MLK 57 years after his death, Trump tariff sparks Lesotho crisis, UConn star Paige Bueckers drama

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Public in.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Pub in.

Speaker 3 (00:08):
Inch inch In bach in.

Speaker 4 (00:28):
Me in.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Bach In bach In public in bach in the busts in.

Speaker 1 (01:12):
Public in.

Speaker 5 (01:25):
In in.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
Pub in.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
Bub In.

Speaker 6 (01:54):
Me in me.

Speaker 3 (02:08):
In inch inch in in inch in me inch inst me.

Speaker 7 (02:54):
In in.

Speaker 3 (03:01):
BBC Bakka baking.

Speaker 4 (04:18):
Hello.

Speaker 8 (04:19):
I'm Isaacat's the third founder and CEO of fan Base.
Listen to what I'm about to tell you. The window
to invest in fan Base is closing. We've raised over
ten point six million of our seventeen million dollar goal.
That means there's room for less than six thousand, three
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(04:40):
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makes you an owner in fan Base today. Go to
start engine, dot com slash fan base to invest. Why
because current social apps have taken advantage of users for
far too long with content suppression, shallow banning, homeful, racist content,
and no real tools for monetization and equity. Base has

(05:00):
over one point four million users in counting, allowing anyone
to read all their following and monetize their content from
day one. Social media is the new TV and whoever
owns are apps to distribute that content, have the opportunity
to own potential billion dollar companies. While big platforms with
certain futures are failing to serve their users, fan base
is stepping up to fill the gap. Don't wait until

(05:22):
it's too late. Invest now. Invest for yourself and your future.
Go to starting dot com slash fan base own the
next generation of social media.

Speaker 7 (05:39):
Black Start Network is here, right Sam, black media, make
sure that our stories are told. Thank you for being
the voice of Black America. Roleing a moment we have.

Speaker 9 (05:55):
Now we have to keep this going.

Speaker 10 (05:57):
The video looks phenomenals.

Speaker 11 (05:59):
Between black star networks and black owned media and something.

Speaker 7 (06:03):
Like se and you can't be black on media and
be scape.

Speaker 12 (06:07):
It's time to be smart.

Speaker 4 (06:09):
Bring your eyeballs home.

Speaker 13 (06:12):
You dig.

Speaker 14 (06:22):
H m.

Speaker 1 (06:32):
Hm m.

Speaker 14 (06:39):
M m.

Speaker 1 (06:45):
M m m m m.

Speaker 4 (06:55):
M m.

Speaker 1 (07:02):
In Insta.

Speaker 3 (07:11):
Instead instant, insta instead, inst in insta instead instant last insta,

(08:13):
inst intact inst.

Speaker 2 (08:32):
In insta, inst.

Speaker 3 (08:47):
Intact, instant, instant, instant, instant, instant, instant, instant, instant, instant, instant.

Speaker 15 (10:03):
Morte.

Speaker 7 (10:46):
No, I'm Isaac's the third founder and CEO.

Speaker 8 (10:49):
Fan Base, listen to what I'm about to tell you
the window to invest in fan Base is closing. We've
raised over ten point six million of our seventeen million
dollar go That means the room for less than six thousand,
three hundred and seventy people to invest in Fanbase for
the average amount. The minimum of invest in fan Base
right now is three hundred and ninety nine dollars. That

(11:10):
makes you an owner in fan Base today. Go to
Starting dot com slash fan Base to invest. Why because
current social apps have taken advantage of users for far
too long with content suppression, shadow banning, homeful, racist content,
and no real tools for multization and equity. Fan Base
have over one point four million users in counting, allowing

(11:30):
England to reach all their following and monetize the content
from day one. Social media is the new TV, and
whoever goes the app to distribute that content have the
opportunity to own potential billion dollar companies. While big platforms
with certain futures are failing to serve their users, fan
Base is stepping up to fill the gap. Don't wait
until it's too late, invest now. Invest for yourself and

(11:53):
your future. Go to Starting dot com slash Fanbase and
own the next generation of social media.

Speaker 16 (12:43):
Today's April fourth, twenty twenty five coming up on ROLLINGD
Mardin on Filter.

Speaker 7 (12:47):
Streaming Live with the Blackstar Network.

Speaker 16 (12:49):
Today marks the fifty seventh anniversary of the assassination of
reverendud That Martin Luther King Junior. We will go live
to the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis where they
will ring the bell at seven oh one, six to
one pm Central, and that is when the bullet was
fired that killed doctor King. Will also talk about a
couple of events that happened today. They're going to be

(13:10):
having any event there and we'll be taking a speech
there live as they commemorate that the King's life and legacy. Also,
we're going to be showing April fourth, nineteen sixty eight.
That is our project where we talk to a variety
of people who work without the King, who work partner
with him. Well, they remember what took place on that

(13:31):
day that changed Black America, America.

Speaker 4 (13:33):
And the world.

Speaker 16 (13:35):
Today, Folks, job numbers came out, we'll talk about what
they look like. Also, how devastating Donald Trump's tears are
to the American e County. We'll chat with economist Morgan
Harper about that. Also on today's show, Supreme Court gives
Donald Trump and MAGA a win when it comes to
Grant's DEI grants for teaching organizations.

Speaker 7 (13:57):
As issue would discussed. The governor of Texas.

Speaker 16 (14:00):
Under a lot of scrutiny for failing to call a
special election to replace uh the late Congressman A. Sylvester Turner.
Now Greg Abbott is saying, oh, well, I'm doing so
because Harris County keeps having problems with their elections. It's
an absolute lie, but it's their way of trying to
target Harris County lots to break down. It's time to

(14:20):
bring the funk. I'm rolling, barked on, filtered on the
black Slot network.

Speaker 17 (14:23):
Let's go, hes got whatever, he's it, whatever it is,
he's right on top and is rolling. Best believe he's
going loss to politics with entertainment.

Speaker 2 (14:42):
Just keeps.

Speaker 17 (14:51):
It's spoonkeys. She's built the question though he's.

Speaker 9 (15:03):
Bold in.

Speaker 16 (15:17):
Folks, the economy is in a tailspin because of Donald
Trump's stupid tariffs. The March job numbers came out today
exceed the expectations, but unemployment numbers were slightly worse than expected. Yep,
you can always expect that, of course, tarfs also have
a plan wreaking habit. We're not seeing that though, fully

(15:38):
show up when it comes to the economy. But March
we saw two and twenty eight thousand jobs added despite
losing four thousand federal jobs.

Speaker 7 (15:49):
You also overall.

Speaker 16 (15:50):
Unemployment in a bit to four point two percent. Black
uneployment rate jumped to six point two percent. Black men
saw an increase to six point one percent in March.
Black women's unemployment rate dip the five point four from
February's five point four percent. Morgan Harper's the director of
Policy and Advocacy of the American Economic Liberties Products. She
joins US now glad to have you back on the show, Morgan,

(16:12):
So let's talk about these numbers. What's the good, bad,
and the ugly.

Speaker 18 (16:17):
Overall, it's a pretty good jobs report.

Speaker 19 (16:19):
The jobs created, we're a bit higher, labor force participation
is pretty consistent, Wages have gone up a little bit
and still outpacing inflation. But in some ways, like we've
been talking about this calendar year twenty twenty five rolling,
it's kind of like neither here nor there in a way,
these jobs numbers, because they're not reflective of the policies

(16:40):
that have been put in place since January twentieth. With
the change in the administration, we are going to see
in the months to come a lot more of those impacts. Now,
you did note rightly, you know, some of the decrease
in federal workers and all of that, But we did
see some job creation in healthcare and some bit of manufacturing.
But overall, I think that's the important point as we

(17:01):
look at these jobs figures right now, is this is
still a reflection of the past, the pre second Trump administration,
and how all the impacts of this current administration play
out is still very much unknown. But we are seeing
some very clear impacts with some of the results in
the stock market.

Speaker 7 (17:19):
Of course, that point you.

Speaker 16 (17:20):
Just made there that people need to understand that, and
you know, these the right always wants to take credit
with these are good and blame them by when things
are bad. The reality is when you talk about really,
I dare say, the first four to six months of
anybody who's new in the Oval office, you're you're actually
living off of or dealing with the previous occupant's economy.

Speaker 19 (17:45):
Yeah, and you know, it was interesting I was watching,
you know, some of the coverage this morning and maybe
you know other people too that are like us and.

Speaker 14 (17:52):
Probably torturing ourselves watching too much news.

Speaker 19 (17:54):
But you know, Jared Bernstein, who was one of the
economists from the Biden administration, was interviewed on this point,
and I was a little surprised because actually, you know,
he was giving the readout jobs report.

Speaker 14 (18:03):
Good, this is solid data.

Speaker 19 (18:05):
But this is a guy that was in the administration,
so could take some credit for having help to produce
some of these numbers.

Speaker 16 (18:11):
No, no, no, Democrats. Democrats are too stupid to learn
how to take credit for when you do something right.

Speaker 7 (18:20):
Well, yeah, yeah, I said it. Now you don't I
said it.

Speaker 16 (18:24):
They are they don't know how to sell themselves.

Speaker 7 (18:28):
That's their problem.

Speaker 14 (18:31):
I think that is a problem. I think that's something
that needs to be addressed.

Speaker 19 (18:34):
Certainly, Republicans do not hesitate to take credit for things
that they both have and haven't done, you know, if
any current experience plays out. But I think it is
an important point though, in that what are we taking
credit for?

Speaker 14 (18:47):
And the stock market this.

Speaker 19 (18:48):
Is going to continue to be a big issue that
we all have to pay attention to. Is how much
are these metrics tied to the stock market? Reflective of
our economic realities. And I think this is going to
be a big, big topic as we get into more
of this tariff discussion and some of the impacts of
the trade policy changes that Trump is implementing as well.

Speaker 7 (19:09):
Explain to people.

Speaker 16 (19:10):
I don't think people really understand. We talked about our economy.
Seventy percent of the American economy is based upon consumer spending.
So when folks stopped spending money, and let's be real clear,
we ain't talking about rich people. We're talking about poor people,
working class people, middle class folks, And so what happens
when they start getting concerned and then they start pulling back.

Speaker 7 (19:32):
That has a significant impact on the economy.

Speaker 16 (19:35):
I tell people the most important thing is what's the
consumer confidence number? That number right there tells you everything
when it comes to the economy. If consumer confidence is awful.
We saw this with Biden Harris when they were like,
oh my god, the economies and a tail spend. You know,
I'm hoarding money, I'm saving money. I know what's going

(19:56):
to happen. I'm scared to death. Just that drove in
there andtive for three years, and that paved the way
for Donald Trump's election because people were like, Oh, he's
going to fix the economy, and now he comes.

Speaker 7 (20:08):
In and acts a fool.

Speaker 14 (20:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 19 (20:11):
I mean there's a lot of focus on how do
businesses react to some of these economic policy decisions, but
I think you're exactly right. Role and then how consumers
are reacting, especially because we have this consumption based economy,
is a very important factor of whether or not we're
going to continue to grow.

Speaker 14 (20:26):
Now, I will note that.

Speaker 19 (20:28):
Part of the theory of doing some of these terrors,
though not reflected in the execution of how they've gone
about it, is that we need to move away from
being so much of a consumer based economy and get
back to building things, having more domestic manufacturing. But if
you're not pairing any of this trade policy and tariff
implementation with some investments in that domestic manufacturing creating the

(20:52):
incentives for companies to want to build factories in the
US create those jobs, then you are just creating the
ground work for increased prices, and that will impact consumer's
ability to continue spending and feeling comfortable with the economy.

Speaker 16 (21:06):
But there's something, Morgan that we have to constantly put
on the table, and too often people don't want to
do it because it's being real. Let's just cut to
the chase. I'm gonna use Walmart for an example. What's
Walmarts frogs? What is Walmart's phrase? Low low prices? The
reality is people in this country we want.

Speaker 7 (21:25):
Low, low, low, low, low low.

Speaker 16 (21:28):
The reality is companies want to make as much profit
profit profit profit profit. So if you want low prices,
they want to make as much profit. That means you're
going to go somewhere to make goods as cheap as
you possibly can. And here is the oxymorn in this country.
And it is moronic and it drives me crazy. Every

(21:49):
politician and people and worker, we want American made products,
we want American jobs, but we want twenty five, thirty five,
forty dollars fifty dollars an hour. And so guess what
cut to The Americans ain't trying to pay eighty five
dollars for a pair of jeans. They want to pay

(22:09):
nineteen ninety nine. I mean so at some point. So
it's always cracks me when people say that. And so
it's real, and I mean, I'll give you perfect example.
That was a we had some we had some sweaters made.
So what happened was we had some sweaters made for
the show, and I was was doing a Warnie campaign,
So I said, oh, who made their sweater?

Speaker 7 (22:29):
It's really nice thick sweater. So looked it up.

Speaker 16 (22:33):
Okay, so guess what. Had my assistant call that company.
They're like, we make American products. This is what the
cost is for this sweater. I think each sweater came
out to be one hundred and ten bucks. This sweater
over here we could have got for forty bucks. So
now I got a decision to make. Do I want

(22:55):
to buy ten of the one hundred and ten dollars
sweaters and span eleven one hundred plus doallas plus tax?

Speaker 7 (23:04):
Or do I want to spend less.

Speaker 16 (23:05):
Than five hundred dollars for sweaters slightly different material At
the end of the day, is still.

Speaker 7 (23:12):
Seven hundred bucks cheaper.

Speaker 16 (23:14):
That is the conundrum, the oxymoron that we have to
deal with in this country.

Speaker 14 (23:20):
I agree with you.

Speaker 19 (23:21):
I mean, you have identified a core point is that
if we want to have things like black owned businesses
that are able to grow independent businesses that are potentially
competing with.

Speaker 14 (23:31):
Walmart, an alternative.

Speaker 19 (23:32):
From Walmart, then we are going to have to be
radically changing how we operate in this country, we will
not be able to have the same level of access
to cheap goods. And having access to cheap goods and
being the consumer for the entire world's manufacturing has been
the economic policy of the United States. You know, it's
called probably people have heard this term neoliberal economic policy.

(23:55):
That has been the governing policy for my entire life.

Speaker 14 (23:58):
Right, we have made that trade off. We are going
to consume.

Speaker 19 (24:01):
We're going to get cheap shit, you know what, right, okay,
and everybody else is going to manufacture. We're going to
let that manufacturing go away, and we're going to kind
of trust the Walmarts of the world to manage that
all appropriately. They'll get the goods in here. They'll be cheap.
We don't care where they make it, as long as
we are getting all this. I should say, I don't know.
And this is where I would push back a little
bit rollin. I don't think that the average American out

(24:23):
there was necessarily thinking through the steps of what it
meant to shift our economy in this way. Right, We
elect people and we expect them to be making decisions
that are going to lead to good outcomes for our lives.
What we have been living through that I think will
be no stranger to anyone who is watching, is the
gutting of many parts of this country, including a lot

(24:45):
of black neighborhoods that formerly had more thriving business ecosystems, including.

Speaker 18 (24:50):
Rural areas that used to have more jobs. Rural areas by.

Speaker 19 (24:53):
The way, that include a lot of black people too,
that a lot of folks don't.

Speaker 14 (24:56):
Want to talk about.

Speaker 19 (24:57):
And so now we have everybody that you have to
you have to go to the city, you have to
work for the Walmart and get, you know, just a
dollar raise every year. And all these big companies that
are financialized, they are beholden to the stock market. They
do not care about Main Street or anybody who's living
around it.

Speaker 14 (25:16):
And that's the question for us.

Speaker 19 (25:17):
Are we going to continue to allow our futures to
be sacrificed to have access to cheap goods? And this
is the problem with what Trump is doing and the
approach that he is taking. Legitimate question, it's a question
you just identified Roland. But to make that kind of
shift to get to back to more of a domestic infrastructure,
which started and also was happening under the Biden administration,

(25:39):
but things like trying to build semi conductor tips all
this domestically. You got to bring people along for that.
You have to make some you have to have a
meth papology to it, you have to take things step
by step.

Speaker 14 (25:51):
They are just going for.

Speaker 19 (25:52):
It, you know, completely haphazardly, not being very clear, not
clear if any of this stuff is going to stick,
not educating people about what's happening, and that is a
recipe for economic devastation. So this is this is a
treacherous moment. It is not totally clear how everything is
going to play out. But I do want to be

(26:13):
honest with everybody that that question, that quandary that you've
just identified, is the cheap stuff worth It is what
we need to have a serious conversation about.

Speaker 14 (26:22):
But we just probably can't trust this administration to be
leading it well.

Speaker 7 (26:25):
But it's it's just it's it's the thing that we
just don't want to deal with. I just I don't
know why people. I've been saying this for no more
than twenty five years and every time and I'm just
sitting here and I'm kind of like, okay, like guys.

Speaker 16 (26:41):
This is very this is just these are fundamental business questions.
I remember when I was in Chicago and i'd moved
there and I was in a High Park area.

Speaker 7 (26:51):
I think that High Park. It was near High Park.

Speaker 16 (26:54):
And so this guy was complaining about gentrification. He was like, man,
we need this, and you know, we need grocery stores,
we need businesses, we need this, we need that. And
so he's sitting here going on and on and on,
and I said to him, I said, messed your question.
I said, uh, you've owned a business.

Speaker 7 (27:11):
He's like no.

Speaker 16 (27:12):
I said, okay. I said where do you live? He
told me where you live. I said, do you own
your rent? He said, I rent. I said, let me
explain something to you bout power. I said, you're a renter.
I said, you ain't got shit to say.

Speaker 7 (27:25):
He was like, excuse me.

Speaker 16 (27:27):
I said, let me explain to you business businesses when
they examine data, depending upon the business they're looking for.
Homeowners compared to renters. Homeowners are different from renters because
renters are transient. Renters typically would do year to year.

(27:50):
I said, now, if it's coffee, if it's I was
just got because he was talking about sit down restaurants.
I said, sit down restaurants are a different type of business.
I said, if you're going to invest in a business,
you're gonna want to know that I have a reliable
clientele that's coming here. So he's sitting there look at
me like I'm crazy. So I then go okay, I said,

(28:11):
have you ever seen a neighborhood constructed ground up?

Speaker 1 (28:15):
He was like no.

Speaker 16 (28:16):
I said, well, I'm from Texas I have. I've literally
seen entire neighborhoods. I said, do you know what they
start with? He goes his roads. I said no, they
start with little orange flags that are placed into the ground.

Speaker 7 (28:31):
I said, do you know what those are marking off?

Speaker 16 (28:33):
They're marking off sewer lines, They're marking off the infrastructure.

Speaker 4 (28:37):
I said.

Speaker 16 (28:37):
Then they'll come in and they'll pave a road. I said,
there are no houses yet. Then a builder comes in
and puts up one model home. I said, then they
might add two more. They're gonna have max three model homes.
I said, so I'm describing the neighborhood. I said, what's
the first business that comes up in the neighborhood. He
goes grocery store. I said, nope, apper and two percent

(28:58):
profit margin. He was kind of like, uh, he's going
on and on.

Speaker 5 (29:01):
He was like, let me.

Speaker 16 (29:02):
I said, So you know what the first business is.
I said, donut shop. He thought I was crazy. I
said nope. I said, it's always a strip mall. It's
a donut shop, and it's a dry cleaners. And he's
like okay. He's like, okay, I don't understand what you're
going bro. I said, because if you got homeowners, they're
going to stop for a coffee and donuts when they

(29:23):
end the car going to work. I said, and they're
going to drop their clothes off and pick them up
when they come home. And I said, the grocery store
does not come until later until you have maximum.

Speaker 7 (29:35):
Viability because of their profit margin. And he was just
like oh.

Speaker 16 (29:41):
I said, so broad, I said, I need you to
understand you are asking for things in a neighborhood that
economically the neighborhood may not be able to maintain. I said,
so you know what, you're going to come in and
you're going to shut down in less than a year.
I said, So, if you want to have a Jutch
vocation conversation, I say it, then we have to deal

(30:03):
with how many people are renters in our neighborhood versus
homeowners he did, he.

Speaker 7 (30:10):
Was totally blown away. And that's what I'm talking about here.

Speaker 16 (30:14):
Things are happening in this country economically, and people don't
want to have real conversations on how these things happen.
We just sort of want to say I want stuff
to happen, and not ask how it actually happens.

Speaker 14 (30:29):
I think that's right.

Speaker 19 (30:30):
I think the grocery store is an interesting example because
we probably talked about this a bit with the Koger
Albertson merger. There is some anti illegal conduct that's happening
by very large grocery stores that's making it harder even
if you do get your independent grocery to.

Speaker 14 (30:45):
Off the ground. But that's kind another conversation. But yeah, no,
I agree with you.

Speaker 19 (30:49):
I will say though, again, we're all busy, we're all
living our lives, we all have a lot going on.

Speaker 18 (30:54):
We elect people to represent our interests.

Speaker 19 (30:57):
And I bet if you asked your average elected official
role in what you just described about grocery store, hey, y'all,
no mofit, Margins.

Speaker 14 (31:04):
They don't know a thing about it. And that's a problem.

Speaker 16 (31:06):
Well, well, that's because a lot of our people, a
lot of people who are in politics actually have never
run businesses, so they do and that's that's that's that's okay, right,
but that right, but you kind of got to have
people who it's so like, I watched these these hearings
and you got politicians making decisions when it comes to

(31:28):
reproductive rights, and you have actual doctors on the panel,
not that fake doctor rand paul Is, but you got
an actual doctor on the panel.

Speaker 7 (31:36):
Going, Hey, I'm a gun to collegist.

Speaker 16 (31:39):
I kind of want y'all might want to ask me
this kind of stuff.

Speaker 7 (31:44):
And that's what we do.

Speaker 16 (31:45):
So it's it's frustrating to me that when we're talking
about how do we have an ecomedy.

Speaker 7 (31:52):
That works for all, we don't really want to have.

Speaker 16 (31:57):
The nitty gritty conversations that forces Americans do have to
answer beer basically, are you willing to pay more for
products that are made and built in this country compared
to what you're doing now and they're being made in Indonesia,
China and these other nations. And when you force people

(32:19):
to think, sure, I want to pay more.

Speaker 7 (32:21):
Let's see you do it. Okay, let's see you do.

Speaker 16 (32:24):
It, because then you go start complaining about how much
stuff costs, right.

Speaker 19 (32:28):
And especially now we're talking about those kinds of changes
happening simultaneously.

Speaker 14 (32:33):
The alternative vision.

Speaker 19 (32:34):
Of what could be an approach is the targeted tariff,
where you choose an industry, you apply a tariff, you
also invest in domestic manufacturing, like again what was happening
with EV's, for example, in their Biden administration, and then
people start to get acclimated to what that kind of
change could be, like what it is to pay for
something that is actually based here.

Speaker 16 (32:56):
And on that point right there with evs, you're going
to have to have government subsidies that make it cheaper
to buy those products. Then, because actually, because the whole
EV thing has multiple purposes, you're helping American manufacturers. You
we need people off of fossil fuels is impacting the economy,

(33:20):
you actually have to subsidize that, and all of these
people who go the right of we're subsidizing these automakers.
Elon Musk is not the richest person in the world
without subsidies. His company actually was dying and was saved
by American subsidies. We subsidize fossil fuel companies to the

(33:41):
tune of billions of dollars every year that's Exxon, And
so I'm like, what are we talking about here?

Speaker 7 (33:48):
But that's what you have to do.

Speaker 16 (33:50):
I'm watching all of these people talk about AI. You
need massive amounts of electricity for AI. You might want
to fix the grid there, but we don't want to
invest in fixing the grid.

Speaker 19 (34:04):
Well, but we also have investor on utilities that are
taking advantage and raising prices and not making those decisions
that would lead to more renewable energy because they make
a lot of money off the status quo and don't
have to make any changes. And we have state regulators
that aren't actually using their powder change anything.

Speaker 14 (34:17):
So yep, I mean where do we start? Then we
could go on and on, but well, I just I
just you have identified the key question.

Speaker 7 (34:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 16 (34:23):
I just want as we move forward, people are thinking
about these things and we're not just throwing stuff out
there without realizing their ramifications.

Speaker 7 (34:31):
Morgan Harper, we appreciate it. Always good to see.

Speaker 14 (34:33):
You, Great to see you.

Speaker 16 (34:35):
Thanks a bunch folks. Going to a quick break. We
come back to sharl Jones. It's trying to come get
re elected mayor of Saint Louis. You'll join us next. Also,
we'll talk about talk to an African commentator.

Speaker 7 (34:47):
What's happening.

Speaker 16 (34:48):
The Trump payers could very well just destroy the economy
of a very small African nation. Let's discuss next right here,
Rolling Mark unfoilchured on the Blackstar Network.

Speaker 20 (35:00):
This week on the Other side of Change, the attacks
on education, book.

Speaker 10 (35:04):
Bands and what it means for us.

Speaker 21 (35:06):
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 fighting.

Speaker 22 (35:17):
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 21 (35:29):
Check us out on the Other Side of Change, only
on the Black Side Network.

Speaker 23 (35:35):
So Gee, Tony in a place that you got kick
touching Mama's University creator and there's a fact to hip
hop comedy right now, Rolling with Rolling Martin, unfiltered, uncut, unplugged, and.

Speaker 7 (35:49):
Undamned believable.

Speaker 16 (35:57):
Black voters could power the election to Saint Louis on Tuesday,
runoff takes place and the incumbent mayor to Charlote Jones,
the first black woman elected mayor of Saint Louis is
running for re election. She is running against Karen Spencer,
who white Democrats there are supporting, putting their money behind
and joining us right now, is Mayor Jones glad to

(36:18):
have you here, Mayor first and foremost, it's a little
tough reelection. Bid I interfarew someone the other day and
they said, in the history of Saint Louis, no black
mayor got a second term.

Speaker 7 (36:30):
Is that correct?

Speaker 10 (36:32):
That is correct, Roland.

Speaker 24 (36:34):
In our entire history, we've only had three black mayors,
including myself, and none of them have been elected to
a second term.

Speaker 16 (36:42):
When you look at the breakdown, what's the racial composition
of Saint Louis in terms of African American voters, White voters,
Hispanic voters.

Speaker 24 (36:50):
We're about forty five percent African American, forty five percent Caucasian,
and about ten percent everything else. We have the largest
concentration of Bosnians outside of Europe in Saint Louis.

Speaker 7 (37:04):
So let's talk about this election.

Speaker 16 (37:09):
This campaign, the Democrats party in your city, indoors Spencer
over you and you know what is your closing message
to the voters why they should give you a second term.

