#RolandMartinUnfiltered - AL Carlee Russell Admits She Lied, Alabama Redistricting Battle, Cincinnati Music Festival recap

Episode Date: July 25, 2023

7.24.2023 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: AL Carlee Russell Admits She Lied, Alabama Redistricting Battle, Cincinnati Music Festival recap Carlee Russell admits she was not kidnapped and she made up seeing a baby on Alabama's I-459.  We'll have her confession her attorney sent to the Hoover police chief.  Alabama Republicans' newly approved district lines are causing quite a stir. The maps are heading back to federal court, potentially causing far-reaching consequences. An Alabama Democratic state representative will be here to explain how they are again battling an issue the Supreme Court settled.  Texas A&M University President M. Katherine Banks abruptly resigns following the botched hiring of a Black journalist to revive the university's journalism department. We'll explore what this means for the university and the broader conversation surrounding racial equity in educational institutions. Controversy clouds Florida's education system after adopting a new African American history standard taking students back in time to learn from late 1800s rhetoric. Plus, hear from Florida State Representative Kim Daniels on the board as she appears in a shocking video expressing gratitude for slavery. I will take you on a musical journey as we bring you exclusive interviews and unforgettable moments from the Cincinnati music festival. Trust me; you won't want to miss the highlights from Cincinnati's Music Festival.  Download the Black Star Network app at http://www.blackstarnetwork.com! We're on iOS, AppleTV, Android, AndroidTV, Roku, FireTV, XBox and SamsungTV. The #BlackStarNetwork is a news reporting platform 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. "See 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 iheart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast today is monday july 24 2023 coming up on roland martin unfiltered streaming live on the black star network carly russell the black woman in alabama had been missing for two days, now admits she was not kidnapped and made up the entire story.

We'll tell you what her attorney released today. Staying in Alabama, Republicans there approved a new congressional district lines that frankly ignore and violate a Supreme Court mandate. It's now headed back to the federal court, potentially causing far-reaching consequences. We'll talk to a Democrat there in Alabama to explain what's going on and how Republicans

are doing their best to diss black people. Texas A&M University President Kathleen Banks, she abruptly resigned last week following the botched hiring of a black journalist to revive the university's journalism department. And the Kermit head came up with a letter stating flat out that they doctored the letter. Wait till we break that whole thing down.

Controversy clouds Florida's education system after adopting a new African-American history standard, taking students back in time to learn from the late 1800s. Using rhetoric from then, we'll hear from Florida State Representative Kim Daniels who is on the board of this board that DeSantis has created. Y'all, this fool actually says, ooh, she will just thank God for slavery.

Yeah. Also, we're going on just thank God for slavery. Yeah, also, we're going on a musical journey, folks, as we were in Cincinnati over the weekend for the Cincinnati Black Music Walk of Fame, the opening of that, plus our coverage of the Cincinnati Music Festival. We'll hear from Jodeci.

It is time to bring the funk on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Let's rolling. Yeah, yeah. It's Uncle Roro, yo. Yeah, yeah. It's rolling, Martin. Yeah, yeah. Rolling with rolling now. Yeah, yeah.

He's funky, he's fresh, he's real the best. You know he's rolling, Martin. Now. He's fresh, he's real, the best, you know he's rolling, Martel. Martel. White Republicans in Alabama, making it perfectly clear, they really don't care about black folks. The Alabama legislature was under a court order to redraw the congressional lines in the state,

and they were to draw a second black district. They were like, damn them black people. They refused to do so. What they want to do, they hope when it goes to the court, they can argue, oh, we added enough black people to satisfy the court.

They're banking on conservatives. They're banking on conservatives standing with them. Now, here's how we got to this point. A three-judge panel, federal judges, struck down the previous maps in Alabama saying it violated the Voting Rights Act. Alabama lawmakers appealed, went to the Supreme Court. Supreme Court allowed the lower court ruling to stand, which meant that their decision

valid. Now, Republicans have a super majority in Alabama. They didn't care, so they said, oh, fine, we'll go ahead and boost the percentage of black voters in a majority white second congressional district. But ain't no way in hell we gonna create a second district. There are seven members of Congress from

Alabama. Six white, one black. Six Republicans, one Democrat. So not only do they not want a black district, because they know we create a second black district, we creating a Democrat district.

Joining us right now is Chris England. He's a state representative there in Alabama. Glad to have him on the show. Representative England, look, it's abundantly clear that these white conservative Republicans, they want to suppress black voters in Alabama. They do not want black people to have more representation. And they are using their power

over the legislature to do this. And Alabama Governor Kay Ivey, oh, she was quick to sign this into law. This, frankly, reminds me of how white Democrats during Jim Crow tried to ignore Supreme Court mandates. Yeah, you know, to be honest with you, it was a tough week. The Supreme Court gave us until Friday this past week to go through the process, pass a map that complied with the V.R. Voting Rights Act, complied with the court order, and also satisfied states redistricting principles. And the sad thing is that we had a proposal in hand drawn up by the plaintiff's attorneys that did all of those things. And instead, they rejected that map and adopted a map that dropped the voting age, Black voting age population in both the 7th congressional district, which was already a majority-minority district, from 55 to 50 percent, and then created the second congressional district that is 39.9 percent black voting age population. And the Supreme Court order clearly said you need to create a majority-minority district

or something quite close to it. And again, I'm not a math major, but 39 percent is not close to 50. And taking it a step further, the court also said that the black belt in Alabama was a community of interest and that in any new map, the black belt should be kept whole in an effort to satisfy the Voting Rights Act. And in the map that you see, well, the new map actually cracks the black belt. It takes Lowndes County out of the black belt, removes northern Mobile County out of it, and once again memorializes another failed argument in the map. So it lowers the black voting age population in both of the districts and takes a rejected argument the Supreme Court said is not legitimate and uses

it anyway. So at this point, it's clear that the Republicans in the legislature are intent on forcing this back to the Supreme Court and hopefully getting an opportunity to remind them, you know, we're all conservatives here. Why not take another bite at this apple and get it right this time and get the Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act or, on the alternative, delay this for so long that we're forced to use the illegal map again? So when you talk about cracking the black belt, correct me if I'm wrong, they basically said, all right, we're going to take all these black people in the black belt and we're going to send them to four different districts.

Well, essentially, yes. And the interesting thing in part, I don't think you'll find anybody in the state of Alabama that says that Lowndes County is not a part of the black belt. But in their map, Lowndes County becomes part of the second congressional district to make up that thirty.9% that's supposed to be an opportunity. If anybody was watching and listening, Lowndes County is where the Black Panther Party originated. I mean, Lowndes County is the blackity, blackity, blackest part of Alabama. That's where the Freedom Party originated, yeah. And also, but when you put it into the second congressional district, you marginalize it. You minimize the, you minimize black voters' influence over the process. But meanwhile, you also take, diminish the number of black

voters in the second congressional district. So now you're starting to, I mean, you've basically taken the order from the Supreme Court and just said, I'm not going to follow any of it at all. I mean, this is them completely ignoring Supreme Court ruling. So they always want to tell us, oh, the Supreme Court is the final arbiter of the laws. You must follow the law. They are saying, damn the Supreme Court. We don't care. And we hope by doing the map this way, if it goes back, we can pick off one conservative judge.

That's what their hope is. But, you know, most judges don't take too kindly to their orders being ignored, especially outright defied. And again, it's almost like they went through the order, made a checklist of what it required, and then went against every bit of it. And you made a great point. There have been several Supreme Court decisions handed down here recently that I don't agree with. But if we're supposed to be about law and order, as we've been told, you know, Dobbs' decision, our decision recently on affirmative action and so forth, we're supposed to abide by them because, you know, it's the Supreme Court order and it's not a matter of convenience. But my Republican colleagues essentially told me and have essentially demonstrated to black

voters in Alabama that it's OK to openly defy and disobey an order you don't agree with. So when we went through this exercise this entire week, the interesting part of this to me was that every map that the report... I know a lot of cops, and 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. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution.

But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multibillion-dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad.

It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st, and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Sometimes as dads, I think we're too hard on ourselves. We get down on ourselves

on not being able to, you know, we're the providers, but we also have to learn to take care of ourselves. A wrap-away, you got to pray for yourself as well as for everybody else, but never forget yourself.

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'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott.

And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner.

It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug man. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette.

MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. 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.

And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Republicans put forth did not stand public scrutiny or have to stand in any sort of public involvement. And on Friday morning, many people in the legislature saw the final map for the first time, and we voted on it. And when we voted on it, there was also a legislative findings attached to it that memorialized a number of failed arguments that the attorney general made in the Supreme Court that were already rejected. So it became clear to all of us that the entire week really was just a ruse to set up this confrontation with the district court to push it through there and then go to the Supreme Court to once again see if they were willing to go after the Voting Rights Act.

Yeah, absolutely. And so this is what they're doing. And in fact, I saw a previous story that lawyers in Alabama, they were actually even trying to redefine black. They're looking for every way to minimize black voting strength and maximize white power. Well, the thing is, I think the Supreme Court was clear,

especially the district court was clear on what our charge was. And we had an opportunity for, I mean, a once in a lifetime opportunity to actually do the right thing, and without having a federal court force us to do it. But as you know, Alabama's history is full of instances where we've been given this opportunity and we've been more than willing to allow the court to force us to do what's right. And, you know, by the time we've reached the end of this week and we started seeing iterations of this map and we started seeing things happen where it was clear that status quo was most important here,

and then we find out that Speaker McCarthy reaches out to one of the Senate sponsors and tells him the most important thing for me is maintaining my majority, not following Supreme Court orders, not following the VRA, not doing what's right for the people of Alabama, but rather making sure that I have a majority. You kind of knew at this point that it didn't matter what the Supreme Court said. The most important thing to them was maintaining Republican majority in Congress and ultimately protecting the status quo in the state of Alabama. Absolutely. All right. Representative England, keep putting up the good fight.

We appreciate it. Thanks a lot. All right. Thank you. Folks, going to break. We come back. I'll discuss this with my panel right here on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. We'll be back in a moment. Next on The Frequency with me, Dee Barnes, actress, writer, and advocate,

Rae Dawn Chong is here to discuss her childhood and break down her life in Hollywood, a show you don't want to miss. Well, even at my peaky peak peak when I was getting a lot of stuff, as soon as I was working a ton, I heard people whispering, oh, we don't want to pay her because we're giving her a break. Only on The Frequency on the Black Star Network. On the next Get Wealthy with me, Deborah Owens, America's Wealth Coach,

Dexter Jenkins is a faith-based financial mentor with more than 20 years in the financial services industry. He's passionate about helping families build generational wealth. Even though I'm talking about things like prayer, I'm talking about things about reading the word, I'm talking about things like fellowship, I'm talking to members who are dealing with losing their houses. I'm talking to members who are dealing with losing their houses, or I'm talking to members who, because of a lack of the handling finances, they're working two or three jobs. And so what I'm finding is that they're not coming to church because they don't have a handle on their finances. We're talking how to get wealthy

through faith and our finances on the next Get Wealthy right here, only on Blackstar Network. Hey, what's up? Keith Turney in a place to be. Got kicked out your mama's university. Creator and executive producer of Fat Tuesdays, an air hip-hop comedy. But right now, I'm rolling with Roland Martin. Unfiltered, uncut, unplugged, and undamned believable. You hear me? All right, folks, let me bring in our panel right now. We got lots to talk about here

with them. We have, of course, Renita Shannon, former Georgia State Representative. Glad to have you on the show. Also we have Makongo Dibinga, professorial lecturer, School of International Service at American University, joining us from D.C. from Los Angeles, Dr. Julian Malveaux, Dean, College of Ethnic Studies, California State University at L.A. Look, Renita, you serve in Georgia's legislature. These people are just saying we don't give a damn, and we're hoping that our fellow conservatives are going to give us a second shot

at trying to get this illegal map passed. That is exactly what they are doing. They are playing a classic case of rules for thee, but not for me. And by thee, they are meaning black and brown folks in Alabama. Look, they don't even need to have, if they had two districts where you have black representatives, and let's just assume that you would have a Democrat representing those districts, Republicans would still have the majority in Alabama. So this second district that they have been told to create by the Supreme Court,

them avoiding doing that is simply just them deciding that they are above the law and they don't have to follow what the Supreme Court says. Now, I'm not surprised by this, because there has always been a significant portion of white people in this country who have believed that they are above the law and that the laws do not apply to them and that they don't have to follow them. And so I think that we are quickly moving back to the days where the federal government is going to have to physically enforce some of the decisions that have been made. Like you saw in the past, when schools desegregated, the federal government had to step in to actually make that happen. When lynchings were supposed to be ceased in the South, the federal government had to step in to actually make that happen. When lynchings were supposed to be ceased in the South, the federal government had to step in.

I think that the Biden administration is going to have to make sure that they are really using the DOJ to really enforce rulings that come from the courts, because all across the country, starting, you know, even when you look at what happened January 6th, where a majority of white people in the country just said, hey, we're not even going to accept election results. They are just deciding over and over again that they will not accept results, court rulings or whatever if it doesn't fit their agenda. Julianne, this absolutely harkens back to Jim Crow days. I remember reading the book by Jack Bass on the various judges on the Fifth Circuit, which was an amazing, amazing book.

And in Louisiana, the legislature would literally pass a law. The civil rights folks would go to the court, get an injunction, and validate that law, declare it unconstitutional. These fools would turn around the next day and pass another law. They would go back to the courts, declare it unconstitutional. They go back. The next day next day and pass another law. They will go back to the courts, declare unconstitutional.

They go back. The next day, the fools pass another law. Just absolutely obstinance from these white conservatives. You know, Roland, just refusing to obey the law that they insist that we obey. But, Sister Renita, I have to just say one thing to you. The federal government did not prevent lynchings. We did not pass anti-lynching laws until the 21st century. We knew about lynchings. The NAACP in downtown New York used

to have a banner up every single day that said this many people have been lynched. So although the feds acknowledged that lynching was illegal, they did not do anything about it. And here we go again with Alabama. We're going to see it time and time again. What we know is that these people have gone totally, forgive my language, but wild. They believe that they can do whatever they want. They have been doing whatever they want. And basically, there seems to be no person of conscience, no group of conscience to stop them. And so in Alabama, are we surprised at Alabama? No, because we weren't surprised that we could not pass anti-lynching legislation until the 21st century.

Are we surprised about any of this? No, but here's what we must say. This must ignite us to fight. Roland, you said it time and time again, many others on this panel and other panels on Roland Martin Unfiltered. We have been complacent. We have had our eyes closed.

If this doesn't make you want to fight, just go somewhere. Just really go somewhere because we must fight. And look, this is what this is what we're dealing with. I'm a Congo and it's not going to stop. They're going to fight the creation of a second black district in Louisiana. Look, you've got Latinos in Texas who are suing by saying, wait a minute, okay? Latinos are saying it was our population increases that led to more congressional representation in Texas. How in the hell you create these districts for white folks if we only got one?

