#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Biden visits Tulsa; TX Dems block voter bill; Seminary to pay reparations; Osaka out of French Open

Episode Date: June 2, 2021

6.1.21 #RolandMartinUnfiltered | Tulsa Race Massacre: Biden commemorates 100-year anniversary; Texas Dems block evil voter suppression bill; United States military has a race problem, according to several black veterans, Virginia Seminary to pay reparations to descendants of those forced to work there; Naomi Osaka out of French OpenSupport #RolandMartinUnfiltered via the Cash App ☛ https://cash.app/$rmunfiltered or via PayPal ☛ https://www.paypal.me/rmartinunfiltered#RolandMartinUnfiltered is a news reporting platform covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This kind of starts that a little bit, man.

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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-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. Thank you. Today is Tuesday, June 1st, 2021. Coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered, President Joe Biden, the first president to speak around the Tulsa Race Massacre anniversary on the 100th commemoration. The first one to also call it a massacre. We'll show you some of what he had to say. We'll also hear from some of the folks who were inside of the speech where I was as well. We'll also hear from actor Hill Harper, who participated in an economic empowerment day

tied to the Tulsa Race Massacre Commission. We'll also hear from Congresswoman Maxine Waters, hear from other experts. They talk about the impact of the Tulsa Race Massacre. All of that coming up next on Roller Barton Unfiltered, broadcasting live from Tulsa, Oklahoma, the Greenwood District. He's got it. Whatever the Oklahoma, the Greenwood District. news to politics with entertainment just for kicks he's rolling

he's funky's fresh he's, the best you know, he's rolling, Mark Tapp. Now. Mark Tapp. Hey, folks, this is... Let's see. Hey, folks, we are live in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in the Greenwood District, where about 30 minutes ago, President Joe Biden finished addressing the folks here. The crowd that you see there, we're standing right in front of Vernon AME Church here on Greenwood Avenue, right across the street. The Greenwood Cultural Center. The crowd there you see who are gathered right there, Reverend Jesse Jackson Sr. came out to greet some of the folks who are out here. They came out here hoping to see President Joe Biden. He has not left after his speech.

He was in the back actually speaking with a variety of civil rights leaders and others before he heads out to back to Washington, D.C. And so, again, if we go back to the other shot, please. So folks have been all along this street here. They've been down here for the past four hours or so. You have a group of about 200 people, VIP invitation only, who were inside to attend the speech. There were those of us who were also in the press who were inside as well. So the people came out here hoping to get a chance to see many of the dignitaries who was there. Reverend Jesse Jackson, Sr. attended the speech.

Reverend Al Sharpton was there. Mark Morrell, president and CEO of the National Urban League, also there. Members of Congress, including Congresswoman Brenda Lawrence of Michigan, Congresswoman Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware. There was also Congresswoman Barbara Lee of California. You had Congressman Stephen Horsford from Nevada, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee from Texas, and Congressman Hank Johnson from Georgia.

So they were all there attending the speech. As President Biden said in his speech, this was the first time a United States president came to Tulsa to commemorate this anniversary. This race massacre took place 100 years ago, sundown on May 31st and extended through the wee hours on June 1st. And what's interesting is that for a long time, I mean decades, this city would not even acknowledge what took place. Insurance companies refused to pay the claims. Black people who had their money in banks couldn't get that money out because the bank said you have no proof you had money here because the papers were burned up when 36 blocks of black prosperity was gutted,

completely destroyed by white domestic terrorists. That's what took place here in Tulsa. As I said, there were a number of people who were there. Reverend Dr. William J. Barber was inside. Also longtime Tulsa resident Bishop Carlton Pearson. He was also inside Greenwood Cultural Center to hear President Joe Biden speak. He joins us right now. Bishop Pearson, glad to have you back on Roller Martin Unfiltered.

Just from your perspective, first of all, what did it mean to have a U.S. president come here to acknowledge that this is real? In his speech, he said this was a massacre, not a race riot. That was the most profound words. Those were the most profound words spoken about this incident in American history because the president said it. He didn't he didn't skirt around it. He didn't act like it didn't exist. He didn't try to soft shoe it. He said it the way it was. And that room was touched and moved. You were sitting right in there. It was very powerful for us to hear the it didn't exist. He didn't try to soft shoe it. He said it the way it was. And that room was touched and moved. You were sitting right in there. It was very powerful for us to hear the energy shift when a president said it very apologetically and unapologetically. It was a

somber move. That's Jesse coming. It absolutely was. Reverend Jesse Jackson. It absolutely was a very somber moment. And again, Reverend Jackson is walking over here. And so we're going to lead him right over here. Bishop Pearson has no problem sharing the microphone here. Not at all. We've got Pastor Turner here. We've got Reverend Jesse Jackson, Sr. Reverend Jackson, step right on in here uh i just want to just want to just get your thoughts on what president biden had to say uh to uh the crowd here uh in the greenwood

district we open up the womb of the of the cover-up we that's important we're not going to go beyond beyond the cover-up to the new day. We need now, as given by the federal government, A, to make an African-American hate crime bill, as of Asians and as of Jews. Secondly, make a leasing of federal crime in that past Senate, last time Rand Paul held it up. We also need a $100-plus million development bank, not just a grant, but a bank that intends to lend to small businesses. That's a restitution. John Rogers, who lost their homes, they should be restituted.

Restitution, not reparations. They must be paid for from sickles from them. In his speech, President Biden, he mentioned how we've changed, how we've moved along. And then he mentioned seeing these multiracial commercials. And I'll be honest with you, when he stated that, the first thing that I thought about as a black owned media company saying, that's great that we're in the commercials, but we're not getting the advertising money. You got to deal with the money if you want to deal with America. Well, no, no, no. I think you're saying something else.

I agree, but I'm black as all the time. It seems to me that when Diane Carroll kissed a white guy, it was national news on TV. Blacks, I say, is humans. Now, to make us human, you know, we sleep on mattresses, we run, we play. That's a piece of it. But your point, at the end of the day, it's an economic factor. And we must fight these companies tooth and nail to get Carol Williams and other black owned agencies a record. Burrell in Chicago, California. This is the deal breaker for us. The deal maker for us. Pastor Turner, I want to bring you in here.

You heard, I'm bringing Bishop Cross. You heard the president. He talked about housing. He talked about 10 to 15 percent from disadvantaged businesses. But again, the moment what I heard was a disadvantaged businesses includes a whole lot of people. We also got to be black specific in the ask. Absolutely.

And I want to say it was good that he's the first president to come here in 100 years. But we, and I appreciate that, but we need to make sure that we have some legislation to back up that speech. And while we appreciate the presence, we want to see some policy. And he came right close to supporting an anti-black hate bill, but I didn't hear that come out of his mouth today. I'm hoping that it does. We still have not seen police reform George Floyd. We still have some voter suppression laws across this country that we need to get addressed. And like Reverend Jackson stated, lynching today in America is not a federal crime. I'm going to repeat that. Lynching today in America is not a federal crime. I'm going to repeat that.

Lynching today in America is not a federal crime. And we still do not have an investigation into the worst race mask in American history where when bombs are dropped right here on American soil, we've never had a federal investigation into that. Perpetrators. Somebody knows whose granddaddy did the burning and killing. The victims are perpetrators, and both must be addressed. We're going to leave it right now, but we're starting a Rainbow Push Coalition in the area. Reverend Turner will be the point person to

convene the Rainbow in this area. But Bishop Carlton, Pearson, on that point again, here, I've been hearing from lots of people. They appreciate the gesture. They appreciate the acknowledgment. But if you don't deal with the repair, if you don't create a victim's compensation fund, America created a multibillion-dollar victim's compensation fund for 9-11, but Tulsa and Oklahoma, America still has not done it for the residents of Greenwood. Well, first of all, we're not asking for special rights. We're just asking for equal rights,

the equal rights that this section of Tulsa and really of the state earned. We had a city. They didn't drop bombs on black people. They dropped bombs on black progress. And that's what they fight the most. We want progress, not just process. We can talk about it. They've been talking about it for years. Words don't mean anything without action. We're expecting action. We're actually demanding action. And we want every American to vote and talk to their congressperson, male or female, Democrat or Republican. We need change. If we don't, because the whole world sees this, we're going to look like an unjust country.

Is it justice or just us, as we often say? Reverend has been saying it for decades, very clearly. They know what he says is accurate. Let's do it. We're commanding. We're demanding. We're expecting it to happen. Right, Rev? It's going to happen. Reverend Jackson, you, for a long time, you ran Operation Red Basket that morphed into Rainbow Push. I went over to the convention center today

where they had this economic empowerment day, supposedly focused on African Americans, and all of these companies listed as sponsors. And the first thing I said was, are these companies spending money on black law firms, black I said was, are these companies spending money on black law firms, black catering companies, black transportation companies, black engineering companies, black... That's right. Reverend Turner and Brother Bishop are going to form a Rainbow Push Coalition in this area. Those... They must board directors, C-suites, supply contractors, the whole range of, you count on that, brother. Love you, buddy.

Reverend, I appreciate it. Thank you, man. Always good to see you. Pass the turn. I know you got, I told you about that Omega stuff. Don't start. Pass the turn. I know you got the revival tonight.

Get on with that capital stuff. Bishop Pearson, I appreciate it. Thanks a bunch. Y'all need to go. Don't have no, don't start none. Won't be none. All right. Don't start none. Don't start none, won't be none. Don't start none.

Don't start none. Alright, folks, that was Reverend Jesse Jackson Sr., Pastor Robert Turner, and also Bishop Carlton Pearson, all of them of course here, and so we certainly thank them for stopping by with us. Again, what people here

are saying, you have to deal with the money. If you don't deal with the money, you're not dealing with the fundamental problem that exists in this country. And so that was the focus there. Anthony, if we could actually turn that camera around there, I don't need to give y'all a sense. So let's leave. Let's go to the high camera. I want to show y'all something. I told y'all it was 36 blocks. It was 36 blocks that was destroyed. We're standing on Greenwood Avenue. So you're talking about all the way down. Remember we covered the march on Friday. It started at the middle school. That was what was one mile away. And I was talking to a brother who grew up here and he talked about

all the businesses that were on uh this street we talked about black wall street well uh now let's go to anthony's camera down there folks there's a so you you see the freeways go to the other camera you see the freeway um you see the freeway there that's freeway which came in the 60s, split this neighborhood up. And so let's bring the camera down, bring the camera down. And so right across, no, bring the camera down, pan down. And I want you to, and so there's a baseball field over there, and you have a few black businesses that are down there. Y'all, that's it.

That's it. And, in fact, let's go back to the high camera. Where this cultural center camera where the this cultural center sits well this cultural center sits this is not even on black owned this land is actually owned by the city and so just so people can understand what was lost so So we'll go back. We go back to Anthony's camera. So everything on other side of this freeway, all of that was land that black folks own. So you were seeing switch to the other camera, Anthony's camera. On the other side of this freeway, all of that was black owned land. And you had a number of businesses. Now you see high-rise structures,

you see apartments, you see other buildings that are coming up that are actually being built. And so again, acknowledgement is one thing. The people here are thankful for President Biden coming here to acknowledge what took place 100 years ago but this city has not confronted the after effects they have not dealt with financially the mayor has repeatedly scoffed at creating a victim's compensation fund philanthropy in the city has refused to deal with it major corporations has refused to deal with it and in fact i, I'm going to do this here, folks. And again, we're going to discuss it a little bit later. I'm going to let me just give me a second here. I told you all when I was talking there exactly what we were seeing. And I know Hill Harper is

around here. So I'm going to grab a heel in a second. And so here's the whole deal here, folks. There was a, as I was telling you, they had an economic conference. I was supposed to speak on one of the panels. Hill Harper was involved, the Tulsa Race Massacre Commission. They put this on. And but I want to show I want you to understand, because remember, we have our where's our money segment. And a lot of y'all been upset me, asking me why we keep focusing on this sort of stuff and why we keep hyping this thing up. And so you should be able to go to my iPad. So take my iPad.