Speaker 24 (37:22):
My closing message to the voters is that we have
to continue the progress that we're already on. When I
was elected in twenty twenty one, I inherited a crisis
because we were still trying to work our way out
of a global pandemic. Homicides where to all time high,
and yes, services weren't being delivered. So my team and

(37:42):
I have gotten to work and we've been able to
make a lot of progress. We've seen a forty percent
reduction in homicides, fifty percent reduction in youth involved shootings,
and our emergency response times are sixty percent faster. You
know this is about even if you just compare resumes.
My opponent is a math major and has never run

(38:06):
anything or managed anybody, and I have twenty years of
experience in politics, elected politics, and in the executive branch.

Speaker 7 (38:16):
So in terms of.

Speaker 16 (38:19):
African Americans there, you've had folks who are supportives.

Speaker 7 (38:24):
Others have taken issue with some things.

Speaker 16 (38:26):
In terms of you look at what happened with Kim Gardner,
that's one of the issues. And so what do you
say to black voters there who feel as if you
have not done enough for African Americans?

Speaker 10 (38:40):
Well, our African American.

Speaker 24 (38:43):
I would say our African American side of town, which
is mostly North Saint Louis, has been neglected for over
seventy years. So there's no way that you can expect
one mayor to address all of the decades of neglect.

Speaker 10 (38:56):
In four years.

Speaker 24 (38:57):
We need more time to put things in play, to
address our infrastructure, needs to build more homes, to expand opportunity,
workforce development programs, and we are setting the stage to
do just that.

Speaker 10 (39:11):
But we had to fix a lot of things that
have been kicked out. You know, the can that had
been kicked down.

Speaker 24 (39:16):
The road for so many years, and so we had
to fix that first before we can move forward.

Speaker 16 (39:23):
Questions from our panel, My guest michaelmotep host African History
Network show out of Detroit, Cambin Tremble Jones as well
CEO Hip Politics Media, former White House Senior Advisor joining
us out of DC, and we also have joining us here,
give me one.

Speaker 7 (39:41):
Secon actually we do this year. Let me just quickly go.

Speaker 16 (39:43):
We have Tyler McMillan, social justice leader and movement strategy
also out of DC.

Speaker 7 (39:47):
Michael, your first was your.

Speaker 25 (39:48):
Question, Hello Mary Jones, I know you said that your
opponent hasn't ran anything. But the question I would ask
is what would be your closing remarks to the citizens
of Saint Louis.

Speaker 4 (40:07):
To give you a second term?

Speaker 25 (40:10):
What type of vision would you are you proposing for
a second term that builds upon what you've done, what
you've accomplished in your first term.

Speaker 10 (40:20):
Yeah, that's a great question.

Speaker 24 (40:21):
So we've made a lot of progress on crime and
public safety in my first term, and Saint Louis is
a lot safer, healthier, and stronger than we were four
years ago. But we're just getting started and we have
a lot further to go. What we're proposing in my
second term is rehabing our airport because we are a
world class city and we deserve a world class airport,

(40:45):
expanding public transit, and continuing our commitment to invest in
neighborhoods that haven't seen investment in decades. We have been
able to leverage two hundred and fifty million dollars into
a billion dollars of investment across the city, but especially
in North Saint Louis and parts of South Saint Louis
that have been neglected for decades. Because our city can't

(41:07):
succeed and grow if over half has been left to fail.

Speaker 12 (41:12):
Okay, thank you Cameron, Ada Mayor, and good luck on
your election.

Speaker 26 (41:20):
My question here is, with such a large concentration of
African American voters as well as Caucasian and white voters,
how are you, in this time of so much polarization
in this country, how are you being a bridge builder
between those communities in between in your city.

Speaker 10 (41:38):
So there's no part of Saint Louis that I am
afraid to go in.

Speaker 24 (41:42):
And we have had town halls all across our city
and have I have brought my cabinet to all of
these meetings trying to address the problems that the everyday
problems that people have, and so I have been super accessible.
And again there's no part of the city that I
am uncomfortable going in, or no one that I am

(42:03):
uncomfortable having.

Speaker 10 (42:04):
A conversation with.

Speaker 24 (42:05):
I am not afraid of the difficult conversations that need
to happen in order to move Saint Louis forward.

Speaker 4 (42:13):
Tyler, Yeah, so great to meet you, Mayor.

Speaker 27 (42:17):
Being the young one on the panel, I want to ask,
given the significant investment that you have made during your tenure,
such as the establishment of the office you had the only.

Speaker 7 (42:25):
Young one on the panel.

Speaker 28 (42:27):
Y'all.

Speaker 7 (42:27):
Y'all, y'all young folk. Crrackt me up with that ship
that I was thrown throughout? Who young?

Speaker 16 (42:32):
How about if I say, well, he had a broke
one on the panel. I'm just missing with you going here.
See see y'all go there, see y'all gonna make me
go there. Go ahead with your question.

Speaker 27 (42:41):
Go ahead with your question, like I'll take a loan
uncle roll my question. My question would be how do
you plan to ensure the sustainability of long term impact
of these youth focused initiatives that you have created, especially
considering potential shifts and funding with with administrations.

Speaker 24 (43:02):
So when I established the Office of Violence Prevention, I
did it initially with funds from the American Rescue Plan Act,
and in its second year, we transitioned it to become
a permanent division of the Department of Public Safety and
funded with our general revenue funds.

Speaker 29 (43:19):
So it is all.

Speaker 24 (43:21):
It has been a permanent department for the last year
and a half, and we work really hard at funding
organizations on the ground and are working with our national
organizations to secure more grant funding so we can continue
this work.

Speaker 16 (43:38):
Final comment what do you say to the person who
is looking at the couch as an option on Tuesday.

Speaker 24 (43:46):
So, the person who's looking at the couch as an option,
this election is too important to the future of our
city right now, where we have the state and federal
government attacking our rights.

Speaker 10 (44:00):
Waging war on our values.

Speaker 24 (44:01):
It is important who is in the mayor's office and
who's going to stand up and fight for our citizens
and fight fight for their.

Speaker 10 (44:09):
Safety against these attacks from the state and federal level.

Speaker 24 (44:14):
I have had the experience already fighting on the state
and national level, and my opponent is untried and untrusted.

Speaker 10 (44:22):
And this is not the time for amateur hour.

Speaker 24 (44:24):
This time calls for someone who has the experience, the
relationships and the commitment to.

Speaker 10 (44:31):
Fight for you and fight for your community, for our community.

Speaker 7 (44:35):
All right, then, Mayor Jones, good luck on Tuesday. Well
appreciate it.

Speaker 10 (44:39):
Thanks a lot, Thank you, Roling, good to see you.

Speaker 7 (44:42):
Likewise, folks, going to a quick break, we come back,
we'll talk about how Trump's tears could prove a massive
economic calamity for a small African nation. You're watching Rollerbuck
Unfulture on the Black Start Network sport. The work that
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(45:04):
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Speaker 4 (45:35):
We'll be right back.

Speaker 24 (45:39):
We begin tonight with the people who are really running
the country right now.

Speaker 22 (45:42):
Trump is often long and misleading about a lot of things,
but especially about history.

Speaker 15 (45:45):
Al Trump falling in line with President Elon Musk in
the way.

Speaker 16 (45:49):
Of the unsettly news that msn d C has came
joy and read primetime show to read out Roland Martin
and the Black Network would like to extend an invitation
to all of the fans of Joy and Red's MSNBC
show to join us every night to watch Roland Martin
Unfiltered streaming on the Black Star Network for news discussion

(46:11):
on the issue that matter to you and the latest
updates on the twice impeached, criminally convicted felon in chief
Donald Trump is unprecedented assault on democracy as well as
co president must take over of the federal government. The
Black Network stands Joy and Read and all folks who
understand the power of black voices in media. We must

(46:33):
come together and never forget that information is power. Be
sure to watch Roland Martin Unfiltered weeknights, six PE Eastern
at YouTube dot com, forward slash Rowland s Martin, or
download the Black Star Network.

Speaker 27 (46:50):
Frank, I'm doctor Robin b pharmacist and fitness coach and
you're watching Roland Martin.

Speaker 16 (47:02):
Folks, Do y'all remember on March fourth when Donald Trump
used the opportunities speaking to millions of people to literally
crap on the small African nation of Lasu too.

Speaker 7 (47:15):
He ain't even pronounced their name right.

Speaker 4 (47:18):
I remember this.

Speaker 1 (47:22):
Million dollars to promote lgbdq I plus in the African
nation of which nobody has ever heard of.

Speaker 7 (47:34):
Nobody ever heard of.

Speaker 16 (47:36):
Well that was interesting because I remember watching a clip
where somebody showed that some Trump swag was actually made
in Lsu too, so I guess his company was aware
of this. Jehanne LeBlanc Jones is right now. She is
a commentator quite familiar with what's happening there on the continent.

(47:58):
Folks are suggesting that these tariff that Trump has put
in place could very much destroy the economy of this
small nation of two million people.

Speaker 30 (48:07):
Hi, Roland, thank you so much for having me on.
I'm actually currently in a kur Ghana. So everyone's talking
about tariffs that's been hit on so many different countries
in the African continent, with Ghana being hit with them
about ten percent, and obviously that too is being hit
with fifty percent, and that is pretty significant. We're talking

(48:28):
about a tiny little kingdom located essentially in the middle
of South Africa with a GDP of roughly two billion
dollars annually. So what you're seeing here is a Lesuchu's
economy at a crossroads caught up in a in the

(48:50):
crosshairs of a global trade tension. Right, So terrafs, whether
it comes from the United States or the rippling effect
of South Africa, will have a significant impact on the
country's economy.

Speaker 15 (49:05):
So let's be honest here, Roland, you're.

Speaker 30 (49:08):
Talking about you know the social sector that's been hit,
that's being hit is the exports.

Speaker 16 (49:16):
Right yeah, textiles and right so that so they depend
upon So this could help. So Levi's Calvin Klein products
are made there. That's pretty interesting because I remember when
Levi's were made in the United States and when they
decided to leave having their products made here, people were
complaining was going to be American made, but they were

(49:37):
citing people who wanted cheaper genes. So they go to
Lusutu And so these tears on textiles impacts those two
companies and this could severely hinder that. That's half of
their economy, fifty percent. That that shows you how this
could really hurt.

Speaker 30 (49:56):
Absolutely, And that's a two million dollar hit to a
sector employees roughly forty thousand people, right, so over ten
percent of the country's GDP. So again, this is going
this is going to be significant. I mean, factories were
already shutting down in the country, right and with a
goa's future not even fully determined yet, which if I

(50:19):
would need to make a guest, I would guess that
a GOA would not be renewed by the US Congress.

Speaker 15 (50:26):
And it's set it is set to expire in September
of twenty twenty five.

Speaker 30 (50:30):
So what you're probably going to see is Lisutu trying
to enter into a free trade agreement with the United States.
And in the midst of all of this tariff war
that we're having, one country that was not impacted at
all is Mexico because they have a.

Speaker 15 (50:47):
Free trade agreement with the United States.

Speaker 30 (50:50):
In many countries on the continent are actually now having
this discussion currently. I know Kenya is having a discussion
with the administration about a free trade agreement. President Hosts
of South Africa announced that he will be seeking a
free trade agreement so that these types of tariffs don't
just come up out of nowhere.

Speaker 15 (51:11):
But make no mistake, it's not only going to.

Speaker 30 (51:13):
Impact this such as economy, but certainly going to impact
the American American consumer right because the cost has to
be passed on.

Speaker 15 (51:23):
To somebody and the companies, LEVI is not gonna eat
the cost, right, so you and I rolland.

Speaker 30 (51:27):
When we go to the grocery store, I mean when
we go to when we go to buy a pair
of jeans, for example, we're gonna have to pay a
little bit extra because of these tariffs. Because that's really
how it works. There's no other way to try to
spend this or to try to explain it. But what
I will say, though, Roland, I think, in spite of
what's happening, I think it's a real opportunity though for

(51:52):
African nations to implement the African Continent.

Speaker 15 (51:56):
Or Free Trade Area. And it's a it's a it's a.

Speaker 30 (51:58):
Trade policy that more than forty countries on the continent
are a Party two. And what it does is that
it harmonizes the trading of goods and services across the continent.

Speaker 15 (52:10):
So African countries trading with each other.

Speaker 30 (52:13):
And so what we're saying is that if this trade
agreement is implemented properly, you're talking about increasing the collective
GDPs of African nations by more than three trillion dollars
and also lifting more than thirty thirty million people out
of extreme poverty.

Speaker 15 (52:33):
On a continent with one point four billion people.

Speaker 30 (52:36):
So alsough I think now is the time for African
governments to put their heads together and really get serious
about the implementation of the AfCFTA and accelerating its implementation.
Certainly because even though yes, the STUTU is hit with
a fifty percent as you know Roland, South Africa has
also been hit with a forty percent tariff, and Matsuchu's

(53:01):
economy is greatly intertwined with South Africa's economy and in fact,
Lsuchu is a member of the Southern African Customs Union
right so Litsuchu, s YTNI, Botswana and a few other
countries in the STUC region.

Speaker 15 (53:17):
So when South Africa's impacted, so is Letsutu. So in
addition to the fifty percent, Lisuchu is.

Speaker 30 (53:24):
Going to have to deal make some real economic decisions
because the thirty percent that South Africa has been hit
with is going to be passed on to those those
countries in the region and also to you know.

Speaker 15 (53:37):
When goods come in they have to go through South
Africa and then go to the Kingdom of Lesuchu.

Speaker 30 (53:43):
So this has real significant implications and you're the European
put out a statement recently indicating how they were gravely
disappointed at about this measure because it's really shaking up
the entire world. And I can tell you again, I'm
in Ghana and that is all everyone is talking about.

Speaker 15 (54:01):
These terroriffs.

Speaker 16 (54:03):
Yeah, I mean, one of the things that Trump is
trying to deal he's trying to break the backs of
a lot of these companies. They're trying to look that
they were trying to force Ukraine to turn over half
of their minerals worth five hundred billion dollars. Now they're
trying to do the exact same thing to the Congo.

Speaker 30 (54:21):
Absolutely and DRC obviously, as you know, the DRC is
dealing with a severe conflict that's been ongoing for a
very long time. And the DRC has approached the United
States and said, in exchange for military support, we will
provide you with our critical minerals, and DRC sits on

(54:42):
roughly twenty four trillion dollars worth of critical minerals, so
your co ball to your gold and so on, which
you are critical to countries around the world in putting
the United States. So President Trump has even announced a
special envoy to DRC to negotiate how the United States

(55:03):
going to take advantage of those critical minerals.

Speaker 16 (55:07):
Here you have you're trading critical minerals for guns, as
opposed to fight for peace and keep your minerals and
get paid the United States we want those minerals, and
unfortunately this is the history of too many African nations

(55:29):
giving up precious resources for little in return.

Speaker 7 (55:34):
Well.

Speaker 30 (55:35):
Also, in addition to that, if the United States does
come in and actually does fix this conflict between the
DRC and the Rwanda, in a way, it weakens the
African Union because the role of the African Union, right
is to work with these countries when they have these

(55:55):
various conflicts, right, put them together.

Speaker 15 (55:57):
And come up with a peace agreement.

Speaker 10 (55:59):
Right.

Speaker 15 (55:59):
So if d r C has to leave the continent and.

Speaker 30 (56:04):
To get support from the United States, it certainly weakens
the role of the African Union. In addition to that,
South Africa was trying to remedy this as well, in
South Africa being a superpower.

Speaker 15 (56:17):
Only in the context of the continent.

Speaker 30 (56:19):
I think a lot of people may not know this,
but South Afa seen as the big brother in Africa,
one of the most prosperous countries on the continent was
also trying to help address this crisis.

Speaker 15 (56:30):
So SADAK has failed, African Union has failed.

Speaker 30 (56:35):
The President of Angola went to have conversations with the
president of d r C.

Speaker 15 (56:41):
That conversation also has failed. So where does that leave
the African continent?

Speaker 2 (56:46):
Right?

Speaker 15 (56:46):
If African Africans cannot.

Speaker 30 (56:49):
Solve their own their own problems and we have, they
have to come to the United States. So I think
it's something that is that should be looked into, right
because we don't want to weakend some of these multilateral
institutions on the continent that are there to provide these
types of support when there are complex on the African continent.

Speaker 16 (57:11):
All right, then, Johanna LeBlanc partner with Adamia Avisory Group.

Speaker 7 (57:15):
We appreciate it. Thanks a lot, Thank you so much, Roland.

Speaker 15 (57:18):
All was a pleasure.

Speaker 7 (57:18):
Thank you very much. Going to a quick break. I'll
be right back, Roland.

Speaker 16 (57:21):
Marked Unfiltered, the Black Store Network will return the ringing
of the bell in Memphis, Tennessee Market, Doctor Martin Luther
King Junior was assassinated fifty seventy years ago.

Speaker 31 (57:31):
Today, back in the moment, I'm doctor Greg Carr and
coming up on the next Black tape thinking about the
black freedom.

Speaker 1 (57:41):
Movement in a global way.

Speaker 11 (57:43):
Doctor John Monroe joins us to discuss his book The
Anti Colonial Front, which maps the social justice movement in
the United States and its impact Internet from Asia to Africa,
and how movements like anti communists were used to slow
down racial policy.

Speaker 16 (58:00):
Like critical race theory today, critical race theory today, communism
back then is essentially mobilized to shut down any challenges
to a system of power.

Speaker 11 (58:09):
Connecting the civil rights movement to colonialism. On the next
Black Table, exclusively here from the Black Star Network, I'm
Russell L.

Speaker 6 (58:19):
Honoe, Lieutenant Gerald.

Speaker 4 (58:20):
The United States are retired, and you're watching rurald Martin.
I'm Felthy.

Speaker 16 (58:45):
Fifty seven years ago tonight, Reverend doctor Martin Luther King,
Junior was assassinated in Memphis as he stood on the
balcony at the Loraine Motel just outside of room three six.
In about thirty seconds, we will go live to the
Loraine Motel now known as the National Civil Museum, where
they will ring the bell marking the moment six oh
one pm Memphis time when he was assassinated. Of course,

(59:08):
that changed the directory of Black America America and the world,
and it still is a day that lives in infamy
around the world. At the collusion of today's show, we
will air especially called April fourth.

Speaker 7 (59:22):
Nineteen sixty eight. Let's now go live to the National
Civil Rights.

Speaker 6 (59:25):
Museum six oh one pm at the Lorraine Motel.

Speaker 32 (01:00:03):
As the cham of the reverses, the Ka of the verses,
as the chronic of the reverses, the China of the verses,

(01:00:28):
the China of the reverses, then the chronic of the reverses,
the chroma of.

Speaker 4 (01:00:46):
The verses.

Speaker 32 (01:00:50):
As the Ka of the verses, as the chronic of
the verses.

Speaker 16 (01:01:21):
Folks, they're members, give me, give me a two shot.
They're gonna they're having their program there. Chavn Arlen Bradley
of the National Council of Negro Women. She is going
to be giving the keynote speech there at the National
Civil Rights Museum as they commemorate the assassination of doctor
King fifty seven years ago. Tonight, let's go back to Memphis.

Speaker 33 (01:01:44):
Take my.

Speaker 9 (01:02:00):
Leave me all, let me stay. I am tired, I

(01:02:24):
am we I through.

Speaker 25 (01:02:46):
The STARp.

Speaker 34 (01:02:53):
No you don't.

Speaker 9 (01:03:00):
Lead lead me aon.

Speaker 16 (01:03:09):
To the line.

Speaker 9 (01:03:14):
Oooh, take my hand where love.

Speaker 32 (01:03:29):
And lead.

Speaker 9 (01:03:34):
Oh lead mill or when when when the dark? When
the dark nes appe.

Speaker 2 (01:03:53):
A?

Speaker 9 (01:03:58):
And then oh God, the night is rolling? Whoa and
the day, oh, the day is my God. As to

(01:04:43):
read that.

Speaker 35 (01:04:52):
He said, God, God, God got my feet, Oh Lord, Jesus,
oh my head.

Speaker 9 (01:05:11):
Who take my hand? Where show.

Speaker 4 (01:05:23):
Ye and lee.

Speaker 9 (01:05:36):
Ye child?

Speaker 6 (01:05:39):
He need a child on on the whole, ladies and gentlemen,

(01:06:06):
the men of Doctor King's fraternity Alpha Phi Alpha.

Speaker 16 (01:07:29):
Okay, folks, we have a separate feed of this ceremony
on the Blackstar Network, So if you go to our
YouTube channel and you can check that out. When you
talk about where we stand what is going on in
this country, we continue to see the reality of the

(01:07:49):
role that race plays, not just in economics, not just
in politics, but also of course when it comes to sports.
Tonight Final four takes place. South Carolina is playing Texas.
You've got Yukon playing us. See, these teams are battling.
And remember last year you had lots of drama last

(01:08:10):
year going on where everybody was focusing on Angel Reese
as well as Caitlyn Clark and Oh White America was
just Enthrall ratings were through the roof. Folks were cheering
on Caitlyn Clark as she broke the NCAA record for
most points, Division One record for most points ever scored.

Speaker 7 (01:08:29):
In a career.

Speaker 16 (01:08:30):
Well, former NBA player Eton Thomas, he wrote a piece
and he said, Hey, what's going on? You got some
amazing players this year. Paige Buker's of course, before she
injured her nee tour acl you had Juju at usc All.
This was happening, and Eton said, why is it white
America just rallying around Page like they did Caitlyn last year?

(01:08:54):
Race is always at the forefront. Eton Jones is right now, Eton, glad,
glad to have you back of the show. So you
say that the difference is Page Buckers doesn't have a
black villain this year.

Speaker 4 (01:09:06):
Yeah, And I guess that kind of run a nerve
with a lot of white people, you know.

Speaker 36 (01:09:10):
I mean, it was really clear that they made Angel
Reese the villain after she beat Kaitlyn Clark, who was
really kind of held up as you know, the great
white hope. She's fantastic player. But then the media kind
of went into this narrative of the villain, and that's
what happened. I mean, it's not something that I made up,

(01:09:32):
you know, you're you're looking at it. Where the viral
image of Andel Reese doing the waving her hand in
front of her face that went everywhere, and the outrage
was just off the charts. And so then you know,
following the next year's Andrew Reese was always the villain
and anything that she did and Caitlin Clark was praised,

(01:09:53):
that's just that's just what happened.

Speaker 4 (01:09:55):
So when I imposed a question of why, you.

Speaker 36 (01:09:57):
Know, Paige wasn't really given the fawning over that Caitlyn
Clark was, I went through a few scenarios. You know,
Page Page has been outspoken, she used her SP's award
to really credit black women. You know, she hasn't she
doesn't have an angel rees factor, you know, when the

(01:10:18):
fact of the matter is that a lot of the fans,
not all of them, you know, but a certain demographic
of fans were there for the wrong reasons. They came
over to really celebrate Caitlin Clark's whiteness, not so much
her talent.

Speaker 4 (01:10:33):
And it was definitely apparent.

Speaker 36 (01:10:34):
I mean, you heard all year that the b NBA
players were saying that they were getting attacked and you know,
racially attacked and and you know at the at the
at the arena, you know, online everything like that, that
aspect wasn't there with Page. Now she has a wonderful player,
she's probably gonna be the number one pick. But I
wanted to know, why isn't that demographic, you know, rallying

(01:10:56):
around Page? And I gave a few scenarios why And
that didn't make a lot of people very happy.

Speaker 16 (01:11:03):
And of course that transferred to the w n B,
A where record numbers were turning out, and what you
had was a Caitlyn Clark playing in Iowa, flyover state, Midwest,
all those things, and many of these white conservatives were
pouring their views into her thinking she was quote one

(01:11:25):
of them, thinking.

Speaker 7 (01:11:26):
That she was maga.

Speaker 16 (01:11:28):
Well when she, as you said, when not only with
the asbes, but also when she got named, you know,
a person of the Year with Time magazine, and she
talked about the impact of black ball players. No, they're
not hating me, we're not fighting all those sort of
different things. You literally had these white folks who turned
on her, and she was like, yo, it's all about basketball.

(01:11:49):
And so here you got Paige coming from coming from Connecticut,
but also she's got black folks in her life, and
so your whole deal was, hey, these things are there,
the people got met. Fox News quickly picked it up,
and that's when a lot of hates are coming your way.

Speaker 4 (01:12:06):
Oh goodness, you know when Fox News fixed it up.

Speaker 36 (01:12:08):
And it was interesting because it was like, you know,
I saw one thing that said that I wrote a
racist article.

Speaker 4 (01:12:14):
I'm like, wait a minute, how ne you to be
racist to.

Speaker 36 (01:12:16):
Say, why aren't you cheering this white girl as much
as you cheered this other white girl?

Speaker 4 (01:12:21):
Like I don't know if.

Speaker 36 (01:12:22):
People know what racism means, you know, they don't use
that term correctly. But no, I mean it's page is
a phenomenal player. I think that she should get a
whole lot more recognition. But a lot of the people
that were there that demographic was there for the wrong reasons.
Another tell tale of that was Caitlyn Clark repeatedly had

(01:12:43):
to ask for her not to be weaponized, and she
spoke out against racism and spoke out against bigotry because
it was so prevalent, it was happening all over and
every time she did, you know, you saw that, Oh
she's giving in to the woke mob and doing all
that different things a certain demographic that uses that language.

Speaker 4 (01:13:03):
So of course that's not all Caitlin Clark's fans. I'm
not saying that at all.

Speaker 36 (01:13:07):
But that demographic was sure there, and they boosted ratings,
and they were there for the wrong reasons, and they
were weaponizing her no matter how many times.

Speaker 4 (01:13:15):
She asked them not to.

Speaker 36 (01:13:17):
Uh.

Speaker 16 (01:13:17):
It is quite interesting when you when you touch that
nerve and they don't want to admit it. But we
saw what was taking place, and those of us knew,
and you know what, there were a lot of people who, oh,
I think she's getting too much attention. I disagreed about
why it is when you break the all time record
and you're gonna.

Speaker 7 (01:13:33):
Get that level of attention.

Speaker 16 (01:13:35):
I had no problem with her coming in and all
of a sudden, uh, the you know, the new TV
contract ratings going up. To me, I said, it was
the same thing when Tiger Woods came into golf.

Speaker 5 (01:13:47):
Uh.

Speaker 16 (01:13:47):
And what I was saying to yet a lot of
some players who were complaying, I was like, I need
you all to shut the hell up.

Speaker 7 (01:13:53):
It's a whole bunch of folk who did real well,
who did real well.

Speaker 16 (01:13:58):
Uh when Tiger came in. So I didn't see that
as a big deal. But the reality is race was present, but.

