#RolandMartinUnfiltered - 8.6.19 #RMU: Rights groups unite, demand action on white supremacy; Author Toni Morrison has died

Episode Date: August 9, 2019

8.6.19 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Civil Rights and Gun Reform organizations unite to demand action against white supremacy; We'll breakdown how voter suppression in Georgia keeps Black people out of office; Black Census identifies the issues you should be aware of as you head to the polls; Texas mounted police lead a man behind their horses on a leash; Moscow Mitch groupies post a picture on social media of them abusing a cut-out of AOC; Author Toni Morrison has died. - #RolandMartinUnfiltered partner: 420 Real Estate, LLC To invest in 420 Real Estate’s legal Hemp-CBD Crowdfunding Campaign go to http://marijuanastock.org Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Thank you. Thank you. Hey, folks, Roland Martin here broadcasting live from Miami, Florida, site of the National Association of Black Journalists Convention. Today is Tuesday, August 6, 2019. Coming up on Roland Martin. Morrison, she passed away today at the age of 88 we'll talk with susan taylor of course the longtime editor of essence magazine about her dear friend tony morrison also on today's show civil rights and gun reform organizations unite to demand action against white supremacy will tell you how voter suppression in georgia keeps black people out of office

the black consensus project is being used to identify the issues you should be aware of white supremacy will tell you how voter suppression in Georgia keeps black people out of office. The Black Consensus Project is being used to identify the issues you should be aware of as you head to the polls. And Texas Mounted Police leave a man behind their horses, a black man behind their horses on a leash. The police department is now apologizing. And Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell groupies post a picture on social media of them abusing a cutout of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Folks, and yet another episode of Crazy-Ass White People. It's time to bring the funk on Roland Martin Unfiltered. Let's go. Whatever the biz, he's on it Whatever it is, he's got the scoop, the fact, the find And when it breaks, he's right on time And it's rolling

Best belief he's knowing Putting it down from sports to news to politics With entertainment just for gigs He's rolling It's Uncle Roro, y'all It's Uncle Roro, y'all It's Rollin' Martin Rollin' with Rollin' now He's funky, he's fresh, he's real

The best you know, he's Rollin' Martin Now Martin Martez Shut up. Known for classic novels like Beloved and Song of Solomon, passed away yesterday at the age of 88. The announcement came from her longtime publisher. She received literature's highest honors,

including the Nobel Prize in Literature, the first black woman to do so, as well as the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1988. Her debut novel, The Bluest Eye, was critically acclaimed and was followed by an even bigger classic, Sula, three years later. She's being memorialized by celebrities and her fans on social media. Later in the show, we'll talk with her good friend Susan Taylor,

editor-in-chief emeritus of Essence magazine, about the impact of Toni Morrison on the world. All right, folks, let's deal with our top story here. Yahoo News launched an investigation into how voter suppression in Georgia was responsible for having 10 people accused of voter fraud and locked up. They came to be known as the Quitman 10, and they were black candidates who won. But they are talking about it. Even with the investigation and writing campaigns, Troutman and Thomas won in the general election.

For the first time in history, the school board had more black members than white. About 40 days after the election of 2010, I was arrested. They knocked on the door and said, we have a warrant for your arrest and i said my arrest why he said for voter fraud on december 21st 2010 10 people were arrested in connection with alleged voter fraud this group would become known as the equipment 10. well now to the fox news voter fraud unit more arrests of officials in another absentee ballot scandal, this time in Georgia. Over the next four years, the Quitman 10, plus two arrested later, faced public scrutiny of the highest degree. It was sensationalism. They needed to be able to show the public that we were criminals. For newly minted Secretary of State Brian Kemp,

a guilty verdict in a voter fraud case would be a massive victory among his Republican base. And while some members of the community stood behind the Quitman 10 plus 2, prosecutors offered a deal. If Dennard pled guilty to one charge of theft by taking, the rest would walk free. They thought if they could make a example out of me and that would kill the spirit of this movement and we collectively agreed nobody's bleeding out because we've done nothing we're standing together if you're a chicken you can't hang with me because you can't fly in the end only one of the equipment 10 plus 2 went to trial lula smart i had like what 38 39 counts on me my life was on the line you know i

could go to prison leave my family i know nothing about prison life i knew nothing about jail i've never been inside a jailhouse if found guilty smart face spending the rest of her life in prison jail time of any any magnitude this is just my opinion for what it's worth. It's not much. I thought it was overkill. Let's bring in our panel, folks. A. Scott Bolden, former chair of National Bar Association

Political Action Committee, Kelly Bethel, Communications Strategist, and Malik Abdul, vice president, Black Conservatives Federation. Scott, I want to start with you. I mean, when we think

about this case here, when we compare it to what's happening in North Carolina, where you have these white Republicans who have been arrested for the issue of voter election fraud. One of the issues that black people continue to face in these southern states, again, whites angry when they take power. I recall we recall doing the story here of the black mayor who was literally locked out of City Hall because they were angry with with her winning. There was another black mayor, a brother who won. And so the same thing happened.

What we're dealing with when African-Americans use electoral power, the white folks in this country who are not happy. And all of a sudden, what do they do, Scott? They target them with jail. Yeah, I think the biggest difference between the Quentin 10 plus 2 and what we're seeing in North Carolina with the gentleman who went out and purposefully conspired and worked with others to register people, not just to register them, but also to vote. There was ample evidence of that and documented evidence of it because he had a history of doing it.

