#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Andrew Young Presents: The Color of Money

Episode Date: July 8, 2019

Andrew Young Presents: The Color of Money | This documentary speaks to the final, unfinished work of poverty eradication by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the continuing work of Operation HOPE. Ambassador Andrew J. Young digs deep into how HOPE is impacting our communities by equipping people with the financial knowledge and tools to create a secure future. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. 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 Glott. 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 the recording studios. Stories matter and it brings a face to it. 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 podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.

I always had to be so good, no one could ignore me. Carve my path with data and drive. But some people only see who I am on paper. The paper ceiling. The limitations from degree screens to stereotypes that are holding back over 70 million stars. Workers skilled through alternative routes, rather than a bachelor's degree. It's time for skills to speak for themselves. Find resources for breaking through barriers

at taylorpapersceiling.org. Brought to you by Opportunity at Work and the Ad Council. Half a century after Martin Luther King Jr.'s final flight to Memphis. Economic justice. His unfinished work continues, and there is a new hope. Raising their credit score. A way to end poverty. The credit score is sort of the lifeblood of financial success.

The secret language of money you never learned in school. I feel richer today than I ever have. And remarkable never seen photos of the civil rights movement, including the last day of Dr. King's life. In the next hour on Andrew Young Presents, The Color of Money. It's no coincidence that Tiffany White's little girl wears a brand new pair of Nike shoes.

Started at Nike when I was 18. Tiffany works at the largest Nike distribution center in the world, which means it's also one of the largest employers in Memphis, Tennessee. Even though she makes a good salary, her expenses always seem to be greater. You have a financial problem. Right. At the end of every month. Right. Frankly, it's the same problem I sometimes have, and many of you do too. Tiffany found help unexpectedly in nearby Senatobia, Mississippi, the small town where she lives. At the local branch of First Tennessee Bank, signs promise there's hope inside. This is community outreach, the likes of which you've never

seen. Thanks to a remarkable nonprofit organization appropriately named Operation Hope. How'd you get involved with Operation Hope? Well my friend actually she came to the class and she told me about it and I came. Hope centers like this help people from all walks of life achieve what I call financial literacy, a necessary understanding of money and managing money that's almost never taught in school. With programs aimed at eliminating poverty simply by raising credit scores. Programs that help people to do it on their own. And that's the budget.

We're going to write down everything that you spend your money on, okay? And I'm going to go through your budget, and I'm going to just politely with my pen mark out those things that could be wiped out. First step of just admitting, hey, I need some help, and I'm here to help you. I'm here to walk you through, you know, the steps that it takes to get back on track financially. But suppose you haven't ever been on track. You can't help them get on track if they've never been on track before, yes, sir. That's why First Tennessee Bank provides free space to Operation Hope at a number of its banking locations, says the bank's young

and aggressive CEO and president, Brian Jordan. What we need is a strong economic community and economic fabric, and that means everybody has to do well. That sentiment is echoed by Bill Rogers, chairman and CEO of Operation Hope's other major banking partner, SunTrust. In our institution, we're fundamental believers that if you build your community, you build your bank. And we sort of have to start with that framework, and building your community is key. Literally building the community.

Memphis is a city undergoing rapid change and an impressive rebirth. Take, for example, Crosstown Concourse, an enormous deco high-rise built in 1927 by Sears and abandoned in the 90s. It stood vacant for a quarter of a century. This building was dormant for 20 years. So this one million square feet of building became an eyesore in the community, and everything around it...

We got one in Atlanta and everything around it died. But today, the president of this SunTrust market, Johnny Moore, says Crosstown Concourse is revitalizing a blighted neighborhood thanks to a $200 million makeover. And with SunTrust, we saw this as an opportunity in Memphis to bring this building back to life. There are retail stores and restaurants, five floors of office space, hundreds of apartments, and hope inside. That's not just a play on words. An important component of this extraordinary urban revival is SunTrust Bank's Financial Confidence Center.