Speaker 4 (01:14:07):
It's a little bit different with Tiger Woods.

Speaker 36 (01:14:09):
So when Tiger Woods came in and broke the barrier, So, yes,
we all got excited to see somebody that looks like us,
you know, dominating in the sport where you typically don't
see that.

Speaker 4 (01:14:18):
That's fine, you know, me and everyone O SOCCA came in, Yes,
the same thing. That is fine.

Speaker 36 (01:14:24):
The problem is with Caitlyn Clark. Then you began to
bash Angel Reach. Then there was like this hatred towards
the other players, the black players. Then there was like, oh, well,
they don't mean there's this disrespect this constant like if
Caitlin Clark invented basketball, and it was like, oh wait
a minute, now, you know what, you shouldn't be disrespectful
to the other players. And it's not something I saw

(01:14:47):
a lot of media people, you know, kind of reducing
it to saying mean tweets or you know, you know.

Speaker 4 (01:14:52):
Something like that.

Speaker 36 (01:14:53):
But no, they would have reacted differently if it was
their daughters or wives or something like that who were
on the other side of you know, racist attacks. And
that's the way the w NBA players described them, not
just simply mean tweets or fans saying boo or something
like that, literally racist attacks. So that that's that's the difference.

(01:15:13):
It's fine to cheer for somebody that looks like you,
but when you demonize someone else and then all the
other players, then that's what it's different.

Speaker 7 (01:15:20):
Questions from Tyler your first, of course, so.

Speaker 4 (01:15:26):
Great to meet you.

Speaker 27 (01:15:27):
I think you know, it's it's clear that race plays
a role in how our athletes are perceived. Do you
believe the story romanticized because that Kaitlyn was from Iowa
and they're trying to say because Yukonis, it's such this
you know, this team to be UH to compete with
that it made it a little more difficult for UH
for the other story to be told.

Speaker 4 (01:15:51):
Personally.

Speaker 36 (01:15:52):
I think if so, when Caitlyn Clark spoke out and
spoke out against racism, you saw a lot of them
get upset with her when she liked the tweet. You
remember when she liked the tweet from Taylor Swift and
the tweet was something with.

Speaker 7 (01:16:09):
Vice President Kama Harris, right, and you saw.

Speaker 36 (01:16:12):
How upset they got. That tells me that there was
it wasn't about you know where she was from. They
were trying to weaponize her and make her something that
they wanted to make her as a symbol. So you know,
I've heard a lot of people say that, well, you know,
is the the you know the location, or you know

(01:16:32):
how any points he scored. I was like, Okay, that's fine,
But if that was the case that you would have
been upset of her lacking a tweet, you wouldn't be
upset of her denouncing racism.

Speaker 7 (01:16:41):
Indeed, Cameron, so glad to be on with you.

Speaker 26 (01:16:46):
Ton Yukon women's basketball is home to arguably, probably if
not the greatest two or three or four of the
greatest w NBA and basketball players with Maya More Diane,
Diana Tarassi, uh and Sue Bird that all come out
of that that lineage.

Speaker 12 (01:17:03):
So k U kind has had such a spotlight on them.

Speaker 26 (01:17:08):
But com coming out of last year with the Caitlin
Clark versus Angel Reese, do you feel that I know
what juju going down with that unforeseen and tragic injury
and so forth, was that something that you felt was
being set up again because they saw that playwork before.

Speaker 4 (01:17:24):
Kind of the white black.

Speaker 26 (01:17:25):
The couple different parts of the country and maybe there
is no foil for for Page to really to be
pitted pitted.

Speaker 12 (01:17:33):
Against in kind of the national media.

Speaker 4 (01:17:36):
Oh one hundred.

Speaker 36 (01:17:37):
You know, I think that the the the way that
Andrew Reese was demonized. She she talked about having death threats,
you know what I mean. That is not just mean
tweets of people doing her. She talked about literally having
death threats. She said it happened all the time after
she was demonized. She was she was demonized so much
where And it was interesting when the waving the hand

(01:17:58):
in front of the face of Land Clark had done
the same thing the game before that.

Speaker 4 (01:18:03):
She and they and they all thought it was cute.
She was all like a little commercial waving her hand
her face and everything was fine. But then when Angel
Reese beat her and she did it, then she was demonized.

Speaker 36 (01:18:14):
She was unprofessional, she was all these different things, ghetto,
she was, you know, all these things happened, and they
drew the line into the sand like in Bright Red
Maga Inche And it wasn't you know, you know, it's
not a stretch to be able to see what happened.
So then from that point on, you know, one was
demonized and one was put on this pedestal. And it's

(01:18:35):
not any fault of Kaitlyn Clark. King Clark didn't do
anything to you know, she actually spoke against us all
the time. It's that demographic of fans that wanted to
use her that way with the issue.

Speaker 7 (01:18:47):
Michael hey Eaton.

Speaker 25 (01:18:51):
So, in reading your article and remembering back to when
Angel Reese the two years where she was battling against
Caitlyn Clark, do you think here it's uh possibly also
a lack of a rivalry, a lack of a rival

(01:19:13):
in general that will draw the attention of spectators, especially
those who may not normally watch uh college women's basketball.
Reason Uh, the reason why I say that is because
I remember uh when l s U won one year,
defeated Iowa and then uh you had to rematch.

Speaker 14 (01:19:33):
Right.

Speaker 25 (01:19:34):
For a lot of us, even though I do understand
the racist out there, and I do I think race
was part of that, but for a lot of us,
it was just like a rivalry. It kind of reminded
us of magic and Bird. And I'm from Michigan. It
reminded us of Magic of Bird. Well, so do so
do you think hold on Roland so?

Speaker 4 (01:19:51):
So? So?

Speaker 7 (01:19:52):
Do you so do you think in this situation with.

Speaker 25 (01:19:55):
With Paige Bucker, part of it, I do understand racism
is is there's an element of that. But do you
think that part of it is lack of a rival
the attention of spectators?

Speaker 7 (01:20:08):
Okay? Hold up, First of all, Michael, do you watch
the Do you watch women's basketball?

Speaker 4 (01:20:13):
No?

Speaker 7 (01:20:14):
So you watched me basketball?

Speaker 4 (01:20:15):
There be NBA I watched?

Speaker 14 (01:20:17):
No?

Speaker 7 (01:20:17):
So so did you watch IOWA player Ship? Did you
watch i Will player show?

Speaker 4 (01:20:22):
Yes?

Speaker 7 (01:20:23):
Why because of the rivalry?

Speaker 16 (01:20:26):
Okay, it wasn't the black white things, no, no, no, no, okay,
the rival okay, okay, So.

Speaker 7 (01:20:31):
For you, it was a rivalry. It was a rivalry
and it got a lot of attention.

Speaker 16 (01:20:35):
Here's the here, here's the reality, calls the tune in,
here's the reality. We can talk about the Magic Bird rivalry.

Speaker 7 (01:20:42):
That was race. Were there people who watched that because
they wanted to see two hoopers? Absolutely?

Speaker 16 (01:20:49):
But the reality But the reality, first of all, Boston,
damn the whole thought and five was black. Okay, but
the reality I remember. But the reality is that was
that that was physician as Larry Magic. That was them
in the finals of the n C Double A and
then you go into the n B A and rally
is that was a that was a that was a

(01:21:10):
racial dynamic.

Speaker 7 (01:21:11):
To ith anybody who.

Speaker 16 (01:21:13):
Follows boxing, one of the most highest. I think it's
still the highest. The highest uh Betts placed on a
fight was what.

Speaker 1 (01:21:27):
What was it?

Speaker 7 (01:21:27):
Anybody know.

Speaker 4 (01:21:30):
Which one? Well, it's been a few of them.

Speaker 7 (01:21:33):
There's only one. Is only one.

Speaker 16 (01:21:35):
We're talking about a white dude in the black dude. No,
no's white dude and the black dude. Going back to
Jack Johnson, No, George Cooney, it was it was Cooney,
Jerry Cooney, Jerry.

Speaker 7 (01:21:49):
Coy and Holmes. That was a white that was a
white black dynamic.

Speaker 16 (01:21:54):
So the point, so the point Eton's talking about is
it again when Box and Tyllie Morrison k on they
were hoping he was gonna be the great white hope. Well,
so what what Eton is laying out is the white
black dynamic, white guy champion, the black guy villain. However
they play it, that dynamic has always played And even

(01:22:17):
if they don't characterize to your point, magic magic, Larry
Magic wasn't the quote villain in Boston.

Speaker 7 (01:22:24):
He was La Larry. Was that white black white that done?

Speaker 16 (01:22:28):
That was that I'm from Houston, and Eton though the
documentary shows it, if you were black.

Speaker 7 (01:22:33):
In America, nine point nine out of.

Speaker 16 (01:22:36):
Ten, you would cheer for Magic, And if you were white,
nine point nine you would cheer for Larry.

Speaker 7 (01:22:42):
And if you were black in Boston, you would cheer
for Magic.

Speaker 25 (01:22:46):
Right, Like I said, I do, I do realize there
is a racial component to this. But but for some spectators, no.

Speaker 16 (01:22:53):
No, no, no, but actually, but Eton is actually making
your argument. What Eton is saying is that injur Reese
was made out to be the villain.

Speaker 7 (01:23:02):
She's black. You had, you had Caitlyn Clark. What's the
difference this year.

Speaker 16 (01:23:08):
He's literally saying, you don't have the racial dynamic because
you don't have the villain. The villain was not created.
And unfortunately, the villain is always in these dynamics. It's
going to be a black white thing. That's what so
and what you're standing and what you're laying out, Etana,
is that the role that media plays because the racial

(01:23:29):
dynamic and media.

Speaker 7 (01:23:31):
Drives this too.

Speaker 25 (01:23:32):
Right, But I was posing another question though, but go
ahead the time and go ahead, I mean to do
a no.

Speaker 36 (01:23:39):
No, I definitely hear what you're saying. And I wasn't
saying that everybody fell into that category. There was graphic
that was there for that reason, and that reason only
because they weren't fans of the of women's college basketball.
They were fans of that at all. They didn't know
anything about anything else. All they knew was Kaitlin Clark
and her white men. That's it, and that's what they

(01:24:01):
were there to celebrate. And they didn't cary about the players,
any other teams, of the history of you know, anybody's
even records. And it was interesting as you saw the
dynamic play out during the season, and it was it
was really it was really frustrating to see even some
black media people kind of buy into this where he

(01:24:22):
was weaponized language. I think it was Carrington who fouled
Kaitlyn Clark one time and they said it's like she
poked her in the eye or something like that. And
I saw and they were saying she stabbed her in
the eyes. She was log was like, whoa wait a minute,
stabbed her? Why that language? And they're using it for

(01:24:44):
a specific reason. They were holding Kitlyn Clark up as
the delicate white flower that all the other mean black
players were trying to hurt and to harm, and they
had something against her.

Speaker 4 (01:24:56):
And we have to protect this delicate white flower.

Speaker 14 (01:24:59):
You know that.

Speaker 4 (01:24:59):
That's the way the media created it.

Speaker 37 (01:25:01):
Now.

Speaker 4 (01:25:01):
No, Caitlin Clark didn't say that, you know, she didn't.
He did a good job of saying, no, it was
just a foul, It was nothing like that.

Speaker 20 (01:25:09):
But she had to.

Speaker 36 (01:25:10):
Constantly fight against that because that is the dynamic, the
racial dynamic that the w NBA was playing on because
they knew why a lot of the people were there,
the new fans, because that helped their revenue, that helped
the the the views, that helped everything else. So it
benefited them. So the wn B a kind of allowed

(01:25:30):
all that to happen. They didn't really, you.

Speaker 4 (01:25:33):
Know, squash it the way that they could have and
the way that you hear the descriptions of the crowd
and the fans actually in Indiana in the arena, it
was horrible.

Speaker 38 (01:25:45):
And the reason they could have they could.

Speaker 36 (01:25:47):
Have squatched that with the security and everything like that,
they allowed it to happen.

Speaker 7 (01:25:51):
And atim the other reason why it's so hilarious is
that you had white w NBA stars. But here's the
other element, and nobody wants to deal.

Speaker 16 (01:26:00):
With the other thing is they also didn't like the
white w NBA players because they were lesbian.

Speaker 7 (01:26:09):
Even though you had some of the white women.

Speaker 16 (01:26:12):
Who who's the white woman with the aces who was
married to the NFL player with the Giants. Uh, it
was like yeah whatever, So so really what you had
here and this is also the dynamic because when she
goes from college to the pros, while you had that,
but what you had is and we.

Speaker 7 (01:26:27):
Just have to look, it's it's a reality.

Speaker 14 (01:26:29):
Okay.

Speaker 16 (01:26:30):
For years, what was the whole thing about Johnny Carson?
Johnny Carson, he appeals to Omaha, he appeals to the Midwest.
Everything was the Midwest. I mean, well, people don't even
people don't even understand how this that whole thing played
on the psyche. Even today they go the flyover States.

(01:26:53):
You know, I'm appealing to the Midwest because we.

Speaker 7 (01:26:59):
This country.

Speaker 16 (01:27:01):
Holds the Midwest up as the pantheon of what it
means to be an American.

Speaker 7 (01:27:09):
People watching may not even realize that.

Speaker 16 (01:27:12):
In the radio business, in the television business, they literally
taught people white and black and others, you need to
have a Midwest voice.

Speaker 7 (01:27:26):
A Midwest voice was devoid of an accent, so.

Speaker 16 (01:27:31):
You couldn't sound like you were from New York or
from Boston, or from Georgia or South Carolina or North
Carolina or Texas or California. No, the optimum voice was
the Midwest sound. And I remember when I worked in Dallas.
Jack Hines, yes I called his name, was the news
directory at kr KR LD Radio. We're in Dallas and

(01:27:54):
he calls me to his office and he says that
I need to work on my voice because I have
an accent.

Speaker 7 (01:28:02):
He says, I sound Texan. I'm looking at him like,
fuck you talking about We in Dallas and we had
a dude who.

Speaker 16 (01:28:14):
Who did His name was Harvey Sheppard. He did the
Bond Report. I'm like, his ass need a voice coach.
And Jack Hines' whole thing was learn the Midwest voice sound.
So what do we do in this country? It's the Midwest,
the Midwest. So what you're saying here is that Caitlyn
Clark was so embraced by conservative white America because they

(01:28:38):
here she is white woman dominating in this sport where
black women dominate.

Speaker 7 (01:28:44):
Number one score.

Speaker 16 (01:28:45):
She's from Iowa, the corn Fields. She's a heterosexual. More
than likely she's one of us. She's maga wearing a
make America Greater hat great again hat. We're gonna rally
behind her.

Speaker 7 (01:28:57):
And your point, as she would say, they would say,
so they were she ain't one of us. She ain't
one of us.

Speaker 4 (01:29:05):
Lord.

Speaker 16 (01:29:07):
If she had come out as Lesbon, they would have
asked you, they would.

Speaker 7 (01:29:11):
Have lost their mind.

Speaker 16 (01:29:12):
Eton they were attacking w NBA players who stood up
for Black Lives matter, who stood again. They were attacking
the black ball players in college who took knees as well,
and they said, the great White hope has arrived. And
that's where they were holding up as this epitome of greatness.

(01:29:34):
Oh my god, she's the greatest ever. And no, we
never heard of Sheryl Miller.

Speaker 4 (01:29:40):
Right, or shamikl holst Law or you know the whole
list of o.

Speaker 16 (01:29:44):
Us and or Kandice Parker or Maya Moore or Lanette
Woodard and we could go on and on.

Speaker 7 (01:29:50):
It was like, whatever, we don't care.

Speaker 36 (01:29:52):
It's all Kaitlyn, right, all Kaitlyn and so Paige, you know,
and in her when they're looking at her, especially after
she gave that as the speech, you know, before that,
you know she was if you go back to her
freshman year and the stats.

Speaker 4 (01:30:06):
That she put up. I mean, she won the Player
of the Year, you know what I mean. She was
really dominating, but.

Speaker 7 (01:30:13):
She wasn't from the corn fields of Iour.

Speaker 4 (01:30:15):
Definitely wasn't. But after that speech, a lot of them
backed off of her. There you go.

Speaker 36 (01:30:20):
You didn't hear them cheering for her as loud. They
wasn't praising her and everything like that. So then you
people say, Okay, well she got injured. Okay, she didn't
get injured, but then she came back, So a comeback
story from an injury.

Speaker 4 (01:30:33):
You know, if they wanted to praise her, they wouldn't.
She's going to be the.

Speaker 36 (01:30:36):
Number one pick in the NWNBA draft this year, probably
if they go on to win the championship. Was there's
a strong chance that they can, right, and you're going
to tell me that she's not worthy of being like
cheered and praised and all of that thing because the
way that she's dominating, the way she's playing. So then
I said, okay, so let's look at some other reasons why.

(01:30:57):
You know, I saw that she was actually.

Speaker 4 (01:31:01):
What was she doing?

Speaker 36 (01:31:02):
She was waking up at five o'clock in the morning
to cook breakfast for her Muslim teammates during Robini.

Speaker 4 (01:31:09):
You know that's not something that they're gonna wrap their
arms around, you know what I mean.

Speaker 36 (01:31:14):
I mean, she's she It's it's interesting when you when
you see her personality and how outspoken that she is,
not just at the esties you know all the time,
it doesn't seem like she's one of them.

Speaker 4 (01:31:28):
Yo, that's the part.

Speaker 36 (01:31:30):
Okay, this looks like this is a reason why it's different.
And a lot of white people didn't like hearing that.

Speaker 16 (01:31:36):
They listen, the reality of whiteness in America is truly astounding.

Speaker 7 (01:31:43):
It really is. Eton glad to have you on the show.

Speaker 16 (01:31:47):
Dot and I'm sure your email box and social media
d ms conteause me feel with white hate.

Speaker 4 (01:31:55):
I'm sure I appreciate it. Thanks for having me on.

Speaker 7 (01:31:58):
Appreciate it.

Speaker 16 (01:31:58):
Thanks a bunch, Hey, y'all. Diddy is facing additional criminal charges.
Weeks before his trial begins. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have
now added two new counts to his case, one for
sex trafficking, another for transporting someone for prostitution. This brings
a total number of federal charges against him the five.
The government claims that Ditty's infamous freak Off parties were
not just wild celebrity gatherings filled with lots of baby oil,

(01:32:22):
but were instead highly orchestrated sex events where women were
allegedly coursed and in some cases forced to participate. Prosecutors
are served that behind the fame lies a darker operation
involving abuse, intimidation, and exploitation. Diddy's legal team maintains it
he's an innocent man and that all activities were consensual.
He continues to plead not guilty to all charters. He's
in custody at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, with

(01:32:45):
jury selection for his criminal.

Speaker 7 (01:32:46):
Trial set to begin on May fifth.

Speaker 16 (01:32:50):
Committian Bill Burr has been ripping Elon Musk and Donald
Trump left and right.

Speaker 15 (01:32:55):
Well.

Speaker 7 (01:32:55):
He had a moment on the red carpet.

Speaker 16 (01:32:57):
That we thought was quite funny while lebrading Conan O'Brien
getting the twenty twenty five Mark Twain price ceremony at
the Candy Center in DC.

Speaker 7 (01:33:06):
Burb was a.

Speaker 16 (01:33:07):
Little irritated when these reporters kept asking him about his
support of Luigi Mangioni. Uh, the of course person who
was accused of killing You're not a healthcare CEO. They
also asking him about all other sorts of things, and
he was kind of like, you know what, y'all are
really getting on my nerves with these dumb ass questions.

Speaker 10 (01:33:29):
Reaction to Beligi and MANCHIONI is reading up. You know
that perhaps he's been supportive when he did.

Speaker 14 (01:33:34):
What is your take on that reading up?

Speaker 39 (01:33:36):
I know that you read up on it because I
said what I felt about it, and I said what.

Speaker 14 (01:33:40):
A lot of said took it that way?

Speaker 7 (01:33:41):
So could you care for Well, No, I'm not.

Speaker 40 (01:33:44):
Going to just have some controversial moments. He can get clicks.

Speaker 13 (01:33:46):
I'm not doing that.

Speaker 1 (01:33:47):
I mean, I'm here to for Conan.

Speaker 14 (01:33:49):
I'm not.

Speaker 40 (01:33:49):
I'm not doing all this you can bring up next
to the Middle East.

Speaker 39 (01:33:53):
I went to some school three out of four years
in high school.

Speaker 40 (01:33:56):
I'm notified to talk about what.

Speaker 16 (01:33:59):
I'm just gonna be warn he's not about that he
was ruining or if I saw on the view you're
critical of him?

Speaker 13 (01:34:06):
What do you think of all the boycotts, even the
viol I don't want I don't watch the news, but
no idea what's going on. I watch Instagram. I watch
people wipe out on motorcycles.

Speaker 39 (01:34:15):
I watch lions and hyenas fight each other.

Speaker 40 (01:34:17):
This is the things that I do.

Speaker 39 (01:34:19):
And I don't think you should be asking a comedian.

Speaker 13 (01:34:22):
Your jourdians are on top of turn events.

Speaker 39 (01:34:24):
You're a no, oh, that's that's weak that you is
passing the buck. Do you guys need to have balls again?
Which don't?

Speaker 1 (01:34:32):
You?

Speaker 13 (01:34:32):
Got always goes?

Speaker 9 (01:34:33):
Should we be thinking this?

Speaker 39 (01:34:36):
You guys present stuff like that. You see guys got balls?
You get your balls back? And it's not my job.
I am a dancing clown.

Speaker 7 (01:34:44):
Get your balls back. See camera.

Speaker 16 (01:34:47):
Here's why I think that was fascinating and why it
was so good, And that's because he's right.

Speaker 7 (01:34:57):
I am the problem that we have now we are now.

Speaker 16 (01:35:03):
People are so stupid today, and yes, I'm gonna use stupid.

Speaker 7 (01:35:09):
People are so stupid.

Speaker 16 (01:35:10):
Today that they are going to comedy concerts thinking they
are going to fucking lectures. They are showing up at
comedy clubs listening to comedians riff on what's happening in
current times and sitting here going I really don't.

Speaker 7 (01:35:29):
Think that should be your perspective. You should be weighing
in on that, because you're actually wrong. It's a comedy show.

Speaker 16 (01:35:36):
They're making fun of light of the problem that we
have in this society is that we are looking to comedians, entertainers, musicians,
and singers as fucking policy experts, as opposed to listening

(01:35:57):
to somebody sing, listening watching a movie, listening to a comedian. Now,
when somebody decides to go into a whole different phase.

Speaker 9 (01:36:10):
I get it.

Speaker 7 (01:36:11):
When Bill Burr or Dave Chappelle or.

Speaker 16 (01:36:14):
Someone else, when they are in on a television show,
on a podcast, whatever, they are being funny, they are
being comedians, they're making light of. But this is just
insane how we have now are looking to comedians as
if they are us senators.

Speaker 4 (01:36:34):
Yeah, it's it's it's a shame.

Speaker 26 (01:36:35):
I'm a huge, huge Bill Burr fan, and I was
enjoying his most recent stand up special, and I listened
to his podcast pretty regularly, and he talks about it.
I'm just I'm actually happy that somebody pushed back on
these red carpet moments when a lot of celebrities have
to go through that little laundry laundry list of outlets,

(01:36:57):
and he came back with something that was both funny, true,
and poignant. I think it's just it more so points
to kind of the lack of leadership people see, and
also that lack of that education is that we are
only only looking at entertainment almost for everything entertainment. We
need to go to entertainment to learn stuff. We need
to go to entertainment to be entertained. We're going We're

(01:37:19):
going there to how we should think, what we should
be saying. I think the freedom that comedians need to
be able to make something funny. That means sometimes you
have to defend a comedian where you don't like the joke,
But the freedom that they should be able to have
to be able to hone their craft, to be able
to find their audience and make somebody laugh shouldn't be

(01:37:40):
infringed upon. And I'm so so glad that he as
like it's easy to say that when you're up and
coming comedian. Bill Burr is arguably the biggest current active
stand up comedian out there, maybe next to Kevin Hard
or Dave Chappelle.

Speaker 12 (01:37:57):
And for him to use his platform to push back.

Speaker 26 (01:38:00):
On on on what people are trying to do and
then shine a light on on the polarization of like
media and politics, I thought was quite quite entertaining. So
even though we don't look to comedians for that, he actually,
in that moment both made something funny and made another
poignant point insight into society.

Speaker 7 (01:38:19):
I just I just think, I just think people are
idiots today.

Speaker 16 (01:38:26):
I mean, we're going to we're going to comedy shows,
and you shouldn't make fun.

Speaker 7 (01:38:32):
Of that group or that the hell are you talking about?
That's what comics do. They make fun of everybody. It's like,
really is that?

Speaker 36 (01:38:46):
Is that?

Speaker 5 (01:38:46):
What?

Speaker 14 (01:38:47):
To me?

Speaker 16 (01:38:47):
That's the problem? But was driving me crazy? And see
this is why for me, this is why when it
comes to Bill Maher, I'll say Bill mars full of shit,
because see what Bill Maher wants to do is Bill
Maher wants to be to both worlds. Bill Maher wants
to have serious conversations, policy driven conversations with policy people,

(01:39:08):
but then wants to say, oh no, I'm just begging jokes.
Why y'all making a big deal. Don't cancel me. No,
you chose you when you choose to cross the line
and go from comedy to policy, that's a different deal. Okay,
But when you're talking about a comedian, yo, you make

(01:39:30):
the jokes.

Speaker 7 (01:39:31):
I don't care Okay, would I go listen. I don't
like the N word comedian uses it. I know what
they're doing. But guess what, You're not gonna call me
an N world on stage. Ain't gonna happen. I understand that.

Speaker 16 (01:39:45):
I just think that what has happened is we are
now and this is why I hate and he's writing
these dumb ass media people. That's why he says, what
are you gonna ask me next about the Middle East?

Speaker 7 (01:39:57):
What are my views on it? That's the problem we are.
We are looking to comedians for their.

Speaker 16 (01:40:04):
Take on economic policies between Russia, Ukraine, China, South Korea,
North Korea and the African continent.

Speaker 7 (01:40:13):
That ain't what they do.

Speaker 4 (01:40:16):
Yeah, absolutely, I would agree.

Speaker 27 (01:40:17):
I would think that a lot of folks are becoming oversensitive,
I mean, especially in things, and I think we see
that throughout time. I think Burr is really known for
being honest and being anti establishment at that and so
to to to see his reaction, I think this is
a normal and and I think even as Cameron pointed out,

(01:40:39):
the polarization of of of what we see like polarization
being equal to engagement and outlets are using the outrage
from stars and and and celebrities, uh to kind of
create this these these these moments that really kind of
sensationalize what's happened in real time, like these these are

(01:41:02):
serious issues, and so we have to learn the separation.