What's surprising about the Quentin 10 is that they were not only criminally prosecuted for simply registering people and getting them to the polls. That's just outrageous because they were facing jail time. And so, you know, normally you have these civil or administrative lawsuits about a voter fraud and what have you, but no one was facing jail time. And so these 10 people, these 12 people facing jail time over the right to vote and the history of black people wanting to vote and being registered to vote, and that challenge simply didn't make any sense. I'm not surprised only one went to trial.

Kelly, again, when we see these things happen, there's just this fear, and I keep talking about white fear. I use this hashtag white fear because that's what we're dealing with. We're dealing with white folks in this country who have frankly been running this country. And now all of a sudden with the demographics changing, don't want to see black folks taking control, having power because they fear that they are going to have things taken from them. And to look at this case here, where black folks who were doing the right thing and then all of a sudden you got photos in orange jumpsuits because you dared to actually be involved in democracy. That is shameful. It's absolutely shameful. And of power being taken away from them and possibly a retaliation-type situation where they're the shoes on the other foot, and they're actually reaping the consequences

of centuries' worth of actions. That's always been the core fear of a racist. But that's not ever been anybody's M.O. in terms of somebody who wants to just vote, who wants to just be a U.S. citizen, specifically people of color and black people in the South. So it's absolutely ridiculous. It's absolutely shameful. But to be clear, it's definitely a power issue. And the fact that they have to use propaganda in order to perpetuate their stance just shows you just how illegitimate it is. Malik, I think about, again, this candidate. His name was Rufus Davis.

He was the mayor in Camilla, Georgia. He was locked out. They refused to give him the keys to City Hall for two years. He was elected by the people for two years. This is what black people are still dealing with in the 21st century. And it's unfortunate. You know, when I was reading about the case, I had heard about it some years ago, but then I kind of dug into it today. I mean, you're talking about overzealous and anything that you can, any sort of synonym that's actually similar to that.

That's what we have here. And I was reading, I think one of the cases, it was a young lady, one of the women, she actually helped her father, I think maybe fill out the absentee ballot or something, and then went and dropped it off. But, you know, for that to be considered a crime at that point, and I think it actually wasn't a crime, but they treated it as it was a crime at that point. And I think that it actually wasn't a crime, but they treated it as it was a crime. You know, this is this as with any sort of voter suppression or, you know, in instances of voter fraud where people are claiming that, you know, I always err on the

on the side of giving citizens, whether it's black people, white people, Hispanic or whatever, the opportunity to actually do that because it is a right that we do have. And so any effort to infringe upon that right or claim voter fraud in instances where you know that's not the case, it's not just unfortunate, it's ridiculous and it's something that we should continue to push back from. Yeah, but Roland, let me see if you have more going on here. Hold on one second, hold on one second. Joining me right now is John Ward.

Well, John Ward, a senior political correspondent for Yahoo News, who was responsible for the investigation. John, glad to have you back here on Roland Martin Unfiltered. John, as I was looking at this story again, I was thinking about this mayor in Camilla, Georgia, Rufus Davis, where not only would they not give him the keys to the city. This is a city that was 70% black. The way they drew the districts guaranteed that whites would have half of the seats on the city council, even though it's 70% black. And, in fact, the city manager, of course, threw some rules that would strip the mayor of all ability to lead and also appointments. And what we're dealing with here, we're dealing with, in a lot of these places, small rural America,

where, sure, black folks might be the majority, but whites have been controlling the power there. And this is about power. This is about control. This is about access to dollar. This is about being in charge of things. And so reading about the equipment tin is just stunning. Hey, Roland, it's good to be with you again. And yeah, there's a lot of layers to this. It is a lot of it about power. And you're right. I mean, a lot of these smaller towns like Whitman are really kind of still stuck in time in some ways, because until this entire case happened, everybody in that county pretty much voted Democratic, black, white, conservative, liberal. And it wasn't until this happened, actually, that you began to see a breakdown where white voters began to move towards the Republican Party, which is something that has happened throughout the South, you know, much earlier in most places. But in these more rural places, they were still, they didn't have any need to move to the Republican Party because

the white power structure there pretty much ran things through their Democratic structure, or through the Democratic Party, I should say. So let's break this down. So again, we talked about the Southern strategy. What a lot of people don't understand is that, yeah, there were white Dixiecrats who switched to the GOP, but the reality is you still have a lot of these whites who stay in the democratic party and this is where i keep trying to explain to people the issue here is not who's democrat or he's republican the issue is who's white and who's black yeah and i really don't it kind of causes my brain to kind of short circuit when I hear people pointing out that, you know, Democrats

used to be for segregation and Republicans, you know, fought against slavery and civil war. It's just sort of ignoring everything that's happened over the last 50, 60 years. So it doesn't really make any sense to kind of point to what the parties were doing 50, 60 years ago, or even more recently than that. It really is about what's happened since civil rights and up to the present day. So I agree with you. It does break down to racial politics and who's black and who's white. Unfortunately, in these smaller towns, it's very stratified. And it's interesting. When I went down down there i made two trips down there and people

i think go out of their way to not talk about this stuff unless they absolutely have to um that applies not just to the more recent political um developments but especially even more so to the more horrific incidents that have taken place there within the last century. Last question for you, John. And I think we're going to see more of this because we're seeing more African-Americans who are moving back south. And I think that we're going to see more of these stories. And as I keep telling everybody, everything that we're dealing with today is about 2043, where we're moving to a nation that's becoming majority people of color. And this white fear that is that is that is gripping this nation.

