#RolandMartinUnfiltered - #AhmaudArbery's killers indicted; Primary recap; Fmr BET owner Bob Johnson: Time for a 3rd party

Episode Date: June 27, 2020

6.24.20 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: The 3 men who killed #AhmaudArbery have been indicted; Primary recap; Milwaukee Police officer responsible for the death of Joel Acevedo had his first court appearance; Valdosta, Georgia police sued for $700k in an excessive force case; Former BET owner Bob Johnson says it's time for a 3rd independent political party. Support #RolandMartinUnfiltered via the Cash App ☛ https://cash.app/$rmunfiltered or via PayPal ☛https://www.paypal.me/rmartcinunfiltered #RolandMartinUnfiltered Partner: Ceek Be the first to own the world's first 4D, 360 Audio Headphones and mobile VR Headset. Check it out on www.ceek.com and use the promo code RMVIP2020 - The Roland S. Martin YouTube channel is a news reporting site covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. self. Self-love made me a better dad because I realized my worth. Never stop being a dad. That's dedication. Find out more at fatherhood.gov. Brought to you by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council. I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Clayton English.

I'm Greg Lott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This kind of starts that a little bit, man. We met them at their homes. We met them at their recording studios. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them.

It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Today is Wednesday, June 24th, 2020. Coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered, breaking news.

The three white men who killed Ahmaud Arbery have been indicted by a grand jury. We'll give you the details. We'll also look at some results of some of the primary races we've been watching. Congressional Black Caucus will be adding members to their roles. A Milwaukee police officer responsible for the death of a man there had his first court appearance today. We'll tell you exactly what happened in Valdosta, Georgia. Black man body slammed to the ground by cops.

He's suing now for $700,000 for excessive force. Wait until you see this shocking video. Plus, I'll talk with former BET owner and billionaire Bob Johnson. He says black folks need a third independent political party. Really? Also, folks, black men talk about the power of the vote. That's a two-hour special we're doing also with the National Coalition of Black Civic Participation. It's time to bring the funk and Roland Martin unfiltered. Let's go. He's got it.

Whatever the piss, he's on it. Whatever it is, he's got the scoop, the fact, the fine. And when it breaks, he's right on time. And it's Roland. Best believe he's knowing. Putting it down from sports to news to politics. With entertainment just for kicks He's rolling with Sunco-Roro, y'all

It's rolling, Martin, yeah Rolling with Roland now He's funky, he's fresh, he's real The best you know, he's funky, he's fresh, he's real, the best you know, he's rolling. Martin. Martin. A Georgia grand jury has indicted Travis McMichael, Grant McMichael, and William Bryan on malice and felony murder charges in the February 23rd murder of Ahmaud Arbery. The indictment returned today formally charges each of the three defendants with nine counts, malice murder, felony murder,

four counts, aggravated assault, two counts, false imprisonment, and criminal attempt to commit false imprisonment. We certainly have been covering this story and we'll give you the latest on exactly what happens in that case. It is not a shock there. Of course, once the Georgia Bureau of Investigation got involved and then led the arrest of those three, joining me right now is A. Scott Bolden, former chair of National Bar Association Political Action Committee, Robert Petillo, executive director of Rainbow Push Coalition Peachtree Street Project, Lawn Victoria Burke, who writes for NNPA. Robert, I want to start with you there in Georgia. Again, this is a stark contrast to those first three district attorneys who pretty

much sat on this case. This case has picked up steam since the GBI took it over. Absolutely. And I think what was the most important was that video coming out. Once you started looking into the inconsistencies and the stories of the McMichaels, also the statements from the police officers who responded at the scene stating that they wanted, Travis McMichael stood over the body and said a racial slur effing n-word to the dead body of Mr. Aubrey. I think with that information being available, that there was no way this was coming back from a grand jury without an indictment. The next steps will be the preliminary hearing in Georgia. But because we have a statewide judicial emergency due to coronavirus, after the preliminary hearing, it's an unknown at this time what the timetable for trial will be. This, of course, Scott, again, is an important case. Bottom line is once you got it out of the hands of those local DAs who are very close to the McMichaels. You saw how justice should work.

Yeah, you certainly did. And the Georgia Bureau of Investigation is one of the best state investigation teams out there, based on my experience. The indictments were almost presumed, and now that you have them. But look for the defense of these individuals to try to move this case out of their county. It's being prosecuted by another county prosecutor. And so we'll have to stay vigilant. My colleague is right. We've got this emergency with COVID, and it looks like we're going to be looking at a second round. But at the same time, there's a lot of work to be done if the

judiciary is down because of COVID and look for the pressure to stay on to develop the tightest case, the best case, and a case whereby you can pick a fair and impartial jury and bring these convictions in the state of Georgia. So we'll have to stay tuned for it. But this wasn't really a lot of news. This was just confirmation news today. And Lauren, this is exactly what happens when you have a public pressure. When that video came to light, bottom line is that's what changed this entire story. And again, action should be taken against those particular police officers because they're seeing those D.A.'s because their lack of action was shocking, stunning, and abomination. Oh, it was absolutely ridiculous.

As Robert already said, the video was everything. Without the video, we wouldn't be sitting here. Without the video, this would not have gone viral. I've known about it. News organizations would not have flooded in and repeated and replayed that video over and over again. So the video was absolutely everything. Absolutely. And so we're seeing more and more of these cases where video plays a critical role in terms of us being able to see what happens. Speaking of that, let's talk about this video.

Antonio Smith is suing the city of Valdosta in Georgia due to excessive force claims stemming from a February 8th incident involving the Valdosta Police Department. Watch this video. racist songs right here next to the LRA? I told them what I was doing. I was waiting for my sister to rest in the union and meet somebody. I always go there and get rest in the union, and they know me. Yes, I got my ID. What are you guys doing? We're out here investigating suspicious activities. Well, I'm not doing anything.

I've been around cameras, so I ain't been doing nothing. So what were you doing over there at the Walgreens? I'm waiting for rest in the union. Call my sister right now. She's in Florida. You have a cell phone call. Call her.

Call my sister in Florida. Don't do this. What are you doing? Oh, my God! What are you doing? Put your hands behind your back. Put your hands. What are you doing?

Oh, Jesus. Oh, my God. Oh, please. I'm going to kill this thing. Oh, my God. Oh, please. I'm going to kill these things. Oh, my God. Jesus. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

Stop. Oh, my God. Yeah, he might be broke. Oh, Jesus. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Relax.

Relax. Relax. Oh, my God. Oh, Jesus. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Yeah, relax, relax. Oh my God! Oh Jesus! Oh my God! Oh my God! Please, please sir! Oh God!

Oh! I thought it was one on one. No, that's why I was trying to figure out. No, because there's two different people. That's why I was trying to figure out if I had missed something, he told me to put his hands behind his back. Because they pointed this guy out, too. The people at the store pointed him out, also.

Don't look at y'all, okay? Don't look at y'all. Okay, folks, when you see the rest of that video, you will actually see the officer who grabbed him from around his waist and body slammed him. Literally say, what do you mean we got the wrong guy? Did you check his I.D.? Scott, watching that whole video is crazy. And there was no need for the officer who walks up. What you do is you walk up, you listen to the other officer, you figure out what's going on.

No, he immediately walks up, grabs the guy, put your hand behind your back, and then puts his arms and body slams him, breaking the guy's wrist. Unbelievable. That is a video that ought to be used for the textbook on what not to do in a de-escalation or no-escalation situation. They were questioning. There were two people that had been pointed out. This officer that walked up did not confer with the other officers who were simply having a conversation with this gentleman. The gentleman gave him his sister, his ID, gave him his sister's information and said, call my sister. I was waiting for Western Union. They know me.

The gentleman had walked up, didn't talk to anybody, didn't hear the conversation, then body slams him and puts cuffs on him, breaking his ribs. Are you kidding me? Why was any of that necessary? Robert, when you actually. This was a nonviolent. This was a nonviolentviolent encounter and he didn't even have any information. Robert. Completely wrong. Robert, you see the full video. They realize, oh, shit, what did we just do?

I mean, it's like all the opposite. They quickly realize and there's this look like, okay, like, what do we do? Guess what? You're on candid camera. You know, they look like some little kids when they broke a toy trying to figure out what to tell their mother. Like, oh, God, we broke this one too bad. I think he's actually hurt. And I can't stand the fact that this is what second class citizenship looks like. This is the good old fashioned Nazi Germany, apartheid South Africa.

Show me your papers, where are you going, what are you doing? It doesn't matter that you're just an American citizen minding your own business, not accused of a crime, not in hot pursuit, not posing any violent threat. All this man was doing was walking down the street, and within minutes he's surrounded by four white police officers being body slammed to the ground. And guess what? If that risk was not broken, this would just go down as another police interaction. This probably wouldn't have gone into a police report because there will be no complaint

because so many people in our community are used to excessive force, are used to police brutality. And it's only now that we're starting to stand up and fight back against it. But Robert, they have a right to detain you, to investigate crime. They do. What does body slamming and putting him in handcuffs have to do with investigating and detaining him? Absolutely

nothing. They were completely dead wrong here. And in fact, Lauren, again, the guy goes, okay, there were two people here. This is where you simply do good policing. That is check his ID. There's another guy. You check him who they're talking about.

But this is, Lauren, what people, black people keep talking about. Like automatically cops go from zero to 100 and you go immediately to excessive force. And guess who really should be pissed off? If you're white in Valdosta, Georgia, Lauren, you should be mad as hell because you're about to pay some serious money because of these idiotic cops. Exactly. And what they'll do is obviously they'll have some sort of a payout. This is the reason why we need, I think, some national federal standards for police. As my nephew likes to say, who used to be a police officer in Virginia Beach, you know, every cop is their own police precinct. I mean,

everybody can just have their own standards. All these precincts can have their own, all these departments can have their own standards. And obviously there's no set of standards one way or the other that would prevent stupidity, but at least you would have a certain baseline standard for this profession, which of course doesn't exist today. I don't know whether, I have to look at the video to see if this is true, but it looked like the guy that body slammed him was the sergeant, which would be even more frightening of course because he would be the highest ranking officer there. And again, and not only that, this is a huge, not only that, this is a

huge guy. And so now, I mean, so not only are you body slamming him, all your weight is also going on top of this guy. And it's like that, that it's like that dude was just waiting to body slam. It was kind of like, all right. It's like, it's like Robert, he was like, I want to practice my wrestling move right now. I was watching the WWE and I want to practice it right now. And this is what we mean by this lack of humanity, this lack of human decency, this second class citizenship that many of us are under because it's that exact mentality in law enforcement that I don't need to talk to this person. I don't need to listen to them. First thing, first handcuff them, body slam them in a completely nonviolent situation.

And then we'll talk to them after that. The amount of abuse, the amount of literal and physical terrorism that is exhibited and experienced by African American people in this country in jails and during police encounters, only the ones that are on video are the ones that we really pay attention and know about. But for years, for generations, African American men have been talking about these things. I think it's finally time to bring these to light and start doing real reforms that will help. We've got to get rid of qualified immunity.

That officer needs to pay his bill himself. We've got to go after his pension fund, go after his retirement, get his house, get his boat, get his kid's college fund, and then he'll think twice about body slamming people. So we need real systemic reforms. All right, folks. He's got qualified immunity.

Well, but guess what? That officer will protect himself in qualified immunity. Well, that's why they're about to pay up as well. Folks, let's go to Milwaukee, where Michael Mattioli has been charged with first-degree reckless homicide in the death of 25-year-old Joel Acevedo. Mattioli, who was off-d duty at the time of the altercation,

placed Acevedo in a fatal chokehold. A week later, Acevedo died of his injuries. Ben Crump joined the legal team in representing Joel Acevedo's family. Attorney Crump spoke at the rally that was held outside of the Milwaukee County Courthouse today. Here is what he said. Before I say anything, Attorney Lamar, I want the people to join me in letting the world know why we're here today. And the reason, brothers and sisters, we are here today is because Your health rights matter. Your health rights matter. Your health rights matter.

Your health rights matter. Because when Attorney Lamar called me, he said, Attorney Crump, this is very similar to the horrific killing of George Floyd. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. And I said, well, do they have a video?

Attorney Lamar said, yeah, they have the video, but they won't release it. Because if they release it, we will see that this was just like the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota. And so,

I am here to say to all the government officials who are supposed to be the advocates for justice, we don't need you to say any more.

All we need you to do is release the video. I understand now that Bernadette and Jose were right when they called me on the telephone

that this is just like George Floyd when Attorney Crump, they choked him even longer than they suffocated George Floyd. Go to my iPad. Here's another case. I'm going to add this to this one here. This is a tweet. Alvin Cole, a black teenager, was shot five times while fleeing police earlier this year. He was the third person to be killed by the same police officer in five years in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. Lauren, these two particular cases here, one of them a chokehold death. They keep saying release the video.

There's a reason why police departments don't like releasing the video. But this is also why, and I'm not saying that they are somehow the panacea. This is why body cameras must be completely mandatory on every police officer in this country. Yeah, obviously, when you see the video come out right away, you know that the police think that the video makes them look good. And, you know, when the video does come out, that the video makes them look good. And you know when the video doesn't come out that the video is problematic. Not only does the body cameras need to be mandatory, but it needs to be an act of obstruction of justice if they're turned off or if they're, quote, broken.

You know, we already saw the Chicago Police Department has perfected the fine art of always having the body camera off when something happens that turns out to be a police brutality incident. It's just amazing how that happens. But police really occupy, I think, under the law, a special class right now. They can sort of get away with almost anything, frankly. And I think that the anticipation moving forward is that they're going to have that power to do anything they want to anybody, anytime, anyplace. That's what their expectation is. That's what they're going to fight for. That's what they're going to lobby for. And that's exactly what we need to change. Robert, this is again, one of those cases

you have, you have these police officers. In fact, that was one cop, uh, in, I forgot what city who said, I don't care what they say. I am going to keep using a chokehold to save my life. You know what, if that, and I think that person was a police union president, that person should be immediately taken off the streets. Yes, I think what we have to think about is the fact that we still use medieval methods in policing. What other part of American life is actual physical violence part of the job? There is no law that you can break in America where the punishment is a chokehold. There is no law that you can break in America where the punishment is

being beaten with a stick by a law enforcement officer. There's no punishment in America or no crime that you can commit where you get shot by a firing squad of officers prior to trial. So if the way that we are arresting people is fundamentally more violent and more destructive than the actual sentence that you get if you are convicted, then we are doing policing wrong. We have to be looking at 21st century methods of policing and not medieval methods. Scott? Yeah, this training piece is really important because it seems like the police, the way they're processing their training, this cannot be correct, that in order to get you to comply, whether it's being arrested, handcuffed, resisting,

running, or struggling with the police, that they're free to use deadly force. We know under Tennessee v. Garner from 1982, the Supreme Court has said it is illegal and unlawful, a violation of your Fourth Amendment right to shoot a nonviolent fleeing felon, let alone someone you think's committed a misdemeanor. But in every one of these videos you break down, you see the police ultimately using unnecessary force or deadly force just to get their command complied with. That can't be proper training. There's got to be some judgment. And again, I always ask you on this show, who's giving these people guns and badges and uniforms with the American flag on their shoulder? We got to stop that before you even get into retraining or community policing or better policing.

