But here's the thing here, Greg, I mean, I get
Nolah's point, but guess what, that's what branding is all about.
That's what they do. They actually do that far more
effective than Democrats. And so it's how it's them trying
to control the narrative. The issue for me is like
I'm sitting here, I'm going on so if y'all need

(15:35):
to go to MyPad, so I see Eric Swallwell approaching
a video fifty one minutes ago. Here's a video Democratic
Women's Caucus posted twenty one hours ago, something from congom
Ill Ohmar six hours ago, Congoswoman Sarah Jacobs nine hours ago,
Congressman Morgan McGarvey five hours ago, VET Voice Foundation five

(15:59):
hours go. And I would look at others. I go
down here, this has coming from a Nichema Williams seven
hours ago. Let's see here this is so I'm going here.
So so here's the question that that I would have
for a lot of these Democrats. Where was where was

(16:22):
the narrative forming over the past two weeks? I again,
I can tell I can tell you Greg if I
pull up let me just see again, because I so
if I type in in my email Save Act and
type that in, I do not see many statements going

(16:51):
back before this week about the Save Act. See, this
is one of those things that if you're trying to
rally opposition, you kind of gotta do it, not the
day of or the day before. I don't know about
reci but I don't know a lot of content creators.

(17:11):
They were pushing this out to.

Speaker 13 (17:16):
No And while this is clearly an era a tactical era.

Speaker 1 (17:24):
I don't think it's a fatal era for this reason.

Speaker 13 (17:29):
History, if it doesn't teach us anything else, history teaches
us that our species, Homo sapiens, it's pretty predictable. When
pushed against the wall, we react. The first law of
nature has folks often like to say, so much so
that it becomes almost to truism is self preservation. What

(17:51):
does political self preservation look like in a white criminal
enterprise like the United States of America, which was rooted
in the criminal enterprise of settling colonialism, it looks like
what we're experiencing today. For those who read the novel
Margaret Atwood's novel The.

Speaker 1 (18:05):
Handmaid's Tale Handmaid's.

Speaker 13 (18:07):
Tail Or, saw the Hulu television series The men who
are really at the center of this little men. Little
men like Mike Johnson, the Maga Muppet, little men like
Junior Varsity Vans, and even Donald John Trump. It's almost
like they were all cast. These are very deeply insecure

(18:27):
human beings, driven by fear, hatred, and at the end
of the day, you know, very insecure. What you can
guarantee is that in their insecurity, they will bleed out
this hate filled vision because they're not being fully developed
in terms of their own social function. They will attempt

(18:48):
to craft a society in which they are in control,
but their historical reality has been that they are never
in control. Sometimes little men like Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini
can cause lot damage and there's a lot of blood
in the streets as a result of their choices. Other times,
little men like strom Thurman or Jesse Helms, little men

(19:12):
like George Wallace, these little men like Ronald Reagan, these
little men like Donald Trump, they will affect a political
crisis Richard Nixon. And what you find is that people
push back. Finally, what we're faced here with this Save
Act is the largest. In fact, some legal scholars are
calling it the first federal voter suppression bill. You know,

(19:34):
I would probably go so far as to go back
to the Future Slave Actor, even to the Constitution if
we start talking about incre corporating us, because they're not
talking about us.

Speaker 1 (19:42):
But what is the reaction, Well, there are a couple
of things that will happen and.

Speaker 3 (19:45):
Actually graduate you're pooring to CEEO the Brennan Center, Michael
Walman said, the House has just passed one of the
worst pieces of voter legislation in American history. The cine
must stop at the Save Act would put voting out
of reach for menis of American citizens, and he said,
one of the worst American history.

Speaker 13 (20:01):
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, And I will stop just short, not quite,
but just short of embracing this legislation for this reason.
One of these days we're going to figure out that
our vision of in America, where everybody is included, is
diametrically opposed to the white supremacist vision that is literally

(20:26):
hardwired into the founding documents of this criminal enterprise. And
I think we're getting to the point where we're finally
beginning to realize that what happens in the wake of
that this Save Act is going to disfranchise millions of
the hillbilly hoard in the flyover states, those who have
very very few resources in the so called blue states.

Speaker 1 (20:45):
We have an opportunity here.

Speaker 13 (20:46):
Let's say the legislation passes, has passed the House, Let's
say it passes the Senate, and it goes on to
the clown's desk to sign, and now it's the law.
I agree with, you know, you know, and Recie, we
now then more resources and.

Speaker 1 (21:01):
With a shrunken electorate.

Speaker 13 (21:02):
We make sure that those who are eligible to vote
overwhelm the ones that are not. This is going to
cut the throats of millions of their He'll billy hoard
who will show up.

Speaker 1 (21:12):
Unable to vote.

Speaker 13 (21:14):
That means that we've shrunken the field of combat and
it will take us coming.

Speaker 1 (21:20):
To power again to reverse this.

Speaker 13 (21:22):
But if this indeed becomes the law, I'm not only
ready for it, I embrace it.

Speaker 1 (21:27):
I embrace it for this reason.

Speaker 13 (21:29):
When the pain is so great that they turn on
each other, we need to stand back and not only
watch that violence, but take advantage.

Speaker 1 (21:40):
Of that political violence, because that's what's going to happen.

Speaker 13 (21:43):
The Maga Muppet could lose his seat in Louisiana because
his own constituents.

Speaker 1 (21:48):
Will not have the documents to be able to vote
for him.

Speaker 13 (21:52):
Meanwhile, the black people who live in his district and
the non blacks who are fully human, not the white supremacists.

Speaker 1 (21:58):
We can marshal our resources and ensure that they.

Speaker 13 (22:01):
Have the two hundred dollars to get the passport, to
retrieve the documents, that the documents are irretrievable, to figure
out workarounds in other ways to make sure that they
can patch that together we can fight and do many
things at once. I'm not saying that this is a
loss yet. I'm saying we have to now be very
clear about where we are and how to move forward. Finally,
I know you saw the news today that actually just

(22:22):
broke that these devils are going to try to take
the social Security numbers of legal immigrants to this country
and file them under what they call the death master
file and social Security where people who are dead shouldn't
get benefits.

Speaker 1 (22:35):
They won't get benefits anymore.

Speaker 13 (22:36):
They want to put living people in the death file
so they can strip them of social Security numbers so
they can't get bank accounts or credit cards or things
like that. They are going to continue in their hate
field insecure, insecurity driven campaign until they have created enough
people who will fight them in the courts, fight them
in the voting booth, fight them in the legislature, and

(22:59):
fight them in the And I'm telling you they're not
ready for that.

Speaker 3 (23:02):
Yeah. In addition to that, they passed this huge budget bill.
We're gonna talk about that next, So go to break.
We'll talk about this bill. And trust me, this is
all about giving money to rich folks. They are desperately
trying to whack as much money from medicating other programs
to give rich folks a tax break. We're gonna talk

(23:25):
about that on today's show. Plus we're gonna talk about
our HBCU Connect segment. How things are changing Brutalitega College
in Alabama and one of the ways that they are
fixing their problems cutting non revenue producing sports and I've
been saying that for the longest. We'll talk with that

(23:46):
interim president next. Rolling Unfiltered on the Black sil Network
this week on the Other Side of Change, be.

Speaker 8 (23:54):
Attached on education, book fans and what it means for us.

Speaker 14 (23:58):
Our guest Aliah Logan, who will join us talking about
what are the implications for the lack of investment in
education both locally and internationally and what this will mean
for future generations.

Speaker 15 (24:08):
Fighting back against any of the administration's attempt to essentially
make sure that people are uneducated and destroy history and
make sure you forget history and historical things that have happened.

Speaker 14 (24:20):
Check us out on the Other Side of Change, only
on the Black Side Network.

Speaker 7 (24:28):
This is Samplain, and this is David Mann, and you're
watching roland Mark until to.

Speaker 3 (25:00):
It was last year there were huge problems at Talladega College.
They could not meet their payroll, and so they announced
the hiring of interim president, doctor Walter Kimbro. He's worked
at numerous other HBCUs, two time president, and when I
saw the announcement, I called him. He's my offer brother,
and they wanted him to come there in August. He's

(25:22):
like no, no. He was literally driving to Talladega. He
was like, no, no, no, no, no. I need to see
the books right now. I need to see how bad
the problem is right now so we can fix this issue.
They saw almost a twenty five percent drop in student enrollment.
They had significant expenses, and so they had a major

(25:46):
financial problem. And so he went under the hood and
began to make the very difficult decisions on how to
fix the problem. Now, y'all know, we've covered many of
these stories beforehand. We've covered what's happening at Bathune Cookman. Tomorrow,
we're going to be in Raleigh, North Carolina for our
town Hall for Saint Augustine's University. Alumni wants to talk

(26:06):
about what's going on there. Students as well. They're having
financial issues, you name all of that we're going to
be at Martin Street Baptist Church. And here's the problem.
We've reached out to the administration, We've reached out to
the to the to the President, We've reached out to
the Chairman of the board trustees and the whole board
of trustees. They don't want to appear at the town hall.

(26:27):
They don't want to answer any questions. They don't want
to anything. Now they're pleading for the public's help to
save them. But you ain't trying to sit here and
actually talk about it where people can help you save
this HBCU. Last week at Talladega, they actually live streamed

(26:49):
their news conference announcing what they have been doing. We
carried that and we streamed it on the Blackstar Network.
President kimbro joins us right now and glad to have
you Backfrash. Before we get into what you all have done,
the first thing is please talk about why why is

(27:09):
it so important for HBCU leadership to not bury their
head in the sand, to run from people to go, oh, no,
we don't want it's our business. We don't want our
dirty laundry in the streets when it's already industries, when
you can't pay vendors, when you got lawsuits ben A
filed against you, with students are calling you out on
social media when don't have folks on campus because your

(27:31):
dormitories are all screwed up. Talk about why it is
important to be transparent with the public about the problem
and how you're trying to fix it.

Speaker 14 (27:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 16 (27:43):
So, and first of all, thank you for having me,
and hello to all of your panelists as well. It's
a very simple concept called taking out your own trash.
You have issues, you talk about them, as you indicated.
They called me in mid June said hey, we have
an opening, you know, can you My wife is a
graduate of Talent Diig. I looked at her, she said,

(28:03):
that's my school, and she kicked me out of the
house and I started driving. I mean, it was it
was really quick like that. It was like I was
on my way because I realized. I knew it was
bad because they had misspayroll, but just having been around,
you know, the HBCU presidency for twenty years, I knew
it was worse than that. So I got there and
started to realize there were a lot of issues. So
we had our initial press conference in September to say, look,

(28:25):
there are a lot of problems here. We're going to
be working on it. And then we decided to have
a follow up to say we've gotten this fifteen million
dollar loan that's going to help us. We still have
a lot of work to do. It is by no
means solved, but you have to let people know. I
also went around the country. I went to about fourteen
different cities meeting with the lums to say, this is.

Speaker 10 (28:44):
What's going on.

Speaker 16 (28:44):
Here is an accurate picture of where we are and
why we need your help. So I understand your frustration
because it frustrates me too that we have to get
out there and say when there's a problem, we have
to just say transparently, here's a problem, this is what
we didn't do well, this is what we've done well,
and this is how we're going to fix it. But
it's a very simple concept. I believe in it, and
we tried to practice at Talladega, which you know, people

(29:06):
have responded well, so we could say we made progress.
It still isn't perfect yet because the whole was so deep.
It's going to take us several years to really get
out the whole. But we want to keep giving people
updates we've done this. Now we've done this, I think
that's the way to go about doing it.

Speaker 3 (29:20):
And my bad, I said, talladega is talladega, So I
appreciate that. And the thing here the other pieces this,
And I was having this conversation with the sister who
is the board chair at Alabama State. You have got
to have a board chair who chooses to work with
the president and not work against the president. And you've

(29:42):
got to have a board chair who knows how to frankly,
keep their board in line where their ego and their
personal interests are not being put in front of the
interests of the university. It's student, faculty and staff right.

Speaker 1 (29:58):
No.

Speaker 10 (29:58):
Absolutely.

Speaker 16 (29:59):
I'm actually finishing a book reading by Joseph Jones. He
was president of Arkansas Baptist College for about a year
and a half. And in that book, I mean, it's
just a really hard take on HBCUs and he talks
about boards and board interference and there has been a
lot of that unfortunately at our institutions. I'm actually here
in Princeton, New Jersey for aspiring people who want to

(30:20):
be presidents, and we're gonna have sessions tomorrow to talk
about board and president relations But that's already an underlying
theme is that you watch presidentsies get undermined by board
members when they do those kinds of things. I've been
fortunate that Talladega to work closely with the board chair.

Speaker 10 (30:36):
We can laugh about when they're hard times.

Speaker 16 (30:37):
We can laugh together and cry together too, and you
have to have that kind of relationship when it's tough
like that. So I mean, I really appreciate her, but
we have to have more people who are going to
interact like that, because when they don't, they create these
problems that you end up having to talk about. And
then they create the problems and then, like you said,
you ask them to come on and explain it. It's
an opportunity to say what we're doing, and then they
run from you. So I have never been like that.

(31:00):
Understand it, but we've got to do better.

Speaker 3 (31:02):
So you go in, you look at it, you assess.
You don't walk in and just start firing people. You
don't walk in and just thart. But that was some
people who also left. So you did that. Then how
long did it take for you to assess and then

(31:22):
begin to say, hey, we got to start making some changes.

Speaker 16 (31:27):
So I started on Wednesday, June twenty six, I started
to get some data before I got there. I spent
that first weekend just coming through all the data. Then
on Monday, July the first, I had a meeting with
all faculty and staff and said, this is what I found,
and here just the short summary is we had a
twenty four percent drop in enrollment over a three year

(31:48):
period of time. We saw our discount rate, meaning this
is tuition that we don't collect. You say it's a scholarship,
but there aren't real dollars for that scholarship.

Speaker 10 (31:57):
So that discount rate.

Speaker 16 (31:58):
Went from under forty percent, which is reasonable, to almost
sixty percent.

Speaker 3 (32:02):
Wow.

Speaker 16 (32:03):
And then and then we increased our payroll by almost
seventy percent.

Speaker 3 (32:08):
So you just you added, you increased pay for about
seventy percent, but you're incoming revenue was down.

Speaker 16 (32:16):
And so I showed everybody. I just showed them the math.

Speaker 7 (32:19):
I said.

Speaker 16 (32:20):
I went to a math and science high school, so
I'm like, I do no math.

Speaker 10 (32:23):
I'm like, this math is why you have these issues.

Speaker 16 (32:25):
And so when you don't do those kinds of things,
you have vendors, and particularly all during the fall, I'm
trying to manage all these vendors who are saying, hey,
y'all owe us some money. Y'all owe some money. Where
are we're gonna get paid? Because we overspent for.

Speaker 10 (32:37):
A year and a half.

Speaker 16 (32:39):
So you know, when you overspend like that, you can't
pay the vendors.

Speaker 10 (32:41):
You're lucky if you can pay your faculty and staff.

Speaker 16 (32:44):
But then you can't pay the vendors. So those are
the kind of challenges. So when you presented it, I mean,
it was tough pill for people on campus to hear,
but they said, you know, we appreciated transparency, and we
know the kinds of things that we're going to.

Speaker 10 (32:55):
Have to do.

Speaker 16 (32:56):
And even people on campus had to make a sacrifice
where we had to do a tiered payroll reduction. People
who made the most had the highest percentage taken off
as much as twenty percent. Those like hundred fifty thousand
dollars didn't have any taking away.

Speaker 10 (33:09):
So there were lots of sacrifices.

Speaker 16 (33:10):
Contracts that they had with people who had never stepped
foot on campus. They actually got started getting rid of
those before I got there, which was great.

Speaker 10 (33:17):
But those are the kinds of things.

Speaker 16 (33:18):
We just were just spending money left and right, and
we didn't have the student base or the tuition base
to support that, and that created problems.