We're seeing this with a shooter in El Paso. We're seeing the attacks on undocumented workers, which is really attacks on Latinos and Hispanics. What we are seeing is people are going, oh, my God, this thing is happening, where we have been able to run America, run these states, run these cities, these towns, these rural places, these counties for a long time. And now we are going to have to share power. Voter suppression is based upon all this as well. This is about power and control, which also means the power and control of resources. Your thoughts? Yeah. And I think, you know, even if you look at the details of this case, I think part of the reason that the prosecution didn't succeed is that they were hand-handed in some ways, but they also, the laws had been changing when it came to absentee ballots. And so I think

there were elements of the law regarding how many absentee ballots an individual is allowed to handle, right? I think in some cases, in some states, they have different limits on this. In Georgia, I believe it is 10, but they never went after one of the defendants who handle a lot of these absentee ballots for that. They went after her for other things that were really kind of a mishandling of the law. And the point there is that there's always going to be parts of the law that you can go after people for on small, you know, slip-ups they might have made, small mistakes or technicalities, right? That's the way that the law can be used as a weapon. And so I do think to the degree that there are people out there in power who want to use the power of the government

to suppress the vote, there's always going to be ways for them to do that. And the trick will be to see how sophisticated they can become in doing this as the laws develop and evolve. All right. John Ward, I appreciate it, man. Thanks a lot. Scott, I want to go to you. You want to make a point there. And there's this new Tennessee law that was that they also pushed through. Same thing, targeting people who are registering folks to vote. And this is the thing that people have to understand, Scott, how these southern states, how they are trying to disenfranchise African-Americans. So it's not just a question of, oh, I'm going to try to keep you from voting. I'm going to try to control the apparatus that has the ability to register and get people to vote.

Well, that's why voting is so important in regard to your local prosecutors as well, because local prosecutors, if they are educated and despite their politics, have the discretion, so much discretion as to whether you prosecute the Quinton Quinton 10 or not. But secondly, and more importantly, look at the apparatus for suppression. The GOP cannot win unless they suppress the black vote, not just in the South, but all over. we're seeing it. So that's why they do it. But look at the images, the orange jumpsuits, the press, all of that as part of the arrest

wasn't just about the Quitment 10, it was about putting the chilling effect and sending a message to those that come after the Quitment 10 that you will be prosecuted if you register people to vote, if you deal with voter absentee ballots. The chilling effect for what comes after them was even a more powerful message and more disturbing here. And so whether it's Tennessee or whether it's Illinois or whether it's North Carolina, we've got to fight it at every juncture. But voting and voting reasonable people, Democrats and people who look like us, into these power-making decision-makers is super important, especially local prosecutors. All right, then.

Folks, let's go to our next story here, and that is something we've been covering. That is a coalition of civil rights and gun reform organizations have united to demand action against white supremacy. In a news release, they said, quote, the tragedies of this past weekend represent a confluence of two dangerous forces. The rise of white supremacist terror and our federal government's inaction on common sense gun safety. At a rally today, Sherilyn Ifill, president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, had this to say. Justice. It contains within it a civil rights division that is empowered to enforce the civil rights laws of the nation. This woman, Vanita Gupta, used to lead that department

when that department had integrity, when that department was committed to the enforcement of the nation's civil rights laws. That is our department. They get paid by us. We are taxpayers. And we have the right to demand that the Attorney General, Bill Barr,

reveal and tell us what is his plan. What's the plan we want from him? We want a plan to investigate, infiltrate where necessary, and prosecute white supremacist violent organizations. They'll do it for any other kind of organization, but they won't do it for these, and we need that. We have oversight committees in the House and the Senate that must bring those people to sit at the table and explain what their plan is to protect us, because El Paso cannot happen again. You want to check out Roller Barton Unfiltered? We'll be right back. Roland Martin on the field. Like, share, subscribe to our YouTube channel. That's youtube.com forward slash Roland S. Martin.

And don't forget to turn on your notifications so when we go live, you'll know it. All right, sorry about that, folks. Had a slight technical issue there. So now I am back. I want to go to our panel. Malik, I want to start with you. What we are, I fundamentally believe that what we are witnessing is a real threat, not only to America, but specifically black people and others. What we are seeing with the sort of rhetoric, we're seeing this rise in hate among white men in this country. We're seeing this when it comes to domestic terrorism. And this administration tries,

spends time talking about black identity extremists and ignoring what was happening with these white domestic terrorists. And I'm telling you right now, this country better get it together and confront what's going on here, because as we get closer to 2043, this is not going away. We're going to see, I believe, more and more of this, and we must deal with this reality of white supremacy and white nationalism.

Malik? Yeah, I think it's something that we should deal with. I'm not really sure if, you know, the people who signed on to the letter, you know, go ahead, you know, sign the letter. What I kind of push back from and which I don't think is a good idea is the notion that they're tying all of these instances, particularly the ones that just happened this weekend. We don't have any sort of information that the person in Dayton, Ohio, was actually a white supremacist. And this is, you know, not all of these mass shootings have been committed by white supremacists. That is something that we should address. 43 out of the last 60 have been committed by white nationalists. If you look at the rhetoric in El Paso, you can say that about Dayton.

But that's El Paso. Look at his manifesto and look at Trump's speeches, and they mirror one another. You have El Paso and you have El Paso and you have Las Vegas shooter. We have the shooter in Florida. I can think the Florida, the Florida one that we have. He's going down the road that we have all of the white nationalists, but I can brown people under attack in this particular case. You disagree. But this is not a matter. But this is not a matter. This is not a case. You disagree that black and brown people are under attack?

This is not a matter of. No, I know. Oh, yeah, I absolutely disagree. Oh, you don't think so? Well, I actually. Well, in that case. Brother, you lost. I actually do.

You lost. I'm not lost. I just don't agree. Both of you stop. Stop. Both of you stop. No one watching can hear anything both of you are saying if you're talking over each other. Malik, finish your point, then Scott, then Kelly.