Financial Confidence Center. Financial Confidence Center. It's not a SunTrust Bank branch, it's the SunTrust Financial Confidence Center. You can't get change for a 20 here, but you can get a different kind of change. Tell me what hope inside is now. You want to go from financial stress to financial confidence, we want to help you free of charge. Anybody in this neighborhood could come in this building and get this financial literacy training and the skills they need to gain financial confidence. There is hope inside a number of SunTrust branches in the region as well. And we have a great opportunity with Operation Hope, particularly physically located in our branches.

We get to be the bank that says how versus the bank that says no. You know, it's a misnomer to think that banks appreciate the opportunity to say no to people. It doesn't do us any good. The larger you grow the economy and the more inclusive it becomes, the more successful it is both at top and bottom. You can't see the community divide between the haves and the have-nots and not pay attention to the have-nots and think you're gonna be strong long term. How do you get people out of poverty? First Tennessee's Brian Jordan asked me to stop by a meeting of the Banks Foundation Advisory Board. How

do you think we go about solving for this poverty issue? Financial literacy. You don't have to have a degree from a college or university to be economically secure and independent, but you do have to have a knowledge and a self confidence. You've got to be able to know how to handle money. Truth be told, it took me a long time to learn the very lessons being taught by Operation Hope. A lot of people assume I'm rich, but the fact of the matter is I've always gotten by on very little, and more than once or twice, I was almost in the poorhouse myself. At the age of 86, I still work for a living.

And yes, it wears me out. It was what I didn't know that I didn't know. I knew how to save. I knew how to invest. But I didn't know about credit scores. I didn't know about the details of money. And I had been a congressman, you know, and ambassador to the United Nations. Oh, and mayor of Atlanta. But you know what? Not one of those lofty positions provided me with retirement benefits, not a penny. The last job I had a pension with was the National Council of Churches in 1960, and I left there to come to work with Martin Luther King. My salary with Dr. King was

$500 a month. It was a little more than 60 years ago that a group of ministers under the leadership of Martin Luther King came together to form the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, SCLC for short. They selected as their motto not just race, but the triple evils of race, war, and poverty. And they devoted themselves to redeeming the soul of America. Now, this America that they were talking about, I don't know whether we remember anymore, but the America we were talking about was one nation, indivisible, under God, with liberty and justice for all. We focused largely on race and war. Poverty was next on the list, and Dr. King wanted to up the ante, to expand the movement,

and use what he called militant nonviolence to pressure Congress into passing an economic bill of rights. We made a decision which I wish to announce today. As usual, I was at Dr. King's side on December 4, 1967, at what may have been his most controversial press conference ever. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference will lead waves of the nation's poor and disinherited to Washington, D.C. next spring. We had no way of knowing that Dr. King would live to see only the first two weeks of that next spring. He was determined to turn reform into revolution, knowing full well that it put him in the crosshairs. It's risky, but not to act represents moral irresponsibility. So I feel that we've got to do this. The Poor People's Campaign, as it came to be known, had been hotly contested,

even within the ranks of SCLC. We were tired, and many of us didn't agree with the timing, but his mind was set. And so we followed his orders and started to prepare for an epic showdown on behalf of all of America's underprivileged, not just African Americans. We want to spend three solid months organizing the whole nation around this matter, jobs and income, and mobilizing for our move toward Washington. So we feel that the 1st of April will probably be the time that we will move. But it was on the 4th of April that an assassin's bullet killed Martin Luther King Jr.

In the recent past, I've been back to Memphis more times than I'd like. Somewhere there's a sad thing. Various events commemorating the 50th anniversary of Dr. King's assassination have brought me together with my old friend and comrade Jesse Jackson. They felt there was no great value in the Puyovis campaign. Jesse says Dr. King was very discouraged, very run down and I would have to agree. I thought about quitting. Maybe I'd done as much as I could do in 13 years. But he changed his mind and said...

We turned the miles into a bus. We're going to Memphis and on to Washington to focus on economic justice. He thought Memphis was a great example. He had working poor people who were sanitation workers whose work cleaned up the diseased garbage. He was trying to point the movement in the direction of economic security and stability. You went to First Tennessee and SunTrust banks.

