#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Arbery Killer testifies; Julius Jones Protests, Ifill to step down; Rapist gets probation

Episode Date: November 18, 2021

11.17.21 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Today, Travis McMichael took the stand to tell his side of the story he and his father chased and gunned down Ahmaud Arbery.The clock is ticking in Oklahoma. Tomorrow is the day death row inmate Julius Jones is scheduled to be executed. Today, protests in the state capitol, students walking out all wanting Governor Kevin Stitt to grant Jones the clemency recommended twice. We'll talk to the Director of the LIVE FREE Campaign, who'll be at tonight's prayer vigil.For nearly a decade, Sherrilyn Ifill led the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Today she announced she is stepping down. I got a chance to speak with her today to find out why she's leaving and who will replace her.Two of the men convicted of killing Malcolm X will be exonerated because the prosecution, NYPD, and the FBI neglected to hand over crucial evidence during the trial.The family of a North Carolina black man says the police officer who shot the gun who killed Andrew Brown, Jr. altered the weapon before submitting it into evidence.  He pleaded guilty to rape and got no jail time. We'll tell you about the white rapist who was sentenced to eight years probation. The judge said prison time would be "inappropriate."In our Marketplace segment sponsored by Verizon, we'll show you an app just for beauty and barbering professionals who are looking for ways to improve their business. #RolandMartinUnfiltered partners:Verizon | Verizon 5G Ultra Wideband, now available in 50+ cities, is the fastest 5G in the world.* That means that downloads that used to take minutes now take seconds. 👉🏾https://bit.ly/30j6z9INissan | Check out the ALL NEW 2022 Nissan Frontier! As Efficient As It Is Powerful! 👉🏾 https://bit.ly/3FqR7bPAmazon | Get 2-hour grocery delivery, set up you Amazon Day deliveries, watch Amazon Originals with Prime Video and save up to 80% on meds with Amazon Prime 👉🏾 https://bit.ly/3ArwxEh+ Don’t miss Epic Daily Deals that rival Black Friday blockbuster sales 👉🏾 https://bit.ly/3iP9zkv👀 Manage your calendar, follow along with recipes, catch up on news and more with Alexa smart displays + Stream music, order a pizza, control your smart home and more with Alexa smart speakers 👉🏾 https://bit.ly/3ked4liBuick | It's ALL about you! The 2022 Envision has more than enough style, power and technology to make every day an occasion. 👉🏾 https://bit.ly/3iJ6ouPSupport #RolandMartinUnfiltered and #BlackStarNetwork via the Cash App ☛ https://cash.app/$rmunfiltered or via PayPal ☛ https://www.paypal.me/rmartinunfilteredDownload the #BlackStarNetwork app on iOS, AppleTV, Android, Android TV, Roku, FireTV, SamsungTV and XBox 👉🏾 http://www.blackstarnetwork.com#RolandMartinUnfiltered and the #BlackStarNetwork are news reporting platforms covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. 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. 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 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 Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Thank you. I'm going to go get some food. Martin! Să ne urmăm în următoarea mea rețetă. Thank you. Să ne urmăm. Thank you. Să ne vedem la următoarea mea rețetă. I'm going to go ahead and get back to you. How some carriers give you so little for your older busted phone you just end up living with it? I don't think so.

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Hey, folks, today is Wednesday, November 17th, 2021. Coming up on Roller Martin Unfiltered, broadcasting live from Brunswick, Georgia, on the Black Star Network. The defense, they now present their case in the trial of the three white men who have been charged with the murder of Ahmaud Arbery. We will show you what happened in court today. We'll also preview a group of 200 black pastors who will be here at this courthouse tomorrow as a show of force letting the white attorney who attacked Reverend Sharpton and Reverend Jackson that you don't mess with the black church.

We'll also talk with the father of Ahmaud Arbery when we come back about this trial and what he is thinking and what he is going through. Also on today's show, Black Voters Matter protesters were arrested in the nation's capital. We'll talk with Cliff Albright, who is the co-founder of Black Voters Matter. Also, Sherilyn Ifill, she is stepping down as head of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. We will hear from her about why she's doing so at this time and who is going to be the new leader of the LDF, the group founded by the great

Thurgood Marshall. Also, Congressman Paul Gosar of Arizona. He has been censured by the U.S. House. He's been stripped of all of his committee assignments. We'll show you what took place on Capitol Hill today. We'll also hear from him as well. Two of the men who were convicted for killing Malcolm X, they are going to be exonerated. We'll tell you about that and we'll hear from the man who did a Netflix documentary to uncover who the real assassin was who killed Malcolm X. And why is a rich white man in Buffalo, New York? How did he rape four girls, but the judge gave him probation? Yeah, he clearly wasn't a brother. And also, Julius Jones is 24 hours away from being executed in Oklahoma. We have yet to hear from Governor Stitt. Well, also protests all around the country took place today.

Free Julius Jones rallies. We'll tell you about that as well. It is time to bring the funk on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network from Brunswick, Georgia. Let's go. He's got it. Whatever the mess, he's on it. Whatever it is, he's got the scoop, the fact, the fine.

And when it breaks, he's right on time. And it's Roland. breaks, he's right on time And it's rolling Best belief he's knowing Putting it down from sports to news to politics With entertainment just for kicks He's rolling It's Uncle Roro, y'all It's Rolling Martin, yeah

Rolling with Roland now Yeah He's funky, he's fresh, he's real The best you know, he's Roland Martin Now Martin Folks, this is a live look of the Glynn County Courthouse. This is where the trial is taking place of the three white men who are on trial for the murder of Ahmaud Arbery. It has been quite emotional over the last week. Today, the defense, they

actually took possession of this case. The prosecution arrested on yesterday. And one of the men actually took the stand today to describe what took place on that day when Ahmaud Arbery was gunned down here in Georgia. Like I said, we are here in Brunswick, Georgia. Tomorrow, more than 200 black pastors will be here as a show of force, making it perfectly clear the attack on the black clergy and this family will not be tolerated. One of the white attorneys for one of the men on trial for killing Ahmaud Arbery. He was critical and demanded to the judge that black pastors not be allowed to sit with the family of Ahmaud Arbery. The judge rejected that. And so you're going to see a show of force tomorrow at 11 a.m. Eastern.

We'll be broadcasting that live right here on Roland Martin Unfiltered and the Black Start Network. Before I play video of what took place in the courtroom today, I want to turn to the father of Ahmaud Arbery, who joins us right now. Sir, glad to have you here, Marcus Arbery, senior head on the show before. It's good to see you. Thank you. Hate to do so under these circumstances. Thank you.

But I have to ask, you know, to see what took place today, to hear Travis McMichael go on that stand and give his version. Many have said that he absolutely lied about what took place. What was going through your mind as you listened to him talk about what took place in taking the life of your son? Oh, God, that's the hardest thing I ever had to deal with in life. But I just seen that he just really crippled himself when he got up there because all his lives was not adding up. And so we seen all this.

And Lord have mercy, he had time to think before he grabbed them guns and went out there, him and his dad, and gunned my boy down. He had time to think before he grabbed them guns and went out there, him and his dad and gunned my boy down. They had time to think. One of the, the man who owned the home testified last week that nothing was stolen. And I talked to Reverend Jackson, and he said in talking with you and Ahmad's mother that your son often would look at houses under construction and was studying those houses because he said he was going to build y'all a house one day. Yes. Yes, that was his dream.

See, he was going to school to be an electrician, and he was getting ready to go back to school. His number one thing always was dream that he wanted to build me and his mama a house. See his mama had a house he bought that wasn't ever built but he just wanted to build one. That was his dream. And he would go into houses under construction, and he would study the layout, and then would go back home and make drawings in the notes. Yes. That's what he was doing. That's what he was doing, yes.

Because my boy, he didn't have to take nothing. He had that to do, and he didn't do that. So I already know what time it was with that. Because I'm going to tell you something, while he was studying, his dream, me and his mama, his brother and sister, them were making sure he all right. He had everything he needed,

so he didn't have to take nothing. So that's why I knew that was a lie. You've heard these attorneys say they need more bubba's on the jury. You've heard them attack black pastors saying, why do they need to be sitting with the family? You know, it is abundantly clear that that the attorneys for these three white men, they are trying to play on race. Because what they need is they need one of those white jurors to say not guilty. That's right.

Wow, Roland Martin, you just said the number one question. You know, they're just trying to act like race don't play a part in it. It does. You can see it every day. It's showing you. You know, and it's just bad. You know, it's hard for African-American people to get justice when a white man wrong. They think it's all right to just kill us, and the system don't work for African-American people.

You know, they want to think it's too low, one for white America and one for African-American. But that's a lie. It's one low. Everybody's supposed to be treated equally. And the law's supposed to treat everybody equal. If you done wrong, you got to be counted on. I don't care what color you are. For people out there watching and listening who some have not been following this story, who was Ahmaud Arbery?

Oh, God. He was just a, me and his mom were babies. He was the baby out of the three children of mine. And I tell you one thing, he acted like he was the oldest because he was the leader to us. He always wanted us just to love each other and get along. I tell you, I can tell you so much stories about him, it'll break your heart. Some stuff that he was doing to help people that I didn't know he was doing. But I knew his heart was in the right place.

You got many people came up to me and told me, say, when they was going through something, Ma always lift them up. And he always lift his sister and brothers up, all these kind of people. But you just, I just can't understand why would you kill a young man like that with that was hard like that, when all you had to do was talk to him. You can't talk to him, batting a gun. You batting a gun to him, who going to talk to you when you batting a 12-gauge shotgun and a.357 Magnum? And you got a 5,000-pound truck trying to run him over.

So who going to talk to you like that? God, it's just, oh, God, I just can't understand this. They're just trying to take us back to Emmanuel Till. You know, it's the same thing going on, but they're just trying to do it in a different, modern way. You know, my boy was lynched by these three white men. And the evidence shows you that every day. You can look at what's going on.

You look at the trial. Pay attention to the trial. You had white men doing crime in that neighborhood. They didn't ever call the law on them. They didn't ever throw no gun on them. They didn't ever sue them. So look at the evidence in this.

Race does play a part in my son losing his life. And when you hear people say y'all focusing on race too much, the real issue in America is not race is class. It's a lie. We can't keep hiding the truth. You cannot keep hiding. These guys killed my boy. They were left out here 72 days. It really tried to cover his death up. Yeah, it wasn't, if it was not for the public outcry,

I mean, you had these DAs who were going to let these guys just go on. Yes. Go home and get rid of evidence. But if a black man did a white kid like that, would have killed us on the spot. We would have been dead on the spot. We've been dead on the spot. We wouldn't have been able to go home or nothing. This stuff ain't right.

So how in the world African-American people can trust this system when they keep doing us like this? Well, the defense will continue tomorrow. It is going to be a significant show of force tomorrow as well. And so we will be here broadcasting that. It was important for us to be here and to be able to tell the story as well. So we've had you on the show before. We appreciate you stopping by again.

It's not easy at all, but we certainly appreciate it. Thank you, Roland. I appreciate it. Thanks a lot, my brother. I appreciate it. Thank you very much. Thanks a lot, my brother. Thanks a lot. I like you because you keep it real. You tell the truth, what's going on for real.

That's why we're here. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. I appreciate it. God bless you, man. Yes, sir. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Folks, we're going to – first, if we have the video from today's court proceedings, go ahead and play some of what took place today. Go ahead and play what took place today in the courtroom. Having that just happen, just catching him creeping through that front yard and obviously trying to avoid detection and then doing what he did there and then going into that house and then walking around in there like it's no big deal was alarming. Alarming why? Because I wouldn't think anyone acting normal would do that.

And somebody that's willing to act like they have a gun or act like they will harm you to prevent you from asking them or doing anything there and then go in and just act all a normal and nonchalant. And never catching the guy, knowing what he's doing, it just says, oh, what's going on? He finally stops. Okay. Great.