Speaker 3 (33:28):
Did you also did you also look at because this
is a problem that I keep seeing when folk have issues,
they're getting sue left and right. Now you got outside
law firms. Now you spending all that can different money.
You know, you know, we did a story the other
day talking about Saint Augustine's and there were two. In

(33:50):
the last two weeks, two tech companies filed lawsuits against
the university, one seeking eighteen million dollars in unpaid bills.
One of sue them saying they had early termination feeds
for defaulting on a contract after one year. Another vendor
claimed they were over one point three million dollars for

(34:11):
it infrastructure services. When those vendors were like, y'all were
getting paid, you go to them and say, hey, here's
a deal. I wasn't here, I'm new, I've assessed it.
Here's a deal. Don't sue us. Work with me so
I can get you paid. That you do that, we
had to.

Speaker 10 (34:27):
Absolutely, it was just you know, part of it.

Speaker 16 (34:29):
So when you're coming in new you can say I'm
sorry this, I mean, Roland, I have done more apologizing
than I've ever done in my entire presidential career, because
it's just like this is it's just outrageous people who
are saying, you know, this bill hasn't been paid in
over a year. There is an event company out of Atlanta,
a sound company, and you know they hadn't been paid.

(34:52):
And the guy who runs the company is somebody I've
known since I was a kid.

Speaker 10 (34:55):
And I kept teasing the lums.

Speaker 8 (34:56):
I said, he's.

Speaker 16 (34:57):
Gonna text me one day and people who know me
and my dad will call me by my middle name.

Speaker 10 (35:01):
I say, he's gonna say, Mark Kimbroke, where is my money?

Speaker 16 (35:04):
And when he texted me that day and I called him,
we were just screaming on the phone, laughing because we
knew this was coming. I was like this, I'm like,
this is somebody I grew up with, and y'all have
been paying him in almost a year.

Speaker 10 (35:14):
So it was a lot of that.

Speaker 16 (35:15):
But I mean, you had people who are threatened and to
say we might have to take legal.

Speaker 10 (35:18):
Action, but we have been able to avoid that.

Speaker 16 (35:20):
And they did have some previous lawsuits that we were
even able to settle and then pay those out as
well as a settlement.

Speaker 10 (35:26):
So that was good, but I.

Speaker 16 (35:28):
Have apologized to just so many people because it's just
unconscionable for us to have done what we did.

Speaker 10 (35:34):
So I did a lot of that.

Speaker 3 (35:36):
The reason I know this willing to sounds similar. I've
run three black newspapers, and when I took over the
Chicago Defender, what you were describing is exactly what I
had to deal with. And it was hard for some people.
But my whole deal is the paper had lost The
Chicago Defender had lost money twenty consecutive years, and all

(35:58):
these people are run around talking about, oh, how important
it was and how valuable was and I was like,
y'all broke. I'm like, so y'all acting like y'all the
New York Times, You're not. You're broke. And it was
hard people to deal with, but you did something. And
this is where egos come in. You said, y'all, we

(36:19):
can't afford these sports. Walk walk walk us through that.

Speaker 16 (36:25):
So my first week there, actually our gymnasticis coach reached
out to me and she said, I'm.

Speaker 10 (36:30):
Just sort of shaky about what's going to happen.

Speaker 16 (36:32):
And roland I spent a month learning all the ins
and outs of gymnastics, and so by the end of
my first month, the end of July, we had a
zoom meeting a board chair with the gymnastics students and
parents and said we're ending gymnastics. And there were several
reasons why. First of all, it's a non revenue generating sport,
and between coaches, between student scholarships both athletic and academic.

(36:57):
We didn't have a facility to practice in, so they
were driving to Birmingham three times.

Speaker 10 (37:01):
A week, which is an hour away. We're NAI school.

Speaker 16 (37:06):
NAI got rid of gymnastics as a conference in the
mid nineteen eighties, so we had to compete against NCAA
Division three schools and those gymnastics programs were in the
Midwest and in the Northeast, which meant anytime they competed
they had to fly, except there was a one meet
at Centenary College in Shreveport, Louisiana.

Speaker 10 (37:25):
Every other time you had to fly.

Speaker 16 (37:26):
So for sixteen people, we're spending over three hundred thousand
dollars in a non revenue generating sport.

Speaker 10 (37:34):
We couldn't handle that.

Speaker 16 (37:35):
And the example I started using with alums is that
the University of Alabama has a very good gymnastics team
that loses one point nine million dollars a year, but
nobody cares because every Saturday in the fall, we watched
the football team on CBS, and they're making a ton
of money. They pay for all the non revenue generating sports.
We don't have anything like that. So we started with gymnastics,

(37:55):
and then we looked at others that our conference, the
HBCU Athletic Conference, didn't sponsor.

Speaker 10 (38:00):
Our conference doesn't sponsor golf.

Speaker 16 (38:01):
So for us to have a golf golf team, you're
paying the costs and you're paying to be in another conference.
We don't have men's volleyball in HBCU Athletic Conference.

Speaker 10 (38:12):
We were in another conference for that. We got rid
of that.

Speaker 16 (38:14):
It's just we had to do things that made sense
and not just add all kinds of things. And it's
not to say that at some point in time they
can go back to that, but they just added these things.

Speaker 10 (38:22):
There was no.

Speaker 16 (38:23):
Strategic plan, there was no feasibility study.

Speaker 10 (38:26):
So you know, you.

Speaker 16 (38:27):
Find out one day it's like we're going to add gymnastics,
and nobody the bar doesn't even know you just added.

Speaker 10 (38:32):
It became a vanity type.

Speaker 16 (38:34):
Thing, like, oh, look we can get, we want to get,
you know, publicity, like this guy that wasn't smart and
that hurt us. So we just had to come in
and like I said, there are a lot of people
upset that. Oh, I can't believe y'all did that. I
looked at the just the numbers, and when you add
everything together, it did not make sense.

Speaker 10 (38:49):
It's cool and everything.

Speaker 16 (38:51):
And actually one of the students who's done very well,
she went to Temple and she's gone viral. It's been
a blessing for her not to be there, and I'm
happy for her. She's doing very well. But we don't
have the resources that Temple has to do gymnastics. So
you know, for me, it's just common sense.

Speaker 3 (39:05):
So you cut gymnastics, you cut golf, and you cut
some other sports.

Speaker 16 (39:11):
So golf will start. The rest of them will start
in the fall. So golf, indoor track, which we can
always bring back in particularly if our athletic conference does.

Speaker 10 (39:20):
I mean, it's just additional meat, so that could.

Speaker 16 (39:21):
Come back, men's volleyball, and then they had a tumbling team.
So those are the ones that will be cut in
terms of our program. So we want to focus on
the sports that our athletic conference sponsors.

Speaker 10 (39:33):
Those are the sports that we should have. All these
extra sports.

Speaker 16 (39:36):
We don't have it like that that we can just
spend money adding sports.

Speaker 3 (39:40):
What does that save you per month? I saw a
story it said it save you three to four hundred
grand a month.

Speaker 10 (39:46):
Well that was that was based on our payroll.

Speaker 16 (39:50):
So we were able to reduce our payroll three to
four hundred thousand dollars a month.

Speaker 10 (39:55):
That's how much it balloomed.

Speaker 16 (39:57):
I mean, so you're talking about saving you know, over
three million dollars a year on payroll along that was
the biggest I mean, so at least we're part of it.

Speaker 10 (40:04):
But the biggest increase was payroll.

Speaker 16 (40:06):
You just you can't increase your payroll over a three
year period by almost seventy percent when you have fewer
students and your collecting list tuition. It's just it's just
simple math. It doesn't make sense. So we had to
start with that. That was just the low hanging fruit,
like you got too many people, you got people.

Speaker 10 (40:22):
On contract that are here. We just can't do that anymore.

Speaker 3 (40:26):
Questions from panel, Greg call you.

Speaker 1 (40:29):
First, thank you, thank you, Roland, good to see you
for the president.

Speaker 13 (40:34):
Yes, sir, Yeah, man, I just finished Jones's book too
Black now historically black.

Speaker 1 (40:39):
I'm glad to know you know that, brother.

Speaker 13 (40:40):
I would like to see the two you all talking
about those things and that he raises in his book.
And in fact, that would be the question I would
ask you generally. You know, our HBCUs. We have identities.
We have, you know, the the allure, the culture, the
nurturing you going and doing this heavy lifting, this hard

(41:02):
work of kind of pruning, and what elements of Talladega
would you say to folks who are watching this who
might consider Taaladiga, those high school seniors and juniors and
folks who come on your campus for college tours, what
would you say, now are the strengths of Talladega in
terms of curriculum, in terms of teaching and learning that
students can look at now and perhaps even see more clearly,

(41:24):
given the fact that you're doing this hard work of
kind of pruning so that the rest of it can grow.

Speaker 16 (41:30):
Yeah, there are some opportunities on Talladega is one of
those small liberal rs HBCUs that, over time, I think
really struggle post integration. You know, in the nineteen thirties,
forties and fifties. If you are a graduate of Talladega,
you could go to graduate school at the University of
Chicago without taking any kind of exam because it's like, oh,
you went to Talladega, you're good. And so we got

(41:51):
away from a lot of that, and so we're at
a period right now which I keep telling people the
new president that comes in is going to really have
to refine what that is.

Speaker 10 (41:59):
Because I think we've gotten away from that.

Speaker 16 (42:01):
I mean, we still have a pretty significant footprint in
the stem areas. Historically we've had some of your major
civil rights attorneys in the state of Alabama have come
out of Talladiga.

Speaker 10 (42:13):
But a lot of those are things that.

Speaker 16 (42:14):
We can talk about from days you know, going by,
and not necessarily right now. So you know, as we
start to prune and figure out and you know, scale
it back, we need to say what are going to
be our centers of excellence and build on those. There
have been some historically, but at this point, because we've
been all over the place, like a lot of places,
when you start to struggle for students, you just start

(42:35):
throwing everything at the wall. Let's add a band. We
added a band in twenty twelve. We do all these
other kinds of things that you sort of get away
from what we have been known for. So we got
to dig deep into the DNA of the institution again.
And that's where I mean, we've had this conversation. We
have to have leaders of HBCUs that value HBCU culture.
And it can't just be people who come in and
just say I want to be a president, Because when

(42:56):
you come in and you don't value HBCU culture, you
do damn Isa that Jones talks about it in this book.
I see it just in real time now on so
many campuses that people, you know, I just want to
be a president, it doesn't matter where, and if you
don't value HBCU culture, you end up doing damage to
those institutions.

Speaker 1 (43:13):
Thank you, brother Racy, I see you.

Speaker 10 (43:19):
I love that.

Speaker 9 (43:20):
If don't make dollars, it don't make sense. So it's
a little unpopular. But I'm curious what Roller alumni playing
or have they factored into kind of your strategy around
maybe getting more money. I saw that collections were part
of the strategy, but I'm wondering if alumni giving is
something that you all are pursuing more heavily.

Speaker 16 (43:43):
Yeah, absolutely, so that was one of the things that
I did. And it was interesting, rec because when I
first got to Talladega, you know, I said, I got
to go out and tell the lungs what's happening. And
people just said, well, let's just have a zoom and
do it. I was like, no, there are some conversations
you need to have face to face. And so then
you have people questioning this, say, well, you know the
schools got financial problems.

Speaker 10 (44:02):
Why are you spend the money going to.

Speaker 16 (44:03):
New York and New Jersey and the Chicago and Los Angeles.
I said, because I think this is important, and secondly,
I'm paying for it, so you can't tell me what
to do with my money if I'm trying to tell
y'all what's going on.

Speaker 10 (44:15):
And people understood that.

Speaker 16 (44:16):
Then it was like, so I'm not just somebody who
is here for a year doing this. When I do
this kind of work at our schools, I'm in one
hundred percent.

Speaker 10 (44:24):
I give back a certain percentage of the salary that
I get.

Speaker 16 (44:27):
Even when it was offered to me, I cut it
down because I was like, first of all, what they
were paying the previous president was more than I was
making that dealer and I was just like, that doesn't
make any sense. How you're gonna make more Talida, Alabama
than you are in New Orleans. I said, so cut
that down. And secondly, I'm giving back a percentage to
the institution. Plus all the travel that I've been doing
when I go to meetings and those things, I've been

(44:48):
paying for that. So I want people to know that
I'm in. I'm not just here to collect the check.
I'm in to try to help this institution, to tell
alums that they've got to be involved too. So we've
seen an increase in alumni giving. That's been good. That
we have alumni reunion weekend coming up. We're going to
really push them to keep doing that. But it still
is a hard lit because some you know, they feel
like they got burned. They you know, last May they

(45:08):
were told everything's good, we got money, and then they
see us in the news saying we can't make payrolls.

Speaker 10 (45:13):
So people just like, are we going to make it?
And I understand that, and.

Speaker 16 (45:16):
You get some donor fatigue, but you have to tell them, like,
y'all have to stay with it. We're we can't wait
for somebody to come save us. It's not gonna be Oprah.
It's not gonna be Robert Smith. It's going to be us.
So we have to own that and say this is
our school and we're going to save our school.

Speaker 10 (45:30):
Period period.

Speaker 9 (45:32):
They got the right person for the job. It's too
bad you Anderi.

Speaker 5 (45:37):
Nola, thank you so much. This clearly is your ministry.

Speaker 12 (45:42):
Thank you so much for doing this work and growing
up in New Orleans and growing up in the HBCU city,
I definitely understand a lot of these conversations that continued
to persist. So my question is around near term and
long term strategy, very close to to Reesi's question. I mean,
you know, to the three schools that I went to
have huge endowments, one of them have the largest endowment,

(46:05):
and still have a hard time getting alumni, you know,
to give back. So I know that that can't just
be you know, the strategy to sustain Taladiga, you know,
surviving and thriving. So I'm very curious what are some
of those You've definitely talked about those immediate fixes, you know,

(46:28):
like taking you know, with stack with with faculty and
staff and athletics, But what about near term and long
term what is that looking like?

Speaker 16 (46:38):
Yeah, so that's that's a good question. So I think
there's still multiple strategies. You know, and this goes back to,
you know what Greg was talking about. You have to
have those centers of excellence that people say, I want
to invest in that so.

Speaker 10 (46:50):
That I can help this institution. A lot of times,
you know HBCUs.

Speaker 16 (46:53):
We get in the trouble, we just say, well, just
give us some money and help us out, and people
just don't want to give to that. You want to say,
I have a great program in this and I want
you to invest in this program. We started cybersecurity, We've
got to have more investment in that to grow that program.

Speaker 10 (47:07):
I think that that's very important for us to do.

Speaker 16 (47:09):
So we have to identify those kinds of centers of
excellence that are very important for us to have.

Speaker 10 (47:13):
But it is it's a part.

Speaker 16 (47:15):
Of alumni and understanding that building the endowment is a
part of your permanence as an institution. This is a
historical fact that I found out around nineteen thirty. Telldiga
College had an endowment of a million dollars. It was
one of the seventh richest HBCUs in the country in
nineteen thirty with a million dollars. Today, our endowment is
less than three million dollars, which makes us now one

(47:38):
of the poorest HBCUs. So some of the problems are
not just recent history A There's been ninety years of
challenges in terms of us building an endowment to really
have permanence. That endowment helps you, like when I need
to give scholarships, I'm not just discounting. I have real
money that I can take a draw from my endowment
legally to pay those scholarships. So we have to sorry,

(48:00):
And that's the long game. I mean you talk about
long term. Long term, you have to build out your
endowment to really have permits and then you don't get
caught in situations like this where you're so fragile. That's
very important. But this is like I said, when I
looked at it historical and I was like, man, how
can our endowment only be like less than three million
dollars when it was one of the richest in nineteen thirty.

Speaker 10 (48:20):
So those are the kinds of things.

Speaker 16 (48:22):
So short term, you have to grow your enrollment because
you need the tuition. You have to create programs that
are exciting for students and for donors. You have to
you know, increase alumni giving has got to be twenty
thirty percent.

Speaker 10 (48:32):
Those kinds of things.

Speaker 16 (48:34):
You have to have some wins in that, but you
also have to start figuring out how are we going
to develop fund long term. We're actually a part of
a pooled endowment program that UNCF is doing where we'll
raise five million, they'll match you with five million, and
that'll be ten million dollars to our endowment. Which if
we can do that in the next five years, that's
big for us. So UNCF is helping us to do
those kinds of things, and that's part of the strategy.

(48:56):
So there is a short term, but the long game
has to be endowments.

Speaker 3 (48:59):
That's very great. Get something else.