I went to where the money was. I went to where the money was. I went to where the power was, which were these two big banks, and said, basically, do you want new customers? Now, meet the audacious, larger-than-life entrepreneur and philanthropist who founded Operation Hope and talked his way into the boardrooms

of the top financial institutions in Memphis, something Martin Luther King Jr. could never have done. Your friend, Dr. King, institutions in Memphis, something Martin Luther King Jr. could never have done. Your friend, Dr. King, said in Memphis, you cannot legislate goodness. You cannot pass a law to force someone to respect you. That the only way to social justice in a capitalist country was economics and ownership. That's Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., that's your buddy,

who was ahead of his time once again. You've now opened offices in Memphis, and in many ways are carrying on that same work. It is that coattail that we're riding on in Memphis. John Bryant is on to something big, something that could change the economics of the entire country. It took a while to convince me, but I am convinced. And that's what the movement did. And that led us inevitably from struggling with issues that were black and white to green. Richard Anderson lives on a fixed income with limited resources, but you really wouldn't know it. Maybe I'm at the poorest point I've ever been in my life

financially, but I feel richer today than I ever have. Rick's life changed one day for the better while driving through Memphis, listening to radio station 95.7 Hallelujah FM. Tammy and I both listened to a local gospel station here that had advertised it. Hi, this is John Hope Bryant. I heard about it on the radio. In our Hope Inside Network, more than 100 locations across the country, we're moving credit scores 120 points in 24 months, and we do it all for free. I had done business with First Tennessee Bank for years. We have a friend who works at First Tennessee Bank, and she told us more information. An admitted spendaholic whose buying habits were a major factor in the end of his marriage, Rick is working hard with his girlfriend, Tammy Sykes,

the love of his life, not to make the same mistakes again. The biggest problem in my marriage was money. I did not know how to manage it. Between me and my wife at the time, we had a six-figure income, but I was barely keeping the lights on. He was hit by a divorce and debil at the time, we had a six-figure income, but I was barely keeping the lights on. He was hit by a divorce, debilitating medical issues, and inevitably financial disaster. I'm on disability, but I do not qualify for any other help.

I was kind of in fear, really, of what would happen down the road. When I met him, he was overdrafting $300 a month. And I took his debit card. I've heard the horror stories with couples and money. I didn't want our relationship to be about what you spent, and you shouldn't have spent that. Tammy had her own issues, especially the instant gratification of internet shopping.

With Amazon, you click one button and you're paying, you've paid for it. People are bombarded constantly to buy, buy and buy and keep buying, and when you're done buying that, go buy some more. What you have is not enough. There's always things to buy. I overdid it. It almost sounds like a 12-step program. The first step being to admit you've got a problem. When we found Operation Hope, Rick and I it started really dealing with it. We set up the class. Both of us were very motivated to working on our credit scores.

Didn't really know what our credit scores or credit history was. I had not seen my credit report in over 10 years. Tammy hadn't seen hers either. I knew it was bad and just didn't want to see it. I would stick my head in the sand and just hope for the best. John and Operation Hope can help people walk through their credit bureaus and understand their credit scores. They can actually do things that we can't do with that customer or potential customer. They're not going to wrap your knuckles with a ruler if you haven't done that. They're there to help you. When an Operation Hope financial counselor pulled their credit reports free of charge,

Rick and Tammy both were surprised. Things on there that I was not aware of. There are errors, but there were things on my credit report that had nothing to do with me and bills that I couldn't even identify. And that's one of the ways Operation Hope can help. They're able to look at those things to see what might be disputed. John Bryant says almost everyone's credit report contains at least one mistake. The credit bureaus remove it, boosting your credit score 40 points. And my score has gone up over 100 points. In addition, an Operation Hope counselor called their creditors and negotiated reasonable payments,

even for medical bills Rick once considered hopeless. But they're not insurmountable, and they're not going to hurt my credit history now. They are, all of them are doable. They're manageable. It does take a little discipline or maybe even a lot we're listening to what's offered to us if you approach it with an open mind about it then definitely it's going to help you I got a coupon I'm going to use the let's make them both Italians on wheat. It's not as if Rick and Tammy have quit spending money entirely,

but now they know where every penny is going. Notice this. Okay, appreciate it. We learn in the classes that we keep all the receipts. All our receipts, writing down everything, have everything together when we see our counselor again. You find where it's going and then you find places to build where you can tighten your belt. So what does Operation Hope charge for all this help? Zero. This is free. Free. If you have inner capital, you'll never be poor. Yeah. But if

you don't have inner capital, all the money in the world won't save you. And now, instead of nightmares, the couple has dreams. There are things that we want to work towards, and we work together on common goals. We look at our finances a lot and what we are wanting to do in the future and we strive toward that. I have recommended this program to at least three or four of my friends. I'm happy. I'm happier than I've ever been.