Speaker 4 (01:41:05):
But I also think it's a double edge of sword.

Speaker 27 (01:41:07):
And I think we understand the importance of uh a
person having a platform and speaking out on issues when
when needed, but also there's a double edged sword of
having an understanding of like he's in comedy and this
is this is his job.

Speaker 7 (01:41:26):
Yeah, I just it just it just drives me crazy.
Michael when when Newspeople, I.

Speaker 16 (01:41:35):
Don't know how many times you look at these shows
and their booking comedians. Uh, And so what are your
thoughts on the tears now? If you're booking them to
be funny, just to make light of stuff.

Speaker 7 (01:41:48):
I get it.

Speaker 16 (01:41:49):
That's why I used to trip when I was watching.
I'm like Fox will have Dennis Miller on. I don't
give a ship with Dennis Miller thinks about public policy.
Who's that dumb ass on Fox News? Titus who was
I'm wrestler, who's now a show host? I really don't
care what he You're sitting on Fox News holding a
fucking wrestling belt and you want me to listen to

(01:42:09):
you about public policy.

Speaker 7 (01:42:11):
Nah, it ain't gonna happen.

Speaker 25 (01:42:14):
Well, yeah, I feel the same way when night see
Charlemagne a guy out on the show talking about politics,
or I saw a man Decil's on MSNBC talking about politics.

Speaker 16 (01:42:24):
But they're radio people. Tom Jorner was a radio person.

Speaker 7 (01:42:27):
They're gonna do that. But I'm just saying comedians they
make funnel stuff, they actually tell jokes, and we're treating
them like they are you know, think tank CEOs.

Speaker 25 (01:42:41):
Well, nine times out of ten that may be the case.
But looking at this piece from Huffington Post, it appears
that the reporter was asking Bill Burr about comments he
made on this December ninth, twenty twenty fourth podcast, not
his comedy show, but his actual podcast.

Speaker 7 (01:43:03):
Right, But even on their podcast, they're cracking jokes.

Speaker 25 (01:43:07):
Yeah, but if you do this on it, if you
put this out this is on his YouTube channel, because
I wouldn't. I just looked at this, so he said, quote,
none of these news programs are talking about the incredible
lack of empathy from the general public about this because
of how these insurance companies treat people when they are
at their most vulnerable.

Speaker 4 (01:43:27):
I love that fing CEOs are effing afraid right now.
You should be.

Speaker 25 (01:43:32):
You should be, by and large, you're all a bunch
of selfish, greedy, effing pieces of shit.

Speaker 12 (01:43:39):
And a lot etc.

Speaker 25 (01:43:40):
So when you put something like this out on the podcast,
out in public, on your YouTube channel, then if you
have a reporter and you're on a rare carpet, to me,
it's a fair question to ask you about what you
say on your podcast, not in your comedy show.

Speaker 7 (01:43:59):
I'm not asking podcast.

Speaker 16 (01:44:00):
I don't give a ship what a comedian has to say.
I don't really give a mean that's that's fine, But
no I'm not That's what I'm saying. But I'm I
don't give on their own show, right, So I don't
give it. But but is this podcast? Is it podcast
about a funny podcast? My point is when I when I,
when I comedians do podcasts, they're comedians, They're not.

Speaker 7 (01:44:20):
Public policitive people.

Speaker 16 (01:44:21):
What has happened is we have degenerated into a society
where we are treating a comedian the same way we
do an analyst or a think tank person or elected official.
And I think he's right. I believe that's the mistake.
If I'm on that red carpet and comedians are coming by,
if I ask them a political related question, I'm looking

(01:44:43):
with them to crack a joke about it. I'm not
looking for an in depth, in depth breakdown analysis on
Trump's tears.

Speaker 7 (01:44:50):
I'm not. But this isn't trus terrors.

Speaker 25 (01:44:51):
This is somebody who I know that I understand that
when I'm so, if you if you talk about this
on your podcast, this is out in public, this is
on his YouTube channel. Okay, So if somebody asked you
about what you said in your podcast and then you
try to deflect as opposed to answer. Now, if he
was just playing, then he would say, hey, well that's

(01:45:12):
my funny podcast. I was just playing, et cetera. But
I don't see anything wrong. I've been you've been the
media longer than me because you older than me. But
I've been being in the media in fifteen years. I've
done hundreds of interviews something out. Yeah, I view comedians, entertainers, directors.
But if somebody has something on their podcast about a murder, okay,

(01:45:33):
about a murder, and then I asked them about what
they said, you know, don't don't flip out.

Speaker 7 (01:45:38):
On me because this is what you said. Now, if
you want to if you want to say.

Speaker 16 (01:45:41):
I'm not still gonna say, I'm still gonna say flip out,
because say, here's the deal. I'll give a perfect example.
Colin Muhammad comes to Fort Worth, Texas to give a speech.
This is after he is suspended by National Islam Nation
of Islam minister Lewis Farrakhan, and so here he's given
the speech, and so I cover the speech. All right,
I get we published the story. I get called in

(01:46:02):
the next day from the editor and she's like, I
don't understand.

Speaker 7 (01:46:05):
We have a problem. I'm like, what's our problem?

Speaker 16 (01:46:07):
She says, Well, she goes she literally like, well, here's
your story, and here's Dallas Morning News story. Well, in
Dallas Morning News story, the reporter said, talked about where
Kyle mah Mohammad said, I came here to pin the
tail on the on the honky, not the donkey.

Speaker 7 (01:46:21):
He wrote about how they got searched. He wrote about
these different things.

Speaker 16 (01:46:25):
Not one item in his story did he write about
what Kylein Muhammad actually said, what the focus of his
speech was. My story didn't have any of that, because
you know what I've covered nature of Islam's peaks before.
Of course you're gonna get searched like you liked the
Secret Service or even more.

Speaker 7 (01:46:43):
So, that shit didn't mean anything to me. And I
said to her, I said, shit, y'all need to.

Speaker 16 (01:46:48):
Call his ass because he didn't write what the hell happened?
So they, I said, now there was He was a
white Jewish reporter. I'm black, And I literally said, call
his ass and tell him he did a shitty job.
So the point of here is this here when you're
talking about how do you operate as a journalist, Your
job as a journalist is to decide what I want
to ask somebody about something. And Bill Bird was absolutely right.

(01:47:11):
They were looking for a clickbait moment. It was News
Nation and Newsmax. Those were reporters, and so I've been
on red carpets. As the point I'm making is, I
think what has happened in our society in news media,
we have elevated comedians, entertainers.

Speaker 7 (01:47:26):
It's no different doing COVID.

Speaker 16 (01:47:28):
I'm watching CNN and they literally are asking Magic Johnson
and Dougie Fresh about COVID in a black community.

Speaker 7 (01:47:35):
I'm like, what the fuck are y'all.

Speaker 16 (01:47:36):
Doing where On this show, we had experts from Mahari,
we had actually black experts.

Speaker 7 (01:47:41):
What happens in national media. What they have done is
they don't want to have real substantive conversation with real
substantivee people.

Speaker 16 (01:47:50):
They rather just bring in the entertainment piece. And so
what Bill Bird is saying is, don't ask me that shit.

Speaker 7 (01:47:56):
I am a comedian. Go talk to.

Speaker 16 (01:47:58):
Somebody else who deals with this stuff. I totally get it,
and I think he's right.

Speaker 7 (01:48:03):
We spend way too much time elevating what a comedian said,
a singer said, entertainer said, versus real people who know
what the hell they're talking about.

Speaker 25 (01:48:14):
Okay, So, so in response to that, if, if that
is the is that is the position that that comedians
who put out a podcast don't care, who talk about
a murder on their podcasts don't care because listen to this.

Speaker 4 (01:48:30):
Does something like he was joking.

Speaker 25 (01:48:31):
So if you don't want a reporter to ask you
about what you said on your podcast and it doesn't
appear that you're joking, maybe you should stay in your
own lane and just kill jokes and don't deal with politics.

Speaker 7 (01:48:42):
Guess what he did.

Speaker 16 (01:48:43):
He's like he answered the question the way he wanted
to answer the question. He's like whatever, and he's like
and then what did he say? No, we ain't doing
What did he say, We're not doing that? You want clickbait?
Then he said this, Then he said what are you
gonna click? Then he said what are you?

Speaker 7 (01:48:55):
Then he said what are y'all gonna ask me next? Next?
About the Middle East?

Speaker 16 (01:48:58):
And again, what this happened is comedic audiences some people
as well as the general public. We have now we
have now said to comedians, we're going to take the
things that you say on the stage seriously. Jamie Foxx,
Jamie no, no, no, no, no, follow me here. That
is a stage, that's a platform. And what I'm saying

(01:49:21):
is we have become a society in news media that
is that treats comedians like they are someone else. And
what I'm saying is he's right to say, now I'm
not answering your question and it's clickbait.

Speaker 7 (01:49:35):
I just think that, Cameron.

Speaker 16 (01:49:36):
The thing is what has happened is the mistake that
we keep making is we and Ben will have happen
is we'll devote a significant amount of time on these
make well on the mainstream people. I won't to this
stuff as opposed to somebody that's real never gets any attention.
I'm spending another sixty seconds on this and I got
my guest waiting, go Cameron real quick.

Speaker 26 (01:49:57):
I will say this as a counterpoint to that, sometimes
when we do have comedians and entertainers speaking on these issues,
often that is times where the entry point into an
issue for some folks. People who may not be focused
on the news, may not be watching them see it
ends or or the role of Martins or the Black
Star Networks, but when they see it on stage, they

(01:50:20):
hear it on their favorite comedian or entertainer's podcasts or platform.

Speaker 12 (01:50:24):
Sometimes that's their way into an issue.

Speaker 7 (01:50:26):
So I will I saw those folks learn how to
use Google.

Speaker 4 (01:50:31):
But you can't expect that's not what everybody's from.

Speaker 16 (01:50:34):
No, No, I understand, But if there are people out there,
if if your source of news and information is a comedian,
then you deserve to be dumb. No, I'm just gonna
I'm sorry. At some point, now, at some point, if
an entertainer says something and you're like, hey, so and

(01:50:54):
so said that, and I'm like, you ain't checked that shit.

Speaker 7 (01:50:57):
You just running with it. Well, you know, I.

Speaker 16 (01:51:01):
I again, we have become social celebrity driven that we
push out real people.

Speaker 7 (01:51:07):
Let me do this here, let me let me do
this here.

Speaker 16 (01:51:11):
Y'all have been seeing this stuff going around and this
is funny here because my next guest was just living.

Speaker 7 (01:51:17):
When I sent her a text, she was just like losing.
I was like, oh, I got to have you on
the show.

Speaker 4 (01:51:21):
Y'all.

Speaker 16 (01:51:21):
Seeing all of these videos about fifty to fifty, finance,
who pays for what?

Speaker 7 (01:51:26):
Stuff along those lines, this was a video. I personally
think this was a skit.

Speaker 16 (01:51:31):
Okay, So this video right here, woman upset after her
husband's surprised her with a starter home he can afford
instead of the dream home they talked about.

Speaker 7 (01:51:38):
Well, there have been other.

Speaker 16 (01:51:38):
Videos posted where that have real videos where a mother
or father bought their child a car and the kid
rejected the car because it wasn't the car that they liked.
Then you have all these other videos where you have
women talking about, well, I'm not gonna sit if.

Speaker 7 (01:51:52):
A man and not paying.

Speaker 16 (01:51:55):
If a man is not paying my bills, then we
can't get together. Well, if he wants me to go
fifty to fifty, well, I'm confused because if you're paying
one hundred percent right now, is it fifty fifty?

Speaker 7 (01:52:05):
Cutting your shit in half?

Speaker 16 (01:52:06):
Well, my next guest was just so angry and upset
because she says, what this is doing is this is
really screwing with people out here who don't understand finances,
who don't understand the reality of relationships.

Speaker 7 (01:52:20):
And she was just so hot and bothered by this.
I mean, I'm ting. I was cracking up laughing at
her responses to me sending her these text messages that
Sonny Curry was like, I gotta come on the show.
I got to come on the show and talk about it.
She's a personal finance expert journalist out of Miami. Glad
to have you here. Why are you so ticked off

(01:52:43):
with so many of these.

Speaker 16 (01:52:44):
Videos on social media that has all these people talking
about fifty to fifty. I think Gabrielle Union talked about
she finally got over paying fifty to fifty and you know,
letting Dwayne Wade pay for a lot of stuff take
it away so largely, I.

Speaker 41 (01:52:59):
Think what individuals who It kind of plays into what
you were talking about before, how you were just talking
about essentially formulating your full opinion about something given to
you by an entertainer, Right, I think that is playing
a large role in where people.

Speaker 37 (01:53:17):
Get information from.

Speaker 41 (01:53:19):
I'm particularly annoyed by that type of rage bait content,
the fifty to fifty type of conversations because I look
at things like the CPI, which is the consumer price index. Right,
you can look at things like statulation where you're just
looking basically at the cost of the cost of living

(01:53:40):
is not keeping pace with earnings. Right, there is a
huge deficit there. You hear individuals even how you mentioned
the child.

Speaker 37 (01:53:48):
Who gets a car.

Speaker 41 (01:53:49):
When you see the average car payment for a brand
new car, it's seven hundred and forty two dollars. For
an old used car is going to be five hundred
and forty two dollars. Do you think that at this
particular time, while we are in this particular economic climate,
that we should be spending and I oda of time

(01:54:10):
discussing who's going to pay what?

Speaker 14 (01:54:13):
Do you think from a.

Speaker 37 (01:54:14):
Social economic position, that we should be.

Speaker 41 (01:54:19):
Berating each other about the size of a starter home?

Speaker 42 (01:54:24):
Like?

Speaker 41 (01:54:24):
Is that really the conversation that we should be having
at any time, but largely right now while everyone else
is consumed.

Speaker 37 (01:54:33):
About you know, drops up market while we're talking about tears.

Speaker 41 (01:54:38):
Yet the conversation seems to be to keep us largely
very single and very very broke.

Speaker 37 (01:54:46):
So I do get very annoyed by the content.

Speaker 16 (01:54:49):
Well it's a perfect example, okay when you see I
mean loostense. We now have a proliferation of relationship shows,
relationship experts, personal finance experts. I saw a video today
from somebody who was a business coach and I was
kind of like.

Speaker 7 (01:55:05):
What business did you actually run? And it was a joke.
I was kind of like, so you're you're the number
one business coach. Okay, gotcha?

Speaker 1 (01:55:15):
So his was interesting.

Speaker 16 (01:55:17):
So when you have these people having these conversations, and
people are watching this stuff, and they are going into
relationships with these thoughts in terms of how things should be,
in terms of how you should what you should pay for,
who's paying for what, and stuff along those lines, and
then it's oh, well, if a man is dating me,
then he is to pay all of my bills.

Speaker 7 (01:55:37):
Baby, that's marriage.

Speaker 16 (01:55:38):
I'm trying to think, But how you been paying your
bills before I got here? And things along those lines,
and then we'll know. I remember this one video that
was a woman, she literally left her husband because he
lost his job and he couldn't continue to pay the bills.

Speaker 7 (01:55:55):
I'm like, damn, you just walked out.

Speaker 16 (01:55:58):
And what's happening is people are forming their views about
personal finance based upon this when a lot of this
stuff is literally illogical. When you're talking about when you
talk about how do two people, how do a couple
build wealth and handle finances? This ain't no IM is

(01:56:19):
supposed to be we us our.

Speaker 41 (01:56:22):
So I'm going to stick and stand by the statistics, right,
That's the that's the part that makes the conversation just
more irrational. I think how you first the first video
that you sent to me is one that you saw
me commenting on where the lady said she went on
a date with a guy. I think the guy had
to be an engineer, and you know, she asked him

(01:56:46):
at the date the first date, she wanted to know,
you know, well, what are going to be your contributions
to my life? And I actually I really steer clear
of rage bait as much as I possibly can, but
I actually think that she was getting a real account
of her actual dating experience per se.

Speaker 4 (01:57:04):
And I just thought, Number one.

Speaker 41 (01:57:06):
Okay, if you don't know this person, you've never met him,
and I have sons, Right, I have a twelve or
fourteen year old that is slowly matriculating into the dating world.

Speaker 37 (01:57:15):
And imagine going out with a woman that you're just
meeting and her one of her dating.

Speaker 41 (01:57:20):
Questions is whether or not you're going to be making
financial contributions to her.

Speaker 37 (01:57:26):
I just thought this is ridiculous.

Speaker 41 (01:57:28):
The other part that makes it ridiculous in terms of
just getting to know people, sometimes people ask me, well, Shanni,
do you think I should be asking someone on the
first date their credit score? Okay, so in the event
that the person has an eight hundred credit score, let's
say they have an eight point fifty, on what basis
can you begin to use.

Speaker 37 (01:57:47):
That information to decide that this person is going to
be a fit for you?

Speaker 41 (01:57:53):
Largely, right, So you know that they have a good
credit score, so maybe they pay things on time. But
unfortunately that might be a predictor to how they might
interact with you. But it's not the strongest one, right,
You need some actual interactions. Also, just because you know couples, right,
is large how our predecessors were able to even build

(01:58:15):
wealth through home ownership. So when you're looking at that
average income. That average income and this is from the
statistics Bureal and labor statistics, right, sixty two thousand dollars is.

Speaker 37 (01:58:28):
What the average American brings in.

Speaker 41 (01:58:31):
I didn't break down the social economics as relates to race,
but typically, just because of the amount of institutionalized racism,
typically is just going to be lower than what the
typical standard is. So when you look at the average income.

Speaker 7 (01:58:47):
Now that's for that's for an individual.

Speaker 37 (01:58:51):
That sixty two thousand dollars, that was for an individual.

Speaker 41 (01:58:54):
Yeah, you can look at the labor statistics of labor
and you'll see that that is the average income or
in Americans. So when you are largely not thinking how
can I combine myself, you know, so that I can
you know, become a six figure household, it's just a
little ridiculous, especially to create a lot of the content
is rage bait, which I also think is very very

(01:59:16):
harmful because when you're watching and you're becoming emotional about
experiences that are not actually happening, and then you're taking
that concept into relationships. There's also the conversation where people
continue to themselves as the prize.

Speaker 43 (01:59:31):
Right.

Speaker 41 (01:59:31):
I also think that that is just an injustice to
begin to attach to yourself like as the prize, you know,
like as if the other person is gaining something so
strongly and then you're at a total loss and your
buying is so great. Largely, I think in a relationship
that there's going to be.

Speaker 37 (01:59:49):
Some level of equilibrium depending on who's the prize. Maybe
it's your birthday or something.

Speaker 41 (01:59:55):
I'm not really sure largely on how those opinions get formed,
but that is the type of rage bait. That is
the type of content that we are being fed, this
hyper independence at a time where we need to be
focused on multi generational wealth more than ever.

Speaker 37 (02:00:13):
We need to be buying property together.

Speaker 41 (02:00:15):
We need to take some conflict resolution classes, read some
books so that we can live together.

Speaker 37 (02:00:22):
There's some other statistics that support that.

Speaker 41 (02:00:25):
Individuals, peuples, families are now living with their families. So
what that means is mom dad is living with grandma
and their two children.

Speaker 37 (02:00:35):
Right Typically they're renting.

Speaker 41 (02:00:37):
That conversation needs to move over to them owning so
that they can live into that house for a period
of time, maybe about three years, and then they can
move into house packing pull some equity out of the property.
I'd like to see more conversations like that as opposed
to the rage bait content.

Speaker 37 (02:00:53):
It's just not functional.

Speaker 16 (02:00:55):
So you just said something that like, here's a perfect sample.
I'm going to the panel after this with questions. Perfect okay.
So when you see all these conversations, it's oh, oh,
the man, he gotta pay for all of this, he
gotta pay.

Speaker 4 (02:01:08):
For all of this.

Speaker 16 (02:01:08):
He's got to cover all of the bills and and
and then it's like, well, my count and all this nonsense.

Speaker 4 (02:01:15):
Uh.

Speaker 16 (02:01:15):
And my sister, the older sister, she was talking about
when they when they went to go buy a house
and the guy goes, oh, this is great. With your
two incomes, y'all can get this level house. And it
may it was like four or five hundred thousand. My
sister was like pump the branks players. She said, we're

(02:01:36):
gonna buy a house based upon one income, so if
anything happens with the other income, were good. But the
other thing there was, we're gonna buy a house with
one income, and we're gonna sit here and save as
much of your income, uh, and save and best as.

Speaker 7 (02:01:55):
Possible as opposed.

Speaker 16 (02:01:57):
To this idea of your money money and when you
talk about this rage content. I think what it's doing
is it's causing people to bring a single perspective into marriage,
which is supposed to be we us our John o'
brown was on Cam Newton's podcast where he said he

(02:02:18):
said marriage is not addition, marriage multiplication. He said, it
ain't two plus two equals four. He said, it's two
plus two equals twelve. He said, you need a partner
who can help you multiply your income. And so when
you see a lot of these videos, these people have
no idea. So this whole again, well, I'm gonna pay

(02:02:38):
these bills. You're gonna pay these bills as opposed to
know what's gonna happen is we're gonna look at what
we are making together.

Speaker 7 (02:02:45):
What's gonna be our lifestyle. What do we want to
save and invest?

Speaker 4 (02:02:49):
So when we hit.

Speaker 16 (02:02:50):
Fifty fifty five, sixty, we don't necessarily have to work
because over the last twenty twenty five thirty years, if
you got married that young, then that's what you've done.
You've not just spent all your money and you lild
a single life while married.

Speaker 41 (02:03:04):
Right, there's also this other statistic that should play in
your when you're looking at this type of rage bait
type of content even when it's even real and it's
still kind of rage baity in terms of just keeping
you dollar delusional and constantly being financially distracted. Is the
loneliness study that would be a really good study to
look at. One in three Americans are lonely. Right, So

(02:03:26):
when you continue to feed into this rage bait content
and think that it's actually reality and this is the
way that you should be forming relationships financially and.

Speaker 37 (02:03:37):
The long term, it's just not working for individuals.

Speaker 41 (02:03:40):
I also looked really closely at that particular arm statistic
when it got into loneliness, it was also centered within
the space of income. So those that was locked into
that average income of sixty two thousand, they were more
likely to be lonely at seventy nine percent citing their loneliness. So, overall,
this particular content, whether it's being rage bade or it's actuality,

(02:04:03):
it's not functional in my everyday life where I have
been working in the arena of personal finance for the
last fifteen years.

Speaker 37 (02:04:10):
That's not what I'm seeing.

Speaker 41 (02:04:11):
Here's what I'm actually seeing. Just this week alone, I
was working with one of my clients. Both of the
individuals are educators, so maybe you got an income.

Speaker 37 (02:04:20):
Of about fifty thousand dollars each individual.

Speaker 41 (02:04:23):
Right currently, the wife is now going to be taking
on all of the expenses in the household so that
the husband can go to medical school.

Speaker 16 (02:04:32):
Oh oh wait wait wait, hold on, hold up, hold on,
hold on, I want you to go run back.

Speaker 7 (02:04:37):
You just said so the husband is going to go
to medical school.

Speaker 41 (02:04:40):
The husband is in medical school. He's currently enrolled. He's
been there since January. So largely our conversation is about, Shawne,
how am I going to maintain the amount of debt
that I'm taking on.

Speaker 7 (02:04:53):
At the Hold on, wait, wait, wait, hold on, before
you go to wait wait wait, wait, wait, before you
go to what you said, the wife is going to
be paying all of the bills. Yes she is now to.

Speaker 16 (02:05:06):
Your point out their rage bank content laud. These folks
will be going crazy if they said that. Now, explain
why you sitting now this couple, why they made that
decision for her to say, I'm gonna use my money
I made to pay all the bills.

Speaker 41 (02:05:25):
While you do this right, So largely they were just
seeing where they were locked in economically.

Speaker 37 (02:05:31):
Both of them are educators, so I guess they were
starting to feel like, hey, this is this is all
we can do.

Speaker 41 (02:05:36):
This is going to be the mas in terms of income,
and if they're going to pick up more student loan debt,
it would make sure that if they're going to pick
up more debt that it's also going to be an
indicator of higher income.

Speaker 37 (02:05:47):
That's not the only one.

Speaker 41 (02:05:48):
I also have, and this one is even more so
It's like, step out of this, you know, financial facade,
and step into reality where my clients are actually working together.
I have an engineer, the white is the engineer. The
husband is an attorney. They were right at the brink
of getting a divorce because one of the things that
we lack within our community, because we have so much

(02:06:10):
post traumatic stress from institutionalized racism, and then we don't
know how to completely wash.

Speaker 37 (02:06:16):
Ourselves of our childhoods.

Speaker 41 (02:06:17):
So all of those interceptors come in and then we
have an issue when it comes to marriage. But these
two individuals engineer as well as an attorney, right at
the brink of getting a divorce, they had already spent
ten thousand dollars separately, ten thousand dollars separately and they
have not even made it to the divorce proceedings. This
is just what's happening in the mediation back and forth

(02:06:39):
with the attorneys. At some point I meet with the
wife because she is looking at the amount of debt
that she's coming into. I said strongly, right, if you're
looking at the amount that you are spending, this is
before you get a divorce. I would definitely like for
you to get some hard core therapy before you completely

(02:07:00):
rid yourself of this marriage. They have completely, you know,
started getting back together. They've gotten themselves into therapy visit.
We're talking about two six figures that's getting ready to split.

Speaker 37 (02:07:13):
So I'm just saying, when you step out of.

Speaker 41 (02:07:16):
Like the rage bait space and then you step into
reality where the more educated or preserving their resources because
it just makes sense financially as well as in terms
of like your mental health, then we're actually working together.
Last one, This will be the last couple. These are
the individuals couples that I work with where both of

(02:07:38):
the individuals and I find those that make less money tend.

Speaker 37 (02:07:42):
To work better together financially.

Speaker 41 (02:07:45):
They don't have to make as many financial decisions, and
because they make less let's take two individuals. One may
be upposed to worker, one may may be working, you know,
and they may drive trucks, they may drive.

Speaker 37 (02:08:00):
Up drivers because there are six figures room, maybe.

Speaker 4 (02:08:01):
A bus driver.

Speaker 37 (02:08:02):
And these two individuals are working together.

Speaker 41 (02:08:05):
Economically, the conversations when I'm working with these couples are
less strange. They're not as argumentative, they're not fighting about money.
They're more willing to work together to see how they
can preserve what it is that they're.

Speaker 37 (02:08:18):
Able to save.