Absolutely. Speaking of policing, folks, Democrats today in the United States Senate blocked Senator Tim Scott's police reform bill. He was not too happy. This is what he said on the Senate floor. Here's the truth. In Detroit, Atlanta, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, all these cities could have banned chokeholds themselves. They could have increased the police reporting themselves. They could have more data information themselves.

They could have de-escalation training themselves. They could have duty to intervene themselves. Minneapolis as well. All these communities have been run by Democrats for decades. Decades. What is the ROI for the poorest people in this nation? And I don't blame them. I blame an elite political class

with billions of dollars to do whatever they want to do and look at the results for the poorest, most vulnerable people in our nation. I'm willing to compete for their vote. Are you? Robert, did he somehow forget you have Georgia Republicans who are in control of the state legislature?

You have the previous governor of Illinois was Republican. Now you have a Democrat. I mean, we can go down the line, but does he also realize contracts, police contracts that happen? And then who do they typically endorse in races? See, this is why to me this whole police reform debate is a joke when you want to frame this as a Republican versus a Democrat deal. No, this is a state of mind in America where we're going to protect police at all costs, regardless of party. You're correct. And what I do think we have to do is fight this on a multilateral level. If there's anything to take from what Tim Scott said, it's that, look, on your local level, instead of worrying about what's going on in Washington, D.C., what can you do to get your police department, to get your mayor, to get your city council, your county commission, your alderman, what can you do to get those people who are closest to you electorally to change the law, to change the rules, to change the regulations. We saw in Chicago, which is a heavily Democratic city, when Laquan McDonald was killed, we saw the

exact same Jim Crow tactics from the police department that you'll see in the darkest part of Mississippi. So let's work on making changes on the local level, and we'll let the national parties work themselves out. But there are things you can do to persuade the city council person who lives on your block to make changes that will benefit yourself and your community. But here's the deal, here's the deal. Hold on, hold on. Here's the deal, Lauren, that what you're dealing with here. Democrats blocked it because they said,

one, you had absolutely no discussion among the Senate Judiciary Committee. You didn't have any debate. You didn't have where typically these bills are worked out in committee. Republicans then complain, well, no, why won't you allow debate on the floor? So essentially what they wanted the Democrats to do was to vote on closure to allow it to move forward and then have a debate. But Democrats are saying, why in the hell would we do that? Because once we get the pass closure, we got no control on what happens after that. Their leverage is in this vote. Yeah, exactly right. I mean, let's be real.

The Republicans are not serious about this issue. Their position effectively is that the police should be able to do whatever they want to whomever they want. The constituencies that Republicans generally represent are not disproportionately impacted by the mistakes that police make. I'm not saying the Democratic Party has been great at figuring that out because they haven't. I mean, we sat there and stopped for 12 years and Hillary Clinton and Schumer said absolutely nothing about that. Obvious Fourth Amendment violation. But at the same time, you know, this irritating, annoying talking point that Tim Scott brought out with regard to state, you know, do things to people who are disadvantaged. I mean, come on, man. Really? South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana. He doesn't really want to play that game. And the other problem is that Tim Scott, I mean, at some point you got to get real with reality and yourself, regardless of party. And Tim Scott's always going to be caught in this

vortex because he understands that racism exists. He understands that there's got to be something that changes. But his party is completely against that. He's trying to thread this needle of being friends with his party and getting something real done on policing and then looking at these videos come out week after week, year after year, decade after decade. You cannot thread that needle.

At some point, you have to admit what is true. And he doesn't want to do that. He wants to play this game. Scott, here's a tweet from Chuck Grassley. Go to my iPad. Democrats block opening debate on police reform, preventing chance to offer amendments and publicly negotiate.

Senator Tim Scott offered to work with Dems on amendments they say they want, but they said no. Now they demand to negotiate behind closed doors, not how Senate should work. What the hell is he talking about? This is a dude who is the Senate Judiciary Committee chair. That's exactly how it works. Not only that, this whole deal is like, no, no, we should debate in public. Are you serious?

It's like, stop. You're not fooling anybody. Negotiation in the Senate aren't all on C-SPAN. But you serious? It's like, stop. You're not fooling anybody. Negotiation in the Senate aren't all on C-SPAN. But guess what? As Senator Kamala Harris said, the Senate Judiciary Committee, that's a public hearing. It's public. No, but they don't want it actually there. And so my deal is this here. If you're actually serious about a bill, why wouldn't you say let's negotiate it back and forth and then put it on the floor? Well, because they know that negotiation is going to be a problem for them. They know a public and private negotiation because that bill doesn't go far enough. It doesn't fix the problem. It puts a bandaid over it. It doesn't fix the problem. It puts a Band-Aid over it. It doesn't eliminate qualified

immunity. It doesn't change the standard from reasonable force to necessary force. It doesn't go as far as the Democratic version in the House. And that's where you really want to confront the problem. The Republicans aren't serious about this. They know they're politically in trouble. They need those police unions. So it's just not going to work. And when you start the debate that it's democratic liberals and elitists that are the problem in urban cities, even if though you're in a red state, you're not going to move the ball forward because it's not a red problem or a blue problem, a black problem or a white problem. It's a blue problem. It's a humanity problem that has to stop. And if you talk about it in human terms, you can get to fixing this.

If you talk about it in political terms, you're going to only get a political stalemate and all black lives don't matter. Any life doesn't matter when you're putting us at risk of the police. And we're always put at risk when the police engage us as black men and black women. And that's the problem. All right, folks, let's talk about last night, what took place in the election front. It is too close to call in Kentucky. They're still counting the ballots in the race for the Democratic nomination for the Senate between Amy McGrath and Charles Booker. Again, of course, again, right now, you know, Booker is back down.

He of course, he sued trying to keep the polls open. There was one injunction. They kept them open till 630. But of course, many of his supporters believe that having only 200 polling locations, the entire state actually hurt him. Big thing that we saw yesterday took place in New York, where long term Democrat Elliot Engel bounced, crushed by an African-American, Jamil Bowman. We had him on the show, just crushed. He got Engel, got the support of the Congressional Black Caucus Political Action Committee. But it reminds me of the race with Ayanna Pressley. She ran against a long term incumbent, another white male.

She beat him. And the CBC PAC actually backed that incumbent. Also, we see in other races as well where you have another African-American who won a race, Mondrian Jones. We also have Richie Torres, who is leading in that particular race over Mike Blake, an African-American. Some 40,000 ballots are still outstanding. And so a lot of different things happening there. We also, of course, in Virginia, of course, Dr. Webb, we had him on the show. He blew away with the Democratic nomination. Democrats could

pick up that seat right there. Robert, you talk about, again, a strong showing last night. And it's very interesting. People keep saying, oh, my God, progressives are dominating. But the reality is that is here. It depends on the race that you're running in where you have some races where Democrats are winning. They are centrist. There's some where you have people who are progressive. That's what you're seeing here. But it's also people who know how to run these local congressional races are local. That's what they are. Engel got nailed by his opponent by saying, dude, how can you represent a district in New York when you've actually lived in Virginia for 27 years? That was the exact same argument AOC used against Joe Crowley when she beat him.

You're absolutely correct. And one of the big things I think we're seeing is that as the party bosses in the states lose power, what we saw for years were complicated primary systems inside baseball state and local parties keep African-American candidates out of races that they had the opportunity to win. Now that those systems are starting to break apart within Democratic primaries and state parties, we're seeing more people open up, and we're actually seeing a reflection of what the people of those districts want instead of what the party bosses want. It was less than 10 years ago right here in Georgia where it was nearly impossible for a black person to run for statewide office without the endorsement of somebody from South Georgia, somebody from Dublin or Oglethorpe, somewhere like that. We're finally seeing these things open up. I think it's good for

our democracy to have the actual voices of the people heard. But it's not just that. It's not just that, Scott. Last night, a 24-year-old candidate, a Republican who was running to take the seat of Mark Meadows in North Carolina, he had his handpicked person. In fact, what he did was he resigned at the last second to allow this woman, the only person to actually jump in the race, block others out. She got crushed by him last night. And Donald Trump backed the establishment candidate, this 24-year-old kid, beat them all, blew them away. Yeah, different dynamic. This was a young kid. He was physically challenged from an accident, very telegenic and did not have Trump support, was a Trump supporter,

but ran on conservative traditional views and issues on his agenda. And the voters there said they wanted change. That's interesting to watch because they rejected Trump. They've rejected Trump before, but he's being trounced in the polls over COVID and criminal justice reform or COVID and the racial justice issues that he won't respond to. And the Democratic side, something really is happening with Justice Democrats. That's the organization that backed AOC. That's the organization that backed AOC. That's the organization that backed this other gentleman in New York that beat Ingo. They're not only raising money, they pick issues, exploit that issue in the Democratic primary

to the opposition in the primary. And then they organize voters and organize the community behind them, whereby they figured out how to win these local races. You see AOC, you see Ingo getting beat. You're going to see that in other parts of the country where they're heavily Democratic centers, that they can exploit the incumbency that's been there for 10, 20, 30 years and gotten comfortable with leadership, but forgotten to be with the people and get organized and campaign in these local elections. We're going to see more of this, I think, because America and these communities are ready for change. And AOC and Justice Democrats provide that change and make them believe again. Lauren, this is real simple. Nobody's guaranteed to a

seat. If you want, look, if you want to maintain your seat You got a run Congress from the Congresswoman Yvette Clark, you know almost got beat two years ago Look, she gets what she worked it last night. She dispatched the people who running against her This is what happens this whole idea if you're a Democrat or Republican Oh my god, how I mean Ingle Ingle was personally offended Then he actually had competition. And I'm like, I'm sorry. I don't care who you are. Let me let me be real clear, y'all. I don't care who you are. House seats, all house seats are up every two years of the 435 members of the house. Nobody is guaranteed a seat. You must run, Lauren.

Right, yeah, I think that that's fairly obvious. I mean, Carolyn Maloney is the other one that's out there that we still don't know the result. I do think it matters. She's hanging on by a thread. Yeah, it matters who exactly we're talking about. And in the case of New York, where we are, it's very much easier in New York, you know where we are, it's very, very much easier

in New York for a progressive candidate to win and challenge a long term incumbent. In the case of Joe Crowley and Elliot Engel, that was just really easy. I mean, Elliot Engel, he had as his legal address, Potomac, Maryland. He just can kidding with that. That's kind of stupid. Who let that happen? That's kind of stupid. Look, all I'm saying is this here. People get offended. People get offended.

They get offended, Lauren, when people are running. I'm sorry. You got to run. Okay? And guess what? If you get challenged, state your record, go out there and you beat them or you might lose. But you still have to run. Right. Right. I guess you're 20 points down. I just don't get this whole how I still get this whole how dare you run against me?

Well, I think for the Watergate class, which Elliot Engel is probably from the Watergate class, there's sort of this idea that you came in because of fairly good reasons, obviously, Richard Nixon. But the older members, you know, there's sort of a there's always been sort of an understood, you know, I don't want to say agreement. It's sort of an understood thing in their head that I'm the incumbent and so I'm here. But we live in a political world that's completely different, obviously, from the 1970s. So AOC coming in and now Jamal Bowman, I mean, they are, to me, those were fairly easy races because the people that they beat had just completely checked out of the district. And in the case of Yvette Clark, of course, that didn't happen because she's there and her mother has a legacy and it's the seat of Shirley Chisholm. It's a little bit easier to hang on to. But

it is a seat thing that you don't see very often at all. Bottom line is, in Cummins, you aren't guaranteed seats. All right, folks, let's talk about this. I'm going to deal with this one issue here that we have been seeing. Over the weekend, protesters brought down two Confederate statues on the grounds of the North Carolina Capitol building in downtown Raleigh. Well, as a result, Governor Roy Cooper ordered the rest of the Confederate statues at the Capitol removed. Well, this week, the state legislature, Republicans put a pause on discussions of funding monuments to African-Americans on the Capitol grounds and another block downtown. Now, this is a week after $4 million in funding for the proposed monuments passed the Senate easily in a surprise vote.

The money was said to be discussed in the House committee, but was pulled from the agenda. We're seeing this all around the country. We saw a statue of John Calhoun coming down in South Carolina. We saw what happened in the nation's capital. We're seeing this all around the country where Americans are confronting the images of white supremacy. You have Donald Trump who wants to protect these monuments on federal grounds, saying, put those folks in jail and give them long prison time. Isn't it amazing how hyped he is about defending Confederate statues? You have the Confederate flag battle still ongoing in

Mississippi where Governor Tate Reeves does not want to really move on that as well. We're seeing this happen and now we're seeing these Republicans and conservatives just so upset and angry. How dare y'all do this to the statues? But the reality is this. They were domestic terrorists. They were white domestic terrorists. And they lost. Please, I want to see any Republican or conservative or Democrat stand up and defend any city in America

putting up a monument to any of the 9-11 hijackers. Or how about to any of the people who stormed the embassy in Tehran in 1979? How about putting up a monument to Muammar Gaddafi, Libya, responsible for shooting down an airliner? Put that up at a nearby airport. See, that's the same. But for these people who somehow don't understand, African-Americans are not trying to salute statues and flags of people who wanted to keep us enslaved. I don't understand why folks find this hard to comprehend. Could it be that you have folks who think like the woman in Virginia, the state legislator, who actually said they're getting rid of white culture? Could that be the problem that we have now defined the Confederacy as white culture?

Hmm. It's time for some folks to get a grip. And those statues must come down. Real quick, real quick thoughts from our panel on the action in North Carolina, suspending the funding for black statues because these other statues came down. Start with you, Scott, Lauren, then end with Robert. Scott, go ahead.

Well, they're teeing it up so that they can negotiate to keep some of these statutes and to release the four million, which is the wrongheaded way to negotiate this because of the white culture. I think you hit it on the head, but the pressure has to stay on. That money's been allocated and they're going to have to release it at some point, at least I hope so. But look for them to want to compromise on some of these Confederate statutes who were losers and domestic terrorists. Lauren. Yeah, they're making this argument that makes no sense. And it's sort of us versus them, white versus black. You take my statue down. I take your statue down.