I want to talk to you. I want to know what's going on. Okay. Okay, go ahead. So we finally stop, ask what's going on. He never says anything to me. He's still looking at me angry. This guy's, this could be volatile.

Let's be kind of watching here. Ask him again, hey, what happened down the road? Why are people pointing down the road? Where are you running from? He didn't say anything, and he's still kind of in the same spot he is. He's not squaring up or anything like that. He's just standing there. And I said, hey, the police are on the way.

As soon as I said the police, he turned. Stop, man, I want to talk to you. That's what I want to talk to you is actually why I was there. Does he stop running at any point? No, at this point he is still running. But I noticed that he looks very angry. Describe that. What do you mean?

Mad. It wasn't what I expected from just coming up and talking to him. It was clenched teeth, closed brow. He was mad, which made me think that something's happened. Again, folks, three white men on trial here in Brunswick, Georgia, Glynn County, for the death of Ahmaud Arbery. We will be here tomorrow as well, as I said, covering the events taking place. The Transforming Justice Coalition, they've been on the ground here from day one, bringing attention to this case as well. And so we

chatted with them a little bit later in the show. I'm going to go to a quick break. We come back. We're going to talk with Cliff Albright, the co-founder of Black Voters Matter, about the protests and the arrests that took place today in the nation's capital, dealing with the issue of voting rights. That is next on Roland Martin Unfiltered, broadcasting live from Brunswick, Georgia on the Black Star Network. Back in a moment. НАПРЯИЧНАЯ МУЗЫКА Betty is saving big holiday shopping at Amazon. So now, she's free to become Bear Hug Betty.

Settle in, kids. You'll be there a while. Ooh, where you going? That's Kim Whitley. Yo, what's up? This your boy Ice Cube. Hey, yo, peace, world. What's going on? It's the love king of R&B, Raheem Devon,

and you're watching Roland Martin, Unfiltered. Today at the nation's capital, a number of people were arrested in front of the White House protesting voting rights, trying to demand the White House take more action to get the Fuller People Act and the John Lewis Voting Act passed. Joining us right now is Cliff Albright, co-founder of Black Voters Matter. Cliff, always glad to have you on the show. Always glad to be here, Roland. Thank you. Well, if I wasn't here in Brunswick, Georgia, we would have been out there, of course, covering you guys today. Today's event is about keeping the pressure, keeping the attention on this very issue.

We've seen these acts of civil disobedience take place relentlessly over the last several months. And so is it going to be a ratcheting up of the pressure on the Senate to do more because Republicans, they're passing these gerrymandered districts that are going to guarantee their power. They're diminishing black power, diminishing Latino power. And so what they are doing, they are trying to guarantee and cement white power in many of these states. Yeah, you're exactly right. You know, we're seeing it happening already. Of course, you know well what's been going on with Texas and every district thing. You know, we're seeing it happening already. Of course, you know well what's been going on with Texas and their redistricting. You know, we're seeing it in North Carolina where they've created some gerrymandered, racially gerrymandered districts. We're seeing it in Georgia right now where they're doing the same thing.

And so this notion that, you know, voting rights legislation, which, again, is not just about voting access. That's important. That's near and dear to our hearts. But it's also about redistricting and gerrymandering and making sure that we don't have black and brown folks, even as our numbers are going up in the census, that we're losing electoral power in many of these states. And so, yes, we've got to ramp this up. We can't wait. This notion that we can wait until January, until after the holidays and get to voting rights, or even that we could wait until they deal with all these other issues and deal with the debt increase, it's got to happen now because once these maps are drawn and once boards of elections start preparing ballots for upcoming elections, you can't undo that. Most courts won't even undo it,

even if it's found that it shouldn't have been done because the process is already in place. Time is ticking. It's got to be urgent. We've got to ramp it up. That's what we've been doing with these White House demonstrations, along with Black Voters Matter, League of Women Voters, People for the American Way. And we're going to continue to do so all throughout, you know, throughout the rest of this winter, demanding that they don't go on a recess until they pass voting rights. 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 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.

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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 said is you cannot out-organize and out-mobilize the gerrymandering going on because what they are doing is trying to guarantee that they are going to win seats. And so even if you turn people out, it's still not going to matter because they're going to ensure that they win. Exactly. I mean, they're literally

defining the boundaries and defining the rules of the games and defining who the voters are. They are picking the voters for the elected officials that they want to see. And once they do that, no, we can't out-organize that. We simply won't have the numbers because we have been split up in such a way, sometimes with lines coming right down the street or cutting through neighborhoods in all kinds of crazy ways in a way where our voting power has been diluted. You cannot out-organize that, not to mention that once you got the gerrymandering impact, even if you somehow deal with that in terms of organizing and mobilization, you've still got features in some of these bills where they can come in and overturn elections. That's the election subversion part of much of this voter's pressure that we're seeing across the country.

You cannot out-organize that. It has got to be dealt with through legislation. It's going to have to ultimately be dealt with through the courts. That raises a whole other issue because we've got to deal with the nature of the Supreme Court. But at the end of the day, this is not as simple as what the White House is thinking, that black folks are just going to come out and once again, you know, play the role of superheroes and magical Negroes and come out and save the country. That's not going to happen. It's not fair for them to even think that that's going to happen. That's not a burden that we're going to take, especially after we done did that in 20 and then came back in January 21 in Georgia and did that.

The reason we did that was to give folks power so that they can make sure we're not in this situation. You cannot fail us and then come back to us to save you because you failed to pass the legislation. That's not happening. So what is next? Look, bottom line is they passed the one point two trillion dollar infrastructure plan. Now they're debating another bill. And so, OK, when. OK, President Joe Biden, when is the full court press? OK, Schumer. OK, Pelosi. When is the full court press? And not only that, where in the hell are all these white liberals, all these people, these other organizations?

I keep seeing black people getting arrested. I keep seeing black women. I keep seeing black men. I keep seeing black organizations. Where in the hell are these progressives? Why aren't they as active? Where are where are these Latino organizations? Where are these Asian organizations? You know, we're out here fighting for democracy, for voting rights, and it seems it's just us. Yeah, I will say this. Two things on that. I will say this, that these actions that we've been doing at these White House actions over the past three months, the coalition has grown. I said it at one of the earlier actions where I said, you know what, we're out here. I think it was five of us getting arrested that day.

I said tomorrow there will be more of us using a line from Hamilton. And sure enough, in each of the successive actions that we've done at the White House, there have been more people. Today we had over 100, I think somewhere between 120, 140 people getting arrested. It's been a diverse group. You know, we've got a lot of different religious organizations, clergy, Jewish organization, Catholic organizations, of course, you know, on the black, the black church tradition has been out here. And a lot of, a lot of, a lot of organizations have been apart, but to your point, it's not enough, right? We haven't seen

enough of that. Many of the groups that you've called out, you know, we haven't seen enough of that. Like you said, we haven't seen enough of the Asian American groups. We've seen labor out here, but we haven't seen enough of it. And, you know, so we do need more people. Yes, we know there's a lot going on with infrastructure and Build Back Better, and that fight is important, but we need more people coming out and leaning into this voting rights battle. Here's the good news, though, Rola. I'm going to say this real quick. The good news is this.

It's working, right? What we're doing is working. The pressure is working. A few months ago, Joe Manchin was saying he wrote an op-ed, I'll never support the For the People Act. Now there's a piece of legislation out there that essentially has his fingerprints on it, still to see whether or not he's going to go as far as ending the filibuster or modifying the filibuster to make it happen. But we're not where we were four months ago, right?

Joe Biden, who went into a town hall and said you can't mess with the filibuster because it'll cause chaos, is now saying that he's down for some type of filibuster reform. And there's been some motion, even on a couple of senators like Carper from Delaware, of some of those folks that were on the fence who are now saying that they will support it. We believe more of them will come out and say that if Biden does more than just say, oh, you know, I could go for it, to saying, look, y'all, I demand this. If he comes to Congress the way that he did for infrastructure and knocks on some doors and speaks to folks in private meetings with the senators and said, I'm not just willing to do filibuster reform. I am asking, I am pleading, I am demanding that you, Democratic caucus, do filibuster reform. More of them will come out and be more vocal about it. That's why we're at the

White House making this demand. And that's why I've just had the fourth time of getting arrested over the past four months. But it's working and we're going to White House making this demand. And that's why I've just had the fourth time of getting arrested over the past four months. But it's working and we're going to keep it up. And we believe that we've just got a little bit further to go. We've just got to push a little more harder and we're going to be where we need to be. And we'll have the voting rights, not because they wanted to, but because movement pushed them to and forced them to. It shouldn't take that much work, but we're here to get it done. Cliff Albright, co-founder of Black Voters Matter. We certainly appreciate it. Thanks a lot.

Thank you. I'll see you in Brunswick tomorrow. Yes, sir. I appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Folks, speaking of pushing to folks to get things done, that is what is happening in Oklahoma, where Julius Jones could be executed in 24 hours unless the governor of Oklahoma steps in and ends this. His pardon and parole board has already voted twice, three to one, to call for him to get clemency for him to be removed off of death row, but he has not acted. Joining us right now is Pastor Mike McBride, the director of the OKC Live Free campaign for Julius Jones. In a few minutes, candlelight vigil is going to start. We are down to the wire. This this look, the governor said, hey, needs to be a hearing. That was a hearing.

They voted. We saw what happened there. Yet still still he's taking no action. Has he given any indication to you or the family why he's drawing this out to the last hours? The governor has irresponsibly fallen silent. He has swallowed his tongue. He has not fulfilled the honorable discharge of his office. He has not met with the family. We are hearing from staffers and others close to the attorney general that they are pushing the governor to execute Julius Jones, even though, as you stated, the part-in-parole ball has twice, three to one, recommended clemency. So we're very troubled by the governor's silence, and we're calling on him

to come out literally tonight and extend clemency, follow the advice of his own board. We're going to be holding vigil tonight to demand that response. When is the last time you and others talked with Julius? How are his spirits? How is he feeling? Clearly, he has to be anxious because he's getting closer and closer to this execution date. Earlier today, we literally drove two and a half hours to have, without the governor's intervention, this may have been the last time the mother, the daughter, the brother, and the father had a face-to-face, in-person visit with Julius Jones. Understandably, Julius is anxious, but not just Julius, the whole family.

We are all in a terrible, painful waiting game. The governor has multiple times said that he would follow the guidance of his parole and pardon board. He has not done so. He's given us false deadlines. Here we are 24 hours before the execution of Julius Jones, and he is claiming he's praying. It is clear to me this governor is not praying. He is stalling. He is demonstrating himself to be a coward, quite frankly. And we're calling on the governor to show some bravery, to show some moral fortitude and declare what his decision is and take all of us off of the hook of having to wonder all the way up into the point of a potential execution. And again, as I said, there were rallies taking place today in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Los Angeles, California, Washington, D.C., Newark, New Jersey, St. Paul, Minnesota. And so this free Julius Jones effort has really broadened

over the past several months. Yes. And it's worth saying there are now countries all across the world who are weighing in. We've had Denmark, Italy, Slovakia, Belgium, countries that are sending international human rights violation letters to the United States government, compelling them to intervene. This case has become national in scope. We shared that with Julius. Certainly, he's humbled by that reach, but is still wondering why is it that the governor refuses to meet with his family? Why is it that the governor refuses to extend to him, a citizen of Oklahoma, the justice that he deserves? And so we are indeed continuing to call out. We will have a vigil in a few moments. There may be those who will risk arrest to continue to raise the moral outrage of a governor who is derelict in his duties

to literally follow the process that he put in place with his own appointed board members. The governor must keep his word. The evidence shows that there is so much doubt in this case. Scripture says God has no pleasure. The scripture says God has no pleasure in the death of anyone. The governor is praying to this God. He says that he ought not have the cowardice that he is showing. Free Julius Jones. Bring him back to his family and let us go on with the healing process that this state so needlessly deserves. Pastor Mike McBride, we surely appreciate it, sir. Thank you so very much for joining us on Roland Martin Unfiltered.