Speaker 41 (02:08:19):
So in just a reality space where people are actually
using the marriage and relationships to generate, maintain, create, and sustain, well,
it's not the rage, big content that we're seeing online.

Speaker 7 (02:08:33):
It's just not real, all right.

Speaker 16 (02:08:37):
Well, since he always is trying to throw out how
young his ass is, let me go ahead and start
with the youngest damn panelist, tilt go ahead.

Speaker 27 (02:08:49):
I love this conversation, though I first want to say
I think I think it is centered and uh, it's
centered in the relationship, the censor and togetherness and whatever
makes you have for you do what you got to do.
But I have to say, for God love the cheerful giver.
So if they want to give, if it's on their
heart a lot of them to give. But I just

(02:09:09):
want to make that comment there. Uh so yeah, I
think I think it's about what works, what works for you,
and uh and loves about sacrifice and if that sacrifice
has to be on that financial and that's the decision
that you all make. Whatever makes you happy, whatever flows
your boat. But like I said, God loves loves a
cheerful giver.

Speaker 7 (02:09:29):
I don't under Tyler, is there is there a question?
Is there a question?

Speaker 44 (02:09:34):
See?

Speaker 36 (02:09:35):
See?

Speaker 16 (02:09:35):
I set it up perfectly for your young ass to
ask a question of a personal financial expert. And then
you want to come on here sound like a seventy
five year old damn deacon.

Speaker 7 (02:09:46):
I love a cheerful giver. I understand that.

Speaker 16 (02:09:49):
But we're talking about relationships and money and fifty to
fifty and so.

Speaker 7 (02:09:56):
Bro, come on.

Speaker 27 (02:09:57):
My question would be okay, So what if, like you said,
you don't want to be in a situation where someone
is requesting or asking for something from you. What if
you're stuck in a situation where someone's like, they have
their the parameters of where they want to date and
if the person is not meeting that, but the love

(02:10:19):
is there.

Speaker 16 (02:10:20):
Okay, So do you mean, okay, So man, baby, let
me help, let me, let me help me, let me
help the young and out. Let me provide some damn
seasoning here. So Tyler Perry did a video. Tyler Perry
had an interview, and he said to the sister, he said,
he said, ladies, if you have a man who loves you,

(02:10:42):
cares for you, respects you, treats you well, you know,
rubs your back, rubs your feet, he said, But all
he can afford is to pay the light bill.

Speaker 7 (02:10:51):
He said, let him pay the light bill and you
pay the rest of stuff.

Speaker 16 (02:10:54):
Man, These sisters went off on him while I got
this married down, while I got the date down.

Speaker 7 (02:11:00):
Why can't on my level?

Speaker 16 (02:11:02):
And Tyler's response was that y'all miss all the other
stuff that I said that, And so that sounds like
what Tyler was talking about. So what happens when you
are You may want to date somebody or marry somebody,
and the reality is they're not on your economic level.
They can't they can't pay for a vacation to tie

(02:11:24):
land and to loom themselves. But y'all together can do
things together. How do you resolve how do you get
people to see beyond the money and say, wait a minute,
I'm trying to get with you for a multitude of
reasons beyond your bank account.

Speaker 7 (02:11:42):
I think that's what he was trying to ask.

Speaker 41 (02:11:44):
I actually understood him. At some point he'll have to
clarify that statement about God.

Speaker 7 (02:11:51):
No, no, you don't know. You don't cause he was
trying not to ask a question. He was trying not
to ask a question.

Speaker 37 (02:11:59):
Idled to understand that, but separate, separate from that. I
do remember what it is that you're talking about where
Tyler Perry was.

Speaker 41 (02:12:07):
Saying that, and I do remember the Internet largely being split,
just being split in the space where the woman feeling
like why would I have to lower my standards in
order to be in a relationship? And I think that
you have to look at your overall standards for being
inside of a relationship and if your only uh space

(02:12:32):
of being in a relationship is economic, that I want
you to begin to really and truly look at this,
at those loneliness statistics, I really do, just the impacts
that it's having on mental health, the impacts that it's
having on physical health.

Speaker 37 (02:12:46):
It doesn't strong it doesn't it doesn't.

Speaker 41 (02:12:48):
Serve us well to continue to push this hyper independence agenda.
It doesn't work economically and it doesn't work for us physically. Now,
when it comes to some of these the visual UH
standards in terms of how you interact with people, that's
actually really important.

Speaker 37 (02:13:07):
In terms of you know, from how much you earn?
Do I like to communicate with you?

Speaker 41 (02:13:11):
You know, do we have a similar interest right, So
oftentimes people think that or we'll suspect that someone at
a specific income level may be limited in terms of
what they may enjoy.

Speaker 37 (02:13:24):
So they will, you know, think that this would speak
to incompatibility.

Speaker 41 (02:13:28):
Maybe it will, maybe it won't, But it really depends
on the two individuals. I've seen that workout in so
many different ways, where sometimes the woman is the sixth
figure earner. And this was actually not a a brown
couple like you and I, was actually a white family.
The wife did earn six figures. The husband was a freelancer,

(02:13:52):
so he was the one that predominantly cooked and cared
for the child.

Speaker 37 (02:13:57):
The wife did.

Speaker 41 (02:13:58):
She did start to she continued persistent to refer to
herself as the breadwinner. She continued to do that when
we were working in the session, and I have to
bring her to the space of just recognizing that you
did not need to overly state, especially to a man
that's not making as much money as you, to overly
state that you are the bread winner.

Speaker 37 (02:14:20):
Per se, I did have her to list when he.

Speaker 41 (02:14:23):
Was economically contributing to the marriage, to the relationship that
was not financial. They are still together, by the way,
But sometimes I think while when people get frustrated in
that conversation, it is about compatibility. Sometimes people think income
is a way to reflect compatibility. But for some people,

(02:14:44):
income is the only standard, and largely they don't end
up very happy either.

Speaker 37 (02:14:49):
Because I have clients that you know are only married
for money.

Speaker 16 (02:14:53):
We're there are some people the money is also power
who has and the reality is historically have used being
the breadwinner to establish dominance in a relationship.

Speaker 7 (02:15:05):
That's one thing that you're seeing. Michael.

Speaker 25 (02:15:07):
Question very quickly here, Shani, what advice do you have
for single people who are looking for a long term relationship.
What advice do you have for them regarding having realistic
expectations in the partner Because a lot of our expectations

(02:15:28):
are shaped by media, music, songs, movies, things like that.

Speaker 4 (02:15:31):
And as you we've been discussing a lot of that
is just totally unreal.

Speaker 16 (02:15:36):
You mean realistic expectations. She's a personal finance expert. So
you mean within the within the within about money.

Speaker 7 (02:15:42):
Narrative, Yeah, yeah, yeah, within money, got it?

Speaker 4 (02:15:46):
Realistic? Yeah yeah, things that so all Michael.

Speaker 16 (02:15:49):
Let me also, so when you say realistic expectations, Michael,
do you mean like when she described the teachers meaning,
let's look at your career, let's look at hey trajectory.
And so you may not have a care your path
that's going to take you from fifty thousand if you're
thirty four, by the time you're fifty five, you're going
to be at one hundred and fifty thousand.

Speaker 25 (02:16:07):
Is that what you mean when you say it can
be career, It could be earning, it could be bringing
potential things of this nature trying to go ahead.

Speaker 41 (02:16:16):
I would say that one just discard most of the
content that you see online, even if you think that
you find it funny. It would be a it would
be a good idea to start protecting yourself from some
of that content, because if you continue to see something,
then you'll actually think that it's in reality. I think
that it's really good for you to spend time with

(02:16:39):
individuals within your family that are actually in a healthy relationship.
I never said a perfect relationship. That I said a
healthy relationship. I will surround it around marriage. So it's
a really just like a kind of standard within the
space that I lived. My social economics, I would say

(02:17:00):
probably the average income within that particular neighborhood was maybe
about forty five thousand dollars. And then we're talking maybe
about you know, twenty something years ago when I was
inside of those particular neighborhoods, but I remember seeing families.
I remember seeing families, and I remember seeing homeowners. So

(02:17:21):
those that are single, I would say that you need
to have conversations with individuals that are actually married and
get them to be vulnerable about the things that have
worked really well and the things have worked really poorly.
Get them to start talking about assets, right, get them
to start opening up those ibul a lot online.

Speaker 37 (02:17:44):
Get to start looking at that and say, you know,
can you explain this to me?

Speaker 41 (02:17:48):
Why do you have this for your wife? A lot
of my clients come to me and they and the
men that work with me, they care about their wife.
So when I'm online, it feels very shocking to me. Right,
my clients are often coming to me, Shanni, how much
would it cost for me to get the max amount
of insurance? So if something happens to me, my wife
doesn't have this as a challenge. So online is not

(02:18:09):
really the best place to get information about relationships, just
because I'm looking at individuals that are single, individuals that
are married and.

Speaker 37 (02:18:19):
They're making decisions and they're making it work. I don't
know why pushing that agenda online when eggs are eight dollars.

Speaker 12 (02:18:29):
Thank you for this insight. I wanted to go somewhere
a little different. There was a recent article.

Speaker 26 (02:18:35):
That came out talking about how currently there are actually
more African American women, I'm sorry, more non black men
and more non Black people at Howard University and in
our HBCUs than there are actually African American men. And
we've seen how Black women are some of the the

(02:18:55):
I think, the most educated class, and we understand, like
a lot of times that education as a correlation to
earning potential finances. As that goes, so it feels like
we're on a trajectory where we're actually going to have
more men, especially on black men, who are going to
be consistently in this generation in generations moving forward, probably

(02:19:18):
less educated and therefore probably earning less than women. How
do we combat that or how do we either whether
it's reset financial expectations, because that online narrative.

Speaker 12 (02:19:29):
I think continues to push forward.

Speaker 26 (02:19:31):
And as a person like myself, I'm still single, but
a lot of health the marriages in my family, so
I fully believe in that, and knowing a lot of
my family, none of my family married for money.

Speaker 4 (02:19:41):
But now as as as we go.

Speaker 26 (02:19:44):
Into that, you can you can see that like that
we're actually it could get worse, not better in terms
of like the unrealistic or unmatched expectations financially that women
may have of men in the pool of men not available.
He's here in these states, Go ahead, yes, So I

(02:20:05):
can tell you.

Speaker 41 (02:20:06):
That in terms of like the unrealistic expectations, just like
that one video that brought us to this conversation role
in where the young lady was talking about she was
dating an engineer, and you know, if he's not going
to be willing to to you know, at least start
telling her how much he's going to be contributing to
her life. You know, on date number one, right, first
of all, you can tell like the ridiculousness of it

(02:20:28):
because largely right, think about yourselves as men that largely
probably earn money.

Speaker 37 (02:20:33):
Think about it.

Speaker 41 (02:20:34):
Would you want your wife or your mate, or someone
that you were taking seriously online essentially bragging about whatever
it is that you are financially providing for her wrather
You providing for her is very easy already. You providing
for her is a strong challenge when you think about really,
even the women who are positioning themselves for this idea

(02:20:56):
of like hyper gammy, even if someone was interested in
particular really partnering with you, they're they're turned off largely, right,
They're now turned off because you know you're you're ridiculous
in a way, right. So in terms of bridging that
particular gap, I do spend time with individuals between that
age gap of maybe about twenty twenty two and twenty five,

(02:21:19):
And there are some of the brightest, wealthiest children that
I've ever met, and it's probably not fear for me
to call them children, but they are entrepreneurs. They are
in the tech space, and they are talking about marriage
and they're talking about relationships.

Speaker 37 (02:21:40):
So I don't think that it is as far apart.

Speaker 41 (02:21:44):
I know what you're saying in terms of, you know,
black women being more educated, and is that trajectory going
to continue to go into that particular space with the
With the younger generation, I'm seeing way more higher earnings
because argually they are in careers where they are not
playing around. That is the generation that is not going

(02:22:05):
to college just to say they got a degree. Those
individuals going to college, they're coming out as engineers, they're
coming out as dot they're coming out they are coming
out with those tech jobs, and they are creating income,
so they're not really messing around. The interesting part that
I'm not able to really speak on is because of
the insurgence of this hyper independence, what that's going to

(02:22:27):
play out in terms of like building strong families. So
I know that income is being created by those individuals,
but I don't know how within the next ten to
fifteen years, with the amount of hyper independence that's being
pushed on to us, even though they're making more income,
even though Baby boomers are going to transfer more well

(02:22:49):
than ever before into the next generation, I don't know
if we're going to hold on to a lot of
that capital and actually grow, or if we're going to
squander a lot of the towards divorce, you know, towards
mental health challenges with the hyper independence and the loneliness studies.

Speaker 37 (02:23:06):
So I'm concerned.

Speaker 41 (02:23:07):
I'm not really concerned about that generation creating money though
they don't.

Speaker 14 (02:23:11):
Really hear me.

Speaker 7 (02:23:12):
So folk have understand what she's talking about.

Speaker 16 (02:23:14):
It has estimated ten trillion dollars in assets are going
to be transferred.

Speaker 7 (02:23:21):
Now that's mostly a lot of white folks, but the
point is ten trillion dollars.

Speaker 16 (02:23:25):
You're going to have people who own businesses that their
kids are not gonna want to run. You're going to
have folk who may squander that money as well, and
so it's a lot that we have to think about
when we start talking about money. Shanni, if folks want
to reach you, where do they go?

Speaker 37 (02:23:40):
You can find me on.

Speaker 41 (02:23:41):
All social media space under Shawnee Curry Curry, just like
the Spice. And thank you so much Roland for giving
me the opportunity to talk about personal finances as relates
to relationships because it's a family, it's a marriage, and
that's how we create more wealth through strengthening our ability

(02:24:02):
to resolve conflicts, repair and make some money together.

Speaker 7 (02:24:06):
And by the way, when you talk about uh that
money is gonna be gone when they divorced them. Attorney
is gonna get all that dope.

Speaker 41 (02:24:13):
That's that thing is either the attorneys or you're going
to be you're gonna need your I mean, single people
spending more money.

Speaker 37 (02:24:19):
What are you gonna do? You're gonna take it to
you know, Thailand?

Speaker 4 (02:24:21):
What do you what? What?

Speaker 14 (02:24:22):
What?

Speaker 37 (02:24:23):
What is your sustainability plan?

Speaker 45 (02:24:25):
You know?

Speaker 16 (02:24:25):
But but actually, actually I think what they're gonna do
is they're gonna take it to not Thailand, but they're
gonna go to Tilick and so they gonna be cheerful
givers and then oh yeah you can go to Thailant
or yeah, yeah, yeah you can, you can go to Thailick.

Speaker 7 (02:24:39):
Okay, Anthony, I need you to switch.

Speaker 16 (02:24:41):
You need to switch to tilt You come on, Anthony, Anthony, Okay,
you got to keep up.

Speaker 7 (02:24:47):
I'm like, you totally missed the whole, the whole.

Speaker 37 (02:24:52):
Feed into it.

Speaker 16 (02:24:53):
Yes, yes, So so if all y'all out there, y'all
could give them money to Tylick and then y'all can
decide how y'all going to be a cheerful giver and
giving the money away. Shiney, We appreciate you.

Speaker 7 (02:25:05):
Thanks, a lot.

Speaker 16 (02:25:07):
You so much, all right, thank you so very much. Last,
real quick this I just just came in quick breaking
news here. We've been covering the North Carolina race the
North Carolina Appeals Court. Yeah, hardcore Republicans, these idiots actually
ruled against Alison Riggs. She beat the Republican here one

(02:25:28):
of their fellow judges, Judge Jefferson Griffin, she beat him.
And this three judge panel of the North Carolina Court
of Appeals ruled that. Well, then sixty five thousand votes
cast in that race must be recounted and verified. Talk
about total total bs. Now, the Elections Board already made
clear that wasn't the case. But this is a huge

(02:25:48):
victory and for the Republican in this particular race, Allison Riggs,
she of course, is the Democrat who actually won. This
is give me one second, I'm gonna read for you
real quick, the statement that she actually released on social media.
Give me one second, Okay, let me go ahead and

(02:26:13):
pull this up.

Speaker 7 (02:26:15):
This is the statement that she dropped today.

Speaker 16 (02:26:18):
Justice Allison Riggs released the statement, we will be promptly
appealing this deeply misinformed decision that threatens to disenfranchise more
than sixty five thousand lawful voters and sets a dangerous
precedent allowing disappointed politicians to thwart the will of the people.
North Carolinians elected me to keep my seat, and I
swore an oath to the Constitution and the rule of law,

(02:26:38):
so I will continue to stand up for the rights
of voters in this state and stand in the way
of those who would take power from the people. So
that y'all she give the me in November. The Republican
they still trying to fight it. Remember, Republicans hold a
five to two majority in the court. They want this seat,
it will be six to one. They want to take
out Anita Earls next year, the sister, so they can

(02:26:58):
have a seven old majority on the state Supreme Court.
That is why Wisconsin's race on Tuesday was so important. Michael,
thanks the bunch, Cameron, thanks the bunch, and the cheerful
giver Tyler, the youngest person on the panel, appreciate you being.

Speaker 7 (02:27:14):
On the show as well. Y'all, thanks so much. I
have a great weekend, folks.

Speaker 16 (02:27:21):
We're better close it out, but coming up at the
end of the show, we're gonna be airing April fourth,
nineteen sixty eight. I talked to over the years a
number of people who worked with doctor King, who marched
with doctor King, who were close to him, and they
all gave me their accounts of what they went through,

(02:27:42):
what they felt with the experience. On April fourth, nineteen
sixty eight, the day he was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee.
Zadonah Clayton, a bachelor, Andrew Young, Riveren, Jesse Jackson Senior,
John Lewis Elandor Holmes Norton, a number of people, and
so it is a fascinating, fascinating conversation, and especially as

(02:28:02):
Zendona Clayton, who talked, I mean, just unbelievable talking about
the days after her being in that one in that
bedroom with Correta Scott King, taking calls from world leaders.
And so it's a fascinating conversation. You're not gonna find
this anywhere else. Nobody else has this conversation. This is

(02:28:22):
pull the graphic up for what we call this special
April fourth, the April fourth, No, guys, the graphic that's
not the other graphic. It's right then, remote one, the
one in Remote one. Okay, April fourth, nineteen sixty eight.
The graphic that's the special and so we're gonna have
that for you in just one second. Don't forget support

(02:28:44):
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You can contribute via cash shaft, use a stripe cure code.

Speaker 7 (02:28:49):
It's right here.

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Speaker 7 (02:29:06):
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(02:29:29):
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Speaker 7 (02:29:34):
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Speaker 16 (02:29:43):
Want to be one of the investors. Get more information
at stark engine dot com. Forward slash fan based folks.
Here's April fourth, nineteen sixty eight.

Speaker 5 (02:29:53):
Thankpril fourth, nineteen sixty eight.

Speaker 16 (02:29:56):
We'll always remember it as a day of infamy in
America in the world. It was on that day at
six one pm Central Standard time, a shot rang out,
assassinating the Reverend doctor Martino Luther King, Junior as he
stood on the balcony at the Lorraine Motel in.

Speaker 5 (02:30:14):
Memphis, Tennessee.

Speaker 16 (02:30:16):
He died on the spot, later pronounced dead at a
Memphis hospital. Riots broke out all across America. People were
shocked and stunned, and so to this day we still
remember what happened on that fateful day when the dream.

Speaker 44 (02:30:38):
Was killed.

Speaker 5 (02:30:40):
I had that opportunity to meet and talk with a number.

Speaker 16 (02:30:42):
Of people who worked with doctor King, and they shared
their thoughts and reflections on him his life as commitment
to nonviolent and to African Americans, to peace, but also
to economic prosperity for our people.

Speaker 5 (02:30:56):
And in those conversations I asked.

Speaker 16 (02:30:58):
Many of them about out that day, where they were.

Speaker 5 (02:31:03):
What they were doing, and what they remember. Here are
their story.

Speaker 16 (02:31:25):
Earlier, you talked about that particular night April third, sixty
eight from your recollection, describe for you for you April fourth,
sixty eight.

Speaker 37 (02:31:41):
Well, I can't. I can't give you a recollection because
I have none. I don't remember that day at all.

Speaker 4 (02:31:50):
The day I remember is the funeral.

Speaker 40 (02:31:54):
And what I remember about the funeral.

Speaker 37 (02:31:59):
Is that lights.

Speaker 15 (02:32:01):
Cameras everywhere, and it was hot, and I was on
my mother's lap.

Speaker 4 (02:32:05):
I was a little restless. And during the middle of
the service.

Speaker 46 (02:32:12):
They end up playing the peace where my father talks
about his own eulogy at the end of the drum
major Instinct sermon that.

Speaker 47 (02:32:22):
He had delivered February fourth.

Speaker 15 (02:32:24):
Nineteen sixty eight at Ebeneza.

Speaker 40 (02:32:28):
Now Here is the thing.

Speaker 4 (02:32:30):
A few days.

Speaker 46 (02:32:31):
Before, when my mother was preparing me, and this is
the part that I'm told when she was preparing me
to see my father lay down in the casket, she
told me, when you see your father, first of all,
your father is going on to live for God his
you know, spirit, and when you see him, he won't

(02:32:52):
be able to talk to you, because she knew that.
Whenever Daddy came home, I used to run up in
his arms and we'd had this kissing game.

Speaker 37 (02:33:00):
I do remember the gissing game.

Speaker 15 (02:33:01):
She didn't tell me about that.

Speaker 46 (02:33:04):
And so here at the funeral, suddenly here's Daddy's voice.
And she didn't realize that she had told me, we
won't be a to talk to you anymore. But I'm
hearing his voice, even though he's not talking directly me,
I'm hearing my dad, and I literally, you know, there's
probably film where I'm looking around, and.

Speaker 15 (02:33:24):
She said I was looking. She said I was looking
like he was coming.

Speaker 12 (02:33:26):
Up out of the casket.

Speaker 4 (02:33:28):
That was very confusing from me that day.

Speaker 46 (02:33:31):
And then I do remember, I don't I don't remember
going out of the church.

Speaker 4 (02:33:37):
Yes I do.

Speaker 40 (02:33:37):
I remember.

Speaker 15 (02:33:38):
I remember the.

Speaker 37 (02:33:38):
Casket going by.

Speaker 46 (02:33:41):
We get out of the church, and then I fall
asleep along the route that we walked from Ebaniezea to Moorhouse.
I wake up at Morehouse, and your kids are the
strange and things we notice. So I'm looking up at
the stage and it just looked like something was.

Speaker 4 (02:33:57):
Not angle right.

Speaker 15 (02:33:59):
It was like something was cricket and that's all I remember.

Speaker 37 (02:34:02):
I don't remember speeches. I just remember my dad's.

Speaker 20 (02:34:06):
Voice at the actual funeral.

Speaker 16 (02:34:11):
I don't think any anybody can comprehend what your life
was like and that of your sister and your brothers
and your mother in the years afterwards, because you this
this huge figure who for you is Daddy, but for

(02:34:32):
the rest of the world is this icon. Talk about
that having to go forward and he's not there.

Speaker 20 (02:34:44):
Yeah, well it was.

Speaker 15 (02:34:46):
It was tough for all of us in different ways.

Speaker 1 (02:34:50):
For for me, it was the.

Speaker 15 (02:34:57):
Incessant drive of looking before.

Speaker 20 (02:35:00):
We loved daddy.

Speaker 40 (02:35:02):
It's like, can they be my daddy?

Speaker 46 (02:35:04):
So we had these photographers that were around a lot,
and when I think about it now, it's like paparazzi.

Speaker 20 (02:35:11):
Growing up. We had a lot of photographers.

Speaker 46 (02:35:13):
Around, but we had some after and I can't remember
if it was Flip Showkey.

Speaker 15 (02:35:21):
Or someone else, but at.

Speaker 10 (02:35:23):
One point I said, can he be my dad?

Speaker 4 (02:35:25):
Because he went.

Speaker 20 (02:35:26):
Around so much.

Speaker 15 (02:35:28):
It's interesting because you kids don't really register color the same.

Speaker 46 (02:35:31):
Way that we do as adults, and so that was
one thing, you know, I was looking for daddy. Uncle
Andy became you know, like a servigate father to all
of us. He was actually the only one who stayed
around really out of everybody consistently came.

Speaker 40 (02:35:50):
By to see us and everything.

Speaker 48 (02:35:52):
Uh and uh.

Speaker 46 (02:35:53):
And then there was another gentleman, Bob Green, who was
you know, doctor Robert Green, who was an educator. Were
in the movement in the latter stages, but they came
around a lot. The other thing for me is that
initially I was fearful that something would happen to my mom.

Speaker 15 (02:36:12):
So in the initial stage, just like, please don't go
because when she would.

Speaker 46 (02:36:16):
Leave to go into the house out of town especially,
I didn't know if she would come back. So, you know,
we had that kind of trauma. And my journey was
probably totally different from everybody else's because they had, including Dexter,
they had an opportunity to spend time with Daddy on.

Speaker 15 (02:36:38):
The road doing something of the work.

Speaker 46 (02:36:40):
Next to got to go with him the tour some
areas of Mississippi, Martin and Orlanda Martin went with him
there as well. But Martin and Orlanda got to go
on a couple of marches, and so I didn't do anything.
So I'm the child that is clueless as to whatever
has taken place. So I'm trying to sort all of
this and my mom is trying to hold it all together.

(02:37:03):
And I don't know this personally, but what she shared,
you know, even in her recent book that was published,
My Life, My Love, My Legacy, she talked about trying
to pull it together coming out of that room because
of that void, that emptyness, and Martin was in the
bed right there next to her, and she had to

(02:37:23):
do what she needed to do in that room before
she emerged, because she had to go into mommy role.

Speaker 20 (02:37:29):
She had to go into.

Speaker 46 (02:37:31):
Carrying the legacy road, building the King Center and all
the work that she was doing.

Speaker 37 (02:37:35):
And I never saw my mother really cry cry.

Speaker 47 (02:37:40):
She was just a strong figure.

Speaker 15 (02:37:43):
But she helped to try to translate all of this
for us and help us.

Speaker 46 (02:37:47):
Understand that our father made an important sacrifice for all
human kind. And I think that's what helped us ultimately,
because I went through my cycle of hating anger and
still struggle a little bit with anger. But I think
because of the things she taught us along the way
and that she modeled it kept us because.

Speaker 37 (02:38:09):
I mean, what we went through and then my uncle
the next year being found in his pool mysteriously and
he didn't drown, no water in his lungs.

Speaker 46 (02:38:18):
He was dad when Daddy was assassinated, so we're thinking
something's connected. According to you know, the accounts of al
Vida and the brothers that did he Vita heard him say,
you know, I know you know something about my my
my brother's.