Well, in this particular case, I think Dayton was one of the first instances where we had a majority of the people there, people who were black in that particular instance. But yes, white supremacy is something that we should address. White nationalism is something that we should address. Whether or not it's one of our greatest threats, I'm not really sure about that. If the Department of Justice, I don't know what the person was referring to about not prosecuting these cases. I don't think that the Department of Justice is not prosecuting these cases at all. But to say that, you know, I don't disagree that it's something, and even the president himself said that this is something that we should actually look into.

So there's no disagreement there. I don't know what Scott's talking about. Well, let me tell you what I'm talking about. Forty three of the last 60 mass murders have been committed by white nationalists. That's confirmed by DOJ. The majority of police officers that have been shot and killed in the last five to 10 years, shot and killed by white nationalists. This is a huge problem, and it's connected to the browning of America. You have a president that inspires these bad acts, not personally, not that he doesn't put the gun in their hand, but if you look at his rhetoric and what he says about immigration and immigrants and asshole countries, and then you look at the manifestos of the racists who killed 30 people, 20 people in El Paso, they're mirror

images of one another. That's no accident right there. And so if any part of anything the president would say could have any connection to inspiring this type of hateful killing, why wouldn't we stop it? If gun control laws, any part of it could stop the carnage, why don't we do it? America lives in a world of hypocrisy. The GOP and the Democrats are hypocritics. The height of hypocrisy and the depth of ignorance when it comes to guns. This isn't videos. This is guns and access to guns. And you're right, people do use guns to kill people. But if you limit their access to a weapon of mass destruction, then we wouldn't have the carnage. That's what the bar or the ban on assault weapons did for us in the 80s until it ran out. And so we can talk about

all these dichotomy of issues and politics and what have you. But we continue to die in this country and nobody's doing anything about it except offering prayers. I don't want your prayers. I don't want your sympathy. That's not going to bring back the thousands of people who have been killed. You know what I want? I want reasonable gun control. 80 to 90% of America, Democrat or Republican, believe in reasonable gun control. And they also believe in the NRA as well. We got to stop that. Kelly, again, what I'm trying to get people to understand, Scott talked about 43 out of 60. What we are dealing with, the FBI director has talked about it. They've been pressed by

Congress. Congressman Benny Thompson told me yesterday on the Times on the Morning show, they're going to have hearings next week. We need to understand that white domestic terrorism is real and has to be confronted. It absolutely has to be confronted. But I also want to point out the fact that this is more than just a race thing. Yes, we absolutely have to deal with white terrorism, but at the core of it, we have more mass shootings as of August 5th than we do have days in the year right now. We are in the 217th day of the year right now, there have been 255 mass shootings. That's insane. That is just absolutely insane. And yes, the majority of them that actually hit the news, frankly, have to deal with white terrorism and white nationalism and the like. And a lot of that

rhetoric does stem from our president. So I'm not discrediting that. But at the core, even if we took, you're probably going to hear this like for the last time out of me, but even if we took race out of the rhetoric of Donald Trump, he still talks too loosely about gun control when he's on podium saying, I can just shoot somebody right here, or he's just enabling people to fight at his rallies. He's inciting violence and that violence trickles down to the American people such that we have two hundred and fifty five mass shootings before December 31st of 2019. That's crazy. And that part has to change.

And he doesn't know who he's talking to. No, not at all. We should reject the notion that the president is responsible for any of this. That's just not I'm not going to reject that. That's just nonsense. It's absolutely nonsense. It's as much nonsense as saying that Maxine Waters and Eric Holder. Yeah, we would be better off if we actually elevated our own rhetoric instead of listening to the president to do it.

Well, how about we actually elevate our own rhetoric? The president needs to elevate his own rhetoric we can do that and one second one second Mel you can sit here and Mel you can sit here and go say we should do all but here's what we know is understand the person who has the biggest bully pulpit in america is the bully in chief what we know is that leadership means leading right what we know is that leaders right are supposed to set examples and the politicians are dealing with what we're dealing with, what we're dealing with, allow me to finish. What we're dealing with is an individual who uses his Twitter feed, who uses rallies to indeed incite folks. Language matters.

It does. And what Donald Trump, what Donald Trump is consistently doing and is by design, he is targeting his white base. We have seen too many examples. This is not a one-off. We have seen too many examples since he has been in the Oval Office where he has played these games. And yes, Mellick, he is going to get called out. He is going to be held to account because that's what leaders are supposed to do. We'll come back. We're going to talk about the Black Census Project. We'll also talk about

the life and legacy of Tony Morris. You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Back in a moment. You want to support Roland Martin Unfiltered? Be sure to join our Bring the Funk fan club. Every dollar that you give to us supports our daily digital show. There's only one daily digital show out here that keeps it black and keep it real. As Roland Martin Unfiltered, support the Roland Martin Unfiltered daily digital show by going to RolandMartinUnfiltered.com.

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now. Folks, the Black Census Project is the largest survey of black people since reconstruction. More than 30,000 black people from across the country participated, giving their political beliefs and concerns this is a monumental task that was undertaken by alicia garza principal at black features lab the organization responsible for this survey and she joins us right now alicia glad to have you back on roller mart unfiltered thanks for having me roland so so the reason i think this is important because i love to hear people talk about the black agenda, the black agenda. OK, we need a black agenda. But what you have done is literally talk to black people, communicated with black people who have articulated what they want to see, not just from politicians in Washington, but also in state capitals, counties, cities, school boards.

And so it's far more comprehensive. And that's why I think you by calling a black census project. Yes. So the reason that we did this project, Roland, is because there's too many people talking about black people and what we want for our futures. But there's too little people who are actually asking black people what we want. And so we set out to do just that. We set out to talk to as many black folks as we could from different perspectives, from different geographies, from different experiences.