And so this is what they're doing. They want to absolutely minimize black and brown folks, and they know because they'll be voting Democrat. And we have to buckle up, because this is not going to stop, Harry, bottom line. We're talking about Jim Crow and what was happening during the Civil Rights Movement. But, Roland, we can take it back to the 1800s and the Trail of Tears. Andrew Jackson decided to defy a Supreme Court decision because he had the army with him. And so there's a long history of this. And this is setting a blueprint that other states are going to do across the country. And to be quite honest, when Roe v. Wade was overturned, there were many on the Democratic

side who were saying, well, blue states should just ignore the Supreme Court orders. But Democrats playing too nice. As we can see, Republicans are not going to do that in any way, shape, or form. So as Dr. Malveaux was saying, as it relates to getting organized, we have to regroup. And one of the ways that we can do this is we have to work to economically cripple Alabama. We have to go back again to what we were doing in the summer of 2020 and throughout the whole civil rights movement. You're always reading from Dr. King, and he talks about our economic power. We got to start having boycotts and boycotts of what's happening in Alabama. We got to start targeting corporations. If there are corporations that are doing serious business in Alabama, we got to ask them, why are you doing

that? And we have to be able to make them say, we're going to make you famous, or I should say notorious. We have to do that because the Supreme Court has no enforcement powers. And so this is going to continue across every state, Louisiana, we're going to see it, we're going to see it in other places. We have to change our tactics, but still keep up the fervor. If we don't do that, to be quite honest, they're not going to change this map before the next election, and we know that. And so we have to redirect our tactics and target other people and organizations that can put pressure on Alabama while supporting people on the ground as well. Absolutely. All right, folks, hold on one second. We come back. We're going to talk about Carly Russell. She now admits she's a liar. We'll tell you exactly what her attorney had to say right here in Roland Martin.

Folks, to the Black Star Network, don't forget to support us in what we do. Download the Black Star Network app. Apple phone, Android phone, Apple TV, Android TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Xbox One, Samsung Smart TV. Also, join our Bring the Funk fan club. Send your check and money order to PO Box 57196, Washington, D.C., 20037-0196. Cash app, Dallas Eye, RM Unfiltered, PayPal, R. Martin Unfiltered,

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I'll be right back. For decades, the tobacco industry has deliberately targeted black communities and kids with marketing for menthol cigarettes. It's had a devastating impact on black health. Tobacco use claims 45,000 black lives every year. It's the number one cause of preventable death. In the 1950s, less than 10% of black smokers used menthol cigarettes. Today, it's 85%.

Menthol cools and numbs the throat, making it easier for kids to start smoking. Menthol also increases addiction, making it harder for smokers to quit. Menthol cigarettes are a big reason why black Americans have a harder time quitting smoking and die at higher rates from smoking-related diseases like cancer, heart disease, and stroke. It's time to stop big tobacco from profiting off black lives.

An FDA ban on menthol cigarettes will improve black health, save lives, and protect future generations from addiction. Learn more at tobaccofreekids.org slash banmenthal. I know a lot of cops, and 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. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution.

But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st,

and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Sometimes as dads, I think we're too hard on ourselves. We get down on ourselves on not being able to, you know, we're the providers. But we also have to learn to take care of ourselves. A wrap-away, you've got to pray for yourself as well as for everybody else. But never forget yourself. Self-love made me a better dad because I realized my worth.

Never stop being a dad. That's Dadication. Find out more at fatherhood.gov. Brought to you by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glod. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves.

Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Caramouch.

What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. 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.

And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. On the streets, a horrific scene, a white nationalist rally that descended into deadly violence. You will not. White people are losing their damn minds. There's an angry pro-Trump mob storm to the U.S. Capitol. We're about to see the rise of what I call white minority resistance. We have seen white folks in this country who simply cannot tolerate black folks voting. I think what we're seeing is the inevitable result of violent denial. This is part of American history. Every time that people of color have made progress, whether real or

symbolic, there has been what Carol Anderson at every university calls white rage as a backlash. This is the wrath of the Proud Boys and the Boogaloo Boys. America, there's going to be more of this. Here's all the Proud Boys guys. This country is getting increasingly racist in its behaviors and its attitudes because of the fear of white people. The fear that they're taking our jobs, they're taking our resources, they're taking our women. This is white people. Hey, it's John Murray, the executive producer of the new Sherri Shepherd Talk Show.

You're watching Rolling Mark. Until tomorrow. Carly Russell is a liar, folks. Today, her attorney released a statement from her client that the story that she made up, what took place on July 13th when she said that she was abducted after seeing a baby on the side of the Alabama highway and she stopped to check on the toddler walking alone was absolutely

dead wrong. Today, Hoover Police Chief, Hoover, Alabama Police Chief Nicholas Durges read a statement from Carly's attorney, Emery Anthony. Last Wednesday, July 19th, we held a press conference and provided you with the facts of the Carly Russell disappearance. We told you the investigation was ongoing. We helped you determine where Carly was within the 49 hours of her disappearance. Today I have talked to and received a statement from Mr. Emery Anthony, attorney for Carly Russell. Mr. Anthony has scheduled a meeting for Carly to meet with investigators earlier this afternoon,

but then I received an email stating that a statement was being provided by him on her behalf. Mr. Anthony asked that I read the statement in its entirety, which I will do now. My client has given me permission to make the following statement on her behalf. There was no kidnapping on Thursday, July 13, 2023. My client did not see a baby on the side of the road. My client did not leave the Hoover area when she was identified as a missing person. My client did not have any help in this incident, but this was a single act done by herself. My client was not with anyone or any hotel with anyone from the time she was missing.

My client apologizes for her actions to this community, the volunteers who were searching for her, to the Hoover Police Department and other agencies as well, as to her friends and family. We ask for your prayers for Carly as she addresses her issues and attempts to move forward, understanding that she made a mistake in this matter. Carly, again, ask for your forgiveness and prayers. We have a meeting scheduled with Mr. Anthony to further discuss this case. We're currently in discussions with the Jefferson County District Attorney's Office in Bessemer about possible criminal charges related to this case,

and we will announce those charges when and if they are filed. I'll say this here, Julian. Folks who have been ripping her and criticizing her, she's earned it. She's earned it, and at the same time, let's make it clear how this is not unusual. This has happened with white women. It's happened with other people. Because she's an African-American woman, two things are on the line. Number one, the next time a sister goes missing, there are going to be those who say, what about her? But they never say that about white people. And so we need to raise that. I'm not making any excuses for her. She's earned every piece of criticism that she deserves. One

wants to know why one did that. But we have an answer, mental bloody illness. And guess what? When a white man shoots up a supermarket, they say mental illness. So this black woman pulled some hoax. It's horrible. I'd love for you to have an interview with her at some point, Roland, to find out what was going on in her mind. But let's be clear. We are living in a narcissistic age where everybody wants attention. She wanted attention. She pulled this stunt off and she got many, many, many of us praying for her, thinking about her, funding the GoFundMes. Send the people that GoFundMe money back, please. Just send the people their money back. But in any case, what we know is that this happens. It's not

unusual. Remember the missing white women, the Monterey bride? I could give you 20, 30, 40, 50 cases, and nobody stopped and said no more the next time a white person was missing. So while I abhor what this young sister has done, and if I have five minutes with her, it wouldn't turn out right, what I also would like to say is this is not unusual. Let's not make this a Black thing. This is a narcissistic indication of the society we live in. Omikongo? I really think at the end of the day, you know, Joe Madison talks about how in society we maximize the minimum and minimize the maximum. We cannot take this one example and have people say, well, what happened with the next Black woman?

She might be lying, like Dr. Malbeau said. So this is actually a challenge to all of us in America, white America and everyone else, the energy and fervor that so many people put towards this case, put it towards the next case, put it towards the cases that we're talking about here on the Black Star Network every week with Black and Missing. Because really, at the end of the day, if we really want to have this community where we actually do value each other, you can't just have one performative experience where you say, hey, I was there, and then you just go back to your room when the next case happens. We deserve to be treated just like everybody else. And though this situation is tragic and she needs to face full consequences at the end of the day, like Dr. Malville said, this is one person. So people can't just throw your hands up and say,

oh, we tried. We got to do this every day if you fully support black humanity. Renita? Yes. So this, as Dr. Malville said, and Dr. Amakongo also said, you know, this has happened before. We've seen recently in 2016, Sherry Pepini, a white woman, did this. And she, you know, pretended to be kidnapped, staged an elaborate hoax and was hanging out with her boyfriend until she later admitted that none of it happened. So, you know, anybody who is willing to use what happened with Carly as a reason to not believe black women in the future are people who were already looking for a reason to not believe Black women when it comes to them talking about what has happened to them. She clearly has got some issues that she had before she staged her own kidnapping. And those are things that she needs to get worked out.

My heart goes out to her parents and her family and her friends who were worried about her and who had nothing to do with this because they also have been traumatized. But it is important that the same energy that we put into hoping and praying and looking for Carla, we put that every single time that we hear about black women going missing. And yeah, one of the sites got a number of donations. I think it was like $63,000 in the wake of this. And then they announced that they were not going to be returning the money.

What do you think about that, Makongo? I think that that's going to lead to some other type of legal action. How do you not return the money? That type of actions, those types of actions makes me really wonder if she did this all on her own, because I couldn't see the parents out there, you know, who believed this was actually happening, all of a sudden, you know, saying, well, yeah, we're sorry as well, but we're going to keep the money. I mean, we do know that they're going to have some legal challenges coming, but that alone makes me suspicious. And if this was through GoFundMe or something like that, GoFundMe should have its own policies where people are automatically returning that money.

So that alone, if that money is not coming back, that makes me very suspicious, Roland, that it was not just her involved in this scheme. Well, it wasn't the GoFundMe. It was one of the missing organizations. People, I think, and I'll try to pull it up. I saw that particular story. But I'm just, you know, so I'm like, okay, all right, we'll see. Renita, what do you think about that?

Well, I think that obviously morally the right thing to do is to return the money. But I bet this is all going to come down to the fine print about what the organization said they were using, what they were raising money for, and that will determine whether or not the courts can force them to give the money back. But obviously the right thing to do is for them to give the money back. Julianne. Absolutely. They should give the money back. This is absurd.

This young lady perpetuated a hoax. Somebody made money from it. I don't know if it's her or somebody else. I think Omicongo has a really great point about who were her accomplices in this nonsense. Who were the people who put up the GoFundMe page or whatever page it was? But at the end of the day, I do not subscribe with the notion that all black people are

responsible for one black person. Hell no, absolutely not. You know, back at the end of the day when something happened, first thing my grandmother used to say, something outrageous happened. Were they colored? And she would behave like, uh-oh, this is a blight on the whole race. I don't believe in that. But what I do believe is that there are white people who cherry-pick our experiences and our pain and decide, okay, we're

not going to pay attention anymore. As Renita said, meanwhile, you know, back in the late 90s, early 2000s, about once a month, some white girl went missing. Either she was hiding from her husband, she was hanging out with her boyfriend, or she just needed a narcissistic fix. So let's not let this be representative of all black women. Let's continue rolling the Black and Missing series because these folks are missing.

And let's give all this sister both compassion, but also shade because what she did was horrible. Well, absolutely, absolutely. All right, folks, I got to go to a break. We come back, we're going to talk about Florida, their African-American class, their language about slavery. But wait till we show you this nutcase Florida state rep, what this holy roller actually said in a church. She may need to see a psychiatrist. You're watching Rolling Markdown Filtered on the Black Stud Network. I know a lot of cops and 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. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1.

Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Sometimes as dads, I think we're too hard on ourselves.

We get down on ourselves on not being able to, you know, we're the providers, but we also have to learn to take care of ourselves. A wrap-away, you got to pray for yourself as well as for everybody else, but never forget yourself. Self-love made me a better dad because I realized my worth. Never stop being a dad. That's Dadication.

Find out more at fatherhood.gov. Brought to you by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back.

In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player,

Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug ban is.

Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them.

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. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Dr. Greg Carr, and coming up on the next Black Table, thinking about the Black Freedom

Movement in a global way, Dr. John Monroe joins us to discuss his book, The Anti-Colonial Front, which maps the social justice movement in the United States and its impact internationally, from Asia to Africa, and how movements like anti-communism were used to slow down racial equality, like critical race theory today. A critical race theory today, communism back then, that's essentially mobilized to shut down any challenges to a given system of power. Connecting the civil rights movement to colonialism on the next Black Table,

exclusively here on the Black Star Network. On the next Get Wealthy with me, Deborah Owens, America's Wealth Coach, Dexter Jenkins is a faith-based financial mentor with more than 20 years in the financial services industry. He's passionate about helping families build generational wealth. Even though I'm talking about things like prayer, I'm talking about things about reading the word, I'm talking about things like fellowship,

I'm talking to members who are dealing with losing their houses or I'm talking to members who, because of a lack of the handling of finances, they're working two or three jobs. And so what I'm talking to members who are dealing with losing their houses, or I'm talking to members who, because of a lack of handling their finances, they're working two or three jobs. And so what I'm finding is that they're not coming to church because they don't have a handle on their finances. We're talking how to get wealthy through faith and our finances on the next Get Wealthy right here, only on Blackstar Network. Hey, what's up? It's Tammy Roman. Hey, it's John Murray, the executive producer of the new Sherri Shepherd Talk Show.

It's me, Sherri Shepherd, and you know what you're watching, Roland Martin Unfiltered. All right, so last week, Vice President Kamala Harris blasted the state of Florida after it showed this report that comes out in terms of this language they're using describing how those who are enslaved in slavery somehow use those skills later for their personal benefit. A lot of people have been ripping Florida for this. Now, one of the people who's on this education task force is a state representative in Florida named Kimberly Daniels. Now, after this came out,

these past comments she made came to light. And again, she's on the Florida African American History Task Force. Now she's a Christian pastor. And she made these statements about the LGBT community and slavery in a 2008 sermon. Hear this BS. But the Jews own everything. I thank God for slavery.

I thank God for the crack house. if it wasn't for the crack house Come on, somebody God wouldn't have never been able to use me how he can use me now, and if it wasn't for slavery I Might be somewhere in Africa worship in a tree Run that back. And talk about the Holocaust, but the Jews own everything. I thank God for slavery. I thank God for the crack house. If it wasn't for the crack house, come on somebody, God wouldn't have never been able to use me how he can use me now.