Instead of looking at the actual individual who's been represented in the statue and what they represented when they were living. That's a conversation they don't want to have and a conversation they would surely lose. So it's sad. You know, it's a sad and pathetic argument to make. White supremacy is so entrenched, so fundamental to the fabric of the country that people think any attack on white supremacy is an attack on America. That if you have any criticism of white supremacy, you therefore somehow don't understand or know or appreciate your history. But we have to break that casual connection. All right, folks. Panel, I appreciate it. Scott, Lauren, Robert, coming up next, folks.

Bob Johnson, founder of BET, joins us. He says black folks should start a political third party. Okay. We'll discuss next on Roller Martin Unfiltered. You want to support Roller 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. Our goal is to get 20,000 of our fans contributing 50 bucks each for the whole year. You can make this possible. RolandMartinUnfiltered.com.

Okay. All right, so a lot of y'all are always asking me about some of the pocket squares that I wear. Now, I don't know. Robby don't have one on. Now, I don't particularly like the white pocket squares. I don't like even the silk ones. And so I was reading GQ magazine a number of years ago, and I saw this guy who had this pocket square here, and it looks like a flower. This is called a shibori pocket square.

This is how the Japanese manipulate the fabric to create this sort of flower effect. So I'm going to take it out and then place it in my hand so you see what it looks like. And I said, man, this is pretty cool. And so I tracked down. It took me a year to find a company that did it. And so they make these about 47 different colors. And so I love them because, again, as men, we don't have many accessories to wear. So we don't have many

options. And so this is really a pretty cool pocket screen. And what I love about this here, as you saw, when it's in the pocket, you know, it gives you that flower effect like that. But if I wanted to also, unlike other, because if I flip it and turn it over, it actually gives me a different type of texture. And so, therefore, it gives me a different look. So, there you go. So, if you actually want to get one of these Shibori pocket squares, we have them in 47 different colors. All you got to do is go to rollinglessmartin.com forward slash pocket squares. So, it's rollinglessmartin.com forward slash pocket squares. it's rollingnismartin.com forward slash pocket

squares all you got to do is go to my website uh and you can actually get this now for those of you who are members of our bring the funk fan club there's a discount for you to get our pocket squares that's why you also got to be a part of our bring the funk fan club uh and so that's what we want you to do and so it's pretty cool so if you want to jazz your look up you can do that in addition uh y'all see me with some of the feather pocket squares my sister was a designer she actually makes these they're all custom made so when you also go to the website you can also order one of the customized uh feather pocket squares uh right there at rollingnessmartin.com forward slash pocket squares so please do do so. And of course, that goes to support the show.

And again, if you're a Bring the Funk fan club member, you get a discount. This is why you should join the fan club. All right, folks. We had a connection with Bob Johnson. And so for some reason, lost connection. So we're trying to reach him back. So trying to figure out what's going on.

So guys, let me know in the control room if we got Bob back. Okay, do we have, do we have, sorry, what did he say? He's not available? Okay, all right. So he said that he was supposed to be on at 6 30 uh and it wasn't available uh but when i know when we reached out i was monitoring this whole deal we finished that one conversation and so uh once i got the notice so okay so here's the deal okay so bob johnson was on um uh so tell me tell bob to call back tell Bob to call back, tell Bob to call back.

We had, had, had the connection. Um, and so tell Bob I'm ready to talk to him. He's no longer available tonight. Okay. Cause he said we're supposed to interview him at six 30 and we didn't go to him precisely at six 30. Bob ran a network. Bob know how television goes.

Okay. All right. So let me find this video. OK. So Bob Johnson was on. Bob Johnson was on CNBC. He was on CNBC. And he said that he said that black people should be forming black people should be forming a independent party. Okay, so what I was going to ask Bob is, it's June of 2020. Why is Bob saying this right now? I don't understand why Bob is saying in June 2020 why black people should be forming an independent party. But when I thought about it, I went back to December 2nd when I interviewed Bob on TV one.

December 2nd, 2016, after Donald Trump won. This is what Bob Johnson said then. The media I'm talking about, I mean, it's real. That needs to happen. If we, that meeting, I will go to that meeting if somebody calls the meeting together.

What if you call it? I would call the meeting if the meeting flies under the banner of what Bill Clinton said. No, no, no, that's fine. Okay, here's the deal. You and I will call it. Okay. You and I will call it. No, no, no, that's fine. Okay, here's the deal. You and I will call it.

Okay. You and I will call it. Okay, call it. Let's call a meeting. We'll figure out. We can have it at, like I say, like when they meet, it's on a weekend. Look, extramural people,

come here for that particular weekend, which lays the path, because we have to fund our own grassroots. We can't wait every election for the candidate or the party. Can you please fund it? We have to drive our vote. But we first have to have a philosophy and an ideology behind the fundraising. I don't want to raise money.

I raise money a lot of times. But I have an ideology. I want to make more money. So I understand how to raise money. That's not the issue. For here, I want to have an ideology behind why are we raising this money? When I call a donor and say, hey, come to this meeting and we're asking everybody to put up, you know, whatever you can based on whatever you can get to raise a way you call it a pack, for instance. But what is the philosophy of this pack? If they say this pack is no permanent enemies, no permanent friends, just permanent interest. I'm with that.

All right. So here's what we'll do. So you and I will call that. We'll talk. We'll figure out date, meeting place, and we'll do that. Okay. I'm with them because I believe this is essential to African-America's future in this divided nation. No, I agree. No, I agree.

So, OK, so here's the issue that I have. And again, I wish Bob was on. I would I would tell him and we're going to try to book Bob on the show tomorrow. I call Bob's people. To actually set that up. It never happened. So I don't understand. You say that four years ago and nothing happens in four years. And now all of a sudden you're saying it. I just got an alert where Bob also, I guess, told it, gave an interview with Fox News that says BET founder mocks crowds, tearing down statues, calls them borderline anarchists. The Fox News interview. So I don't again. So let me be real clear.

This is the thing that I think is is I think is real easy to say that. Oh, we need to have this. Who funds it? Who organizes it? Y'all just saw. I said, let's call a meeting. I'll reach out to his people about that. Never heard back. So, you know, I'm just saying to me, you make this comment now in June.

I've already had some other people who are like, you know, I don't understand the call. I really don't. I don't understand the call. I don't understand the timing. I don't understand the call. I don't understand the timing. I don't. And I'm and that's I'm just trying to understand it. You know, I folks on YouTube who are saying, you know, Bob is a big Trump supporter. You know, he look, he's talked about the Trump economy and how it's been good for African-American stuff along those lines. But that's the piece there. I mean, because let me just help folks out because I get this.

People say this a lot. We need our own party. First of all, if you look back, the last successful, successful third party was the Reform Party. That was funded by Ross Perot. Ross Perot ran in 1992. The Reform Party was born out of that. And it was disaffected Republicans and disaffected Democrats who formed the Reform Party. There were people who felt that Ross Perot had too much control over the Reform Party. Jesse Ventura became governor of Minnesota as a Reform Party candidate. Now, people don't understand. There are other parties out there. In fact, the Libertarian Party. Let me just do this here.

And in fact, if you study people, in New York State, there are multiple political parties in New York State that actually have a line on the ballot. See, when we go in and vote, it lists all people who are running for president. There's this belief that it's only two or three people. No, there are tons of people who run for president who actually qualify for the ballot.

In fact, let me see. How many, this is just Google. How many parties are on the ballot in 50 states? OK, this was what Ballotpedia says list of political parties in the United States. So they actually have this list on there. Now, here's the deal. This is as of September 2019. Go to my iPad. So. It says three minor parties were recognized in more than 10 states as of September 2019. Libertarian Party, 37 states. The Green Party, 26 states.

The Constitution Party, 14 states. Although there are dozens of political parties in the United States, only certain parties qualified to have the names of their candidates for office printed on election ballots. In order to qualify for ballot placement, a party must meet certain requirements that vary from state to state. For example, in some states, a party must organize around a candidate for a specific office, that candidate must in turn win a percentage of the vote in order for the party to be granted ballot status. And still other states, an aspiring

political party must register a certain number of voters. Okay, so let me unpack that, okay, for the people out there what that means. See, so it's real easy to say we need our own party but there's no guarantee you're gonna be in all 50 states so really I think when you listen to what Bob Johnson said is that do you need an entity that is advancing black interest well we have various groups poor people's campaign doing that naacp national urban league other civil rights groups those things are all there i just think that when we start saying stuff like we need our own party we might want to know exactly what the hell that means because it's not as simple as people think now what i argue when bob was with me in 2016 is that i believe we as african-americans need to have

a significant funding apparatus whose sole job is to drive black voter turnout when it comes to elections. Now, Diddy, when he made his announcement, he's working on this entity that's we're going to hold our votes hostage. Y'all saw my video on this show where I describe that there has to be an entity that exists 365 days a year that serves not just demanding something of a candidate, but then following up to that particular initiative. So that's what Bob's talking about. OK. But are you going to fund it? Are you going to contribute five to ten million dollars to that entity? Are other African-Americans going to do it? And that's a thing called the Black Economic Alliance, a group of well-to-do African-Americans who wanted to use their dollars to influence public policy. They actually exist.

They've had forms. They had a form that actually aired on BET in June. They've run commercials. They exist. That's an entity. So I want us to understand that there are entities out there who are already doing what Bob is talking about. But when you start saying we need our own political party,

y'all, that sounds really great. It's a great statement, but that sucker ain't easy. It ain't easy at all. And I just want us to understand the reality behind it. So we're going to reschedule Bob. And so Bob Linus is here. We'll get him on. He can't come on tomorrow, but we'll reschedule him.

And then we'll make it happen. So coming up next, folks, we're going to talk about the power of the vote for the perspective of black men in partnership with the National Coalition of Black Civic Participation. That's coming up next on Roland Martin Unfiltered. 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. Our goal is

to get 20,000 of our fans contributing 50 bucks each for the whole year. You can make this possible. RolandMartinUnfiltered.com. All right, so a lot of y'all are always asking me about some of the pocket squares that I wear. Now, I don't, and Robby don't have one on. Now, I don't particularly like the white pocket squares. I don't like even the silk ones.

And so I was reading GQ magazine a number of years ago, and I saw this guy who had this pocket square here, and it looks like a flower. This is called a shibori pocket square. This is how the Japanese manipulate the fabric to create this sort of flower effect. So I'm going to take it out and then place it in my hand so you see what it looks like. And I said, man, this is pretty cool. And so I tracked down, it took me a year to find a company that did it. And so they're basically about 47 different colors. And so I love them because, again, as men, we don't have many accessories to wear, so

we don't have many options. And so this is really a pretty cool pocket screen. And what I love about this here is you saw when it's in in the pocket you know it gives you that flower effect like that but if I wanted to also unlike other because if I flip it and turn it over it actually gives me a different type of texture and so therefore it gives me a different look so there you go so if you actually want to get one of these shibori pocket squares we have them in 47 different colors, all you got to do is go to rollinglessmartin.com forward slash pocket

squares. So it's rollinglessmartin.com forward slash pocket squares. All you got to do is go to my website and you can actually get this. Now for those of you who are members of our Bring the Funk fan club, there's a discount for you to get our pocket squares. That's why you also got to be a part of our Bring the Funk fan club, there's a discount for you to get our pocket squares. That's why you also got to be a part of our Bring the Funk fan club. And so that's what we want you to do. And so it's pretty cool.

So if you want to jazz your look up, you can do that. In addition, y'all see me with some of the feather pocket squares. My sister was a designer. She actually makes these. They're all custom made. So when you also go to the website, you can also order one of the customized Feather Pocket Squares right there at rollingnessmartin.com forward slash pocket squares. So please do so. And, of course, it goes to support the show.

And, again, if you're a Bring the Funk fan club member, you get a discount. This is why you should join the fan club. They, of course, have their town hall with young activists, specifically black men. In just a second, we're going to join them. I'll be moderating this conversation. The folks are going to be on the panel. Just pull up the graphic. Just kill the audio, please. Jarrett Sawyer, he is the Black Youth Vote Georgia Coordinator with the Georgia Coalition for the People's Agenda. Sean Dove is Chief Executive Officer for Campaign for Black Male Achievement. Diallo Brooks is a board member, National Coalition on Black Civic Participation and director of outreach partner engagement for People for the American Way.

Reverend Tony Lee is a board member of the coalition, also pastor Community Hope Church, Temple Hills, Maryland. Dwayne Carl Crawford is an advisory board member, executive director of National Organization of black law enforcement executives sean preston state coordinator michigan black youth vote tony lewis jr author and activist and my son of course uh new york general rap activist co-founder until freedom and so uh we're going to uh go all right folks let me know when we have them ready to go live so they have so let's hit it they have the d DJ playing right now. And so, yes, Henry, really. All right. So they got a DJ going.

So that's where we saw. I've introduced all the panel there. And, of course, we talk about the impact of Black Lives Matter movement in the lives of black men and boys. So we're ready to go. Folks, let me know. Have they pulled their panelists up? There we go.

Gentlemen, how we doing? Can all of y'all hear me? All right, let's do this here. Let's kill the DJ music. I need to hear you. Okay, so let's do this here. Kill the DJ music on y'all end on the Zoom. And then let's go to the panel.

Kill the DJ music, guys.all in on the zoom and then let's go to the panel kill the DJ music guys. We're live We're live Henry I Hey, Henry, Henry, I need you to breathe calm to use. Yo, I can't hear anything in here. So we're on go to the panel I've already To the panel. I see you my son there to the panel. I introduce all of you already. I see you lawn walls there as well And so I see the various folks who are on. So I'll start with Melanie. You're with the coalition. So please explain the very specific plans when it comes to reaching black men for

the election. Hi, Roland. How are you? Great. Lon Walls is going to open us up. Yep. All right. Thank you, Melanie. I'm Lon Walls, lead communications consultant for the National Coalition on Black Pacific Participation

and founder of Walls Communications. On behalf of the National Coalition and Black Youth Vote, I want to welcome everyone to tonight's virtual town hall with the theme, Brothers, Can We Talk? But before we get started, I want to welcome everyone to tonight's virtual town hall with the theme, Brothers, Can We Talk? But before we get started, I want to give a shout out to DJ Hollywood Red for getting us started with his music. Got us into the mood and we kind of go from there.