This was one of the signs that was at that conference. And so you see they had Black Commerce Street, they had Fireside Chat, the importance of black entrepreneurship in shaping communities, funding opportunities for the new majority, the way forward innovations and partnerships. And look down here, look down here, y'all. JPMorgan Chase.P. Morgan Chase was the sponsor of those workshops. Now, yesterday, DeMario Simmons told us that J.P. Morgan Chase was one of the banks that did not pay out the claims. Also, black people have money in their banks. But they were the sponsors of a black economic conference.

Now, come back to me. Let me show you all this here. So here was another deal that was there. This is another sign of these are the silver sponsors. Silver sponsors. Go back to my iPad, please, so you can see that. Okay, Capital Group, National Association of Counties, Category Pirates, Moet Hennessy, First Oklahoma Bank, Prudential, Public Service Company of Oklahoma, Prosperity Bank, QT, Boeing, Vast Bank.

All of these banks, all of these banks were sponsor of an economic empowerment conference taking place today. So let me go here. You see this here. Other sponsors. Nationwide, JPMorgan Chase, Baker, Oklahoma, Combs Enterprises, Deloitte Digital, Salesforce, Walmart, Ord. Okay? Sponsors.

Here you got more right here. Again, American Express, PepsiCo, Citi, the American College of Financial Services, BlackRock, Acion Opportunity Fund. Now, let me focus on BlackRock. Right now, Jacob Waldauer, African-American who owns Blueprint Capital, is suing BlackRock right now in New Jersey from freezing black private equity companies out of participating in the pension fund in New Jersey from freezing black private equity companies out of participating in the pension fund in New Jersey, which is worth $80 billion. So here you have BlackRock that's sponsoring an economic empowerment conference, supposedly for black folks, when they are being sued right now by a black private equity company and so here are the questions and again

uh as i told y'all i was supposed to be on one of the panels they lucky i couldn't make the panel i had to be inside of the bubble here uh to be on the inside for the biden speech but i would have asked those companies while they were there what is your black spend how much are you spending on black on advertising? Black owned media companies? How many outside law firms black owned are you using? How many black accounting firms are you using? How many black catering companies are you using? How many black limousine companies are you using? So you can't sponsor a conference as talking about black economic development, but if you are the companies you

are not actually practicing the very thing that you're claiming that you are sponsoring so that's what you cannot do now just understand folk so here's what we're going to be doing we're going to be contacting every single one of these companies that sponsored this conference. We're going to be contacting every single one and going to ask them with a race equity index, what is your black spin in all of these categories? And then we're going to ask, how can you sponsor a conference on black economic empowerment if your black spin is around one or two percent? Do y'all understand what I'm talking about? So this is what we're talking about in terms of the type of demands that we are making consistently to folks.

One of our panelists, Ben Dixon, as well. Now, and to talk. Anthony, we have an issue with the freezing. That's why we so we're going to figure the signal. We're freezing. That's why we, so we got to figure out what's going on here. Benjamin, go ahead and weigh in on this. One of the things that, as you were talking about those sponsors, JPMorgan and Chase, the first thing I thought about was Jamie Dimon, the CEO, who was in a hearing with Senator Elizabeth Warren last week. And they were talking about how JPMorgan made all of this money off of poor people, black people during the pandemic and overdraft fees.

And he refused. He absolutely refused to address the fact that during a pandemic, JPMorgan and Chase, under the leadership of Jamie Dimon, has been getting billions of dollars off of poor people in the pandemic. So it's really consistent to see them doing, getting the publicity and the PR associated with the 100th anniversary of Black Wall Street being bombed into non-existence, but not actually living up to the promise that they're giving. Mustafa? Mustafa? Mustafa?

I'm here, Roland. I couldn't hear you. Just again, a presidential speech is nice but you got there with the money without a doubt i mean we know that we appreciate the words of president biden but we also understand that the federal government uh has a huge amount of resources that could be dedicated to the rebuilding of the greenwood district there in tulsa oklahoma so that has to be a part of the Greenwood District there in Tulsa, Oklahoma. So that has to be a part of the mix. You know, there are literally $500 billion in contracts that go out every year from the federal government. We need to redirect many of those different types of resources,

both at HUD, work at EPA, the work at transportation, the work at Department of Labor and others getting focused. And then we have to also make sure that there are real, authentic public-private partnerships. So as stated earlier, we know that corporations, whether directly or indirectly, have made money off of pain and trauma that is happening inside of our communities going all the way back to Tulsa and moving forward. So we have an opportunity also to make sure that they are coming together with the federal government to make sure that there is transformative change

that is happening, that is community-led, and so that we are actually building wealth back into this community and communities across our country. But this right here, I dare say, Teresa, is why we can't be afraid to challenge folks directly. When I listed all of those companies, we have to sit here and nail them, target them, be direct with them on how are you going to sponsor a conference, but then you're not actually doing what you are claiming to

sponsor with the conference. You're absolutely right. It's a twofold process. And I think people have had this mindset, especially those that are sitting in high positions in corporations, that if you just throw money at the problem, then the problem will be solved. And I think also essentially when people are asking for sponsorships for different organizations and different events that they have is that we also need to be putting fuel

to the fire and ask them about that index that you were talking about, Roland, and preparing that document of racial equity. And part of it is, you know, knowing what the products that they serve to communities of color, knowing what type of small businesses that, you know, they help encourage to grow on an annual basis. But knowing some of those aspects will, I think, also lead some of the individuals that are hosting these big conferences to figure out who to ask in terms of support. So, yes, I think this is, you know, a great boost, you know, to minority businesses where federal contracts have become available. But personally, I would like to know what is that percentage and does the criteria also change? Like, so there's a whole host of questions that I do believe that the first step is to, yes, we're going to boost. But I do believe there is a opportunity here where we can also shift the gears and understanding what that boost looks like for small businesses. you actually didn't hear President Biden lay out specific, other than the 10 to 15 percent to call on agencies to spend with disadvantaged companies.

As I said, disadvantaged can mean white women, can mean Latinos, can mean Asians, can mean a whole bunch of different people. And so and just so folks understand i was literally texting administration officials while he was speaking saying i'm sorry and i tweeted i was sending members of congress saying no no no that's fine but there has to be a breakdown because if you go 10 to 15 percent how much are white women getting how much are others getting so and so we gotta be and i keep telling people focus two things, dollar amounts and the percentage. Get both.

Don't let them give you the dollar amount without the percentage. Don't let them give you the percentage without the dollar amount. Roland, as you're speaking, I'm thinking about how they're getting their way here. And what I mean by that is that we have suffered as black people in this country a racially specific harm. And you're in Tulsa, Oklahoma right now, 100 years ago, a racially specific harm. But they want to play this game with us to suggest that we can't ask for racially specific remedies

for everything that has happened to us in this country. And so they dilute the solutions that would be best for black people and make it very generic because they don't want to give us racially specific solutions. Well, this country gave us racially specific harm for centuries. And I think it's time that they get this straight and prioritize the issues of black people in this country. Well, and look, first of all, the Supreme Court Croason decision, Mustafa, speaks to quotas and it limits what government can actually do. So we understand that. The point I'm making is what we can't do is allow folks to say, well, here's the number that disadvantaged businesses are getting.

No, I need it broken down. I remember when I was in Illinois, the Chicago Defender, and the state of Illinois came in talking about the $190 million expansion of the Dan Ryan Expressway. And so they came forth and they were talking about how much women got, African-Americans, Latinos, and Asians. And they were presenting to the Illinois Black Caucus. And I raised my hand. I said, I'm curious, if you're a black woman, which one of those categories you go in? They said, well, you go in black.

I said, if you're a Latino woman, which category do you go in? They said Latino. So you're an Asian woman, which category do you go in? They said Asian. I said, well, hell, the W category should be WW for white women. I said, don't say women and then do black, Latino, Asian, if all the women who are black, Latino, Asian go in those categories. That means that W category is really white women. What was the highest amount, the group that got the most money from that express project?

More than 50%? White women. That's why we have to break the data down and not simply accept the large number, percentage, or dollar amount, Teresa. I totally agree. And, you know, even on a local level, Philadelphia has probably the largest spend on city contracts there is thus far. And I've also made a complaint regarding what some of those dollars look like, you know, being, again, the categories, a woman, a black woman. The only thing I'm missing is the LGBTQIA designation. But I mean, even in those two categories, being a woman and a minority business, I only get credit for one of them. And so even if I started to look at that breakdown and I'm like, you know, that's interesting,

I still now have to find a minority business, even though I'm a two for one. So it's so unfortunate because the devil is really in the details here. I would say the community, too, but the backbone of the economy, we really need to start to take a look at how the minority businesses are trying to grow in this new system of how they pretty much proportion out some of those business ideas. And I think if we talk about the larger issues, it is, you know, trying to figure out a model that I believe it exists, it's just people have to say yes to, right? So the governors have to say yes to, city? So the governors have to say yes to. City council has to say yes to. Mayors have to say yes to.

But putting this plan together in order for us to find a solution that everybody can eat at the table and not just one side of the sword. Absolutely. Joining us right now is actor Hill Harper. He was the host of the Economic Empowerment Day taking place at the convention center as part of the Tulsa Race Centennial Race Massacre Commission. And Hill, one of the things that I was saying was that I listed all the sponsors. And the first thing I said when I went over there was, how do they stack up on their black spend? Which is what we have to be saying. We have to be saying.

Sponsoring a conference is one thing. But are you using, are you spending with black-owned companies in your daily business? Because probably what they gave for the sport of conference pales in comparison to what they actually are spending every day in their companies. Without question. And where are we talking about tier one cap? Where are we talking about access cap? Where are we talking about supplier diversity? Any of that spend is part of recirculating dollars.

We have to bring dollars back into our community and then recirculate them. And you're right if it's not happening, particularly on the issue that I heard you talk about when Reverend Jackson was here about reparations for survivors, HR 40, these types of things, that's going to pale in comparison to what companies are spending the billions and billions and billions on actual incoming supplier diversity initiatives. And all these companies, yes. And in fact, John Rogers has been saying, John Rogers said, don't even use supplier diversity. He said, don't even use that phrase at all. Because you think that's a diversion. Absolutely.

John, I interviewed him earlier. In fact, I'm going to be talking with him. We're going to show the interview a little bit later. He said, no, we must use what is your black-owned spend. He said, we cannot allow them to finagle their way out of that because, to Teresa's point, when they bring in LGBTQ women, white women, bring in everybody, then all of a sudden you hear this large number, then you go, no, no, no, I need the number broken down. And so same thing.

So now the hot craze today is DEI, diversity, equity, inclusion. Because, see, all these DEI jobs, they have no P in their responsibility. They have no staff. They got no budgets. Yes. But ultimately, Roland, for me, and I'll be honest, because people ask me about whether it's politics or whether it's spend, I think we have to just look in the mirror ourselves. We have already have one point two trillion dollars of buying

power in our community. Right. And we'd be the 15th largest GDP in the world if we were a country. Yet we don't spend that intentionally. A dollar leaves Black community within six to seven hours. And if that's the case, we cannot build wealth unless we're recirculating the dollar. That, to me, is even more important than asking PepsiCo who their supplier is. I just, that's for real. We've got to fix our own house. No, no, no. But here's the deal, though.