Thank you, my brother. I'm going to bring my panel now. A. Scott Bolden, former chair of the National Bar Association Political Action Committee. Monique Presley, lawyer and equestrian manager. Robert Petillo, executive director, Rainbow Push Coalition, Peachtree Street Project. Glad to have you here. Robert's a little soft. He's supposed to join me out here on the lawn in front of Lynn County Courthouse. I guess it was too chilly for him, so he retreated to his comfy hotel room.

And so thank you for giving us the visual of your made-up bed, Robert. Thank you very much. Are you bragging or complaining, Roland? Just get to the question. Come on. Roland, don't act like I'm just sitting next to an open window looking at the ocean on Jekyll Island or something. Yeah, he's in

Brunswick. I'm just saying. I'm just saying. Henry, go ahead and take a shot. We got this nice empty chair Brunswick. I'm just saying. I'm just saying. I'm just saying. Matter of fact, Henry, go ahead and take a shot. We got this nice empty chair that was set up, all that hard work that was put in place to bring a headset. This is where you're supposed to be, but you're sitting in a hotel room. Fine, whatever.

Let me go ahead and start with Monique. I'll be back tomorrow morning. Yeah, okay, gotcha. I want to first start, Monique, with today's trial. The defense has started. Travis McMichael goes on the stand. He couldn't keep his story straight even while he was sitting up there. No, he couldn't keep his story straight.

But even if you listen to the clip that you played, every single thing he said is like racial profiling 101, 201, 301. He looked angry, furrowed brow, mean look on his face, suspicious walking in, trying to hide, acting like he had a weapon. I mean, it is garbage from start to finish. These are the things that, as your guest said, these are the things that have been used, unfortunately, for decades and I dare say for generations to justify the killing of black men and women. They

clearly, Robert, are hoping, can they appeal to the Bubba and one of these jurors to keep these three from getting the death penalty? One of the things I think we're going to have to look at

after this case is over is, one, why this case was not removed to a different jurisdiction. Because when you have something that's racially charged to this and that has this bunch of local attention, you usually want to move it to a different part of the state so you can avoid those local prejudices. Also, we have to look at this jury composition. To most of us listening to that testimony, it sounds like an open and shut case, which we, you know, warmed up the

electric chair already. But in reality, you have 11 white women on the jury. You have two people who are former law enforcement officers. One of the individuals accused in this case is a former law enforcement officer. You have one person who was a former military officer. One of the, Mr. McMichael talked about his military service in the Coast Guard on the stand today. You have somebody who's a 9-1-1 operator. Part of this case deals with my 9-1-1 call. So the fact that you have a jury composition

of that nature kind of gives you the idea why they're so brazen on the stand, why they're putting this information out there, because in any other jurisdiction and any other jury composition, you would never put McMichael on the stand to say some of the crazy things he said today because as Monique said, he was literally describing racially profiling, hunting down and killing somebody, and they used

that as their defense. And don't forget, Scott, you had these white DAs here, one after the other, who refused to actually investigate this case. And it was only the public pressure that led to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation taking over this case. Yeah, you're absolutely right. I mean, 60 days before these people were investigated and charged, the DAs walked away from it. They had conflicts and they still made their decision. This is a sad case. I want your listeners to really appreciate how sad this case is. I listened to Ahmaud Arbery's father, and then you juxtapose that with the testimony of one of the defendants. The only reason he's on the stand is because they think they need his testimony and the jury to hear his testimony, because normally

that doesn't happen. And Monique is right. This is just racial profiling, one, two, three, four, five. But then what isn't he saying? He's got a shotgun. He's chasing Arbery. He's in a pickup truck, right? And he's got another gun with two other people, and they corner him, cornered him like a rat, if you will, and they use the N-word. And then it's almost as if they expect him to say, okay, you got me, hands up, don't shoot. They haven't identified themselves as police officers. Oh, I'm sorry, because they're not a police officer. Oh, they want to do a citizen's arrest? Well, if it's a property crime, coupled with the racial profiling testimony, if it's a property crime,

you can't even do a citizen's arrest under the old law. And so what does Arbery do? He's trapped. And what does he do? He grabs the gun, except he doesn't have the trigger. He's got the end of the gun. Guess what's going to happen then? The only person that can pull that trigger is the defendant that was on the stand. It is right for not only corruption, but right for death and a killing and a murder, which is why vigilantism in most states and all states is outlawed. It is a sad case because Arbery should be here. He was killed for running while black. And then the heartbreaking story of his father told us that he went to these houses, he studied them. Bill Alford's mother and father. That's not a convenient fact because otherwise he didn't steal anything.

If he was there several times, it makes all the sense in the world. And so we're down in Brunswick with this trial and this judge and these defense lawyers and a jury that is just problematic on its face. Let's hope and pray that those 12 jurors do justice, right, and ignore the nonsense that the defense is putting on the stand. We got to hope and pray for the right verdict in this trial. Barbara Arnweiser, founder of the Transforming Justice Coalition. They have been here from day one, standing with this family, Barbara. The point that Robert made, in any world, people would say,

this is an open and shut case. Yes. You cannot trust that being the case when you have one of these white attorneys who said, we need more Bubba's on the jury. Yes. And Bubba's ain't just white men. He's also white women. That's right.

And remember that this is the trial where we already had, during jury selection, one of the potential, quote, qualified jurors was in fact married to a white supremacist, had a husband who belonged to that group. Well, I just want people to really understand that, however, the fact that they put McMichael on the stand is that they have done a read and they realize that they're in trouble. That even with all of the white privilege and everything else, that the jurors are concerned about what has happened here. Now, will they be a whole squad jury where you had an all-white jury that convicted that police officer of serial rape and gave him, what, 365 years?

We'll see. But will it be a jury that will nullify itself? Or will it be a hung jury? We will have to find out. But I do want to say that they do recognize that they got a problem. They never would have put them on the stand unless they recognize that they have a problem. Well, it has certainly been quite interesting. Robert, you're here with Reverend Jackson. There's going to be a major show of black preacher focus tomorrow. I don't know if there are enough microphones to capture all these preachers who are going to be here tomorrow.

But, you know, one of those things when he attacked Reverend Jackson, when he attacked Reverend Sharpton, when he specifically tried to get black pastors removed. Yes. Well, he's about to see a few more show up tomorrow, Robert. Well, you know, when I saw that clip, it was funny because I was at home in Atlanta. And as soon as that clip played, my wife started packing a bag. She said, you're going to Brunswick because, you know, you don't say Reverend Jackson's name. That's like saying Candyman into the mirror. You know he's going to show up.

He's going to pull up on you. And so we've been to churches in Savannah this week, in Brunswick this week. We were in Jacksonville yesterday. And so it's going to be from the work that Barbara Arnwine and Transformative Justice have put in on the ground, in addition to the work that many of the other organizations have done, it's going to be a full day of events, marches, motorcades, rallies, prayer visuals. We're going to make sure that the Black church is heard and that they understand that when you're, you don't come to the South and talk bad about Black preachers. I think they need to understand

the power of the Black church that they still have, particularly in this region and particularly in this case. It's never a wise idea, Monique, to sit up in court and say, well, I don't know why he's here. He don't have a church here. Why he got to sit with the family? And it's like, oh, that's how you want to roll? Right. Yeah. And we see that more and more, don't we? They say the quiet part out loud. And they don't even recognize that what they're saying is, to quote the trial judge, reprehensible. To me, as a defense attorney, that is the real cardinal mistake that he made. He did something that caused his alienation from the trial judge who is deciding his client's fate. That is completely unacceptable. You don't say or do anything in a court of law

that is going to put you in the judge's crosshairs. We've been seeing that over and over again in all of these cases in the past couple of weeks. But then to say it in such a way that, I mean, I couldn't figure out which part was screaming at me more, the lawyer in me, the preacher in me, but I called everybody I know, want to know, don't know. It didn't even matter.

I'm like, all roads lead there. They're calling for Black pastors. Did you hear that, y'all? They want more Black pastors. They about to, as the young folks say, blink around and find out tomorrow. But Barbara, he even

pissed off the other attorneys yes they were like man what the hell you know right because in fact one of them came out and said that it was asinine and that he couldn't join it but listen let's be very clear however when he moved for the mistrial they all joined in uh so and today he his rationale was once again all over the place because the first pastor that he mentioned, Reverend Baker, Reverend Baker grew up with Marcus Arbery. They have been family, friends and pastors forever. So this is all about the fact that they don't like the power of the black church when we are activist, when we stand up for justice. That's why black pastors need to be here tomorrow.

That's why we're marching at three o'clock tomorrow into the community to the Ahmaud Arbery mural. And that's why Reverend Jesse Jackson, even though he is ill, as we know, has put his body on the line to fight for justice in this case. Scott. Yeah, you know, Roland, the other thing is the comfortability. I talk about this a lot with white privilege and white folks. Even if he felt that way about black preachers, he felt even more comfortable saying it.

And if you look at the lawyers for the defendants, they're bubbles. So you shouldn't be surprised at their white privilege and their racist statements, if you will. They're bubbles, too. You can have lawyers that are bubbles in Brunswick, Georgia. The last thing I want to say is tomorrow's going to be really, really interesting

because if you get 200 pastors down there, as many in the courtroom as you can, the prosecution is going to be cross-examining probably the defendant on the stand. And that ought to be motivation enough for the prosecution, no matter how much they don't normally cross-examine defendants. This is a simple cross, right? You take every fact he said, he was menacing, he wouldn't stop running, he was this, he was that, okay? And you say, you didn't know whether he was angry or not. You didn't know whether he had a gun. In fact, you didn't even see a gun, did you? And you didn't even know why he was at the house. You didn't know whether anything was

stolen, did you? And you go point by point by point, and he can look more stupid tomorrow than he did today on the direct examination. But the prosecutor's got to take his time and be fearless and unwind and destruct this racist narrative and convince the jury that this is a human condition. This is humanity, that this boy ought to be alive, and he died at the hands of these two races. He's got to be fearless in his cross as well as his closing. Roland, can I add something? Barbara.

Yeah, go ahead. I guess not. No, I just wanted to say that these pastors aren't coming for show. They're coming to pray and prayer changes things. And so the people who are watching the people who are watching can join. If you can't be in Brunswick, you don't have to be. You can pray online. You can pray as you watch. And this is the history of the role of the black pastor in the civil rights movement, in the fight for justice, in the fight for criminal

justice, in the fight for reform. There have always been black pastors, not just Dr. King, but scores and scores of them standing, putting their bodies on the line, as my elder sister Barbara just said, for the sake of justice. And that is what is happening tomorrow. People need to understand that this is not a play. This is not a game. This is not a show. That is not why Reverend Sharpton was there. That is not why Reverend Jackson was there. That's not why Pastor Mark Baker,

whose church is under the leadership of Bishop Jakes. That's not why any of us, and you better believe it's about to be a world praying. So perhaps the defense is going to get its worst nightmare, not just in that they embarrass themselves, not just that they called us out, but they called on us to call on the one who's got the power and that's God. And so I would invite everyone to join and support in this movement, this necessary action tomorrow, starting at 11 a.m. I believe it is.

But whatever the time says on everything, join it. Barbara, last question. First of all, okay, so I didn't know about the 3 p.m. thing tomorrow. So what is happening tomorrow? Because we're here, so we need to properly plan for it. Okay, so 11 a.m. There's going to be the rally. Okay, which is happening here at the Glynn County Courthouse.

Then what's happening? At 3 o'clock p.m., we march into the community every Thursday since we've been here, since the crowd started. So you're going to start where? We're going to start right here, right on 8th Street, right across from the courthouse. So across from here. We'll line up. Okay, you're going to line up, and then you're marching.

We're going to march to the Ahmaud Arbery mural. Okay. And we're going to pray and take a knee in honor of Ahmaud's spirit and to pray for justice here. And that mural is located where? It's on Albany and G Street. Okay. And I've been there several times, obviously. And that's where he was shot and killed?