During the past few weeks, he's been busy in Black Lives Matter Plaza here in D.C., providing inspiration to protesters and those who want to make a change. And with that, that brings us to tonight's town hall an examination and discussion of the black lives matter movement and how it impacts the lives of black men specifically black men the phrase i can't breathe does more than just apply to treatment by the police it resonates throughout our daily lives with the jobs we can't get, promotions that never come, healthcare system that's failed us, and simply trying to survive financially, emotionally, and spiritually. A nice town hall alone won't solve all those problems,

but of course we can put those issues on the table so they can be discussed. And trying to address these problems through civic engagement is what the National Coalition of Black Civic Participation has been doing for almost 40 years. The person leading that is Melanie Campbell, the organization's president and CEO. Hold on one second, folks. You actually can you mute because we're actually I'm getting the sound for a number of them and we can and your sound is not coming through clear. So, folks, if you can actually mute your microphones. Lon, go ahead and finish, please. Okay, and trying to address these problems through civic engagement is exactly what the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation does

and has been doing for 40 years. The person who's been leading that charge is Melanie Campbell, the organization's CEO and president. She's truly been a tireless and fearless leader for all of us. Allow me to introduce Melanie Campbell to offer her thoughts about tonight's theme and introduce our moderator. Melanie, the screen is yours. Hello. Hi. Thanks, Lon. Thanks, Roland, for partnering with Roland Martin and Phil. And all of you all, our brothers, I would spend the time if I started talking individually, thank everyone on

this discussion that, you know, it's something that we know at the National Coalition, we do a lot of work around what focus on Black women and girls, a big focus around voting and things like that. But we thought it was really, really important that we, as an organization, focus in on lifting up our brothers, you, our brothers, and those who are watching in this moment. It is, I believe, a transformational moment. And each of you are already doing the good works of your various purchase. And so this is the start of a conversation,

obviously with so many of you all on the call, it won't be a long conversation, but it will be a start of something that we want to, as at the organization to take, listen, and then build on this for future, not just conversations, but future ways that we can work together collectively to bring about the transformational change. We know that we are in a moment with the Black Lives Matter movement that in many ways is

very, very organic, led by our young people. And there's not a movement that has ever been successful without that. And so I'm going to turn it over and thank everybody for being on here and another panel that will be on later and know that the National Coalition wants to be a part of the solution with you. And thank you for your leadership. And let's get this conversation started, Roman. Thank you again. All right. First and foremost, folks, we had a conversation last week with members of Alpha Phi Alpha, then also Philip Agnew and his initiative as well. And the reality is so much energy is around black women, black women, black women.

So I'm very curious to know, Sean, what are you hearing out there when you are talking with black men? Do they feel as if they're being paid attention to, that the issues they care about are being addressed? Oh, thanks, Roland, for that question. And I just got to lift up Melanie for just bringing this together, because as black men, where would we be without black women? And in my network I am hearing that, you know, black men are united. I lead the national campaign for black male achievement. And for the last dozen years, there has been a growing movement around focusing on the issues of black men and boys. And I just think that we are at a place now

when we think of the Black Lives Matter movement where we have to decide, is this going to be different? Because quite frankly, there has been a part of me initially when I was like, here we go again. I could just send some of the same messages and tweets from five years ago with Freddie Gray

and the uprising in Baltimore. But what I am feeling and what I am healing is an important slip of the tongue because the whole issue of wellness and therapy with black men, I think, has been elevated in this moment, first in the pandemic, and us being saying it's okay as black men to say that we need help, that we need to ask for help. But I really think that this is a transcendent moment, and I am hearing that from my network. I believe, Roland, that what Emmett Till meant for the ignition of the civil rights movement and his murder in 1955, the murder of George Floyd, coupled

with so many other murders around this time, but specifically George Floyd, is the ignition of, I think, a modern-day Black Lives Matter movement. And we're about to see a decade of change and disruption, unrest, like we saw in the 60s. And so there is excitement, and still there is some skepticism. Like, where do we as black men wind up after all the fanfare and all of the attention around this issue fades away? Tony Lewis Jr., when we again, when we look at the issues that black men say they're not being addressed from your perspective what are those what should be talked about please i get i get i get police reform that's one thing but what else yeah i think um we definitely have to look past uh police reform i think uh we won't have social justice

until we have economic justice and so much of that, unfortunately, we talk a lot about how disproportionately black men have been impacted by the criminal justice system and how that has created great challenges for us to really ascend and be able to be economically safe. And our communities continue to deal with public safety. And I think so with that, I think black men want to be acknowledged. Black men want access. They want opportunity. Black men want to be able to speak for themselves. They want to be able to be included and truly, you know, take care of their families and protect their communities. But they can't do that when they can't get a job or they can't live where they want to live.

So all of those things are super important. So I think as this energy around the Black Lives Matter movement really has to be hyper-focused in how do we create economic justice when all these philanthropic organizations are looking to give to causes, that we have to ensure that that funding, that money reaches the people that need it the most. And we have to empower those that are really more likely to have police involvement, even on the police reform front. It needs to be people that grew up in communities where you had daily multiple interactions

with policemen daily to really help the police get to the point where they need to be to serve and protect our communities. That can't come from people that's just simply talking about being pulled over by the police. And so that's not a shot at those folks. I'm just simply saying that I feel like a lot of black men feel like our voices, particularly black men from impoverished communities, black men that have been formerly incarcerated, black men who may not have went to college. They feel like their voices aren't necessarily at those tables. So I hope that moving forward, we can be more inclusive about the black experience and get sort of those issues to the front so that they can be addressed. Because I feel like those are the people that really can speak with the most expertise

when it comes to police reform and really what black people need in this country. My son, how to, from your perspective, what messaging should be taking place when it comes to getting black men? I mean, not just went to register and to vote. What should be said and not just from politicians, but also from grassroots groups, civil rights groups, others? Well, I think in order to get Black men involved in voting, you have to talk about things that actually directly impact. You know, you have to, like Tony Lewis said, you can't keep having conversations about us without us. And those who are directly impacted really are the ones who are

going to be the solution. A lot of our Black males are, you know, we look at education. Education is failing black males. You know, being an educator, I actually teach at forums with educators, with principals, with teachers, and they don't even identify how to keep the young black man in school. You know, they have not come up with curriculums. They have not come up with teaching styles that really adhere to what the black man needs. So we have to really be intentional these days. We're having conversations and we say, oh, just vote.

But you're not talking about things that they really want. Black man wants to be able to provide for his family. He wants to feel, you know, Black man, we don't want masculinity to be targeted all the time. I'm part of organizations where my sisters are my leaders. You know, until

freedom, I'm one of the co-founders where Tamika Mallory is the leader. Linda Sarsour is our leader. I have no problem following my sisters because they are built to lead. They are the mothers of this civilization. But there has to be space to where it doesn't make us feel

as if we can't speak, if we speak too loud, that we're saying something wrong. You know, there's too much aggression. There has to be, we have to fit what the Black man encompasses. You know, there's too much aggression. There has to be, we have to fit what the black man encompasses. You know,

so when we talk about laws and voting, we have to talk about things that specifically are directed to black males. You know, we're into certain things that I don't think this culture

or what they're talking about as far as voting is even focusing on. We're so far, like our kids need to be educated a certain way. We need to be educated according to what it is that we love.

I tell teachers all the time, black males, as a young black male, I wasn't interested in sitting in the room while you just put something on the board. We were interactive learners. We learned off being interactive. So we have to start building curriculums. We have to start figuring out how do we build schools and how do we build around curriculums that empower Black men, that make Black men want to be involved?

How do we have jobs that not just only make a Black man make a little bit of money, but he's an entrepreneur. He's able to sustain and be somebody who's an actual contributing member of his family. You know, right now, I love our sisters. Our sisters are graduating at higher rates than us. And it's beautiful because they are the mothers of civilization. But at the end of the day, we have to focus on why these things aren't happening for Black men and then focus on what do we do to make sure that they do happen for black men. This is and again, when we talk about issues, we talk about what should they be. Dwayne, again, what are they?

If you're out there, if you're out there speaking to a brother, whether he's young, middle-aged, or old, what are the issues? Well, I think, one, we as black men have no time for what I call separating the sheep. I'm 55 years old. I want the best for my 10-year-old, my 18-year-old, my 30-year-old, 40-year-old. My time is wrapping up. I think we've got to figure out,

I told my son this, and maybe one day my that we've got to figure out not what's left in my life, but how do we give them every possible chance? And I think it starts with one listening. I don't even think I know what an 18-year-old is thinking, but I can definitely listen and be honest. I think part of this thing about being honest, it isn't about you telling a young person what your life was.

It's about being honest about what went well, what didn't go well and what you want to tell that young brother to give him the best shot. So many times we get these conversations about elevating ourselves. It doesn't matter what he did. Don't matter at this point. What matters is listening and doing everything possible to get my resources, my circle of influence, given to that young man. To me, I know it's easy for us to say, oh, that's gone bad. I'm proud of our brothers.

I'm from North Philly. I'm seeing brothers that take a lot more responsibility at an earlier age than I did. But I think also I've got to stand to the side and say, what? Brother, listen. I'll listen to you. You can have my platform. But this is a time about elevating and educating and empowering, but also being honest of what it means to be a man, what's expected of them, but also what our shortcomings were.

The Reverend Tony Lee, your perspective. Well, so I think that also, though, that we do have to deal with that there are some institutional pieces, whether it's institutional racism, systemic racism, from a faith perspective. You call it wickedness in high places that we also have to deal with. And so we're dealing with issues of poverty, health disparities, food insecurity, a lot of that kind of stuff. And there's a need to be able to navigate how these institutional issues impact the daily lives of our brothers,

how the system is rigged in such a way, whether it's the school to prison pipeline, whether it is issues around policing, et cetera, how that impacts daily lives. And if we don't hit that, then folks won't see how it's relevant to them. And then they won't understand fully the need to deal with the policy stuff, the institutional stuff and the voting stuff. But we have to be able to make the connection between a lot of these systemic things and understand that you don't change, that you don't beat down systemic racism without a systemic response. Protest is a piece of that systemic response.

And so systemized protest, but also with protest are some other things that we have to do to be able to grab a hold of and deal with systems and institutions that have been, that at the end of the day, it's white supremacy, it's white supremacist thought, and it is systemic, endemic racism that we have to deal with that is seeped into the systems of this nation. Jarrett? Yes, I actually echo the sentiments of everyone who's spoken already.

And I believe that black men comprehensively just want security. You know, young black men, especially moving from adolescence into young adulthood, want social security. And when I say social security, I'm not talking about the government system or the benefits or anything into that nature? But the actual state of being secure and feeling secure. If you are just one second, one second, Jared, if you hold on, Jared, you got your microphone open. People just mute it. That way I'm not getting the feedback for someone. Jared, keep your microphone open. The rest of the panel is please close your microphone. Jared, go right ahead. Oh, yes.

So when we talk about the state of being secure, you know, we're talking about freedom. You know, the freedom that black men want to feel, freedom from danger, safety, freedom from fear or anxiety, freedom from the prospect of being laid off from their job. So we're talking about job security. Black men want an equitable chance at life and at living. And so I echo the sentiments of everyone who's spoken. But I believe that comprehensively, and I can only speak on the behalf of the young black male community, that young black men, especially moving from adolescence into young adulthood, want social security, the state of being free. Diallo, your perspective on the first question.

Yeah, I kind of want to go back to something that Tony Lewis mentioned too, is I really think that Black men also want to be seen and have a space to be seen and heard, that their voices are able to be elevated in the conversations about what's happening to them in their communities. And I think what we have to do is we have to work collectively and understand that we have to really begin a process of bringing our community together, because oftentimes we have these conversations, they're very isolating. And so, it was mentioned about how successful black women are, but a lot of times in a lot of the conversations I see, it's pitting black men against black women instead of really what we need to do to heal the black community in a way that we all can rise together.

We can all work collectively to liberate ourselves from these systems of oppression. And what we need to do is we also need to make sure that as we're having these a way that's demonized. And it starts from birth to adolescence, and that's part of the history of this country. When we get into policing and Black Lives Matter and all that kind of stuff, these systems have been in place to demonize black men and the black community as a whole in ways that have marginalized us and make us less than human in public spaces. And so as we start to elevate, listen to the voices of those that have been most impacted and develop strategies with folks, not for folks, in ways that we can create

meaningful change and really elevate, educate, but also listen. A lot of times we get in these spaces and we do a lot of talking, but we don't do a lot of listening to our brothers that are struggling every single day trying to make it in this world. And so we have to break down these barriers that exist. We have to have Black men also understand that we're part of a larger community. We have to have the larger community see us as part of that community as well, as an integral part of blackness in this country and in the world. And so as we start to elevate our thinking, develop strategies, and not necessarily look to others to do for us, but also really look at what we can do strategically working together, having the conversations, elevating best practices. There's things that we know. I think all of the panelists have listed out things that we know, but how do we execute that?

And I think Black men will engage when they see a real game plan that is not just a rhetoric that's happening out there, that we have a game plan of really systematically changing and elevating. And they can see themselves. We can see ourselves in the success and the change and the future as we move forward. But I think one of the things that we also have to come to grips with is that every brother is not struggling. Every brother is not in the same situation. I think part of the problem when we have these conversations is that everyone is not going to be at the same place. And so the reality is you have to have different ways to connect with different black men at different stages. Your conversation with a brother who's in college is different from a brother who graduated from high school,

is different from a brother who owns his business, is different from one who's actually working or who's not working. And so you got to look at it that way. Who wants to jump, who wants to speak on that? You can't just approach this because if the dialogue is solely about police reform, there may be somebody who says that ain't my main thing. I think for me, Roland, I think that's exactly the problem. And I think we say that we're not a, you know, that black men and black people are not a monolith. And that's a very true statement. But there has to be, like you said, there has to be a connection point.

As I'm walking, they're marching down the block. I'm in Kentucky right now. So they're having a march right now. So you might hear that. We got you. It's all good. But that is an issue. And we have to find one point that we all connect on.

And we understand that whether you're black and you have more find one one point that we all connect on and we understand that whether you're black and you have more prison reform is not yours equity is something that we all need i don't care if if you even if you're one of the richest black men in america you realize that there's a ceiling that other that your white counterpart reaches that you're not able to reach because you're a black man if you even if you're a basketball player if you that you're not able to reach because you're a black man. If you, even if you're a basketball player, if you, and you're the best basketball player, you realize, like LeBron realized, they still going to write nigga on your fence. You know, these are things that don't matter what your circumstances, what your financial circumstances are, these things are going to always happen. So I think we have to connect on the fact that

whatever level you are as a Black man, there is something that is holding you back. There is white supremacy holding you back at some level, no matter what it is that you're doing. And we have to connect because we have to understand, especially those who are at the highest, you have to understand that the higher you are, you can't get higher than the lowest person that's attached to you. And that's the reality. So we have to figure out, we have to acknowledge that prison reform means that Blacks

who are being incarcerated at a higher level, it could be you tomorrow. It could be your cousin tomorrow. It could be your son tomorrow because it's Blacks. It doesn't say rich Blacks. It doesn't say poor Blacks. It doesn't say poor Blacks. It's saying that Black people are being incarcerated. Hey, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo.