It happens simultaneously. Here's what I mean. Right. So when Byron Allen filed his $10 billion lawsuit against McDonald's, McDonald's is spending 2% of their media money with black-owned media, yet 40% of their revenue is coming from black customers. Absolutely. So we're actually spending our money. What I'm arguing, that's a return on investment. Exactly.

That is, without us, y'all in trouble. General Motors, 11.4% of all GM cars bought by black people. They were spending 1% of their money with black media. Now we got to start asking the brother who was a general counsel. He sits with us at Coca-Cola. He challenged all the law firms saying, I'm going to start taking business away from you because y'all ain't serious about diversity.

What I'm saying is this is where we say, no, there's about to be a return on investment. No, brother, we lie, brother. There's got to be a return on investment when we are making these demands because the companies are profiting from our spend. Without question. I mean, Roland, let's think about tech. We make these tech platforms, billion-dollar companies. We just made Clubhouse a $4 billion market cap in beta because black folks got on that app. We made black Twitter made Twitter.

You're right. Our culture has been monetized. We monetize companies with our dollars. The question is how do we keep the money in our community? How do we get the monetized blackness? We have to create our own companies, our own tech, and support, just like what you've done with this platform. This is why folks have to understand how powerful what you're doing with this platform. You this is called self-sovereignty. This is called using technology, state of the art technology to own your platform.

And if we focus to me, we focus on that. Using decentralized technology, using the state-of-the-art stuff, doing this. To me, you are the light of what we need to do. You're doing it in media. We need to do the same thing on tech platforms. We need to do the same thing in fintech. We need to do the same thing in all of these areas.

Well, I'll give you a perfect example. You talked about Clubhouse. So Isaac Hayes III has created his app Fanbase, which allows for you to perfect example. You talked about Clubhouse. So Isaac Hayes III has created his app Fanbase. Yes. Which allows for you to actually get paid for your content. Yes. So we need this crowdfund. I invested $50,000 in this crowdfund.

And I was saying to people, to your point, we made Clubhouse hot. We can just as easy make Fanbase hot. Yes. $4 billion valuation. This black-owned app could be a $4 billion valuation. This Blackone app could be a $4 billion valuation. He has chat rooms like Clubhouse. He has photos like Instagram. I can do

videos like Instagram. I think you can do private stuff like OnlyFans. But to your point, it has to be intentional. It does. And that's why I launched the BlackWallStreet.com in the app. And we launched it last night on another platform that Brothers run called Earn Your Leisure, the number one fintech podcast out there right now.

Brothers doing it, and they're doing it very well. Wall Street Trapper was there, another brother who's talking about finance. TheBlackWallStreet.com is a digital app that we're launching to let people invest in Bitcoin and not have to go through the Coinbases, the Cash Apps, the Venmos. Okay, so explain that. Okay, so I've had some people. we were discussing this at dinner last night. I've had some people say, Roland, you need to start accepting cryptocurrency to join your fan club. Yes, you should.

So, all right, so for people who have no idea what the hell that is, they hear it and they're like, I don't know what this all is explain what your app does to help with that so let's say if i wanted to say we're gonna start accepting crypto if you want to join our bring the funk fan club yes how does your app help facilitate that okay well well first of all we have to crypto's a big world and a big you got Got it. There's 9,200 different cryptos out there. 99% of them are trash. Let's be clear. They're designed to try to separate you from your money. Okay. So that's why it has to start with education first. Right. Okay. And so on our platform, we have financial education about crypto, et cetera. But beyond that, what digital wallets simply do, we're moving into

an age of digital currency and cryptocurrency, where just like the watch on people's hands are accessories for the most part, because they do exactly what you're doing. You look at your phone for your time, right? The same thing's going to happen with your wallet or your purse. You're not going to use what's inside of it, credit cards or cash, to transact. You're going to use a digital wallet in your phone. You're already doing it. Apple Wallet, PayPal, Venmo, Cash App, etc. Here's the problem. We don't own any of those. Right. And I just said during right on this street 100 years ago, a dollar circulated 6,200 times, which was a year, two years or more within the ecosystem. Right now in America, dollar leaves the black community within six to seven hours. If we don't start owning our own digital wallets, it'll be leaving within six to seven seconds.

That's why I created a digital wallet, an app. Now, why are you able to buy only Bitcoin on that app? You can only buy Bitcoin on others like- Because it says all the rest of them are trash, you already said. Exactly. You catch on quick, right? I pay attention. So here's the deal. Every Bitcoin has 100 million Satoshis in it. I have a saying, and other people say, Satoshi is black. What do I mean by that? We finally have a fair, decentralized type of currency that if we index in early right now, the entire world will have to come through us for access to that asset. 95% of black Americans keep their portfolio in cash.

They keep it in cash. Why is that a problem, Roland? It keeps us poor. Why? Because cash is a descending value asset. They printed 22% of the circulating supply of money last year. If we're in cash, every time your head hits the pillow,

you wake up poor the next morning. The wealthiest 1% keep 95% of their assets in things other than cash, ascending value asset classes, real estate, fine art, blue chip stocks. I don't tell people buy Bitcoin. I say sell your money, sell your cash, get into an ascending value asset. If we could convert, my goal is that every black American have at least 1 million Satoshis and today's money that'd be like $380. If we actually did that, so if you have two parents in the household, three kids, that's 5 million

Satoshis in that household. If we actually did that, there's only 2% adoption in the world. The rest of the world would have to come through us for access to this asset class. We would control the asset class. We've never controlled an asset class. And therefore, the price rises and we actually are having and holding leverage. It's about creating leverage. And that's why us adopting Bitcoin and buying it through our platform creates power and leverage. All right. Where can people get it again? Get the information. They go to the black wall street dot com, put your email address and we will send you that or

just go to Google Play or your app store and download actually the app, The Black Wall Street. And here's the deal they've got to understand. We're building this so it's unbreakable. They're not going to be able to come and tear it down like they did here, right? And therefore, folks are going to have to go through a real stringent process when they load it. They're going to KYC, which means know your customer. People are like, hell, I just want to come on and start just buying. No. You've got to take your time, connect your bank account. It's a process, but it's a process worth doing. And I believe I'm going to make a big prediction right

here, Roland. This is the first time I'm saying it. And since we're live, I want to say it. I believe that our app and our platform will create more black wealth than any single business or app in history. Black wealth. Black American wealth. All right. That's the prediction. That's it. Hill Harper, I really appreciate it, bro.

Thanks a lot. Appreciate you, man. Continue doing what you're doing. You are our hero in the media space, and we have to support you and start accepting Bitcoin. Five years from now, you're coming to me, Hill, that interview, I don't know how people saw it, but at least that was the most fabulous interview I ever had because I'm sitting on a bunch of Satoshis, and they're going to be worth a lot. All right.

All right. Hill Hopper, I appreciate it, brother. Thanks a lot. Thank you. This is another alpha man doing his thing. I appreciate it. I'll take the microphone. I appreciate it, Fred.

Folks, I had an opportunity to talk with the folks with the Human Rights Watch at Saturday's Descendants and Survivors and Descendants Luncheon about the work that they're doing across the country to deal with the issue of reparations. And so here is that conversation. I'm on my show talking about black economic social justice because I believe it's a problem when we talk about social justice. And we're talking about mass incarceration, we're talking about criminal justice reform, we're talking about voter suppression. Because if you don't deal with the money,

then you really are not dealing with the fundamental problem in this country. So talk about the work that you're doing to deal with black economic social justice, whether it's in Tulsa or around the country. So let me start off by saying this, Roland. The genesis of our program at Human Rights Watch, our U.S. program, is focused on racial justice and the interconnectivity of economics, of poverty, of inequality, of policing, and of systems is what this work is about. And the work that Dreesen focuses on, on reparations and economic justice in communities like Tulsa,

is at the root of that work. So, Dreesen, why don't you talk about that? Reparations is an economic justice argument. It is an economic justice plan. And therefore, you know, communities all across the country have been ravaged by either white mob violence or systems of white supremacy that have suppressed the economic, social, political outcomes, dis to its fullest extent, not halfway, not partially, but to its fullest extent. Return Greenwood back to its prosperous black wealth origins. Greenwood is not a story of white wealth on black bodies. Greenwood is a story of black wealth, so we have to restore this community back to that place.

See, one of the reasons why we have expanded this in a sense is because, as somebody who studies work, I look at how this discussion is framed. Whenever there's a debate, folks are like, well, you know, you're talking about going back to slavery, going back to the early 1900s. What I constantly do is bring this thing all the way to present day. So when you look at the committee in Tennessee, where they said the Tennessee state effectively was owed anywhere from $150 to $500 million because they've been grossly underfunded since day one. That still happened. The HBCU lawsuit in Maryland, where they finally

settled Maryland and gave up $577 million. Same thing. And so I think it's important for folks today to understand that it's still happening. And so we can't have a historical conversation. We've got to have a present day conversation as well. Yes, and that's really what we've been talking about, Roland. You know, when we've been working with Congress on H.R. 40 to establish a commission to look at the history of slavery in the United States and how it ties to reparative justice and reparations, that is about connecting it to present day. This story is not just about what happened 400 years ago. People cannot understand this concept and they can't understand the issues that we're fighting for if they can't connect it to what is happening today.

That's what this work is about. The work that Dreesen oversees, that's what it is about. It is looking at what is happening now. We're here in Tulsa today. We're not just talking about things that happened 100 years ago. We are telling the story and making the connection between that and everything that has happened in between up to 2021. See, I think they can make the connection. They don't want to make the connection because in their minds, like, you'll be taking my money. That's why I go, okay, were you vocal with the 9-11 Victims' Compensation Fund?

Were you vocal when communities have been destroyed from tornadoes or from floods? And so my whole deal is when we are having this debate, I'm going to use your own language and arguments against you to then force you to defend what you have previously supported and then say, why should the pot of black people? Right. And access to health care. You have, you know, less access in neighborhoods across black communities.

Preventative deaths for maternal health care. On to education, deprivation of resources, deprivation of wealth accumulation. These are all connected. Police violence against the black community, not just police killings that are the tip of the iceberg, but the conditions of poverty that are systematized for these black communities to be in. Redlining, urban renewal, racialized segregation policies, these determine the health outcomes, the education outcomes,

the employment outcomes of black people across America. So how are you also keeping up with the success stories. The reason I say that, I spent lots of time studying the Black Freedom Movement, and a lot of people focus on marches, events, speeches, but there was a strategy behind it. One thing that Dr. King always talked about was we have to be constantly celebrating even small victories so people now realize that we're

actually making progress. And so talk about that, places where what you're describing is being done, has been done, so people understand that it's actually happening, that we're not having a theoretical conversation, a rhetorical conversation. You're actually seeing results of this. Right. Across the country, you're seeing reparations efforts at the institutional and the local level and at the state level. You have Evanston, Illinois, implementing its first phase of its reparations program for housing remedies. You have places like Amherst, Massachusetts, cities in the South that are examining not only the past,

but how the past impacts present-day outcomes. But they're not all calling them reparations. They are not. I want you to add that as well, because that's important for people to understand that, again, the word scares the hell out of white America. So there's also examples of places where they are achieving the same result but calling it something else. Yes, right. And, you know, there's a benefit to bringing attention to what reparations will do and what racial equity and good public policy should be doing anyway. The government should be doing racial equity

policies anyway. Reparations helps close the gap so that those equity policies can actually be implemented and impact people's lives thereafter. If you do not repair the harm, then there is no impact on those equitable policies from there on. So some cities are going to call it a racial equity program. Some cities are going to call it reparations. But there's a specific process with reparations where communities have to determine their recipe for repair. Governments can't say, this is your reparations. Here's your history center, this is your reparations. The community has to determine, based off of the harms they've experienced, what that reparation should look like.