No, that's just where his image is. Gotcha, gotcha. Because he was shot and killed in Satilla Shores out in the county. But what I want people to understand is that they've been trying to get rid of us, Roland, since we've been here. This is like the seventh or eighth motion they've made. Yeah, they mention y'all in court. Oh, they always do because they hate the fact that they're not accustomed to black activism. You've got to understand there's only four employers in this city.

And they tell people, you better not. You better not show up. You better not vote. You better not be active. So there is a problem. But one thing that's happened is that the community is just showing up now. And they're showing out, and it's shocking them because they realize that there's some real fundamental transformational politics happening here. So there's going to be a difference in Glynn County. There's going to be a difference in Brunswick because black folks are waking up.

And not only that, they are showing up and they will continue this fight beyond this case. So I am grateful to everybody. Do come be part of this. Black pastors, you got a voice to be heard. Let's inspire this community. Let's keep this movement for justice going. All right,. Barbara Arnwine, Transformer Justice Coalition. We certainly appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you for having me. All right, folks. Got to go to a break. We come back. We're going to talk with our panel about

freeing Julius Jones. We're going to talk about the two men who are being exonerated for killing Malcolm X. Y'all, we got so much more to talk about. It's a jam-packed show. And then I can't, and I know our legal panel cannot wait to talk about this rich white boy in New York who raped four girls. And the judge said he prayed on it and gave him probation, no jail time.

Folks, that is next. All of that on Roland Martin Unfiltered, broadcasted live from Brunswick, Georgia, on the favorite song again. Okay. 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.

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Something that's gonna put you in that, you gonna remember this. Yeah, we was on tour. So Brian wanted to be the headliner. Now, your headliner was a little addition. So we're like, okay, you wanna be a headliner? No problem. So you think you're that big a band?

Yeah, yeah. And I'll never forget one night we, two of the guys, the driver got lost. I think it was Westbury we were playing. And I'll never forget, we asked, they asked him if he didn't mind going on first and we would close out. And he, they came back and said, he said, no. I'll give him his prop. He took it like a man.

It was rough out there. By the time he would come out, you could hear echoes. Wow. Once upon a time, there lived a princess with really long hair who was waiting for a prince to come save her. But really, who has time for that? Let's go. I'm feeling myself. for a prince to come save her. But really, who has time for that?

She ordered herself a ladder with Prime one day delivery, and she was out of there. Now, her hairdressing empire is killing it. And the prince, well, who cares? Prime changes everything. What's up y'all, I'm Will Packer. Hello, I'm Bishop T.D.J. What up, Lana Well, and you are watching Rolling Martin Unfiltered.

We, of course, focus all the time on black and missing folks who, again, they don't get the same level of attention as so many other stories. This is Carmen Barrett. She's been missing from Baltimore since August 17th, 2021. The 14-year-old is approximately 5 feet 3 inches tall, weighs 150 pounds, with brown hair and dark brown eyes. If you have any information on Carmen Barrett, please contact the Baltimore City Police Department at 443-396-2488. 443-396-2488. All right, folks, I can't wait to deal with this with my legal panel.

I came across this story. It is out of upstate New York where a confessed rapist has received probation because the judge determined it would be inappropriate to send him to prison. Christopher Belter Jr. pled guilty to third-degree rape and attempted first-degree sexual abuse along with two counts of second-degree sexual abuse. He sexually assaulted four teenage girls, yet Judge Matthew J. Murphy III placed Belter on probation for eight years. Now, Belter also has to register as a sex offender. Attorneys for the victims claim Belter's white privilege and wealth attributed to his light punishment. Now, the judge said that him having to register as a sex offender would hang over his life

and he would have to deal with that reality. And Robert, the judge, said he prayed on this decision. This story is so crazy. Hold up, I've got to further unpack it. The story is so crazy because they had these parties at his home. His parents were participants supplying the girls with alcohol and marijuana. They also go on trial, and they said that this home was like the party house. He raped one girl, and she said she looked at the leaves to take her mind off of it.

So this wasn't like a guy who fondled a girl's breast that is still grossly inappropriate. No, he raped sexually assaulted four girls, and a judge said, now you shouldn't go to jail. I think people forget just the sheer power that state and superior court judges have in this country. And my new push is to get more black lawyers to run for judge. It's a thankless job. You spend a lot of time calling the calendar most days. It's usually not exciting, but we're going to have to get on these benches across the country. We've got to start running for judge.

We have to start running for DA. We have to start running for solicitor general because the only way that we make changes in the system is to become the system itself. And so I think that's going to have to be the push going forward because the amount of leeway that many times judges have in deciding cases and deciding sentencing, even when there's an agreement between the defense counsel and the prosecution, the judge always has the option to divert from that agreement and issue whatever verdict or whatever sentence they feel, and you can either take it or leave it. So it's very important for us to really get into the arena and become those judges, become those prosecutors up and down the line across the country, because we're going to continue to see these misuses of justice as long as we're on the outside looking in. This is, I mean, I remember the case, Monique, out of California, where it was a Stanford

student who sexually assaulted a young lady and the judge did not send him to jail. This is even more egregious. This was four underage girls who he raped. And the judge goes, yeah, it would be inappropriate for him to go to jail. She's frozen. All right, we'll get her shot straight. Scott, go ahead. Yeah, but it's even worse than what you gave us, Roland.

As I researched this case, these were more than one incident. There were an incident with two young women when he was underage, and he got probation, I think, on the first two, and that if he completed probation, he would get youth offender treatment, which is even more egregious because then, as a juvenile, he couldn't, it won't be on his record, if you will. Then you had the second two, right?

And because he had completed the first probationary period where he'd get youth offender treatment, like he would in most jurisdictions, now that's the basis, arguably, why the judge said, well, he completed the first set of probation, and he's continued to have contrition, and he hasn't gotten in any more trouble before, and so I'm going to give him eight years of probation, and that won't be easy. Are you kidding me? That is an outrageous determination, and you know if he were black, the tropes of Mandingo warriors

sleeping with these young white girls, they would have thrown the book at him. Look at Jimmy Gardner. He played for the Chicago Cubs in West Virginia, a sexualist, alleged sexually assaulted two white women. He got 70-plus years as a first offender. I don't care where this jurisdiction is. It would have been different for black people,

and it just burns you up. It's offensive, actually, to our criminal justice system. And there's no way forward to appeal the sentencing, if you will, by the government. And so I think my colleague is right about getting more black judges. But how about this? How about just better judges, period, right, who have a sense of justice and fairness and equality. Monique, one of the attorneys for the victim said when it happened, she raced into the bathroom and just threw up. She could not believe what this judge said and did.

Right, but I mean, I'm just not surprised. It's unfortunate, the imbalance in the system, but we find that imbalance both ways. I dropped off so I couldn't hear what one of my colleagues said, but what we also find is that the type of leniency and the type of use of judicial discretion that sometimes should be given in these cases is not given when it is black and brown people. So you have people who are charged as adults for sexual misconduct, for rape or for sexual assault, for things that happened when they were teens, for things that happened that were arguably consensual. And there is no equitable remedy offered. There is nothing

offered. And they end up serving jail time. So it goes both ways. And I didn't study all of the particulars of this case to know whether any leniency was required. But it is not as simple to me as whatever gets done to the black people should get done to the white people. What really it is, is sometimes what is happening for the white people should also be happening for black and brown people. Well, Monique, I talked about youth offender treatment earlier in the case, and so there was some of that going on, but it's still an outrageous decision. These four young white women, they could be white, red, white, blue, or yellow. They were raped, which is a crime of power and punishment and violence. There's no way you can escape punishment when you do that to a male or female, black, white, yellow, or brown.

You've got to suffer. And you can rehab all you want, but you can't engage in that deviant behavior and escape jail. Are you kidding me? Bubba should be waiting for him right now. He should be. To that point about not being able to

appeal the sentence, you know what? This is one of those things where you go after and you get that judge off the bench. This is just beyond egregious. This judge should never, ever determine another case

after this ruling. Simple as that. Simple as that. Folks, hold tight one second. I've got to go to break. When we come back, we'll discuss a couple of cases out of North Carolina. One, the family of a black man shot and killed by cops is suing in federal court. And the governor of North Carolina pardons a brother who spent more than 20 years in prison for a crime he did not commit.

How much is he going to get from the state? I'll tell you. That's next. Also, we'll discuss the two black men who have been exonerated officially tomorrow for the murder of Malcolm X. And we'll talk with a brother who did a Netflix documentary about this case where he discovered, through his research, who the real killer was. All of that next. Roland Martin Unfiltered,

broadcasting live from Brunswick, Georgia, on the Black Star Network. Back in a moment. Alexa, play our favorite song again. Okay. I only have eyes for you. НАПРЯИЧНАЯ МУЗЫКА Maureen is saving big holiday shopping at Amazon. So now she's free to become Maureen the Marrier. Food is her love language. And she really loves her grandson.

Like, really loves. Hello, I'm Bishop T.D.J. Hi, how's it doing? It's your favorite funny girl, Amanda Seals. Hi, I'm Anthony Brown from Anthony Brown and Group Therapy. What's up? I'm Lana Wells, and you are watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Folks, the family of Andrew Brown Jr., the man, of course, killed by a North Carolina deputy in April, they are demanding their civil, they are amending their civil lawsuit, claiming one of the deputies altered his gun before turning it into investigators. Officers attempted to arrest Brown and execute a search warrant for drug-related crimes

when they shot Brown as he was trying to flee. Investigator Daniel Meads was one of the several officers who shot Brown. After the shooting, he removed the remaining bullets from his gun. Meads says he was stressing out about how many times he fired his weapon at Brown's vehicle. The family, they are suing in federal court for $30 million. Now, still in North Carolina, Governor Roy Cooper finally, after intense pressure, pardoned a black man who spent 24 years behind bars for a murder that he long said he did not commit. The pardon allows Dante Sharp to apply for $50,000 a year, up to $750,000 for his wrongful

conviction. In 1995, Sharp received a life sentence for first-degree murder. He was released from prison in 2019 after a medical examiner testified that the state's theory of the shooting was not medically or scientifically possible, and the state decided against pursuing a retrial. That case there, the thing that was amazing about this, that was in 2019, Robert. People like Reverend Dr. William J. Barber and others, they were on this Democratic governor saying, you have got to step up and give this man a pardon. It was protest. It was pressure. And so even when you have a, again, so-called ally, they had to force Cooper to do this. You're absolutely right. And back to our discussion earlier about the power of the black church and the question about activism and the black pastors,

this is why it is important that sometimes it takes clergy to rally people to bring together the ecumenical spirit and the power of the pulpit to really bring these folks to account. And we cannot simply allow folks to come to our communities for election time and then abandon us when it's time to actually govern and do things that are in the interest of African Americans. For every case like this, there are hundreds, if not thousands, around the country where young men are sitting and rotting away in prison cells for crimes they never committed, but simply did not have the resources or the ability to fight at the time. I think that's part of the reason we have to put criminal justice reform central to any legislative package or deals that we're making in Washington,

D.C., because we've been seeing this for as long as we've been in this country. And unless we're willing to stand up and fight against it now, when we finally have the type of political cachet needed, we cannot let this opportunity go to waste. Monique? What he said. I don't know. These cases are all, frankly, running together. And we, as Robert said, we need holistic solutions. And it's not whether it's Julius Jones or Maude Aubrey or whether it's Trayvon Martin or Mike Brown or whether it's Joshua Feast or whatever the case may be. The difficulty is that the case-by-case individual solutions do not provide global fixes for problems that will continue to occur over and over again. So our solutions have to be pointed in other directions while we leave it to the attorneys to do their individual work. But you know, Roland, it's beyond that. And I've done a lot of work in this space.