And if it wasn't for slavery, I might be somewhere in Africa worshiping a tree. Run that back one more time. But the Jews own everything. I thank God for slavery. I thank God for the crack house. If it wasn't for the crack house, come on somebody, God wouldn't have never been able to use me how he can use me now. And if it wasn't for slavery,

I might be somewhere in Africa worshiping a tree. You know, Anthony, I'm walking to that side of the studio because I can't even sit down. Let me go on. So, so, y'all, this woman is a so-called

Christian pastor. So this woman stands in front of her congregation and she says literally about one of the dumbest things I've ever heard somebody say before. So let me deal with this from several vantage points. First and foremost, anytime you hear somebody

who is a Christian pastor, anytime you hear one of them say something so stupid and idiotic as, if I was in Africa, I would be worshiping a tree, has simply no understanding of faith and religion that emanated from the motherland. First and foremost, anybody who has actually taken the time to study religion, understand that Africans had an appreciation for all of God's creation, which meant that those Africans that were on the continent, they did appreciate a tree because it was a creation of God. They appreciated grass. They appreciated water. They appreciated birds. They appreciated everything that winds, sky, water, all of this, when one is reading Genesis, understands what God created.

Well, if I were here, I would be worshiping a tree. Can you please show me where in your theological training that came from? In fact, y'all look up for a second the bio of Kim Dane. Let's just make sure she even went to theology school. Because see, that's really part of the problem with a whole bunch of these folk a whole bunch of them are bootleg preachers a whole bunch of them have no real training no real study so they stand in front of some folk who themselves don't know and say some of the wildest and craziest and outrageous and nonsensical things and then they simply wrap Jesus and the blood in it and then present it as if somehow it is

righteous when in fact it's simply stupid. So So, okay, so she has a doctorate in what? In Christian counseling from the unaccredited Jacksonville Theological Seminary. Okay, and here's the deal. Just because you got a doctorate, and look, there are some unaccredited schools where you could actually learn some things. But that's a doctorate in Christian counseling. Girl, why are you preaching? So I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you something right now.

I ain't got a problem saying it. And it's a whole bunch of preachers going to agree with me. It's a whole bunch of people in America preaching behind pulpits who ain't got no business preaching. When I say no business preaching, I mean literally no business being behind a pulpit. They ain't got no gifting to actually preach. And so what we now are dealing with. And so when you hear this, oh, thank God for slavery. Thank God for slavery. Thank God for slavery? So you actually,

if it wasn't for slavery, I would be worshiping a tree. So Kim Daniels, you actually trying to tell me that the pain and the agony and the torture that black people endured was worth it because your silly ass would be worshiping a tree.

This is the same white Christianity that was used to justify slavery. These are the same. See, we ain't talking John Brown Christians. No, no, no, no. We're talking hate-filled, racist murderers who use the name of Jesus to justify their actions. And it's stupid people like you, Kim Daniels, that makes such comments. See, whenever I hear people say these things,

ooh, thank God, thank God for slavery, thank God that we are here, thank God that we went through this. Those are the same people who never could use their minds and actually say, hmm, I wonder what the continent of Africa would look like today had white racists not colonized it.

I wonder what the continent would look like today had the English not raped and pillaged the continent. I wonder what the continent today would look like if King Leopold had not killed millions of black folks in the Congo and shipped the billions of resources from there to Belgium. I wonder what the continent would look like had there not been the Berlin conference when these same white folks sat together in the 1800s and then said, we are going to now split up the continent of Africa and y'all get this piece and y'all get this piece and y'all get this piece and then we are going to rule and control the largest continent in the world and we are going to again strip it of its billions and trillions of dollars

of assets, I wonder what the world would look like in 2023, what you have had, the wars, what you have had, the degradation, which you have had, the killing, which you have had, any of that. Because see, Kim, if you are a real Christian, Kim, you would not have been so stupid and idiotic in making that comment because Kim had real Christians believed in Jesus they would have been abolitionists and never allowed the institution of slavery to be created in this country but we also know that it was the institution of slavery

that provided the economic resources for 13 colonies to be able to survive because were it not for the enslaved people of African descent, yo silly dumbass, the 13 colonies likely would have perished.

So you are talking about, well, thank God for slavery. I would have been worshiping a tree. Well, hell, baby, without slavery, the question is, would this country even exist in its present form?

And anybody examining the record could recognize that if it wasn't for free labor for 243 years, and then another 10 to 12 years of reconstruction, and then essentially free labor for 92 years of Jim Crow, essentially from 1619 to 1970. And I can tack on the last 53 years, America would not be America were it not for enslaved people. So I would hope that if you are a parishioner of Kim Daniels, you would jump up and walk the hell out when that fool made that comment.

Because one, it is historically inaccurate. She clearly could not offer any proper exegesis of the text because what she said was simply biblically unsound and theologically inept. And this is the person who Ron DeSantis put on this task force. Hmm. No shock. I know a lot of cops, and 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. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multibillion-dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission.

This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there, and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st, and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.

Sometimes as dads, I think we're too hard on ourselves. We get down on ourselves on not being able to, you know, we're the providers, but we also have to learn to take care of ourselves. A wrap-away, you got to pray for yourself as well as for everybody else, but never forget yourself. 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'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just

a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug man. Benny the Butcher.

Brent Smith from Shinedown. Got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them.

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. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to

Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. No shock at all. Let me go to a panel. Omokongo, your thoughts on this fool? Wow, where to start? This is why I wrote the book Lies About Black People because, you know, so many times we as black people ourselves believe the lies

about our own inferiority. When we talk about African societies, we have to understand that the concept of the Holy Trinity came from Africa. The Greek names were

Isis, Osiris, and Horus, but they were also known as Osiris and Heru. That's where the original cross came from, from the Egyptian Ark. When I was an undergrad at Georgetown, my final paper was on the religious and linguistic similarities between ancient Africans and contemporary traditional Africans. So this idea that Africans didn't have monotheistic gods and beliefs is just complete fallacy. You know, my dad, who was a Reverend, got his PhD from Harvard Divinity School and wrote the paper in the 70s

that fundamentally transformed the school that led to the hiring of the first Black dean. And at Harvard Divinity School, he talked often about African spiritual and religious beliefs. So the facts are clear. And so that's that aspect of it. Now coming to her current ignorance, the fact of the matter is that she is and she's she's billed as a Democrat.

So people can say that his committee now is bipartisan. This is a woman who's part of this educational committee that I can't find any other educators on of the six new people who were placed on this committee. And so the other ones who were placed on it are more extreme than she is. One of these guys who wasn't an educator was like the head of the Florida lottery. So these are the people, the black faces that Rhonda Sanchez is putting in front of people to say that I got black people working on this. I got black people doing this. And if they are saying this, then there can't be a problem with it. If they are saying that people benefited from slavery, then there can't be a problem with it. The fact of the matter is we didn't learn skills here being enslaved. We

already had the skills, which is why they brought us here in the first place. So at the end of the day, what DeSantis is doing is evil. It's scary. And throughout history, as we all know on this panel, they can always find black faces to support their ignorance and destruction of black culture. And she's the latest and most embarrassing example of it. The thing here, the thing here, Renita, that really trips me out. Again, when we're talking about a task force on education, a task force that dealing with African American history. I don't understand this desire to have folk who literally have no expertise, no knowledge in any of this. She's a graduate of Florida State University where she obtained a bachelor's degree in criminology, master's degree

in Christian education and doctorate in Christian counseling from Jacksonville Theological Seminary. Okay. So you go through all of this. Why are you on a task force dealing with education? Oh,

I absolutely understand it. She is not on the task force because with education? Oh, I absolutely understand it. She is not on the task force because of her background or her credentials. She is on the task force because she is willing to advance white supremacy. She is willing to say what they want her to say and to be a cover for what Florida is doing. And not

only Florida, but other states as well have changed the way curriculum looks. And so that's what her qualification is, that she's willing to go along with the foolishness and actually justify the foolishness. You know, not only is she using Christianity to advance white supremacy, but she's also using Christianity to justify anti-Blackness. I took her comments around, she would still be in Africa worshiping a tree really to promote and endorse stereotypes about African people. That's the way I took it. I understand that, you know, a few others were saying that she was critiquing African religion.

But I think that she is really just somebody who endorses and promotes stereotypes about African people, which, you know, many people are working to undo these harmful stereotypes that Americans in particular have really held about what it's like to live in Africa, Africans and African history. So she's got the most important credential that they wanted to have, which is willing to endorse and go along and promote the foolishness. Because, again, anybody, Julian, who, again, has studied, will realize there is a difference between, first of all, let's be perfectly clear. If we're talking about Jesus and the ministry of Jesus, Jesus and the ministry of Jesus, it was not called Christianity. Anybody understands that? Peter was deemed the, in many ways, the first pope of the Catholic Church. Christianity was a creation after Jesus died, was killed.

And so if we're talking about Julian, the word of God and operating in the vein of Jesus, you actually, let me be real clear to all the folk out there who will be like, oh, you're married to a preacher and you got Christian books. Let me real clear. Let me real clear. You can be a follower of Jesus Christ and not call yourself a Christian. Because again, Jesus never called himself a Christian. That was created afterwards.

And so when she's talking about in terms of, well, if I was in Africa, I'll be worshiping a tree. Well, what actually is she talking about? And what she is doing, she absolutely is playing on the ignorance of her audience because many of these folks have never visited Africa, don't have passports and have never actually studied, as Omokongo said, studied African religious traditions and customs. All she is throwing out is, oh, oh essentially these are some crazy voodoo people and you know what i come from crazy voodoo people look at my name malvo marie lavo was a distant relative of mine that means don't mess with me y'all uh but in any case this notion of worshiping a tree what's wrong with worshiping a tree? In worshipping a tree, you're worshipping nature. But I don't want

to go off on that. Roland, this woman, like I said earlier, you do not have to go to Florida. If you go to Florida, you don't have to go to Disneyland to find Goofy. There's a Goofy right there. That woman is crazy. And here's the problem, though. The University of Florida has an excellent

African-American Studies Department. There are several HBCUs located in the state of Florida. Ron DeSantis, or DeSatan, whatever he is, had to go and scrape the bottom of the barrel to find this papal spouting, nonsensical, ignorant woman who basically attempts to reduce black culture and black religion to worshiping a tree. She would want to find a tree to worship at, among other things. She might want to find whoever restores people who lost their good sense to it. She may need a little holy water and a little voodoo as well to restore her to where she needs to be.

But that's a side point. The big point is DeSantis has resources, but he chooses not to use those resources, because this has never been about education. This has been about him using Black people as a putting ball, if you will. Forgive the golf reference, but I'm not sure what to say. But using us to make inroads into the presidential race. He is basically pipping off of the orange man's racism to say, we won't teach right, we won't teach right, we won't teach right. The worst thing, I mean, I haven't read the whole thing, but the whole notion that people benefit from enslavement, yeah, who?

All of the United States. But even more than that, these were things they could use in later life. How many states outlawed the use of our tools? So you might have been a blacksmith in enslavement, but if you moved to the wrong county or community where there was a white blacksmith, you could be taken out, your tools could be taken from you. So this is just nonsense, but we know it's nonsense. The question is not that it's nonsense.

It's what do we do about this nonsense? Because it is nonsense, but it's a nonsense that is a currency of the day. Oh, absolutely. And I just need people to just really understand what we're dealing with here. And so I'm looking here because you have different folks out there who have been posting about this. Again, you have a black member of this board, of this task force, who is highly critical of Vice President Kamala Harris by condemning what she said, said that she is absolutely wrong for what she said, saying she did not study any of this.

She did not read any of these particular, the particulars. We're talking about 191 pages of this. But overall, you can get caught up in this whole back and forth over this and that and here. But the most important thing that I need people to understand is that what you are seeing, and I'm going to deal with this last round of comments from my panel

before we go to the break. What we are witnessing, folks, we are witnessing how Republicans want to use education to now maintain the warped American history that we have always been subjected to. Anita, which is why they hate the 1619 Project, why they attach woke to everything, why they are just constantly criticizing any number of things. Really what this thing is about is they do not in any way want folk to be able to speak a level of truth to correct the lies that we have been told that have been perpetuated through the white American education system.

It's funny you brought up the 1619 Project because that's exactly what I was thinking about. And I was thinking about that because what they are doing is a fool's errand. They are assuming that they can teach whatever they want to teach in schools, and that will change the thoughts and perceptions of the next generation about what white supremacy has been in this country. And that is dead wrong. No matter what is taught in the schools, you are still going to see, whether it be in culture or entertainment, you're going to see a full reckoning of history as it continues to grow. And the 1619 Project is a prime example. Hulu released the 1619 Project earlier this year so that in case people didn't read the 1619 Project,

they could watch it on their TV, which we know a lot of people, more people are willing to do that than to actually read books, read articles and things like that. So this whole notion that Republicans are trying to erase black people's true history, erase LGBTQ folks from this country and all the things that they are trying to erase is really a fool's errand because people are now more than ever wanting to know and understand the full history of this country. And they are dedicating themselves to educating themselves on this. And the last thing I'll say is, as we talked about around the Juneteenth holiday, it's important, again, in time to reinforce that black families, I know we have a lot going on. People have got to feed their kids. They've got to go to work.

They've got to take care of their families. we spend opportunities like Juneteenth and any time that we can educating our young ones about our history so that we cannot be easily turned around and dissuaded by what we see is now advancing in public education. Well, Congo. State Rep Bernie Jack, who's one of the members of this of the six new appointees, has said that diversity and DEI has no place in K-12 education. These are the people that DeSantis has put into place. And before the new members of this board were selected, he already had his legislation, which led to administrators going into classrooms in places like Pensacola, Florida, and removing pictures of Obama from the classroom, telling the teachers, I believe his name was James, that Michael James or something of that sort, that this is not age appropriate to have a picture of Obama up on your wall.

And so when Ron DeSantis is asked about this and he says, well, I don't have anything to do with it, you're the one who wrote the law. You're the one who appointed the commission. You're the one who dictated what could be put in these schools. So going off of Renita's point, we have to stay active. Where are the teachers' unions? When I was down in Florida working with teachers late last year, and many of them were so angry and frustrated and crying and scared, we got to take to the streets. There should be strikes that are happening. People let them know. And also, let's talk about what he did with the

AP courses as well. So this is an ongoing process. People have to not just march with their tweets. They got to march with their feet. They got to shut this stuff down because really at the end of the day, if we don't get out there and fight, then this is going to continue. And lastly, following up again on Anita's point, Sunday schools, everything we have to use in our communities, like members of our Jewish families do in our society, using school churches, using community centers as another place to start empowering our people, do in our society, using school churches, using community centers as another place to start empowering our people because we already know.

I got a whole chapter on critical race theory in my book. I wish it was being taut and catered to all schools because we already know we weren't getting enough Black history in school as it was. And now what little we were getting, they want to get rid of that. We got to reclaim it in all of the spaces that we own and occupy as we also fight this school system.