Speaker 47 (02:38:35):
No she heard her, her father say.

Speaker 46 (02:38:40):
I think she said I know you know something, or
that somebody said I'm coming after you or oh, he
said I'm coming after you or something.

Speaker 37 (02:38:48):
I can't remember.

Speaker 46 (02:38:49):
I don't want to get it wrong, but the point
is that he was mysteriously found in his pool. Then
my grandmother gets shot, right, so we're dealing with For me,
in a matter of six as a child, I'm trying
to sort through all of this.

Speaker 16 (02:39:03):
Somebody let eleven years old, dad is assassinated, uncle, uncle's killed,
grandmother's killed.

Speaker 5 (02:39:13):
In six years.

Speaker 46 (02:39:14):
In six years as a child, so I couldn't figure
all of this out. And I didn't talk a lot
as a kid, so you can imagine I'm holding all
of this in. And my mother did in the early stage,
brought a psychologists. They in a psychiatrist's action just to
check on us to see if we were okay, and
they felt that we were okay. The problem is they

(02:39:34):
didn't come consistently, and so we're carrying this stuff, processing
this stuffs. Yeah, and we're being taught about love, about forgiveness.
We're being taught by our grandfather, be thankful for what
you have left. You gathered the family together. So you know,
I've had a lot of processing to do in my

(02:39:55):
adulthood because we just kept moving. Mama kept us focus
on the work, you know, the importance of serving and giving.
And you know, I tell people to this day, you know,
not only with anger, but I'm still trying. As we
approached this fifty anniversary of this assassination, I've had a

(02:40:18):
lot of emotional moments.

Speaker 37 (02:40:20):
It's almost like I'm not reliving.

Speaker 46 (02:40:22):
It's like, to a certain extent, I'm going through it
fresh because I didn't get a chance as a child
to really go through it in a way that I
could process different stuff. And so for me, one of
the biggest things that I've been dealing with throughout various
seasons of my life is having to share my parents

(02:40:43):
with the world.

Speaker 15 (02:40:44):
I mean, that's just been tough and going.

Speaker 4 (02:40:47):
Back through the.

Speaker 46 (02:40:49):
Cycle of Wow, I didn't even get a chance to
spend that mommy daughter time my mother, because it was
not just my dad's loss. I lost because my mom
was in the I mean, she worked within the movement,
had a critical role, you know, advising him, doing freedom
concerts to raise money for the SEOC. Was part of

(02:41:12):
the peace movement herself before he even spoke out against
Vietnam Born. But she was there for my first five
years and then suddenly my extracurricular activities seldom came.

Speaker 15 (02:41:26):
And so I'm having the process all of this.

Speaker 46 (02:41:29):
Now and his assassination coming up, because it brings all
that back up that daddy was assassinated. Mommy had to
shift everything associated with that, having to do this publicly
all the time, you.

Speaker 10 (02:41:44):
Know, you know, and it's tough.

Speaker 1 (02:41:47):
It is tough for you.

Speaker 5 (02:41:52):
April fourth cannot be an easy date every year. How
do you deal with that?

Speaker 40 (02:42:07):
Well, let me just tell you what I have.

Speaker 42 (02:42:12):
I first have to acknowledge the loss to my mother,
her husband, and my siblings, our father. That's the very
first thing that was a loss that cannot be replaced.
But then I look further and I have to gleam
and understand that the nation garnered a message and an

(02:42:32):
understanding of a movement, and that is I mean, for example,
you know, if Dad had not been killed, well, probably
we wouldn't be dealing with the things we're dealing the first.
First of all, we'd be at a different place. But
had he been killed in a different way, it was
the way, the trauma, the traumatic way that he was
killed that I think makes his message, his movement even

(02:42:57):
more lasting. It I think it would have been like
asking regardless because Dad was just connected. I mean I
wish that I had that level of connection that he had,
not just to God, but to the universe and to
human beservice. I mean, you say something like if a
man hadn't found certain worth dying for, he didn't fit to.

Speaker 13 (02:43:20):
Live, and you do it.

Speaker 42 (02:43:22):
You know, I may be willing to die for my child,
my wife and my child, but I'm not ready to go.

Speaker 4 (02:43:28):
I mean most of us are not.

Speaker 49 (02:43:30):
But you have to be very poignant and strong forget.

Speaker 20 (02:43:35):
You gotta be willing to die for what you believe in.

Speaker 37 (02:43:39):
That's when people are very serious.

Speaker 4 (02:43:41):
You know.

Speaker 42 (02:43:41):
Josea used to say, Williams, I should say, jose Williams, I.

Speaker 5 (02:43:47):
Know what for the folks who don't go AHEADPI.

Speaker 42 (02:43:50):
You know, he was looking at a picture Dad. And
Jose Williams was a complex man. He was a chemist,
as you may know, but he was an agitator. He
was I mean, he had alcohol problem. He had all
kinds of things, all kind of flaws like we all do.

Speaker 12 (02:44:05):
As human beings.

Speaker 20 (02:44:07):
And he used to attack my mom.

Speaker 42 (02:44:09):
And so I was going over there to deal with him, saying, now, look, now, look,
you say you love doctor King, and I'm sure you did,
but you're always attacking my mom.

Speaker 20 (02:44:18):
I King's vision wasn't.

Speaker 4 (02:44:20):
About no bricks and mortar.

Speaker 12 (02:44:21):
It was about feeding folk.

Speaker 42 (02:44:22):
Well all of that is included, so it wasn't what
you're saying is not quite right. But I never got
around saying this because he looked up at this picture
of Dad above his his and he said, you know,
I love your dad.

Speaker 20 (02:44:36):
Never met a man. He said.

Speaker 42 (02:44:39):
He did two significant things. He conquered the love of
wealth and the fear of death. I said, my God,
say that again. He conquered the love of wealth and
the fear of death. Now I understand when you don't
really care about money, you know things are gonna be
all right, and.

Speaker 12 (02:45:01):
You're not afraid to die.

Speaker 42 (02:45:02):
You're unstoppable, and that's the kind of spirit that all
of us need if we want to address these critical
issues today, not being afraid of what people are going
to say or who's going to follow us. Particularly if
you know you're standing on justice, you're standing on the
shoulders of great individuals, because we've had great people in
our in our nation's history.

Speaker 1 (02:45:24):
World.

Speaker 42 (02:45:24):
It didn't it didn't start with Martin Luther King. Martin
Luther King Junior certainly was one of our greatest of
our time. But you know, there have been great people
going way back who did things with nothing. I mean,
we go back to think about Harriet Tubman, who says
she could have freed more folks if they knew.

Speaker 37 (02:45:41):
They were slaves.

Speaker 10 (02:45:41):
I mean, I mean we've had some.

Speaker 4 (02:45:43):
I mean think about Frederick.

Speaker 42 (02:45:44):
I mean, the list goes on to boys, you know,
but Hee Washington, the list goes on and on, and
the inventors.

Speaker 49 (02:45:52):
And that's I mean.

Speaker 42 (02:45:53):
We don't really as black people, honestly, we really don't
truly realize who we are. We don't realize we were kings, queens,
and that civilization began on the African coonomy. Most of
us don't realize that because we talked negatively. Now, I
don't know what Black Panther is going to do the
movie to change some of that, because this has never happened.
We've never had all almost all black African cast that

(02:46:18):
is charged all past the numbers.

Speaker 12 (02:46:20):
I mean, that's when I'm quite.

Speaker 44 (02:46:21):
Frankly, everybody's kind of focusing on Martin's assassination, and I've
been trying to figure out a way to help them
to realize that he didn't go nowhere, that his body
was buried, but his spirit is more alive now in

(02:46:42):
more ways than any of us can ever imagine. And
I think I say that there's nothing that.

Speaker 50 (02:46:51):
I've done.

Speaker 44 (02:46:54):
That I did on my own, but that's the view
we held about death. He was never nervous about dying.

Speaker 50 (02:47:04):
In fact, he almost put you in a dozens talking
about your death.

Speaker 1 (02:47:10):
And he would.

Speaker 44 (02:47:13):
He made us laugh at death to keep from getting nervous,
and he said, look, you're gonna die. Death is the
ultimate democracy. And you got nothing to say about when
you die, how you die, where you die. The only
decision you have is what is that you give your
life for. And you can do that any day and

(02:47:33):
every day because you know, not the day, no of
an hour. And then he'd switch gears and say, but
if your time comes, I know how sorry and trifling
you are, but I think on my good day I
could even preach you into heaven. And he would start
preaching your serv your eulogy, bringing up every trifling, ignorant,

(02:48:00):
sinful thing that he could think of, and asking the
Lord to forgive you and let me in.

Speaker 50 (02:48:08):
And he made us laugh at death.

Speaker 44 (02:48:11):
And I came back to the hotel and they'd been
eating catfish and you know, telling lies, and everybody was
feeling I mean, this was the happiest I had seen
him in years, because his brother was there.

Speaker 50 (02:48:31):
You know, all of his friends were there practically, and
you know, preachers know.

Speaker 44 (02:48:37):
How to have fun when they get together, and I mean,
and preachers have fun like preachers have fun. Can't nobody
else imitate that or understand it? Because they, I mean,
they signifying with each other in Bible verses and all
that kind of stuff, and you know, they have their

(02:48:58):
own language. And and so I stumbled into one of
those sessions and you know, he said, where have you been?
I said, I've been calling you haven't called me all
day long. Don't you know I'm the head of this movement?
You got the report to me? You think you got?

(02:49:19):
I said, hold on, wait a minute, you talking back
to me. I said, look are you y'all? What have
y'all been doing in here? See?

Speaker 50 (02:49:28):
And then he picked up the pillow and he threw
the pillar.

Speaker 44 (02:49:32):
Well, I threw it back, and that was like the
beginning of a free for all, and everybody grabbed pillows
and they all beat me up. See. Well, it was fun.
But then somebody knocks on. Billy Kyles knocks on the
door and said, my wife is cooking dinner for y'all,
and she's waiting and she's got it all set up

(02:49:52):
on the table.

Speaker 50 (02:49:54):
And so he said, well, let me go put on
my shirt and tie. And he went upstairs and.

Speaker 44 (02:50:05):
Put on his coat, shirt and tie, and he'd just
come out, and I said.

Speaker 50 (02:50:09):
Look, it's still cool. You better get your top coat.

Speaker 44 (02:50:14):
And it was almost as though he was said, I
don't need a coat, and he sort of raised.

Speaker 50 (02:50:20):
His head like he was testing the weather.

Speaker 22 (02:50:24):
And then.

Speaker 50 (02:50:26):
Shot rang out.

Speaker 44 (02:50:28):
And we all gathered together after we came back from
the hospital, and we all decided that you can slay
the dreamer, but we will keep the dream alive.

Speaker 2 (02:50:46):
Take me to.

Speaker 5 (02:50:49):
The last conversation you had with him?

Speaker 1 (02:50:51):
When was it? The last time I had an opportunity
to talk with doctor King was in mid March, just
before he went to Memphis. It was at Pasca's Hotel,

(02:51:14):
a restauran rut. He had been meeting with a group
of rank and foul members of organization working with low
income of poor people. They were black, White, Latino, Asian America,
and Native America. M cause he wanted the Poor People's

(02:51:35):
campaign to look like America. And he kept saying I
would see you in Washington. And he never made it
to Washington. The night that uh he was assassinated at
evening that was in Indianapolis and Anna campaign and Robert

(02:52:00):
Kennedy working toward its nomination, the Democratic nomination for the president.
And when I heard that doctor King had been shot,
I didn't know his condition. When Robert Kennedy came to speak,
he said, we have some sad news tonight that Martin

(02:52:21):
Luther King Jr. Had been assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee.

Speaker 16 (02:52:25):
So prid of him saying that you didn't realize it.
So when that audience found out that's when you found out.

Speaker 1 (02:52:31):
That's right, when when your audience heard the message. I
heard it at the same time, and I cried, and
I said to myself, but we still have Bobby. So
I went back to Atlanta and helped in preparation for
the funeral and stayed there for about two weeks. I

(02:52:56):
got back in the campaign and went to Portland, or
and with Robert Kennedy, and then I went on to
Los Angeles and I teamed up at Caesar Servants and
we went to the wealthy neighborhoods and homes a primary
white citizen, urging them to vote for Bobby Kennedy rather

(02:53:21):
than for Humphrey of Eugenie Macarthy, went to churches. We
had an unbelievable motorcade through the city and there was
these black athletes like Rafael Johnson and the big guy
Rosa Greer trying to hold Kennedy in the car. And

(02:53:43):
you saw hundreds and thousands of people, especially in the
African American community, in the Latino community, rallying for Bobby.
And he invited me to come to his suite that evening,
and he joked with me. He said something like, John,
you let me down today. More Mexixtican American turned out

(02:54:08):
to vote the Negroes. And he was just joking, but
I felt, I truly felt.

Speaker 42 (02:54:17):
That.

Speaker 1 (02:54:17):
When Doctor King was assassinated, I said, well, we still
have Bobby. In less than two and a half months,
he was gone, and I think something died in America
with the death of doctor King and Bobbie Kennedy.

Speaker 7 (02:54:36):
Well.

Speaker 16 (02:54:36):
I talked to Jim Lawson. I said, in the aftermath
of doctor King's death, what you do? He said, we
went back to work. He said, we had work to do.
He said, he did not grieve until July. He said,
that's when he just broke down. Were you in the

(02:54:57):
same place where that was still work to do?

Speaker 46 (02:55:01):
That?

Speaker 5 (02:55:03):
There was no there was no time to feel sorry.

Speaker 1 (02:55:08):
And the more well, we were caught up in the moment.
It's uh, you had to continue to work. We had
a major national election coming up, so I didn't mourn
that much, but every single day I thought about doctor King.

(02:55:29):
Matter of fact, I went back to Atlanta between the
campaigning effort and trying to support others, and my doctor said,
you need to rest and made it possible for me
to go to the hospital and just rest for about

(02:55:52):
two weeks and then I got back on the road
supporting local candidates, trying to get people registered. It turned
people out to vote. Became a delegate to the Democratic Convention.
I was a junior bond. We were supporter, we we

(02:56:12):
were challenging the Maddox Lester Maddox delegation of Georgia. And
I had a half vote in the convention and uh,
I voted for Ted Kennedy. Uh and honor Bobby Kennedy.

Speaker 29 (02:56:31):
He said, doctor, and somebody said, get locals what it
was a hit, And we didn't know what the hit
was gonna be. Spring But I was on the ground
and the rap was was in the room. I think brother,
I must have been downstairs rap.

Speaker 5 (02:56:48):
Uh.

Speaker 29 (02:56:48):
Billy Coles was about so far trying to go down
the steps. And there's a picture of Andy Billy Coles
and so on, just for and then lead pointed that way,
and that pointing is that the bullet didn't come from
that way, because he's on the red came from that way.
Wheutend the police right their guns wrong to go the
way the bullet came from that The bullet came from

(02:57:09):
that way. Said, that's that picture, mister Woods. Is the photographer.
He was there and he scooped a couple of jobs
of blood. Tried to give me one and Wrath one.
I couldn't touch that blood. I remember Rath coming right
back back back, my son, my, my my brother been shot.
I'm his diffest friend, rap mad hold on, we need

(02:57:30):
to hold on, hold on. But but DoD was going
at that point, you know. So I just got up
and wrapped myself off, and I was standing next door
of the room. Next door, I called Missus King. She
was in the bed. She said yes. I said, I'm
doing this fine, Missus King. Uh, couldn't quite get my
mouth together. I said, uh, Sam reading, I said, document shot.

(02:57:55):
I think in the shoulder I knew better. I couldn't
see what I had just seen, the one up in
that way. I said, but you should should go and
see him if you can. She said, I'll be that
Momentarily she came about to be Apparently for seven eight minutes,
someone called, you know, the crest he was dead man

(02:58:15):
at Limbrogram. I mean the fires around the country was
excited me the most was I think it was it
was a reverend maybe Reverend joe Lys said we can't
let one book Killer movement.

Speaker 40 (02:58:30):
It was all the trauma.

Speaker 1 (02:58:33):
It was.

Speaker 29 (02:58:33):
I I remember in the room with with Aaron brother
Fonti and Sitdney Party and Robert Kennedy talking me what
doctor King meant to us, and dog won't be in Washington.
Robert can't eave up Now.

Speaker 51 (02:58:47):
I was at home and my mom woked me up
and told me, and I remember her crying, and when
I seen her cry, I started crying.

Speaker 4 (02:58:55):
I mean, it just.

Speaker 51 (02:58:58):
It just hurt me so bad, and I hurt my
household and so bad. It's just, you know, And I
remember I remember seeing the cliff, so everybody pointing at
the making building and man, I've seen his brother and
it was just like, oh man, all this blood. I
was just it just devastated me. I'll never forget it.
Hurt me so bad to my heart.

Speaker 4 (02:59:19):
And I felt so.

Speaker 51 (02:59:20):
Bad for the family of Coretta Scott King, those kids, and.

Speaker 4 (02:59:26):
The devastated me a lot.

Speaker 20 (02:59:29):
Yeah, I did.

Speaker 16 (02:59:31):
When when he when he returned from Mason Temple, Uh,
did you have any conversations with the folks who were
with him about that unbelievable powerful speech? For any with
any conversations that night when he got back, Because when
we reflect on it.

Speaker 48 (02:59:46):
Now you're missing something.

Speaker 50 (02:59:49):
You know what you're missing?

Speaker 5 (02:59:50):
What's that?

Speaker 48 (02:59:53):
When he returned, did you have any conversations about what
he was missing? He wasn't missing anything because I.

Speaker 15 (02:59:59):
Never le left him, and it never left him.

Speaker 48 (03:00:02):
Ralph never left him.

Speaker 49 (03:00:04):
We were always a team.

Speaker 15 (03:00:07):
We were always a team.

Speaker 28 (03:00:10):
We were that's not that's not an exaggeration, but we
would I don't know what it was, but we wouldn't
have left him.

Speaker 1 (03:00:17):
I'm gonna cried, HM.

Speaker 16 (03:00:20):
The last conversation you had with last conversation you wrote,
you write it in your book. Yeah, that it was
the next day.

Speaker 28 (03:00:29):
Was walking down the street with down the street of
somebody's balcony was a big player Fried Chicken and you you.

Speaker 16 (03:00:38):
Wrote in your book that it was April fourth, And
I'm gonna walk you through. It was April fourth and
you had a meeting in Atlanta and you're a meeting
with the Lord's Harmon and you said, I got to
get back to Atlanta. And doctor King said no, when

(03:01:00):
to talk about plans to training in Memphis, And you said,
I got to get to Atlanta. He kept telling you
you can get a later plane, and you said, I
got to get back to Atlanta, and you said the
last words to him to you were get a later plane,
and you left Memphis that afternoon.

Speaker 28 (03:01:16):
I do remember that I had left, but I also
remember that I had a big plate of fried chicken
from some more somebody's house that in those days, people
would cook.

Speaker 4 (03:01:27):
For each other.

Speaker 15 (03:01:29):
And this woman was glad to cook a plate of chicken,
and she knew dark skin.

Speaker 50 (03:01:32):
Was gonna eat some of it.

Speaker 28 (03:01:34):
Uh So it's uh, he really loved eating that fry stuff.
So there's nothing to talk about except he loved to
eat fried chicken.

Speaker 15 (03:01:47):
What is it you would want to love?

Speaker 28 (03:01:51):
I brought the chicken to that woman, to that house
from another house where they actually did stuff like that.
You too young to remember when people were pasted would
pass food from house to house then, Uh not because
they needed to, It's because they wanted to serve doctor

(03:02:11):
King some chiga.

Speaker 5 (03:02:14):
You were in Atlanta when you found out that he
had been killed.

Speaker 48 (03:02:22):
Now this that's a very very hard part for me to.

Speaker 4 (03:02:27):
Detail.

Speaker 48 (03:02:29):
And uh so it's I remember somebody. I remember that
I had a.

Speaker 4 (03:02:36):
Plate of food.

Speaker 28 (03:02:38):
Uh that Martin because he had not had any dinner.

Speaker 16 (03:02:42):
Now that was a previous day, on April April fourth,
you were in Atlanta.

Speaker 13 (03:02:45):
Okay, you're you're reading.

Speaker 4 (03:02:47):
I gotta go read It's all good.

Speaker 16 (03:02:49):
So April fourth, you're in Atlanta and Rita Samuels tells
you that the king shot somebody killed him.

Speaker 48 (03:02:58):
I need to read that again.

Speaker 28 (03:03:00):
My recollection is I went to get this play the Chicken,
and I don't want to debate about him.

Speaker 6 (03:03:08):
Right.

Speaker 5 (03:03:08):
That was April third. That was April third.

Speaker 7 (03:03:11):
So this is the next day and you I don't remember.

Speaker 48 (03:03:14):
I'm gonna go get my company.

Speaker 5 (03:03:16):
It's all good gold on le's your copy right here.

Speaker 16 (03:03:18):
And so Andrew Young called you, uh, and y'all talked, yeah,
and you said, I wish I could have been there
with him in that last moment, talk with him one
more time, showing total support for what we were about.
And he said, that's all right, and he was calm,
and he was consoling you. And I reflected on what

(03:03:42):
Martin had said to me that morning. Get on a
later plane, and you said, Andy and I both had
an abiding love for Martin. We love him still. We
both still cry sometimes as we remember.

Speaker 4 (03:03:58):
Yeah. So ye.

Speaker 16 (03:04:04):
The closeness, I think is what a lot of people
don't really understand how.

Speaker 5 (03:04:14):
Close all of you were.

Speaker 48 (03:04:19):
It was it was too late to.

Speaker 4 (03:04:22):
Do anything different.

Speaker 49 (03:04:24):
We were close.

Speaker 48 (03:04:25):
We were like, I don't know what it is when
you maybe in the.

Speaker 28 (03:04:30):
Not of the military or somewhere where people get connected
and they stay connected. That's not a good allogy Uh
analogy really because I remember taking him from food at
at that woman's house. And when I took the food,

(03:04:52):
and now I got to think about which happened. Which
happened first, you know, the shooting or the did I guess.

Speaker 40 (03:05:00):
The food in his hand?

Speaker 50 (03:05:01):
And you know, things like that.

Speaker 28 (03:05:03):
Those are not details that I have held onto because
I didn't need to. And uh, you're the first one
that asked me, you know about you know that I
used to talk about.

Speaker 47 (03:05:16):
Uh.

Speaker 48 (03:05:16):
He was walking down that corridor in the church with
some staring at that ladies.

Speaker 15 (03:05:25):
How you.

Speaker 1 (03:05:27):
Still miss them?

Speaker 48 (03:05:29):
Yeah, yeah, I do, probably always will.

Speaker 13 (03:05:46):
I was sitting in the kitchen having some many meeting.
The radio was on and he said, like a lot
of people, I guess I was in shock.

Speaker 46 (03:06:00):
We ret.

Speaker 13 (03:06:02):
And and uh, well, you know I blade Martin the
King on on the stage and uh so I got
a chance to meet the family, spend time with a
lot of the fabilic, so he was a very special well.

(03:06:22):
It was obviously a devastating a moment.

Speaker 40 (03:06:26):
For all of us.

Speaker 52 (03:06:29):
Martin King always talked about the fact that he would
be shot down in the streets of the nation. In
the midst of this campaign, he started talking to us
about that. Actually, with the assassination of John F. Kennedy
in sixty November sixty three.

Speaker 16 (03:06:50):
Were it not for a promise you made to your wife,
you probably would have been on that balcony.

Speaker 47 (03:07:01):
Well, who knows.

Speaker 4 (03:07:02):
Yeah, but you're a meeting, y'all.

Speaker 47 (03:07:04):
I mean all these different Well, as a family, we
we try to eat dinner together each night.

Speaker 5 (03:07:11):
So and you told me, you said, you know, I'll
be home by six.

Speaker 47 (03:07:14):
That's right. We agrade six o'clock dinner. And so I
was on my way home.

Speaker 52 (03:07:18):
I got I was in the kitchen with Dorothy when
we heard the news over a television set that doctor
King had been shot at Now I just.

Speaker 47 (03:07:27):
Left him not too long before that.

Speaker 38 (03:07:31):
I was.

Speaker 4 (03:07:33):
Stunned when you said.

Speaker 7 (03:07:37):
We immediately went back to work, that you did not
really grieve until July.

Speaker 4 (03:07:44):
You said it was the work.

Speaker 52 (03:07:46):
That's right, Yes, that's right. Well, in ads like these
terrible times in which we lived doing creative work on
behalf of truth and jute injustice, on behalf of people,
on behalf of the wonder of life, on behalf of
dissolving sexism and racism.

Speaker 47 (03:08:07):
Doing work is one of the best ways for us
to gree So.

Speaker 52 (03:08:14):
I recognize that as a pastors, as a religious person.
So yes, nine o'clock Friday morning, we marched and I
worked to the night to be sure that.

Speaker 15 (03:08:28):
We were going to be I think I remember being
shocked and stunned.

Speaker 34 (03:08:32):
You know, of course, you know, the passing and the
death of someone in the public space was not something
that a nine year old considers.

Speaker 13 (03:08:42):
But I remember being.

Speaker 34 (03:08:45):
Affected by it, that of it having an effect, of
a feeling, a sadness.

Speaker 15 (03:08:50):
A feeling a loss, even at that age, that it.

Speaker 34 (03:08:53):
Was something, you know, it was something huge and human
and dark and sad.

Speaker 15 (03:09:00):
I think that was the beginning of you know what's lost.

Speaker 16 (03:09:02):
Looks like you dropped him off at the airport and
he gets out. As you think back, as you think.

Speaker 23 (03:09:14):
Back to have you.

Speaker 5 (03:09:17):
I'm sure you have. Have you just went back and
just played every part of that what he had on,
what he said last look, all of those things. So
the last time you saw him alive.

Speaker 53 (03:09:31):
Yeah, But let me tell what happens. The day before
I was at their home. Missus King was convalescing from
reaching illness, and she was there mother in law, well,
Martin's mother was there. Martin and I after dinner, we

(03:09:55):
were playing the piano. He you know, he's a great singer,
and I played the piano. He said, I bet you
didn't know I could sing. I said, well, I heard
you could. No, I didn't know you could. And he said,
well I know you can play, so.

Speaker 49 (03:10:05):
Sit on the pen.

Speaker 5 (03:10:06):
You made you the music in college.