The reality is there's a second injustice. Once these men and women are exonerated, right, that's the first fight. The second fight is the civil injustice of many states that cap or limit the amount of funds you can recover to make them whole. And many times those caps cannot compensate someone who's been wrongfully imprisoned, wrongfully incarcerated, and wrongfully arrested for 24 years, 20 years, 30 years. And it's an archaic system in many southern jurisdictions and some northern jurisdictions, whereby it's a state program or a state statute, but they all have caps on it to protect the state from massive payouts, even though they're the bad actors, state bad actors. And so when we talk about criminal justice reform, we cannot forget about all of these returning citizens who have been absolved because of DNA or because of hard work by their lawyers.

And then the second fight begins to make them whole. And I got to tell you, there's no consistency to it. It's underfunded, if you will. And then others are sufficient, but few are sufficient. We've got to take a look at it. The more people get out of jail because of DNA and what have you, the more we've got to figure out how to properly compensate them because the current state statutes are woefully inadequate. It is certainly, certainly unfortunate. Again, that brother and most he can get, $750,000.

24 years of his life spent in prison for a crime he didn't commit. And the most he can get is $50,000 a year. All right, folks, hold a second. We come back. We're going to talk about two black men being exonerated for the murder of Malcolm X. Unfortunately, one of them passed away several years ago. And so we'll tell you about this story. It is one that a lot of people never believed as to who was behind the murder of Malcolm X. And also how the feds withheld evidence, withheld critical information.

And we'll explain it all to you. That's next. Roland Martin Unfiltered, broadcasted live from Brunswick, Georgia, on the Black Star Network. Don't forget to support what we do by downloading our Black Star Network app. Folks, again, we are here. We're on the ground. We're not just sitting here in the studio.

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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 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.

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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.

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 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 Corps vet. 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. All right, folks. welcome back to Roland Martin, non-filtered here on the Black Star Network.

So many of us know about the assassination of Malcolm X in the Audubon Ballroom. And since that took place in 1965, many have said that the individuals who were arrested, who were charged, who were convicted, who went to prison, were not responsible for that crime. Well, Manhattan D.A. Cyrus Vance is absolutely agreeing with that. And on tomorrow, they will formally be exonerated as a result of what took place. It is an absolutely shocking and stunning development when you think about what took place. And that is the Manhattan D.A., along with defense lawyers in the Innocence Project, they are going to ask a court to dismiss the convictions of 83-year-old Muhammad Aziz and the late Khalil Islam. The New York Times, they're reporting that evidence was withheld

during the trial of these individuals. They say that the FBI and others had information that pointed to someone else being the trigger man. These individuals actually had alibis that were legitimate alibis at the time of the shooting. Witnesses testified of the person who they saw shoot Malcolm X, not even matching the description of these two as well. So much conflicting information. And this has been discussed for a number of years. It was last year when a documentary dropped on Netflix.

Well, one brother was so focused on finding out the truth, who killed Malcolm X. And his work also was critically important in terms of shedding light on this case as well. And he joins us right now. Let me bring in Abdulrahman Muhammad. Brother, glad to have you here. How are you doing? My pleasure, Roland. Thank you. So for people who, again, who may have seen the newsreels and heard about the story, lay out for folks what their version of what happened and what was described,

and now what we're seeing about these undercover cops who were in the ballroom, who no one even knew existed and how that information was being withheld. Because you really did a great job with this documentary of really nailing down who was behind, who was the trigger man and the ringleader behind the assassination of Malcolm X. Yes, Roland. The prosecution's case at that time involved only three men. And according to their theory of the case, it was these three men who both created the disturbance or the misdirection and this distraction, that they then rushed the stage and carried out the assassination of Malcolm X. They actually fired weapons, a Ruger, a pistol, and a sort of shotgun. Now, what we have always been saying with the scholars who have been studying this issue is that there were actually five men involved in the squad that murdered Brother Malcolm, and that there were two men in the back who created the disturbance and three men who sat in the front with the weapons. The first and the most deadliest of which was William X. Bradley,

who went on to become known as al-Mustafa Shabazz. He is the shotgun assassin who bore no resemblance to Thomas 15 X. Johnson, Khalil Islam, who they say, according to their theory, fired the shotgun. And also they say that Norman 3X Butler was also one of the shooters. They say that he fired the .45. However, he was not there either. And yet both of these men were convicted in 1966, and they both served at least 20 years in the case of Brother Norman 3X Butler to Dave Muhammad Abdulaziz, who will be, we expect to be exonerated tomorrow, along with Thomas 15X Johnson, Khalil Islam.

He served 20 years, and Thomas Johnson served 22 years. But also, these men, this has been a scarlet letter. They have been seen as the murderers of one of our greatest leaders. And only one of them is still alive to experience this exoneration. One died being called the murderer of Malcolm X. Roland, you know, I remember researching these men and looking at their prison records, and it says first degree murder. And I said, man, that's a hell of a thing to carry for the rest of your life, especially when you didn't do it, and especially when it is such a towering giant

and leader of our people, Malcolm X. It absolutely destroyed their families. Brother Muhammad Abdulaziz, who will be in the courthouse tomorrow and at the press conference, he has no relationship with his children or his grandchildren because of the stigma, because of the shame associated with being the alleged assassin or the convicted assassin of Malcolm X. It was absolutely horrific. The shameful thing that happened here as well, which Manhattan D.A. Cyrus Vance talked about, he's first of all apologized on behalf of law enforcement.

The withholding of information, crucial information that should have gone to the defense attorneys. We've got three attorneys on our show today. And to think about had they had that, Vance is saying had that information been revealed, in all likelihood, no jury would have convicted them of these crimes. And actually, it would have led to a proper investigation of the individual and the individuals who actually committed the crime. But NYPD, FBI were not interested in doing what was right. garments in the Audubon Ballroom. And the New York City Police Department, through its bossy unit, Bureau of Special Services, had at least one, possibly more, but one that we know of, Gene Roberts, who was an undercover police officer for the New York City Police Department. And none of these people, who were all witnesses to the assassination, and gave very detailed descriptions of what the assassins looked like.

Not one of them was called to the stand. In fact, they weren't even, their names weren't even revealed to the prosecution team such that they could be called to the stand, or the defense for that matter. It is absolutely shocking and stunning. It goes to show you how deep COINTELPRO was, how deep how the NYPD and the FBI despised Malcolm X. And frankly, they clearly were happy him no longer walking on this earth. Why did this gnaw at you? And how long did you pursue this effort to try to get at the truth of what happened on that fateful day in the Audubon Ballroom? You know, Roland, this question has always bothered me from my earliest days as a freshman at Howard University, where I first was exposed to the story when one of the convicted assassins, Talmadge Hayer, was doing interviews with Tony

Brown and Gil Noble and others, trying to get these two brothers exonerated. This goes back 40 years when I first was exposed to it. And it just, you know, it begged for attention. You know, it was a story and a case that could not be denied. And it just needed someone to actually care about it and carry it to the end. And it just so happens now that we're living in an age where the United States is trying to reckon with, you know, its racist troubled past. And it just happens that we're living in that era now where it's not as dangerous to deal with this type of material. So, you know, I'm happy for the brother, Brother Muhammad Abdulaziz. Tomorrow he will be exonerated. And Brother Khalil Islam.

However, it's a bittersweet victory because no one can give him back the 20 years that were taken from his life. No one can restore to him the relationship with his family and his grandchildren. And it's just a really sad and disturbing story. For those who saw the Netflix documentary, you, you know, uncovered, if you will, the individual who many believe was behind it. And this person ended up being a prominent figure in New Jersey, if I'm correct, and has since passed away. You know, that's correct.

Living something of an open secret. Well known. In fact, that's the problem with this whole case, is that from the very beginning, from the time the convictions came down, it was never accepted by the historians and the researchers who have looked at this case because it was well known in the Muslim community who the actual assassins were. And as you say, the last one to pass away, William X. Bradley, his name was Mustafa Shabazz, was his Muslim name for the last couple of decades. He was given a hero send off and was considered a pillar of the community and was given a funeral.

Some would say was more majestic or celebratory than Malcolm X's own funeral. Wow. Wow. That is striking. That is striking. I think, so my panelists, each one has a question. If I could have just as one question of you, because this is, again, a fascinating story.

And you spent a whole lot of time. I'm telling you, people have not seen the Netflix documentary. You definitely want to check it out. Robert, you first. In a century, I did see the documentary on Netflix. I also took a class on political theory, Malcolm X, back while I was at Clark and Lane University. So this is a subject I've been fascinated by for so long. How deep do you think they hold goals when it comes to determining exactly the people who are responsible for the death of Malcolm X? Because it seems a lot bigger than even these individuals. How deep do you think the rabbit hole goes? Do you think that will ever fully be explored? Well, to tell you the truth, hopefully this is just the beginning of the revelations because the Manhattan D.A. was able to unearth evidence that even we were not privy to.

Keep in mind, the Manhattan D.A. can request governments through the Freedom of Information Act unredacted, see? So when you see our series and you see all the names that are blocked out, they can request those documents fully exposed. And they also were able to detect other evidence that was not privy to us. And we're going to see. We know for a fact that the COINTELPRO, the counterintelligence program with J. Edgar Hoover, that there were at least three high-level FBI informants and the top leadership of the Nation of Islam in the middle of the 1960s. So, yes, and we also have to find out, you know, was the government protecting this shotgun assassin? Monique.

Yes, I was just wondering what, if any, reaction there's been from the Shabazz family? Well, because the story is just breaking today, I have not had an opportunity to speak to... I normally speak to Sister Ilyasa Shabazz, and I have not had an opportunity... I mean, the story is just, like, literally breaking, you know, as we speak, and I have not been able to find out what her thinking is about it today.

Scott. Yeah, Brother Rumman. What is, so where do we go from here? Are there real assassins and the co-conspirators? Are any of them still alive? Are we demanding that the Manhattan DA's office do more? Is this an ongoing investigation? Will anyone, you know, who's alive be held culpable for his assassination or not, in your opinion? Well, I think now it's just an issue of trying to just determine what exactly happened and how deep our government, if at allol against Malcolm in the Nation of Islam? Or

did it go further, you know, to the point of actually, you know, recruiting assassins to carry this out? I mean, these are the kind of questions that we would like to interrogate the government on. But, you know, this is a political question. It requires a political power. It requires a voice. And this is the reason why it's taken so long to get to the bottom of this thing to the extent to which we have already in the series. It's because it just was no political will to do it. There was no advocate for these brothers. You know, they were just forgotten and locked away. To work with the DA's office in Manhattan, Alvin Bragg is going to be the new DA

and an African-American brother. And I hope that you continue to press the issue. We all need to press the issue because this is bittersweet because there's still a lot of unanswered questions as well. Well, let me share this with you. What we do know is that Talmadge Hayer, who filed these affidavits naming his co-assassins, he is the only one of the five-man team that is still alive with us. All the other accomplices have since passed away. Thank you. Abdur Rahman, Muhammad, look, great work. This is, of course, we'll see what happens tomorrow. And, yeah, it should be a complete investigation, not only the Manhattan DA, but also on the federal level as well, because, again, if there are individuals who are in the FBI who knew about what was going on

and they're still drawing pensions, look, they should also have to have to have to atone for what they did by being silent and in their involvement in the assassination of Malcolm X. Thank you, Roland. I appreciate it. Thank you so very much. All right, folks, got to go to a break. We come back. Our Tech Talk segment brought to you by Verizon features brothers who are 21st century barbers. Also, Sherilyn Ifill, the longtime leader of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, is stepping down next year.

I talked with her about her legacy and also what she is going to do next. It's a lot more left, folks, on Roller Martin Unfiltered, broadcasted live from Brunswick, Georgia, on the Black Star Network, back in a moment. Alexa, play our favorite song again. Okay. I only have eyes for you. ДИНАМИЧНАЯ МУЗЫКА 10. Skruva avgjørelsen av styrkepuffet. 11. Skruva av styrkepuffets styrkepuff. 12. Skruva av styrkepuffets styrkepuff. I'm going to go. Maureen is saving big holiday shopping at Amazon. So now she's free to become Maureen the Marrier.