So, obviously, Representative Daniels, not happy with all this heat coming, she posted this on her Facebook page today, a statement from State Representative Kimberly Daniels on Black History Standards. I was appointed to the African-American History Task Force by Florida Commissioner of Education Manny Diaz. Of the meetings I attended, let me shrink this so y'all can see it. Of the meetings I attended,

I never participated in any conversation about the state's black history standards. In fact, I was never consulted about these standards. I disagree with and would have immediately challenged and resisted any notion that slavery was a benefit to African Americans. I'm a black woman who was born in the early 1960s. I understand the atrocities of racial oppression and Jim Crow. I lived it. The thank God for slavery political ploy was taken out of

context from a message I preached 15 years ago. The message was not about slavery, but about overcoming obstacles in life as a believer of Jesus Christ. Taking it out of that setting and putting it in any other context is simply slanderous. Please publish this message in full without paraphrasing or distorting its original message. Okay, Kim, but here's the whole deal, Kim. You said it. And the reality is you were clear in what you said. Now, first and foremost, what you should do, because this is what I had,

what I told Reverend Jeremiah Rice Church Trinity to do when they were attacking him when Obama was running, published a whole sermon. But the reality is here. You said it. You said, thank God for slavery, because if not, I would be an African worshiping a tree. What's out of

context? But that's neither here nor there. Julianne, your comment about her, now her statement saying, I ain't had nothing to do with this. You know, this woman is hilarious. I mean, do they have a comedy network anymore? Because if they do,

she should be on it. I guess I'm letting you know that I don't watch that stuff, but somebody should. Yeah, publish the sermon in its entirety. Make the connection between enslavement and a tree. Make the connection between the nonsense you said and the fact that you're on this commission. If you had been there, you would have said something. Well, you haven't said anything, lady.

You haven't said a thing. You've allowed this nonsense about our people to go down, and you have basically implicitly endorsed that de-Satan man who said that there were some benefits to enslavement. So she has nothing to say. And then to have the temerity to publish at the bout of her stupid statement, don't take it out of context. Lady, you are out of context.

There is no context for the kind of ignorance that you've been espousing. No context for you being on that commission. You say you're a black woman born in the early 60s. Okay. I was a black, I'm a black woman born in the early fifties. I, and let me make it clear to you, whatever you went through, you're not, you, you did not incorporate it. You are sitting here basically co-signing the devil under the rubric of the Lord Jesus Christ. Shame on you. And I'm not going to tell you where you're going, but you're probably going to find a lot of company there. All right, folks.

Got to go to a break. We'll be back. Rolling. On a next A Balanced Life with me, Dr. Jackie, how are you being of service to others? I know a lot of cops and 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. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution.

But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad.

It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Sometimes as dads, I think we're too hard on ourselves. We get down on ourselves on not being able to, you know, we're the providers, but we also have to learn to take care of ourselves.

A wrap-up way, you got to pray for yourself as well as for everybody else, but never forget yourself. Self-love made me a better dad because I realized my worth. Never stop being a dad. That's Dadication. Find out more at fatherhood.gov. Brought to you by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council. I'm Clayton English.

I'm Greg Lott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner.

It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette.

MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things. 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. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple podcast. Inside yourself is such a big part of living a balanced life. We'll talk about what that means, the generation that missed that message and the price that we're all paying as a result. Now all I see is mama getting up in the morning,

going to work, maybe dropping me off at school, then coming back home at night. And then I really didn't have any type of time with the person that really was there to nurture me and prepare me and to show me what a life looked like and what service looked like. That's all on the next A Balanced Life with me, Dr. Jackie, here at Blackstar Network. On the next Get Wealthy, with me, Deborah Owens, America's Wealth Coach, Financial Literacy. Without it, wealth is just a pipe dream. And yet, half of our schools in this country

don't even teach it to our kids. You're going to hear from a woman who's determined to change all that, not only here, but around the world. World of Money is the leading provider of immersive financial education for children ages 7 to 18. We provide 120 online and classroom hours of financial education. That's right here on Get Wealthy on Blackstar Network. I'm Faraji Muhammad, live from LA.

And this is The Culture. The Culture is a two-way conversation. You and me, we talk about the stories, politics, the good, the bad, and the downright ugly. So join our community every day at 3 p.m. Eastern and let your voice be heard. Hey, we're all in this together. So let's talk about it and see what kind of trouble we can get into.

It's the culture. Weekdays at 3, only on the Blackstar Network. Hello, I'm Jameah Pugh. I am from Coatesville, Pennsylvania, just an hour right outside of Philadelphia. My name is Jasmine Pugh. I'm also from Coatesville, Pennsylvania. You are watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Stay right here.

All right, before we go to our next story, Omokongo mentioned his book. Pull up the cover, please, y'all. His new book is out. Be sure to get a copy of it right there. It says, Lies About Black People, How to Combat Racist Stereotypes and Why It Matters. Drop a little third, please.

And Why It Matters, Omokongo Dabingo, with a foreword by Michael Eric Dyson. Again, Lies About Black People. That's Omokongo's new book. Congratulations on your book. Sir? Thank you so much. Thank you for your support and your endorsement of the book as prominently displayed on the back cover.

Came out last week, right up to number one on the Amazon bestseller list, so I definitely appreciate the support. I know a lot of it comes from the support of the Black Star Network family, so I'm very thankful. All right. Way to go. Way to go. All right, folks. Tell my lies about black people with a former president of Texas A&M. She was sure lying. She resigned last week, folks, after the faculty Senate gave a resounding, resounding repudiation.

After she met with them and basically said all this stuff that happened to Kathleen McElroy, the black journalism professor, I didn't know that we never took down the offer. The offer still existed. I don't know where it's coming from. I wish I had talked to her. It would have been great to speak with her. I remember when it came out, I said, y'all, she lying. She lying. Well, clearly

it didn't last long. She retired immediately. A new president was named. She retired, I think it was Thursday night. She quit one day after meeting with the faculty senate. The video is available online, y'all. It really is. Speaking of Comedy Central, oh, it's all full.

It's just a belly full of labs. And now check this out. So this is what also, I think, played a huge part. And y'all remember what happened. So they had this big thing where they were going to hire Kathleen McElroy, Texas A&M graduate. She, of course, teaches at the University of Texas. And so she used to run that journalism department. She worked with the New York Times.

And so all these people started crying and complaining. Oh, they started hearing stuff about, well, DEI, race, diversity. And so then the Board of Regents pretty much told the president, nix this. And so they came back. they gave her a second offer, five-year non-tenure, came back with a third offer, a one-year deal. It was all so stupid. And so she told Texas Tribune. Well, the President came

out and said, oh, Texas Tribune, the article was wrong. Never asked for retraction. And she said all this stuff nine days later. Check this out. This is actually from the current head of the department. He dropped this from his lawyer. Ooh, go to my iPad. Lawyer, Hart Blanton,

as to non-hiring of Kathleen McElroy. Y'all want to, this is crazy. He heads the Texas A&M University Department of Communication and Journalism. And so he's a lawyer, says, he makes the following statement in his personal capacity. He does not foresee offering further public comment

on the situation, and our firm has no comment to add. This is what he dropped, Julianne Omokongo and Renita. I am concerned that the public has been misled regarding some of the circumstances regarding the failed attempt to hire Dr. Kathleen McElroy as professor and director of the A&M Journalism Program. I also speak out to object to race having been considered in her treatment. These tragic events were inconsistent with the many professional, welcoming, and honest A&M faculty and

administrators I know. The taxpayers, students, and regents have a right to know what happened at this publicly funded school. I initiated the recruitment of Dr. McElroy last year in recognition of her excellence as a journalist, researcher, and educator and as a member of the A&M Journalism Program. I am very grateful to Dr. McElroy last year in recognition of her excellence as a journalist, researcher, and educator. As an added bonus, she is an A&M graduate. She applied to a job posted for a professor and director of journalism,

and we followed standard administrative procedures while conducting the search. The failed effort to hire Dr. McElroy is a great loss to A&M and surely caused her great unnecessary suffering. Then President M. Catherine Banks misled the faculty senate at its July 19th meeting when she represented that the decision-making that led to the crisis was at the department level. To the contrary, President Banks injected herself into the process atypically and early on. The unusual level of scrutiny being given to the hiring of Dr. McElroy was acknowledged by one administrator to have been based, at least in part, on race. Regardless of the source of any

such pressure, I understand it to be illegal for any employer, much less a public university, to subject a job candidate to stricter scrutiny due to her race or color. I was shocked to learn an earlier draft of a job offer letter for Dr. McElroy was altered and sent to her without my advanced knowledge. The altered draft retained my electronic signature but reduced the appointment from an earlier discussed multi-year term to one. On Thursday, July 21, 2023, I shared related materials with university legal staff. I was pleased to see that the president then resigned Friday, July 22nd. Texas A&M cannot have its leaders misleading the faculty, public, or policymakers about how we conduct business. I request a full and independent investigation of these incidents be conducted

lest they be repeated. Damn, Omicongo. Hmm, wow. Talk about ether. Yeah, so I felt like I knew the president was just BS-ing from the beginning, and I'm not even as deep into this as you are, Roland, but we can see at the end

of the day, when it comes down to it, these folks will throw each other under the bus rather than just fess up and recognize that they were wrong and offer the system what she rightfully deserves. This is embarrassing. And I'm so glad, to be quite honest, that this has become such a national story. It would not have without the Black Star Network reporting this and having real journalism go into this. And not just because of your affiliation with the university, Roland, but because of your commitment to truth. And so right now we are seeing that at Texas A&M, people are going to be circling the wagons. There's probably many people calling lawyers right now to make sure that they are protected because there's going to be a financial price to pay for this in some way,

shape or form. And I hope that this is putting other universities on blast that are following the laws and the rules of people like Governor Abbott and Governor DeSantis, because there's going to be an economic backlash in the form of many lawsuits from what's happening to our schools across this country as relates to the destruction and defunding of DEI initiatives, as well as hires that don't represent the white population. And this is just the biggest and most important story that we need to follow right now. Renita? This is a really important story, and it's important for a lot of reasons. This is a point of, could be, should be, and I hope it will be a point of civic education. I mean, obviously the president of this university lied about not being involved.

But this does need to be investigated because we do need to know if the Board of Regents was involved. The Board of Regents is a structure that most voters, most folks don't even think about or not even aware of what the powers of the Board of Regents are. You know, here in Georgia, the Board of Regents elects the university presidents. They have influence on their budget, influence on curriculum. I mean, they have a heavy, heavy hand in how universities operate. And so we have had, you know, folks figure out here in Georgia when the Board of Regents has done something that they don't like, they've shown up and protested. And so I really hope that there is a full investigation as to what happened here. And if there was any undue influence by the Board of

Regents that folks are also holding them accountable in Texas as well. Well, Julian, not just the Board of Regents, but Texas Governor Greg Abbott, because he is the architect of all of this DEI hysteria in the state that these white conservatives are responding to. And he also is the one who appointed every single member of this Board of Regents, including the black chair, Bill Mayholmes, who is quiet as hell. Bruh, you going to have some guts to speak up? You know, Roland, if you look, if you peel back the layers of higher education politics, the fact is that the Texas A&M could be in trouble with their accreditors because there are strict lines that are drawn between the governor who appoints the trustees, the board of governors, between the faculty affairs side that basically appoints faculty.

These are supposed to be strict lines. Unless someone has gone off and said, I'm going to join the KKK or something like that, the trustees should not be involved in faculty appointments. So that already raises flags for their accreditors. And the accreditors, SACS, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, does not look kindly on that. So that's number one. But number two, you know, ignoring all this whole notion of what higher education hierarchy is, the other piece of this is just a sheer racism. And then the CYA nature of the memo that you just shared, this guy's like, I ain't in it. I ain't in it. But you are in it, dude. You are in it because you allowed it to go on. If you wanted to, you should have called your president out some time ago.

Don't tell me this all happened behind closed doors. In fact, there was a movement to discredit this sister, and I hope that she sues them to high heaven. But it's not just about a lawsuit. I hope, Roland, you've talked about you're not going to any more games. I won't say I find that hard to believe, but I know how much you love your alma mater. I have not actually been to a game in five years. Very good. I appreciate that. But, you know, people need to boycott. The economic revenue needs to be turned up. The athletes have enormous power here. They can pull their numbers. They can say, no, we're not doing this anymore. So people have leverage. It's not about this sister only. Of course, it's about her. She's at the tip of the iceberg. But

it's about the attack on blackness. It's about tip of the iceberg. But it's about the attack on blackness. It's about the attack on black excellence. It's about the attack on the presence of black people in the academy. Let's not forget that it was about 50 years ago. We're going from college to college. First black professor here. First black professor there. Now, are we going to be going back and say last black professor here? Last black professor there because of the deleterious racist, I'm going to just call it what they are, racist actions of these people who do not believe that a citizen who's reported on race for the New York Times

is qualified to be the leader in the communications and journalism department. We all know that she's qualified. We know that she knows what she's doing. What we know is that white folks are threatened by brilliant black people. And there we go. All right, folks, hold tight one second. We come back. Our Black and Missing Plus also, man, a sad story involving one of the chefs of the Obamas who used to work at the White House. We'll tell you about that when we come back on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Blackstone Network. I know a lot of cops, and 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. Across the country, cops call this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that Taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley

comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad.

Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, we're too hard on ourselves. We get down on ourselves on not being able to, you know, we're the providers, but we also have to learn to take care of ourselves. A wrap-away, you got to pray for yourself as well as for everybody else, but never forget yourself. Self-love made me a better dad because I realized my worth. Never stop being a dad. That's that occasion. Find out more at fatherhood.gov. Brought to you by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Ad Council.

I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glod. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner.

It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug ban. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. Got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette.

MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. 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.

And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to L issues and concerns. This is a genuine people-powered movement. There's a lot of stuff that we're not getting. You get it and you spread the word. We wish to plead our own cause to long have others spoken for us. We cannot tell our own story if we can't pay for it. This is about covering us. Invest in black-owned media. Your dollars matter. We don't have to keep asking them to cover our stuff. So please support us in what we do, folks. We want to hit 2,000 people. $50 this month. Waits $100,000. We're behind $100,000. So we want to hit that. Your money makes this possible. Checks and money orders go to P.O. Box 57196, Washington, D.C. 20037-0196. The cash app is Dollar Sign RM Unfiltered. PayPal is RM Martin Unfiltered. Venmo is RM Unfiltered.

Zelle is Roland at RolandSMartin.com. I'm Faraiji Muhammad, live from L.A. And this is The Culture. The Culture is a two-way conversation. You and me, we talk about the stories, politics, the good, the bad, and the downright ugly. So join our community every day at 3 p.m. Eastern and let your voice be heard. Hey, we're all in this together. So let's talk about it and see what kind of trouble we can get into.