It brought a lot of self-esteem. And something else. Actually saving somebody. Mason Temple in Memphis, Tennessee, is where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his very last sermon, the mountaintop speech it's called. And believe it or not, at Mason Temple, today you'll find hope inside.

What I believe is going to be the Starbucks of financial inclusion. They seem to be everywhere in and around Memphis. A thousand locations inside of bank branches, grocery stores, big box retailers, houses of faith, government offices, where people flock, stop, and shop. The symbolism is purely intentional. Dr. King came to Memphis to fight poverty, and John Hope Bryant chose this place to launch Hope Inside, a program he believes will change the way America does business. We're going to execute a mission that will ultimately become

10% of all banking in this country. It will be ingrained in society so that you don't have to question whether you get a chance, a shot at the American dream. It will not be a hope, it will be a promise. A promise I have come to believe. Operation Hope is not a local, regional organization. The Hope Global Forum, held each year in Atlanta, is a major event that attracts thousands of the country's corporate and political leaders, entrepreneurs and great thinkers, as well as anyone else with an investment or interest in financial literacy and ideas to make the economy work from top to bottom and bottom to top. Former President Bill Clinton knows John Bryant well and wrote several pages about him in the 2007 book,

How Each of Us Can Change the World. When asked why he decided to devote his life to Operation Hope, John gave President Clinton the same answer he always gives. I didn't decide. God did. We're looking at the fires and looting in South Central. These people are angry. They have every right to be. Oh, look at that. Terrible.

And there's no police presence down here. April 29, 1992 was in many ways a rebirth for me. Rodney King is no model citizen, but didn't deserve to get his rear end whipped by a police officer sworn to protect. Being sadistic. They were on tape, so I figured, okay, Rodney King will go to jail, but those guys are going to jail too. But the officers were found not guilty. Not guilty. Not guilty. Not guilty. Well, I was wrong. And the officers were found not guilty. Not guilty. Not guilty. Not guilty. Well I was

wrong and the city exploded. John Bryant was still living in Los Angeles having grown up poor in nearby Compton. You started your ministry out of the Rodney King riots and your answer to riots were jobs. How'd you get there? I felt guilty. That's the answer. Guilty because by then, after a few ups and downs, he was a self-made businessman and by his own description, just a little bit arrogant. I had become seemingly successful. I began to believe if you weren't working, you were lazy.

And if you weren't successful, then there's something wrong with you and get off your rear end. I sound like a lot of my very conservative friends. And I was similarly blaming poverty on the poor at the same time that justice in this case meant just us. John Bryant walked out into the burning streets of South Central L.A. The city was still smoldering. The riots were still in full effect. In the midst of this destruction, he had what can only be called an epiphany, a moment he describes as painful because I saw my own people stripping themselves of their own dignity. Were there people killed that night? There were 50 deaths. There was a billion dollars in property

damage back when a billion dollars in property damage back when a billion dollars was a lot of money. Somehow John Bryant talked his way onto the board of directors of Rebuild LA, its youngest member by far. I was obnoxiously overconfident. I was 26 years old and no one took me seriously, but that put me in the room with the other CEOs. That's all I wanted. He knew he could make a difference, and he also realized he'd been wrong about the poor. People who didn't know or didn't think they had a voice, didn't know how to exercise it,

decided to destroy the city they lived in. Dr. King always said that violence is the language of the unheard. Unheard, right. So you basically felt that you could give voice. That came a little later. I had to find my own path. What was my contribution? What was my role? And then it hit him.

I thought my way out of poverty, and I said, my God, this is not just a pathway for me, it's a pathway for everybody. And I became a different person. I saw the power of hope. That was the start. I created a letterhead called Operation Hope. My deal, I reject it.