Speaker 13 (49:03):
Oh no, I just wanted to ask rolland I was
sharing with Roland brother Walter this amazing sister, doctor Virginia
newle Man. I saw this Messa, she do you mind
speaking something just in closing about her?

Speaker 1 (49:16):
I was blown away by this sister's story.

Speaker 5 (49:18):
Man.

Speaker 16 (49:18):
Yeah, So she died recently. Her funeral is tomorrow. She
was one hundred and seven years old, and so she
was a scholar. I think she taught math at Winster
Salem State University. She's in North Carolina. Actually, one of
the things I found out great her maiden name is
kimbro So I'm trying to figure out to be people,
you know what I'm saying. I was excited when I

(49:39):
read about her.

Speaker 10 (49:39):
But yeah, it was like just reading.

Speaker 16 (49:41):
That's Talladega has just jewels of people like this to say.
I mean, she ran for a public office in North Carolina.
I think she's one of the first black people to
have public office there.

Speaker 10 (49:50):
Taught at Winston Salem State, you know, math, all of that.

Speaker 16 (49:53):
So but yeah, she died at one hundred and seven
and her funeral is tomorrow actually, so yeah, just you know,
just one of those gems from the HBCU world that
Talladega has.

Speaker 10 (50:02):
Had one of them as well.

Speaker 1 (50:04):
Thank you brother, Thank you Ron.

Speaker 3 (50:05):
You said something I think is critically important when you said,
when you come in and you assess and you look
at what the spending is. I have engaged in lots
of conversations with people over the years. I've talked to
numerous presidents. I think I said to I shared with
somebody there one hundred and seven HBCUs and I've personally

(50:28):
been to sixty of them. And when I've sat down
with many presidents, and when I talked to them, I
always ask what do you do well? What I mean
by that is your majors? If why should someone come
to your school? And when folks to go, oh, we
do this and this and this and this, no, no, no, no, said,

(50:48):
I'm not asking you to name all of your degree programs.
What do you do well? The reality is when you're small,
when you have finite resources. And I was having us
the other day because somebody was asking me about my
twenty two inch carry on and because I did a
demonstration of what's in it, I said, I first start

(51:11):
with my limitations. And they were like I said, my
goal was I needed to pack a portable studio in
a twenty two inch suitcase. So that's my limitation. So
everything that I pick has to all fit like a
puzzle in this twenty two inch care I said, So
I have to confront my limitation. I've in these conversations.

(51:35):
I've said to HBCU presidents and board members of others,
you have to accept what your limitation is. You're not
an SEC school, so stop trying to have a big
football team. Stop sitting here. And I said, if you're not.
I said, understand, I get football, I get basketball, I
get all the sports. But if you're constantly losing money

(51:57):
and going in the hole, I said, if there's a
said that there is a graduate, and that graduate is
sitting there going I got one hundred thousand dollars to
give to my HPCU, I said, if I said, what's
more value? But I challenge every president on this. I said,
what would you rather have if I gave you one
hundred grand would you rather me give it to your

(52:18):
school communication? Or would you rather give it to me
to your football program? And nearly and they want to
say football, frad but they know it's going to go
a lot longer to the school. And that's just one
of those things where you have to I think where
you are saying the Teledegger community, we can't do everything,

(52:39):
but let's do these three four or five things really
really well and make ourselves known for that. And that's
why resources have to go.

Speaker 1 (52:48):
No.

Speaker 10 (52:48):
Absolutely is so.

Speaker 16 (52:49):
I mean, I you know, I lean on my experience
at Dillard and I was president there for ten years,
and we want to have before that, you would add
Flander was that Forlander Smith, before that for seven and
a half years.

Speaker 10 (53:02):
So but at Diller we tolda.

Speaker 3 (53:03):
Hold up, wait wait wait, you have more House after
you left Dillard, Right, I spent a year at more
House launching the Black Men's Research Institute, and you were
at was it Albney State?

Speaker 16 (53:13):
I was VP for student Affairs at Albney State for
five years?

Speaker 3 (53:16):
Gotcha? The always So people, so those are the because
any of the usual.

Speaker 10 (53:20):
At and that's Holladiga. So that's my f So.

Speaker 3 (53:23):
People need to understand the basis of your knowledge that
you were the president at two HBCUs you worked the
two other ones, and so you're bringing four different institutions
of different sizes that perspective talladega, go ahead, right.

Speaker 16 (53:37):
So yeah. So, but so at Diller, one of the
things we said is that we need to have these
signature academic programs that we're going there because we don't
have football, but we are in New Orleans.

Speaker 10 (53:46):
That's always a draw.

Speaker 16 (53:47):
And so we had the oldest nursing program in the
state of Louisiana all institutions. I said, that's great, we
need to make sure it's the best. We redid the
nursing program. They've added a master's degree for that program.
There's a great need for nurses. That makes sense. When
I got there, I learned that we were number two
in the country for producing African Americans with undergraduate degrees
in physics.

Speaker 10 (54:07):
All let's lean into that.

Speaker 16 (54:09):
We're in New Orleans, Hollywood South, We're going to lean
into our film program. My first year there, Spike Lee
was filming a movie on campus.

Speaker 10 (54:15):
We had a conversation out.

Speaker 16 (54:17):
On the yard for an hour just talking about HBCUs
as a whole. So we started to lean into that,
and then we realized, hey, one of the precursor institutions
for Diller had a law school. Let's start a pre
law program. We went from sending two kids to law
school every year to about twelve to fourteen, and that
it cost us a lot of money because we were
able to get get grants and do some great things,
so we didn't have to do a million things. We

(54:38):
had like, you know, three, four or five things we
did really well and the other things you want to
be really good at those two.

Speaker 10 (54:43):
But those are the things that you could just rattle off.

Speaker 16 (54:45):
And that's what I keep telling people that Talladega, what
are your signature programs? So if I go out there,
and say, you know, there's some metrics. We're number one
in this, so we have a tie rank this. So
they've got to really work to develop that. That's going
to be the fun part of the job for the
new president. It is critical because if you don't have
those kinds of things, then you're just sort of out
there doing like you said, throwing everything at the wall

(55:06):
to see what sticks, and you just say, oh, we
got a great this and great.

Speaker 10 (55:09):
That, and really none of its great. So we got
to get out of that habit. So I agree with you.

Speaker 16 (55:13):
You pick a few things and you lean into those,
and you want your overall program to be strong. But
there has to be some things that you're known for
that you can say this outside agency has said this
is greater.

Speaker 10 (55:23):
We have the metrics on this. That's very important to do.

Speaker 3 (55:27):
Last point, there are people, there are thousands who are watching.
There are people who are listing what do you want
from our audience? How could they help?

Speaker 10 (55:37):
Right?

Speaker 16 (55:38):
So you know for our institution particularly, and there are
lots of opportunities and go to our website to give
we really want support fatality to college.

Speaker 10 (55:46):
There has been a lot of work that's done.

Speaker 16 (55:48):
One of the things that I keep saying is that
when we hire a new president, we're actually going to
have interviews on campus in the next couple of weeks.
I want to really try to give them with as
many resources as they can to really start with a
fresh start to keep making the changes. So you can
go to our website Talladega dot edu. There's a link
that says click to give and support our institution.

Speaker 10 (56:07):
Everything helps.

Speaker 16 (56:08):
I've met some amazing students at Talladega who are doing
some great things. One of our graduating seniors, he's a
SCA president. He's a part of a program that's launched
in the City of Birmingham for entrepreneurs.

Speaker 10 (56:20):
For two years, he'll be an intern entrepreneur.

Speaker 16 (56:22):
He has his own business and they're going to give
him one hundred and twenty thousand dollars for his business.
So those are the kinds of young people who are
at that campus. Like all HBC's, we have wonderful students,
but I want more resources for this new president to
be able to come in and not just have to
have the experience I had because this has been it's
definitely been the greatest challenge in my professional career with

(56:43):
some of the issues that we've seen on their campus.
So anything that people can give us to support the
institution would be tremendous. I really want to give them
a cushion to start the work that they need to do.

Speaker 3 (56:53):
And you've committed to serve well the period of time
when you said you will only serve an inner capacity.

Speaker 16 (57:00):
Yes, until June thirtieth, So hopefully we'll have a president
announced by the end of April early May, and then
we have time to transition, and of course I'll be
around to be able to help so they know I'm
not going anywhere that you know, wherever I am, I'm
just going to be able to help out that person.
But I committed that year, so I'll be there until
June or thirtieth, and then we'll have a smooth transition
with the new president.

Speaker 3 (57:20):
So I think what is important here that people need
to understand that there are people who want to commit
themselves to black institutions, but what is required. What is
required is other people to listen to folks who bring expertise,
who know how to fix the problem, as opposed to
get in their way. The only way you've been able

(57:40):
to do these things is because again, you had a
board chair and a board that did not get in
your way. You didn't have not have a faculty senate,
do no confidence votes and all sorts of stuff like that.
But you also went to all the stakeholders and were
upfront with them to explain to them what the problem was.
And I think that's what people want. And so every

(58:03):
time we got people hit me up and people hit
me privately about this Black church or this HBCU, I'm
always looking at leadership going why are you not being
free and open and communicating with people and explain the
problem and then laying out the plan of action to
fix the problem. Hiding is not the way. And hopefully

(58:24):
the people who lead Saint Augustine's will realize I'm not
going to come in to rally tomorrow to destroy folks.
We are there because we believe in saving black institutions.
But you don't save black institutions by ignoring people who can.

Speaker 16 (58:38):
Help right, absolutely, absolutely, and people Roland, I tell you,
I've had so many people on campus that just you know,
it's a hard pill to swallow, but people are thankful
that you sat down, you talk to people individually. I've
tried to keep some distance with students because you don't
want them to get too used to you being there.

Speaker 10 (58:55):
But just to have students just say, man, I wish
you would stay.

Speaker 16 (58:58):
That's really I mean, I feel good about that because
they realized that I put a lot into it, that
the institution is important.

Speaker 10 (59:03):
To me as well.

Speaker 6 (59:04):
Uh.

Speaker 10 (59:05):
And alongs have been very supportive.

Speaker 16 (59:06):
So I mean, it's a great community of people and
we just need to continue to have support.

Speaker 10 (59:11):
But we'd have to have leadership that believes in what
we do. And there you know, you're not therefore a title.

Speaker 16 (59:16):
You're there to do the work to continue the legacy
of the institution.

Speaker 10 (59:19):
That's what's required, folks.

Speaker 3 (59:21):
The website is Talent D got t A l l
A d e g at y'all come on, thank you,
Come on t A l l A d e g
A dot e d u t A l l A
d e g A dot e d u.

Speaker 17 (59:38):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (59:38):
And if you want to support, please do so.

Speaker 8 (59:41):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (59:42):
Doctor Walter Kimbo Fred always appreciated.

Speaker 10 (59:44):
Thanks a lot, yep, anytime. Appreciate y'all.

Speaker 3 (59:47):
Thank you all right, folks, going to a break, we
come back. We're gonna talk with co Founds A Black
Voters Matter about a documentary they've been working off the
last spive five years, and that they're working on crowdfunding
as well. About that, you're watching rolland Marck Unfiltered in
the Black Study. Networks support the work that we do.
Join I bring the fanclub again. Here's the thing right here, folks,
this is why it's important that we support black owned media.

(01:00:11):
That conversation right there. Who was it Washington Post? Wasn't
New York Times, which one of them did a big
old story about the problems with black men on college campus.
I think it was a New York Times, MSNBC, CNN,
Fox News, ABC, NBCCBS. All these digital folks and other

(01:00:33):
black on media. They not gonna spend that much time
on a small black college in Alabama, But all these
stories are important. So when you support this show and
you support this network, this is the kind of content
that you're giving. I had a conversation today, I can't

(01:00:54):
wait till we shoot the pilot of a weekly black
business financial show. We're going to law, We're talking about
a health show as well. We're trying to build out
different verticals of news and information. I already told y'all
I don't give a shit about gossip. I'm not sitting
here talking about a Usher concert and who was eating

(01:01:17):
some cherries. We ain't doing all that, and that's what
y'all want. Y'all can go somewhere else. But there has
to be a place where black people are getting real,
credible matter of fact, because the sister called me today
and this is the only time y'all ever gonna hear
me talk about this here. That story's been going around

(01:01:38):
that the sister who was eating the cherries at the
Usher concert her husband fouled for divorce. Even that story
is bullshit. I saw somebody posting and I went, this
is about the fifth time I saw this on Instagram.
But I never saw a name tied to the story. Well,
I ain't even realized the sisters Jimialia Tillman out of Chica,

(01:02:00):
Kago poll I knew when I worked there. She called
me today because she saw a comment on somebody's page
where I called the story bullshit, said it was fake
and the accent was faith. So all these folks, I mean,
that's right. He should have filed for the voice. The
story is a lot. This is what I'm talking about.
All of these other gossip folk, they just run stuff.

(01:02:20):
They don't fact check nothing, so we gotta have black
news and information. So y'all want to support what we do. Join,
I bring the Funk Fan Club. The goals to get
twenty thousand people contributing on average fifty bucks each a year,
four dollars and nineteen cents the month, thirteen cents today.
You can't do that, give less, we'll appreciate it. You
deal more, we great appreciate that as well. Cash out.

(01:02:41):
Use the strike cure or code. You see it right here.
If you're listening to go to Blackstar network dot com. Also,
if you want to send him check, please make it
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Make it out to Rolling Martin unfiltered. It makes it
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(01:03:02):
sent me in seven weeks ago, a bunch of y'all
sent me checks and no, actually four weeks ago, y'all
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(01:03:25):
zero three seven day zero one nine six, PayPal, r
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s Martin dot Com rolling at Roland Martin unfilter dot com.
Will be right back.

Speaker 8 (01:03:39):
On the nets.

Speaker 18 (01:03:39):
Get Wealthy with me, Deborah Owens, America's wealth coach. I'm
sure you've heard that saying that the only thing guaranteed
is death and taxes. The truth is that the wealthy
get wealthier by understanding tax strategy.

Speaker 8 (01:03:56):
And that's exactly the conversation.

Speaker 18 (01:03:58):
That we're going to have on the next Get Wealthy,
where you're going to learn wealth packed that hope you've
turned your wages into wealth.

Speaker 8 (01:04:08):
Taxes is one of the largest extents that you've ever had.

Speaker 16 (01:04:11):
You really got to know how.

Speaker 8 (01:04:13):
To manage that thing and get that under control so
that you.

Speaker 10 (01:04:16):
Can do wealth.

Speaker 18 (01:04:17):
That's right here on Get Wealthy only on Blackstar Network.

Speaker 17 (01:04:24):
How you doing my man the luck KERRT and you're
watching Roland Martin unfiltered, deep into it like pasteurized milk
without the two percent were getting deep. If you want
to turn that shit off, we're doing an interview with
Brother Bubba.

Speaker 3 (01:04:45):
Since it's found in the Black Voters Matter Fund has
been empowering African Americans traveling the nation speaking about the
importance of mobilizing and organizing black voters, speaking to them
and touching them not just in the cities but in
rural parts of the country as well, not just in
a large place, but also in rural towns as well.
Since twenty twenty, they played a crucier roll and flipping Georgia.

(01:05:10):
That's what paid the way for Biden and Harris to
win that state, for centup, for Rafio Warnock and OSAF
to win in twenty twenty, and then for Warnot to
come back because they were talking to regular and ordinary voters.
And so while they have been doing that, they also
have been working on a documentary about the work that
they do. Here's a sneak peak the buses.

Speaker 2 (01:05:35):
Here, it's a bite the coronavirus.

Speaker 10 (01:05:45):
It's about the economic challenges in spite of racism and
police violence.

Speaker 13 (01:05:49):
It's about everything that we are facing here.

Speaker 19 (01:05:52):
You want, you don't know nothing else, Know this, You matter,
You are love and you got fount Well. Members of
the Black Voters Matter Fund or are making stops in
fourteen states.

Speaker 7 (01:06:08):
It's a national outreach initiative all about encouraging people to
get out and vote.

Speaker 3 (01:06:14):
You can't miss it. The Blackest bus in America.

Speaker 1 (01:06:16):
Spread the word.

Speaker 7 (01:06:17):
Well, we say the blackest bus in America. We wanted
it to be the bus that affirmed black people.