It's the culture. Weekdays at 3, only on the Black Star Network. Next on The Frequency with me, D. Vaughn's actress, writer, and advocate, Rae Dawn Chong is here to discuss her childhood and break down her life in Hollywood, a show you don't want to miss. Even at my peaky, peak, peak when I was getting a lot of stuff, as soon as I was working a ton, I heard people whispering, oh, we don't want to pay her

because we're giving her a break. Only on the frequency on the Black Star Network. Me Sherri Sheppard with Tammy Roman. I'm Dr. Robin B, pharmacist and fitness coach, and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Aniyah Burleson has been missing from Dallas since June 25th. The 16-year-old is 5 feet 5 inches tall, weighs 185 pounds, with black hair and brown eyes. Anyone with information about Anaya Burleson is urged to call the Dallas Police Department at 214-744-4444. 214-744-4444 Shocking and stunning

video out of Ohio where a black man unarmed was viciously attacked by a canine dog. He was surrendering as well. Folks, according to a redacted Ohio State Highway Patrol case, authorities pulled Jadarius Rose over for

failing to stop for an inspection. Despite surrendering with his hands raised, a K-9 police dog attacked him, pulling him to the ground. The video shows a Circleville Police Department K-9 officer deploying his dog on Rose, who was lying on the ground at the time. Rose was heard screaming and crying as the dog bit him. He was treated and released at a local hospital. Before being taken to the Rose County Jail, he's since been released.

The NAACP has condemned the police's barbaric behavior, calling for a thorough investigation. The incident follows countless others in recent months, highlighting the urgency of addressing police brutality and ensuring accountability for law enforcement officers who engage in such actions. A Maryland man is charged with a hate crime, folks, following the shooting of three people. Prosecutors have charged Charles Robert Smith, accused of killing three people and injuring three others in a parking dispute. All Latino victims were shot to death on June 11th. The altercation escalated when a parking dispute turned into a physical and verbal argument

between Mario Morelos, his brother Christian Segovia, and Smith. Smith allegedly pulled out a gun and shot Morelos and Segovia. Smith then went on to shoot Morelos multiple times after he fell to the ground. Smith then retrieved a rifle and began firing through a window at individuals who had come to help the injured victims of killing Mario's father, Nicholas Morellis. He was wounded. He was a kill. Also wounding Rosalina Segovia, Paul Johnson, and Intercontinental's Hernandez.

Smith has been charged with first-degree murder and hate crime charges. Maryland's hate crimes law will enable prosecutors to seek harsher penalties against him. The charges carry the potential of a life sentence without the possibility of parole. Yo, that is absolutely crazy. Let's go to Missouri, where a school board faces backlash after withdrawing an anti-racism resolution. In a controversial move, the Francis Howell School District, one of Missouri's largest, has a predominantly white student population

with about 87%. They revoked an anti-racism resolution to address racial discrimination and promote healing within the district. The Francis Howell School District's board, now led by conservative members elected in recent years, voted to retract the resolution. The decision comes amidst a nationwide trend

of heated debates surrounding critical race theory and efforts to restrict teachings on race and sexuality. The board's move has sparked outrage among community members and activists who argue the revocation undermines progress, perpetuates racial division. Well, no shock here. This is what you're going to get, Julian, when you have folk who don't vote. When these folks, these Moms for Liberty people and others are running for school board elections and folk don't take it seriously. This is how they get elected. This is how they then control public policy. Roland, you're absolutely right. I don't know how many times we can have the story, tell the story about voting, about why it's so important. Reverend Jackson said,

the same hand that picked peaches can pick presidents. But we don't want to pick presidents. Too many of us want to sit aside, sit down, tell these stupid stories about, well, what has Biden done for me lately? Well, what has he not done? I remember years ago sitting with Maxine Waters and a young sister came up and started dissing the Congressional Black Caucus. Said, we don't do this, you don't do that, you don't do this, you don't do that. And she said, you don't understand what we prevent. Our presence prevents a lot of devilment. And that's what we have to understand, is that we have to vote right, vote often. I'm not saying cheat, but we have to make sure that we're in the mix.

If you're not at the table, you're on the menu, and people have been eating black folks, eating our entrails for years because essentially we choose not to politically participate. So these conservatives evoking anti-racism, what they're doing is embracing anti-blackness. But what will we expect if we're not there? If we're not at the table, we are on the menu. It's a little hard to complain after the fact that you don't vote. Guess what? It's too late. They're not in power. Renita? I'm glad that there was a spotlight

on what the school board was doing, and more importantly, I'm glad that folks in the community were paying attention to the school board. And the reason why I say that is because for a long time on the right, school board elections have been the jumping off point, if you will, the pipeline to get folks elected who they hope will run for higher office. So what I'm saying is it has been a strategy on the right to get certain types of personalities elected on the school board. And then after being on school board for some time, folks will run for higher office. So when you're looking at who is on your local school board, you need to imagine what would

happen if that person became your governor one day. What would happen if that person became your senator or your house rep one day? Because that really has been the strategy. So I'm glad that folks are paying attention to what the school board was doing. And I hope that folks will make sure that none of these people are able to move up in any type of electoral pipeline in the future. Omokongo? I actually binge on Black Star Network shows over the weekends. And one of the interviews you had was with Michael Harriot, who was talking about Moms of Liberty. And he was talking about how so many of these people are just so uneducated, have no knowledge in any way, shape or form, and are just using this anti this fake critical race theory activism to rise to prominence.

And now they have all of the presidential candidates on the Republican side going to their conventions and the like. So when we talk about voting, we also have to remind remind ourselves, adding to Renita's point, that groups like the Proud Boys and Boogaloo Boys, they have decided after the insurrection and the DOJ started coming for them, they have decided to go local. So these racist organizations are actually partnering with Moms for Liberty, these group of conservative white women who are looking at themselves as peaceful warriors and the like, and going over and taking over the school boards in other areas. Their belief that the fight is now a local fight. And so when we look about people like Ron DeSantis and Governor Abbott and so many of these other people, it's sad with everything that they're doing, and it's ridiculous and it's deplorable.

But what's even sadder is that we could have prevented many of these people from being elected. Because we can talk about redistricting and how terrible many of the of the of the counties are and the maps but state races that's for everybody governor's races are statewide senators races are statewide and in some of those issues areas we still don't show up so we do bear a lot of the blame for what's happening and if we don't understand it now some of us never will folks some sad news one of the personal person who shouts for former President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama has died drowning near their Martha's Vineyard home. This is in the Chicago Sun-Times. It says Tafari Campbell, who was a sous chef, he worked in the White House and then he went on to work for the Obamas. It's a photo of him at work.

The brother was 45 years old. He was a man who was a man who was a man who went on to work for the Obama's. A photo of him at work. The brother was 45 years old. Apparently he was Sunday was reported missing. He was out on a paddle board. And when he went missing, his body was discovered about 100

feet from the shore in about water that was eight feet deep. The Obamas issued this statement here. Tafari was a beloved part of our family. When we first met him, he was a talented sous chef at the White House, creative and passionate about food and his ability to bring people together. In the years that followed, we got to know him as a warm, fun, extraordinary, kind person who made all of our lives a little brighter. That's why when we were getting ready to leave the White House, we asked Tafari to stay with us as he

generously agreed. He's been part of our lives ever since and our hearts are broken that he's gone. Today, we join everyone who knew and loved Tafari, especially his wife, Charisse, and their twin boys, Xavier and Saban, in grieving the loss of a truly wonderful man.

Again, the former president and the former first lady were not there at their home Martha's Vineyard when this took place. We don't know the circumstances. We don't know in terms of what happened. We don't know whether, you know, it was a health crisis. We don't know if he was wearing a life jacket or anything like that. But what this does remind us, Renita, look, you're there in Georgia, a lot of deaths out there in Lake Lanier. A lot of people go out on the water, they're not wearing life jackets, they're not

taking precautions. I don't care how great of a swimmer you are, people get caught up in currents as well. Look, if you step out there on that water, put that life jacket on because that life jacket can save your life. You hit the nail on the head too often in

the summer. We talk about people not drowning as long as they know how to swim or there's so much emphasis being put on, you know, knowing how to swim, which is good, but that's not the only thing that you have to look out for. As you mentioned, what we've seen at Lake Lanier here in Georgia, but then also even just a couple months ago, I don't know if you all are familiar with Conan Morgan. He was roughly about 45 years old, a black political consultant who had worked with presidents, had worked with helping to get black folks elected at the local state, statewide level. He was very, very, very well known for the work that he did. He was also an avid boater. And this past summer, he lost his life boating. And so there are a lot of things that can end your life on the water that have nothing

to do with your ability to swim. And there really does need to be some public education around what are the other hazards of being on the water in addition to not knowing how to swim. So my heart for his family. Go to my iPad. This is a story from the Observer. Morgan was 42 years old and a political consultant. And, yeah, boating incident that took place there in North Carolina.

And, again, it said the man and two others who survived were thrown into the ocean after their boat hit a wave. That's what took place there. And so, yeah, it's just, and again, we don't know. It's tragic that this brother has lost his life at the age of 45 who worked for the Obamas. But again, I would just encourage, take as many precautions as possible on the Congo, even if you know how to swim. Absolutely. And then the story from AP News says that when he was found, he was not wearing a life jacket. And so it's just tragic on on many levels.

And we really have to understand that when it comes to this issue of swimming and everything in our community, like you said, the best swimmers can still drown, hit a current and so on and so forth. But this is an unfortunate reminder of just every single day, we have to do our best to make sure that we are prepared for these waves out there. And even with all of the preparation, tragic things can still happen.

And so my heart definitely goes out to his family, such a young family, you know, twin boys as well that are going to be, you know, raised without their father. And I just hope that there are experiences that can come from this that can make all of us be a little bit more safe out there. We don't know about his circumstances, but, you know, he should be here today. And it's just tragic that he's not and is wishing his family and praying for his family. Julianne? Yes. Like Obakango and Renita, I basically joined them in their sentiments for the family. And I'm very, very sorry about what happened. But I also want to say that water safety is something that we in the Black community too

often ignore. The brother was in his 40s. We have children who are drowning because we haven't done the right water safety things. It's really important for us to understand. First of all, nothing is promised. Secondly, look guys, I mean, the ocean is a mighty, mighty force and you might think that the ocean is steel and it turns around and bucks up on you. And so, you know, I love to be out there. I can't swim. So I'm always I'm always with a life jacket because I cannot swim. I'm real clear about that. But we need to be clear about safety. Whether you can swim or not, you can die. This is this. It's a sad story, Roland, but it's also a cautionary story. So let's take the caution to make sure that we don't lose

any more black people this way. Indeed. Renita, Omicongo, Julian, we're so appreciative. Thanks a bunch. Folks, again, show Omicongo's new book. Be sure to get your copy of the book, folks. It is Lies About Black People, How to Combat Racist Stereotypes and Why It Matters.

Get the book now. Folks, thanks a lot. We're done. When we come back, folks, they have the Cincinnati Black Music Walk of Fame took place on a Saturday. We were there. We live streamed the event. A lot of folks being honored. The Deal, Bootsy Collins, Felipe Wynn, so many others. And again, we were there. We're going to show you when their stars were unveiled on that Walk of Fame. That's next on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Hatred on the streets, a horrific scene, a white nationalist. I know a lot of cops and 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. Across the country, cops call this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company

dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Sometimes as dads, I think we're too hard on ourselves. We get down on ourselves on not being able to, you know, we're the providers,

but we also have to learn to take care of ourselves. A wrap-up way, you got to pray for yourself as well as for everybody else, but never forget yourself. 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'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glod. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne.

We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things.

Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really them. 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. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. mob storms the U.S. Capitol. We're about to see the rise of what I call white minority resistance.

We have seen white folks in this country who simply cannot tolerate black folks voting. I think what we're seeing is the inevitable result of violent denial. This is part of American history. Every time that people of color have made progress, whether real or symbolic, there has been what Carol Anderson at every University calls white rage as a backlash. This is the wrath of the Proud Boys and the Boogaloo Boys. America, there's going to be more of this. There's all the Proud Boys, guys. This country is getting increasingly racist in its behaviors and its attitudes because of the fear of white people.

The fear that they're taking our jobs, they're taking our resources, they're taking our women. This is white fear. I'm Dr. Greg Carr, and coming up on the next Black Table, thinking about the Black Freedom Movement in a global way. Dr. John Monroe joins us to discuss his book, The Anti-Colonial Front, which maps the social justice movement in the United States and its impact internationally, from Asia to Africa, and how movements like anti-communism were used to slow down racial equality, like critical race theory today.

Critical race theory today, communism back then, it's essentially mobilized to slow down racial equality, like critical race theory today. Critical race theory today, communism back then, it's essentially mobilized to shut down any challenges to a given system of power. Connecting the civil rights movement to colonialism on the next Black Table, exclusively here on the Black Star Network. Hi, I'm Jo Marie Payton, voice of Sugar Mama on Disney's Louder and Prouder Disney+. And I'm with Roland Martin on Unfiltered. Folks, last week we were in Cincinnati, courtesy of Procter & Gamble. There for the Cincinnati Music Festival, of course, took place Thursday through Sunday. A lot of different things were happening, and one of those events was the unveiling of the Cincinnati Black

Music Walk of Fame. That was an induction ceremony that took place. Fantastic ceremony. We're going to show that for you tomorrow, but right now we're going to show you our coverage of the unveiling of all the entertainers, the unveiling of their stars on the Walk of Fame.

Shout out to Commissioner Alicia Reese. This was her brainchild. It was a fantastic event. If you missed it, here's an opportunity for you to catch it. And so I certainly hope you enjoy this encore presentation. What's up, Doc? How you doing? How you doing?

All good. So we're live. Just your thoughts about all this. I am really very excited. It's been over 100 years since he has ever invested in this kind of project. The leader came along and was able to pull our elements together. I'm very excited. Community was working on a tightrope, put the corporate community together, put the sell it community, and then you had to get the artists to

believe in you that you were doing something real. And today, and the quality of people in the put together an interactive wall of fame on the riverfront between the Cincinnati Red Stadium and the Bingo Stadium.

And we have a Black Music Walk of Fame. Black. We didn't drop the name Black. Black Music Walk of Fame. It's historic. All right. Y'all, this is Alicia's daddy. We call him Mr. Reese.

Mr. Reese. All right, let's go. But we... Yes, sir. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. So we're about to unveil this star for the deal. So come on.

Here we go. Here we go. Hey, how you doing? All right. All right, here. Here we go. All right. Turn this way. Yeah. Are we live? Oh, we live.

See, I use wireless. So here. All right, y'all. Yay. Yay. So, folks, we first unveiled James Brown, and so now unveiling the deal right here. Oh, is that your hard pose? That's the hard pose. That's the hard pose. All right. So we're going to grab L.A. Reid in a second to do a quick interview with him. Excuse me? I'm his assistant.

I got you. Yeah, I've already talked to him. Oh, you did? Yes. Okay, he's good with it? Oh, yeah. Sorry about that. Yeah.

So if you heard the presentation there, L.A. Reid said it was a midnight star that got the deal started, teaching them how to do music and really introducing them to this whole game. So that's one of the reasons why they're taking a photo together. L.A.? They got him. L.A., grab it quick. Huge day coming back to Cincinnati. Yes, sir.