What's going on, brother? OK, OK. No, no, no, no, no, no. We're not doing that. We're not doing that. Get out of my car, bro. Close the door, bro. Watch out.

Jump into the car. And it happened to be a Caucasian that tried to get into my car because I'm in the back seat. And I was talking about this conversation. He was actually trying to drive off. Law admirers. Driving, Mr. Masson? Yes.

The man tried to drive with my car. You almost seen a whole nother Masson. I'm glad that didn't even happen to me like that. We got you. But anyway, what I was saying is we just have to, as black men, we have to understand that we can only go as high as the lowest level that we are. And we have to intersect on that point. It's not about what you have or what you don't have.

We just have to acknowledge that the color of your skin and the fact that you're a black male can put you at liberty and put you in jeopardy at any given time. And when we realize that, we don't have to wait. Let's not wait until it actually happens, because it always happens. You know, we've watched our biggest stars and our richer people at some point get to that point where they realize that white supremacy is real. You know, so what we have to do is acknowledge that and take that and move forward. Sean, I'm sorry. Go right ahead.

Who wants to take that? Because the reason I pose that question, the reason I posed it, the Trump administration is very specific. They've said they are targeting black men. They know they're not going to get black women's vote. And they are specifically targeting black men with the First Step Act and his economic policies. There's a reason why they're doing that. Who's jumping in? Go ahead. Yeah, I just want to echo what you said earlier. The issue of equity is real. Whether you've got money, got don't have money. The end of the day here is the least of us. As I said earlier, at a certain point in your life, it comes full circle and you realize that your sons and your cousins and your brother, et cetera, et cetera, is big circle.

We've got to dig it and say, who's the least of us. And this issue of equity is real. Anyone that's talking right now as part of this panel has had a serious inequity that occurred in their life and required them to have to take a serious... Guys, be sure to mute the other microphones, please, and then

go right ahead. I just want to echo that. I think this equity part should be delved into, but we've all got an example of a significant inequity that affected the trajectory of our life and that of our loved ones. And, Roland, I think it's really important also when we talk about we've got to be careful when we say the least of us, right? Because I think that there is this narrative that black men, no matter where you are, you don't have assets, right?

And I think that, oh, you're not an asset to your community. And I think that that narrative has to shift. I think that we have to find ways to make intergenerational connections. And whether you are formerly incarcerated or you are in the boardroom in a corporation, there is something and you are God-given to do for our people, right? And I think as a whole, and the young brother was talking earlier, I think what we need

at this very essence as Black men is love, safety, and a sense of belonging. And we have never had that in this country, but we have to bring that up for each other and that everyone has a role and it has to be some kind of interconnected, intergenerational. And it can't just be one sector. Philanthropy is not going to be the Calvary that comes to save the day. We have to understand that we are the Calvary that comes to save the day. We have to understand that we are the Calvary in our own communities, right? We are the curators of the change. And we have so much in our communities that is rich. We can fund ourselves. When we look at the faith community and the resources and how we give, Black people give more than anybody else in this nation.

We serve more than anybody else. But we have this opportunity in this transcendent moment of Black Lives Matter to not just focus on policing. That is an important issue. But here's an opportunity to put everything on the table with environmental justice, criminal justice reform, economic access. And so I think the connections and finding a way.

Some folks, your role may just be to write a check. You know, not everybody's going to be on to get a common narrative for success and for liberation, but also offer different on-ramps, no matter where you come from, where your address or your zip code is, that we're all fighting for the same thing. That's why I think you have to take this, when you hear the phrase, do black lives matter? Okay. Remember, people are going to answer that question in a different way, depending upon the station of their life. So a father is going to answer it differently, possibly than a single guy. It's going to answer it differently from a guy who actually owes child support over somebody who doesn't.

It's going to be different for the person who is in corporate America, who's at a high level, versus the person who's at a VP level or director level or even lower or all the way at the bottom. It's going to be different from that person in these different areas. And I think I think I think part of the issue is that for many of us, we make references to the black freedom movement without realizing that it didn't matter what your station was. Jim Crow was Jim Crow. Didn't matter. You couldn't live over there. You had to live here. And I think as somebody who deals with words every day, I think the struggle for a lot of people is understanding I have to meet you where you are and I got to ask you, what are your issues? And then help connect the dots in terms of how politics and public policy plays a role in that. So when I run up on brothers who say, man, politics,'t, I ain't involved in that. And it has no bearing on my life. And I go,

really? Let me explain to you how. And then once I, once I connect the dots, they're like, damn, I had no idea. That to me is how I think we have to be approaching this whole deal. When we're communicating with brothers who are just like everybody else. Black men are like a lot of black women are like white folks, Hispanic, like they just trying to live their life every day and not really fully understanding how public policy plays a role in a whole bunch of things happening in their lives. Anybody can jump in. I think one of the things that is really looking at this, I think that's an important point.

It goes back to this collective work and responsibility within our communities that we all have to have a collective strategy of engaging folks where they are to be able to articulate what change looks like. We also have to make sure that folks understand what winning looks like. Too often in our community, black men, even as we become more successful in life, it's still difficult to see what winning looks like because there's always this struggle for the next thing. And so even as you're talking to young folks, I mean, I got a 19-year-old son, a 13-year-old son, and a 17-year-old daughter, and it's helping them to understand what winning looks like when they hit that wall of apathy around everything that's going on in the world around them about what they see in the streets, the failures of government, the failures of,

and helping people to understand that you have to put in work in order to create change. I mean, this is not a passive thing. I mean, even if you're in a boardroom, you know that a black CEO is making less than the white CEO doing the same job, right? So the racism impacts folks on all different types of levels on the socioeconomic spectrum. We have to help folks understand what winning looks like

and understand that it is about our collective liberation and freedom, that the only way that we get at collective liberation and freedom is if we work together across spectrums, that we don't all have to be exactly the same, we don't have to flow the same way, but there's the same boot that's on our neck no matter where we are on the spectrum. Anybody want to respond to that? Well, Roland, and I think that what Diallo said was right on point. And that's not just a piece about what happens for black men. That's just black men, black women. That's all of us. To be black in America means that there are certain limitations imposed by the system upon us, that there are certain structural inequities that are in place.

And all of us, brothers and sisters, can link arm in arm, young and old, up and down the line. It does not matter who you are, that there are systems and structures that are in place to be able to take care of you and your children and your children's children. And then it goes on to a piece of legacy.

Because I don't care who you are, that the system is shaped in such a way to keep you from being able to pass on any kind of generational wealth. And so then what does it mean to have a sense of legacy to be able to pass on something for your children or your children's children? And I think those commonalities are ways

that we can connect with people. I agree with you that we can connect with people. I agree with you that we're all in different stations in life, but I believe that we're all in the same fire. We just may be in different locations within the fire, but the fire still burns. And we're all still dealing with third and fourth degree burns. Anyone else want to respond to the last question? So let me pick up. I want to pick up on that because again and break it down even further. So you talked about income inequality. You talked about the creation of wealth and being able to pass stuff down. And the reason I keep returning to this when it comes to the messaging,

and that is this here. If I'm talking to a brother who's a homeowner, I'm going to have to talk to him in a different way than a brother who's a renter, than a brother who lives with his parents. I'm going to have to talk to somebody in a different way. And I think part of this, a lot of times it's real easy. brother who lives with his parents. I'm going to have to talk to somebody in a different way. And I think part of this, a lot of times it's real easy. I think it's easy on us when we speak, we talk about the collective because we sort of want to be able to say, okay, everybody I'm talking to, we're all dealing with the exact same thing here, but it's degrees. I've actually heard

black men say, hey, on a daily basis, I don't have that same encounter with police. So that's really not my number one or number two issue. This is. And so I think when we're sitting here dealing with this, I think the first thing we got to do is sort of like what Ella Baker said to SNCC students when they went south. Ella Baker said, look, don't think these sharecroppers who don't have a second or third grade education aren't smart. She said, take off your college clothes. And she said, put on your overalls and ask them, what is it you want to see change? And I'm here to help you with that, not tell you what it is to seek change. And I think somebody made a point earlier how oftentimes we're talking in panels, but we're not listening. To me, that's where it starts. When I encounter somebody at a brother, at Dulles Airport, brother said, man, I saw your video and you said folks were stuck on stupid who

didn't vote. He said, well, I didn't vote in the last election. Was I stuck on stupid? I went, yep. And he saw his eyes got big and he got deflated. I said, and I'll tell you why. I said, what are the three most important things matter to you? And then he told me and I stood there and I said, the president of the United States impacts those three things this way. And then I broke it down. I said, governor impacts it this way. Mayor impacts it this way. And he stood there. He said, I will not make that mistake again. I'm absolutely voting this year. He said, thank you for explaining it to me. And I think that's what doesn't happen enough. We don't ask, what do you care about? But then we then don't connect the dots and wait for them to go, ah, now I see it.

Well, I think for me, I think for me, Roland, that's a very serious problem that we have as black people. I think, you know, if you don't notice that if you, if you are a homeowner and 90, 95 or 98% of the people that live around you don't look nothing like you, and that doesn't bother you, then there's really nothing I can tell you. If you have a lot of money and you don't realize that most of the people in your circumference don't look like you or come from communities that look like you or that have the same culture that you have and that doesn't bother you, then I might not be able to engage you. If those things don't bother you, you don't look and say, I have these things. But 90% of the people that I know that come from my community that look like me don't have those things.

And that's not something that you want to change. Then that's an issue that we really have to focus on. If I have to tell you one thing that directly impacts you that might not impact that just, you know, well, okay, I'm a homeowner, but, you know, the insurance that I have doesn't really work for me, or, you know, I have businesses, but the premium is higher for me.

If those things, if I have to individually impact you and you don't look at it and say, you know what? The majority of people who come from where I come from, my culture, my background, my a homeowner as me, then I don't, for me, it's really hard for me to engage those type of people. I have to leave them so they have to figure things out because my passion and my understanding is for my people and my culture. And, you know, and that's what I fight for because I understand that every other culture, every other nationality, that's what they do. And that's why they're winning. If we continue to have this ideology

about, all right, tell me, how does this impact me individually? Because I don't know another culture that says that. They say, throughout my life, anywhere that you go that's, I live in Fort Lee, New Jersey, which is populated most by Asians. And they make sure that the Asians are taken care of.

It ain't too many, there's no stores where black people own stores in those communities. They make sure that they're taken, when I was incarcerated, every nationality, when you came to a new house, even if you was a Puerto Rican, if you was a new house, if you was, even if you was a Puerto Rican, if you was a white person, if you was an Asian, when you walked into the house, they said, do you have anything that you need? They brought you a care package. They made sure you were safe. Black people weren't doing that because there was this individual mind state. So until we get out of that mind state and realize that just because I'm okay, everything is not okay, I don't know how we're going to win.

The other side of that, though, is that we have to look at the systemic side. And, yes, there may be some black folks that are not doing that, but we also have to look at redlining. We have to look at access to capital for black businesses and entrepreneurs. We have to look at access to health care. And so I do believe that we also, and I think it was Rev. Tony that brought up that we have to have a systemic approach. I would venture to say that the commonality as a black man, no matter what your economic status or sexual orientation is, that we want to leave a legacy, right? And I think that that is where we can come together.

Work that we have done with the Campaign for Black Male Achievement has been around the Black Male Equity Initiative, and we've talked about legacy wealth. And we have brought together in a room Black men, some of whom were formerly incarcerated, trying to get out of debt, and others that were doing estate planning. But the central focus was our common faith, our shared faith, and it was done around the history.

And I think that once we've got to create these safe spaces, but I think that we have more in common infinitely than there are differences, no matter what your zip code or where you live, and that I think that we've got to create those spaces around. We all want a simple legacy. And someone brought up the notion of, you know, generational wealth. Who doesn't want that? And how do we organize around that kind of legacy is, I think, a strategy that we can speak to all black men.

Who wanted to jump in? To piggyback, I think it's important for us to look at it's a macro piece of this and it's a micro piece. On a macro level, obviously, we all want to be able to live. We want to be able to thrive. I think

Black Lives Matter can't just be about police not killing black people or black people living we want black people in this country to live and thrive and and that's going to take white people uh sharing power and some people may see that as un-american but i feel like that's the reality that's what we got to push for and what that will do in my opinion is create the access to opportunity create access to lending create access to you know uh economic to, you know, economic justice, economic strength, which in turn, you know, I think will allow a lot of black men.

I mean, we face with so much, you know, particularly those as growing up in impoverished communities for us to even think that far ahead is not really realistic to a lot of young men because they're trying to survive. Right. So when you're in survival mode, you're not thinking about these things. That's why I think we got to find ways, more ways for cross-fertilization among black men. Like, I would love if just black men would start moving back into certain communities so that young black men that don't have, you know, whatever the situation may be, they

have access to you. And this may, this can happen at the church, this can happen at the mass gym or whatever the case may be, they have access to you. This can happen at the church, this can happen at the masjid or whatever the case may be, but we got to find more intentional and strategic ways for that cross-fertilization because if I've never seen it, I can't believe in it. When you start talking to me about generational wealth, when you start talking to me about estate planning

and life insurance and all these things that's not conditional or not happening in my environment, I'm not going to be receptive to it. And so the only way we do that is for those Black men that are aware and have that knowledge and have even voting. I mean, I find myself standing in the gap so much in my city for all of these things that we're talking about, trying to be a translator, if you will, trying to be a living example, you know, but it don't touch people when it's not in their experience.

So what do we have to do about that? We got to find more ways to come together. Men, black men that have ascended in whatever industry, whatever lane, a lot of times they are disconnected from those individuals, whether they come from those communities or not. They're not. It's not a consistent interaction with those communities. So there are different dynamics to your point, Mr. Martin, in terms of what the needs are. But I think sort of a baseline need that we all have to speak to is that we want black people, humanity to be seen. We want to be treated fairly. We want equity. These are the things that we can be non-negotiable. Because until then, it's going gonna be very difficult to address all those more micro issues it's not we're not a monolith everybody does not come from the hood everybody

does not have a father doing life in prison everybody ain't grow up with people all around around them dying all the time like that's not i had to learn that in my involvement right you know as i've evolved i've learned that like okay this ain't the experience of every black man but at the same time we have to find places to have these conversations. We have to have spaces where people can get new people in their network. And none of us can just speak from our own experience, right? But what we, again, we have to press on as we talk about this American experiment, right? And even to Mice's point, every other culture does that because they weren't enslaved.