Speaker 1 (03:10:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 53 (03:10:08):
Yeah, So we had such fun. We were singing and
or just having a great time. When we separate, the
evening ended, I went home and told him I'd pick
him up the next morning, whatever time established. But Mama

(03:10:28):
Kane called me that night about eleven thirty and she said,
you know, I know, you take an email to the
airport tomorrow, but tell him something from me said, just
like that fun we had today, I'd like to have
more days like that.

Speaker 49 (03:10:45):
I know I'm the mother and I have.

Speaker 53 (03:10:47):
To understand he's busy, but you see to it and
tell him I want him to plan more fun time
for family hour.

Speaker 5 (03:10:57):
Will you do that for me?

Speaker 49 (03:10:58):
I said, of course.

Speaker 53 (03:11:00):
Well I told him, I said now, and your mother
called that. I told her she she wants more more
of good time and we're going to see that.

Speaker 1 (03:11:07):
You do that.

Speaker 53 (03:11:08):
Well, guess what about four three or four o'clock Atlanta time,
because Memphis was an hour behind us. He called her,
talked to her about an hour and a half. She said,
it never happened before. Could you take your mother for granted,

(03:11:30):
he knew she's going to be there, She was supportive
of her.

Speaker 49 (03:11:33):
The son loved him dearly, but he didn't bother to
call her.

Speaker 53 (03:11:40):
But when I saw her that first time that night,
because I went over to check on them, she said, listen,
when this pain subsided a little bit, I'm gonna tell
you how much I appreciate what you did. Because he
told me. You told him what I said, and that
prompted him to call and they had a big laugh
about you know, here's the and he knew, I think

(03:12:07):
because he called his brother. He'd never done that before,
called him on the phone, I understand, talked a good
time with him.

Speaker 49 (03:12:15):
He did a lot of odd things.

Speaker 53 (03:12:16):
I talked to him and he said to me, Why
does my room number sound so familiar to you? I
mean to me, he said, And I said, oh no,
because I don't know what room you're in because he
switched hotels. And he said it's three or six. And
I said, well, that's my house number. And I said,
you been here enough, so I guess you make it

(03:12:38):
the relationship with I said all that, all these things
were odd things that happened that day before.

Speaker 49 (03:12:46):
Uh huh. It was early in the day that he
called me, and.

Speaker 53 (03:12:53):
Then he called his mother, called his brother, and Andy
said they were playing pole talk.

Speaker 49 (03:12:58):
I mean a pillow going.

Speaker 5 (03:13:00):
After he came back from court. Yeah, came in and
they uh huh.

Speaker 1 (03:13:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 53 (03:13:06):
And so he did a lot of things that day
that unusual. Understand, I wasn't there, I was here, but
he did a lot of unusual things, a lot of
unusual things. Oh, I tell you something else that was
most unusual. Corretta's favorite gift is red roses, and every birthday.
Her birthday is in April. April twenty seven is her birthday.

(03:13:31):
Now he left on was March. I guess when he
left Atlanta. He bought her some artificial flowers and left
them in the library of the house and he told
her to go get the flowers, and no, he told
the housekeeper to tell him when he leaves, go get
those flowers out of the library.

Speaker 49 (03:13:53):
She was angry.

Speaker 53 (03:13:54):
He said, did you get those roses? So she said yes,
but I'm mad about it?

Speaker 49 (03:13:58):
Said why is it because the artifice? And guess what
you said to her.

Speaker 53 (03:14:03):
I didn't know whether I would be here on your
birthday or not, but I wanted your roses to be here.

Speaker 49 (03:14:11):
Now he died.

Speaker 53 (03:14:12):
That was April fourth, Well, that was April third when
he talked to her. Her birthday is April twenty seventh.

Speaker 54 (03:14:18):
MM.

Speaker 53 (03:14:18):
He said, I don't know whether I would be there
in person for your birthday, so, but here you red roses.

Speaker 1 (03:14:25):
You know.

Speaker 49 (03:14:26):
She kept those uses a long time.

Speaker 7 (03:14:31):
Six oh one pm, April fourth, shot ring out. How
do you find out?

Speaker 53 (03:14:40):
I was having dinner with the Grand Dragon of the
Ku Klux Klan, and the major d knew my relationship
with the Kings, and she came over to the table
and gave me a note. Well, we were talking. I
was busy talking and she said, did you hear about
doctor King? Folded up the note and kept talking.

Speaker 49 (03:15:03):
She thought there was odd.

Speaker 53 (03:15:04):
She came back a second and she said, hey, to
interrupt your meal, She said, but I just heard on
the raid he had been shot. Well that didn't bother
me either, because I'd been in his presence before when
he was reported.

Speaker 40 (03:15:15):
We were in Los.

Speaker 53 (03:15:16):
Angeles once we reported he had been shot, and we
were in there getting ready for a nice, comfortable evening
and the meal, well not just he and I, but
you know, several of us were.

Speaker 7 (03:15:27):
Again.

Speaker 53 (03:15:27):
We had a big laugh about it that they said
I think the guy had had eight sticks of dynam
height and said I think I got him.

Speaker 49 (03:15:34):
You know, we saw it on TV. So I didn't
think anything about it.

Speaker 53 (03:15:37):
I just talked to him over day, and you know,
so he was all right then, and I said.

Speaker 49 (03:15:43):
Well, maybe i'd better go to the phone.

Speaker 53 (03:15:45):
I went to the telephone and their private lines were busy,
and that's unusual all the lines to be busy, and
I said to my guess, I think I better go
over there. So I then drove over in. As I
was getting to her driveway, she was backing out. The
mayor was there and the police. They were taking her

(03:16:06):
to the airport, and she said, oh, I've been trying.
She left the window down.

Speaker 49 (03:16:10):
It was raining. She said, I've been trying to reach you.
I've got to go to Memphis, said, and.

Speaker 53 (03:16:18):
She had a house keeping staff, but she knew I
had a special relationship with the children. Said, well, you
check on the children for me, and I don't know
what's going to happen, because see when they called her,
they didn't they didn't tell her he was killed.

Speaker 49 (03:16:30):
The child have been shot and injured.

Speaker 5 (03:16:32):
So when you're driving up, you still think it's not true.

Speaker 49 (03:16:39):
Well, I think something must have happened hard for the
mayor and.

Speaker 16 (03:16:41):
The right as you're driving over, you're going, okay, we've
heard this before.

Speaker 5 (03:16:46):
Me drive over, right.

Speaker 16 (03:16:46):
But then when you turn that corner and then you
see police and the mayor, that's when it hits you.

Speaker 49 (03:16:52):
Just something happening, did happen, and so you pull up.

Speaker 5 (03:16:56):
She brought the window down, but she doesn't know that
he's gone.

Speaker 49 (03:17:01):
That's right. She didn't know it.

Speaker 53 (03:17:02):
And it wasn't until she got to the airport that
she got the call that and I think the mayor
got the call that he is gone. And so Martin's
secretary was there at the airport to join her, and
they went to the lady's room, and that's when she
got the real official word.

Speaker 49 (03:17:24):
And then she came back home.

Speaker 5 (03:17:27):
So you're in the house with the children, and I stayed.

Speaker 49 (03:17:30):
I didn't leave there until.

Speaker 16 (03:17:34):
Five days later. Six days later, you know he's gone.
Did you wait for her to return to tell them
or they made aware the children?

Speaker 53 (03:17:49):
Oh, I would never not even consider telling the children.
She came shortly, shortly, I guess, you know after well,
I guess they could speed.

Speaker 49 (03:18:02):
But she came.

Speaker 53 (03:18:03):
It didn't take her long to get to the house,
and she came in telling her staff and everybody. By
now the house is filling up because everybody else and
I was heard. But she said to her staff, do
not tell my children.

Speaker 49 (03:18:16):
I'll do that myself.

Speaker 53 (03:18:18):
And so her bedroom was at the end of the
long haul in the house, so she decided to make
that her solace, and then people up front would answer
the phone and then direct the call back to see
if she would take it out be the interceptor.

Speaker 49 (03:18:36):
I just stayed with her.

Speaker 53 (03:18:38):
But she got ready to go tell the boys, and
she asked me to go with her, and she had
a desk grip on my arm, I mean tightly trying
to tell the children. She told Dexter first, the younger boy,
that you know your dad has been seriously her She
couldn't bring her She couldn't bring herself to say. She said,

(03:19:03):
your dad's been hurt. Well, how bad is you hurt?
She said pretty badly. I understand, but we'll talk about
it later. But you know, he's not coming home and
I've got a lot of things to do. And he

(03:19:24):
finally he said, well, if he's hurt, and he jumped
out of his bed. He said, if it's hurt badly,
why are you still here? You'll do everything together.

Speaker 49 (03:19:33):
Why are you still here?

Speaker 53 (03:19:34):
And he was chastising her, and she said, oh, well,
now got a lot of decisions to make.

Speaker 49 (03:19:40):
It she was calling, still holding me so tightly.

Speaker 53 (03:19:44):
And then we went to the other side of the room,
which was the other boy's side, Martin, and she told him, oh,
he was older, so she said, he it's pretty serious
and so we.

Speaker 49 (03:19:59):
Got odd decisions to make.

Speaker 53 (03:20:01):
I don't know what we're gonna do first, but looks
like he's very very serious.

Speaker 5 (03:20:06):
She still can't say, She couldn't say, She couldn't sit.

Speaker 53 (03:20:11):
And he said, well, what must I tell my children?
I mean, my friends at school tomorrow. So she said, well,
you know you're not going to go to school, so
you want to worry about that?

Speaker 49 (03:20:21):
And he leaped up, what do you mean I have
to go to school? Miss Davis said, you know, cutting
her glasses.

Speaker 53 (03:20:28):
And I laughed later, not at that, mo I said, oh,
that teacher put fear of those kids, you know, cut
these classes. But she finally got out of the room,
and then she had a sigh of relief, you know
that She finally told them, now Bernice was too little.
She was only like four, I think, and didn't understand.
But Yolanda came in and she sat on the mother's

(03:20:51):
bed right beside, and they embraced crying like we're big girls,
are gonna cry. Daddy wouldn't want us to cry. So
we're not gonna cry, Mommy, We're.

Speaker 49 (03:21:07):
Gonna pull this thing together. The two of us can
do this.

Speaker 53 (03:21:12):
Then they are wailing, the most poignant moment. That was
a difficult moment for me, and I guess I was
crying too, because they were just embracing tightly saying we're
not gonna cry, We're not gonna cry. But what So
they finally said, Okay, we're gonna We're gonna work this

(03:21:36):
thing out. As the calls were coming in, they would
assume Missus King would wanting to talk to the president,
and so you know his voice. So I would take
the call and say, okay, Missus King, this is President Johnson.
But what was interesting everybody had the same message.

Speaker 49 (03:21:58):
It's the same one.

Speaker 53 (03:21:58):
Maybe you and I make like someone dies. He said,
if I can do anything, let me know, and meeting it.
You know, anything you need me to do, let me
know if anything I'm to Everybody had the same message
except one, Call.

Speaker 49 (03:22:15):
Kennedy. Robbie Kennedy. His call was the one that was different.

Speaker 53 (03:22:23):
He said, Missus King, it's obvious now when he called
it was not see in Atlanta. It was about five
or six ish and people start calling and so up
until now it's almost ten. Mister Kennedy said, it's obvious,
Missus King, that you need more telephone lines because I've

(03:22:47):
been trying to get you ever since the news broke.
But mister and I'll make up a name because I
don't remember name of mister John Jones is en route
to Atlanta now to install nine telephone lines for you.
He'll be there at twelve thirty tonight. He's in route now.

(03:23:07):
I also heard on the TV that you'd perhaps want
to go pick your husband up in Memphis. So we've
dispatched a plane. It's already there in Atlanta. The palace
name is Sam Smith. Tailgate number one two three four
five telephone or a tours or something. So whenever you

(03:23:30):
want to go, all you have to do is make
this call. He will take you and he's in readiness
whenever you want to go to Memphis.

Speaker 49 (03:23:41):
Also, who's your point person?

Speaker 53 (03:23:43):
He told I was going to be her lead spokesperson,
And he said, Zernona called every hotel in the city
of Atlanta, talk to the management and put a clamp
on all the room in the hotel. I mean in
the city that people will be coming to this film

(03:24:06):
who were heads of states, and we've got to be
sure we have the.

Speaker 49 (03:24:10):
Right allocation of space.

Speaker 53 (03:24:14):
And my team will be there tomorrow morning and we're
going to set up an office at one two three
Maple Street and we will help govern things. He just
junt jo ju ju, don't true jump lay everything out,
and we followed his rules, I mean had been through it.

(03:24:35):
He said, we know how we've got experience in this.
We know what we're doing, and he was right. And
I was there when uh, Jacqueline Kennedy came, which was
they expected moment. Two things happened, and you've got time
for me to tell this before I tell you about

(03:24:57):
missus Kennedy invented you about Nixon. He was the He
wasn't president at that point, he.

Speaker 2 (03:25:03):
Was the.

Speaker 5 (03:25:06):
Publican candidate, yeah, the candidate Republic.

Speaker 53 (03:25:10):
He called our newspaper publisher and said, I know doctor
King's feelings on me, but do you think you could
help arrange for me to come visit Missus King my wife,
and I want to come make a call on her.
And he said, no, I can't do it, but I've
got a very good friend who's at her house and

(03:25:31):
he was talking about me, and she will tell me
whether you can or not. So let me get in
touch with her and then I'll call you back. So
he called me and I said, oh no, I didn't
run in by her.

Speaker 29 (03:25:40):
Well.

Speaker 53 (03:25:41):
When I told her that in the house, there were
people who said, oh no, you know doctor King would
want to see him, and so they talked to her
said no, why don't you say no? Well, I had
her last ear, So I said, Missus King this is
not a time for politics. Why don't you let him come,
But let's lay some ground rules. No entourages, no fress,

(03:26:03):
no nothing, just come. If he's making a personal call,
then he personally can call on her. So she bought
my advice and agreed. Called mister mcgillan and told him
and said we wanted them to come unannounced.

Speaker 49 (03:26:15):
And sure enough he came.

Speaker 53 (03:26:16):
But guess what happened. He drove, he came up and
we knew what time. They told us all the way.
He's at the airport. Now he's on his way, so
we knew when to expect him. And when he came here,
I went to the door the front of the house.

Speaker 49 (03:26:30):
He came in a bag. I don't know cars, but
all said Chevrolet something like that.

Speaker 53 (03:26:34):
It wasn't a fan I don't want to fit anybody,
but it was a small car. And I ushered him
and what he did by himself. But he said, you know,
missus Nixon was coming. But he said they got a
call that one of the girls got sick and she
had to rush to New York, he said, but so
he sat by her bed. Well that's where she received
her get she said, on her bed we had a

(03:26:57):
chair and he sat there face to face, told him
he knew how doctor King felt.

Speaker 49 (03:27:02):
He said, but this is not political call.

Speaker 53 (03:27:05):
My wife and I were coming, and he went on,
So why you know, he said, I have brought with
me a check, a personal check that we are feeling
the grief, and because we are Americans, we have to
take some responsibility for this. So as our personal expression

(03:27:28):
of sympathy, we want to educate all for your children,
and this check that we have here will cover their
expenses wherever they go. There's enough money to educate all
four children. Nobody knows that story because I haven't told
it for a few times. Then we were told that

(03:27:54):
missus Kennedy was coming, and then the day she was due,
she said she couldn't make it. Then we got another
call she said, now she does want to come. She said,
I don't have the strength to make.

Speaker 5 (03:28:10):
It, cause she had she had to release. She knew
the pain. Of course, A Scott came.

Speaker 53 (03:28:16):
You're getting my script ahead of me, because what happened
is she finally came and as I said, you know,
describing you can get the picture of the house. The
front door was up there, Coreta's bedroom was at the.

Speaker 49 (03:28:30):
End of the hall. When she came, they told me
she was here, so I went to greet her. To
bring it back rolling, those two women didn't say one
word to each other, verbal word, no word.

Speaker 53 (03:28:46):
Neither said hello. They didn't say anything. They embraced. That
seemed like twenty minutes. Of course it wasn't that long.
But they raise what I've spoken word for an endless
period of time. But you don't have to be smart

(03:29:09):
to read their lips and their hearts. The heart for saying,
we know what what you're feeling.

Speaker 20 (03:29:18):
You know, I know, we know.

Speaker 53 (03:29:21):
That was the most pointing moment, and it was the
one time that I cried because I was feeling their language.

Speaker 16 (03:29:29):
It has to be hard for you because here you are.
You go to the home, you're with the kids. She
comes back, she asks you to be with her. What
she tells the children.

Speaker 1 (03:29:42):
You have to be her rock.

Speaker 49 (03:29:43):
Oh yeah, So.

Speaker 16 (03:29:46):
You you can't grieve, you can't break down, you can't
you're taking the phone calls.

Speaker 1 (03:29:53):
You're doing so added?

Speaker 50 (03:29:57):
How are you?

Speaker 5 (03:29:59):
Did you just or just go like kidd at Robert Canny?
You just went right into work mode.

Speaker 49 (03:30:04):
Oh yeah, because you know, I'm not even sure that
I ever cried.

Speaker 53 (03:30:09):
Come to think of it, I'm saying later, but I've
never got a chance to grieve because one of the
things when she was trying to decide whether she's gonna
go to Memphis, and then right away I said, oh, gee,
she needs clothes because I want her to look nice.

Speaker 49 (03:30:22):
You're gonna be photographed wherever she goes.

Speaker 53 (03:30:25):
So the next morning, now we were up all the night,
went in the morning, so by the morning time, I
told her I was gonna go down and get some clothes,
and I did. I went to a little, nice little
shop downtown Atlanta that had nice clothing, and I told

(03:30:45):
the man that I've come to pick some things for missus, king,
I have no money. I wouldn't dare take time to
ask her for a credit card, and I don't have
any money, and so will you trust me to pick
what I think she wants, take it home, and if
she likes them, we'll keep them, and I'll come back
and pay it now, I'll bring the clothing back. And
he agreed to those terms. Well, I picked out a

(03:31:07):
lot of stuff, came home. As I was getting into
the house, I had a man there who helped me
because I had all these clothing in the lobby, I
mean in the four year of their home Rebella Fonte
and stan Levinson. And stan Levinson was the Jewish friend
who had been with him a long time exactly, and said,

(03:31:29):
what are you doing? I said, oh, I wanted to
look nice. I bought a lot of clothes. I told
them the story. I didn't have no money, and they said,
we wanted to look nice to we know you know
what she.

Speaker 49 (03:31:38):
Would look good in.

Speaker 53 (03:31:41):
They both gave me a credit card, said here, we
don't care what you buy. Buy what you think you
want for her. Here are the cards to pay for them.
So when I came home, when I saw her later
on after the people subsided, she looked at my stuff

(03:32:01):
and waked everything I brought and I said, oh, I
go back if the head so I said, now, I
told her the store I had money, because she said
to give me a credit card. I said, oh no,
I got two credit cards. I went back and guess what.
The owner of the store said, you got a balance here.

(03:32:22):
I thought he lost his body to say, well, who
just left you with all your clothes?

Speaker 49 (03:32:27):
And he said to me, I've come to pay for them.

Speaker 53 (03:32:30):
He said, listen, I'm a white man in America, and
I have to take some of the responsibility of having
the climate. They created this, so the least I can
do is cover the cost of the clothing. You have
a zero balance. And I had also designed her headdress,

(03:32:55):
and I had gone down to our department store, which
is Maci's at.

Speaker 49 (03:33:01):
The time, and.

Speaker 53 (03:33:04):
We had to laugh because they asked him what time
was I coming, and I said, well, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (03:33:10):
I was so busy.

Speaker 49 (03:33:11):
I don't I don't have a schedule. I don't.

Speaker 53 (03:33:13):
He said, well, it doesn't matter. We'll stay here till
you get here. The store closes at five, so if
you're not here, I said, can you find the back door?

Speaker 49 (03:33:21):
And I laughed. I said, I'm black, I know we're all.
So he said, you leave the back door open. I
could come up through the back door.

Speaker 4 (03:33:29):
Shut up.

Speaker 49 (03:33:30):
That's why, because the store would closed. I went through the.

Speaker 53 (03:33:32):
Back door and told the lady, this is what I
think I want. I had never designed anything either, so
I said, this is what I think I want. And
so the lady agreed to, you know, do it up there,
and I said, and don't stitch it, just kind of
baste it.

Speaker 49 (03:33:49):
So you know, she's got up prove it, and she
made I like it. And it was the time.

Speaker 53 (03:33:55):
Except for when Landa, the daughter, came in and I
saw her cry. She never shed a tear. That woman
was a strong making decisions and moving. Never cried out
after that. But when she tried on the headdress, then
she looked in the mirror and I'm sure she's seeing

(03:34:17):
that this is what I'm wearing to my husband's funeral,
and she.

Speaker 49 (03:34:22):
Broke down that time.

Speaker 53 (03:34:24):
But those only times she cried the whole time, in
that whole long week, the week long.

Speaker 16 (03:34:32):
That was, the week that was, I'll just call it
that they rose in a fistic glove. When you went
to the airport, we were compared her to the airport
when his body was returned from No.

Speaker 49 (03:34:46):
No, oh, I didn't see the body until. Let me
tell you that story.

Speaker 53 (03:34:53):
Because the day he was ready for viewing, because I've
been doing a mirror of things, you know, well, they
had announced that there was going to be a public
viewing at eleven o'clock. At that moment, we were at

(03:35:13):
the church. Coretta had to make some final revisions to
the program, and so she went over to the church
and the security guard called her over there, Miss King,
what must we do?

Speaker 5 (03:35:26):
Said?

Speaker 53 (03:35:26):
There are thousands of people lined up here to see
the body, and so what must we do? When she said, oh,
and it had begun a missing rain, and that you know,
the worst kind of rain is a missed it just
falling on you. She was such a kind, considerate, compassionate woman.
She said, oh, well, let them, let them go on in.

(03:35:47):
I said, no, Coreta, you should see him first. And
I said that the public will wait, but you need
to see him first. And what good advice that was,
because once we finished the church, we went over to
view and I was you know, Harry Belafonte and his

(03:36:08):
wife and I were the only non family members of
everybody else. It's a large family, and I saw them
when when they came in, I stepped aside, and Kreta
came down and she had a faint, a faint response,
like she was going to collapse.

Speaker 49 (03:36:27):
When I walked up to the beer, he looked awful.
It looked as if.

Speaker 53 (03:36:35):
Someone had gone and just dug up a big glob
of clay and slapped it upside his face. I was horrified,
so I stepped over quietly to the mortician and said sir,
and said anything you can do to the side of
his face. He crashly said.

Speaker 49 (03:36:59):
Miss, his jaw was blown up. That's the best I
could do.

Speaker 5 (03:37:05):
I was shocked loudly in the.

Speaker 7 (03:37:07):
Corrudded him part I could hear.

Speaker 14 (03:37:10):
Oh.

Speaker 53 (03:37:10):
I was so so angry with him, and I finally
said forget him, and I said something has to be done,
because he looked horrible. I mean, this big old glob
of stuff, and so Corretta out there sitting down now.
I looked at Mama King that's the mother whose dark skinned.

(03:37:31):
And then I saw Bellafonte's wife, who was white. And
I back in those years, women always carried loose powder,
and I was hoping that's that they had some. And
I said, Mamma, can you got any powder? She said, oh, yeah,
she gave me her powder, which was dark. Julie, do
you have some and she said yes, hers was white.

(03:37:51):
So I took the two and stood over the casket,
looking at Martin's face and making myself a little roue
of a mix. Bellefonte came over, took his handkerchief and
put around Martin's neck. And so I'm dabbing to see
what I've got here trying to match the other side

(03:38:13):
of his face to get a balance to it.

Speaker 49 (03:38:16):
And I finally got it and caught a smile.

Speaker 53 (03:38:21):
And so I'm brushing the excess off of Martin's face
and Bellefonte and I never knew what happened to the handkerchief.
It was his handkerchief he had taken out of his
pocket and the excess, you know, be folded it up.
But he was to stay there till midnight, and they
were moving them to the church for another viewing at

(03:38:44):
three am. And so I did it again, because the
body oxidizes with air, and so I went and did
it again. So I did it three times before the
actual funeral.

Speaker 45 (03:38:58):
Martin Luther King, I believe that least a year before
he was assassinated, began to understand that he had.

Speaker 20 (03:39:08):
Gone so far that it would be almost impossible for.

Speaker 45 (03:39:13):
Him to escape danger of not death, And so he
began to talk about it, and up until the very end.
He that last night at the Memphis at the Memphis
meeting of garbage workers, when he said he was ready.
That's the way Christians like that think about life. They

(03:39:35):
want to be ready when the time comes. And I
think he was preparing himself.

Speaker 10 (03:39:40):
And yes, when he branched out.

Speaker 45 (03:39:42):
Into the Vietnam War, that criticism, when the Poor People's
March did not materialize and the way he thought it would,
and even then people thought he was out of his helm.
And he began to understand that he was accumulating in enemies,
in what we then called the power structure, from all

(03:40:05):
over the country and all over the world. And here's
why I believe that Martin Luther King probably died at peace,
because he had prepared himself for death.

Speaker 5 (03:40:16):
Described for you April fourth, nineteen sixty eight. Where were you,
What were you.

Speaker 20 (03:40:20):
Doing that day? I'll never forget that day.

Speaker 4 (03:40:25):
We I remember.

Speaker 20 (03:40:29):
I think I almost woke up to it to learn
of it.

Speaker 45 (03:40:33):
And as much as we had learned of his of
his encounters with danger, I have to tell you Roland assassination.

Speaker 1 (03:40:43):
I was not prepared for.

Speaker 49 (03:40:44):
I was young and married and just had my first child.

Speaker 45 (03:40:48):
And you know, for me, the civil rights movement would
go on to some version of it forever.

Speaker 40 (03:40:54):
Yes, I knew King was in danger.

Speaker 20 (03:41:00):
Yes, Malcolm X had been an assassination.

Speaker 45 (03:41:05):
What I did not understand is that I was in
the decade of assassinations where when people disagreed.

Speaker 4 (03:41:13):
With you, they would kill you.

Speaker 5 (03:41:15):
Kennedy, Malcolm X, m Okay, JK.

Speaker 20 (03:41:19):
Magar evers think about it, and.

Speaker 5 (03:41:24):
That's five and five years of one decade.

Speaker 45 (03:41:27):
And what is not coincidental is that if you look
at the decades of the twentieth century, none was more
roust in change and in change that brought results.

Speaker 20 (03:41:41):
It was as if the country had a catacterism, a lot.

Speaker 55 (03:41:45):
Of change, a lot of reaction period rolling see see
that started for me, that's strangeness, and that unbelievableness that
was happening to a lot of our political figures in
those days started to meet with the assassinations.