Very happy to be here, man. It's really special. Commissioner Alicia Reese really made magic happen. What can I say, right? And I'm really happy to be here. I think it was also amazing. A lot of people really don't know how many amazing solo artists and groups have come out of this state especially bands yeah and that

that's largely due to um it not being cincinnati isn't what we think of as a media center so there's not there's not cameras and coverage everywhere for everything that takes place the way it might in new y York or LA. But let me tell you, Cincinnati and Ohio, this is a talent maverick. This is a haven for talent. I mean, it's so much great stuff that comes from here. And even today, like, it's not just a thing of the past, you know. There are producers like Hi-Tech who are still making, you know,

really meaningful hip-hop records today, you know. So, yeah, Cincinnati matters. Was it also because of the competition? So then other folks may have won better? Because you're like, oh, wait a minute, we got to bring it. Yeah, I mean, we were taught that. I mean, when we were growing up,

there were battles of the bands in parks. And we were taught that you better make it happen because the band before you or the band after you can really stop you in your tracks if you don't have it together. So, you know, that's why I partnered with K.O. I was like, okay. Well, he's back there amening you, so.

He was on point the whole time, so, yeah. We did have to be the best. We had to be the best. A lot of competition. Well, this is also great because, again, this is free. People are coming here. They can see it, visit it, get studied. And of course, this is being so interactive. I mean, I have to tell you, and this is not to disparage anything that anyone else does, but I've been many times at least attended or spoken at the Hollywood Walk of Fame and incredible and it's an incredible honor a high achievement this is this experience here that is a walk of fame it's an experience it's

an experience right and uh and I think that makes it innovative certainly an attraction it just makes me really happy to be a part of it LA always, always good to see you, baby. I appreciate it, man. Thanks a bunch. All right. Gentlemen, how y'all feel about this day? Great day, man. Hey, it's historical, and I'm feeling good because it looks like the future generation is in good hands after we have this beautiful facility for people like Alicia said,

not just statewide but worldwide. So loving it. I'm just humbled to be a part of this. Love my blackness. I'm about to cry. You still about to cry? You about to cry now? You still about to cry?

Well, congratulations, gents. Thank you, brother. I appreciate it. Yes, sir. I follow you. I love you, man. Same here. I appreciate it.

You know, we try to give them a little hell every now and then. I like that. I wish a can would. That's my favorite segment. I appreciate it. All right. Thanks a bunch. Y'all be well.

All right, folks. Actually, I'm working, baby, so I'm it. sir. All right. Congratulations. Y'all thoughts on all of this? Oh, God. It's a godsend. Historic. Overwhelming. I can't even found the words. Yeah. Proud. Proud. This is something we're in the stone and we'll be here when we're gone. That's just what came through, you know? Always. It's a blessing, man, just to be here. God made it possible. Awesome experience. Awesome. Can't get around it. Yeah, it's awesome that Commissioner Reese brought this vision together because this is amazing. The location of this between the two stadiums and everything, it's marvelous. She's a visionary and executed the plan perfectly.

They provided a lasting legacy right here, permanent, in the ground, Midnight Star. I really think what's so important is that black music has been such a hallmark of the civil rights movement also. And it's just an honor to be a part of this. Congratulations. All right, and I appreciate it. All right, we'll keep swinging on them. All right.

Take care. We're going to walk on up through here. How we doing? How's it going? How's it going? We're going to step on up here. And so this is one of the interactive. Are we going to step on up here? And so this is one, this is one, come over here.

This is one of the interactive, so Alicia explained it. So come on over here. Go ahead. Patty, if you're hearing impaired, you can just feel the rhythm. It's got Braille. Then you get 30 seconds. You bring out your phone, QR code, and it brings out information about Boosie. And then right next to your brother, Captain, and you push his 30 minutes. Then we wait.

Oh, yeah. So this is Joe. So we got 13 of these, 26 people. And then we go up here. I'm going to show you augmented reality. Let's go up here. All right. So, folks, here we go.

Come on up. Come on up. Watch yourself. There you go. All right. So, again, so what Commissioner Reese is doing, she's walking Bootsy Collins through, again, this experience. And so, for instance, over here, they have what she said, the augmented reality, where literally you can put yourself in a Bootsy Collins concert on stage with him. So let's go show you that.

So that is what makes this Walk of Fame a lot different and a lot unique for many others. You see here, you see right here, same thing, this display, John Legend from Ohio, Felipe Wynn as well. All right, here we go. All right, so we're going to come through here. And so, again, this is the sister of Felipe Wynn. Ms. Walker, how are you doing? How do you feel about today? Wonderful.

So excited. Really excited. It's wonderful to receive this on his behalf, my brother. And, of course, when they were playing the video in there, the whole crowd starts singing the song sadie yes absolutely congratulations thank you mr martin all right appreciate you take care all right let's keep on walking through here we go we're gonna walk on over here so here we go excuse me right here all right here we go come Excuse me right here. All right. Here we go. Come on through. So come on. Here we go. Get in front of them, please. Get in front of Alicia.

And see, there we go. Right here, right here, right here, right here, right here. Here we go. Alicia, hold this. Hold this, Alicia. Hold that. Hold that. And you get to party with it. And you can record yourself. Get 30 seconds. Yeah. Yeah.

You done did it. Go ahead, Boosie. Here we go. Baby, baby, baby. Baby, baby, baby. Baby, baby. Hey. I got the feeling.

Hey. Don't stop. Don't stop. Hey. Hey a feeling. Hey. Hey. Go there. And then up here, Booster, then a QR code come. You can download the video. Then you go over here.

I want to show you, Booster, this is where you at. I'm going to say God bless you. Yes, it is. God bless you. What's going on? I appreciate it. I appreciate it. I'm going to check with you in a second. She wants to show you this concert over here where you can be on your stage with you. I appreciate it.

I appreciate it. All right, y'all, so we're going to walk on over here. Right up here, but it rotates. It has Penny, then it has you, and this is the one, yes, Augmented Reality. So I got to let you see the one with you. So the link, it comes on, and this is the one with Penny Ford, but then it rotates, and it'll have the one with you, Bootsy, where people can perform with you. And then after this one, yours come up. So this is the one with Penny.

Woo! Woo! Come on. Yeah. Come on. Oh, I'm not a dancer. But I can move a little bit. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. That's Lincoln. Where's Lincoln at? There he is. Let's throw a move for him, man. Come on. There you go. Hey, David.

Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey.

Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey.

Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey.

Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey.

Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey.

Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey.

Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Hey. Help me out, man. I need all that. You and me both, man. All right. LA is the augmented reality. That's incredible. It'll show you on there. Yeah, there it is. There you are right there.

Come on. We lost everyone. Hey, there it is. So you get to dance. There it is. So we have this augmented reality special feature so people can come and they can dance and perform with Benny Ford and Boosie Collins. As soon as this one will end in a little bit and they'll have, I want you to see the Boosie one, too. It's unbelievable.

And I want to thank you, Boosie. This is an experience. Oh, this is crazy, isn't it? I think the Hollywood Walk of Fame is going to be a little jealous of this. Sorry. Sorry. This is different. This is different.

You brought back some stories. Right. You brought them all back. I was like, it's good to sit there and listen instead of having to tell the stories yourself. You brought back some stories. Right. You brought them all back. I was like, it's good to sit there and listen instead of having to tell the stories yourself.

You brought them all back. I was like, it's good to sit there and listen instead of having to tell the stories yourself. You brought them all back. I was like, it's good to sit there and listen instead of having to tell the stories yourself. You brought them all back. Right. It's good to sit there and listen instead of having to tell the story yourself. Yourself. And remember, right? You brought some stuff back. I can't forget those moments, man. I can't forget those moments.

Woo! You remember the song you wrote called Body Tight? Keep my body tight Boosie your next no music we should do something with that yeah yeah Lincoln. Lincoln. Lincoln. Right here. Yeah, everybody watch this. Oh, that's it. So you get the QR code, you can download it. So you put your phone here.

Put your phone on there and download it, and now you can upload it on your social platform. Watch this. Watch this. We're getting rich. So we're going to put it on photo. Watch this. We're getting rich. So we can put on photo. Tap that. Tap the QR code. And then it takes you there. And then video's processing.

And so then you just keep refreshing. Boom, download the video. And he's introducing the video. Oh man. That's incredible. That's incredible, yeah. Yeah. Here we go, Bootsy's coming up. Oh, man. Y'all heard this one.

Look at Lincoln. Lincoln. Oh, Bootsy. All right. Oh, man. I heard it. Yeah. Yeah. That's got to be Lincoln. That's got to be Lincoln.

I knew it. That's gotta be Lincoln. That's gotta be Lincoln. That was me. I knew it. That's incredible. So stand up. Put your feet on your spot. Put your feet on your spot. Put your feet on your spot. All right, Lincoln's over here. He's a drummer.

Oh, okay. Oh, that's great. So you got somebody over here, too. Stand on that spot right there. Come over here. Come over here. Come on. Wait, Fabio, come over here. Stay right here. Stay right here. Stay right here. She right here. Yep. Yep. So folks, what you're seeing here is the augmented reality. And so they have three positions here.

You can stand here and you can play in the band with Bootsy. And then you'll be able to point your phone to the QR code and download your video. Wow. That's deep. That's lit, ain't it? Come on, Cat. Come on, Cat. Oh.

Come on. Woo. Get a drummer, son. Where's L.A.? Get a drama song. Where's LA? Get a drama song. We see you, Lincoln. Get a drama song. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead, Patty. I see you. I know a lot of cops, and 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. Across the country, cops call this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that Taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1.

Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st, and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.

Sometimes as dads, I think we're too hard on ourselves. We get down on ourselves on not being able to, you know, we're the providers, but we also have to learn to take care of ourselves. A wrap-up way, you got to pray for yourself as well as for everybody else, but never forget yourself. 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'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real'm Greg Glod. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of

star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding

of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got Be Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't

working and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. 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. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content,

subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Thank you. Go ahead. On the one. Oh, man, that is so cool. Alicia, you really have done yourself on this. This is amazing. This is amazing. I want to be right with you, Bootsy. Thank you so much.

Thank you. We're going to be making the theme song. Talk to your dad. Yeah, so we on it. So Bootsy, just your thoughts about this whole thing. It's like Disney right here in Cincinnati, but it's for us. Give me one second. Right there.

There we go. Go ahead. It's like Disneyland, but it's for us, you know, and it's celebrating the months that a lot of people don't even, never heard nothing about. And, like, when I was growing up, I was looking up to all my heroes, and they were the ones that are not being announced. And they were the real heroes.

So I'm standing on the back of them. Yep, absolutely. Standing on the backs of all those. So I think here's the deal. I think they want a photo with you, so I'm gonna chat with you in a second. So y'all go get the photo, so we do that. All right?

So folks, again, so this is, it really is a wonderful experience. John Murray. Come on, John. My man, John Murray, is over here. John, you emcee the program. Just your thoughts about all this day, man. Man, you know, it's amazing to see black music cemented in a city like Cincinnati. We all know that music can be a big driver for tourism. And I was saying on stage this afternoon, folks fly from all over the world to go to Detroit,

from Motown, they go to Memphis for the blues, maybe a little bit of Elvis. Nashville. Nashville. So there are clusters in our country. People travel for music. And now Cincinnati has something that's even more attractive to people because of the music and what they're offering with the Black Music Walk of Fame.

And one of the things I was saying to L.A. Reid as well is that, again, people also learning the number of amazing artist groups and solo artists that have come out of this state. I mean, when it comes to R&B like music, I mean, it's up there with the Motown. Yeah, you know, listen, there's a show on TV1 called Unsung, and we learn so much about artists that may not get their just due. The beauty of this Walk of Fame is this region is seeing folks get their just due with this Walk of Fame

because these folks are no longer unsung. They're cemented in history. Their families, their friends, and music aficionados can come here, learn about them, celebrate them, and it's an interactive experience. So it's just not you coming and walking by some statue or bus. You come down here and actually participate in the music that is the soundtrack of our lives. And, of course, we'd be remiss without doing some kind of promo for your upcoming season

of the Sherry Show. Yes, listen, my NAACP Image Award winning, four-time Emmy nominated, daytime talk show Sherry that I'm executive producer of, we return September the 18th in syndication. We're excited about it. Season two, just more fun, more laughter, more joy. All right, John, I'm going to see you, my babe. I was gonna see you my babe love you brother be well all right folks so you've got we got more photos over here come on so we got here we go we got good to see you doc I appreciate it brother come on come on come on so folks we move it over here we got more excuse me moving through here. All right, here we go. Come on through.

Come on through. Come on through. All right, so we're coming through here, folks. All right, so we got the artists who are headed back down there. So let's go back over here. So let's do this here. We're going to chat with some folks over here. Let's talk about this here, what's going on.

How y'all feel about today? It was great. Great turnout. It was a beautiful event. I can't wait till next year. What about you? All right. You got something to say?

It was a great turnout. I loved it. Thank you. All right. Appreciate it. Appreciate it. All right. Let's see.

We're going to slide back over here. How you doing? All good. How you doing? All good. How are you doing? How do you feel about today? It's a great day, man. Great day. Got to see a lot of friends, you know, get inducted, man.

It was a great day. Very great day. Great day for Cincinnati and a great day for Ohio. Okay, cool. Thanks for coming down. I appreciate it. I appreciate it. All right, let's see over here.

Shirley, how are you doing, darling? Well, how are you doing? You're upstaging, sitting here, showing yourself out. Of course, Shirley Murdoch. What's happening? Hold on, darling. Hold on. We got a camera right there. All right. That's right. We live. We live. So how you doing? I'm doing great. How about you, Roland? Doing good. What are your thoughts about, excuse me, hold up. We're live right here. Your thoughts about just all of this, this walk of fame? It's amazing. i mean to to be able to celebrate our people our culture the music the contributions the legacies in this environment you know kind of juxtaposed between

that building over there and that building over there we're right smack dab in the middle and it was a it was a dream come true for for alicia reese um you know when god gives you the vision he gives you the pro vision so we're very thankful for that. And just to have the opportunity to celebrate and be a part of this great event, you know, and we're speaking of a legacy, we're speaking of faith, we're standing on the shoulders of some great people, James Brown, Philippe Wynn, I mean, we all grew up under that great music, and it's a mainstay, it's a staple in our hearts, so just glad to be here. Well, of course, when you were on stage and then afterwards, as they were playing those videos,

it was a whole lot of folk. It was like one big choir in there. Right, right, right. Well, you know us. When we hear our favorite song, all the artists got to do is throw the mic out there, and we the choir. So it was just really marvelous for us to come together with one voice, one mind, one purpose,

and it was a wonderful time. Well, and you know what, one of the things that L.A. Reid was saying this year, too, look, you got a lot of Walker Fames, and you simply have the name down there, but the ability to be able to actually learn. So this is really not only an experience, it's really a virtual museum. Yes, it's entertainment and education put together. Something for young people to look and say, I can do that one day. I look up to the Aretha Franklin's and the Gladys Knight's.