Speaker 10 (01:06:23):
We wanted to be the.

Speaker 7 (01:06:24):
Bus that got black folks excited. Right, how y'all doing
motgamer We don't vote and as.

Speaker 19 (01:06:31):
Anomalous, people will break down in song and dance. People
break down crying because of just the imagery that's on
the bus.

Speaker 20 (01:06:45):
Their goal to bring a message of power and hope
to minority communities in smaller cities and towns, which can
many times be ignored.

Speaker 16 (01:06:54):
By political parties.

Speaker 20 (01:06:55):
They also work to fight what organizers call voters suppression.

Speaker 10 (01:07:00):
Have the kind of power that has merged beflow. We're
talking about righteous power.

Speaker 3 (01:07:05):
We need that kind of power.

Speaker 10 (01:07:06):
We deserved that kind of power. I'm gonna tell you
one other thing.

Speaker 3 (01:07:09):
We got that kind of power.

Speaker 7 (01:07:12):
Darners came down to the babus in the room and
so we ain't got to the atlanted into the world.

Speaker 19 (01:07:19):
We're traveling through the states that are essentially the former
Confederacy but arguably still is hostile territory.

Speaker 1 (01:07:26):
We've been through a lot.

Speaker 19 (01:07:27):
People are tired, people are sick, people are literally dying.
We got a tax on the postal service, the moving
of polling places, the restrictions and the photo ID. Fuck,
there's no reason in the middle of this ring a

(01:07:49):
house to kiss fire.

Speaker 10 (01:07:54):
No, no, they need to come get up enough, man.
So that's what we're gonna have to do.

Speaker 8 (01:07:59):
We're gonna have said the high level hotels they used
to seeing.

Speaker 7 (01:08:02):
High level folks that they got secured.

Speaker 10 (01:08:04):
So that's what we're gonna head know to be cause
the bus can be secured.

Speaker 3 (01:08:09):
Any number of people.

Speaker 19 (01:08:10):
So in the blackest bus in America, pull up and
drop a couple of people off at this house. What
we do is not a joke, right, It's just not
a joke.

Speaker 7 (01:08:22):
Yeah, they put the fire out, they sent the arsentine.

Speaker 3 (01:08:25):
They're still investigating. You know.

Speaker 21 (01:08:27):
The primary purpose was intimidation and fear.

Speaker 1 (01:08:29):
They were trying to send a message.

Speaker 3 (01:08:32):
Racism is damn traumatic. I mean just damn traumatic. Like,
why didn't we gotta go through this right, I'm mad.

Speaker 5 (01:08:41):
I'm scared.

Speaker 10 (01:08:44):
Yeah, I feel determined too.

Speaker 3 (01:08:46):
I mean, we ain't about to go nowhere.

Speaker 10 (01:08:47):
We can stop wall stop, so we ain't about to stop.

Speaker 3 (01:08:54):
Now folks.

Speaker 16 (01:08:54):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:08:55):
They are working to finish that documentary and they're doing
a crowd fund to do so. This is where you
can go to. It shows information in terms of where
you can give to do that. They're using the fundraising
platform act Blue. So we're going to have that on
website as well. Joining us right now is Latasha Brown,

(01:09:16):
one of the co founders. Also, we're gonna be chatting
with Cliff Albright, the co founder as well. A lot
of this we saw a lot of that video on
Latasha was in twenty twenty covid hit and I remember
being in Georgia at the end of the Georgia those
five weeks, and it was rough. When you're talking about
having these events in these rallies and you know how

(01:09:38):
you're spaced out and everything.

Speaker 20 (01:09:40):
It was.

Speaker 3 (01:09:41):
It was a challenge to organize and mobilize folks to vote.

Speaker 8 (01:09:46):
It was absolutely rough.

Speaker 7 (01:09:48):
It was an interesting time for our people. You know,
at one point, Georgia, particularly South Georgia, had the highest
number of hospitalizations related to COVID per capitain in the country,
and so it was a very serious time, a serious
time in terms of our health, but it was also

(01:10:08):
a serious time we felt for our communities and that's
why we made sure that we got out there. And
so part of that's part of the reason why we
want to lift.

Speaker 10 (01:10:16):
Up the fem in this moment. You know, in this moment,
we are we want to tell this story not just based.

Speaker 7 (01:10:22):
On what happened and what happened in twenty twenty, but
we want to remind people of a couple of things.

Speaker 10 (01:10:27):
One, we want to remind people that we beat Trump.

Speaker 7 (01:10:30):
That sometimes what winds up happening this idea that he
is unbeatable or invincible or they're not.

Speaker 10 (01:10:36):
No, they can be beat.

Speaker 7 (01:10:37):
But it's going to take organized it's going to take strategy.

Speaker 8 (01:10:40):
It's going to take us.

Speaker 7 (01:10:41):
Doing work together collectively, and we do have to do
some things different because we're in a different moment.

Speaker 10 (01:10:46):
One of the reasons when we're.

Speaker 7 (01:10:48):
Talking about from black history, you know, what we know
is that there's this attack and this a racial black history,
and I think part of the time we're not recognizing
that that attack on black history is not just because
people like we're just attack black history as is random.
Know what I really believe it is is that they
want us to forget our wins.

Speaker 10 (01:11:07):
They want us to forget in our.

Speaker 7 (01:11:10):
Victories, that even in the midst of all the things
that have happened to us, in the midst of voter suppression,
of the racism, all of those things, that ultimately, when
black people work together, we can win. And so I
think that is important we want to lift that message
up around This is a moment for us to be
We should be anchored in this idea of building black power.

(01:11:33):
We should be thinking of ourselves as a nation within
a nation, that we have to organize ourselves, that we
can't constantly be in a space that we're only responding
to those who are seeking to oppress us, but that
we are also as we are as we are building
and organizing, we also have to really be sett in
the context of how will we protect our communities, how

(01:11:53):
will we fortify ourselves.

Speaker 10 (01:11:55):
And how will we move forward?

Speaker 3 (01:11:57):
Cliff, this is a photo of us in twenty twenty.
That was four and a half years ago, and this
probably was about twenty pounds ago. So if all of
us could get back to that size, that'd be great.
That was a photo we took. I forgot we were
in Warner Robbins. That was December sixth, twenty twenty. That's

(01:12:21):
Latasha with the Santa Cap, Tiffany Lofton myself in you
and you know it was you know, Carl Rallies was
also a different thing. But the thing about that moment
black folks were lit in Georgia, the opportunity to elect
the first black Democratic senator from the South, the first

(01:12:46):
black centers's reconstruction was Edward Brook in Massachusetts. Then of
course that was Tim that other dude in South Carolina.
And so you had that going on. But then you
have the opportunity to elect a second Democratic senator who
support who is always it was all about black values.
And this is the thing that I think is important.
I had these two food the two trolls on Instagram page.

(01:13:09):
Uh see, he won them democratic shields. I'm like, no
folks were looking at who supported the stuff black folks wanted.
And in that race it was Purdue or Leffler or
Warnock and Osoft And it wasn't even a close race.
That's what I keep trying to tell these folks. This
is not about This is not about well, I'm trying

(01:13:32):
to let the Democrat or Republican know. It was about
who is going to represent black interests, who's going to
represent Warner Robbins uh and Albany and Savannah, uh and
uh those those rural towns in the United States Senate.

Speaker 21 (01:13:51):
Yeah, you're exactly right, Roland.

Speaker 19 (01:13:52):
You know, you could go back and listen to a
lot of the video footage that we took during that
whole tour that name that we were if you and
want to Robbins and throughout this documentary, and you'll hear
us consistently saying, especially in that runoff part, that look,
this is about our healthcare, right, this is about COVID
in particular, but this is about our healthcare, This is
about voting rights, this is about police violence.

Speaker 21 (01:14:14):
We were hit those issues consistently everywhere we went.

Speaker 19 (01:14:17):
And why were we hitting those issues because, as you say,
those were the issues that people were talking about, Those
were the issues that people were most concerned about. Those
were the issues, especially police violence, that had people in
the streets throughout the summer in fall of twenty twenty,
and so part of the purpose of this documentary is
to show the power of that. Right, is to show
what happens when you're speaking to the issues and speaking

(01:14:39):
to the issues in a way that people resonate with.

Speaker 1 (01:14:42):
Right.

Speaker 19 (01:14:42):
It's about showing you know, the title of this documentary
is about love, joy and power, right, and so about
showing the ways that love and joy is not just
a vibe, but the way that you actually incorporate that
into your organizing work.

Speaker 3 (01:14:56):
Right.

Speaker 19 (01:14:56):
And so there's a whole lot of lessons that we
want to come out of show showing this documentary, showing
the way to work that's done, showing the bridge that
we believe. Look, Latasha and I say it all the time,
we consider ourselves students of the civil rights movement. That
doesn't mean that we only do things just the way
they did it in the fifties and sixties, but it
does mean that we ground our work in that methodology,

(01:15:18):
in that science of organizing.

Speaker 1 (01:15:19):
And we need that now this year more than ever. Right.

Speaker 19 (01:15:22):
That's part of the reason you know, I've been talking
about looking at the letter from Birmingham Jail. So that's
what we want to come out of this documentary for
folks to understand the weight that the organizing takes place,
the weight that voters get mobilized, the way that we
have to ground this work in this history, that history
that as Latasha said.

Speaker 21 (01:15:38):
That they're trying to take away.

Speaker 19 (01:15:40):
We believe that that there's some fundamental lessons from that
twenty twenty and twenty twenty one experience that can get
us out of these these times that we're in right now.

Speaker 1 (01:15:50):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:15:50):
And the thing that was that was interesting to me
when these things were happening was this was a rap
that was in Savannah, Georgia that y'all did. It was
it was common Kiki Palmer. Uh well, this was when
he before he lost his mind. Waka flockam uh and

(01:16:11):
Tammy rivera uh waker flock now is a big time
trump person. Uh. And And the thing here is that
what people did not understand and why all of this
was so important, it's because black folk were allowing their
power to remain on the couch. So you had you

(01:16:33):
had folks who did not want to organize the state,
who did not want to spend the resources on the state.
They didn't want to do any of that.

Speaker 2 (01:16:42):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:16:42):
And so people talk about uh Stacey Abrams group all
folks who did that here. But even after that, you
still had the folks who were going door to door.
Y'all was sitting here delivered y'all who came up with
the idea to hand out some greens colin Green Caucus.

Speaker 10 (01:17:05):
Coor meets that's right.

Speaker 19 (01:17:08):
So yeah, you know it's literally we were on the
call and we were talking about talking about the Georgia
runoff and about how we need to try to find
ways to get people to come back out. You know,
people were already tired from the November election, so you know,
we were dealing with the holidays right because we were like,
not only do we have to get people to come
back out, but we got to do all this work
in the midst of the holidays, in the midst of Christmas,

(01:17:29):
in the midst of New Year's.

Speaker 21 (01:17:31):
So we said, well, you know, how do we incorporate
the culture? And we said, look, what are people going
to be doing naturally?

Speaker 1 (01:17:38):
What are people going to be looking for? Naturally?

Speaker 21 (01:17:40):
We know that for New Years?

Speaker 19 (01:17:41):
What do we do we cook up some collar greens
and some black eyed peas. So what if we did
something where we were able to do three things. One
that we were able to get people a concrete need.
Our people needed some food at that time. This is
still in the middle of COVID, right, So how do
we get people a concrete need. How do we create
an opportunity to mobilize people to get them information about

(01:18:02):
the early vote because that was taking place during the
early vote period and then the third issue, and people
lose sight of this, but it's important, especially right now.

Speaker 21 (01:18:10):
Our farmers were going through hell.

Speaker 19 (01:18:11):
Black farmers were going through hell, and so this was
a way for us to connect to them, to find
an outlet for them to bring their produce. And so
we were meeting three very specific needs all in one program.
We call it the Colla Green Caucus. So the idea
of the program, you know, we came up with collectively.
I think I may have suggested it on a call,

(01:18:32):
but the name I have to give shout out to
Wanda Mosley, who was our national field director at the time.
She came up with the name Calla Green Caucus, and
we've been doing it ever since. So it was birth
in this emergency situation, but it's become a regular part
of our work, which means regularly we are supporting black farmers.
Regularly we are feeding our people regularly. We're using it

(01:18:54):
as a tool to organize our communities. And I got
to say this role Like, I said this real quick
because I'm looking at this footage. You know, you might
you might have other than the documentary crew. I think
you might have more footage of us, uh buddy, but
just anybody.

Speaker 3 (01:19:12):
Else, y'ah. So I was just so folks know, I
was literally let me, let me, let me close this out.
So y'all now go to my computer, like literally, I'm
sitting here going that was the rally in Columbus, Georgia.
I pulled up the Savannah rally. Here was another rally.

Speaker 1 (01:19:29):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:19:29):
That was the rallies y'all had. And uh, this is
this this I see Albany, Georgia right here. Uh that
was a rally y'all had in d C.

Speaker 5 (01:19:38):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:19:39):
This is another one we had in Georgia. Uh so yeah,
we were, we were. We basically moved that year. We
basically moved. Uh we basically moved to matter of fact. Lie. Hell,
so here's another one right here. Let me pull this
one up. Y'all can see we had the drone, we
had the drone action going and uh there as well,

(01:20:02):
Uh for these rallies, and so it was like like
we were we were there out there on the ground,
not playing around, and what was interesting to me? Matter
of fact, hold up, let me go ahead, because see
some of y'all may think of joking. So here is
Latasha and Cliff, give me a seconds, gonna pull up
in action. So yeah, we got lots of stuff. So

(01:20:22):
we got we got stuff. Matter of fact, pull the
audio up. See the reason I remember that the audio
person who they brought in wasn't doing his job and
we were really pitched off that he had the It

(01:20:44):
was it was overmodulated, and it was like, this is
no lie, y'all think y'all think I'm lying. That was
one of the reasons why we said we're buying our
own audio equipment because then we we can't depend on
because I'll never forget. And even y'all like, man, you
didn't get the audio straight. It was somebody somebody else
brought in that y'all did bring in. But yeah, we

(01:21:05):
got lots of stuff. But that's what people need to understand.
That was the only way our folk could find out
what was going on. So the networks were not covering it.
So when y'all hit me and also y'all financially supported
us that year. And what happened was the networks they
were showing a little stuff, but because of streaming, what

(01:21:26):
happened was y'all were like, all right, we're gonna be
in this place, this place, this place. We said, great,
we're gonna be there. Have the roll romobile. We're streaming it,
and we were able to talk directly to our people.
And there were people who were in those towns who
were like, yo, I couldn't make it to y'all rally,
but we saw the stream right. And that's why black

(01:21:49):
organizers working with black on media is so important because
we were both helping each other out.

Speaker 7 (01:21:54):
Absolutely.

Speaker 10 (01:21:55):
Roland like, I'm just gonna I just got to lift
you up in this moment.

Speaker 7 (01:21:59):
The truth of the matter is you have been the
platform and the voice for the black community.

Speaker 10 (01:22:04):
We are so grateful for you.

Speaker 7 (01:22:06):
We have never asked you for support or help or
to cover and you have not done it. You have
been I remember you came with us with Texas. You've
been we've been in.

Speaker 10 (01:22:14):
These streets, but you've been in these streets too, and
you've been in these streets.

Speaker 7 (01:22:17):
With us, and so we are really so grateful to
be in partnership with you, and I am hoping that
people know in this moment that, like literally.

Speaker 10 (01:22:27):
We have to support black media.

Speaker 7 (01:22:28):
So while we are really in this space that we
want to be able to lift up these stories, we
also need these platforms like your platform, so that we
can continue to share our stories, that we continue to
share the unfiltered truth, that we can continue to connect
our people. Because we really got to know what time
it is. We are not in the same space that
we were and before November fifth. We are in a

(01:22:51):
different reactor America. The idea of America as we know it,
that's over.

Speaker 3 (01:22:56):
With, y'all.

Speaker 10 (01:22:57):
There may be some elements of that that are still.