Slavery and then what followed in this country dismantled us in that way. So I think this is an opportunity. This is a time, opportunity for all of us to really reimagine what it's going to look like moving forward. And it's hard to strategize. How do we really make those sort of know, manifest and become fruitful. I think this is the time that we really got to go for the gusto, if you will, and don't leave anything off the table. We really have to say that this is a watershed moment for black people and we want things to change incrementally, maybe in some instances or some cases, but we want to see movement. The needle has to move right here, right now,

and we cannot be divided. But the only way we will, again, be united is that we have to have continuous conversations, and Black men have to be at those tables. This is Dwayne Crawford. I'm betting on my brothers, period.

I'm betting on my brothers. I. I'm betting on my brothers. And I don't know what else to say about this part here. This is a watershed moment, but Ferguson was a watershed moment. Rodney King was a watershed moment. This time, we've got to come together. I'm going to say this again. I'm going to humble myself and just listen. I've got to try to do my best in the balance of my life,

give as much as I can to make sure my younger brothers are given every opportunity and how they're going to find success. But I agree, it's communication. We've got to keep going. We've got to take advantage. I think what Black Lives Matter is done is, at least to me, you've got a long way still to go in the sense of you've got to get back out there and do everything possible.

The same goes in the scripture. Much is given, much is required. I've got to get back out there and do everything possible. The same goes in the scripture. Much is given, much is required. I've got to meet that requirement. Our brothers have got to meet that requirement. We've got to do everything possible and leave a roadmap. When people see your legacy, I want them to think,

my family's going to do fine. My real legacy has got to be how many brothers did I lay down as much as I could the information and give them the best opportunity for success. I think I think Jared was trying to jump in. Was that Tony Lee Jr. or Jared? Black male empowerment. I think that, Roland, you made a really good point that we definitely have to take a look at the messaging because not there's not been a singular messaging that's

been able to resonate with every kind of black man in this country. When I was at Morehouse, I read an article by Tommy Shelby where she posed the question, is the foundation of black solidarity collective identity or is it common oppression? And I think that we have to figure out how to translate in our private language, because I believe there's private language that we have to communicate to black men and then public language that we have to communicate to Black men. And I think we have to figure out how to translate in private language creatively the sentiments of what, like Frederick Douglass said once, where he said that we're one with you under the ban of prejudice and

prescription, one with you under the slander of inferiority, one with you in social and political disenfranchisement, that what you suffer, we suffer, what you endure, we endure. And so in an effort to really liberate black men in America, especially young black men, we as black male leaders must really call on black men to become a more unified collective agent for social change for the sake of us all. Because like what Martin Luther King Jr. said, whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. And I can never be what I ought be until you are what you ought be. And that this is the interrelated structure of reality. And I think that we have to figure out the best way to communicate that to Black men in this country, especially this next generation of young black men that's

rising up, people around my age? What's the best way to communicate that so that we can truly be that collective agent for social change? Hey, Roland, I just want to say one thing real quick. I think Tony Lewis just hit something on the head, though. I think in this moment, we have a chance to reimagine what our future looks like. What we've seen through COVID and the disparities that exist in this country across everything from economics to health care to police violence, we're seeing that. And so one of the things we need to do is really do a good job of reimagining what our future should look like and what winning looks like.

You know, because when you're having conversations with folks, it's great to talk about the problem, but folks need to also hear what the solution looks like and how we plan on working together collectively to get there. And I think if we don't articulate what that vision is, and, you know, to your point earlier, Roland, you said, you know, folks might, like, I don't know any black folks, and I've interacted with black folks all across the level, you know, to your point earlier, Roland, you said, you know, folks might like, I don't know any black folks and I've interacted with black folks all across the level, you know, that have not had interactions with police at some point. Like black folks, I don't care where

you live, at some point you get that awakening where whiteness and white privilege and white fragility and racism smacks you right in your face. I don't care how African you are, you'll find smacks you right in your face. I don't care how affluent you are, you'll find it at some point in your life.

But let me take it back. Sometimes it comes late for folks because they're blind to it. Right. Back to the point, it's just really imagining what the future should look like and having the conversations necessary and a listening of how we

are going to get there collectively. But I'll give an example. The issue of racial. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Hold that point. I got to pick up what he just said, like racial profiling. The reason racial profiling became a national story, it was because black men of a certain income level were being stopped on the New Jersey turnpike. That's actually how that thing really began to blow up. So what happened was you had brothers and sisters who were making good money. You're muted. You're muted. You're muted. I'm all of that. Okay. Okay.

Here's the deal. Here's the deal. You, you, you, you, you have black men. Sean, Sean, hold on. Sean, Sean, Sean, one second. Sean, hold on. Sean, hold on. Sean, one second. Sean, hold on. Sean, hold on. in two weeks to respond to COVID-19, because that was important. And I agree that was important. We can't find $3 trillion for reparations. Black folks are not pulling those strings. So I think it's really, we have to be real clear on what we can do, but what is on white people and their responsibility and the pressures that we can continue and how they have to change and the onus that's on them. So I'll do this here, and Sean Preston, you can jump in.

This is the point I'm making. The racial profiling issue became national when black people of a certain income were being stopped by cops. And what that hit them in the face was, I might be able to drive a Mercedes or a BMW, but I'm no different than somebody else who's who doesn't have my income. And so what happens? So you're absolutely right. People are hit. People are hit. So African-Americans who move into upscale neighborhoods and then they're being stopped.

Well, do you live here? Why are you? And they're looking for homes. All of a sudden it's like, whoa, hold up. Yeah. So now they begin to realize my education, my degree, my salary. None of that stuff still matters. I'm still seen as a threat in the neighborhood. Sean Preston, I think what we have to do is what we have to do is, again, when it comes to hitting folks on these issues, it's like anything else. I'm going to get you. I got to get to you where you are. Now, one person may be here. One person may be here, but I got to get to both of y'all. So I got to figure out how to get to you to realize we in this thing together. But I got to first figure out, I got to meet you where you are. And then that means not bringing you up. That's great. But what I can't do is not talk to you

or say you're not worth it because your voice still matters and your vote still matters. Agree. Like a lot of times in our community, we often say like what a person need instead of asking them what do they want. Like I see that on an everyday basis where we just preach, preach, preach, and we never ask our communities like what do we want? Like what do we want from our government? What do we want from representation? What do we want from our educational system? So I fully agree with you, sir. Someone else, make the last comment right here before we transition to our second panel. I just want to say

that this was an excellent panel because this panel represents exactly what it is that you speak about. It's so many different dynamics of black men, you know, who come from so many different backgrounds, have so many different experiences. And these conversations have to continue in order for us to get to that one

point, that one thing that we all can connect upon, that makes sure that we get the equity and the, not just survival, but we're able to thrive and live as black men. So I appreciate this conversation. All right, then, gentlemen, we certainly appreciate it. Folks, don't forget, you can go to the Black Youth Vote pages on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter as well. Thanks a bunch to all of you. And I'll just go ahead again, read your name. So just real quick here, a big shout out for participating in this first panel conversation,

Jared Sawyer, also Sean Dove, Diallo Brooks, Reverend Tony Lee, Dwayne Crawford. We have, of course, Tony Lewis Jr. and also Sean Preston and my son. Folks, we thank you very much. And my son, glad to see you. Homeboy, drive off in your car. All right. Peace to y'all. I love y'all.

Be safe. Love y'all. Peace, man. All right, folks. We're going to take a break right now. We're going to then pull up our second panel. So we're going to go to a break. We'll be back on Roller Martin Unfiltered. សូវបានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប់បានប Thank you. The Thank you. សូវបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបា� Seek.com.

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Make it out to that. Not the show. Because that's the name of the parent Inc. Do me a favor. Make it out to that. Not the show. So because that's the name of the parent company. 1625 K Street, 1625 K Street, Northwest Suite 400, Washington, D.C. 2006. All right, folks, y'all know what time it is. are allowed. I'm white. I got you, Park. Illegally selling water without a permit. On my property. Whoa!

I'm uncomfortable. All right, y'all. So y'all know they announced that they're removing the imagery from Aunt Jemima. Well, this week, Donald Trump went to Arizona talking to the Turning Point USA youth meeting. That's that Charlie Kirk, Candace Owens group, a bunch of idiots. Lord, y'all, here's

this stupid white woman, a student, who shared her knowledge, her unbelievable expertise about Aunt Jemima on yesterday. Aunt Jemima was canceled. And if you didn't know, Nancy Green, the original first Aunt Jemima, she was a picture of the American dream. She was a freed slave who went on to be the face of the pancake syrup that we love and have in our pantries today. You know what? That child is so dumb. I want y'all play that again. Just play that again.

Play it again. Aunt Jemima was canceled. And if you didn't know Nancy Green, the original first Aunt Jemima, she was a picture of the American dream. She was a freed slave who went on to be the face of the pancake syrup that we love and have in our pantries today. Y'all, look at this tweet. I mean, there is a complicated story about Nancy Green and how she made and used her wealth. But the presentation of the image was absolutely derogatory. And this turning point person does not get it at all.

She was a figure of minstrelsy. Y'all see that? These people don't. These people are clueless. I mean, they're nuts. They have no idea what the hell they're talking about. I don't even understand. All right, folks. Wow.

That's here we go. Ready for our second panel. Let me know, please. I don't, I truly, I don't understand these folks. The bottom line is they can't handle really what's happening in this country, that we really are sick and tired of these images. And then they're like, how dare you actually want to change them? That's what's going on. All right, folks, ready for our panel to our National Coalition of Black Civic Participation. I'm going to introduce the panel first. let me know when they're pulling up. But here are all the folks in the second panel. Daryl Coles, National BYV

Project Assistant Intern with the National Coalition of Black Civic Participation. Demetrius Briscoe is National Black Justice Coalition. Pink Cornrows. Tommy Dortch Jr., Chairman of the Board of the NCBCP, Chairman also of 100 Black Men of America. Desmond Meade, he is the President of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition. Bishop Staccato Powell, Bishop AME Zion Church, Western Region, President, Board of Bishops, AME Zion Church. Also, Reverend Lennox Yearwood, President and CEO of the Hip Hop Caucus. And Hassan Solomon, he is the National Coalition of Black Participation Board Member and Legislative Director for the International Association of Machinists and

Aerospace Workers. Those are our panelists for our second discussion. This discussion is going to center on black men as organizations in terms of how we could take. So the first conversation we talked about black men, the first conversation we talked about black men, the first conversation we talked about black men. And then of course, uh, as individuals, how we reach them. This one, we're talking about organizations, how we use our organizing power to be able to affect change. Now, as I said, last week, uh, we had a conversation right here. It was a part it was a partnership with Alpha Phi Alpha. And that really was what a driving point of the conversation. How do we use our power to speak to these issues?

But we do so with organizations. I see one of the things that I've been saying for the longest that we don't really understand is that we've got great infrastructure. We've got a lot of organizations out here. But the question then is, is how we are using our organizations, how we are taking these entities and then putting their power to use. That is a real big part of the thing here. And I've been saying this for the longest, that if you read Dr. King's book,

Where Do We Go From Here, Chaos or Community, he literally says in the book, there are four institutions that can save black America. He says the black church, the black press, fraternities and sororities, and what he wrote, Negro professional organizations. And so I've always said, what's the point of having infrastructure if you don't use it? What's the point of having 100000 members?

What's the point of having chapters in different cities if you are not using it. That's really what we're talking about here. What we're talking about here is using organizations. How do we then begin to mobilize and organize? What Dr. Barber has been doing is important because what they have been doing is mobilizing and organizing. What they have been doing is training, going city to city, organizing people. That's what we have to have more of. And I think too often our organizations are so focused internal, what's happening within the organization as

opposed to as opposed to how we can use our power external and so what i'm trying to do i want to pull up some of that conversation uh and and play some of that because that you missed last week uh and so okay folks we got our panel ready okay Okay, well, there we go. All right, the panel is there. All right, so, Lon, do you have another introduction? No, I'm fine, but I just want to say that I appreciate what you're doing. A very powerful first session. The second one should be just as good because you've got a lot of power in the community in terms of the spiritual community, 100 black men. So go at it, Roland.

It's all yours, man. All right, Tommy, don't you want to throw it up to you first? You're the chair of the National Coalition of Black Civic Participation Board. We have lots of organizations, but I simply believe, and I've been saying state legislatures and Congress, if they don't know when they see black and gold or crimson and cream or pink and green, or if they don't see that symbol, that lapel pin, 100, 100 black men, if they don't see Prince Hall Masons, if they don't see that, that means that we are not properly leveraging our power externally. We're too focused on our internal dynamics. Right. Well, Roland, you're right. And that's why we have to be advocates.

I have all of my chapters of 100 Black Men of America have to have public policy committees because they have to make a difference in their local communities. And so those are the things that we understand. What good is to have a potential for power if you don't use it? And we have to be prepared also to call out our own people in our own community, like Senator Scott today wanted to water down what the Congressional Black Caucus has worked for for some time to get us this new Justice and Policing Act. What we have to do as an organization is understand we've got to make a difference everywhere. I've got 18 members of Congress. I've got mayors and city council people all throughout the country. But the key for us, and that's why the coalition is so important,

we have 70 members, but all 70 members of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation don't always show up. It's the coalition effort. We came together during the hurricanes and all, and then we die out. We get excited from Trayvon and want to do something, then it dies out. We've got to work collectively. And that's why in my organization with over 125,000 young people and our members, we require every chapter to have to be consistent in dealing with education,

with dealing with the issue on economic empowerment, dealing with health and wellness, and, of course, dealing with mentoring. And if we don't insist it on that, and you know, in our fraternity, I'm Omega, you're Alpha, but we got some folks still want to socialize instead of using the political power. So you're right.

We waste what we have that could make a difference. And then that last thing is that we've got to be focused. The police brutality is a catalyst, but we are getting our butts kicked every day from elected officials, from Congress to local governments and all. So racism is everywhere. And we can't just say that only police brutality. We've got to deal with racism everywhere. And so that's why we need to collectively come together. And in our organization, we either need to be true or we need to get our butts out of the business.

Hassan, you're with the machinists and aerospace engineers. And the reality is that's what unions have always been, organizing forces, operating and speaking for the collective. Do we have Hassan there? Hassan, if you're there, unmute yourself, please. I'm here. Go right ahead. Go right ahead. And that is what I was saying is that with the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, again, unions, that's what they were organized to serve that particular purpose.