See, for me, I'm not including history centers. See, on this issue, for me, I'm dealing with money. So I'm not interested, and there's no disrespect to what people have done, but I'm not interested in museums, centers, whatever the heck. I'm looking at what happened in Florida with Rosewood, where they created $2.1 million for scholarships. Okay, that's, I mean, that's benefiting those students. Now, some will say, well, but not others. The bottom line is I'm interested in money, the efforts that we're in, how we are going after these companies when it comes to not advertising with black-owned media. Same thing.

And so there are multiple ways in which different strategies people are employing, and I think that's also important for people to understand that there's no one strategy. There are multiple strategies. You've got legal teams use multiple legal strategies to achieve the same goal. Yes. And that's what we civil and human rights lawyers do. You know that, Roland. And this is what people need to understand about reparations. As Drizum was just saying, it is not a one size fit all. It is a panoply of options that are available when we're having this discussion about reparations. So the same things that you were just talking about are a part of that. When we talk about monetary relief, when we talk about improving communities, when we talk about improving health care systems, educational systems, all of that has to be a part of the conversation on reparations.

So, yes, money is a part of it. I'm glad you're focused on that. But so are these other pieces that we are talking about. It is all a part of this large collective effort to provide reparative justice and to make these communities whole again. And that's why, I think it was Forbes or Fortune, one of them, she did an article that said there was some $50 billion that was actually given by corporations and their view that it's being spent. I think we also have to really change the mindset of even our community where we get folks to understand that philanthropic support is not the same as investment. Yes.

And I think what has happened in the black community, what we've had is we've had an emphasis on philanthropic support. We've had an emphasis on corporations who are giving to the urban league, giving to the NAACP. But first of all, any donation they give to them pales in comparison to what they should be investing in black businesses. Exactly. Exactly. And so people have to be very careful in these neighborhoods, in these cities, in these states, when people have these conversations, it's not a philanthropic-led conversation. Because in fact, there's even a challenge to philanthropy as to how they are excluding African-Americans. Oh, sure, you're making this donation, but what black lawyers are you using? What black accounting firms are you using? What black event planners are you using?

What black caterers are you using? So even in the philanthropic world, they're also practicing white supremacy, even with their so-called do-gooders. And people need to understand, the philanthropic efforts, that's not enough. I don't want people to misunderstand that when a philanthropic organization writes a check and donates it to one particular organization or another, that that's enough. That's not what this is about. This is about a full-fledged process to create wholeness in communities and to empower those communities also, Roland. It's not about somebody writing a check and saying, here's how we want you to use it,

because we know that's also what happens, too, when philanthropic organizations write checks. They will often dictate to you how it needs to work. And that's not what reparations is about. It is, as Dreesen said, it is about these communities being empowered and dictating and determining for themselves what should happen in their communities and how their communities should be improved for their benefit. Where do folks go to get more information on your work? HRW.org backslash reparations now.

Cool. Appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you. Thank you, Roland. All right, folks. We are here in Tulsa, Oklahoma, here on Greenwood Avenue in the Greenwood District. You see how the street is pretty much cleared out. The hundreds of people who are out here speaking, excuse me, waiting to get a glimpse of President Joe Biden.

He has left. He is no longer here flying back to Washington, D.C. We're standing here broadcasting in front of Vernon AME Church where moments ago, Pastor Jamal Bryant actually arrived. He's going to be preaching at a revival here that they normally do it anyway. And so in a moment, we're going to actually speak to him. Pastor Robert Turner is showing him. They dedicated a prayer wall here at Vernon AME. Anthony, let's get a shot of them standing before there.

Again, we're standing here. There's a prayer wall that they erected. Vernon AME, this was where 100 years ago, black folks who were attacked, who were attacked. Actually, let's just do it right here. Let's use this camera right here. The black people who were attacked by white domestic terrorists, they fled here to the basement of the church. It was over here. Jamal, come on over here. I'll talk to a little cap. Let me give you the microphone here. You popped in for a revival here. And Pastor Turner here, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yeah.

You need it back up. You need it back up. So we've been talking about folks appreciative of acknowledgement, but if you don't deal with the money, then it's just a feel-good moment. Right. It's amazing. Dr. William Barber has carried the real torch of Dr. King, who understood the next step after civil rights was civil rights. Dr. King said in a conversation to Harry Belafonte, what's the point of a Negro sitting at a lunch counter if he don't have money for a hamburger? And so this is really about economic justice, that we are not coming to smell ashes, but really to demand reparations.

And that's why people have come from all over the country. There are a lot of people who, I love the folks who go, do for self, do for self, do for self. Now, first of all, the black church is always done for self. I own this company that's doing for self. That's right. My security guy owns his company that's doing for self. But doing for self doesn't mean that we ignore the billions, the billions being spent by the federal government, state government, county government, city government,

school districts, corporate America, because white wealth in America was not built by doing for self. It was built on doing for access. Right now, Jeff Bezos, the richest man in the world, is asking for a federal bailout of his space company. Right. He got the money. Right. But he's looking to the federal government for a check for his space company.

The other side of that, Roland, is the reason why we're here is America hates when we do for self. That the African-Americans. Hold on, hold on. See, for everybody, somebody watching right now. Now, as my man D-Night said, let me run that back. Yeah. We are here because America doesn't like for us to do for ourselves. You and I crisscross around

the country, especially pre-COVID. And if you go to Baltimore, you go to Little Italy, you go to New York, you can go to Chinatown. No way in America can you go to Little Africa. And Tulsa was the closest thing to it of what it means for cooperative economics. It sounds good, but African Americans have a rough time doing for self if we go to Wells Fargo trying to get a small business loan. But that same bank will give us loans to get used cars. So when we do for ourselves, there's a different kind of fight and a different kind of battle. Also, I think what has to happen happen and we've talked about this before that I keep saying is there has to be a reprogramming of black America. Yeah. And we have to understand how deeply embedded white supremacy was when I'm going to play the video

later when when President Biden did the tour of the Cultural Center. He asked the sister, after they rebuilt Black Wall Street, what happened between 1925 and 1950? And he asked, well, did it get destroyed because of the freeway? And she said, no. She said, and I saw her face like, damn, I got to actually say this, but I don't want to say it. She said, no, actually what did it was because with integration, black folks spent our money in white establishments because we wanted to have the freedom to spend our money in a white establishment. If you read Gerald Horne's book on Claude Barnett, it says Claude Barnett's Associated Negro Press and the Jim Crow paradox. The Jim Crow paradox is that every time we put a nail in Jim Crow, we actually are putting a nail in black self-sufficiency. Wow. The forgotten page about Tulsa that is so significant is that when Marcus Garvey was running low on trying to build the ships, it was the business owners. The Black Star cruise ship. That's right. It was the black business owners of Tulsa that

sent money to New York to help them become afloat. So this cooperative economics is building an ecosystem. So you're built right outside of D.C. You're just coming from Houston, coming from North Carolina, now in Oklahoma. And this I keep trying to explain to people. Right. Last year, our fan base gave $672,000 for this show. Wow. That represented 20% of the revenue we generated last year. Right.

And I think that's where we've got to start looking. There was an article yesterday that said, let's not confuse reparations with conversation. Just by us talking about it is not the paycheck. And so everybody's talking about where's our equitable peace in media and media representation. This is it. And so we've got to stop talking about it and really put our money where our mouth is.

I know you've got to preach. I appreciate it. We might take some of that live. But you did mention Dr. King and Reverend Barber. That's two albums. Y'all go ahead. No, it's all right. It's all good.

Yeah, I'm going to give you that. I can't even fight that. But I heard his feelings earlier when I told him, I said, you can't even take half an alpha side because you've got to say alpha. Y'all go ahead. You're going to preach. Y'all give me the chance. Y'all know we always got to have a little fun with Pastor Jamal Bryant.

That's my man. We always. Tiffany Crut Bryant. That's my man. We always. Tiffany Crutcher. Tiffany Crutcher. Come here, Tiffany. Tiffany, come here. Hold on. I'm about to be real black here.

I'm about to be real black. So let me do something here. Let me do something here. Hold this here. Hold this here. Grab this microphone. See, I'm about to say, y'all, I'm a full-service host. Anthony, come take this.

Come take this. Let me extend this over here. Yeah, come on. Come on. Put your makeup on. Come on. Put your makeup on, Tiffany. See, y'all got to understand.

We doing everything here. We don't just let folk just drive on by. We make them get out of their car. And so Tiffany Crutcher, come on. Right here, my left hand, my left hand, my left hand, my left hand. There you go, right there. There you go, just stand right there, on the truck right there. All right, now I know you were trying to go home and get some

sleep uh black wall street legacy fest started thursday but y'all been planning this thing y'all been working y'all been sweating uh been going crazy president speaks uh this is really the culmination uh and so first just your reaction to his speech what what did i know you had a chance to speak with him take it away yeah well first of all i am just honored that the president came to tulsa this is the first time a sitting president has stepped foot in greenwood in this community of course you know donald trump came last year um but i think it was very important. He didn't come here. He didn't come here. We wouldn't let him come here. We wouldn't let him come here.

We shut it down. He tried. He tried. He tried, y'all. He covered up everything. We covered up our monument. We had signs and told him he wasn't welcome here. Y'all said orange not allowed.

Not today. Not today. So we were honored that the president came. My father and I, Reverend Joey Crutcher, we were able to welcome him when he came in. Of course, the first thing he said, he expressed his condolences for the loss of my brother. And he and my dad share a lot of commonalities. They both lost their wife. They both lost a son to cancer around the same age.

And they both have the same first name. And so what um, what president Biden did was encourage my dad. It's just two years. He started to quote some scriptures. And then of course, uh, my charge to him was the survivors and, and restitution and reparations, and also trying to, uh, reopen Terrence's case with the DOJ. We're coming up on the five year statute of limitation in September. And so, um, you know, I was just trying to get something done. I didn't want to waste the moment without trying to push some of the things that we've been working so hard for in this community. I think his speech was right on time. It was right on time. He called out some of the

things. He called out white supremacy, which we needed to hear, this city needed to hear. And he talked about a lot of the residual effects of what happened, the continuing harm that we're dealing with today as a community, the redlining and the housing discrimination and land ownership and gentrification. So I thought it was what it needed to be. You know, my thing is, where do we go from here? How do we use this moment as a stepping stone to keep building? And I don't want this to be a lost moment. I don't want this weekend to go away and then everything is back to normal. That was the last night when we had dinner, I ran into a gentleman who works with the Kaiser Foundation. And I said to him, I said, I said, I said, do y'all understand that the demands offered by the attorneys is literally a drop in the bucket?

For sure. To what y'all could actually do in the bucket. For sure. To what y'all could actually do in Tulsa. He goes, he said, what do you mean? I said, I said, what's the largest annual event in Tulsa? And I get to actually get an answer. I said, I said, I said, I wanna know. Well, I said, what's the largest annual event that brings people from outside the city?