Speaker 7 (01:23:00):
The truth of the matter is, we've got to think differently,
We've got to organize differently, we got to act differently.
We're watching the networks fire black journalists, credible and powerful
black journalists who actually have high ratings, not because of
any other thing, but this attack on anti blackness. Right now,
we are watching these networks capitulate. Right all of the

(01:23:21):
major networks have been capitulating to this new administration. And
what is this administration and what's happening Black people have
always had to have institutions that to protect their interests.
That is why right after slavery ended, black folks were
creating and building banks because we knew we couldn't go
bank with other.

Speaker 10 (01:23:39):
Folks and they're going to do right. Balance, we had
to create.

Speaker 7 (01:23:42):
Hospitals because we knew that we needed care for ourselves
and we may go to other hospitals and they would
not take care of us. We educated ourselves. Public education
in this country, in this nation right now is because
of black people that if people are thinking about really
around the New Deal, that the New Deal was actually
Shapedolks don't know what we get credit to FDR, but
the truth of the matter is it was the black cabinet,

(01:24:05):
right who really are many of the things that were
in the New Deal? It was black folks. It came
out of black innovation that when we're thinking about even
the modern day domestic workers in labor movement, that was
black folks. And so we have to really and my
thought is, we've got to get back in this space
that we are imagining, that we are dreaming, that we

(01:24:25):
are creating, that we are building, that we see ourselves building.
In part of our offering around this film. This isn't
a film that we commissioned. The filmmakers came to us
and said they wanted to follow us. We didn't know
what to expect. They just followed us.

Speaker 10 (01:24:38):
They went everywhere we went, They came into our homes.

Speaker 7 (01:24:41):
They saw the conflicts that we were working through, they
saw when we were engaged, and a lot of that
is captured in this film. And so it's important for
us to tell our stories so we don't forget. We
don't forget that we have power, and we don't forget
that is organizing. That has always been the best tool
we've had to be the get and push up against
a pression.

Speaker 3 (01:25:02):
This was I think this was I think this is
that Black Caucus. I was talking with you and Clay
o Le Brown. Uh and uh, that's what I do
remember because I had to give that artists a lesson.
We were in the middle of a live interview and
he was taking his art down. I was like, say, dog,
aren't you trying to make some money? You might want
to leave the art up because you're getting free publicity.
He was like, oh, my bad, You're right, You're right.

(01:25:26):
I was like, dude, what you're doing The thing, Cliff,
I might ask you this question before I go to
my panel with their questions. The thing here is this here,
we've seen successive elections where the black turnout has gone down.
It was a high two thousand and eight election of Obama.
This is the thing that I keep It keeps driving
me crazy. I keep saying, black people, if we showed

(01:25:50):
what happens when we maximize our vote, if I'm correct,
if I'm correct, I'm trying to remember that turnout in
two thousand and eight was higher than the white turnout
was by percentage. And there are more white people in America,

(01:26:11):
but in terms of turnout, we were I think we
were almost at seventy percent. I keep saying, if we
in places where our numbers are significant, if we if
we get to seventy percent turnout of our capacity, we
win elections statewide. And so we just saw what happened Louisiana,

(01:26:34):
thirty seven percent of the people who voted early black.
We saw what happened, what happened when we don't turn
out The white Canadate Saint Louis wins sixty four to
thirty six over the black field incumbent mayor. So what
in your perspective, What does it take for us to
understand that the couch cannot be an option? And if

(01:26:55):
we say these are the things that we want, turnout
and voting is a part of that making.

Speaker 19 (01:27:01):
That happen, Yeah, definitely, And that's that's that's the conversation
that we have all the time when we're when we're
in these streets and talking to people, it's trying to
convince them of that, and some people that's the easier conversation, right,
it takes less convincing than others. It's it's a function
of several things though, Right, there's there's what has to
take place on like internally within our community, within our

(01:27:23):
mindset to believe in that.

Speaker 20 (01:27:25):
Right.

Speaker 19 (01:27:25):
Sometimes that's also a function just in all honestly, it's
also a function of like what have the results been
after we do that?

Speaker 1 (01:27:34):
Right?

Speaker 19 (01:27:35):
And so like if we if we do all this
galvanizing and black folks come out in record numbers, and
then the folks that we put in office, you know,
do crazy stuff like not ending the filibuster or or
you know, not getting certain pieces of legislation passed, And
there's just there's discussions around like some of the systemic blockages.

Speaker 5 (01:27:53):
Right.

Speaker 19 (01:27:54):
But there's there's that piece of it that there are
people that will block the progress because they know that
once you block the progress, that makes the people that
had just been mobilized feel like, oh.

Speaker 21 (01:28:03):
I wasted my time, I'm not getting the results.

Speaker 19 (01:28:05):
But that takes a complicated conversation in our communities that
has got to take place three hundred and sixty five
days a year. That's why Blackstar Network is so important
and your shows are so important because we got to
drive that message home consistently. We got to drive the
message home about the connection between the elections and policy
and some of the systemic barriers. We got to have

(01:28:26):
that conversation consistently. We know that our turnout matters. That's
why you right here on this show, you always just
talking about the Save Act right that the House just passed,
and how that is a direct attack against the freedom
of vote, against our voting rights, and it's rooted in
anti blackness.

Speaker 10 (01:28:43):
Truth be told.

Speaker 19 (01:28:44):
We try to tell people for years that if you know,
if you continue to say, well, what's wrong with voter ID,
what's the big deal about voter ID? And what we
would always say is voter ID is just an on
ramp to them doing a whole bunch of other things
to try to make it harder for people register and
harder for people to vote.

Speaker 21 (01:29:01):
And now here we are right, and so all of
that is a part of the mix.

Speaker 19 (01:29:06):
But you are absolutely right that we have got to
continue to have this conversation to get people to understand
that we have the power if we turn out in
those numbers, there's not an election local, even state, I
would say, especially in the South, especially places like Louisiana, Mississippi,
and Georgia and Alabama, if we consistently were to turn
out to seventy percent and we can.

Speaker 1 (01:29:27):
Win these things.

Speaker 3 (01:29:29):
Absolutely questions I'll start with reci first.

Speaker 9 (01:29:35):
First, thank you all for your leadership. It is sell
invaluable and so appreciate it. I'm just curious, it's a
little off topic, but have you all been engaged at
all in what's happening in North Carolina and if not
specifically in North Carolina helping black people understand kind of
the next salvo of disenfranchisement and the war against black

(01:30:00):
voters that's coming up in twenty twenty six and in
twenty twenty five, because there are critical elections this year
as well.

Speaker 10 (01:30:07):
Yeah, so.

Speaker 7 (01:30:10):
To our start in Clifford, you can add in so
the truth of matter. Even in the film I lift
up the fem in the documentary. I think North Carolina
is one of the places that we're in because it's
one of the states that we're committed to. We have
states that are our core target states that we always
work in three hundred and sixty five days out of
the year. And our model of how we work is

(01:30:32):
as an organization, we work with grassroot groups.

Speaker 3 (01:30:35):
We do three things.

Speaker 7 (01:30:36):
We move mind as grassroot groups, black lid, grassroot groups
that are doing power building work, not necessarily just electoral work,
but work to a power building It may be around
a reparations agenda, it may be around a police brutality issue,
and it may be around an election.

Speaker 10 (01:30:53):
And so we have partners in each of our states,
like in North.

Speaker 7 (01:30:56):
Carolina, we're ongoing working anywhere between twenty two grassroom black
lad groups that oftentimes it's not just around around us
the message that we have, but there are people that
are capable organizers that are indigenous to those communities that
have been doing the work that all they need is
some resources, a little support and really helping with lifting

(01:31:18):
up their message and so we work with those folks
as well. And so we have been working in North
Carolina from the Jerry Mandarin issue all the way up
to now. We are ongoing working with them. And I'll
turn it off the cliff so he can share me
some of our current stuff.

Speaker 21 (01:31:33):
Yeah, I mean, just to be clear on this specific issue.
You know, we have been involved.

Speaker 19 (01:31:37):
Our state team in North Carolina has been involved with
our partners and a lot of the organizing.

Speaker 21 (01:31:43):
Hell, I was there in North Carolina on election day, right.

Speaker 19 (01:31:45):
A lot of people were focused on Georgia and some
other places, but I was in North Carolina on election
Day because I knew how important those elections were. But
we've been engaged ever since that election day making sure
that all the votes got counted, on making sure or
that all those recounts were done, you know, in a
way that wouldn't disenfranchise our folks. And throughout this battle

(01:32:05):
over these sixty something thousand votes that they're trying to
throw out, we've been involved, our staff and our partners.
I got to give a shout out to folks like
Advanced Carolina and the Blueprint Table in North Carolina. We've
been at the Capitol, you know, at many of these
sessions and many of these courts and all of that,
and so we've been involved at that stage, and we're
involved right now. We've already sent out a text campaign

(01:32:28):
the black voters matching the list that's available, saying, hey,
check this list.

Speaker 21 (01:32:35):
If you're on this list, you know, this is what
you need to get you to get a curate.

Speaker 19 (01:32:38):
If you're not on this list, don't just call it
a day, going and forward this message to five of
your friends so that they can look and see if
they're on the list. So we've been involved in a
lot of the outreach efforts directly related to curing these
ballots so that these sixty.

Speaker 21 (01:32:51):
Something thousand don't get thrown away.

Speaker 3 (01:32:55):
Nola, thank you, thank you.

Speaker 5 (01:32:58):
So much for all they do.

Speaker 10 (01:33:01):
For you both.

Speaker 12 (01:33:02):
And I'm just so excited about this documentary. And Natasha,
my question is more around messaging. I know that we
are in the persist group, we at least in a
group chat, and I'm talking about how excited I've been
to talk to you all day because you know, as
you mentioned, we are in a very different time. All

(01:33:22):
the old you know, tool kids thrown out the window,
the way that we used to do business, the way
that we used to talk about politics, all of that
has changed. And so I'm very curious if you've all
been testing in the field national messages that have been
landing and local messages that have been landing, and if
there's some you know, if they're parallel, it's the same message,

(01:33:46):
you know, because as the Dems have been deemed a
lot even before going into this election, that it's always
kind of not so much a messaging problem more than
it's like a branding problem. Like we were talking about
the Save earlier and how irritated I am that it's
called the Save Acts because it's anything but Republicans know

(01:34:07):
how to brand. So I'm very curious what have you
all been finding success without in the field regarding messaging.

Speaker 7 (01:34:15):
You know, it's interesting that you say, and I'm really excited,
thank you for that question. First thing I'll say is,
I don't know if people always say that the Republicans
are good at messaging.

Speaker 10 (01:34:25):
I don't know if I think that I think they're
good at.

Speaker 7 (01:34:27):
Lying, Like if I can lie and make something up,
I got some amazing stories that I could share, Like
if I can just create stuff, Yeah, you might be
entertained with my work too, right, But ultimately, you know,
I think that the messaging has to really be able,
not just around sensationalizing, but really it has to be
rooted in truth and so part of what but to

(01:34:49):
your point, the Democrats have not been good messengers, particularly
to black people.

Speaker 8 (01:34:54):
Right.

Speaker 7 (01:34:54):
One of the reasons why that's like a course strategy
for us around messaging is because all often times that
we don't hear messages that are really related to us,
and sometimes it's not that you got to shift and
come up with.

Speaker 10 (01:35:07):
The best sensational message.

Speaker 7 (01:35:09):
Part of why we've heard that over and over again
with all of the ads of the seven billion dollars
that the Democrats spent on the last election cycle, that
much of that went back to these communications firms that
convinced them that they need to be on television, that
they need to be on traditional network TV, so that
they could get these messages out in these advertisement pieces

(01:35:31):
out and ultimately what wound up happening is there were
messages that then land and many of us weren't there.
That what we're finding is when we're talking to our people,
like many of our young folks are getting, they're getting
their information from the internet, from YouTube, they're listening to
shows on TikTok, on social media, just as if this platform,
like social media, I think network TV is really in a.

Speaker 10 (01:35:53):
Downward client in this moment. And so it really is key.

Speaker 7 (01:35:56):
Around us having a message and what we found that
has always worked, always having a message of hope.

Speaker 10 (01:36:01):
You got to one. You always got to be authentic.

Speaker 7 (01:36:05):
You have to have an authentic message that is not
just about you telling people what they need to believe
in thee Now oftentimes folks always want to come in
our community and tell us what we need to do.
They always tell us like we ain't smart, like I
don't know what I need right that part of I
think the process of even shaping your message is having
the humility, having the organizing and the infrastructure to actually

(01:36:25):
listen to people so that you can really listen to
what's landing on them. And so oftentimes without organizing, it's
not about just the message that we're trying to put
on them like an advertisement. It is literally the message
is being shaped by what they're telling us. That the
message in Alabama. There may be a message in Alabama,
something going on in Alabama that can ignite people that

(01:36:46):
is distinctively different from North Carolina. I think the foundation
of the base that black folks want what everybody else want.
We want quality and education, and much of that as change.
We want quality education, we want to get paid, we
want economic equity. We want to make make sure that
we actually are able to build our communities, that we
have safety and security and economic security, those things. We

(01:37:08):
often work with folks who our posters and getting data
to make sure that we're really in tune with what
the message is. But the truth of the matter is
the way we actually get our messages is we out
in these streets and we talk to our people and
we hear from them what is it that you care about?
And part of the reason why I think that's been
really why our messaging has been really successful, not just.

Speaker 10 (01:37:31):
In a branding in a branded game, because I want.

Speaker 7 (01:37:32):
You to know who I am, but in a space
that we're actually using this platform that God has given us,
this platform that we've actually built over time to really
be able to integrate black voices, being relationship with black
communities three hundred and sixty five days out of year,
so that we're getting real time information so we can
tailor our messages to our people.

Speaker 1 (01:37:53):
Greg, thank you, Roland, and thank you Cliff.

Speaker 13 (01:37:56):
Natasha, as always you are more than inspiration in which
you certainly do.

Speaker 1 (01:38:01):
You instruct, and you instruct through your actions.

Speaker 13 (01:38:05):
And not only am I always inspired by you, I'm
always instructed by you as well in terms of how
to do this.

Speaker 1 (01:38:10):
And thank you, Natasha was.

Speaker 13 (01:38:11):
Saying, and I could seeing you a couple of weeks
ago at the fourteenth Amendment Centerces you really weighed in
as always, I just donated. I see that you all
posted the trailer on the YouTube channel which also has
the link. So before you all go, I know Rolan's
going to reiterate this, you know, tell people where to
go so we can all support making this documentary. And

(01:38:33):
you both mentioned the Save Act as you're earlier, as
Roland kind of opened the show with it. If this
act passes, particularly, Latasha says she's kind of really taking
a clear eyed view as to what this country is
and who we are, and how we have always intervened
to protect our interests regards to what they were doing.
Any advice on how we should be moving now in

(01:38:55):
terms of preparing ourselves in the wake of all these
executive words, but these bills, but.

Speaker 1 (01:39:00):
It particularly this Save Act.

Speaker 13 (01:39:02):
I mean, you know, should people be trying to get
their their their their documents there, their birth certificates, maybe
a passport?

Speaker 1 (01:39:08):
I mean, any any insight on that. And again, thank
you both for just incredible work.

Speaker 7 (01:39:14):
Thank you brother, and we appreciate you because we are
always inspired by you, like I think Black scholarship and
reminded us.

Speaker 10 (01:39:21):
And I'm really serious about that.

Speaker 7 (01:39:22):
I do believe that part of this attack on our
history is to make us forget our victories and to
make us forget that we win, that we have got
when we win, and how we have won in terms
of it has been our instance.

Speaker 10 (01:39:35):
That has led to the outcomes that we have.

Speaker 7 (01:39:37):
It has not been our capitulated and we gonna get along.
That ain't never got us nowhere, It has never gotten
us anywhere. It has actually been our organizing, our having
a clear vision, leadership that really is courageous and for
us to stand in the space that we are not
really surrendering. And so as it relates to the Save Act,
I think it's important in this moment, there's a couple
of things in this moment. I do believe that it's

(01:40:00):
as it passes. As we've been telling people, we do
have to get We've got to get some things lined
up to make sure that you do have your ID
do everything that you can within your power to make
sure that you can actually maintain voting right, because we
don't even know how long that voting system is gonna
be up.

Speaker 10 (01:40:16):
To be honest, we don't even know how long we're
gonna have the elections.