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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. 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. 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 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.

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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. All right, folks. Every Wednesday here on Roland Martin Unfiltered, we always talk about African Americans and their work in technology. And so we got a pretty interesting couple of guys joining us today. A sheer share app.

It's all about making it flexible for you to be able to get your hair cut. Now, we all know you can't stand sitting in the booth for so long. But also, what happens if you're a barber? But you know what? You're not trying to have one location, and you can't afford to do so. And so what about booth rentals?

Well, guess what? Stylists can use the space for however many days they need without being tied down to monthly or weekly booth rent. The app launched in 2017. It's in more than 800 cities. Joining us right now, the co-founders, husband and wife, Dr. Ty and Courtney Caldwell. How y'all doing? How you doing, Roland? Hey, Roland. So happy to be here. So basically, are y'all the WeWork for barbers and stylists? Well, I love that. You know, people have actually nicknamed us hair B&B. And so we prefer them. OK.

All right. Hair B&B. I like that. That's a good one. I mean, this is look. I mean, look, my barber Dave in D.C., him and his wife, they had a shop for a very long time. And then finally, when the pandemic hit, Dave was like, forget that, got rid of his shop, and he started just doing house calls because he said it didn't make sense, you know, me paying that monthly rent locked into a lease, he said, where my customers are far more transient, and it's just easier for me if I have, you know, a regular set. I could just go to them or being able to utilize the location that y'all are able to provide. That's right. I mean, it's that simple.

You know, people use us. And when I say people, that's hairstylists, that's barbers, that's nail technicians, that's makeup artists, that's braiders, that's estheticians, microblading artists. They all use the Shearshare app to be able to access affordable, flexible space to work when and where they need it. They are tired of having to be locked into those long-term contracts, as you mentioned, and especially in a post-pandemic environment right now, people wanna be and continue to be transient. They wanna go where their clients are

and they wanna keep more of their hard-earned money. So at the end of the day, Shearshare connects salon and barbershop owners to individual stylists to fill their empty salon space on demand. And it's so unfortunate, Roland, and we can say this, that a lot of shops did have to close down. And it was really at that time during COVID that a lot of barbers and stylists had to go to their respective clients' homes. Well, at that time, that's all they could do. Everything was shut down. And we know that California and New York was shut down longer. So we've realized that a lot of the times that when situations like this happen, this new normal is what it was.

But we also realized during the COVID there was cabin fever. So we know that a lot of those customers wanted to get back to the shop. They wanted to put on clothes. They wanted to go somewhere and stop using their faucets in their bathrooms and in their kitchens. And so we realized that at the end of the day, they wanted to get back to the place that they were classically trained. Being in this industry for almost 30 years like myself and being a salon and barbershop owner for over two decades, I realized the importance of being in a place where I'm classically trained, where I have the right lighting. I have a swivel chair. I have the right lighting. I have a swivel chair.

I have my barber chair. I have my mirror. That mirror, believe it or not, is better than your eyesight when it comes to really getting that cut fresh the way, you know, we want to give it. But also just being around just our family, you know, like-minded individuals that we can constantly learn from and continue to be around. But it gives us the opportunity to get back to doing what we really, really love to do. And I'm just glad that, you know, we had a problem within ourselves to try to solve this for the rest of the industry, because we know that high level wise, you know, space to rent is probably one of the highest things, one of the highest, you know, cash burns in their in their spend. So we wanted to make it just super easy where they wasn't locked down.

And we also realized this three to four days is really that sweet spot that, you know, licensed beauty and barbers professionals work. And so you have that extra three or four days is just lying dormant. So we wanted to give them opportunity to not have to be locked down, but also realize that there's a reciprocity when it comes state to state, where if they wanted to go from Houston or wanted to go from where you're from to Atlanta or go to another part of Georgia where in Texas and we can go from Dallas to Houston and it wouldn't be a problem. All right. Questions from my panel. Scott, you don't have a use for Barbara, but go ahead. I was about to say the same thing about you, Roland. I think I've got more hair than you.

No, no, no. Let me get to my question. I can guarantee you do not have more hair than me. I just don't have a process. I don't straighten my hair. It's just natural. You ain't

got more hair on top of your head and on your face. You better ask your question. Don't get embarrassed. Hey, brother and sister, let me ask you this. As entrepreneurs, I'm sure this is super helpful. What's the customer's response to this app and to your clients who use this app? Yeah, no, they absolutely love it. Like you said, the response has been amazing. We first started off just catering to hairstylists and barbers. And immediately once politicians heard

about Shearshare, once makeup artists heard about Shearshare, then we had to add a space for microblading artists and braiders because they all heard about Shearshare. They said, well, why are you leaving this particular license specialty out? I want to also be able to take advantage of being able to pay for space to work when and where I need it. And so the response has been amazing. I mean, there's no way that we could have grown to over 800 cities now if the demand wasn't there. Thank you. Monique. Monique.

Come on. Pump it up. How do we find you? Tell me every place you are. What's the website? What's the Instagram? It's fantastic. Congratulations.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. I always say, Monique, that I hitched my cart to the right horse, and the horse being my husband here. So you can find us online at Shearshare.com. The app is free to download on both iOS and Android. It's also available for iPad users out there. And then we're share, share everywhere else, on Instagram, on Twitter, even on TikTok.

Okay, but I have a follow-up question because I think that many people get the opportunity to come, thankfully, Roland cares enough about black business and tech to make these kinds of things available. But you guys are ready for this opportunity tonight. And so I want to call that out, too, for people who are watching to pay attention, because when you have an opportunity to sell your business, this is what it should look like and sound like. And it seems like you've put time into presentation of your product and of yourselves. If you're willing to just maybe for the up and coming entrepreneurs, share a little

bit about what that process is, because you're you on all cylinders. You're doing it right. Well, I'll say this and I'll let my husband close it up for us. But I always like to think of our marriage as our very first startup. And I like to say that this was like the merger of all mergers. And our son, I would call him our second startup. And now that he is a second year cadet and football player at the Air Force Academy, he's been acquired. So we've seen success there. And so Shear Share is our third startup. And so if we're going to bet on anyone, we're always going to bet on ourselves. And I'll follow up with that by saying, you know, anytime you're wearing this this outfit of melanin, you always have to show up right.

You know, I think that when we walk into investors offices, you know, this is the outfit we're always wearing our color. So we have to make sure that we're doing our very best. And, you know, believe it or not, you know, we bootstrapped our company before we actually, you know, had someone to build it out for us. So we know what the what work goes involved in it. And plus, I'm an entrepreneur for over 20 years. So there's a lot of work that has to be done. And we don't mind, you know, leading the charge. But at the end of the day, we are intentional about what we do. And we try to make sure that if we're going to be doing it, we're going to do it right. Congratulations. I can't tell you how many people we've had.

I can't tell you how many people we've had with the Tech Talk segment who got bad Wi-Fi. I'm like, it's a Tech Talk segment. Robert. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, Roland, I got to say this, Roland. I got to say this before I go. You know, I had a chance to meet you in New York. Got a chance to take a picture with you. But my spiritual father told me to tell you that you are a civil rights leader and voice and advocate of our time.

And he is constantly praying for you. So thank you for this opportunity. I appreciate it. I appreciate it. Rob Portillo, get your question in real quick. Monique, took up too much of your time. Yeah, I knew that. I got one nerdy question.

So I meet a lot of entrepreneurs who get scared on the tech side of things when it comes to developing apps, developing those types of gateways. Can you talk a little bit about the process of actually the technological side of developing an app and how you actually did that very quickly though. So here's the crazy part, right? So neither one of us are technical co-founders. Ty is clearly the subject matter expert having earned his doctorate degree in professional barbering and cosmetology, running an award-winning salon for almost 30 years,

being the author of a number one bestselling book on how to be successful in the beauty and style industry. My background happens to be in corporate America. I spent over 20 years in B2B technology marketing and used to work at Oracle. I ran Oracle's digital strategy and innovations group worldwide and had P&L across five continents. Now, I say all that to say that I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we are the best combination to execute in this billion-dollar market. We started off by doing this thing manually. We had stylists who called us up and said, hey, this is my budget. This is what I'm looking for.

This is the city and part of the nation's travel links. Can you help? I heard about you guys from a peer stylist down the street, and so I really need your help. And so we were manually matching stylists to empty salon space for three years before we finally looked up and said, there's got to be an app for this. There's an app for everything else. And when we looked online, we couldn't find it. And that was the aha moment for us, where we said, we have to be able to give this back to the industry that has fed our family for more than 30 years. And so here we are. But we honestly started by just asking questions. We asked lots of people, lots of questions who were

in tech, who had built apps before, and finally found our way into Shearshare.com. And we do like to thank our very first advisor, T.D. Lowe. She was the very first person out in Silicon Valley that we phoned up and said, hey, we've been doing this thing, this kind of manual thing for like three years. Can you help us out? And thankfully, after learning a little bit more about her, she cannot walk from her car to the grocery store without getting pitched a new startup idea. And so thank God we called the right person and she has been there every step of the way. All right, then. What city are y'all in? McKinney, Texas, north of Dallas.

Okay. All right, then. Well, look, we certainly appreciate it. Thank you so very much. Good luck with the app and glad to have you on roller Martin unfiltered and the black star network. Thank you. Thank you for having us. All right, folks. Some breaking news here, folks. Happened just a few hours ago. Folks are talking about this here.

The rapper Young Dolph has been shot and killed in Memphis. This is the video that we're playing. This is video. We're going to play it right here. This is from a week ago. From a week ago where he was visiting

a particular cookie store there in Memphis. Well, today, around 1 p.m., about six hours ago, he walked into Makita's Butter Cookies to buy some cookies, and all of a sudden, someone drove up, shot and killed him. Again, it took place around 1 p.m. at the bakery there in South Memphis. And so it was a couple of hours ago when the police released a statement called a senseless killing that took place. People have been flocking to the scene.

He was a very prominent rapper, not only in Memphis, but well known across the country as well. His real name was Adolph Robert Thornton Jr. And, of course, he released a mixtape in 2014 called High Class Street Music 4. The single Preach released his debut studio album, King of Memphis, in 2016. 36-year-old rapper Young Dolph dead. He's being shot and killed today in Memphis. No news as to whether the individuals involved have been apprehended.

This is, again, video. It was posted on social media of him at this cookie store just one week ago. Got to go to a break. We come back. Long-time NAACP Legal Defense Fund head Sherrilyn Ifill is stepping down. I talk with her about why and what is next. Right here on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Oh, that spin class was brutal.

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Hi, how's it going? It's your favorite funny girl, Amanda Seale. Hi, I'm Anthony Brown from Anthony Brown and Group Therapy. What up, Lana Well, and you are watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Sherilyn Ifill, lead of the NLACP Legal Defense Fund, announced today in a Washington Post story that she is stepping down from the organization in 2022. Janae Nelson, her longtime number two, will be taking over.

I caught up with her earlier today when we talked about her legacy, why she is leaving, what she plans to do, and the significant challenges still facing African Americans and others when it comes to the fight for democracy and voting rights in America. All right, Sherilyn, so what's the deal? You trying to go hang out in Jamaica, Hawaii, trying to go to Ghana. You're leaving. What's going on? You know me better than that. No, this is my life's work. And I am not retiring. I'm too young to retire.

And and, you know, what we have seen in this country and what is happening to black people is too dire for me to leave the work of racial justice. But what I am doing is stepping away from LDF, the organization that I love, where I started my career as a baby lawyer. And I'm stepping away because I think, you know, many people know that I am very serious about black institutions and particularly about this institution that's been a part of my life for 30 years, and ensuring its strength. And I think transition is part of leadership. I wanted to do this in an orderly way. I wanted to do it at the right time, when LDF is really strong financially in terms of strategy and leadership.