To have somebody, a mentor, somebody you can look at and say, I want to do that one day. And to see that it is possible. Because here it is. It's come to reality. It's come to fruition. All right, look. First of all, I know you always got something you're working on. So folks are watching and listening. that it is possible because this here it is it's come to reality it's come to fruition all right look first of all i know you always got something you're working on so folks are watching and listening got some kind of project you're doing what you're doing well my husband and i were pastoring in springfield ohio so i'm still doing concerts r b concerts gospel concerts i have a

song out with cupid it's called two-step on my haters so yo i heard no no seriously so i was over okay so the road out here uh where all the vendors are i was we were we were uh we were driving by and i was like yo slow down i need to say on that and so seriously i was like i was like okay that was nice damn right there so seriously that's a nice song yeah thank you so much so he called me up one day and said i got the song i want you to sing with me. So he sent the music and the first verse, and Dale and I, we put together the second and third verse. And it's really about just under-celebrating, you know. The song says everybody got a hater out there.

Oh, yeah. Oh, I got lots of haters. But see, I tell them, don't hate, celebrate. You know why? Because if somebody around you is being blessed, that mean their blessing is in the neighborhood so any day blessing on come knocking on your door so don't hate celebrate you got it from rolling there you go that's it was always good to see you darling and I love you all right take care bye bye now that's a surely Murdoch there and so alright so let's uh so let's see here see who am i grabbing so how you so, all right, so let's see here. Let's see, who am I grabbing? And so,

how you doing? Great. All right, how you feel about all this? I feel wonderful. This is a wonderful event for Cincinnati. Super excited that everyone had the opportunity to come down and celebrate. More importantly, come down and visit Cincinnati. We would love to have you at this wonderful event. All right, cool. Yes. So I go in there and talk to you. She almost walked into my shot. Well, because. And I was like, back up. You did.

You did karate chop me, Roland. But because I love and appreciate you, you know. She's like, oh. Like she looks on camera. I appreciate it. Yes, thank you. I appreciate it. How you doing?

How's it going? I've always just admired you from day one. Even when Tavis Valley used to do the Black Tank Tank, you know, way, way, way long time ago. I'm a little older than you, though. I'm 62. How are you? I'm 54. Right. I said I'm older than you, right? I said I was older than you. But just thank you for being in this city. Cincinnati is a very interesting town. Born and raised here. And this is like really cool place to be, but it needs to be cool all the time.

There's a lot of political issues that take place in our city, and we need to get involved in what is happening politically, economically. I mean, Alicia Reese fought for this space. If it wasn't for her, we would not be here. I can tell you that for sure. Very involved. I'm the president of my community council, have been for a long time. Love you.

I appreciate it. Lincoln. Lincoln, come on over here, Lincoln. So Lincoln, how are you? White linens and everything. Looking fresh. Hey, I'm trying to keep up with you. Yesterday, that yellow linen you had on was fresh, man.

What are you talking about? You know, I try. I try to be nice. All right. Let's talk about this. Oh, no, this is great. I'm asking you you the question you should be asking me the question but what do you think you know well first of all i what i love look i love history and so the ability to be able to visit something and actually learn so if it's stuff that you don't know uh like for instance it

was great even being in there to hear la reed say there was midnight star that actually turned on the deal. So I thought that was pretty cool. You know, the last time L.A. Reid was in town, I interviewed him for the first time. And I said, do you remember me? Oh, man, I used to listen to you all the time on WCIN, you know, back in the day. So that was, you know, something to hear him say that. And, yeah, I mean, Bootsy Collins influenced all these guys, man, that's coming through here.

James Brown, I mean, everything you heard today was fact and it was true. Absolutely. And we'll also love, again, because this is open and it's free, it's not like somebody can come here and say, oh, my goodness, it's a Sunday and they're closed. So this is open all the time. Open all the time. Come here 365 days a year. This place will be open.

You can come up. And how do you like the interaction? I think that's a big hit. People can play the drums and guitar and sing with Bootsy and Penny Ford. It's just amazing. Well, absolutely. So I think it's pretty cool. And so a definite congratulations to Commissioner Reese for making this happen,

but also all other folks, of course, who are really behind this project, too. Yes, Alicia Reese really has worked hard at pulling everybody together, you know, putting out fires here and there. There were many fires coming. They didn't even want us to call this the Black Music Walk of Fame. They wanted us to take black out of there. And if we had taken black out of there, it would be a whole other ballgame right now. So she held, you know, she stuck to her guns and she didn't you know back down and here's where we are

today absolutely and so we're glad that happened oh man because if we had taken black cincinnati music walk of fame out of this you would probably see uh who knows the rolling stones up there now absolutely well lincoln always good to see you man hey always good to see you rolling who knows the Rolling Stones up there now. Absolutely. Well, Lincoln, always good to see you, man. Hey, always good to see you, Roland. Always great talking to you. I appreciate it, baby. Again, congratulations on 50 years in radio.

I appreciate it. How's it going? You all good? Good? Good day for you? You know, I have a story behind that. Me and Lisa had a conversation about it. She had a vision. She talked about it.

She talked about it and she made it happen. But she had a vision and now this is what we got. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, one of the things that I explain to people all the time, we talk about movements, we talk about anything. There's nothing that we see, whether it's an organization, whether it's this, whether it's a monument, whatever, that did not start with one person saying, you know what, let's do this. And that's why when I hear people, when they say, man, you know, I don't have any power, I said, no. I said, you could be one person who comes up with an idea or a concept, but then when you tell one person, now it's two, then you bring two more, now it's four, then it becomes eight, then it becomes 16.

I said, but you got to start. So it's about planting the seed. Oh, absolutely. I mean, there's nothing that's ever been created that was created with a group consensus. Everything that we see, somebody had to originate with the idea. Exactly, from the beginning. From the beginning to the end.

That's it. We appreciate you doing what you're doing, too. Thanks a bunch. I appreciate it. All right, folks. As you see, we're going down here. As you see, folks are all through here, and so now they get to, how you doing? How's it going? You all good?

What's happening? Oh, yes. How you doing, my brother? All good. How you feel about today? I think it was the most awesome thing I've seen in a long, long time, and I'm 71 years old. I'm personally Alicia Reese's personal physician, and it's been tough on her behind the scenes, but we stayed there to support her. And through the battles and the storms, she's come out and this is the most awesome thing I've

ever seen. I was on a radio show with her a couple of weeks ago, and afterwards we came down and saw it while it was still prior to its inception, and it was just awesome. Introduced me to the project managers and all that rowing, and Alisa, through her tireless work. I mean, she has been so tired and everything, but she is a trooper, one unlock I've ever seen. She's HBCU. I'm HBCU. We grew up in Evanston. We went to the same high school. I'm a few years younger than her dad, but it is what it is. And this is the culmination of all that work. And thank God

for all of us from the medical profession here in the city. We've supported Alicia. We've supported the commission on all of the things that they've done. And thank God for this. There is nothing like this in the United States of America. And in the face of those people down in Florida not even want us to have our history told, now we've got black music, Walk of Fame, in the city of Cincinnati, Ohio, right on the river where the Underground Railroad took its part.

And here we are here. I'm just so glad to be here, and it's awesome seeing you here because I've seen you, I've heard you, and I've read you, and you're an awesome brother. I appreciate it, Fred. 06. Yes, all day, all day. Missed some of that.

All right. 06. Watch out now. All right, Dave. Here we go. Careful. Here we go. There we go.

All right. I appreciate it, Doc. Appreciate it. Be go. All right. I appreciate that. Appreciate it. Be well. All right. How's it going? I'm Marvin Columbus. I'm one of the influencers here.

Okay. My first video was Midnight Star. If you can do it. Okay. My whole career. Really? I did 13 world tours. Michael Jackson, Smooth Criminal.

I watch your show all the time on my iPad. I built an airplane. Now I can put my boy's show up right here. I built an airplane, the time on my iPad. I've been an airplane. Now I can put my boy show up right here. I've been an airplane, man. You're amazing, man. Seriously, you're doing good stuff, man. I appreciate it. Pleasure meeting you. I saw you yesterday. Likewise. Oh, yeah. Well, I'm still working. We live right now. Yeah, but he's busy. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You know, you got to well, let me try to inform the people. You got to keep it moving. That's fine. I got it.

I got it. I got it. I've done this before. OK, my man. There you go. Thank you. There you go. I appreciate it.

Congratulations to be one of the influencers. Thank you, sir. I appreciate that. All right, sir. Keep watching. All right, folks, we're going to come through here. How you doing? All right, come on.

Here we go. There you go. All right, then through here. How you doi Here we go. There you go. go over here. Yeah, come I got it. All right, here you go. I appreciate it. prepared with your umbrel doing pretty good. My name so proud to meet you. I ca I appreciate it. So you came here prepared with your umbrella, huh? How are you? How you doing? Pretty good. My name is Nancy Stroud.

I'm so proud to meet you. I can't believe it. I listen to you as much as I can. I appreciate it. And you're a powerful man, and I just can't believe you're here. But this is a big moment. Well, we're covering this, and we're actually live right now. Are you really live here?

We're live on the Black Star Network right now. Uh-oh. So your thoughts about all of this? I think it's beautiful. I think it's definitely needed. Definitely needed. I think it's a great opportunity. I think it's a great opportunity.

I think it's a great opportunity. I think it's a great opportunity. I think it's a great opportunity. I think it's a great opportunity. I think it's a great opportunity. I think it's a great opportunity. Are you really live? Live on the Black Star Network right now. Uh-oh. So your thoughts about all of this? I think it's beautiful. I think it's definitely needed. We definitely need it. And we just, you know, people always talk about this woke thing, but people need to open their eyes and wake up and see. Stop sleeping and see the truth.

And that's what we need. We all need to wake up and see the truth about all of us but all of us as people and thank you so much i appreciate it thanks a bunch nancy i know we got you i heard the first time nancy you see you got real smart with the umbrella out here too you like i'ma stay cool okay i can you know i just need a little bit of shade and stuff. I got you. I got you. All right. How you doing?

I just wanted to say that my name is Lisa Randolph. Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. And this is my third year. This is my third year attending this event. I think it's a historical event. It's something that is necessary in light of what's going on in places like Florida, how they're trying to change up their historical map. And this is something I think that's going to bring a lot of people to Cincinnati, Ohio.

And I just wanted to say, I met you about four or five, no, about 10 years ago. You came to Cincinnati and I think you spoke at the NAACP. Yep. And I was having trouble with my cell phone. I was so nervous to meet you and everything. And you took the patience and the time to say, hey, let me do this and show you. And I just never forget that because— Don't take me by five seconds or we can knock it out.

I know, but sometimes we forget that famous people are human, too. It's all good. You know, and we rush up to them. We want their autograph. We want their picture. And they may have a bad day just like we do. And so I just wanted to say that. But can I get another picture?

Stay with that, bro. Stay with that. Hold on. We live. We live. You do this better than me. I can't see. I can't.

I got it. There you go. All right, thank you. I appreciate it. All right, come on. Come on. Come on. Take a few of them.

He's rolling more. It's a legend. Yeah. Got it? All right, cool. All right. How you doing? How you doing?

Just an honor to meet you. I appreciate it. So what do you think about all of this? I think it's wonderful. This is really exciting, very exciting. All right, cool. I'm glad to be a part of it. All right, good to meet you.

I appreciate it. I appreciate it. How you doing? You all good? Yes, very good. All right, how you feel about today? Oh, it's awesome, amazing. And kudos to Alicia Reese for pulling this all together.

And Cincinnati's support as well. And yours. Thank you for being in town. We appreciate you. Appreciate it. They got a cool hat, too. Got a cool hat. How you doing?

Y'all good? How you doing? How y'all feel about today? Wonderful, wonderful. I met you years ago. You got the bling bling hat. I know it. I have to represent my sister Reese.

She and I are just like this. We are roller sk this. We are roller skaters. We're the best friend and you have been her friend since I've been knowing Reese. I appreciate it. This is history for us. Alright, that's fine. Give it here. I got it, baby. I got it.

I got it. I got it. Y'all know what I'm doing here. Know what I'm doing. Put on photo. Here we go. Alright what I'm doing. Put on photo. Here we go. All right. There you go. That's it.

How you doing? All right. Now, y'all know I'm live. I'm working. We literally live right now. You drove in from Atlanta? I sure did. I'm from Cincinnati.

Grew up in Forest Park with my family from Mount Auburn and Coryville. I so appreciate this. I wrote about this. I talked about funk music in my paper at UCLA. I taught students about this. You just walked right in front of the camera. Just like the camera ain't even there. Like we ain't even live.

I mean, you just interrupted her interview. Go ahead. But yeah, I wrote about this, talked about this in 2007. And to see this and have our people truly in Cincinnati honor us is amazing and wonderful and as it should be. I thank you. I thank Alicia Reese. I thank everybody for being here. It's wonderful. All right. Glad to hear. I'm glad to be here. Thank you.

Appreciate you. I appreciate it. All right. I don't want him to say he wasn't here. Okay. Documented. All right. Let's see.

Let's see here. I got it. I got it see here. I got it. I got it, baby. I got it. I got it. Hold that. Hold that. I got it.

I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it.

I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun?

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Get your mindset up and ready. There we go. All right, All right. Here we go. All right, folks. So let's go over here. You see the folks over here? All right, come on. Here we go. So you see the folks over here?

That's what we're here. So you got the Isaac Brothers shout going on? So as you see right here, so you see they got the words and everything. So if you look here, so you shoot there, you can actually be in the video. You can't see it? All right. All right, so what you see is like literally, so as we're standing here, they got cameras in here, and so you can actually dance with the video, and then, of course, press that button to record,

and then when it's done, it points your phone with a QR code, and then you'll be able to actually download it. So let's go back on over here. All right, folks. And so they got these displays all over, and so they got the larger down there, one there, there. Again again different artists and different songs so here we go hey how you doing you all good good good to meet you all right we're gonna head back over how come on how you doing you good all right good seeing you good seeing you hey how seeing you. Hey, how you doing? You good? All right, y'all having fun with this?

I feel that green. I feel that green. Oh, I see you. Y'all having fun with it? Absolutely. All the way from D.C. All right. Thank you.

Yes! Good seeing you. All right. Can I get a picture? Huh? Can I get a picture? Sorry. You're in that five-counter.

You're in that five-counter. You're in that five-counter. You're in that five-counter. You're in that five-counter. You're in that five-counter. You're in that five-counter. You're in that five-counter. You're in that five count. That five count. Come on, bro. I got it. There you go.

There you go. There you go. There you go. I appreciate it. Appreciate it. All right, y'all. We're heading over here. Here we go. So we're going back to our position on over here.

Here we go. All right. Here we go. All right. Here we go here. All right, y'all. Here we go. Take this one. Y'all should have put these microphones under the tent. You said it are hot. Thank you. Don't cross the front of the tent. No, you didn't.