The only thing that got me in science was only one. Not long ago, John Bryant moved the worldwide headquarters of Operation Hope from Los Angeles to Atlanta. Over a quarter of a century has passed since he started Operation Hope, and much of the story of its success, and his, can be found on the credenza behind his desk. Awards, keepsakes, presidential commendations, photographs of John with some of the world's most famous people. This photo catches my eye. In 2006, we had just met, and I invited John to accompany me on a trip to Rwanda. I wanted to get to know him better, to decide if he was a fast-talking hustler,

or just maybe the real thing. In his book, President Clinton described John Bryant as, quote, a whirlwind of ideas and action. And that's the truth. He got his first taste of success at an early age, a story I think is worth mentioning. I started the neighbor candy house in the den of my home when I was 10 years old. I made $300 a week. How much?

$300. Selling candy. Selling candy. And put the liquor store out of the candy business. My confidence went through the roof. $300 a week. How much? $300. Selling candy? Selling candy. And put the liquor store out of the candy business. My confidence went through the roof. My self-esteem grew. My belief in myself.

I put the... Well, if you can put the liquor store out of the candy business, you've done something. Yeah. The problem is not black or white, but green. In Memphis, you know, we have Operation Hope's in predominantly black or African-American neighborhoods. We have them in predominantly white or Caucasian neighborhoods. Some of us just didn't receive the necessary, fundamental, basic information about money that others did. The African-American community in particular has got to get the memo. The memo happens to be the title of John Bryant's latest book.

Money is a language, and we were never taught it. But we never got the memo on money. And as a result of that, you can be the nicest person in the world and still be dead broke. And you can be the hardest working person in the world. And still be dead broke. Since John Bryant created Operation Hope, it has become an effective, top-rated nonprofit that has helped countless individuals. I see you making free enterprise work for the poor. You said something really powerful a couple years ago to me.

To live in a system of free enterprise and not to understand the rules must be the very definition of slavery. It's just everything. It's everything. This is a very famous one. John O'Brien, this is one of his particular favorites. When he first came through, he said, I want this one. And most people look at that, they think she's holding up a check. But it's a voter's registration card. Yeah.

They were thrown out of their homes because they registered to vote. This is just one of nearly two million photographs taken by the late Ernest C. Withers, who captured over 60 years of African-American history, first as a freelancer for publications that white people barely knew existed and never looked at, but which kept black folk informed all across the country. Back then, the only people that were able to tell you what was going on in Memphis and Chicago and New York with Jet magazine. And so when he sent a pictures to Jet, he was part of our public relations empire. Photography was extremely important. That's my dad's slogan. Pictures tell the story.

The story of the modern civil rights struggle began arguably arguably, in the summer of 1955. Ernest Rutherford starts way back with maybe the first picture that called attention in the movement. That was the pictures of Emmett Till. This is the first assignment was on the Emmett Till trial. Yeah. Emmett Till was a 14-year-old boy from Chicago, lynched while visiting relatives in Mississippi Delta.

That brutal crime and the acquittal of his murderers drew outrage even among white people and suddenly put violence in the South under a bright new spotlight. That got a lot of attention. The world might never have known the name Emmett Till had it not been for Ernest Withers. Dad called in favors. Countless readers were moved and moved to action, including a young, not-yet-famous minister named Martin Luther King Jr. Very few people knew Martin Luther King.

And your father was always there shooting for Jet and Ebony. Dr. King was amazed at the amount of mainstream publicity Ernest Withers managed to get for a story that usually would have been rejected as too black. Martin wanted to know how he was able to get that information out. Emmett Till was just before the Montgomery bus boycott. That was the first assignment Martin gave my father. This is his first photo on that assignment.