I said, if y'all had any sense, y'all would realize that if y'all partnered with the Black Wall Street Legacy Fest, and you took Thursday through Sunday and turned this into a full-fledged festival that had workshops, entertainment, all of that around Black Wall Street. I said, the 50 million being asked could literally be generated in less than,

I said, in two years. I said, you could create something that brought 10 to 100,000 Black people to Tulsa every year, I said, but y'all are being short-sighted on 50. On 50, that's right. And it's just not about that.

And then he said, well, I would love to get you together with my boss. I said, set the meeting up. I tell your boss the same thing. I said, but y'all got to, but you got to meet with community folks. That's it. That's it. That's it. And say, we're going to do this thing together. I said, because otherwise, I said,

your hotels be filled up. Your restaurants be making money. There were white folks in New Orleans who shut down in the first few years of Essence. Then when 300,000 hit the city, then 350, then 400, then 450. Now they shut down other times of the year, but they're going to be open doing Essence because they understand.

And I'm like, that's what it is. That's what it is. And so, I mean, I appreciate you raising that point because a lot of times a prophet isn't wanted in his own backyard. And, you know, it's not what you say is what you keep saying and when they hear it from other people um that really helps and so i'm just so thankful for everybody that's come uh to black wall street the congressional black caucus our our civil rights leaders um our black media to really help us uh amplify this story and to echo our voice. I mean, that's what it's all about.

And we're getting ready to debrief right now. We cannot let this just be a moment. It's a movement. That's right. And we still got to keep screaming at the top of our lungs, reparations for these survivors that are still here and for this community. We want to reclaim our land. We want to control our own history. We want our children

to have scholarships for the next 100 years. We want tax abatement for the next 100 years. There's been no atonement and we need it and we need it now. And we cannot waver. I mean, period. Well, I tell everybody who's watching, I need y'all to understand, it was invite only on the inside. When I got here Thursday, when we met, I said, hey, Tiffany, they got to have black media in the room. She's like, absolutely. I believe that people our age have lost the ability to focus the discipline on the art of organizing. The challenges, there's so many of them and they're complex and we need to be moving to address them.

But I'm able to say, watch out Tiffany, I know this road. That is so freaking dope. I'm proud of the officers I worked with on January 6th. They fought extremely hard. Our worst nightmare really come true, an attack on American democracy right here in the nation's capital. I experienced the most brutal, savage, hand-to-hand combat of my entire life. I received chemical burns to my face

that still have not healed to this day. I just remember people still swinging metal poles at us, and they were pushing and shoving. They were spraying us with, you know, bear mace and pepper spray. They were spraying us with, you know, bear mace and pepper spray. They were all shouting at us, calling us traitors. It's been very difficult seeing elected officials and other individuals whitewash the events of that day

or downplay what happened. As an American and as an Army veteran, it's sad to see us attacked by our fellow citizens. My dispatcher is responsible for the content of this advertising. I believe that it's movement time again. In America today, the economy is not working for working people people the poor and the needy are being abused you are the victims of power and this is the abuse of economic power i'm 23 years old i work three jobs seven days a week no days off they're paying people pennies on the dollar compared to what they profit and it is time for this to end.

Essential workers have been showing up to work, feeding us, caring for us, delivering goods to us throughout this entire pandemic. And they've been doing it on a measly $7.25 minimum wage. The highest check I ever got was literally $291. I can't take it no more. You know, the fight for 15 is a lot more than about $15 an hour. This is about a fight for your dignity. We have got to recognize that working people deserve livable wages. And it's long past time for this nation to go to 15 so that moms and dads don't have to choose between asthma

inhalers and rent. I'm halfway homeless. The main reason that people end up in their cars is because income does not match housing cost. If I could just only work one job, I could have more time with them. It is time for the owners of Walmart, McDonald's, Dollar General, and other large corporations to get off wealth there and pay their workers a living wage. And if you really want to tackle racial equity, you have to raise

the minimum wage. We're not just fighting for our families, we're fighting for yours too. We need this. I'm going to fight for it until we get it. I'm not going to give up. We just need all workers to stand up as one nation and just fight together. Families are relying on these salaries, and they must be paid at a minimum $15 an hour. $15 a minimum. Anyone should be making this a be able to stay out of poverty. I can't take it no more. I'm doing this for not only me, but for everybody. We need 15 right now.

Black women have always been essential. So now how are you going to pay us like that? And it's not just the salary. I mean, there are a whole number of issues that have to support us as women. Yeah. But that's what we deserve. We shouldn't have to beg anybody for that. I think that we are trying to do our best as a generation

to honor the fact that we didn't come here alone and we didn't come here by accident. I always say every generation has to define for itself what it means to move the needle forward. Hi, I'm Kim Burrell. Hi, I'm Carl Painting. Hey, everybody. This is Sherri Shepherd. You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. All right, folks, welcome back to Greenwood, the Greenwood district here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In his speech, President Joe Biden talked about voter suppression and redoubling the efforts to fight for voter rights. He even said two Democratic senators are the ones who are holding out from any of the filibuster. In Texas, Democrats walked out of the chamber, keeping the Republicans from having a quorum,

preventing them from actually enacting one of the most onerous voter suppression bills in the country. Joining us right now is the head of the Black Caucus there in Texas, Representative Nicole Collier. Representative Collier, glad to have you in Roland Martin Unfiltered. I'm not able to hear her, so if you could unmute yourself. Can you hear me now, Roland? Now we can hear you. Now we can hear you. So I appreciate it.

Thanks a lot. So talk about that bold move to walk out of the chamber. Look, y'all eliminate. Republicans control the House and the Senate. But that action kept them from being able to pass that bill. Explain to people what happened. What happened? So, yes, the process of how SB7 was handled is no different than how the legislative session went the whole entire time. You know, we had Democratic members who would put forth amendments to bills that the Republicans put forth to try to reduce the harmful impacts that they would have. But most of our amendments, most of the time would be either stripped out, watered down,

or flat out denied. And so we've said enough is enough. We pulled back from, you know, you talked about what happened 100 years ago. You're talking about what happened in Tulsa. We reached back and looked at what happened 50 years ago, you're talking about what happened in Tulsa. You know, we reached back and looked at what happened 50 years ago. We talk about how the blacks did the sit in, sit in during the Jim Crow era when they had those Jim Crow measures. The least we could do is walk out when we were faced with the same. And Republicans obviously were a little bit upset when y'all

did that. But bottom line is they earned it. Yeah, I mean, literally the whole entire session has been about their conservative agenda. You know, they did the permitless carry. We had one of our legislative black caucus colleagues, Representative Harold Dutton, all he did was ask that the pretext stop, that if you see a person carrying a gun under this new permitless carry bill that the governor is going to sign, then that would not provide a pretext to stop them, because we know that blacks are more than likely, more likely to be pulled over and stopped by law enforcement than their white counterparts. So why, you know, what's the problem with allowing, with providing a measure that said that they could not use that as a pretext to stop them? No. When that measure went over to the Senate, they stripped it out. So just the blatant disregard for the

impact that their laws have on people of color was called for an equal response. And Texas Governor Greg Abbott was not at all happy with what y'all did. No, but let me tell you this. I don't even see how. So Governor Abbott says that he's going to cut, he's going to veto Article 10 of the budget. Okay, that, he's talking about, I presume, the budget that's going to be in place on September 1st of this year. But that budget includes the salaries not only for myself, and let me tell you, I'm not concerned about the $600 a month that the state pays me to serve as the state representative. I'm more concerned about my staff. I'm concerned

about the staff of all legislative members, Republican and Democrats. I'm concerned about their health insurance. Has this pandemic not showed us how important it is to have health insurance? I mean, we already have the highest rate of uninsured. And for the governor to threaten to veto Article 10, which includes the health insurance and retirement benefits for the legislative body, is a petulant punishment for all of these individuals. Last question for you. The governor is going to call a special session. What's going to happen next? And then obviously, y'all got to be prepared for that moment. Yes, well, we already knew he was going to call a special session. In fact, you know, this is a redistricting year, so we got to do the

redistricting. And that was going to be called in a special session, perhaps in August or September. And then also there's federal dollars coming down from the pandemic that we're going to have to distribute. So that was, those were items that were already on a proposed special session, but now I anticipate he's going to add these election matters. And we knew this going in. We knew that one of the consequences is that they could try to make it worse. But we're going to continue to leave all options on the table when it comes down to pushing back and opposing these measures. So whether that's trying to file points of order, talk the bill to death, or walking out is yet to be seen.

But we don't want to, you know, close out any other, any of our options. Representing Nicole Collier, head of the Black Caucus there in Texas. We certainly appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you so much, Roland. All right, then. I'm going to come back to my panel in a second and ask them about what happens in Texas. But right now, I want to talk to Lauren Usher. If y'all saw the speech by President Joe Biden, she was the one who introduced the president on stage,

and she joins us right now as we're standing outside of Vernon AME. Glad to have you, Roland Martin, unfiltered. Thank you so much. How did you get picked? So with working with the Justice for Greenwood team, the lawsuit that is currently in progress here for the survivors and descendants of the Tulsa Race Massacre. They reached out to me to introduce the president as being a descendant of J.B. Stratford, who had the Stratford Hotel actually just steps from where we're standing right now. So where was it? Actually, you walk down almost right past this blue plaque here,

you'll see the plaque on the ground that will show where the Stratford Hotel used to be before the unfortunate massacre, burning and pillaging of the community here. During his speech, the president called it a massacre, not a race riot. Yeah, I think that was definitely the correct term there. When you say race riot, as if there is the same responsibility on, you know, the black people of this community who were receiving this horrific treatment. No, it was not that. This was a massacre of thousands of white people descending upon this community and taking what they had, destroying what they had built and taking their lives, quite frankly. So he's naming it rightfully so. And I think it's part of a reckoning we're doing in the U.S. right now of talking about this dark history in Tulsa and in so many places

around the U.S. that went through these terrible bouts of racial violence. Jelani Cobb, the journalist, sent a tweet out a couple days ago where he said he was surprised the number of whites here in Tulsa who he talked to who still doubted this happened. And that does not surprise me. I think there is an accidental ignorance, yes, from not teaching about this history. But there's a willful ignorance that's going on. You see it even as people are erasing what happened at the January 6th insurrection of how we bury our heads in the sand with history that we don't want to deal with and reckon with and purposefully because sometimes if they have to

reckon with it as you know what we're fighting for then they have to repair and so that's kind of where we're at right now all right then uh last question for you what do you want to see happen next okay uh the 100th commemoration um is finalized okay Okay. What now? What now is we continue the fight in terms of this suit and the reparations. We need to get back. We have survivors from that massacre who are still here, who are waiting for justice. We have descendants who are, have been, who have generational wealth that has been stolen from them. We have communities who have seen their lifeline basically be cut through by urban renewal. What we want to see is that repaired, that justice is bringing that back up into the equitable position that we know it to be.

As Demario from the lawsuit says, it has been a public nuisance for us to experience this. And what we need is that nuisance, the nuisance of the continued history of theft, of inequity to be removed from the plight that we suffer from. So that's what we want to see. All right. Long as you appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you very much. All right, then, folks, we'll go back to my panel.