Speaker 7 (01:40:19):
But why it's really particularly national, But why it's particularly important,
it's because why voting is important, particularly on the local
and the state level, that what we need people to do.
We need to be relentless about taking power. If black
folks in the majority, it should not be it is
inexcusable that we're not running that city, that state, that county,
whatever you right, we have to make sure that we

(01:40:41):
are leaning into taking out using every tool that is
available to us to be a power. I'm the first
to say, even though my entire adult life I've done
voting work, I'm the first person to say that I
do not believe that voting is the only tool that
we're going to use to actually get our liberation.

Speaker 10 (01:41:00):
But what I do believe is that voting that when.

Speaker 7 (01:41:03):
You are at war where people are fighting your community,
you have to be relentless about power wherever you can
find it, wherever you can get it, wherever you can
leverage it. You have to leverage it for a couple
of ways. One you've got to use it, and you
got to vote so you can actually reduce the harm
happit in your community. The second thing is you got
to send a message when people come for you. You
got There has to be consequences. When people are coming

(01:41:25):
against our community, we create what I do that list
and hold them accountable. I think it's also really important
that we're documenting that in this moment that if the
same act passes, all of us need to be prepared now.

Speaker 10 (01:41:37):
We don't need to just wait for them. We need
to really be able to fortify.

Speaker 7 (01:41:40):
Our organizations that are doing this work for by your
own self and your own household, to make sure that
you got IDs and you got the requirements so that
you can make sure and to check your status.

Speaker 10 (01:41:51):
It's putting for you status.

Speaker 7 (01:41:53):
What they're planning in the state of Georgia currently right
now is to do the largest purge this summer. There
talking about doing the largest voter voter purge in the
state of Georgia this summer in the history of this country.
That's over five hundred thousand people that they're saying.

Speaker 10 (01:42:09):
So what we really need to do.

Speaker 7 (01:42:11):
We have to use voting as a vehicle as one
of our tools, of our many tools that we can
use to build power and be relentless with that, which
means we need to be prepared in terms of getting
our information together.

Speaker 10 (01:42:24):
We need to be fortified. And I think part of
the way that you fortify as.

Speaker 7 (01:42:29):
Organizations, whether it's NAACP, whether it's Black Voters Matter, whether
it's Georgia Stand Up, whether it's a National Coalition on
Black Civic Participation. This is the moment, y'all, that you
need to make sure that black organizations that are on
the front lines doing this work, that they are supported,
that you are fortifying them, that you are sending resources,

(01:42:49):
that you are volunteering, that you are tuning in. That
is another part of that. And then we've got to
be ready to do what we need to do, whether
that means as we organize. You know, I'm thinking thinking
about in Mississippi. I've been thinking a lot about in
Mississippi with the formation of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.
We also got to create some alternatives to let folks

(01:43:11):
know that we are not going to be out of
our life. It's not going to be dependent on the
whimsical nature of a political party, a candidate, or white people.
We're just not doing that no more. And so what
we've got to do is fortify ourselves user tools that
are available while they are available, also billed as we
are doing that. We got to build this context. And

(01:43:32):
so with the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, when they were
not allowed to vote in the truck quote regular election,
they had their own elections. Over eighty thousand people participated
in the election. They organized themselves, created the Mississippi Freedom
Democratic Party. Since a delegation led by sister Fanny lou
Haimer right and turned it out and shut it. In

(01:43:54):
many ways, they change and open up the space for
black folks within that kind because they were they did,
they dare to be different that they actually used their
power and organize themselves.

Speaker 10 (01:44:07):
And so I think in this moment we need to
be thinking like that as well.

Speaker 3 (01:44:10):
All right, folks, if you want to support the documentary, okay,
so here's what we need. We got to do. Where
do folks go, Cliff Latasha Because all right, So here's
the deal. I went to at blue dot com. All right,
So then I typed in go to my iPad. I
typed in black voters Matter. Also, some people in the
in the chapel ask me, does Black Voters Matter of
a pack? I said, they do, so, y'all see right here,

(01:44:32):
they have Black Voters Matter Capacity Building Institute, they have
Black Voters Matter Fund, Black voters Matter Action pack. All right,
here's the problem. When I type in y'all name, I
don't like, this doesn't come up. This is the actual
place for your gift for the documentary. So and I
typed in Black Voters Matter in the in act Blues
search box. This page doesn't come up. I typed in love,

(01:44:55):
Joy and Power. It doesn't come up. So where do
we send people to don't mate to give to finish
the documentary? Where they go?

Speaker 19 (01:45:03):
What's the easy place for them to go? Yeah, so
there's a couple of places they can go. The easiest
is if they have the direct link. And I think
that we've got it in the contents on Hey, it's
a big lead bit dot slash Love and Power and
but if but.

Speaker 3 (01:45:20):
If they is it on y'all site? If it, what's
the easiest, Like if I tell somebody, y'all go to
black vote our social media you no, no, But it's
on your website Black Votersmatter dot com.

Speaker 19 (01:45:31):
Yes, it's on our website, and it's on any one
of our social media. So if they go to our
our Twitter or x or Facebook or IG or whatever threads,
all of them are the same Black Voters MTR, Black
Voters MTR, and you'll see a post on it that's.

Speaker 21 (01:45:48):
Got the trailer and it has the donation link.

Speaker 19 (01:45:51):
Or you just go straight to our website, Black voters
Matter Fund, Black voters Matter Fund with a D at
the end dot org.

Speaker 3 (01:45:58):
Okay, all right, okay, so hold up, I'm on Black
Motive Black voters Matterfund dot org. All right, this is
it right here? What am I clicking?

Speaker 10 (01:46:07):
Like?

Speaker 3 (01:46:07):
What am I specifically for the doc? Because I'm looking.
I see show your support. I got that, I see
stay in form.

Speaker 1 (01:46:16):
I got that.

Speaker 3 (01:46:16):
There's a donate button of top. What does that go to?

Speaker 10 (01:46:21):
That's is in the news section.

Speaker 13 (01:46:24):
Okay, all right, Rowland, I just went to the Black
Voters Matter fun YouTube channel.

Speaker 1 (01:46:30):
Y'all got it?

Speaker 3 (01:46:31):
Y'all got no no no no no no no no
no no, I got that follow follow what I'm saying.
If i'm if I'm in Rileigh tomorrow, if I mentioned
I want to be able to give a just go
to this website to give the problem, go to the
YouTube channel I got to find it. So all i'm
I would just say, hey, I would just put a

(01:46:51):
button on the website, on your main website that they
can take them to the dock. That's I try to
make it as easy as possible where I can send
somebody to go there to support the doc. Because versus
I thought, if I said, hey, go to Act blue
dot com, type in black Voters Matter, it doesn't come up.
That's why I did it just so so maybe y'all
let Act Blue folks know that people to be able

(01:47:13):
to type in black voters Matter. Like I just show
y'all it. No, that's not it. Like right here, if
you type in black voters Matter in the directory, you
type that in, you hit return, it should be one
of the ones that come up in for the dock.
It should come up on that search box. So just
let them know it'd be there's a lot easier for
folks to be able to get to donate.

Speaker 19 (01:47:32):
Okay, definitely, but we'll add we'll add that onto the website,
but definitely go to any one of the social media channels.
Who you leave was finding pretty easy as well. But
thank you Roland for for for lifting that up. And
I just one one last thing, you know, because the
fundraising is important, but one last thing on that Save Act.

(01:47:53):
To press Carr's question, we got to try to block
right the current legislation because it's not a done deal.

Speaker 21 (01:47:59):
I think I heard it's not a done deals. And
as long as the Democrats in the.

Speaker 19 (01:48:05):
Senate don't do what four of them did in the House,
that's a whole nother story that we need to come
back to.

Speaker 3 (01:48:09):
Yeah, I need four were I need to find names.

Speaker 19 (01:48:13):
Yeah, and I think a couple of them were the
same ones that voted against Representative Green on that on
that centric votes.

Speaker 21 (01:48:20):
So they just got a history of running them up.
So we got a block.

Speaker 19 (01:48:24):
We also got to litigate were good for suing folks, right,
and so Black Voters Matter.

Speaker 21 (01:48:28):
Has been in a bunch of lawsuits. We might be
in a lawsuit over the Save Acts.

Speaker 19 (01:48:32):
We got to prepare in the ways that Latasha was
explaining right in terms of like getting our documents and.

Speaker 21 (01:48:36):
All that good stuff.

Speaker 19 (01:48:38):
But the fourth thing is critically important because we got
to understand, and we've all made this point, these are
not normal times. This is not just a matter of
a policy difference. This is a matter of them trying
to install a dictatorship in one party rule. And at
some point I said before, we are going to have
to hit the streets right right now, now, right now.

Speaker 21 (01:48:58):
It's the white folks, and most of us are are
chilling and learning the blots on the ground and all that, but.

Speaker 19 (01:49:02):
We got to be clear, we are going to have
to hit the streets because they are not playing about
trying to install a dictatorship.

Speaker 3 (01:49:08):
All right, So y'all know, y'all know I don't waste
on time. So here y'all go. The four Democrats that
voted for the save at Jarrett Golden, Marie Gluesen, camp Perez,
Henry Quayard down in Texas, and Ed Case. Golden tweeted
that some claim that requiring proof of citizenship is too

(01:49:31):
onerous a burden, or that it will disenfranchise those whose
names have changed for reasons like marriage. The truth is
the safe acting sure's name changes will not prevent anyone
from registering vote. You know, you know they lying, all right, folks,
I appreciate it. Cliff Natasha, thank you so very much.
Come up to good work.

Speaker 1 (01:49:46):
Thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:49:48):
All right. I got to talk about this with our panel.
It was a lot of stuff. We were talking about
a federal judges rule of a defamation lawsuit against Donald
Trump by the Central Park five now known as exonerated
five can move forward now, remember remember five black and
Latino teams Useph Salom, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana, Andro mccraid,

(01:50:11):
Corey Wise were wrongfield correct convicted in nineteen eighty nine
when a white jogger said she was attacked in Central Park.
They were blamed that they went to jail. They were
later exonerated. It was a forty million dollar settlement with
the city of New York City, and Michael Bloomberg did
not want to do that settlement. Let's just be real clear.

(01:50:33):
Donald Trump took out a full page ad saying that
they should have gotten the death penalty if that was
the case in New York State. He was asked in
twenty twenty as well. In twenty sixteen, presidential campaign and
in the two thousand and twenty four campaign about it,
and guess what, he wrongfully claimed they pled guilty and

(01:50:54):
that someone was killed during the attack. None of that
was true. Judge Wendy Beatlestone rule that Trump statements could
be proven false and that it's possible he knew they
were false when he said it. This is what should happen.
Keep that pressure on Greg and yeah, hold his ass
accountable for Lyon.

Speaker 1 (01:51:15):
Absolutely, that's a victory.

Speaker 13 (01:51:16):
Absolutely because intentional They judge did dismiss the intentional infliction
of motion, distress and a deafamation by implication theory. But
the core argument was upheld. And yes, they're going to
keep going forward. He's beginning to lose in the courts.
Talking with Clifford Natasha, it reminds us we saw while
we've been on the air. The Supreme Court said, hey,

(01:51:38):
they upheld the district court ruling. It says you got
to bring that guy you sent out of the country back. Yeah,
they sent it back to the district court to determine
what that process might be.

Speaker 1 (01:51:47):
There.

Speaker 13 (01:51:47):
Some language needs to be worked out, but all these
sensationless headlines in the white media.

Speaker 1 (01:51:52):
Trump wins the Supreme Court. Trump wins.

Speaker 13 (01:51:53):
The Supreme Court, they have not ruled on the merits
on any of these cases. This is the first one
they ruled on the merits, and they said, you got
to bring him back. We've got to fight exactly what
Cliff and Latasha said.

Speaker 1 (01:52:05):
Bro.

Speaker 3 (01:52:06):
Absolutely, this is why you cannot give up. At to
Gregg's point, Supreme Court required Trump administration to Trump administration
to facilitate the release of immigrant kill Maar Abrego Garcia.
And this was a family member speaking outside of Supreme Court.

Speaker 22 (01:52:27):
It's been twenty eight days since I lost on my husband,
since his children's hugged him, since his mother kissed him,
since his brother has talked to him.

Speaker 5 (01:52:44):
Quar ruled that indeed, this should have never happened.

Speaker 22 (01:52:49):
The rule that my life partner, Kilmar should have returned
home fifty hours ago. But here I am again today
forth standing before you, pleading that you continue to uplift
his story and remember his name because of Trump administration,

(01:53:16):
and the administration continues to delay the I reentification of
my family.

Speaker 3 (01:53:23):
Thugs, these thugs, what they did. That's again the court
rule there and Racy. I want the generated five to
keep the pressure on his behind. I want them to
hold him accountable and I want a jury to because
the judge said, now it goes to a jury to

(01:53:44):
rule against him and force him to pay fees because
he knew he was lying, he knew he was full
of shit. And guess what, and every they win, just
like E. G. And Carroll every time he defends them,
take his ass back to court.

Speaker 8 (01:53:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (01:54:00):
Well, you know, Donald Trump has been very litigious if
anybody says anything about him, so absolutely.

Speaker 8 (01:54:05):
Keep that same energy.

Speaker 9 (01:54:06):
As soon as he opened up his mouth and fixed
his mouth to say something that's a lie.

Speaker 10 (01:54:09):
Sue his as.

Speaker 8 (01:54:10):
I'm actually very much relieved that.

Speaker 9 (01:54:13):
This court is allowing this to move forward, simply because
it seems as though many of the rulings have been
that Trump can do whatever he wants to do to
whoever he wants to do. It ain't nobody gonna check
the boot. So I think this is a huge win,
regardless of what the ultimate outcome is. I don't know
if Trump is paid off anybody. He done been MARKU
manipulation and meme calm and all kinds of shit, So

(01:54:34):
you would think he would have had the money by
now to pay other people off. And whatever they can
get from him, get every single last penny. On the
subject though, of the Maryland father, this is a situation
where this administration knew that he should not have been deported,
fought tooth and nail to keep a man that they
knew should not have been deported in prison in shitthold

(01:54:58):
conditions in a country that they kidnapped and deported him to.

Speaker 10 (01:55:04):
And not only that, they.

Speaker 9 (01:55:06):
Fired or they reassigned the attorney that admitted the truth
in court, which is that this person should not have
been deported.

Speaker 11 (01:55:14):
It was an error.

Speaker 15 (01:55:15):
And so my.

Speaker 9 (01:55:17):
Message has to be because I'm sure Roland you see
this all the time and with the trolls, they not
foundational Black American, they not.

Speaker 10 (01:55:26):
This ain't got nothing to do it us.

Speaker 9 (01:55:28):
When this administration knows that you have a legal right
to be in this country, be it whether you're a citizen,
whether you have a green card which they're revoking left
and right, whatever your status is, if they know that
you have every right to be here and will still
haul y'all ass in a plane to a fucking colony
and say too bad. So said, that's something that impacts

(01:55:50):
us because these people don't have any sense of duty
to getting their actions right, because no humans evolved is
what they see, unless you I don't see no white
men with blond hair, blue eyes getting this treatment. Well,
actually they are messing with some of these Rushes and
other people, all the other Europeans. But I'm just saying
the moral of the story is that they have already

(01:56:13):
signaled that they will love to deport American citizens in prisons. Off,
we're gonna get the worst of the worst and all
kinds of stuff. But when they're doing these things that
they're supposedly doing out of safety, they don't have any
sense of carefulness and who goes So it could be you.

Speaker 10 (01:56:31):
It could be your.

Speaker 9 (01:56:32):
Daddy, It could be your nephew, gime brother. They can't
get us all, but it could still be you.

Speaker 3 (01:56:38):
Absolutely, and listen, he wants to sue Nola. Guess what
you fire right back and haul his ass into court
and hold them accountable. And we already know his a
twice impeached, crimly convicted felon in chief. Let's add like
we already know a lying asshole to it.

Speaker 12 (01:56:59):
Absolutely, and you know what, even if even if Scotus
did this out of self preservation, because they understood that
he was coming for their power, and it was.

Speaker 3 (01:57:09):
Nine to zero. It was a nine to zero ruling.
Go ahead, that.

Speaker 5 (01:57:12):
Nine to zero.