Very good. At the end of 1955, Martin Luther King Jr. emerged as a local civil rights leader in Montgomery, Alabama. We know it to be Montgomery bus boycott today, but he asked them to come to Montgomery because they were going to actually do something that had never been done before. Dr. King led an all-out boycott of public transportation in Montgomery by Negroes, a black and white battle that was won by the color of money. For over a year, African Americans refused to ride city buses. This is the photograph that was in every publication and it showed the Montgomery bus boycott

and it's what's etched in our history as being that important moment. Dr. King and his close friend, the Reverend Ralph David Abernathy, sit on the front seats as a white man stands in the back of a Montgomery bus. That assignment also hit the wire service, and that image of them on the bus is what probably drew you and your attention to what had been published in Ebony and Jet. Coverage of Dr. King's victory in Montgomery reached far beyond the black publications. Martin began to call on Dad.

Consequently, Ernest Withers became the only photographer who was a part of Dr. King's inner circle and the only photographer to chronicle the dawn of the Civil Rights Movement all the way to its twilight. He covered everything. Yes. He was even on the scene at the Lorraine Motel almost immediately after Dr. King was shot by one bullet from a sniper's rifle.

He took a lot of pictures right after the assassination and all of the gathering of everyone in the room. Ernest Withers was with us as we tried to understand what had happened, what Dr. King would want us to do next, whether the Poor People's Campaign could continue without him. I was in shock. What I remember about your father was that he was just always there. Anywhere we were, Ernest showed up.

He was part of our family. So many were stunned when a newspaper expose in 2010 alleged that Ernest Withers was secretly on the payroll of the FBI as an informant. It didn't matter to us. He had a consulting fee of I don't know what. I'd rather say that the FBI hired him as a photographer. We had no secrets and we wanted the government to know what we were up to. In fact, if Ernest Withers picked up some extra cash from the FBI, I'm happy for him. But the

negative publicity came at a bad time. Roz Withers was raising funds to catalog and preserve the extensive work of her father, who had died three years earlier. It was almost like the lights were cut off. I'm glad that we've gotten over that. Yes. It has not been easy. It's been a very long and difficult road. That long and difficult road eventually intersected with historic Beale Street and part of a $13 billion revitalization project that has transformed Memphis in recent years.

Part of it is a museum and gallery that's home to the Withers Collection. But there's much, much more here than you see. When they come through the galleries that they see lifestyle, they see us looking and having a good time, even in the times where we were supposed to be oppressed. There's no doubt that we were oppressed, but we didn't know it. It's like we were poor, but nobody thought they were poor. Yeah, that's true. Roz turned down a small fortune when she declined to sell the entire collection outright. I said, no, We need to give voice to this work. And what a voice it is. We have a total body of 1.8 million images.

That's a lot of photographs. If they say this picture is worth a thousand words, and you've got... 1.8 million. 1.8 million pictures time a thousand. That's pretty good. Negatives, most never printed, fill several rooms at the Withers Archive. When we first moved that material over to the archive, it was just piles and piles and piles of stuff.

And we focused on civil rights, and that's what we decided. Do you know how many civil rights? Yes, to the number. 10,757. We've digitized the entire collection of civil rights. So we'll be able to go back and really look. This is the lady who served him his last meal. These are never seen before images. Okay, let's go to some of his history.

Does that look familiar? No. This one you probably have seen before. This is a new one. Roz Willers takes me further behind the scenes. This is right when he arrived, his last visit. This is a special project undertaken for Operation Hope. This is a challenge that John Hope Bryan gave us. And that challenge was to tell the story of his last march.

In every photograph I see of you and Dr. King, you're looking for threats, opportunities. You're never trying to get his limelight. You let him be him and you were Dr. King, you're looking for threats, opportunities. You're never trying to get his limelight. You let him be him and you were you. When John Bryan discovered the Withers collection, he naturally saw an opportunity. What you guys did so brilliantly was use the media, the lens to bring justice back into the South. Look at here. This one and this one. And that's, uh... That's Jessie. Jessie, yeah. Mm-hmm. Now that you've got these things digitized... Now we want to make sure that it is shared

in a way that it gets to the world. We are telling our history as opposed to someone else. This is a history that is changing the world. What we're doing and what we have is a responsibility. Pictures tell the story. Welcome to Marks, Mississippi. Population 1,551, give or take. In 1968, Marks was the poorest town in the poorest county of the poorest state in the nation, one square mile of poverty. From the looks of things, Marks hasn't changed much in the last half century. When Martin Luther King Jr. visited Marx and saw the squalor, the