I want to start with you, Mustafa. We were talking about, of course, the Texas case. We're talking about voter suppression. President Biden brought that up. You have to also tie voter suppression piece to economics because that affects public policy based upon who you elect, who is in control, who is in power. Yeah, we see this playing out across the country, where hundreds of these voter suppression bills have been put in place. And at the same time, when we see that, we know that there's that direct economic tie. We also see that there's a direct tie between many of the injustices that happen in communities, whether it's environmental injustice,

housing injustice, transportation injustice. it's all tied in. And if people can't vote, then the folks who sit on the city councils and the county commissions and in the state houses then have free reign to continue to create these sacrifice zones. You know, they did that there in Tulsa, where they created a sacrifice zone after they stripped all the wealth out, after they murdered people, after they took over the land. And then people had the hard job of trying to find traction and to be able to rebuild. So we understand that our vote is critical,

and we understand that our vote is tied to power, and it's also tied to resources. This is why, Ben, it cracks me up, the people who whine and complain, who say they support reparations, but then they then say don't vote. How do you get something from governments if you don't put the people in place who can give you what you want to get? People don't want to do... There's a segment of people who don't want to commit to the dirty work of actually getting the goals. If we have a goal of reparations, the only way we're going to get it is if we get enough political power.

I mean, just the battle that's ahead of us when it comes to getting reparations, not only do we have to fight against the transnist Republican Party in the House and the Senate, but we have to fight against the totality of white supremacy and capitalism because money is power in this system. And the titans of industry are going to be looking at us fighting for reparations with a side eye. And by side eye, I mean lobbying dollars. They're going to be fighting against us too. And so if anybody's actually serious about giving reparations, we have got to get political power along

with some economic power to fight these fights that are coming up because white supremacy is not going to give us reparations easily. And Teresa, I keep going back to you can't make public policy demands if

you don't have people who are in office who are going to be responsive to your public policy demands. All of these things are connected. Absolutely. And for people to think that they're not connected, they are sadly mistaken. You know, those who work on campaigns know that the transition of power is essential, and part of that transition of power is knowing who's going to be in power in some of those appointed or elected positions. And so it is up to the will of the people during the campaign to express their need for public policy change in a certain area to then curate that relationship as they transition into public office.

So for people to think that the two aren't married, again, are sadly mistaken and are missing the ball on some of the biggest issues that are happening right now. Absolutely. And so I just need people to understand, again, these things are connected the reason we are so aggressive with this is we have to understand what's going on then of course you have stupid people i got some fool on my youtube channel who's not even worth me calling calling that person's name um who keeps talking about who's evil i'm gonna tell you who's evil any party that's endorsing voter about who's evil? I'm going to tell you who's evil. Any party that's endorsing voter suppression, that's evil. Any party that defends Confederate monuments, that's evil.

Any party that normally allows the flying of Confederate flags at their events, that's evil. That's today's Republican Party. One of the things that's also evil is racism. White folks in America love talking about the military and how we love our military, but the reality is African Americans have always had to deal with two things, loving America on one hand and dealing with racism on the other. During World War I and World War II, They had what was called the Double V Campaign, victory at home and victory abroad. And what they were fighting for,

they were fighting for ending fascism and ending racism. Well, guess what? This might be 2021, but black soldiers are still dealing with racism in America's military. The Associated Press put together a significant investigative report specifically dealing with this issue. And joining us right now is Kat Stafford.

She is the National Investigative Race Writer for the Associated Press. And Richard Brookshire, co-founder and executive director of the Black Veterans Project. Glad to have both of you here on Roland Martin Unfiltered. Kat Stafford, talk with us about this project. How did it start? How long did it take to put it together? And what really jumped out at you when y'all were able to finish doing your reporting and put this all together and publish it? Yes, well, first of all, Roland, thank you so

much for having me on to talk about a really important topic that, frankly, I think we don't talk about enough in America, which is, of course, as you just stated, racism in the military. And this project was actually an offshoot of the January 6th Capitol insurrection. And, you know, after what occurred, it started to come out that there were veterans that were involved with this insurrection, right? And so like many media outlets, we started to kind of grapple with how much does extremism impact the military? But an important point that I want to make is you cannot talk about extremism in the military without talking about racism in the military because the two are interlinked. And so what we found was that despite repeated pledges over the decades, really, this

has been a long issue. This is nothing new. But despite these repeated pledges, the military has yet to really deal with racism in the military in a substantial way. We had really heartbreaking interviews with current enlistees, all the way up to officer ranks, right, as well as veterans who kind of detailed how this is a generational issue. And some of our main findings were that the military's judicial system does not have an explicit category for hate crimes, which makes it difficult for them, right, to really figure out how big of an issue is prejudice in the military. We also found that the Defense Department does not have a real way to track how many

troops have been ousted for having extremist views. So these are really concerning things that we have seen a lot of organizations really pleading with the Department of Defense to address. Now, we did get a response from the Department of Defense to address. Now, we did get a response from the Department of Defense, and they said this is something that they are working on. They pointed to several measures, such as increasing implicit bias training. But again, you know, from the folks that we talked to who are on the ground, they said this isn't just the issue of us feeling uncomfortable. You know, we had service members who were telling us just horrific stories of being called racial slurs,

being passed over for promotions. And the key thing here is, yes, racism exists in all of America. So, of course, it may exist in the military. But when you're talking about folks who are in life or death situations, there's an added layer of danger that comes with this, right? And so people are really pushing and hoping that with now Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin coming in, that he will really impart some systemic change. But again, this is change that needs to take place across the board on every single base.

Richard, I love when white folks think somebody black gets in a position that racism just all of a sudden goes away. We have our first black Pentagon secretary, retired four-star general Lloyd Austin. Of course, we've had other black generals as well. And the point that we keep making is just because one black person gets a high position doesn't mean that racism all of a sudden has evaporated. The military and this investigation, they talked about people who are on present day duty of what they're dealing with, the kind of racism in all branches of the U.S. military? Yeah. Well, first, thanks for having me. We started our project about three years ago because we saw that there was a lack of real digital

conversation about how racism pervades the military, but also how it's tied to the present day manifestations of disparities that we see around veterans. And one thing I like to say when it comes to Secretary Austin, though, I believe his appointment is important. We've had a black commander in chief. Right. And so these things remain pervasive. Questions from my panelists, I will start with you, Mustafa. Your question for Richard and Kat. So what type of additional training do you think that those who are in leadership need to be able to make real change happen? And the other part of that is what type of accountability needs to be tied to that training? So once someone is trained, then they're held accountable if they don't live up to that.

I'll jump in there. The military has the policies in place. They've had the policies in place for quite some time. They don't want to carry out those policies because of what the implications might be, because racism exists not only from the bottom in the enlisted corps, but all the way up to the top brass of the military. And so when you start to have a conversation about race and their focus on extremism, I believe is a misnomer, right? Extremism, how do you even qualify that? Somebody has to become a neo-Nazi and go commit a hate crime. We know that, you know, the creation of hostile work environments, the kind of passive things that were being spoken about and overt things that were being spoken about earlier are quite rampant and they have generational effects, especially when you become a veteran, when you

talk about the military justice system, the same kind of racial disparities that we see in our civilian courts replicate themselves, except they have even more, in some respects, economic implications. And so the military actually has to have the courage to abide by its own policies and procedures and root out racists, right? And so when you think about the witch hunt that was Don't Ask, Don't Tell and how effectively careers were ended under that policy, certainly applying these policies around racism could be executed. But the implications are there are going to be so many people on so many different levels who, frankly, are going to be at risk of being kicked out, right? And so there's also this conversation about the infiltration of white nationalists in the military, also a

misnomer. They've always been there. The military has been white man's land, right? This kind of institution that was beyond reproach, right? Self-governing in many ways. And one of the things that we at the Black Veterans Project are really looking at are what are the real systemic shifts that need to happen, apart from just the policies of the DOD, who are really a self-governing apparatus. We're looking at the fact that no civil rights protections exist at the federal level that apply to the military. The military is its own self-governing apparatus. So what we're trying to think through and we're working hand in hand with some congressional leaders on is something called the Military Civil Rights Act. And how that holds the military accountable is that it would have to abide by the same civilian protocols under equal opportunity and the same enforcement

measures, right? So in this article in AP, it talked about 750 complaints of racial discrimination in the year 2020 alone. We have 1.5 million service members. Those numbers don't add up, right, because they know that there is fears of retribution. There are wide-reaching implications if you do make complaints. And even one of the things that we were able to do last year, we were really pushing for the release of racial bias survey data that the DOD collects every two years. And our advocacy, along with the report by Reuters, were able to force the DOD's hand to release just one single year of that data. And it was damning, right? It said one in four service members had witnessed

white nationalism in the military. One in four, also a misnomer. 350,000 military personnel had witnessed in that year alone white nationalism being espoused. And so when you have DOD leadership saying that extremism isn't pervasive, it's a misnomer. And I like to make that very, very clear. If I could just jump in. Theresa, your... Kat, go ahead. I just wanted to make a quick point. During the course of several interviews that we did, we had

veterans and others who said, and experts as well, who made this point that you can have all of the policies in the world put in place. We are seeing movement. Earlier this year, they passed the new National Defense Authorization Act with some sweeping changes, right, that would add, for instance, an inspector general who would be tasked with focusing on diversity and inclusion efforts, as well as weeding out extremism. But again, if you don't

have the right people in place on the ground on these bases where a lot of these issues are happening, what real impact will it have? And that is something that we are still seeing service members ask. You know, they're saying it's great, it's encouraging to see now Secretary Austin at the helm of the Department of Defense. But again, you know, it's a lot of separation from the top and what's happening on the ground. And I do want to make one note that while Black folks are represented well in the rank and file in terms of who you're seeing serve in the military, as you start to rise up those ranks, looking at officers, looking at generals, it is overwhelmingly white. And that is also part of the issue. I'll jump in there one more time. So one of our main research projects in the next year or two is to look at how military recruitment works writ large. Our new director of policy and research while at Columbia did a study of just the city of San Diego looking at recruitment centers and did some geospatial mapping and was able to prove that there were recruitment centers strictly for enlisted

in these kind of more impoverished black neighborhoods, and the officer recruitment centers were in affluent white neighborhoods. So this is a system that the military deliberately has put in place. Teresa, your question. Yes. Well, one, thank you both. I think that is a full wealth of knowledge. I have a few family members who are currently in the military and those who have enlisted. So one of my questions is, if we are looking at the recruitment process a little bit more intensively, because as you know, some of these recruitment officers are showing up at, you know, colleges and practically high schools at this point. Some of the measures, I think,

that you're putting out, is that also going to help in that sort of dialogue with, you know, some of the civil rights pieces? Yeah, I mean, so a recent report that took about three years to actually come together was looking at the nominations processes for the more elite military schools like West Point, like the Naval Academy. And what they saw was something that we all know to be true. There was a dearth, right? And so when you look at military top brass, many of them have come through these schools. And so making sure that African-American communities are abreast of the opportunities, which is the minimum bar to become an officer, that sign up as enlisted because they have bad recruiters, frankly. And they don't know the information. And so there needs to be efforts. And part of our project's work will be in

combination with other organizations to do a public education drive, essentially, so that younger people who want to join the military are equipped with the knowledge that they need, so that this disparity, this really stark disparity around 8% of the officer corps is made up of Black folk when there's 16%, or around 16% of the U.S. population, that needs to be addressed. And it's not that it can't be addressed. There's an unwillingness to address it. And if I could jump in and make another point, you know, one of the lead folks that we interviewed in this story, this was a woman who literally rose through the ranks of the Air Force, reaching the height of becoming a lieutenant colonel, right? This is a woman who has multiple

medical degrees. She's a doctor. And even though she reached this height, she still faced so much racism. She told me stories about how she had white subordinates who refused to salute her, which is something that is a major issue in the military. She talked about how she was caught racial slurs while she was trying to help patients in the Air Force. So, again, you know, it's one thing to recruit these folks to help make sure that they are rising through the ranks, but again, even though they are reaching the highest of heights within the military, they are still faced with racism. Ben, your question. Yeah, I wonder to what extent either one of you could speak to the reality that,

much like America is built off of, it's a racist white supremacist system, therefore its military is going to be the same. Dr. King's saying that he feared that he assimilated us into a burning house. Is representation in the military in these ranks going to actually be achievable when we're literally fighting against the white supremacist core and the tools of white supremacy, the weapon of imperialism that's built on these ideas and these ideologies literally built on the blood of black people and native people. But can we actually get that change from within?