We talked to black people in rural areas and in urban areas. We talked to black people who are conservative and liberal. We talked to black people who were rich and black people who are living in poverty. We talked to black people who identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and gender nonconforming. And we also talked to black people who were currently and formerly incarcerated. What we wanted to do was present that black America is not a monolith, but that there are some things that connect us, and that is our actual experience of how racism impacts the lives that we want to live. And so from education to health care to wages, we learned a lot about what is keeping black people up at night across the nation. But the most important part, I think, is that We learned a lot about what is keeping Black people up at night across the nation. But the most important part, I think, is that we heard a lot about what Black people want to see

for our futures. And we're really, really excited not just to have completed this survey, which is monumental in and of itself, but we're excited to turn that data into a legislative agenda that really speaks to what more than 30,000 Black people across this country have said that they want to see, not just from their politicians, but from politics, from government, from our democracy, from our economy, and from our society at large. And we think that that is one of the most critical elements to being powerful in 2020 and beyond, having a clear sense of what it is that we're fighting for and being able to fight for that agenda in cities and states across the country,

as well as at the federal level. So how did you organize the data? How did you organize that? How did you sift through all of it to really make it a coherent layout in terms of the issues for people to follow. Because there's some people out there right now who are following us on YouTube, Periscope, and Facebook. I'm sure they're like, man, I've never heard of this Black Senses Project. And so how'd you put all that together to make it easy for folks to follow? Well, we did a few things. We're really proud of the methodology that we enacted. So the first thing is that we teamed up with more than 30 Black-led grassroots organizations across the country, and we resourced to those organizations in a number of different ways to make it possible

for them to participate in this project. We made sure that those organizations had a full-time organizer, that they had iPads and technology to collect survey responses through. We even made sure that in places like the South, where access to broadband is limited, that we built an app so that people could take the survey, and then once they got to Wi-Fi or an internet connection, they could upload the responses into the database that we also custom built and encrypted. We also trained 106 Black organizers across the country, not just to administer the survey, but to learn the tools and tricks of organizing, which is an important political tool moving into the 2020 election cycle and beyond. If we want our communities to be organized, we have to have

the tools to do so. And so we're very, very proud of that. We're very proud of the fact that we moved more than half a million dollars into the field to Black organizations that otherwise would not have had access to those resources. Those people went out into communities that we actually specifically targeted. We wanted to know where throughout the country there were concentrations of Black migrants. We wanted to know where throughout the country were there concentrations of Black people who are currently incarcerated.

We wanted to know where are there concentrations of Black people who are living in rural areas. We wanted to make sure that we didn't miss any of the contours of our communities. And then we teamed up with organizations like Color of Change and Push Black. These are some of the premier online civil rights advocacy organizations. Color of Change with more than a million members online taking action to build power for black people. And we teamed up with them to actually move the census

project online to collect data that way. And then, of course, our partnerships on the ground to be able to collect data face to face offline. What we also did was we partnered with organizations like Demos and Socioeanalitica Research to help us design the survey and to help us analyze the results. And what we knew was that we didn't want to put these reports out. We have so much data, Roland, we could have seriously sent out a phone book, right, with all of the data that we collected. But what we wanted to do was make it useful for our communities. So the first report, which you can find at blackcensus.org, really looks at the most highly politically engaged respondents

from the Black Census and what it is that they want and care about. We also released a report that looked at sexuality and how the data breaks down by people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or other identities. Later this month, we'll be releasing a report on how the results break down by gender. And we're going to keep kind of looking at the different contours of our communities so that people can understand what different groups of Black people are saying about what it is that we want to see. The thing that I think is really important for us to understand, and the thing that surprised us the most, was that even across different experiences, backgrounds, identities, geographies, that there were some really similar things that Black people

care about. We care about low wages that are not enough to maintain a family. We care about the lack of affordable health care. We care about the lack of affordable housing. And we certainly care about rising college costs. I'll be honest, I was presenting this information to a group of legislators just recently, and one legislator who will remain unnamed said, well, these are really obvious answers. And so I think I need to know what are the next five issues. And, you know, to be honest, we have to just say, if they're obvious, then we need to actually do more of a push to make sure that those issues change in Black people's lives. It's not enough to say, oh, we already knew that low wages that aren't enough to support a family

are big issues for Black families. What this data tells us is that Black people are ready to mobilize around the issues that are keeping them up at night. And frankly, there are times when our democracy is out of step with the experiences of what black people are going through every single day. All right. Well, one thing that we're going to be doing here, Roller Barton Unfiltered, is going through this Black Census Project, breaking it issue by issue uh for folks to be able to look at uh into deciphering so alicia garza we certainly appreciate it thanks a lot thanks for having me roland talk soon uh all right absolutely i want to go to my panel kelly i want to go to you uh this is critically important because what it does is it allows us to again look at issues uh comrade senator kamala harris she's actually invoked the Black Census Project several times.

She spoke at Essence Festival. She talked about, she referenced this project in her policy positions. And so I think it's important what they're doing is by being able to articulate with black people how black people feel, then politicians have to be able to address it based upon real data and not just sort of this, you know, kind of how I feel today sort of perspective. And this is what censuses are supposed to do. It's not about, you know, wondering if somebody's a citizen or not and things like that. It's about really understanding the people in which you're counting. And what I like about the Black Census is it does just that. It tells you about your issues.