children with bloated bellies and bare feet, he wept. This was the launching point of the Poor People's Campaign. The idea was to draw attention to poverty in America with a mule train, a four week long journey from Marx all the way to Washington, D.C. To help Washington to see that America could not be free until we were all free. It looked like it was around the Poor People's Campaign. There's a lot of photos from Marx. We felt obligated to continue with the Poor People's Campaign after Dr. King was killed in Memphis. But without his leadership and in the wake of such a great tragedy. King was killed in Memphis. But without his leadership,

and in the wake of such a great tragedy, we were just heartbroken, and the enthusiasm and energy just wasn't there. The mule train completed its long journey, converging with thousands of other demonstrators at a campsite on the National Mall called Resurrection City. Washington was not brought to a standstill, and this was not the poor people's campaign that Dr. King had envisioned. They slayed the dreamer. The dream lives on, and even here in Marks, Mississippi, we see some little struggles of hope. There's something in the air here. I've been here all my life.

Something more enticing than many of the smells and marks. And we aren't the only ones to notice an outdoor barbecue. Just some t-bones, a couple of t-bones, pieces of chicken and some hot dogs and a couple of hamburgers. Andrew Young. Yes, I'm Serrano. Good to see you, Serrano. Yes, sir. What you do? Where do you work? I'm an employee. You're an employee? Yes, sir. Until fairly recently, this factory was the largest employer in Marks. But they closed it down. It was a crippling blow, says Eddie L. Thomas. Well, I worked there

a good 30 years, I know. It was real important. It was real important. Because people that was working there, they don't have a job over there now. That just cut the economy bad. Still, there are more poor people now than there were when Martin Luther King died.

Now, y'all look like you're doing better now. Everybody's looking good. The Lord is blessing somebody somehow. Sunday worship service at Greater Mount Zion Church of God and Christ. We were led to Mark's and what I've decided to do with my life since then is tell the story as well as I can outside the church. Where are you in school? Ole Miss. How you like it? What you studying? Biochemistry and Spanish. Go ahead, girl. Biochemistry and what else?

Spanish. Uh-huh. But less than 100 miles from Marx is Senatobia, Mississippi. And it was just as poor 50 years ago as Marx. But the banks have gone in and made it possible for people to borrow money to become a part of the mainstream of the American economy. I wasn't in debt too deep. Tiffany White is part of the mainstream. I already knew some things, but some things I didn't know.

For this problem. And what equal? 5,000 milliliters. So what problems are you having? When I came to Operation Hope, it just gave me that further education for us. Budgeting, learning about my credit report, how the credit score works. Saving, because that was one of my biggest issues, to save. You can save with two children?

Yeah, you can. I don't blame Memphis for the death of Martin Luther King Jr., but it's hard for me to get through here without a tear. Yeah. It took me a long time to re-embrace Memphis. In truth, this is a vibrant, wonderful, happening city with a meaningful past and a promising future. I actually like Memphis and often sing its phrases. Even so, it's difficult for me to return.

It's a sacred pilgrimage for me to come to Memphis, and I'm sure you know why. Preaching a Sunday morning service just outside Memphis, I ask a question that weighs heavily on my mind. What has become of the dream of Martin Luther King? People wanted to stop the dream of Martin Luther King, but here we are in Memphis, Tennessee, the place where they killed his body. But Martin's dream is still speaking through these pictures. The dream is still alive. How are you all this morning? I arrive at the Memphis airport, not to catch a flight, but to commemorate one that occurred 50 years ago. Inside, a crowd awaits the unveiling of a new historic marker

and newly discovered photographs taken by the late Ernest Withers. Images that are specific to the airport. A photographic depiction of Martin Luther King's last visit to Memphis. Good morning, everybody. How you doing? Good morning. This event was dreamed up by John Bryant, with substantial assistance from Brian Jordan, the president and CEO of First Tennessee Bank. John frequently walked through the Memphis airport, thinking of Dr. King's final visit. I would wonder is this what it looked like when Dr. King was here. There was no marker to commemorate it.