Speaker 1 (03:42:04):
Of John Kennedy.

Speaker 38 (03:42:06):
You know, I never will forget that day in my life,
or any of those days, because I was actually on
my way to a business meeting when they came on
radio and interrupted and said they at.

Speaker 4 (03:42:24):
That time, they were just saying they.

Speaker 49 (03:42:25):
Thought he was dead, but he had been shot in Dallas.

Speaker 38 (03:42:28):
And I'm thinking, my god, this is the twentieth century
and this is the United States of America, and you
mean to tell me how president.

Speaker 49 (03:42:37):
Can be assassinated?

Speaker 7 (03:42:39):
I mean, back in the days of.

Speaker 38 (03:42:40):
Lincoln and but okay, fine, it was, you know, but
not in the twentieth century, with all the protection and
all the pre planning for his routes and all the stuff.

Speaker 5 (03:42:50):
Like that, that he could be assassinate.

Speaker 4 (03:42:52):
That was unbelievable to me.

Speaker 49 (03:42:55):
I actually saw Robert Kennedy get assassinated on TV.

Speaker 40 (03:42:59):
I was watching that night.

Speaker 49 (03:43:00):
You know.

Speaker 56 (03:43:01):
So Martin Luther King, now for Martin Luther King, who
was the who was Martin Luther Martin Luther King was the.

Speaker 7 (03:43:15):
The main.

Speaker 38 (03:43:20):
Warrior for the black people as far as I'm concerned
at that time. You know, I wasn't a surprise that
they killed him, as I was when they killed Malcolm X.

Speaker 56 (03:43:38):
You know what I mean.

Speaker 38 (03:43:39):
I wasn't a surprise because Martin was into a lot
of stuff that a lot of people, bigots hated.

Speaker 49 (03:43:46):
He was a marked man. I didn't expect it.

Speaker 39 (03:43:51):
I didn't.

Speaker 38 (03:43:53):
I was hoping that it would never come to that,
you know what I mean. But it did not surprise
me because of who he was and what he was doing.
You know, horrible day, horrible, just oh man, here we
go again.

Speaker 1 (03:44:09):
I don't even know where I was. I was an oblivion,
That's where it was.

Speaker 38 (03:44:14):
After that I don't know where it was, but it
was just here we go again, when it's just gonna
what's safe?

Speaker 49 (03:44:23):
Who's who's safe?

Speaker 44 (03:44:25):
You know what I mean?

Speaker 5 (03:44:30):
What were you doing that day?

Speaker 4 (03:44:32):
Was it day?

Speaker 2 (03:44:33):
Like?

Speaker 5 (03:44:33):
Oh?

Speaker 40 (03:44:34):
Every day it was a day of mobilization.

Speaker 57 (03:44:37):
We would meet with the men to the was any
progress with the report on what that was there any
unusual things happening, Fill them in on that. If there
are any questions they had or decisions they need to make,
try and get that done.

Speaker 40 (03:44:52):
But everybody was mobilizing for the march.

Speaker 5 (03:44:54):
But you also had the court hearing that day, if
I'm correct, Yeah.

Speaker 57 (03:44:57):
That wasn't That was a series of injunctions, but cl
I took responsibility for the healing with the injunctions. Andrew
Young and James Orange and oh some of the other
fellows and the lawyer and the lawyers took responsibility for
the court because the court had enjoined the march, had

(03:45:17):
not enjoyed the mobilization and community action work that we
were joining.

Speaker 5 (03:45:23):
So that day goes along, go throughout the day, get
to the evening.

Speaker 20 (03:45:30):
Where are you.

Speaker 57 (03:45:31):
I'm at the headquarters building of the what it was
called then the Minimum Salary, the building of the Ame Church,
which is the building next door to where our mobilizing
headquarters were, which was Cleveland Temple. In the evening, I
lose track of the time, but the word came over
the radio that doctor King had been shot on the

(03:45:53):
balcony at the Lorraine Motel. And among all the unbelievable
things that you just refused to accept, this was one
of them.

Speaker 5 (03:46:03):
So you hit us on the radio.

Speaker 57 (03:46:05):
So a coach Stafford and myself, we were like five
minutes from the Lorraine Motel. We jump in the car
and we come around here. By the time we get here,
police were already here keeping people out as opposed to
keeping people in.

Speaker 40 (03:46:25):
And this whole evening it was just one that we
had difficulty believing.

Speaker 57 (03:46:37):
Doctor King, as prominent a leader as he was, to
be shot on the balcony made no sense to us
at all. It was not like he was a stranger
in town. He should have and perhaps did, have as
much security as you could have. But the evening ended

(03:46:58):
not only with the shooting, but with him me and
taken to the hospital. Our responsibil ability then was to
make sure that nobody else was injured. I mean, the
city obviously was just outraged. And our job was to
make sure that the people a got home all right,
didn't confront the police or anybody else with any any

(03:47:22):
activities that would cause that it'd be more harmed, and
then to reconvene a meeting of all the partners in
this thing to talk about where do we go from here?

Speaker 4 (03:47:34):
You get word.

Speaker 5 (03:47:37):
That he's died, where are you and how do you react?

Speaker 57 (03:47:48):
Well, you know, personally, it was an incredible level of sadness.
It was not like you had a leader who preached violence.
You had probably one of the most committed men to
none violent, yet to be killed as with a violent act.

(03:48:09):
We were a little we had to think through what
this all meant, uh, how and what do we do
with some men the next day? How do we handle
the notification across the country as to what was taking
place in Memphis, And at least whatever advice we were

(03:48:32):
going to give to other folks how they should react.

Speaker 4 (03:48:35):
And clearly.

Speaker 40 (03:48:38):
The country was beginning to go up and smoke.

Speaker 14 (03:48:41):
You know.

Speaker 1 (03:48:41):
The anger.

Speaker 40 (03:48:44):
That was across their major urban areas was just incredible.

Speaker 16 (03:48:47):
I interview Reverend Jim Lawson, and he said the next
day he went went to work, he said, we literally
did not have time to stop. And he said it
wasn't until either July or August that the grief hit him.

Speaker 5 (03:49:09):
He said, but literally he was completely in work mode.

Speaker 57 (03:49:19):
Well, I think that's typical of everybody, and certainly Jim,
who was such a major part of this. We had
thirteen hundred men, thirteen hundred families, who knows how many children.

Speaker 40 (03:49:33):
That were a part of all this.

Speaker 57 (03:49:35):
We had a community by now that was totally mobilized
and support of them. There needed to be direction given,
There needed to be a conversation with the leaders. There
needed to be addressing the young people, many of whom
had become reluctant supporters of the strike, but they were supporters.

(03:49:58):
We had to at least make sure that no one
gave reason for added violence against any community members, and
to try as best as we could to prepare for
what ultimately became a major march on behalf of Doctor
King himself. And we were getting deluged with calls from

(03:50:22):
all over the country of people really want to know,
is it real?

Speaker 20 (03:50:26):
Is the true?

Speaker 57 (03:50:28):
I just think remember a call from Byatt Rustin, who
was on a radio show in Westchester County, someplace where
people were equally out upset, and I think Byron mentioned
on the radio, if you want to do something to
help people in Memphis, you'll send the dollar and the
outpourn of concern and support. In a day or so,

(03:50:51):
we felt down here where there was duffel bags the army,
duffel bags filled with dollar bills that were so impacted
by this.

Speaker 40 (03:51:00):
But as Jim said, we didn't have time to stop.

Speaker 57 (03:51:04):
We almost went in went from his death mode to
mobilize in for this major march.

Speaker 40 (03:51:12):
That we got committed to.

Speaker 57 (03:51:15):
I believe we had forty forty five thousand people show
up for that.

Speaker 40 (03:51:21):
In March, we had to deal with what was going
to take place in Atlanta.

Speaker 57 (03:51:27):
And to their credit, the men, while they regretted and
were suddenly upset by Doctor King's assassination, they remained committed
to their goal and they organized themselves. They made their
own decisions about how they would respond on the city basis.

(03:51:49):
I can remember, we were really concerned about whether or
not we wanted to take the marches back downtown. A
minister here in town whose name may be lost in
all the history, Henry Starks, who took just personal responsibility
for organizing and mobilizing the march to dramatize to the
business community and certainly to the city leadership that these

(03:52:12):
men were committed to this and we would I think
we wanted to take a day off, but the men
asked us, aren't we going back downtown?

Speaker 40 (03:52:20):
Aren't we going to march today?

Speaker 57 (03:52:23):
And for those of us who were stabbed, you know,
we had to really not only pick ourselves up, but
to try and understand that, you know, this was a
tragedy that happened in the course of a major movement,
and understand that doctor King was certainly aware of the.

Speaker 40 (03:52:42):
Risks, but he is also committed to the.

Speaker 43 (03:52:47):
Well, it's kind of hard to describe because I was
a single dad at the time and my boys.

Speaker 4 (03:52:53):
To me, it was just such a.

Speaker 1 (03:52:56):
Loss of.

Speaker 43 (03:52:58):
I don't want to say hope because that's not quite it,
but the possibilities that that fact that happened. I just
done the model of Gene story with Paul Winfield, the
system ticing a few years before and U and it
was just devastating. I was I was in Detroit and
trying to sit my kids down and say this doesn't

(03:53:19):
change the possibility is just very hard.

Speaker 4 (03:53:21):
It's just very devastiting, and it was the whole town.

Speaker 47 (03:53:24):
I remember, it was just.

Speaker 40 (03:53:28):
I don't know, it's like the wind, it was just
taken out of everything.

Speaker 13 (03:53:31):
What should the folks stand?

Speaker 5 (03:53:33):
We get a commimorate, but what should folks do aproof
fifth this year?

Speaker 4 (03:53:37):
Because both the guilts.

Speaker 7 (03:53:38):
Event and people remember because on those last. But what's
the call back?

Speaker 43 (03:53:43):
But I think the real call for action, as far
as I'm concerned, is stepping toward the things that we want.
I know, we keep fighting for the things that we're
opposed to them. We have to be aware and I
don't take any of that away, but I think now
it's about being an example and reaching out to each other.

Speaker 4 (03:54:00):
Is why this is tonight.

Speaker 43 (03:54:01):
Is so important to be a part of the community,
to be embraced by our own communities. So I really
hope that we will remember to include each other, because
we have ways sometimes of getting a little exclusively and
I don't think that's what King was about us the
legacy much about, but we really need to include each other.

(03:54:22):
We get really caught. It been a lot of diversity.
That's a wonderful things. But for us, I think we
need to embrace our brothers interest.

Speaker 58 (03:54:32):
I had finished shaving and was standing on the balcony
and there was some staff down on the on the ground,
and rab Rab was putting after shave aramis after shave
owned when he heard what he says, sounded like a firecracker.

Speaker 37 (03:54:53):
And then he looked.

Speaker 58 (03:54:54):
Down and saw the soles of modern shoes. And he
ran outside, and other stabbers come up, crying and all
carrying on. And he said, stop acting like siss. Call
the ambulance. Call the ambulance. You don't have time to cry.

(03:55:16):
Call the ambulance. And he called the ambulance. And when
they got there, the ambulance came and they got in,
and Raft got in and took him on, took Martin
onto the hospital and rapped. He said to Marden. He

(03:55:37):
grabbed his head. He said, rap, Mardin, this is raph.

Speaker 49 (03:55:41):
This is raph, This is raph.

Speaker 58 (03:55:44):
And he grabbed him up and held him and he said.
Marden whispered to him, please wrap, take my people forward,
and Rap said, oh Martin, oh Martin, oh Martin. And

(03:56:04):
he never said another word. He was gone, oh wow.
When they said that Mardin had been shot, Corecta called
me and said, why Nita. We always kept a bag packed,
cause we never knew when we were gonna have to
move instantaneously.

Speaker 37 (03:56:24):
So she said, Martin has been shot.

Speaker 58 (03:56:29):
And we need to go to Memphis. I said, okay,
I'll meet you at the airport. And as we turned
into the airport, they announced Martin Luther King just died.
And my little children were in the back and they
just started screaming and hollering, Oh, uncle Mardine is dead.

(03:56:51):
Uncle Mardine is dead. Uncle Maidine is dead. Oh what
about Yoki? What about Yoki? Be cause my daughter and
Yoki were like, you know, they wouldn't shut. They were
diapers together, so they were each other's first friend. So
we got there and the chief of police and everybody
was around Corretta.

Speaker 4 (03:57:13):
And because I.

Speaker 58 (03:57:14):
Told you we were getting ready to go to Memphis,
and I said to her, I said, well, Corretta, I
meet you back at your house. So I left there
and went on to her house and I stayed there
at night, and I said, well, Corretta, is you know

(03:57:36):
what are we going to do? I said, I'm just
so glad Rapp was not there, I said, because they
would have gotten two at the same time.

Speaker 20 (03:57:47):
I don't remember her greeting.

Speaker 9 (03:57:50):
At all.

Speaker 2 (03:57:54):
This was.

Speaker 38 (03:57:57):
What you.

Speaker 33 (03:58:01):
Always expected, all right, But you knew also that that
wasn't going to end the struggle. And it's the struggle
that you were concerned about, and you were the struggle
that Martin was concerned about.

Speaker 2 (03:58:21):
It was.

Speaker 33 (03:58:25):
That's what it was all about, right, is that it
wasn't about, well, Martin is dead and so let's go home,
and that's nonsense.

Speaker 20 (03:58:37):
You would work harder because you didn't have a Martin King.
We knew that everything was going to change.

Speaker 16 (03:58:52):
Describe for you April fourth, nineteen sixty eight, what were
you doing that day?

Speaker 5 (03:58:57):
Where were you.

Speaker 20 (03:59:00):
Hey before? In nineteen sixty eight, I had I was
in my office in Wall Street, and I was leaving
early because I was preparing to go down to members Tennessee.
I had already talked to Martin earlier and to Bernard
Lee and Andy about the logistics about I wanted to

(03:59:24):
be sure that you would have somebody meet me at
the airport. Says, you can take me directly to the
place where he was speaking. Okay, So I rush him
to go to the airport and the phone rings, and
I said, I can to answer the phone. Then something said,
I don't know. I said, answer the phone. So I
picked up the phone. That's hi, knowle Bonnie. I said,

(03:59:45):
how I can't talk to him president of the airport
and going down to see Martin. Now he said, you
got your television? Said, he says, martinsman shot. I said, what,
Sorry talked on the television. And then that's all it is.
Martin Luther King Junior's been shot.

Speaker 4 (03:59:58):
You know.

Speaker 20 (03:59:58):
I get on the phone, I can't reach anybody. All
the lines of busy, I can't reach you, Billy Kyles,
I can't reach it. I can't reach I can't reach Bernard,
I can't read anybody. Can't anybody make me. And I'm
trying to decide what to do when the phone raise again.
You know, I wouldn't even pay to the television. I
just telerat's another room and I'm trying to get through
on the phone. Harry Bellaphine. He says farm's dead. And

(04:00:24):
he says to me, well, uh, what are you going
to do? And I said, well, what do you think
I should do? He said, I don't think you should
Harrah says, I don't think you should go. I said
we should get some more information. I don't think you
should go. So I hang up the phone, and the
very first thing that came into my mind was they

(04:00:50):
finally got him. They finally got him.

Speaker 59 (04:00:57):
Sometime sometime our book ended, some time between April fourth,
nineteen sixty seven and April fourth, nineteen sixty eight, I
had come to the conclusion there was not a question

(04:01:22):
of whether.

Speaker 20 (04:01:22):
Martin came would be assassinated. Uh, it was only when.
And I discussed it very closely with Stanley and Edison,
and he said, well, this is always meditation, I know.
I said, no, Standley, you'll understand something news happened. He said, yeah,
I I agree, No, But I was.

Speaker 4 (04:01:41):
I was really, I was, really I was.

Speaker 20 (04:01:44):
I was, you know, also angry. But and so when
that happened, they finally got 'em. Within that same thought, Roland,
as you were knew you know your family, I can
tell you I wanted to myself. I said, I don't

(04:02:08):
think I can stay in this Country's I'm having a conversation. No,
I can't stand in this country this I'm the corn
Stales that so I said, no, I can't stay in
this country. The anger was so seething, you know, and
I was I was drinking more heavily than I drink today.
And I was drinking, you know, my teenies and traveling

(04:02:30):
the weather the South. I was drinking my Jack Daniels
and so forth, you know, hanging out but or zil
buildings that you know, you couldn't have a conversation with
those a buildings that you drank.

Speaker 33 (04:02:41):
So so I was, I was just the anger was just.

Speaker 1 (04:02:47):
Beyond.

Speaker 60 (04:02:50):
I had made a I had made a personal judgment.
I said, Clarence, uh, you had to leave this country.
That's what I'm talking to myself. I said this, Tony,
I said, all right, can't stay here? So why I said,
because I can't. I don't think I have the discipline.

Speaker 4 (04:03:05):
I said. I was a fraid though.

Speaker 20 (04:03:06):
I mean I had such crazy things, like I was
thirty seven years old. He was thirty nine. Okay, and
I'm thinking to myself. But as you know, I hear
about all these bad guys in the black Stone Rangers
and how they gonna do this, I said, I but
I was trained in the Special Forces unit. You know,

(04:03:28):
I said, all these talk about it. I said, I
really know how to kill.

Speaker 4 (04:03:31):
I mean, this is the way that's really say.

Speaker 1 (04:03:32):
I mean, I was, I really know.

Speaker 20 (04:03:35):
How to kill a person? Ten different ways, you know,
I said, the way I beg I was trained to
do that. And I thought to myself, I would have
figured out how they get in touch with some of
the guys that were in the army with me, and said,
you asked me this. I began to think crazy things.
I began to think crazy things. I was think, you know,

(04:04:00):
maybe I maybe I ought to go out and talk
to the so how many God, maybe I should go
out and talk to the black Stone Range and so forth.
I said, you know, they probably gonna see me and
my suit. They could say, who will you?

Speaker 4 (04:04:09):
I said.

Speaker 20 (04:04:10):
When I finished talking to him, I said, no, all
you guys are walking around bead with your little guns
and so forth. You don't how to do a damn thing.
I said, what you need to do?

Speaker 61 (04:04:22):
I mean, this is the way I was thinking. I said,
I need to I need to think whether or not
you know, I mean you. I mean I was influence
the sponge ager Bear in my writings. I was, you know,
all these things, I mean, jag a Bear could do it, and.

Speaker 20 (04:04:34):
The gosh still can do it.

Speaker 62 (04:04:36):
And I'm at Bendelica and I was still going to
do that. You know, I was going through all the
liberations people. I mean, I mean so crazy, like who
am I this middle class educated lawyer.

Speaker 40 (04:04:48):
But I had some training.

Speaker 20 (04:04:49):
I mean I was training, and so I said, I said,
that's what we need to do. I said. Everybody else
is out there selling wool tickets because they don't know
how to do. I said, they don't really how to kill,
but I know how to kill. And that so helped
me gotten so and I said, I'm gonna see if
I could be. And then then I began to when

(04:05:09):
I began to think of myself, I said, I can't
believe I'm thinking this way, okay, and I shared it.
I shared a a little bit of that with uh
Harry Bafani and another fellow of buying, a good friend
of mine other and I.

Speaker 4 (04:05:27):
Told about Sons and Benny Johnson in Chicago.

Speaker 20 (04:05:32):
You know, co Bettet said, calm down, calm God his
snif if you want to be, you want to sit
with the blackstone rings and so forth. So so I
had to.

Speaker 4 (04:05:41):
I went.

Speaker 20 (04:05:43):
After the funeral, goful.

Speaker 4 (04:05:45):
I had to get out.

Speaker 20 (04:05:45):
I think I went to France and then lived for
a little while. But the anger was so intense. It
was so intense. They finally got him. Now, by the way,
February fifteen, I'm sitting with James Comy in his office
for me at the Eye Director. I'm sitting with him

(04:06:08):
for about an hour and I got some nice pictures
with him, and and and finally after we talked about
the FAI and so forth. And I said, to the
last ten or fifteen minutes were together, it's like there's
a big long table between us. He sitting over here
and I'm sitting here and I said, yeah, I'm just
sing direction. He says, Kobe James. I said, well, I

(04:06:30):
said the director. I said, there's one thing I wanna
talk to you before I go. I said, it's about
the assassination Martin Luther King Jr. I said, uh, I
know the uh the Warren Commission, of some kind of commission.
You have these files, and I think maybe some of
the files are not even gonna be opened up until
I lead a day. And I said, you don't have

(04:06:50):
to say anything. I said, I just wanna tell you something.
I said, Now you know, some of the King children
went into the prison and they actually talked to James
Overray and and uh one of them Texas over they
they said no, I don't believe he killed my father.
You know, well, I believe that James Olray pulled the trigger.

(04:07:13):
I think the evidence is abundant that James Olray pulled
the trigger of the rifle to kill Martin Luther King Junior.
But James Olray did not wake up in the early
morning of April fourth, nineteen sixty eight, all by himself
and say today is to day. I'm gonna kill that

(04:07:34):
king nigger.

Speaker 4 (04:07:35):
No, no, no, no, no no.

Speaker 20 (04:07:37):
Martin Luther King Junior's assassination was a development of cold, calculated,
premeditated conspiracy to kill him. And I believe that conspiracy
goes right to the feet of the Hunt brothers in Texas.
That's why I believe. Okay, I can't prove it, but

(04:07:58):
that's that's what I believe. But don't don't insult my
intelligence to.

Speaker 4 (04:08:04):
Think that some.

Speaker 20 (04:08:07):
Hardly limited educated James Alray he had a map of candidates,
so we didn't have any educated, have any geography. You
know that he was clearly he was so forth you know,
and he's and I and so he leaned over to me,
he says, you have some very strong opinions. I said, yes,
I do. So I said, you and the government may

(04:08:33):
think that the case is closed, but I don't think so.
And he said to me, you didn't hear me say
the case was closed, did you. I said no, you
didn't hear me say the case was closed. I said, no, sir,

(04:08:56):
deep right. And you know about away? I mean, you
don't know, I tell you.

Speaker 14 (04:09:06):
Uh.

Speaker 20 (04:09:06):
He has a huge call me a huge desk's office.
I had a glasstop on it. Under the corner of
the glasstop there's a photostatic copy of the memo of
the memo from Robert F. Kennedy. I'm from Jaya Hoover

(04:09:28):
to Robert F. Kennedy asking the authority to wire to
Martin Luther King Jr. In which the Attorney General had
to counter signs. And it shows okay, do it, Okay,
do it? He says. The reason I'm showing you, mister Jones,
is every time there's a meeting of agents in my office,

(04:09:49):
particularly a new agent, before they leave, I make them
look at this. And I says, the FBI can never
be that agency again.

Speaker 5 (04:10:02):
Described April fourth, nineteen sixty eight, What were you doing?

Speaker 1 (04:10:07):
Where were you?

Speaker 4 (04:10:08):
Well?

Speaker 63 (04:10:09):
You know I had left the country. I left in
sixty seven. Like a lot of people, I was not
going to be drafted. I had re sent by draft
card in and just said I wasn't gonna go and
decided that, you know, the other choices were five years

(04:10:33):
in jail or leave, and I thought, well, I'd always
wanted to see the world, and saved up my wife
and I saved up whatever money we had and we
left in the early fall of sixty seven and came back.

(04:10:54):
I just ran around Europe, went to North Africa for
a little bit, and just any place that.

Speaker 20 (04:11:00):
Actually we started in the northern Europe, got cold, started.

Speaker 63 (04:11:04):
Moving towards the sun. Spain was kind of like California,
so we spent a lot of time. We were thinking
about staying there for a while, but she got sick
and we had to come back. And that was in
late March of nineteen sixty eight. And got to my parents'
house and turned out that she was diabetic, didn't know

(04:11:24):
it and was just losing lots of weight. I under
one hundred pounds and put her in the hospital. In
was almost in America, and so while she's in the hospital,
turned on the TV learn about Martin Luther King being
assassinated he is assassinated right there in Los Angeles. So

(04:11:48):
for me, it was just a way of saying, look,
this country is in real trumple. I mean, I recognized
at that point I got a live here, deal with
the draft issue, get a draft lawyer and all that
sort of stuff. But I knew I didn't have to

(04:12:09):
read Martin Luther King's Chaos or Community, cause what I
came back to was chaos.

Speaker 4 (04:12:16):
And I think that.

Speaker 63 (04:12:19):
The fifty years since then have been kind of putting
a lid on it and assuming that the problem is
going to go away if we just don't look at
And I think that his book is that that reminder that,
you know, look around the world right now. Democracy and

(04:12:39):
diversity is a difficult Vincent Harding, who I admire a
great deal, and you you know, obviously he said we
should we should have advanced courses for everybody in democracy
and diversity, because if you are investing your destiny to

(04:13:04):
a group of people and they're not like you, yeah,
different religion, different, yeah, other things, you're going to have
to learn how to work with that group of And
I don't think we as Americans understand that that takes work.

Speaker 4 (04:13:25):
April fourth, sixty eight.

Speaker 5 (04:13:27):
Were you was there?

Speaker 16 (04:13:29):
April fourth, nineteen sixty eight, Memphis tragedy strikes?

Speaker 4 (04:13:36):
Where are you?

Speaker 5 (04:13:39):
How do you find out?

Speaker 1 (04:13:41):
How do you feel?

Speaker 20 (04:13:42):
You're talking about doctor King's death. Yeah, I was here
in Tuscugar at that time, and.

Speaker 40 (04:13:51):
Of course I was very sorry and.

Speaker 50 (04:13:56):
Very very.

Speaker 20 (04:13:59):
Upset over his death.

Speaker 54 (04:14:02):
But it was one of those things that we always knew,
and he always knew, even as early as the bus boycott,
and this was several years before that, there was a
possibility of losing our lives in the movement, so we
have to be prepared to do it. But even so,

(04:14:24):
he still believed in non violence and social change.

Speaker 4 (04:14:28):
Were you prepared?

Speaker 40 (04:14:29):
Yes, indeed so.

Speaker 54 (04:14:33):
And there were some people in the movement who didn't
believe in that, and my brother happened to have been one.

Speaker 40 (04:14:39):
But I did believe in that.

Speaker 54 (04:14:43):
But you have to be able to stay focused and
move ahead and do it in the right direction. But
when I heard about doctor King, and if you remember
when he published his first book, he was stabbed at
the department store in New York, so he realized that

(04:15:09):
he would he may get killed, and he knew that
was always a possibility. But you know, you never want
those possibilities to happen, and I was very sorry about it,
but we couldn't stop. He wouldn't want us to stop,
and we didn't stop, and we continue

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Roland Martin

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