It asks you what you feel like your issues are. And the data that you gather from that actually helps build policy and initiatives that are geared towards helping us, specifically the Black Caucus. That's what it does for us so the fact that it happened in 2018 I'm really proud of it I just wanted to continue Malik I think you look you're a Republican and I think this is important as well the The question is, will your Republican folks actually pay attention to the Black Census Project and care what black people want and what they need? I think we absolutely should.

It's going to take more of us, you know, more than just... No, no, I didn't say should. I didn't say should. Will they? Well, I don't know what the effort is going to be to actually engage the Republican Party. I don't know what efforts the, I forgot her name, sorry, that they've taken to actually engage. But Malik, you don't have to engage. What it is, it's literally, it's a living document. And the question is, will Republicans, will Republican candidates, will Republican officeholders actually pull it up and seek it out to say, hmm, okay, if I actually care about black people and care about black voters, I need to be looking at the issues black people want to see addressed. I'm asking you, will your party do it?

Well, I can't speak for the party to say what the party is going to do, but I think that it's definitely a good idea for the party. They're not going to do it. Send it to every GOP member. So if Malik is going to be able to answer the question, yes, I think that it's something that the party should do. But you're asking me a hypothetical, is it, will they do it? I don't know, will they do it? But yes, it's something they should pay attention to. But I also think that because we know that there is a wide gap in responsiveness, even in just engagement with the black community and Republicans as a whole, it should, the people, the authors of the census, they should

do a little more to actually engage the party. They may say, hey, no, we're not interested, but I think that there does need to be an additional effort to actually engage them because they're just not going to know that this information is there. I mean, democrats have been following scott scott scott here's this is my point you swear republicans don't use google uh but scott go ahead uh gop has zero interest in the black census project because they don't care about black people and they don't represent a lot of black people so why why would they? If you mailed the Black Census Project to every GOP senator and House of Representatives, I guarantee you no one would read it.

They don't even read the report, the Mueller report. But this project, because it's a living project, is one of the most important projects of our time since the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies was founded by Eddie Williams and the Historymakers Project, which is another living project that every one of your listeners and viewers ought to look up and get their arms around as historymakers. But this census project, whether it's done every year or every several years, right, should be the handbook, one of the second or third handbooks that every Democratic elected official should have, especially every CBC member and every state legislature CBC member should have if they deeply care about their constituents and not their own political survival. So I applaud it,

actually, and someone ought to send it to all elected officials. I agree. All right. Well, again, though, Republicans, it's there if you really care about the blacks. Right. All right, y'all. The Galveston, Texas, Police Department issued an apology on Monday after an image was posted on social media showing two mounted police officers, both white, leading a handcuffed black man behind their horses attached by what looked like a rope or leash.

The police department acknowledged that the incident may have been unnecessarily embarrassing for the man and apologized for the poor judgment of mounted officers P. Broch and A. Smith. Kelly, I'll start with you. Can you use a brain and say, I'm not really a good idea? If they had a brain, they would have said that, hopefully. Maybe their brain is just programmed to be oblivious to history and optics, clearly. When I saw the picture, I was just taken aback because but for the uniforms and the modernization of the backdrop and the cars, you would have thought that this was 50, 60, 70 years ago. Or Django. Or that. Django.

Cops mounted on horses, dragging a black man by a rope. Like, I'm tired of just the blatant racism and the blatant ignorance of it all. Because you can't say that people don't know. This is willful ignorance of the cops, of the people who posted the picture, like nobody in the chain of command and the process to putting things on social media thought, hey, this doesn't look right. Maybe I should take this down and report it before somebody else finds out about it. Nobody did that. So I'm not just blaming the officers. I'm blaming the person who put it up on social media. I'm blaming the person who approved putting that in the social media world.

Like, everybody involved just needs to just not be in their jobs in this regard. Hey, Roland. Can white folks think, I mean, my goodness, we got crazy as a bi-people section. That's the question. I swear. I swear somebody got got you know what this may not look so we on horses and he walking and there's a leash and he walking behind the horses i'm just saying so roland hold on where was the squad car and how far was scott wait a minute

scott scott yeah wait a minute mellick and scott Scott. Go ahead. Roland, I don't know what's going on in your in your home state. You know, this is. Oh, God. I don't know. They've been vacationing in Mississippi. Good one. Good one. But yeah, I mean, obviously this is this is absolutely disgusting. I actually agree with Kelly when I first saw it. I think I saw it just flash online. And I honestly thought that it was something like a movie or something like that, because it's unreal in 2019 that you would have anyone, but especially a black person in any state, you know, being drug around with it, which essentially you may as well just say it was a noose. That's what I thought.

You know, because that's honestly what I thought it was at first. But this was pretty disgusting. You know, it's all the, all the, it's insensitive. It's degrading. You know, if nothing else, it's absolutely degrading. And so whatever needs to happen to discipline the officers, I don't think that they need to be fired for it. Oh, no, you don't. Of course not. No, I don't think I don't think that bad. I don't think they just drug a big road through the street. But obviously, horses and I don't know what part

of Texas that is. I know they do that in New Orleans, but I don't know what part of Texas that is where they I guess they patrol. OK, Gal was first of all, first of all, Gal was in Texas. OK, Gal was 40 minutes from Houston, Texas. And that's actually the hometown of Monique Presley. So I'm quite sure she would have loved being here to debate you on that one. All right, folks, let Scott make your point. Real quick. The officers looked like they were rather enjoying it because they kept looking back.

They had no compunction about themselves but where is the squad car and where was the uh where's the police headquarters and why was this so necessary i mean the gentleman looked angry but i wonder if he was white whether they would have done the same thing maybe that because this was running a close second on crazy ass white people segment you were trying to choose whether you were going to do this or do this other thing that you've got tonight. And the other thing with the cats shooting the Jordans won out. And I agree

with you. But this was a close second. Well, I just gave it away. Alright, folks. We have been of course, we started the show off talking about the life and legacy of Toni Morrison. 88 years old. She passed away yesterday. No cause of death has been given.