And frankly, Roland, I wanted the new leader to have a few years of an aligned administration before 2024, which I had when I came aboard. It was in the final years of the Obama administration. And that meant that in 2016, you know, I was ready and equipped and had my legs strongly planted beneath me. And I'd like that for the next leader. We don't know what 2024 will bring, but we know it's going to be a very serious and volatile time. So I'm not leaving. If you know me, you know I'm not going to shut my mouth and I'm going to keep working. But I'm looking forward to finding out what is the next way that I'm supposed to do this work. You're 58 years old. You laid out.

Why we got to go there, Ryan? I mean, Roland, Roland out why we gotta go there Ryan why we gotta go with the age no no no here's why breathe I'm very calm the reason I'm saying that is because

when we look at a lot of black institutions people die in positions. They're there to their 70 and 80. And what you just described is something that, frankly, and is not in a state of disrepair. That's actually rare. I'm so happy to hear you notice that, Roland, because everything I do in relationship to this organization is intentional and has been from the very beginning. This is also intentional. As I said, I'm quite serious

about, and if we haven't learned anything the last five years, we should have learned about the importance of Black institutions. And LDF is an institution. And as much as I love it, it is not mine. It doesn't belong to me. And I have never tried to create a vanity project out of my leadership of LDF. And the job of leaders, it's difficult. It's leading on the substantive work. It's leading your staff. It's having vision and voice. But it's also stewarding an institution.

And when you're stewarding an institution created by Thurgood Marshall, it's no joke. I take it very, very seriously. And so, yes, I was told very early on by a business leader that, you know, succession and transition and thinking that through is part of leadership. And I've taken it very seriously. I think you've had Janae Nelson on your show, our associate director counsel, my deputy. I have tried to give her as much of a platform as possible. She is brilliant. She has also started out at LDF about 10 years after I did, but as a voting rights attorney. She's also a former law professor. We have a lot in common.

She is, but she will bring her own touch. The staff feels held because they know that they have a sense of continuity. She's been with me for eight of the 10 years that I'll have been at LDF as leader. And so you hold the organization and you keep the organization strong. And that's how in me, for me, i know that i've been a successful leader not just that the staff is five times the size it was when i started not just that the budget and the endowment are five times the size they were when i started that's a pretty big deal and i'm not minimizing that because i also believe that black institutions need the resources to do excellent work.

And I told the board when I interviewed for the job that we would not be nickel and diming, that I would figure out how to resolve financial issues within the organization and that I would raise money. I'd never raised a dime before in my life. In fact, I had been on the other side chairing the board of a foundation. But I believe in LDF so much. I know how to describe what is necessary to deal with racial inequality. I know the threat that white supremacy poses, not just to black people, but to our entire democracy. And I felt sure that I could convince people that LDF was the right organization to invest in. And I know somebody who's watching or listening and they're like, OK, Roland,

why are you making a big deal out of this? Because you said something that is key. And that is and I've said this for years as somebody who has run three black newspapers and one of them, the historic Chicago Defender. And I look at Robert Abbott, who founded the paper. He prepared his nephew to take it over when he retired. Well, when John Sinstack passed away, he left the paper in a state of flux. It was all over the place. The family members, it was drama. It was all this sort of stuff.

And so what was built just in many ways, it diminished. And when I took it over over they hadn't made a profit in 20 years and so i've said for a long time great leaders are not determined on how they ran organizations during their tenure it's also how they positioned it after their yes yes i couldn't agree with you more and it it's difficult because I love LDF. I could keep doing this work. I feel happy that people are sad that I'm leaving because that means I've been doing the work well. I'm not overly modest about my contributions to this work because I feel passionately about it. But I also know that this is an 80-year institution that I led for and will

have led for 10 years. That means for 70 years, the institution managed to survive without me in leadership. And as I said, when you start with Thurgood Marshall, you have to be really serious about ensuring that the organization is strong. And LDF is so necessary at this moment in this country. I think we showed, certainly over the last five years, how mission critical we are to the protection of Black people and to American democracy. And that's the position I wanted to leave LDF in. I wanted to leave it financially secure so that the next leader would not be inhibited in executing strategy by lack of resources, so that whatever has to be

done has to be done. And we see it this year. We don't have our federal voting rights bill yet. I'm still pushing on that. And that means we have to litigate more. We just filed suit against Alabama—in fact, two suits against Alabama—for redistricting this week. We filed suit against South Carolina for their failure to begin their redistricting. We're litigating against Georgia and Texas and Florida for their voter suppression laws. It's not fun to play whack-a-mole, but if that's what we have to do, that's what we're going to do until we have federal legislation to help us. We are not going to go quietly into this good night. We are here to protect and strengthen the full citizenship and dignity of Black people in this country.

And the rest of the country benefits because that makes our democracy healthier. You asked why I have to bring the age part up. Here's why. Hugh Price, when he left the National Urban League, he was 60 years old. I remember when I interviewed him and he said, Roland, I'm leaving because I'm young enough to still have the energy to do one more strong play. That's right. The reason I – that always stuck with me. That always stuck with me because I think people have to think about that. The reality is it's sort of just – look, when I decided to launch this, I told my agent, why turn TV One down?

I said, I'm 49. I said, I'll be 50 in November. This was three years ago. I just turned 53. And I said, if I don't do this now, I never will. And that's also part of this. You still want to be vibrant and want to be able to have the energy to do it. And so that's why I also brought that up because that also affected me when you said, okay, you know what?

I've let it. But you know what? I still led it. But you know what? I still got pep in my step. I still want to go do something and still have the vibrancy to do it. Yeah, no, that's exactly right. I prayed that I would have another chapter after leading LDF. I had no idea when I would leave, but I wanted to have another chapter. I may have to. And I and to pull them together for

myself, but also to share them with the country and to help set a kind of template for the next way that I am supposed to contribute to this work. I wanted to be a civil rights lawyer from the time I was a girl. I was obsessed with politics and social justice and Black people, and that's never diminished. And I'm going to continue doing that. I'm going to continue doing that work, but just in a different way. And I think that's what life is supposed to be. When I left LDF the first time, I was 30 years old, and I went off to teach. And I moved to a city I had never even visited before, except for my job interview, and that was Baltimore. And as you know, Roland, many people think I'm from Baltimore. That's how much I kind of took to working in this town and training the

next generation of lawyers. You know, I've taught thousands of law students, and I started, you know, an environmental justice clinic the first year I came. And then I started one of the first clinics in the country focused on the legal rights of those returning from prison. And then I started one of the first clinics in the country focused on the legal rights of those returning from prison. And then as I was leaving, the last two years I was leaving, I started a reparations clinic, which really was exciting. I wrote what I think of as one of the most important texts about the ongoing effects of lynching on communities around the country, a book called On the Courthouse Lawn. And that book later became part of an important template in the thinking of Bryan Stevenson and the folks at EJI

as they began to create the lynching memorial in Alabama. So that time I spent in academia strengthened me and prepared me to lead LDF. And I'm sure that the time I spent at LDF has strengthened and prepared me for lead LDF. And I'm sure that the time I've spent in LDF has strengthened and prepared me for whatever is the next chapter. I've interviewed a lot of our, a lot of people coming out of the civil rights movement, the black freedom movement, then also what I call the post civil rights movement babies. And one of the things that has been very interesting, there was a period of about 15 or 20, let's say 25 years, where there were a lot of folks who said, you know what, I don't want to do civil rights work. I want to go into corporate. I want to be

able to impact African Americans from that space. And then I dare say in the past decade, there's been a resurgence among young people and even black folks who have been in corporate America who say, wait a minute, hold up. That work is even more vital. Have you seen that? And in your conversations with people, what have you been saying to them why they should be considering the vital work of civil rights law as opposed to, let's just go make a corporate play? Well, absolutely. I've seen it rolling. And I think for many people in this country, many people wanted to believe that the worst of our racial problems had been solved. And people allowed themselves to be lulled by the election of a black president and the, you know, the presence of a black attorney general and so on and so forth. And while those were important milestones, as I shared, you know, those of us who do this work for a living knew what was beneath the surface.

Now many millions more people know because Trump was an accelerant who kind of unearthed what was beneath the surface. Now many millions more people know because Trump was an accelerant who kind of unearthed what was below the surface. But we knew it. Most of the work we do at LDF is in the South. And so we knew that there was an incredible amount of work still to be done. And I think many more people now recognize that. They have seen the videos of police killings of unarmed black people. They saw January 6th. They saw the election of an openly white supremacist president. And they saw all of the people, including much of an entire political party that was prepared to support him, despite knowing that. They saw Charlottesville. And so people have come to recognize that. So one of the things that I'm proudest of that we accomplished at LDF is that we launched

last year something called the Marshall Motley Scholarship Program. It is named for Justice Thurgood Marshall and for Judge Constance Baker Motley, who's a former LDF attorney, first Black woman federal judge, first Black woman to argue in the United States Supreme Court, who litigated successfully most of the cases desegregating Southern universities. And through that scholarship, we pay the full ride for 10 law students each year. We will offer them summer fellowships. They will have internships. They will have a two-year fellowship after they leave the organization. And then they make a commitment to work for an additional eight years in the South.

All in all, we will incubate 50 new civil rights lawyers focused on the South. That's part of the commitment, because we understand the importance of ensuring that we can keep the troops that we need going forward. And one of the things that kept many people from pursuing this work is that, you know, education is—higher education is so expensive. Undergraduate school, law school, I didn't finish paying off my student loans until I was 41. And many people find it difficult to imagine taking that on. It's even more expensive now. So we wanted to remove that for 10 committed, clear young people a year. And they are so inspiring. You can look up, go know, go Google Marshall Motley Scholars and you'll find

them and you'll find their videos and you can learn more about them because that's what we have to do. We have to build generations of troops. We can see now that racism is far from over in this country and it's going to take our life's work. Now, some people don't do it for a living every day, but you can contribute, can contribute the way you can. Some people who are in the corporate space contribute by working pro bono with LDF, by offering services to the organization or other civil rights organizations. Some people do it by contributing. Some people do it by volunteering. However is the way that you can contribute, by sharing good information, you know, with your cohort of folks.

Democracy requires work. And that's one of the messages I've been trying to push, Roland. This is not ever going to be fully done. You don't just have a democracy. You open up the box, you set everything up, and now it's done. It's work. And we're going to have to keep maintaining it if we want it to go forward. And so I hope people realize that now, that citizenship requires much, much more than perhaps many people thought. When you look back on coming in at the time that you did, did you think it would be this dangerous? The period that we're in right now, when you look at the ridiculous things that are happening with these anti-critical race theory people, flat out lying, just the

craziness that's been going on, all the everything like that. But then you talk about the voting laws and the massive voter suppression and how technical they have been operating and how delicate with the algorithms and the surgical way they've been doing it. It is shocking to a lot of other people. How have you seen it and what are you conveying to future leaders to understand the dangerous situation that we're literally in right now

when it comes to our freedoms the freedom to vote the fighting not only that but criminal justice reform things along those lines this moment that we are in I will not pretend that this has not been surprising and shocking, not the ongoing reality of white supremacy and racism, but the way in which any sense of shame, any sense of reticence has been removed from the willingness to fully and publicly embrace

racism and white supremacy. I think that is incredibly shocking to watch millions of Americans turn their back on what was in many ways one of the finest moments in this country, which was the civil rights movement. And I think many people believed that. I can remember being a young lawyer and running into, you know, lawyers who would so happily—sometimes they worked in corporations, and they would say, oh, I was part of Freedom Summer. You know, it was like a badge of honor. To see so much of the country turn away from that, to see our political system turn away from norms, as we speak today, Representative Paul Gosar was

censured in the House for memes that he posted in which, you know, he seemed to fantasize about killing a fellow House member, Representative Ocasio-Cortez. You know, that the censure happened, I'm so glad it did happen. But, you know, I saw so many people from his party stand up and support him. January 6th, frankly, by the end of the Trump administration, it didn't surprise me. But the willingness of people to lay down to President Trump, people who knew just months before how toxic he was, how dangerous he was, the willingness of many members of my own profession to aid and abet the unraveling of our democracy.