And so you must be able to be you must be able to be organized, mobilized and organized to affect change. Hassan, go ahead. Yes. No, I couldn't agree with you more. My organization has most importantly, why their vote matters. And I listened to you earlier, and you talked about connecting the dots. And that's exactly what the Machinist Union tries to do. We educate our membership on how important the electoral process is. You know, the game is the economy. And the rules to that game is legislative policy. And that policy is written by the people who we elect to Congress and to the White House. Now, unfortunately, those rules are written for workers to lose. Those rules are written for Black people to lose. Those rules right now are being written to benefit Main Street and definitely not Martin Luther King

Avenue or Main Street. So what we're trying to do is make sure that we elect people that want to support us and support our community and our agenda. And in order to affect change, in order to change the bad policy, you have to change the bad politicians. And so that's what we try to do. We try to educate our members on a daily basis. And we start early. We don't wait to just election time to start

doing our voter mobilization and education program. We do it every year. We don't wait a couple of days before the vote. We're doing that program monthly, weekly, in the union halls and in the community. Desmond Meade, you laid Amendment 4 there in Florida, which

restored the voting rights for formerly incarcerated. That was a 10-year effort. You could not have done that if you did not mobilize and organize. Speak to how critically important it is where groups chose to get behind your effort as opposed to you trying to go to individuals why groups mattered? Oh, definitely. You know, I tried the solo. First of all, thank you for having me on, Roland, and of course, the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation. Yeah. You know, early on in the campaign, you know, I was it was basically a one man show. And I realized that, you know, at the end of the day, I mean, I even reached out to you, Roland, but the mega sci-fi, they definitely stood up.

The Delta stood up. The AKA stood up and really gave us a big push in a lot of our communities in which we needed that help. There was still a lot left to be desired, and I'm going to be completely real. But we're an organization that believe in second chances and and so guess what the divine and I have a real second chance to get down and dirty and here's the key because I think your first panel uh really touched on something Tony Lewis and my son when we talk about so often we get caught up and only wanting to talk to the people that we're comfortable with talking to, right?

And this is the time in our election where folks really have to talk to people who they're not comfortable. They got to talk to the Pookies and the Ray Rays, right? They've got to go to the hood, in the streets, on the corners and have those conversations because those people in our communities are people that have traditionally been ignored, right? And so we're hoping that this time and with this movement that we see throughout the country, that folks are understanding that Pookie and Ray Ray is just as important as Dr. So-and-so

and Sora So-and-so and Brother So-and-so and Reverend So-and-so, that Pookie and Ray-Ray can bring the heat and they could actually be that force that takes us over the top. And that is the thing that, Bishop Powell, we've had for decades. The church has served as that. But what you have now, and I don't think a lot of people really understand this, what you're seeing now, you have the greatest increase as really being non-denominational. Now, people say that's wonderful. But the thing about non-denominational, you're actually not linked to anybody else. So the great thing about denominations is that you have infrastructure.

And so when you have infrastructure, you're able to actually place a single call, send out a single email, and now all of a sudden line people up to be able to get behind in action. So how are you in this moment of Black Lives Matter, how are you emphasizing among the AME Zion Church what needs to be done using that infrastructure to be agents of change? It's historically documented that the Black church has perhaps been at the forefront of every movement of transformation in this nation and even around the world. When you look at the civil rights movement, Martin Luther King was a strong voice, but he was also an African American preacher. We can also document things down in Montgomery where the AME Zion Church was at the forefront. We have the Black Methodist United that consists of the AMEs, AME Zion and CME Church.

And 10 years ago, we had a great gathering in Columbia, South Carolina, and we came out with a male investment program targeted at a strategic, systemic, sustainable initiative to address the very things that we are seeing right now. What we have to do is not simply talk the talk, but as Tommy has said and others, we have to now operationalize and mobilize and implement these strategies. And even on the first panel, one of the reoccurring themes was not simply the vote, which is very important. We have to do that. We have to not just go to the polls, but we have to begin to take advantage of the early voting process. There are groups like Sojourners and the Skinner Institute, along with the Black Church. They have a Lawyers and Callers Day where we can now vote early.

So we have to mobilize our people in the churches to vote early. Though we are not gathering in the sanctuaries as we have done before, the church is not just a building. We have to continue to have linkages with our people and mobilize them to the significance of what's happening at this very moment, not just with Black Lives Matter. But the key thing is we have to now ensure that we have our own. Everything we need, we have. We don't have to wait for anybody to fund our causes or to do anything. We spend perhaps more money in the U.S. economy on things of luxury than anybody else in this society. Now we have to have our own banking institutions, not just the small-time mom-and-pop lending agencies, but a global bank that links us from this country and all African Americans of the diaspora to the continent of Africa, where we have the greatest resources on all the planet. I appreciate what the National Coalition of Black Civic Participation and Melanie has done down through this last five, six years or so. But we've got to, those of us who are on this call tonight, not just have a candid conversation, but we have got to begin to mobilize. And we are relaunching on August 1st the male investment program.

You can like us on Facebook, the male investment program. You can like us on Facebook at the male investment program. You can go on to Instagram where you will see at MIP the village because we have to empower our men, boys to stand up and be strong models and be the Adams of this generation and be who God has commissioned and called us to be in this moment in time. Apollos again, infrastructure matters. How are, how's your organization mobilizing and organizing specifically black men when it comes to what's happening right now in the streets, but also in the suites? Well, for us, it's first of all,

thank you for having me this evening and being a part of it. We appreciate the leadership of Melanie Campbell. One thing that we do is we continue to work with other unions. And I consider Hassan my brother, but also our leader, with the Labor Roundtable and showing the strength among black trade unionists and being a part of those organizations and moving. One thing we're doing is also by closing the ranks, particularly of those who are in law enforcement that are Black, to stand forward on some of the issues that are affecting Black communities to move them forward. Many of our folks are in our industry that our federal employees continue to see the struggles and push forward. However, they are there trying to make corrective change.

And in corrective change, that also means taking corrective action. So you'll see them now engaging our membership to make sure, hey, have you checked your own voting records? Have you made sure you've been voting? Have you made a plan for voting? So we're doing different things that we've never done before around organizing and being trade unionists. We are engaging our membership in different ways. And then we're branching out because one thing that we realize in our organization is that we can't do it all by ourselves. We have to have partnerships. We have to be with folks. And then also I'm always encouraged by a mentor, Mr. Dossier, making sure that we're connecting with our young folks that are in the trade unionist movement with the Young Organization, which is a young 40 group.

I spoke with a person today and he's like, hey, I need to make sure I'm being engaged in Florida because that's where I want to get out and help people vote. But I put my ballot in so I could actually vote early. So we're connecting all of those dots for our members and continue to mobilize by also trying to build strength in numbers. Demetrius, the power of using organizations and their infrastructure to drive change. Yes, sir. Well, my organization, Pink Corn Rolls, and our National Black Justice Coalition, is focused on policy change.

And so we have to see how dismantling the system of white supremacy and systemic racism is going to make sure that black and brown people are not being killed by police officers and not being wiped out by medical institutions that are not seeing our best interests at heart, right? I think having economic power is good, but we can't just build these economic systems when the government is still doing things, white supremacy is still doing things to push us down. So I really think we need to organize the community by understanding what we need to do by dismantling, and not just voting, because voting is great and it's important,

but we have to work, work, work by telling our elected officials that we need to dismantle certain systems that are actually killing our bodies. So I think that's where we need to start as well. Well, I think the thing there, Darrell, then Reverend Yearwood, Darrell first, is that what we often do is our messaging is vote, but our messaging is then doesn't shift to what then happens after the election, regardless of if your candidate won or lost, which is why organizations matter. That was the critique I offered when Diddy made his comment about holding out voter hostage is you can't make an argument for something before the election. If you don't have an infrastructure that can then hold a person accountable after the election?

So I'd just like to start off by saying thank you for Manny Campbell for this experience. Also to you, Roland, for sharing your platform to us. So to answer, you know, try my best to answer your question, you know, organizations and coalitions, you know, I think need to come together when we come together. Because we're all reaching the same, we're all trying to reach the same goal, get to the same journey. So to quote Malcolm X, he said, it's not that we are outnumbered, but we are just out organized. So, you know, all the organizations come together, just like voting, when Black people come and turn out together, and we all turn out together, you know, we make real change.

So organizations, we come together, we do real work, like in the National Coalition on Black Civil Participation, we pride ourselves on partnering with organizations. We've been getting out doing great work, having youth watch groups. And, you know, to, you know, further talk about what the first discussion with the panel was saying, the messaging, which I thought was real important. The messaging needs to be better to reach to better to our black youth so you know i just think all the organizations when you come together and we can put our more powerful message and we can make real systemic change when we all you know bring power storm together so reverend yearwood to that particular

point again how you must be able to then it's one thing to mobilize during the election but then of course after the election is over if if you're talking about a member of Congress has two years, United States Senate is six years. Governor is four years. You know, a county official could be four years as well. And I think that is to me, that has been the greatest mistake that we have made, not just black folks, but many people out there is that there are so, billions of dollars are spent on the election,

the election, the election. But then once the election is over, then shifting to, okay, election is over, now we gotta have this entity as then pushing and prodding. And that might mean I need people who are sending emails and making phone calls. And we might need you to show up to city council meetings and school board meetings. Again, taking all of that and then harnessing it. That to me has been the failure in many ways, because we say, welcome to the agenda. Well, you can ask for an agenda during

the election. But if you ain't pressing and holding accountable after the election, all you did was waste your time. Yeah, yeah, I agree, Roland. And I just want to, before I say anything else, I just want to say thank you. I want to join the chorus of all of those who have already thanked my dear sister Melanie Campbell and all those who work with her. And obviously you, Roland, for how you've been using Black media to give us a platform. But you're 100 percent right. I mean, it's clear, and I say this all the time, that demonstration without legislation leads to frustration. And if we're only focused on the demonstration but not on how we are shaping policy, then we're going to continue this circle of confusion.

The most important time in any president's tenure is in the first hundred days. We should already have a roadmap, literally, for the first hundred days, from January 20th to about mid-May, June, we should already know. We should already know who we want for those positions in the cabinet. We should know literally, we should know what we want as far as the policies across all the agencies,

from HUD, EPA, Health and Human Services. We should be, the thing that I think, we're not digging deep enough. We're just doing the surface thing. And our institutions should do more. I actually agree with you. We should do more. I think many of us are doing more.

I think we realize that we need to shape policy because we clearly see either you shape policy or policy will definitely shape you. And I think that we need to get more engaged in the policy, not just the conversation of policy, not in the policy, what it means to us, but really in the policy, okay, listen, if we, when this person gets in office, this is plan A for the first 100 days. This is exactly what we want them to do. And the alternate.

And so if Trump wins again, I mean, if that happens, then we should be playing, like, what happens in that 100 days? What do we do? Are we protesting? How are we aligning ourselves? You know, what are we doing to ensure with the new Congress, with those in the state and local governments, how are we managing that? And, I just want to go to you all for your first point. I want to say that, Reverend Dr. Barber, I want to join with you and say he is phenomenal of what he is doing, because what he is showing many of us is that we have a tendency to want to operate in our silos. And Reverend Barber is saying, no, we must break the silos. He's also saying to many of us that we have a tendency to only work in one space, like we're in voter registration, we're in voter protection, which is critical, but we're just staying in that space. Oh,

we're in the movement for Black Lives, or we're in labor, we're in the church. What he is doing is this. He's saying that these other spaces that have traditionally also been run by our white counterparts, I'm not just going to leave that to them. If it was militarism, I'm going to be in that space. If it's the environment, I'm going to be in that space. If it's poverty, I'm going to be in that space. What Reverend Barber is doing is saying that, listen, it's all linked together. We must break down the silos. And that's why you see this tremendous success around the Poor People's Campaign. But definitely, to your point and to your question, we have to get much more serious about the first 100 days of the new president's tenure and what they propose to do. Anyone can answer this question because the thing that this this segment of discussion is about organizations and infrastructure and folks jump out and then we'll pull you up.

It's very simple. Not only must you be organized, but you also must train people. And if there's one thing that Reverend Barber has been doing that is the most underappreciated aspect of the black freedom movement, is that SCLC, SNCC, CORE, NAACP, they trained people. They took them through civics classes. They had freedom schools. There are a lot of people today who just want to sort of just jump out there. And I'm like, if you don't even have you don't go through the training, you don't know what the hell you're doing. Who wants to speak on that? Anybody? Desmond, go ahead, Desmond.

I'll take a part of it if I can. It's a policy here. I've noticed that one of our partners have kind of picked that back up. It's the April of Randolph Institute. And one thing that Professor Solomon and I have us working on is we have literally gone back and started training

folks, particularly on how we engage our communities, going back to barbershops and grease lines and making sure we're sitting there talking to folks on Saturdays when they're at their busiest portions and engaging them on the policy. The one thing that I think that we miss on that we've engaged with people is not just the elections, but also after the elections, watching our elected officials with some of these boards and commissions where things are decided that don't necessarily come before a city council or county council and engaging our politicians specifically that, hey, when it comes time for these other appointments, you should be looking at our

communities when it comes to zoning. And that's something that A. Philip Randolph is doing when they're having their stuff with Clayola Brown, something that Brother Simon and I are working on with them to engage them with that. And I think that's where we are to make sure that we are engaging our people going back to those types of trainings. And also, but not just in our traditional space, I've had a conference, but at a barbershop and at Beauty's Moms. And I know they're doing that in places like Ohio and in Florida and in North Carolina. Desmond, you wanted to jump in there. Go ahead. Yeah, because what you were saying just resonated with me, Roland. I mean, because Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, the program that we're running right now,

I think is so unique and much needed. Like when we're out there and we're registering returning citizens, right, we're not just registering the vote. We're also giving them surveys that they have to complete because we want to find out what it is that keeps them up at night. What are the issues that's most important to them? And once we get that, we're actually able to reengage them and have them join our chapters where we actually do take them through what we call. It's a program that one of our leaders and my wife, Sheena, actually developed called power training sessions. Right. Where they have three different levels. Level one is civics 101. You know, many of returning citizens have never voted before.

And that's something that we seem to forget. Right. Look at a person like me when I'm voting in August. It's going to be the first time that I voted in over 30 years. All right. And so there is that basic level of training about where to vote, how to vote, you know, and the type of things that you need to know to be an informed voter. But then that level two is how we're connecting now your vote and letting you know how powerful it is and connecting it to issues that you said are important to you. And then level three is how do you become that field general in your family or even in your community where you're learning about how to canvas, how to run phone banks, how to organize community meetings, and how to mobilize your people to the polls.