Speaker 12 (01:57:13):
So even if this was done out of self preservation,
I think this is going to be a seminal case
we look back at this time through history, because if
they would have ruled on the side of Trump, that
would have been carte blanche. I mean, he already sits
there with that little pen scribbling his name, you know,
and those those little photo shoots they hook up for

(01:57:34):
him with him not knowing what he's signing.

Speaker 10 (01:57:36):
But that kind of.

Speaker 12 (01:57:37):
Unilateral power, that dictatorial rule by you know, edict, all
of those things. The Supreme Court today they kind of
snatched back a little bit of their power.

Speaker 5 (01:57:50):
By saying, no, you cannot unilaterally do anything that.

Speaker 12 (01:57:54):
You want to do, and you have to also follow
the law and just snatching people up just because they
have melanin and that seems to bother you, even going
all the way back to the Central Park vib I mean.

Speaker 5 (01:58:06):
These are faceless human beings for Donald Trump and his ilk.

Speaker 12 (01:58:10):
You know, they could care less about this woman, you know,
pleading to the country about you know, her partner being
gone for twenty eight days.

Speaker 5 (01:58:17):
They could care less.

Speaker 12 (01:58:18):
So I even want to say that I saw, you know,
some footage of them basically kind of shrugging.

Speaker 5 (01:58:22):
It off like well, it's kind of collateral damage.

Speaker 12 (01:58:24):
Oh well, these people they don't see, they don't distinguish.

Speaker 5 (01:58:30):
Between you know, melanin and non melanin. We are not
human beings, we are not.

Speaker 10 (01:58:34):
People, you know.

Speaker 5 (01:58:35):
So they could easily round this man up.

Speaker 12 (01:58:38):
They could easily make up some stuff and say, you know,
all of us sitting here that you know, send us
back to Africa or to the Caribbean or you know
what I'm saying, like that FBA, all that stuff that
does not guarantee your safety.

Speaker 10 (01:58:52):
At all, you know.

Speaker 5 (01:58:54):
So I am really happy that the Supreme Court adjudicated
the way that they did, because it's is a loud
message that you cannot w unilaterally.

Speaker 3 (01:59:05):
Folks. You might be seeing promos of a new show
here in the Blackstar Network, the Other Side of Change.
Check it out.

Speaker 8 (01:59:15):
This week.

Speaker 14 (01:59:15):
On the Other Side of Change, We're going to examine
how foreign policy impacts domestic policy, and how domestic policy
impacts farm policy. We are all intertwined, and we're going
to have Hannah read help us break down that topic.

Speaker 12 (01:59:26):
We should not want our country to be the big
bad wolves of the globe because that puts us in
a really vulnerable position safety wise as well.

Speaker 8 (01:59:36):
Only on the other side of Change on the Blackstar Network.

Speaker 3 (01:59:46):
All right, folks, join us right now. The host of
that show, Jamiir Burley Bria Baker, glad to have both
of you here. So whose idea was it for this show? Well,
obviously I put the word out I wanted two millennials
hosting the show, so that's what. But how did y'all
connect to say, hey, let's do this thing together. I
don't know.

Speaker 8 (02:00:05):
We were riffing off of one another. We've been friends
and working in and around the same spaces for such
a long time, and we were feeling very frustrated at
who the vain talking heads are and the fact that
there are some in media who are just not really
getting the right and so we've been talking about it
for a while. I think it was you, Jimir, though,
who came out with the other side of change as

(02:00:26):
a topic and was like, Okay, I feel like we
need to not go to traditional spaces and we need
to hit up folks like Roland because you're doing the
real work and real talk.

Speaker 14 (02:00:37):
Yeah, and I think we really wanted to get at
the intersectionality between It's not enough to just talk about
the news. We wanted to also talk about what are
the real solutions that are being implemented around the country,
and who are the young people who are leading that change,
whether it be within systems or outside of systems, and
helping to redefine how young people can play a role
in systematic and sustainable change.

Speaker 8 (02:00:59):
Yeah, Glad Roland that you were really open to having
two millennial women because you know, young people get dismissed
but then are like kind of baited and shamed and
showing up, and it's like we have to be real
stakeholders at the table. Millennials and gen zers are becoming
a major voting block. Millennials have a huge share of
shopping power and buying power and are proven that our

(02:01:22):
values really guide the way that we spend our money,
the way that we spend our time, and what we
give our attention to. And a lot of young people
are not tuning in to the major you know networks
because they don't feel seen and heard and so having
a voice here, but also in an intergenerational space where roll.

Speaker 10 (02:01:38):
Now you have such a.

Speaker 8 (02:01:40):
Major platform, one of the fastest growing platforms in progressive media,
and so it's just so important to have like two
young black women on that space.

Speaker 3 (02:01:47):
So what was interesting I had I put the call
out there and that jamiro is like, I'm interested, and
then let's say she didn't send me anything. So I
was like, so a bunch of other people where people
were posting on social they were sending me emails. And

(02:02:08):
here was the problem that I had. And I've said
this earlier on the show. Nearly every person who was
hitting me up they were trying to do entertainment, and
they were coming from entertainment background. The hitch was entertainment
and I didn't even respond. So to all those folks,
it's nothing personal, but I was very clear I did
not want an entertainment show. My deal is, if you

(02:02:31):
want to do entertainment, you can go somewhere else. I
got no problem with that. I remember me and Kevin
Frasier were talking with an NBA All Star game and
he was moderating this event at Nike. He was like,
whoa roan. You got to have a little I said no,
I said, they can go to He's like, well, they
already come to us. I said, dude, I'm fine with that.
I said, because I said, that's the problem. And I said,
the problem is when you opened that entertainment door. Is

(02:02:53):
what happened with BT. All of a sudden, you become
fifty sixty, seventy eighty ninety ninety five percent entertainment because
you start chasing the clicks and you fall in love
with the clicks. And I said, I can't do that.
And so that's why for me, because I said, because
I fundamentally believe that, And when when I look at

(02:03:13):
when I look at the numbers, I can and I
got no problem saying it. When I look at our
analytics over the last twenty eight days and you're talking
about twenty five to thirty million views when I click audience,
this really is the issue that we have you thirteen
to seventeen zero percent, eighteen to twenty four, one percent,

(02:03:34):
twenty five, thirty four to four point one percent, thirty five,
forty four, ten point five percent, forty five to sixty
five plus accounts for eighty one percent of our audience. Now,
these are people who are seeking out news and information.
I get TikTok, I get Instagram, but the issue that
I have and I just personally believe that too many

(02:03:56):
millennials in gen Z and now jen Alpha are being
fed lots of stuff that's misinformation, that's not factual, that's
not deep, that's not impactful, and that makes it harder
when you're bad like misinformation disinformation.

Speaker 10 (02:04:11):
Oh absolutely.

Speaker 14 (02:04:12):
And you know, as someone who regularly uses TikTok and
mostly to convey the news, it's not a place where
you can have a holistic conversation about what's really going on.
It's normally just sound bites, and I think too many
people take that as gospel and they run with it
instead of actually examining and doing their own research exactly.

Speaker 8 (02:04:30):
That's a huge issue. And as you said Roland too,
it's like we're being over entertained. And I think the
goal is, you know, we've seen so much incredible youth
organizing over the last five to ten years, and the
challenge is that that organizing doesn't happen because you watched
a sixty second video. That organizing happens, because you opened

(02:04:50):
a book, That organizing happens because you listen to a
conversation so in depth and you have resources. That's why
every single episode of ours ends with read this, follow
this person for more on this topic, because it's like,
we want to go deep, but also it's still a
starting point forty five to sixty minutes. We can't give everything,
but it's definitely more than what you're going to get

(02:05:12):
in a sixty second to three minute video on TikTok.
And so I think the challenge is that those platforms
are supposed to be introductions like getting someone's feet wet
and getting you excited to go deeper. But if you
stay mindlessly scrolling, you.

Speaker 10 (02:05:25):
Never get to go deeper.

Speaker 8 (02:05:26):
And as you said, there's so much deep faith content,
there's so much misinformation, there's so much AI content, and
the platforms are not mandating that that content be flagged
as AI produced or as deep faith or there's just
not real and so it's hard to parse out what.

Speaker 10 (02:05:42):
Is real from what is not.

Speaker 8 (02:05:44):
But those platforms, I mean, listen, Black Lives Matter movement
was really spawned through Twitter, the Arab Springs are really
responding through YouTube and Facebook. There's so much movement work
that gets seated on those platforms, but it.

Speaker 5 (02:05:57):
Can't end there.

Speaker 8 (02:05:58):
We have to have somewhere real to talk to real people.
And unfortunately, you know, no shade, no tea. But like
the MSNBC, CNNs are not investing in these folks either,
and they're not investing in our voices. But every election
cycle they're gonna wonder how and why Millennias and Gingers
are voting, but they're not investing in talking to us.
So again, I really appreciate you making that.

Speaker 3 (02:06:19):
And say this is before before I go to panel,
this is the thing, and I'm gonna go to reci
first because this ties into what I'm about to say
you got about, and people need to understand this is
this is This ain't about being arrogant, cocky or bragging.
But as Joe Naman said, it ain't bragging when you
when you can do it. It's about forty plus people

(02:06:39):
you see on all of these networks who are black,
who came through me, They came through my TV one
show Washington watched, they came through News one. Now I
put them on Tom Joiner. I need people to understand
that was deliberate. I was deliberate and intentional in seeking

(02:07:00):
out black voices that I knew white executives, white producers,
white bookers were never going to call. And when I
put the word out, I said I need I said,
I want a show hosted by millennials. I want a
right now, I want a show host who is gen z.

(02:07:22):
Because the mistake that I saw when I was in
my twenties and thirties is that there were African Americans
who had platforms who were not being intentional. They only
wanted to be about them. And the problem is they
did not create, They did not build an ecosystem for

(02:07:45):
me and people. There were people who came to I'll
never forget two thousand and eight twosand no twenty twelve election.
Maybe it was sixteen. It was sixteen sixteen, and so
seeing in hire like six or seven people, and the
brother was like, yo, ro men, the people are gonna
take all your panels. I was like, I'm good, they can.

(02:08:06):
I said, they can hire every single panels on my show,
and I'm gonna go get a whole new crew. And
then they can go hire all of them and I'm
gonna get a whole new crew. What that for me
was you were expanding the ecosystem so people with platforms.
It doesn't do anything if it's all about you and

(02:08:27):
you don't create spaces you now then are taking it away.
People literally said to me, why you putting that cussing
ass woman Recie on? And I'm gonna tell you. When
I go to rec she go, she gonna get that
shot into this question. Here's what happened. So Reese comes
on the show, and this is recent when she comes on,

(02:08:47):
so she's talking like everyone else. I'm looking at her like,
I ain't book your ass to sound like everybody else.
I need you to do you like you sound because
that's what it sounds like recently. Me how at you?
That ain't what I call you to do. And I
need the artist to understand. I don't know what Jamira

(02:09:09):
and Bria talk about. I don't text them or email them.
I don't know who they booking. Because people have to
have the freedom to have their conversation. So if y'all
get mad, whatever they say, don't call me because I
didn't talk to them about it. But Resa, go ahead
with your question.

Speaker 10 (02:09:31):
I gonna tell that Corey five years.

Speaker 6 (02:09:35):
It's true.

Speaker 1 (02:09:36):
It's true.

Speaker 3 (02:09:37):
Reason reason was like being very much. I'm on television.
I'm here on rolling show, so they're fo I was
like baby I need you to do you She was like, oh,
hell okay, but again.

Speaker 8 (02:09:48):
Because we just be needing permission to be because there's
so many spaces where we're on the leash and where
you learn to code switch for survival, and it takes
a space saying no. When I say I about unapologetic,
I really mean that. But people will say that and
then you act your authentic self and they do what
they did to joy and Read, and they do what
they did to Tiffity Cross, and they do what they

(02:10:11):
did to so many people, and so they did right well,
they tried to do what they tried to do to
Markel Mohill, like they try to do this to us,
and so it takes really learning like, okay, this is
actually a space where I can be unfiltered.

Speaker 10 (02:10:23):
So I hear you, I hear you.

Speaker 9 (02:10:27):
Well, thank you, Roland, I meane Roland Martin Unfiltered, Resa
Cab Shows, Unfiltered.

Speaker 10 (02:10:32):
And the other side of change.

Speaker 9 (02:10:34):
I'm sure it's very much unfiltered. But to Roland's lead
in my question is you know, how are you folks
approaching curating your your topics and your guests knowing that
the same people do tend to get past the mic
on these topics and really expanding that ecosystem that Roland

(02:10:56):
pointed out and ensuring that not the same piece people
that everybody and seen everywhere are who your audience gets
to tap into.

Speaker 1 (02:11:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 14 (02:11:06):
Well, first, I will say regarding the topics, we really
take topics that are in the top young people are
already discussing on other social media platforms that we know
that they're curious about, they're interested in. And then the
way we find speakers is we don't find people who
talk for a living, right like anyone can yap a
little bit. We find people who are actually doing the work,
meaning they're working in organizations, they're considered activists, they're working

(02:11:27):
for nonprofits, they're elected officials. And these are young people
so between the ages of millennials and gen zers, who
are actively in the spaces, who can talk about these
conversations from a more nuanced way and not just from
talking points that they're getting through chat GBT that.

Speaker 3 (02:11:43):
Heart absolutely Noah.

Speaker 5 (02:11:48):
Well, first of all, I am so happy and so
proud of you both, and I want to ask you.

Speaker 12 (02:11:53):
More of a personal question, you know, like, so people
can I see your personalities and you know, y'all do
hard hitting stuff, But I mean, like, what is the
energy like working between the two of y'all, Like is
it symbiotic or y'all just kind of clicking buybe off
each other, or you know, like just one do one
thing better than the other.

Speaker 5 (02:12:13):
Like I'm just very curious about the American.

Speaker 3 (02:12:15):
Relationship, which one of y'all don't know nothing about Philadelphia music.

Speaker 14 (02:12:22):
Wow, the Heavy Shade is so right to come. Wow,
And I thought I was here honoring my elders and.

Speaker 5 (02:12:29):
Just FYI his favorite thing to do. Can y'all please
answer the question?

Speaker 3 (02:12:34):
Look, Nola, listen, I ain't been petty with you in
two weeks, so.

Speaker 8 (02:12:41):
What to answer your question? I do think it's very symbiotic.
Jamr is my sister.

Speaker 1 (02:12:47):
We know that.

Speaker 8 (02:12:48):
I mean, on most of these topics, we're very aligned.
It's rare that we're bringing something forward that we strongly
disagree on. But we also have unique experiences where it's
like I have almost exclusively been from outside protesting and
let's dismantle this thing and recreate it and renew it.
And Jamira has I mean also done that, but also

(02:13:08):
work from the inside saying like how can we how
can we change these systems from the inside and seeing
the power but also the will to change from that
inside and like adding in that new one set, like listen,
not everybody here's our enemy, not every but he's a villain.
And I think that that's important because we can come
to the table with the energy and the and the
righteous anger that a lot of young people have, but

(02:13:29):
also like the let's channel that into a productive place.
So I think that's what works. But also we work
so well together that it kind of trades off. There's
weeks where I'm like, I know exactly what our next
few topics should be, and let me like get us
cook in and let's get started. And then there's weeks
where Jamiir is like, girl, we need to talk about this,
and I'm like, okay, great, Like listen, who should we
re bringing up? So I think that we we learn

(02:13:51):
to like take space leave space when one of us
is like, I'm very passionate about what's coming up. We're
also very mindful because we're we both come from activists
and advocacy spaces. We're also mindful of just like what
are our people on the ground feeling like it's not
being talked about so sometimes it's something that's not really
trending but should be is not getting the space that

(02:14:12):
it deserves, or is trending in group chats and sound
channels and you know apps that young people are on
but that like are not being covered in traditional spaces,
and so then that becomes really important. But yeah, I
love what you said as far as like, the people
that we bring in are not just figure your heads
or talking just to talk. We bring people in and
a lot of the people that we have brought on

(02:14:33):
as guests are like, I don't think I've never done
this before, so are you sure it should be me?
And we're like, yes, you, that's exactly why.