If you could just speak to that. Yeah, you have to work from outside and within. I mean, I'm a vet. I served for seven years, deployed to Afghanistan, and I'm very much on the outside now, wanting to hold the military accountable. And I agree with all the points that you made. And I think it's something that double consciousness that Du Bois speaks of. Sometimes there's a triple consciousness when you actually have to serve the country. And you have to understand that most of the motivating factors that Black people even have to join are education,

health care, housing, these things that all Americans are fighting for. And so when you think about even wanting to curb the kind of participation in this apparatus, we have to address that as a country. So the motivations are different for those who want to serve. I also think it's very important that black folk are represented in this institution, because by default, if we're not, we're going to allow this critical American institution that will not be going anywhere to be ravaged by white supremacists. And I don't want to see the world in that way. But when I talk about even the Military Civil Rights Act, one of the big things that we have to really think about is the ways in which the

coffers of the military are protected, right? And so when you go through the equal opportunity mechanism, say, if you are aggrieved around racial lines, you don't really have redress. Someone might get demoted, perhaps, you know, get kicked out of the military, but there's no financial recompense. And so there's something called Faris Doctrine that's been in place right after Eisenhower said that we were on the cusp of a military-industrial complex, because we very much have a war economy in this country that we've not wanted to confront. And so, for Reese, that bars people who serve in the military from being able to levy suit against the military. That's a baseline worker protection. And so, for us at the Black Veterans Project, in combination with a lot of other organizations as well, we're thinking about how can we

systematically shift this military that is shifting, like technology is shifting what the military looks like. You have less than 1% of the American population that's serving, but it's taking 50% of all discretionary money that we have at our disposal. And so what are the implications there? And so I think that Americans have to start to pay attention to the ways in which the military is raping the American public so that they don't have education, housing, health care. So I fully agree with you, and it has to be a multifaceted approach. All right, then, folks. I appreciate it. Kat, for folks who have not seen it, where can they go to read this investigative report? You can go to APnews.com to see our latest report.

You can just Google racism in the military. The great thing about the AP is our stories go everywhere. All right, then. Richard, Kat, we appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thanks. Thank you. All right, folks, got to go to a break.

We come back more from Tulsa, Oklahoma, where we have been since last week commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre here in the Greenwood District. We'll be back in a moment. George Floyd's death hopefully put another nail in the coffin of racism. You talk about awakening America. It led to a historic summer of protest. I hope our younger generation don't ever forget that nonviolence Shortly after 9-11, America and its allies went to war in Afghanistan to defeat a terrorist stronghold. We accomplished that mission years ago. Trillions of dollars lost, over 2,000 Americans dead, countless Afghans dead.

It's time to get out. Many presidents have tried to end the war in Afghanistan, but President Biden is actually going to do it. And by 9-11, over 20 years after the war was started, the last American soldier will depart, and America's longest war will be over. Promise made, promise kept. Portil's murder. We saw struggle for civil rights as something grown-ups did.

I feel that the generations before us have offered a lot of instruction. Organizing is really fan of the structure. Organizing is really one of the only things that gives me the sanity and makes me feel purposeful. When Emmett Till was murdered, that's what attracted our attention. Carl Payne pretended to be Roland Martin. Holla! Hi, I'm Chaley Rose, and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered.

Folks, welcome back to the Greenwood District here in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Look, we've been here since Thursday broadcasting, giving people a sense of what's been happening here for the 100th commemoration of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. A number of folks we've talked to here, people who are from here, descendants, opportunity y'all heard yesterday from two of the three survivors of that race massacre, which took place 100 years ago. Last night, sundown, went all the way through sunrise, just complete devastation, 36 square blocks completely destroyed. A lot of people we've been seeing here. My next guest, haven't seen her in a while, Dr. Maya Rocky Moore Cummings.

Of course, she is a former head of the Maryland Democratic Party. You know, she also has been involved in economic issues as well, women's leadership issues as well. And so always glad to see her. Why did you come to Tulsa? Why Tulsa? Why did you come? Oh, my gosh. A lot of folks stayed at home Memorial Day weekend. So why'd you say I got to be here? First of all, I'm vaccinated.

Second of all, same here. This was my first trip out like in a year and some months. And so I felt like it was appropriate on the 100th anniversary since the massacre of all of these black folks who lived here, were leading decent lives, were upstanding citizens, were successful, who were building wealth, since they were murdered in cold blood by white residents of this town, who I personally think were jealous of their success. And so, you know, what we face continuously in this country is an effort to, I think, set us back every time we try to take two steps forward. There are efforts like Greenwood, where they either through policy, through practice, they

put us two steps behind. And so with that, we've got to commemorate the history. We never should forget this effort that's happening at the national level to prevent white kids, especially from learning the history of violence, white violence in this country, I think is in line with what we've seen here in Greenwood, where they tried to hide and cover up the evidence of a massacre. And certainly we've got to mark our way forward. This is the marker for getting the racial wealth gap addressed in this country.

So as you well know, I've been an advocate for closing the racial wealth gap now going on 15, 20 years. I would put out an agenda around closing the racial wealth gap. We've got legislation in Congress that we've been advancing. And so with that, I felt it was appropriate to come here, pay my respects, but also to talk about the importance of what we need to do to close the gap in this country. It also was an issue. Your late husband believed in Congressman Elijah Cummings, which also was an issue. The late congressman from Maryland, Perrin Mitchell, as well. And this is and the thing that that I keep emphasizing to folks when we talk about this

is that, and Hill Harper and I will have that conversation, we're talking about how folks say, do for self, do for self, do for self. Then you have white folks talk about lift yourself up by your own bootstraps, when the reality is white wealth was created because of government handouts because of the homestead act even now other contracts uh elon musk his billions was because of tax rebates tax abatements uh and so uh folk have somehow uh convinced us that they did it all on their own when it's like, no, no, no, no, no. You actually got reparations. It was because of whiteness. You got victims' compensation fund.

You got handouts. You got all of those things. And when the folks who are suing the black farmers, I'm sitting there going, white farmers got most of the 98% or $25 billion in the last four years, but now you're acting a fool when they set aside $5 billion for black farmers and other disadvantaged farmers. Absolutely, absolutely. So you said it. I mean, white wealth in this country has been continuously subsidized by policy, government policy.

And it's been that way since the dawn of time. And black wealth, the lack of black wealth is because of also government policy. We're talking about slavery. If we're talking about Jim Crow, you know, you name it. If we're talking about, you know, the denial of initial social security benefits, if we're talking about the denial of initial GI bill benefits, you know, if we're talking about the denial of any benefits from the Homestead Act, you know, basically African-Americans have been left out or oppressed through government policies. And so this is what I argued this morning in the opening session of the plenary

that was held over at the convention center. And, you know, I think that it's important for us to realize that history. And yes, while some progress has been made, not enough. We're losing ground. And if you look at the statistics on the racial wealth gap, you know, African-Americans are losing ground even from 25, 30 years ago. We are basically in the pandemic has made it even worse. So with that, we are at a critical moment in time. It's time to address this issue. It's time to do what needs to be done in order for us to move forward and to become whole. I'm glad you mentioned that, folks. If you go to if you go to my iPad, I was supposed to speak at that same conference, but I had to be inside the bubble here, so I couldn't do it.

But when I went over there to interview John Rogers, I'm going to show this interview in a little bit, they had all the silence up of the sponsors. Go to my iPad, please. And the thing that I said that I've been saying on the show and when he was here as well of these sponsors what's their black spend yeah what's interesting about that is they lucky i couldn't make that panel because i was going to ask them in front of everybody what's your black spend right well what's interesting about it is the nationwide people at least were actually

arguing for the black spend they were arguing for the black money managers. They were making that argument. JPMorgan Chase has been historically our partner on closing the racial wealth gap in the D.C. world. So I think at least nationwide and JPMorgan Chase have some kind of sensibility about it. But here's what I mean by the black spin. What I mean by that is, are they practicing what they're preaching? And that is, I want to know what's your black media spin? What's your black, if you're using outside law firms, are any of them black? If you're using accounting firms, are any of them black? When they have their bond offering, are they using any African Americans for that? Any black caterers any black

transportation they're gonna have to answer for that i don't know no no no no no no no i'll say hello i didn't ask diverse here's the deal i don't ask for diverse i want to know black i don't want to know i don't i don't want to know women i want to to know black women. And so I'm real specific in that because here's why. I'm used to companies giving me that big number but not the percentage. Right. Or giving me the percentage, not the number. Right. I want to know both.

Right. Because if you don't separate it that way, then you can't track it. Right. Then you can't say, well, because I want to know. If you're nationwide, what's the percentage of your black policies, that black people hold your policies? Are we actually spending more on policies than we're getting back? See, that's how we have to be very specific.

Right. So when the companies are sponsoring stuff, to me, or even our organizations, I believe there should be a race index. If you want to roll with us, answer these questions. So we see it's.5, 1%, 2%, we're going to have a conversation. And John Rogers is the king of that conversation. Well, John and I discussed that earlier. And that's the point. That's the question he always asks.

That's why John said no more supply diversity yeah he john said stop using the phrase yeah yeah so he said that earlier okay okay yeah no this is all credible i mean here we are in 2021 still asking the same questions that parra mitchell was asking so many years ago and so yeah we got we've got work to do. And, frankly, you know, I think Greenwood, Tulsa just embodies, you know, the challenges that we face in this country. And so we can't forget the history. We can't forget at all. All right. Well, Maya, it is good to see you.

Good to see you, too. It is good to see you out. Ain't nothing changed. We still are raw and black, so that ain't changed. Tell the family I said hello. I will do that. Good seeing you, doll Ain't nothing changed. We still raw and black. So that ain't changed. Tell the family I said hello. I will do that. Good seeing you, doll.

You take care. Folks, as I said, I talked to John Rogers, Arrow Capital Management. John is a descendant of the Tulsa Race Massacre from 1921. And so here's the conversation that we had one of the top money managers, top money managers in the country, but certainly one of the top black money managers in the country as well. And for folks who don't know, I mean, you're one of the Tulsa race massacre descendants. Yes, I've been very blessed. I'm an extraordinary family. And my great grandfather was J.B. Stratford, who owned the Stratford Hotel here in Tulsa.

And it was arguably the largest black-owned hotel in the country, and it was extraordinarily successful. And, of course, it was destroyed in the race massacre, and he had to escape Tulsa because he was seen as a leader in the community. And there was real fear that he was going to be not only indicted but possibly lynched. So he was fortunate to escape Tulsa during that period. And, you know, I saw the Stanley Nelson documentary and he defended that hotel. He was, they tell the story where he had his gun, his son was loading, he would empty, switch, fire, switch, fire. I mean, so he, and in fact, did they also negotiate his surrender and then immediately burned it down as soon as he came out?