I'm always looking for some symbol, some significance, some recognition. On April 3rd, 1968 at 6.01 in the morning, Dr. King and I boarded Eastern Airline Flight 301, along with the Reverend Ralph David Abernathy and Bernard Lee, and thus began Dr. King's last full day on earth. You were there with Dr. King? A few hours after arriving in Memphis, we were served with an injunction ordering us not to march. It would be overturned the following day, but the march never took place, and the Poor People's Campaign never materialized as Dr. King envisioned it. It sort of came to an end, it seemed,

when Martin Luther King was shot here in Memphis. When Dr. King went to Memphis, I think he knew it was the end. And he wanted to be identified with the poorest of the poor, and the sanitation workers were it. For him, that was the unfulfilled part of his mission. You picked up with poverty. After 50 years of carrying the torch, I'm ready to pass it on. John Bryant and Operation Hope has been blessed, and they're reaching down to those, the least of these God's children. You've now opened offices in Memphis. Yeah. And in many ways

are carrying on that same work. I see this as picking up where we left off. Every time you say that I'm uncomfortable. You should be. That's a heavy burden. Yeah, I know that some of this work is coming through me and I have a responsibility. But I didn't think I had the moral fiber, the character of you and Dr. King. Well, maybe we didn't either. Yeah. You don't know what you got till you have to make a choice. Economic rights is the new movement, and it's not in the streets, but in the banks.

John Bryant has a very interesting approach. Being at that airport and being drawn back to the fact that I did not want Dr. King to go there in the first place. And realizing that he went there to his death knowingly, I think. But his death was only the beginning of his mission. And 50 years later, the income gap continues to grow. Yes. finding newer, cleaner ways to power the world. And the Andrew J. Young Foundation. Think young. John Bryant and Operation Hope

has developed an approach to America that starts with the least of these God's children. But not by going to the government for a handout or for even an aid, but by working with the local bankers. You all are really what we're talking about. The Bible said the poor will always be with us, and so far it's been right. And that doesn't mean we have to stop working on the problem. Tiffany White wasn't poor, but already her life has improved because of lessons learned from Operation Hope. Budgeting myself, changing the way that I think for spending money,

and just also just putting a savings plan together to be able to save. Now she has one more goal, and it's important. Improving my credit score because one of my goals was to be over 700 and I'm only a few points away. You got to have a credit score and you've got to be able to go to the bank and be respected as a full-fledged citizen. The way you level the playing field today is a credit score. She hopes to become a first-time homeowner, and the bankers want to help Tiffany White and others like her. Credit scores are the ticket.

I mean, you really can't participate in the great American recovery and the opportunities that are abundant in this country if you don't have a good credit score. The credit score is sort of the lifeblood of financial success. The difference between being poor and being middle class is a credit score of 700 or better. I loved this because it was uncomplicated. It's a number, and you can move the number. My mother's got a credit score of 840.

She's not black, she's green. When she goes to the computer and pushes that credit application, they don't even look at her race. They just say yes. Yet 44% of Americans have a credit score below 620. If I had to choose between a college education and a 700 credit score, I'd do better with a 700 credit score. Great. And that's a lot cheaper. That's a really great observation. The correlation to success will be higher with a credit score than the college education.

Credit scores are so important. They can not only end poverty, but in the process, eliminate crime. That's where all the crime is. Literally I can take a 500 credit score anywhere in America and wrap it around a zip code that has an explosion of everything negative you can imagine. And conversely, a 700 credit score neighborhood doesn't riot. We can not only work ourselves out of poverty, but we can work our neighbors out of poverty, our communities out of poverty, the world out of poverty. And Martin Luther King is alive today in you, in this pastor, in this congregation. And I thank you. God has blessed you. Teksting av Nicolai Winther 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 Glott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. 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. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I always had to be so good no one could ignore me. Carve my path with data and drive.

But some people only see who I am on paper. The paper ceiling. The limitations from degree screens to stereotypes that are holding back over 70 million stars. Workers skilled through alternative routes, rather than a bachelor's degree. It's time for skills to speak for themselves. Find resources for breaking through barriers at taylorpapersilling.org. Brought to you by Opportunity at Work and the Ad Council. This is an iHeart Podcast.