So many people have been, tributes have been pouring in all throughout the day on social media. Folks from President Barack Obama to entertainers and others have been talking about the impact of Toni Morrison. One of the folks who knew her well, Susan Taylor, of course, editor-in-chief emeritus of Essence Magazine. She just got off of an airplane. I'm so glad that she could join us on Roland Martin Unfiltered, which is one of the reasons why we have this platform, is because we want to be able to not only celebrate our own in life, but also when they transition.

So, Susan, glad you could join us. Oh, I'm so glad I could be here to add my voice to a person who, oh, gosh, I loved it beyond the telling, Toni Morrison. So, you know, it was so interesting in the beginning of her career. Essence, we worked together so much. Marsha Gillespie was editor-in-chief at the time. And as the years progressed and Toni Morrison became more and more famous, and then we developed the Essence Awards, we wanted to give her an award. And every year we would send letters and we would get rejections. How could this happen?

David Dinkins becomes mayor of New York City. And for the first time, I'm invited to Gracie Mansion, the mayor's home. And Toni Morrison is at the private dinner. So, of course, I couldn't wait to go over to her role and say, how could you not accept the Essence Award? We cannot honor any other authors other than Gwendolyn Brooks until you receive it. She didn't even know what I was speaking about. And I'll never forget that because it's what happens when we have people outside of our race who represent us and don't have respect for black media.

So whomever was taking her messages, they weren't even passing it along. She had no idea that for maybe two or three years we were trying to honor her. So Toni Morrison was a – it's hard to even speak about her in the past, but just a brilliant and humorous, you know, witty, witty wonder of a human being. And I just, just sort of living with every moment that I spent with her, along with Essence editors. I feel so fortunate. Susan, when people talk about her writing, they talk about her impact, this was an unapologetic black woman.

She loved us. She loved us. And, you know, the folks in the industry tried to redirect her, the reviews, as anyone knows who's seen the film. The documentary, we're just thanking God this documentary was done. You know, just weeks before her passing did it come out. And they tried to really marginalize her and minimize what it was she was doing, telling our stories from our perspective, from her perspective. And what Toni, I think, did so brilliantly, she wasn't a fast writer. I remember a wisdom she shared with me that I'll never forget, and I pass it along to anyone who wants to write. Toni Morrison said, writing is rewriting. It's rewriting again and again and again. It's polishing, you know, until it's smooth and it flows, and to hear her speak about her own writing with such brilliance and confidence just took my breath away.

One of the things that also I think is important, you talked about when she was an editor at Random House, she used her position to ensure that another generation of writers got an opportunity. She held the door open for others. She held the door open for others she held the door open for writers she made sure that works that would not have been published elsewhere were published and available and she stayed in touch with the black press we had access to everything that was that was flowing through there she was really a life changer, a game changer. And what she did with language, you know,

just going back and reading her work as I began doing a few years ago, and just knowing with Tony, you go back to the same page again and again and again. Wait a minute. What did she say and how did she say it? And not complex not you know in any way circuitous just brilliantly boldly clearly stated tony morrison was a master and i don't use that term lightly she was a master and mastery is really difficult to achieve. Mastery takes love, love of the craft, a willingness to receive honest criticism, critique, and go back and polish and do it over.

And I just said this to a young person today in Atlanta, here now in New York City, that when you're in the digital world, it's here today and it's gone tomorrow, but in the hard copy world, when you're in the digital world, it's here today and it's gone tomorrow. But in the hard copy world, when you're writing a book, know that it's there forever. And for that, I'm grateful today because we have Toni Morrison forever. Generations to come certainly do too. Susan Taylor, always great to have you here on Roland Martin Unfiltered. Thanks a bunch. Love you so much, Roland Martin.

Thank you, and thank you for reaching out to me today. Love you as well, Susan. Thanks a lot. Folks, our good friend Dr. Gregory Carr, Chair of the Department of Afro-American Studies at Howard University, does an annual trip with Howard students to Egypt. And he posted this video on social media earlier where they honored the great Toni Morrison on their trip there in Egypt We can get here close. She's the daughter of the chef.

Rather than me pour this libation, yeah, she just made transition. I told them, that's one of the reasons. I told them that we would do this. So it's really up to y'all. If you to say a couple of words and then we'll keep going. Thank you. No, I figured it just felt better that those of you who probably are closer to each other in age, I didn't know Ms. Morrison well, I met her a few times. She's very good friends with Dr. Traylor.

I don't think any of y'all have Ellen and Traylor. They taught freshman comp at Howard together. That's before she went off to work at Randall. But I'm not going to say anything else. If any of y'all have some words, and you go out there, if you want to start, if anybody wants to say anything,

then we'll continue. But Sashat and Jehudi, the semblance of writing, particularly Sashat, she's the daughter of Sashat, and she's a new ancestor, so we figured we would do this. The reason why is that when you read that up there,

Shashat's titles are Nebet Seshu, that is, she's the lady of writings. She's the lady of writing. And then Henut Mejat, she's the mistress of the book. And then it says, It's like, I have established your annals, like your archives. For Ahau M. Renpu, I have established your archives for millions of years. So it's like you write and the legacy that you leave in writing is for eternity. And that is Toni Morrison. Thank you. something that you said, mentioning archives and thinking about her working in my archives and our archives.