And so that is something that we are definitely 100 percent committed to in Florida, especially when engaging Pookie and Ray Ray, right? It's an equal. Because we do believe, once again, that they're going to be the difference, that people with felony convictions are going to cover the gap, not only in Florida, but throughout this country. And I'm looking forward to seeing what comes out of that. Anybody else? Go ahead. Jump in. There is also another element to the training. Those who have spoken before, I totally agree with. But we have to start early. We can't allow our young people to get to teenage years and start trying to do remedial and reactionary things. academies and train them in civic participation, train them in economics so they understand what

it means to be responsible and also have the means to equip themselves to care for their families. We have to make sure they have a proper spiritual grounding and foundation. As I alluded to early on, Dr. King and who he was in terms of clergy, you've already heard about Bishop Barber and the things he's doing. So we have to begin a strategic training process for our young people. We can't wait until they have an encounter with the police and then try to rescue them. We have to teach them how not to have an incident with the judicial system, if at all possible, and make sure that they have the grounding to graduate from secondary education and have the avenues that's available to them that can continue to

equip them and empower them for the days that lie ahead. So when they get to the age of voting, they don't have to be coerced to register. It's a part of who they are. When they get to the point of engaging city councils and ready to run for school board or going to become a justice on the Supreme Court, that they have the equipping that they need from the very inception of life and not wait until they get into a situation where we have to come and try to remediate the circumstance and situation. Hey, Roland, if I could jump in there real quick. I just want to add one piece to that I think is important. I just want to say that young people, first I agree with you

on the training aspect, that we should do more training and our institutions should do more training. I definitely want to say this, that young people are out there doing that. I don't want to let them not... Right, right, they are. No, they are. I'm just simply emphasizing it because

again, the reason I'm saying that's the most under appreciated aspect of it because, again, the reason I'm saying that's the most underappreciated aspect of it because everybody just thinks that, well, you know what, I want to protest. And I think we are seeing some of that where, okay, you're protesting, but then also then how do you now channel that? Then how do you now train? How do you shift from what happens in the streets to now, okay, what do you do? The city council committee, the fire and police committee as well.

What about city council? Well, you got to go to the committee first for that bill goes to the full council. The training aspect. We've got to constantly keep people understanding that our organizations can also be doing that. So, Reverend Yearwood, then Tommy Dorch. Yeah, no. And I OK, thank you for that clarification, Roland. I agree with you on that. I just wanted to make sure because I think that what we're also seeing now with, I think, a lot of the young folks who are out there is because they have been having some real serious conversations. Actually, I think that in their being bold in their analysis, for instance, their want

to defund the police, I think those who've been bold in their analysis, for instance, their want to defund the police. I think those who have been around want to coach that and change that and wordsmith that. And they are very clear on what they want and the reason why they want that. They want to, you know, say, listen, the budget that are going to these school departments are bloated. And literally school teachers don't have what they need. And we need to redirect funding. And so they're very clear on that. They're very clear on their analysis. They're really clear on what they want. So I think that there have been a number of groups from the Dream Defenders, Hip Hop Caucus,

Sunrise, Zero Hour, so many of these young groups that are out there that are having some real serious conversations that maybe we don't see. I mean, I see them. I'm around them. Right, right. But they're having some real deep conversations. And it's not just black folk. You have white folk and brown folk and red folk. All these folks coming together, which is now creating the element where you don't see this white allies or white accomplices. And so I think that we have a new moment here where there is some training. But to your point, as institutions,

we should do better. I mean, us being the largest rights organizations, we should do much better having that training or giving the resources to these young folks so they can do the training themselves. Tommy, go ahead. And I think what we have to understand is not either or. There are a number of things we must incorporate. The coalition, for example, we're being successful because we have units throughout all multiple states. And those units work together. They do training.

They do collaboration. We have our black youth vote. And I have to give credit. Our women are far, far ahead of us black men. And we're trying to address on how we play catch up as black men and then even understanding now the conversation uh roland you mentioned earlier we're talking about waiting until we get a president we need to be and and you know again we need to be true to ourselves and quit political games of knowing what the reality is we're putting all our eggs in one basket, for example,

saying we want Vice President Biden to have a black female candidate for vice president, when in fact we need to be talking right now about an African-American woman on the Supreme Court. We need to talk about those cabinet positions we want. We need to be talking about the budget that includes African-American and small businesses, that includes this whole issue about funding education back to the level of where it was, looking at what we do for HBCUs, looking at this whole issue as we look at

judgeships. This president we have now just appointed is 200 judges, and those folks are on the bench for life. And we need to understand what that means. And then we need to look at the U.S. attorneys throughout this country and look at the Justice Department, which has been totally decimated. And then we need to look at other issues like the black banks. Ten years ago, we had 85. We're down to 19. There's so many issues. Instead of us looking at one issue, and we're getting ready from the coalition to move our southern strategy team into Atlanta to work more in the south so we can make a difference even in this upcoming election. But what will work is coalitions working together and us understanding, too, as we have this black, that real men vote, is getting black

men to get out front and quit sitting behind, getting our black-owned businesses who benefited from all the work all of us have done, who are taking their money home and afraid to speak up and speak out. And so we've got to understand the strategies. And one last thing. In Fulton County here, we have a predominantly black county commission, but we've got one commissioner who is a Republican hiding in a Democratic umbrella who votes with the Republicans every time. They try to cut out the CBDG grants. That's money that helps our people. He refused. And what we did for three consecutive commission meetings, we shut them down because they have public opening times for public input. And we packed that place. We had so many folks, they couldn't take care of their business. And finally, we scared them into doing the right

thing. We need to use strategies that work. But the other side, it works when we all come together. And we talk about that agenda. And again, anyone, I know in this round have not heard from Hassan, Demetrius and Darrell? I think Apollos as well. But I did hear Apollos. So, for instance, and I had no problem saying it because I criticized it then. that the black organizations did not hold a meeting until five years into Obama's term to talk about a black agenda. It was after the election in 2012, and I was there and I was going,

so we just skipped the whole first term? Now, granted, there were organizations who did stuff. But LGBT organizations presented Obama with a 54 pellet, a 54 page agenda within his first 60 days. I remember when that was there was some sisters who were upset with the My Brother's Keeper Initiative. And they were like, well, where's the my sister's keeper initiative and i had to remind them that was the office of white house women and girls that was created within the first 90 days why were y'all not demanding that office uh present an agenda see so i so i so i think in many ways we can't at some point we have to be willing to look in the mirror and we can't just say, hey, what about us if we have not organized to push people to address us? Well, Rowan, I like to answer that.

To go back to the issue of training young people. Right. I think we have to have a pipeline of leadership, right? We need to have organizations making sure that these people that are coming up in the protests that are marching in the streets are being trained and being brought into the conversation about, you know, maybe one day run for office or you need to make sure that you're going to your civic engagement meetings, your council meetings, talking to your congressman, right? I think we need to have room for young people that are not necessarily given the opportunity to be in these spaces, right? If it wasn't for Pink Corn Road and the National Black Justice Coalition, I wouldn't be here for you today, right? So I really think it's to give space to people who are not necessarily heard, who are not necessarily seen as someone who should be in the front lines, like queer people, trans people, right? I really think we need to reach out to those different organizations, different people, different groups to say, okay, well, we see you doing the groundwork and we just need to bring you in, train you up so that you can run for these positions, right? You can be in certain C-suites and corporations. I really think that's a big, big, big thing that we have to focus on is like reaching out and making sure that these people

who don't necessarily have the tools, who don't necessarily have the resources to be in the White House or be on Capitol Hill, but making sure that we are reaching out to them saying, we'll have you, we have your back, we're going to help you out um daryl weigh in um i just want to double back um about the youth training so under thomas dutch and manly campbell we've been hosting right before the corona outbreak we was getting ready to host in september um a black Uvote youth training where we was going to have fly out different youth organizers to Atlanta where we was going to host different levels of training. And also Black Uvote has been hosting local training within our own sister states where

we have branches of Black Uv. So Black You Vote has been doing our part thanks to Manny Campbell-Thomas to energize, motivate, and organize Black youth to get ready to own their political power. So we've been doing our part to motivate the youth and get ready to vote. So training has been very important, and we've been doing our part and trying to do our part to really energize the youth to own their political battle and get civilly engaged, because it's more important now than ever.

Got about six minutes left. I'm going to throw this out there, and anybody can jump in. Outside of your organizations, who is doing this well? Who can serve as a model for people out there in terms of to activate, engage, organize, and mobilize Black men or Black people in general? Anybody can jump in. I think there are a number of people that are doing it exceptionally well.

Thomas Deutsch has been on the front lines with 100 black men. We've heard his voice. He continues to lead. I think Melanie Campbell with the whole civic participation is doing an outstanding job. There are other organizations that have been on the front for quite some time. Urban League is still on the front. But I think what we have to do now is reach beyond ourselves and come together in a collective way and blend our voices to speak with a cogent, concise, and concrete message for what we are going to do. As you've already pointed out, Roland, we can't wait until things happen. We have to have an agenda in place and make the kind of specific request, if not demands, to get the things that we need to continue to propel ourselves forward.

I don't want, this is the first time I've used this concept, but I'm going to put it out there. In some instances, we're going to have to resegregate. We can't just try to be assimilated into the larger culture. But when segregation was at the fore, many of the things that we have lost, Thomas talked about the number of banks that we used to have, the number of businesses in our communities, and all of that has gone by the way. So now, as opposed to simply protesting, we have to put up our own solid infrastructure and foundation. We've got the census is going on. We need to make sure that we are counted in the census.

So when this $625 billion is being divvied up, our communities are not overlooked. Our infrastructure and our communities have to be supported as well. So we have got to now not just look at individual organizations, and I think Reverend Yearwood talked about the silo effect, but we've got to get beyond ourselves and link up and ensure that we have the black community can look at that is organizing and pushing an agenda. They don't attack organized labor because we're weak. They attack us because we're strong, because 100 days into the election, we do have a defined agenda. We do understand that social issues divide us, but economic issues unite us across genders, across race, across economic status. And that's why we are so effective in supporting candidates to support us and support our agenda. So as far as the Black community is concerned,

we need to look at organized labor and look at the structure that they've had in place. My union has been around for 130 years, and they're going to be around for another 130 years. So we got to make sure that this is not just a moment. This is a movement that lasts the test of time. Thank you. Desmond. And let me just real quick, too, on this is that we have to look at how the structure was done even in the past. There's no one organization that is the best in class. We have to come together. Even with Dr. King, everybody saw SCLC, but the NAACP, A. Philip Randolph, everybody took a piece of the pie and worked it, but they worked it collectively.

We need our unions. In the coalition, we have unions. In the coalition, we have all of these different organizations. I'm fortunate in the 100 Black Men of America that we have men who come from all of the different fraternities, who come from so many different walks of life, and we take the best in class and incorporate that into what we do. And then we don't have a problem in going outside of the, quote,

membership to other communities because we have to understand we're in this together. And I caution all of us. Last Sunday, I had over 40 young leaders on a call with me. And what we have to do is not the young leaders need to know how to do it. We need to embrace the fact that they have their thoughts. And what I did with them was talk with them about what their agenda was. And we talked with them as those elders in the village about having an end game. Yes, you demonstrate, but Dr. King, you know, has always had a purpose and saying, okay, when you go in. But the amazing thing is they have agendas. The amazing thing is they're doing voter registrations at all of these demonstrations.

So what we have to do is understand there's a time to leave, follow, or get out of the way, and understand that those elders in the village have a role, those who are developing have a role, and our young people have a role. And when we respect each other, then we will get things done. I meet on a regular basis with my hip-hop community here in Atlanta because they've said we don't respect them and we don't engage them. But I can call any of them up because they know I respect and I simply say we need them. They can reach our younger people quicker than us, and we have to make sure the right message is going there. So with all of that, my whole approach is we have to keep working.

The coalition is pulling us all together, and we have to be strong enough to say, I don't have to be the first on the list. I don't have to be out front. This is for the family, and we have to work together as a family, and that's the only way we're going to succeed. And embracing people like you, Roland, and others who are doing the things you do, we got to know that we got soldiers out there working for us, and we got to support you and others.

Desmond, you want to jump in? And this will be the final comment, Desmond. All right, is Desmond on mute? Desmond, you're on mute. Yes, I think this—thank you so much. You got all that equipment over there you're on mute. It's set up for me because here's the deal. When you talk about coming together, one of the critical elements that we keep missing is that we're making these we're

trying to make these decisions and we're trying to create these agendas but we're not engaging with the people that that are directly impacted by the policy right right now here this whole country is talking about police brutality right but? But how many people, right, that's actually got a mic, right, that's actually talking on behalf, trying to create these policies are actually people who've been brutalized by the police, right? people returning citizens and formerly incarcerated people be the driving force, right, behind creating these criminal justice reform policies or reforming these police department policies or even state attorneys, the district attorneys. And so we cannot have a complete agenda. We cannot have a foolproof agenda until we are engaging and allowing the people who are mostly directly impacted by the issues that we want to pain the most has to have the most investment to actually get rid of that pain and to permanently get rid of it. Right. So we're not about taking those shortcuts. We know exactly what's wrong because of influence and power to create that space

for people like me and so many throughout the country to be able to walk in there. And that brother needs to say, you know what? I know I'm Joe and Reed, you might want to talk to me, but I got a brother in Louisiana. I got a brother in North Carolina that's been living this stuff and can speak to it much better than I can. That's who you need to talk to. And we shouldn't be so quick to run and talk to Joanne. We should be so quick to be at the table trying to set the policies. We need to let the people who are experiencing the pain the most be right there at that table and lead the way. All right, gentlemen, I certainly appreciate it. Let me go through

again. I want to thank all of our panelists for being here. Daryl Coles, Demetrius Briscoe, Tommy Dortch, Desmond Meade, Bishop Staccato Powell, Reverend Lennox Yearwood, Hassan Solomon, as well as

did I miss somebody? Did I miss somebody? I think I get everybody. Apollo. Apollo. My bad, Apollo. My bad about that. So we certainly appreciate all of you being on the panel. And again, Apollo's bacon.

Thanks a bunch. Lon Walls, closing comment. Go. Yeah. I don't know if Melanie's there. I wanted to see if she wanted to close it out. Now I see it. Okay.

They had you up. So, all right. So who's closing? Lon or Melanie? Which one? Melanie's there. I wanted to see if she wanted to close it out. Now I see it. Okay, they had you up. So, all right. So who's closing? Lana or Melanie? Which one? Melanie's got it. It's Melanie's show. It's our show.

Thank you, Roland. Thank you to my chairman, Tommy Dorch. I thank every last one of you all for this time tonight. This is not the end. It's a reboot of us rebuilding our black male initiative inside of the national coalition. So these conversations

are not just conversations. We will be having our black vote national training, whether it be virtual or in person, depending on COVID. But also having next year the Black

Men and Boys Day on Capitol Hill where we are going to make sure that Black men are front and center presence. We have Black Women's Roundtable in March. We will have a day for Black Men and Boys. And just thank you all for all you're doing. And together we will bring about the real change we need for our communities.

So thank you for being here. Thank you, everybody. All right, folks. that is it for us. We certainly appreciate everybody who joined us, who watched YouTube, Facebook, and Periscope. Don't forget to support Roland Martin Unfiltered by joining our Brena Funk fan club. Folks, you can give, again, cash app, dollar sign RM Unfiltered.

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