Speaker 5 (02:14:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 14 (02:14:40):
And also it's hard sometimes because I am from the
greatest city in the world, and you know, I'm from Philadelphia,
the best siting in the world, the birthplace of a nation,
and you know, sometimes I have to convey to other
people that because of that, we have oftentimes the best perspective.
So but yeah, it's it's a feeding off of each other,

(02:15:03):
you know.

Speaker 2 (02:15:04):
I love it.

Speaker 3 (02:15:05):
Mm hmm, Okay, I just don't ask her who gamble
and huff is I know, now, Greg, don't ask her
who gamble? And huff is and what the Philly sound
is the Philly because her ass had to go google it.

Speaker 8 (02:15:23):
Is, Will Smith and fresh Prince, I know what it is, now.

Speaker 3 (02:15:26):
Greg, go ahead, I ain't either. Is she gonna make
me because.

Speaker 13 (02:15:29):
As an adopted Philadelphian from forty eighth and Pine who
lived there, hey double graduate Temple University, I must say
that there is no Philadelphian who doesn't know the sound
of Philadelphia.

Speaker 1 (02:15:41):
So now I just want to know west north mount Arie.
We're up Germantown Avenue. You down south? Where you were,
where we were, what part of.

Speaker 8 (02:15:50):
I'm a city of the people.

Speaker 14 (02:15:51):
I went to Overbrook High School in West Philly, and
I graduated from Temple University.

Speaker 8 (02:15:55):
But Philly, Yeah, I call all Philly home.

Speaker 1 (02:15:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 13 (02:15:57):
When you said Overbrooke, then I know that's why you're
gonna leave with will Smith, because if you came out
of Castle and that I absolutely.

Speaker 1 (02:16:03):
Understand she feel the rolling.

Speaker 13 (02:16:05):
That's just how it has how But but first of all,
congratulations to both of you, Marion Bria, I mean, great show,
great dialogue. I'm having a challenge, uh, certainly with my
students and and and with many others in terms of
this question of literacy and reading.

Speaker 1 (02:16:21):
We're in a post literacy generation, given the fact.

Speaker 13 (02:16:25):
That you all used as a point of entry these
very important salient topics and things that really aren't covered,
as you say, in white stream media, and things that
are coming out of that this target demographic. Any advice
on how we engage younger people around the challenge of
deeper study once they watch your show, how do we

(02:16:47):
push them to then go on and pursue looking deeper
into these issues on their own?

Speaker 14 (02:16:53):
Yeah, I mean what a part of me wants to
say that meeting young people where they are is oftentimes
the best way possible, and so finding ways to create
content or to share information that is digestible that can
peak their interest.

Speaker 8 (02:17:07):
So, for instance, a few weeks.

Speaker 14 (02:17:09):
Ago on TikTok, you had a professor who opened up
her classroom to a wide range of folks to talk
about black history because we saw how black history was
being removed from schools across the country, and she had
thousands of people online pour in to want to be
a part of this class and actually participate, and that
led to her then creating content offline where it was
a syllabus and books referencing the content she was sharing

(02:17:31):
on her TikTok. Now, not everyone as a TikTok expert,
but that being said, I think finding the spaces where
young people are tapping into the topics that they already
care about then and expanding their knowledge on those topics
by then introducing articles and books and even referencing music.
A lot of folks are using the different forms of
media to be able to draw the correlations between how
other topics were discussed at a period of time by

(02:17:54):
those who were considered cultural leaders.

Speaker 7 (02:17:56):
So whether it was rappers or poets or writers, how.

Speaker 14 (02:17:59):
They all the world through those lens I think can
really help to bring young people, who oftentimes see themselves
as creatives, to be able to identify with those folks.

Speaker 8 (02:18:08):
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And I think part of
meeting young people where they're out. It doesn't need to
stay in digital spaces, you know, book clubs and film screetings,
but just with content that is cultural development and always
tying it back to how it affects you know. Like
I think there are some young people for whom they
hear the conversation right now around four to one k's
and social security, and they're like I don't even have

(02:18:28):
a savings let alone a retirement plan, so this doesn't
feel relevant to me. But reminding them that their grandparents do,
the ones who raise them, who are still raising them,
who they still depend on for that twenty dollars to
get through the week, and it's going to affect their
quality of like that matters so so much. I think
those are the ways that we bridge the divides. But
I think what we kind of talk over young people's
head and just expect that every topic is going to

(02:18:51):
feel relevant. You're gonna have young people who are saying
exactly what the Black Panthers were saying in their time.
Like I can't focus on that my people are dying.
I can't focus on that I'm hungry. I can't focus
on that I got student loan that's that are going
to linquid after I was told that they were being
forgiven and my credit scores tend. I can't even talk
about home ownership because I can't even get an apartment
that's affordable in the city that I work in. So
I think we just have to acknowledge that, like, young

(02:19:12):
people have real issues. It's not that young people are
like sitting somewhere and just like in a fairy tale land,
young people are dealing with.

Speaker 5 (02:19:23):
I mean, they're dealing with the same problems as adults.

Speaker 8 (02:19:26):
They're dealing with the same problem as adults.

Speaker 14 (02:19:28):
They just lack the same resources and recourse as many
of their parents and grandparents'.

Speaker 8 (02:19:34):
Generation exactly one million percent. So we just got to
bring it to where they're at. There's so many great
documentaries out there. Like Junior said, also, just music is
a really great connection. I think of what Tupac did
for a generation. I think of what Kendrick Lamar is
still doing for our generation, and I think that the
more we can make those ties and connections, the more
the young people be like, oh yeah, this does matter

(02:19:54):
to me and I want to stay engaged.

Speaker 3 (02:19:57):
All right, man, So folks, here's a deal. There are
multiple ways you can check out the Other Side of Change.
First of all, if you go to go to my iPad,
you go to the app. We have all of the
shows listed, including new episodes. Praise the Lord of the
Black Table. So he's been saying that. It's been saying

(02:20:20):
that for four months. So if you go to the
app the Other Side of Change, you will see all
of the episodes here. Okay, also that's us on the app.
But then also there are two places if you go
to the YouTube channel. So if you click live, if
you get to our YouTube channel and click live, you
will see uh, the episodes here. The first one there

(02:20:41):
was a month ago. You'll see that the debut episode
where is it is down here somewhere had it there
not Abolition and Reform. That was the second one. So
if you go, if you just so two places, so
the premiere right there. So if you go to the
YouTube channel, you can click live and check it out,
so you'll see all of the episodes there on live.

(02:21:01):
And then also you'll see right there you'll see the
color scheme right there with Ria engineer. Oh, you can
also click videos. We've also have been posting clips from
their show on all different social media channels as well,
So click that check it out. Spread the word, let

(02:21:23):
folks know, because I don't know, I mean, it's a
bunch of people out there talking. I'm not sure if
there's another show like that out here that's having the
kind of conversations y'all have it.

Speaker 8 (02:21:34):
They're not no, because as you said, you know, your
network is unfiltered and so we get to be so unfiltered.
There are some networks that are trying to talk about
these topics, but they're not doing it in an unfiltered way,
so it's not going to reach young people and it's accessible.
You know, Like we'll be mid conversation and Jamiro will
be like, actually define that word that you just use.

(02:21:55):
Let's not talk over people, saying let's not use big
words just for the sake of sounding grind use and fancy,
and like you don't fancy though, but yes, listen, we
gottna be a bougie. But like, you don't need your
degree to listen to this, and you will always always
it's like a curriculum. You always get resources to who
you can follow on social media, what books you can read,

(02:22:16):
what articles, and like following the groups who are doing
real work on the ground, Like it's it's real soft
over there.

Speaker 3 (02:22:23):
Absolutely, so folks, please spread the word. The other side
of change, we drop it every Where's.

Speaker 8 (02:22:28):
It Thursday Thursday, every thursd Thursday.

Speaker 3 (02:22:30):
Every Thursday. We dropped the episode. Uh, and so what
we do is we stream it in the morning around
eleven o'clock and then of course after my show as well,
so y'all be sure to check it out. Spread the
word Jami real well appreciate it. Thank you so very much.
Thanks Alank, you have a good names. Bil let me,
thank let me, Thank Nola, Greg, and reci for being
on today's show. Great conversation. Uh first and foremost, rec

(02:22:55):
you come on here every week and we say your show?
When is your show? So for folk who ain't got
no clue, when is your show?

Speaker 9 (02:23:05):
Chaw My show is on year three on serious XM
urban View Channel one, twenty six Saturdays. It's live from
two to four pm. You can call in. It's on
the same channel as the great Doctor Carr who's on
urban View mornings multiple times a week. So yes, do
tune in and call in too.

Speaker 3 (02:23:24):
Okay, all right, hey Roland.

Speaker 9 (02:23:26):
A lot of people call into my show saying that
they watch Roland Martin unfiltered.

Speaker 10 (02:23:31):
Everybody at the NAN convention was saying that they love
us on Roland.

Speaker 9 (02:23:35):
So yes, it's definitely a lot of crossover between my
show and the wonderful Roland Martin and filter Blackstar Network audience.

Speaker 3 (02:23:44):
Well, it's great, and so somebody was like, Roland, you know,
receee this week you got the show. We should get
a show on serious X moms like good. I'm like,
that's what we need. We have to have more voices
on multiple platforms driving the mess. That's what's critical. Just
like what what what Greg started doing with Karen? Uh?

(02:24:05):
So they do that's important. Uh, Nola's still trying to
figure out what she want to do. Uh so I'm
still waiting. I'm still waiting for an adequate, detailed proposal
from Nola. Uh the one that Yeah, the initial one
that you sent me was not satisfactory.

Speaker 5 (02:24:27):
Oh I see, so your feedback is telepathic, got it?

Speaker 16 (02:24:30):
No?

Speaker 3 (02:24:30):
No, no, no, no, I told you that. But see,
I see, since since I had not been petty in
two weeks in this you invited me to be petty
and shady. I just went ahead and obliged.

Speaker 5 (02:24:42):
Of course, of course, of course.

Speaker 12 (02:24:45):
Uh that door was slightly opening, and you just had
to come in and push it all the way open.

Speaker 3 (02:24:49):
Oh yes, I will, I will sling that door open quickly.
And yes, that's what that's what were That's what we did.
And so the weather is still cold in DC and
I still have yet to see any gumbo. All right,
that's it, so let me let thanks a lot of folks.
I appreciate it. Hey, folks, Tomorrow we will not be

(02:25:10):
in the studio. We are packing up. In fact, we
about to go pack up right now our gear. Tomorrow
we will be broadcasting live from Martin Street Baptist Church,
their fellowship Hall in Raleigh, North Carolina. We want to
see all of y'all there. Doors open at five pm
where we're live at six pm Easter, We're having a

(02:25:32):
citywide town hall talking about what is happening with Saint
Augustine's University. They are having significant financial issues. They're having
you know, the attorney generals and investigating them over a
land deal. They tried the broker. They have enrollment issues,
students are not on campus. It's just all sorts of drama.

(02:25:53):
And we want to give the community, students, faculty, staff, administration,
board trustees. Who refuses to hit us back, I mean sorry,
we refuse us to participate, and I'm sorry that was
something you had shown. You need to put that in
group me for Carol, so I can zoom in here

(02:26:14):
whatever what I think I had something from the university.
So the thing is, so let me be perfectly clear.
We have repeatedly invited the administrative administration of Saint Augustine's.
We have repeatedly invited the Board of Trustees. They have
opted not to be involved. In fact, they asked us,
they asked us to take off to take off their

(02:26:40):
logo off of our graphic. I said no, and we
made it clear we're coming. We made it clear we're
going to be there. We made it clear that we
were going to have this conversation. I'm real clear. This
is not about destroying an HBCU, but this is about
being able to share. And you can't ask black people

(02:27:01):
for support for your university, then if you are unwilling
to actually engage to talk about it. There's no other
black news platform. And let me tell you that that's
like us. Let me tell you something right now. They
get there's a lot of people who've done stories on
them other media. This ain't about sitting here knocking anybody

(02:27:21):
out anything along those lines. So let me read this.
I'm gonna read this now and I'm gonna read it
again tomorrow. But this is what they sent out, dear
alumni and friends of Saint Augustin's University, which stan Hartfeldt
appreciation to each of you for your continued support, advocacy
and belief in St. Augustin's University. In light of the
scheduled town hall hosted by The Roland Martin Show on Friday,

(02:27:44):
April eleventh in Raleigh, you would like to respectfully clarify
that this event is not sponsored by SAU. Neither the
Board of Trustees, the university administration Northern National Alumni Association
President will be in attendance. We fully understand the concerns
rest by many within the SAU family, and we remain
committed to providing accurate information and meaningful updates at the

(02:28:06):
appropriate time. Right now, our priority is focused on maintaining
our accreditation through the sacs COEOC arbitration process, securing essential
funding to demonstrate our financials to sustainability, supporting our students,
especially those on the path to graduation on May third.
We appreciate your enduring love for our university. We ask

(02:28:27):
for the continued unity, patients, and positive support as we
take these critical steps forward. This is a defining time
in sau's history, and with your strength beside us, we
will continue to fight for our legacy, our mission, and
our future. Thank you for believing in SAU. With Falcon
Pride doctor Marcus H. Burgess, Interim President Saint Augustine's University.

(02:28:48):
So that's what they sent us. I'll wait until tomorrow
to respond to that post. I got a few things
to say out that post, but you hear that tomorrow
we'll be live six to eight pm Eastern Again. We're
going to be there at Martin Street Baptist Church. This

(02:29:11):
is the address, Fellowship Hall on East Martin Street and
Rolling Again. Doors open at five pm. We want to
pack the house out because when they say we want
positive support, our support is positive, but it's also conditional
on transparency and truth. So that's why we're going. But

(02:29:34):
guess why it's important for us to shed light on
what's happening. Folks support the work that we do by
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(02:29:56):
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(02:30:18):
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(02:30:38):
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(02:31:02):
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(02:31:22):
So we absolutely are speaking truth to power every single day,
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(02:31:44):
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other shirt hashtag we tried to tell you FAFBO twenty
twenty five. Also, don't blame me. I voted for the
black Woman to get those shirts at Roland Martin dot creator,
dash spring dot com. The cure code is there as well.

(02:32:07):
Let's see here. Also download the app fan base of
course you get that app. We want to get a
million subscribers, a million followers. Also, you want to invest
eleven point four million dollars has been raised.

Speaker 1 (02:32:17):
You know.

Speaker 3 (02:32:17):
The commercial we have is is eight point six million
that was like a month ago is now up to
eleven point four million. The goal is seventeen million. Go
to stark Engine dot com. Start Engine dot com, Ford
slash fan based stark Engine dot com, Ford slash fan
Base and do not forget folks. We want to support
that documentary for Blackstar Network. So if you go to

(02:32:42):
you go to Black votersmatterfund dot org. You can also
go to the black their Capacity Building Institute. You can donate.
This is on act Blue as well, their target Gold.
Matter of fact, they had seven hundred and fifty million
dollars that was raised they just launched this. They up
to one thousand and six turn and fifty five. You
see that number increasing, and so we want to help

(02:33:03):
them hit their goal of two hundred thousand. They want
to finish the production of this documentary and then they
want to then distributed all across the country because people
can see the amazing work they've been doing. And so
that's where you can check it out or go to
their YouTube channel as well. Again, I will see you
guys tomorrow. I'm leaving out in the morning flying there.
The lots of media that we're doing and so we're

(02:33:24):
going to be on the road, taking rolling unfiltered on
the road, broadcasting tomorrow in Raleigh, North Carolina, talking about
what's happening in Saint Augustine University. Note Rome, there we go.
Thank you very much. So we're going to see you
guys at Martin Street Baptist Church tomorrow. Until then, how

(02:33:44):
Black Start Networks.

Speaker 1 (02:33:48):
Are real on revolutions there right now.

Speaker 3 (02:33:50):
Thank you for being the voice of black a parance,
a moment that we have.

Speaker 10 (02:33:54):
Now we have to keep this going.

Speaker 13 (02:33:56):
The videos of phenomenal between Black Star Network and Black
owned media and something like seeing.

Speaker 3 (02:34:03):
N you can't be black owned media and be scape.

Speaker 1 (02:34:07):
It's time to be smart. Ring your eyeballs hot.

Speaker 3 (02:34:11):
It did h

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