So you mean myself? Yeah, right here. I might hear that. What's happening? Everything. What's happening? Is this here? Hey, hey, Deshaun.

Yeah. Take this out. Is this your first time in Cincinnati? No, no. Not my first time in Cincinnati. All right, so hang out. Let's sit right there. Now you go.

Let's sit right there. Oh, there's multiple people. Multiple black and gays. All right, then. So we're going to switch right here. We up? We up here? All right, here we go.

Got the second mic. All right, folks, so we're here. We got Charlotte back up. There you go. Better be on TV again, Charlotte. Lord have mercy. Y'all, yesterday we were, of course, going to all the different Procter & Gamble activations, and Charlotte is walking all in the video.

Charlotte from P&G. I'm like, Charlotte, what you doing? You trying to star in the video? She's like, oh, my bad, my bad. All right, so we're sitting over here. All right, come on, Damon. Come on over here, Damon. Grab the microphone right there.

Damon's over here in the boot. He was trying to look all cute earlier with his tennis shoes on We know dog and well, he should have been in that boot. I don't know what he was thinking I saw him limping in those photos. I was like me put that boot on your doctor gonna be cussing you out to man Yeah, cute What's happening brother and what's going on? So, uh, all right, let's get this camera straight. Which one are we on? Let's get this two shots straight. So, everybody who's watching do understand, listen, when you go remote, everything's thrown off. So, we got three cameras set up. Everything's all over here.

And then, of course, when that thing started, we just jumped the whole plan, of course, went remote. And so, we just jumped the whole plan. Of course, went remote. And so we're here again. Cincinnati Black Music Walk of Fame, Procter & Gamble, the sponsor of the film festival, also sponsor of this. We've been partnering with them, covering all the stuff this week. So we appreciate them bringing us out. Damon, Alicia, when she told me with the interview yesterday, she said that when she first presented this idea to you, it was not a regular idea. And she said when she hit you with the interactive part, you were like, whoa, OK, all right. I'm all about black stories, man.

Black stories, black storytellers. And her vision was that we create something that has some permanence. Too often we have fleeting black stories. And Cincinnati, as your viewers will know, has a very rich musical history and heritage. we create something that has some permanence. Too often we have fleeting black stories and Cincinnati, as your viewers will know, has a very rich musical history and heritage. There's so many untold stories. So part of what we're doing at PNG is a program we call Widen the Screen, which is showing the full contributions of black people to film, television and media. Music is a natural extension of that. So we needed to step up, make sure that that vision

could become a reality and make sure that we created some permanence for those stories so the future generations can really understand where they come from and what i do love that this is not just you know it's not a wall it's not you know uh just so that's on the ground but i do like uh the interactive piece but also the history part you can actually learn while you're walking through this. Yes, I mean you start down and you have these interactive exhibits, right? And they're basically teaching you not just hey, Bootsy Collins was famous, but what is he famous for? Understanding the influence that he's had for musical different genres of music.

When you look at the inductees, you got Charles Fole gospel, you got jazz, you got, you got, you got high tech, the DJ, right? So something for everybody to really learn from. So it's going to be a great, even the sister who wrote the lyrics to We Shall Overcome. Man, that was a powerful story. Yeah. And that's a powerful story right here in Cincinnati. Now we all, we often talk about, you know, lift every voice and sing. So we know exactly, you know, who wrote those lyrics, but not, not We Shall Overcome. So yeah, that was just great to hear that and to hear it from her family. Yes, I mean, I think that's the other thing is recognition is so important.

And for many of these artists who never really got their due in the way the world thinks about it, they can come here and know that they're appreciated in their hometown by their own people. And that's a powerful thing. And for them to be recognized, some, you know, it's been a little late. We want to give people their flowers while they're here. But for their families to be a part of that, it's just something really special. Yeah, I'm always big on hearing the story behind the story. And being so to hear L.A. Reid talk about it wasn't for Midnight Star, there is no deal. There's no deal. There's no babyface. There's no L.A. Reid music exec.

There's no LaFace. And so to understand how things got started, that's always wonderful. It's a great thing. And there are more of those stories, right? So we're going to be back here every year telling more and more of those stories because the world is a small, interconnected place. I even think about my role in corporate America. I stand on the shoulders of those who came before me, right?

And there's times when you need to tell those stories and demonstrate real appreciation. And it's beautiful just to see that happening on there. Now, last time I was here in Cincinnati, I think it was 2017 or 2018, and it was one of the many, I call it many docs, but it was really one of the larger commercial spots dealing with the look. And a lot of people have seen those commercials. Where did that come from, sort of telling that story for people to understand the reality of what it means to be black in this country? We've got a long history of creative advertising, right?

That's kind of one of the superpowers of P&G. And I think we've been growing into a recognition that we can use those superpowers not just to sell products, but to make a positive difference in society. So it actually started a couple of years before the look in 2017 with the video called the talk. Um, and we had a group of black women, um, uh, a program called my black is beautiful. Uh, and they started talking about the black women, about what was important to them. Yes, their hair and their nails, their skin, but eventually it also came and be what's important to me and my family and my community. So you step back and he said, okay, great. What, what do we want to know? We want to make sure generations could power forward.

So at the end of the day, we started telling these stories and the talk is a short film that talks about the conversation that black mothers have with their children to prepare them for the realities of being black in America. It wasn't a story that a lot of people were ready to hear, right? I mean, I talked to you and said, tell me about the talk. We kind of know what we're talking about. Yeah. You know, for people that don't look like that's a very different reality what it

is uh very different and then they go really like yeah it's real right uh and the insight there was that just because something isn't your truth doesn't mean that it's someone else's reality now which one was so that was the talk which one was it where the brother who ended up was a judge that was the look that came two years later and And that was one we showed when I came back here. And that was, again, I mean, here is a brother who's a judge, but how he's judged by folks just simply by how he looks. I mean, black men face microaggressions every day in this country. And sometimes people recognize them, sometimes they don't. So the look tells that story through four scenes, right?

You think about the history of black people in swimming pools, or you think about the history of black people in diners, or you talk about what happens in retail when you walk in a store and somebody look at you like, do you deserve to be here, right? But they don't know your power. They don't know who you are behind it, right? And so on one hand, it opened the eyes of white America to what was happening, but it was a way of us communicating to black men that we see you, we understand you, we recognize you, and we want to help the world change how we look at black men. Well, what's interesting is that was somebody recently did something similar

where I don't know if you saw that video where it was two men, both who were portraying somebody blind, one black, one white. And the white guy walks up to strangers, and he still just grabs their arm, and they invariably just, they're surprised, but they either hold his hand or they walk with him. In every instance when a brother did it, jerked their hand away and ran away. Literally, and you're seeing the contrast right there. That's reality.

And that's what we need to continue to tell these stories. And we continued on. And we've got more coming out. But it's not just blacks. I mean, we've told that story about the Latinx community. We told that story last year in a video that we called The Name. And many Asian Americans, you know, it's interesting to me. It's like sometimes you've got a Starbucks name, right, because people can't pronounce your name. But something as powerful as being seen and pronouncing your name correctly has a tremendous impact on how people feel seen, how they feel included. So we are continuing to tell those stories through short films like that. But we're

also trying to invest black and black media, other minority owned media, so that more people are in a position to tell their own stories 365 days a year. Well, I mean, look, we absolutely understand that because the reality is, again, there are so many things that happen and people go and look, I've got wide viewers. People go, man, I had no idea all of this stuff actually exists or I didn't know about that person. I didn't know about I didn't know about that aspect of our history. And they're like, yo, man, we're learning something new every single day.

And so and that's again, we know why that matters. In fact, before I was when I was inside of there, I was in a group chat and somebody was talking about what happened to my alma mater, where the president just resigned over the treatment of hiring a black professor. And the person said, man, this story hasn't gotten a lot of more attention.

I said, well, I said, there's a reason why it hasn't. Because again, whoever's in, who has a decision maker, they're deciding what's actually news and what isn't. Well well that's why we need to have more people behind the scenes and you talk many times about the black newsrooms and the lack of black representation in newsrooms same thing goes in the creative industries right if you look at major u.s produced films right less than six percent of them were produced and directed by people of color right you think about how much money we are at the movies right so? So the ability to change that narrative means that we've gotta put people behind the camera

to be able to arc those stories as writers, producers, directors. But maybe y'all also did something where your head of marketing also said, you know what, we're just gonna pull a lot of our money and we're just gonna sign it directly, as opposed to going through an agency. I thought that was a hugely important deal as well because you sort of jump through hoops and hoops and hoops,

and you don't even realize what somebody else is putting somebody through. So I thought that was critically important. We never say, no, no, no. We can go direct to these black media companies. Yeah, Mark Pritchard oftentimes talks about the system isn't broken. It was designed that way. You think about how stuff happens in Hollywood and in many industries, people who know each other, once something starts working, you keep on doing it.

You've gotta disrupt and dismantle some of those systems. So we said, hey, we wanna be the leading advertiser in black media, right? And if you simply declare that out and expect the system to deliver that, it ain't gonna work. We've been at that for years. I gotta tell you to break the system. Break the system.

Well, we've had, I mean, like we did with this one agency, and we literally had eight meetings. And one of my guys said, he said, you know what? I'm the only person in these meetings not getting paid. He said, this is the eighth meeting. He said, and I didn't want to say it. It's not going to be a ninth meeting. I said, we're going to do something or we're not? Because it literally was the exact same thing. Right.

We talk about systemic racism or systemic bias. That's what we're talking about because it's real when you experience it. Yeah. So that's the system that we're trying to break. And so it's not going to happen overnight, but it's a commitment every year. I mean, we started a couple years ago. We doubled our investment in black-owned media. And we said, you know what?

We need to do it again. So we doubled it again. Right. Now, it's still too small apart right so yes that's good progress but off of an arguably small base the other thing that we got is we had to help other people come along roland because this is an area where major advertisers like png can't compete with one another we need to do these things in a way that widens the funnel right for more people to come through um and so that's why we're doing various upfronts. We're partnering with leading organizations and associations. But when you look at black media, the black advertising dollars aren't there because the audiences aren't there because the content isn't there.

Right. So, yes, we're going to advertise. But, yes, we're going to develop talent. And, yes, we're going to develop great content because black people know how to tell a story. Yeah. And see, what I always say is, look, I said I would love to to be able to do more, but I can't if I don't have the dollars. If I don't have the dollars, I can't market. I can't do billboards, I can't do ads, so therefore now I can't grow audience. So then it becomes sort of this cycle,

and you're just sort of just stuck, you know, sort of in this hamster wheel. Let me ask you this here. This is for long as this has been really focused has been just at the music festival, but in conversations I've had with other folks, you take take this, all of a sudden you're now seeing other ancillary things that will happen.

Because this, I remember Ed Gordon told me this. He said this essentially was the essence festival of the Midwest. This was like the main thing, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, people coming from all over the Midwest. So do you see this going beyond just concerts and really sort of expanding to other things? Of course, we covered the event on

the hip-hop panel on Thursday. Do you sort of see that happening? I refer to this week as Black in Cincinnati. You look at what we've done. This week started with Black Tech Week. With Black Ship Capital and Candice and Brian. People texted me like crazy thinking I was here for that.

And I was like, no, I'm here for the music festival. But 3,000 black entrepreneurs connecting with each other, connecting with VCs, connecting with major companies like P&G and G and Fifth Third and Kroger and others, because that's where that ecosystem is going. This weekend, Black Music Walk of Fame, we got Festival 513 and the Cincinnati Music Festival, the largest urban music festival in the country, going on more than 50 years. There's a lot that happens, but this is when we can bring critical mass and demonstrate that, yes, we can come and have a good time with music,

not taking anything away with it, but we can also do business as well. We've got music, we've got arts, we've got culture. So this is really an opportunity for us to put an exclamation point on what many people who live here in Cincinnati know is happening 365 days of the year. Well, look, we appreciate it. Glad to be here. We're going to be a lot of content that we've shared, been posting on social. We're going to be, of course, also having it on the Black Star Network all next week as well. And so we're totally appreciating it. Appreciate you, my brother.

Lots more stuff to cover. Of course, we're going to go take a shower and then get ready for the concerts tonight. But, see, earlier it was perfect. It was like 78. You know, it's a wild cover. And it came out. But from Houston, this ain't no big deal. This is like a winter day.

So, you know. All right, winter day. It's a winter day in H-Town. If we were in Houston right now, it'd be about 105. I'm going to let y'all have it. And this tip probably would extend a little further. Damon, I appreciate it. Appreciate you, brother.

Thanks a bunch. Take care. Folks, right now, Ohio players, they are performing on the stage right over there. You got the audience that's out there as well. And so, it's been a fantastic day thus far. We're going to shut down, close out this part of the broadcast, rest up a bit. We're going to be at the concerts tonight. You've got Snoop Dogg, you got Babyface, you got P-Funk. They're going to be performing as well. So we're going to be, of course, doing some

interviews there. You'll be able to see that stuff. go to our social uh all our social channels instagram fan base facebook twitter linkedin snapchat tic tac tumblr when all of those um we're posting stuff uh throughout the weekend then of course uh for our show on monday we're gonna have a recap as well uh and then and look i know a lot of y'all were watching uh the program on the inside and their feed went down four or five different times. It's all good. We're getting a copy of the whole program. And then we're going to restream the entire induction ceremony on the Black Star Network. So don't worry about it.

We're making it happen as we speak. And so we're going to have that for you. And so, again, check all of our coverage out of the Cincinnati Music Festival, courtesy of Procter & Gamble. All you got to do is, again, go to our Black Star Network app. You can check it all out there. check all of our coverage out of the Cincinnati Music Festival, courtesy of Procter & Gamble. All you got to do is, again, go to our Blackstreet Network app. You can check it all out there. Go to our YouTube channel. And don't forget, our 24-hour, seven-day-a-week streaming channel is now on Amazon News.

Go to Amazon Fire, check it out. And we just launched this week on Plex TV. So you can check out our 24-hour channel on all those platforms as well and so we got it covered whether it's on our app whether it's on our youtube channel whether it's on our fast channels and also on our social media we've got it completely covered and so you don't want to miss it great conversations with dougie fresh they're gonna love the jodeci interview uh that we did hanging out with them last night uh and got some great stuff for you so we appreciate all of y'all who've been tuning in to the black sun network for the last couple of days.

More to come as well. So time for a break. Get some water. Take a shower. Get something to eat. Then I'll see y'all back on the show again. You definitely want to tune in on Monday for the great stuff we've got. So thank you so very much.

Shout out to our crew as well. Thank you so very much. I'll see y'all later right here on the Black Star Network. I'm Roland Martin. Power! so very much. I'll see y'all later right here on the Black Star Network. I'm Roland Martin. Howard! Sometimes as dads, I think we're too hard on ourselves. We get down on ourselves on not being able to, you know, we're the providers. But we also have to learn to take care of ourselves. Arapahoe, you got to pray for yourself as well as for everybody else.

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