Folks, we're going to end our show this way. I want to get the thoughts of our panel to share their thoughts, if they have any, regarding Toni Morrison. Kelly, I'll start with you. She was more than a force to be reckoned with. She was the force itself. I remember a couple years ago, I heard her speak in Baltimore, and you were just kind of mesmerized and taken in with her words and her demeanor and the way she said things and the way she thought. And as someone who does write, as someone who, you know,

related to her on so many levels, the fact that there was somebody before me who literally wrote on paper how I think in real life, it validated my existence. It validated how I navigate the world as a black woman. And for that, I will be eternally grateful. Mellon? It's sad. We know that this is life and people do pass away. But when I think of even Maya Angelou and Octavia Butler, people that I actually grew up reading, and so you just know that they're not going to be, you know, with us in person, you know, yes, in spirit. But the good thing is that with Toni Morrison, she's left a line, a treasure trove of things that we will be able to just refer back to in the future because it's her writing. It's her own writing. And we know that that never goes away.

Just really sad. Just really sad. Yeah, we Scott. Yeah yeah we lost the giant for sure but she was she was a gifted writer and you said she was unapologetically black she celebrated her blackness in her writing and with her recognitions and the prizes she got she was tickled pink and enjoyed being celebrated as a writer that happened to be black, but was fearless in her writing in Blue Eye or Gifted Eye, the first. The bluest eye. The blued eye, the most blue eye.

The bluest eye. The bluest eye, if you will. And because of that, she was rewarded. And so she was a Howard graduate. And what most people don't know is that Toni Morrison did, was a editor for Random House when there were no black editors whatsoever. And so she uplifted black writers to a place at a time when they normally would not have been discovered, but she fought for them internally. And it was a real struggle for her to leave being an editor and to do writing on her own. And her first novel really didn't sell well the first time.

It didn't. It had modest sales, apparently. But there was another black editor and publisher who really believed in her and so really pushed it. And then all of us were turned on to the melodic writing of Toni Morrison so God bless her rest in power Toni. Folks Toni Morrison of course used the power of the pen to be able to speak to a world that necessarily did not see her as a full American. That goes to show you how important media matters, what she projected through her novels, what she had to say in her essays was just as powerful for a generation of folks as James Baldwin,

as Lorraine Hansberry, as Langston Hughes, as Paul Lawrence Dunbar, and so many others. What it also says to people today is that when you are in control of your narrative, when you are in control of your own story, then you are impacting people in a profound way. I can't tell you how many people have stopped me and talked about what it means when they watch this show, when they watch TV one or saw me on CNN, they tell you, man, what you had to say and what you did. Why is all of that so important? It's because we have to understand that media has the ability to control and shape and construct what we see. Everybody is talking about the commentary that Professor Eddie Glaude gave on Nicole Wallace's show, talking about the history of white supremacy and where we stand.

Last I checked on Twitter, it has 3.6 million views. What Eddie laid out, we've heard from so many others as well. Why am I saying all of this? Because if there is no place to speak your truth, then who will be able to hear your truth? We can't always be in a position where we're asking somebody else, can I? Can I go cover this story? Can I tell this? Can I do this interview? Can I do this one on one? Can I shape this? Because then that means that somebody else is controlling our destiny.

I'm here at the National Association of Black Journalists Convention. Nineteen eighty five. Tony Morrison was invited to address this convention. What is important is that we have truth seekers, but also truth tellers. And that means we have to have people who care enough about the written word. People who are authors, who are newspaper columnists, who are journalists, who are in television, who are in radio, who run websites, who understand the power that we wield because we have the ability to communicate with an audience. Toni Morrison did that. She changed and touched a whole new generation of writers, people today who never even met

her are impacted by her writings. We must understand, like the nation's first black newspaper wrote in march of 1827 we wish to plead our own cause to long have others spoken for us tony morrison's writing will be writing her novels will be with us for eternity she is no longer here she has transitioned but what we have to understand is what legacy will you leave? Will folks remember what you have to say and what you did? That to me is the measure whether somebody lived a full and successful life. I want to thank all of you for watching Roland Martin Unfiltered broadcasting live from Miami. I want to thank Malik, Scott, and Kelly for joining me on my panel today. Tomorrow, folks here in Miami, I'm going to be having a Q&A with Tamron Hall talking about what she went

through when NBC hired Megyn Kelly, removing her off today's show and how she is preparing to launch her own nationally daytime syndicated talk show next month. And so we're going to be live streaming that here from Miami. And so I look forward to you watching that conversation with Tamron Hall. We also on Thursday, we live stream in my conversation with Tom Joyner and Sybil Wilkes talking about what's next for them. Tom is retiring at the end of this year. What will Sybil be doing next? We'll be talking about the future of black radio as well. Folks is all about again controlling our own destiny we also want you to support what we do your dollars through our bring the funk fan club make it

possible for us to be able to do this show to take it on the road to be able to share people all across the country but also across the globe so do me a favor go to rolandmartinunfiltered.com join our bring the funk fan club because we want you to be a part of what we do. To the folks who gave today while we're broadcasting on YouTube, I certainly appreciate that. Thank you so very much. And the last point is this. If you want to understand why you have to create your own platform, we launched this show a year ago. So on September 4th, okay, today's August 6th. A year ago on September 4th, we launched this show. I think we had about 170,000 YouTube subscribers. We hadn't really done a lot with it, but you know,

we put some stuff on folks because of you, we have double our audience. We right now staying at 340,523 subscribers on our YouTube channel. We haven't even, we still got a little under a month left. That means that when you build it, they will come. And we appreciate all of you to, for who support us. And so please support us financially as well. Roland Martin unfiltered.com. All right, folks, I got to go. You have a great one. This is an iHeart podcast