Yes, this is all incredibly shocking and disturbing. But when I was a baby lawyer, I remember that a civil rights icon—and I still to this day believe it was Charles Sherrod—said at a meeting, at a conference, that racism is a shapeshifter, right? And I've always believed that. And I have believed that our job is to be able to see it in all its guises and to be able to recognize it and to recognize its danger. But recognize it will always shift. It's not going to stay in the same form. And so that's the part that should not surprise us. What should not surprise us is that it is going to shift and turn, and we have to recognize that we have to stand strong against it. Someone like Mr. Trump didn't create it, but he was an accelerant, and therefore he was

quite dangerous. And so we have a lot of work to do to repair norms, to repair ethics, to recognize that we need new laws and that perhaps we've relied too much on norms and ethics and that we need to be a lot more direct about what is permitted and what is not permitted and about where the gaps are in the foundation of our democracy. 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.

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subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. And not only when it comes to what Republicans and conservatives are doing, but it also has been a stark reminder that we have to remind those who are our so-called allies, Democrats, that they have to have the courage to go as hard as they can. We're literally seeing Democrats, senators out of Arizona and West Virginia and a few others, unwilling to end the filibuster to deal with voting rights. And you're watching Republicans literally gerrymander themselves into controlling the U.S. House for the next decade. And so the battle is also challenging allies saying you cannot be quiet. Oh, that is absolutely right. You know, I've been in those direct meetings with Senator Manchin and, you know, this is this is one of the flaws in our democracy, right, that, you know, you

just identify two people and maybe three who can stand in the way of legislation that will protect the rights of 12 percent of the population of black people and, you know, more than 25, close to 30 of Latino people to be able to vote and participate in the political process. That is a structural flaw, regardless of the personalities. I worked with a number of Democrats who are working in good faith to try to pass this voting legislation. We continue to await the willingness of a Republican to do so. Senator Murkowski was the one Republican willing to vote for debate, for debate.

So we're not talking about even voting for the bill at this point. We couldn't get more than one Republican to vote to even debate the bill. So we are in serious trouble. The Voting Rights Act was never a partisan piece of legislation. As you know, it was reauthorized in 2006, 98 to 0 in the Senate, 396 to 33 in the House. That was in 2006. And in just this period of time, it has become untouchable to one political party to support ensuring that citizens of this country who are Black and Brown and Asian American and Native American have a full opportunity to participate in the political process. So, yes, we have to lean in everywhere we can. I do think it's important for us to identify the people who are holding things up.

It's actually not the Democrats. It's actually some people who are holding it up. And they have to be— Precisely. They have to be accountable for their place in history, and we have to continue to push to try and really ensure that this legislation goes forward. I'm determined in the months that I remain as president and director counsel of LDF to make it happen. I'm here in Brunswick, Georgia, where we are covering the case of the three men, the three white men on trial for killing Ahmaud Arbery. And, you know, the reality is it was pressure for us to get to this point.

I mean, you had DAs who were literally allowing this to go on and not have any justice whatsoever. One of the things that has really happened during your tenure, we have seen now the public fully embrace not just civil rights attorneys, but the importance of who is DA. We've never seen these number of progressive district attorneys, African-Americans who are being DA. People are attacking, oh, Kamala Harris, she was a cop when she was a DA attorney general. But the district attorney is the one who sits at the nexus of mass incarceration and unjust laws. And so we can't just be civil rights lawyers.

We got to have people with civil rights legal minds as DAs. I'll take it a step further. You know, my mantra rolling around voting rights has been leave no power on the table. And we post that on Twitter all the time. And we post it in the context of talking about our responsibility to get serious about local offices. And that includes the DA. I mean, if you care about criminal justice and you care about racism in the criminal justice system, then you have to care about who's the prosecutor. You have to care about who's the judge. Many people are watching and have watched the Kyle Rittenhouse trial and have, you know,

been extremely disturbed by the conduct of the judge. That is an elected judge who has run unopposed a number of times. I think he's been on the bench 40 years. So pay attention to judicial elections. Sheriffs, sheriffs, pay attention to sheriff elections. Sheriffs are the ones actually who evict you. Sheriffs are the ones who make the connection with immigration officials to do these kinds of interdictions. And there's a whole movement on the right to activate sheriffs in support of the far right. They have programs that they're using to try and train sheriffs. And we're seeing around the country this movement of sheriffs.

And if we see another attempt to overturn elections and so forth, I have no doubt that some of these sheriffs will be part of it. So we don't have the luxury of standing back from any office and suggesting that we won't do it. You can't say you care about criminal justice reform, mass incarceration, and racism in the criminal justice system and walk into the voting booth and not know the difference between the sheriff candidates. Or when it says for the judicial races, pick three, and you don't know any of them, or you know only one. And when I say this, I'm speaking to myself as well, because I've had that experience. We have to get serious not just about casting the ballot, but about being educated about who we're voting for. They don't all have to be black, but they do have to align with your values of what you want to see in our criminal justice system. We're seeing the

so-called anti-CRT movement, the anti-truth movement. So it matters who sits on the school board. Do you vote in school board elections? I know when we go in the booth, we vote for president. I know we vote for senator. I know we vote for governor. I know we vote for mayor. But do we vote for school board members? Do we vote for the Public Service Commission? If you live in Texas, do you vote for the Railroad Commission? And do you know what the Railroad Commissioner does? Leave no power on the table. We have to begin to educate ourselves about these local offices, about the power they have. We have to be prepared to support candidates whose views are aligned with the kind of world we want to live in, and we have to vote in those elections. There are elections every year, Roland, not every two years, not every four years. I'm sure if you

check, you will find that there are elections—maybe there are ballot initiatives, you know, raising bond money for the library or for public pools or to amend the Constitution. You need to educate yourself and do it every year. And I'm talking to myself as well, because I can be inconsistent with the offices, too, with knowing, you know, who the different candidates are. It's a lot of work. And maybe, Roland, your platform can become one where we begin to talk about some of those local races and talk about what those officials do, what their powers are, and how that affects the rights of black people. Absolutely. Two final questions. First, there are a lot of cases that y'all have been involved in. You have said that you want to LDF

to be seen sort of as a private department of justice. Are there a couple that for you, where you say, this is why I chose this work that really stand out? One of them, which is a case certainly the Department of Justice would never bring because they would be on the other side of it is, you know, last year, crazy as it seemed, you know, January 30th, I stood with representatives of the United States Postal Service to unveil the Gwen Ifill stamp. It was one of the proudest moments, you know, for our family. But nine months later, I became convinced we had to sue the United States Postal Service to get ballots delivered and prioritized for the 2020 election. And that's what we did. It was an unusual piece of litigation, but we believed it was essential. And we did it during COVID and, you know,

participated in those hearings. We were before Judge Sullivan. Our litigation director, Sam Spital, was arguing and working on the case well into the night. The hearings lasted, you know, 8 o'clock in the evening. But you remember around that election when we were talking about ballots not being delivered in places like Georgia and in places like Detroit and Cleveland and other cities, that was LDF working with our co-counsel at Public Citizen to make sure that happened. I was very, very proud of that litigation. I'm also proud of the fact that we were unafraid and willing to sue even President Trump for his actions after the election in attempting to ensure that ballots

were not counted that came from places with large black populations in his attempt to influence the election. We sued him under Section 11B of the Voting Rights Act. We later brought claims under the Ku Klux Klan Act and included the RNC. We don't take these things lightly, but we do take very seriously that the Voting Rights Act protects not only the right of black people to cast a ballot, but to have that vote counted and added appropriately to the tally of votes, which means all that stuff you saw about disqualifying ballots is implicated by the Voting Rights Act. I was incredibly proud of the work we did last year. And I mentioned the pandemic because we're people too. Our lawyers were also concerned about their families and their children.

Many of them have young children and they were homeschooling while they were litigating all our cases last year. Just an extraordinary staff. And it really was an incredibly proud period for me, a very strenuous and stressful one. But I was just incredibly proud. 50 years from now, 100 years from now, there's going to be a young African-American woman, a young African-American man, someone who's white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, doesn't matter. They're going to be looking through news stories and looking at history, history books,

and they're going to come across the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the 21st Century. They're going to come across the name of Sherrilyn Ifill. What is the one thing you want that person to understand about you in this moment, this period in which you run the organization? What's that one thing you want them to know and understand? I think it's about commitment. It's really about commitment to this work and what that looks like. And when you're committed to the work, one of the reasons that I'm quite joyful in the work, as exhausting and stressful

as it is, I work all the time. There's not an hour of any day that I have not, since I took this job, that I've not thought about LDF or our work. And, you know, it's been unrelenting. That is absolutely true. But what pushes you forward, and I'm sure you experienced this, Roland, with what you're accomplishing right now, is commitment. When you are committed and you are dedicated to the cause of justice, to the cause of your people, you can do it. You can show up and you can really be elevated almost out of yourself in terms of power and clarity, and people will feel it. And I think people feel it when they listen to me, when they see me, they know that I am serious

about that commitment, that it brings me incredible peace and joy to be walking in what I believe I was called to do. Well, it has been a great run. You definitely have the energy and spirit to do a lot more. Can't wait, as you say, to see what the next chapter or two or three could be, very well be. Congratulations on the tenure. And I'm quite sure you will happily say, okay, Jene, now you get to take these phone calls and these media requests. I will. And it's now on you. Have fun.

Have at it. I will. I will. But she knows I will be there for her. Any help and advice she needs as former director counsels Elaine Jones and Ted Shaw have been there for me. And she will be fantastic as a director counsel for this period of time for sure. All right. We appreciate it. Thanks for all of your work and dedication. As you say, your commitment, we appreciate it. Thanks a lot.

Thank you, Roland. All right, folks, that's it for us from Brunswick, Georgia. I'm Roland Martin on the Black Star Network. Let me thank Scott, Monique, and Robert for joining us on today's panel. All of our great guests as well. Don't forget, tomorrow, 11 a.m. Eastern, we're going to be broadcasting live from here. The Pastors News Conference and the vigil, that'll be taking place here at 3 p.m. Eastern. We're going to move the Transforming Justice Coalition and Reverend Jesse Jackson Sr.

as they march from here into the community as well to the Amada Arbery mural here in Brunswick, Georgia. And so we're here on the ground. Please, we need y'all to support what we do. First of all, our goal by December 31st of this year is to get 50,000 downloads of our Black Star Network ad. And so please, download to your Apple phone, your Android phone, Android TV, Apple TV, Roku, Samsung, Xbox, all of those platforms, Amazon Fire as well. So please download the app. And please, your dollars are critically important to allow us to be able to come to places, travel, to pay our driver and our freelance photographers and others.

And so, again, when you give to the show, you are making black news important. You're making it a focus. And so Cash App, dollar sign RM Unfiltered. Venmo is RM Unfiltered. PayPal is R Martin Unfiltered. Zelle is Roland at RolandSMartin.com. Roland at RolandMartinUnfiltered.com.

And so please support us in what we do. Again, we don't just sit at the desk in D.C. We're on the ground, talking with people, covering the news, and that's what it means to be black on media. And so thanks a bunch. I'll see you tomorrow right here, Roland Martin Unfiltered, on the Black Star Network. Holla! ТРЕВОЖНАЯ МУЗЫКА This morning.

Roland Martin's doing this every day. Hold no punches! Thank you, Roland Martin, for always giving voice to the issues. Look for Roland Martin in the whirlwind, to quote Marcus Garvey again. The video looks phenomenal, so I'm really excited to see it on my big screen. Support this man, Black Media. He makes sure that our stories are told. See, there's a difference between Black Star Network and Black-owned media and something like CNN. I gotta defer to the brilliance of Dr. Carr and to the brilliance of the Black Star Network.

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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- 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, 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 2 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 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 Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart podcast.