Exactly. They negotiated his surrender. He went to the internment camp and while he was leaving, they just torched the entire place and destroyed his hotel, his life's work. The thing that we keep talking about, and I say this all the time, the problem that we've had is this has been black economics up, down, up, down. We've never had really two to three consecutive generations of continuum. So we're constantly having to rebuild, in essence, what they had to do here in Greenwood. Exactly right. We're always, you know, you look at what happened to the People's Grocery Store in Tennessee. You see what happened after, you know, slavery ended. We're always, you know, you look at what happened to the People's Grocery Store in Tennessee. You see what happened after, you know, slavery ended. We were supposed to get the 40 acres and a mule.

You know, what happened to Freedmen's Bank in D.C. Every time we start to make progress, they destroy us, you know, and they find some way. The housing crisis in 2008, same thing. 53% of black wealth wiped out. Exactly. And, you know, so many of these situations, you know, this white supremacists, that part of a community back in Tulsa 100 years ago, they couldn't stand to see our success. You know, they couldn't be supremacists if we were starting to overcome them and actually outperform them. Now, you and I have been talking the same thing, pushing people in these pension funds, pushing these companies,

saying, look, don't just sit here and say we will sponsor conferences and give donations. No, we're not interested in aid to black America. We want investment in black America. Exactly. And you and I are a generation we learned from Harold Washington and Maynard Jackson that you have to fight to have economic businesses of scale in urban communities so we can have our own, create our own jobs, create our own philanthropy, create our own political empowerment when we have businesses of scale. And so we have to fight that economic justice.

Last question, what do you want folks to be doing June 2nd, June 3rd, June 4th? We are great at commemorating or celebrating, but after the commemoration. I think the model could be here in Tulsa. We have to all, as black leaders, whether it's political leaders, business leaders, civil rights leaders, insist that the anchor institutions in our local communities, the hospitals, the universities, corporations and museums, work with black businesses in everything they do. Not just in the supply chain, but in professional services, in media, in financial services, in technology. That's where the wealth is created today.

So we should all be on a mission not to hold all these anchor institutions accountable because most of the time they're spending all the money still with white males and leaving us out. Absolutely. John, always a pleasure. We'll keep talking. I appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you.

All right. Great conversation there with John Rodgers of Arrow Capital Management. Folks, there have been so many different people we have been talking to here about this very issue, about the issue of economics. One of the folks who sits on the House Financial Services Committee, She is the chairwoman of that. I had a chance to catch up with Congresswoman Maxine Waters when we chatted on Sunday here in front of Vernon AME. Here's our conversation. Yes. Why was it important for you to be here? It's important for me to be here, number one,

because we've been hearing the story about Black Wall Street for years. And we've not been able to use the power and influence that we supposedly have to do something about it. And with now this commemoration of 100 years, it's time to step it up. And as the chair of the Financial Services Committee, I think I better bring in some banks and some insurance companies. And I think that's why I'm here. I'm here with a leading business fan from the Los Angeles area, Kareem Webb, and my son, Ed Waters, who have come here. And we have all come here because we felt this is the place where we have to be. You talked about those particular banks.

One of the things you talked about, all of these businesses were insured 100 years ago. Well, yes. And those insurance companies and those banks would not honor those policies. They didn't honor the policies. And I understand that the bank books got burned up when they set fire to the whole Greenwood. And of course, the banks didn't recognize that they had accounts there. And then the insurance companies where businesses and just regular individuals have been paying these premiums for all of these years could not be compensated because they said, oh, the contracts are such that this was a riot. And we don't we don't deal with, you know, making you whole when you have been involved in

a riot when it was a massacre. And so a lot. It was not a race riot. No, it was a massacre. Black people are minding their own business. That's right. That's right. That's right. Talk about I always explain to people we can talk about mass incarceration. We can talk about criminal justice reform. We can talk about all these issues. But if you do not deal with the money, you're not dealing with America. Well, absolutely. And to tell you the truth, we talk about the wealth gap. And, you know, whites would have you believe there's a wealth gap because we don't do our part. We don't work hard enough.

We don't invest. We don't understand. It's none of that. It is about the traditional pattern of and the laws of the land that have excluded us in every place. And not only have they excluded us where we were doing well, they interfered with our ability to do well. Just as what you see going on in the legislatures now, where they have decided to go one step further on voter suppression. It's the same kind of laws that operated economically that kept us from being involved and building the wealth. And now we keep talking about how we're going to fill the race gap.

The only way that we're going to be able to do that is we're going to have to deal with places like Greenwood and understand what happened there and be prepared to do the work, the protesting, the legislating, and the challenging of the banks and the financial institutions. And nobody knows that better than Mr. Kareem Webb. Kareem, speak to that, because the thing is we've had all of our businesses. We've had, but the thing I keep saying, like I'm involved in this fight with Byron Allen

and Todd Brown and Butch Graves on the advertising side. We got black businesses don't have capacity. They're small. Then they say, oh, you're too small so that we can do business with you. Then the banks say, well, we can't lend because you're too small. Well, hell, I'm too small

because you don't want to give contracts for me to get bigger. So because it's self-fulfilling prophecy. No, I think that's where policy again comes into play and who is creating the policy with an understanding about what's at the end. You have to reverse engineer the actuality, what you want to see happen. And there's a way in which to do that. I'm a commissioner at Los Angeles International Airport. We know a billion dollars of revenue comes through there. We're spending almost $20 billion. The question is, we're 11% of Los Angeles.

Do we get 11% of the dollars? And it's not about whether or not somebody is prepared. We have to be willing to do what's wanted and needed to get folks prepared, to bond people, to do whatever it is that's needed in order to ensure that the outcome happens. And if it's not happening, then like we problem solve for everything else, we ought to be problem solving for that until we get to parity. The conversation that we got to have is about parity. Parity is fairness.

And what I keep saying is I'm not interested in announcements and press releases. Yes. I want to see the deposits, the contracts. That's right. That's the deal. When we met with General Motors, I said, nearly 12% of your market share are African Americans. I said, y'all been spending 1% and 2%.

I said, how would y'all like if your market share goes from 12% to 1% and 2%? I said, a bunch of y'all are going to get fired. That's right. Absolutely. Well, you know, it was mentioned today in the panel that we did that there are attempts to not educate and not allow young people, and blacks in particular, to know the history of what has taken place. My son is a varsity basketball coach at Crenshaw High, but he's putting his time into junior

achievement to teach them how to become interneurs and business people. Well, because the basketball players, they are law firms, accounting firms, marketing firms who work with him. I keep telling brothers and sisters, you can be in the NBA without bouncing a ball. That's right. Well, once we put the pressure on them and get the platform, now it's about financial literacy. And so that's the big thing in building the wealth gap. And so all of it works together for one. So that's what we're talking to our young people about, learning how to get good credit, learning how to deal with banks.

And so while we put this pressure on this side, we'll have them ready when it's our time. Well, you know, we've been talking for years. I'm there. But it's also why I also keep saying our folk, because I've had people come up to me and they're like, man, it'd be nice if you got a TV show. I said, no, no, no, no. They would own it. I said, when we own it, we now get to control the conversation. That's right. That's right. Otherwise, they tell you what you can and cannot say and what you can and cannot do. And where you can and cannot go. Oh, absolutely.

I didn't have to ask anybody to come here. I looked in the mirror and I was like, we're going to Tulsa. And here you are. And look at the people here, out here, that you get a chance to interact with and hear from. You've got descendants of the victims of what happened in 1921. And I pay attention to what they say and how they feel and what they know and understand about their history. And you have the opportunity to do that. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you. All right, folks, that was Conquering Maxine Waters. As I said, she chairs the House Federal Services Committee, talking about, again, how to use her power in Congress to address a lot of these issues.

Congresswoman Cori Bush, of course, she is from St. Louis. She also has been here talking about these issues, what needs to happen. Here's Congresswoman Cori Bush. In getting folks to understand that you have to deal with black economic social justice and not just social justice. Absolutely. Absolutely. We have because economically, if we're not at a place where we can have our own wealth, if we're not at a place where we can, because if we have if we have our own wealth, then our people are whole because they're healthy, because they live in neighborhoods where they have clean water, clean air. You know, they live in neighborhoods where the housing is. The housing is is safe. They live in neighborhoods where we don't have to rely on the police for our safety because we know that that doesn't make us safe. You know, when we are in a place where we can rely on ourselves

and we can move our dollar in our own communities, that's how we build. But when we don't have that, when somebody else gets to dictate to us because financially we're not well, then that's how we end up in the place that we're in right now. But I want to hear what you say, rely on ourselves. I had this conversation, people kind of like, we've got to do for self. I said, well, first of all, I own my own show, so I don't need nobody explaining to me do for self. But what I keep explaining to people, though, is that do for self is vital, but getting those contracts are also vital. Because, see, they ain't doing for self.

See, and I think people get confused when they hear that phrase, not realizing that those corporate contracts, those city contracts, those county contracts, those state contracts, those federal contracts, we're taxpayers. That's our money. Absolutely. So we shouldn't be forced into a situation where we're only doing for ourselves and completely shut out of the billions upon billions that are flowing that we're paying into. Oh, absolutely. We should never, nothing should be, so we shouldn't limit ourselves that way. So my life is limitless.

I don't put any limits. I don't, the sky is not even my limit. So absolutely not. But what I mean is when we don't have to rely. So when we don't have to rely. Let me say this. Those contracts and all of those things, when we have politicians who are able to be elected because the money is there to be able to get them in a seat, then that's how we get pushed back. But when we have our own money and we can put up our own

people to get into these seats, you have people like my new mayor, Tashara Jones in St. Louis. You have people like me, who was the very first black woman to ever hold this whole go to Congress from my state in the history of my state. That's what you get. You know, and even though we didn't do it with money, we did it with organizing. But if there if we had a structure to be able to make sure that people, regardless of if you have a title, if you have a name, if you have, you know, if you had that structure, things could change. But so then those corporations will have to come to us.

Those corporations wouldn't be able to say, you know what, we have this quota, but in actuality, they don't feel it. They end up doing something different where we get to see our construction workers building in our communities that actually look like us instead of saying that we're bringing people into the community that look like you and they're going to be the ones on these jobs. No, we get to actually hold them accountable. So that's what I mean. We get

to make sure that black businesses are built and are sustained. I know what you mean. What I try to walk people through to understand that look, we should never walk away from money, our money that's being spent. It's sort of like, it's like the pension funds. You got all these black public workers and you got white pension fund managers.

Pension funds drive Wall Street. They drive venture capital. And so I'm sitting there going, yo, that's public worker money. I'm like, and I sit with black workers who went, wait a minute, hold up. They said, so you're telling me that our pension fund money? I'm like, yes, those are the greatest investors on Wall Street, and those black workers had no idea. I said, so you should be saying, what are black pension fund managers?

What are black law firms? What are black accounting firms? I said, we got to be driving a different conversation but but also with that we we have to expose our people to that type of so we don't know what we don't know so we don't know that that's even a thing unless somebody that knows it's a thing brings that to us and so that's why we have to so having them that's why we got black media exactly like home because black. Ain't having a conversation. You know, that's that's the point. That's the point. And so when we get in positions, you can be in this position like this.

If you didn't have some backing from some from some other folks and you had a push. Let me just say you had a push to get out to do this thing on your own, but you didn't do it by yourself. And so that's the thing, you know, and you looked at who has information that I don't have to be able to help me to get into, because it wasn't easy for you to be able to do that. You had to find, you had to find people that knew. So that's my point. We have these secrets. One thing that we've seen, and especially in politics, but definitely in, when we talk about generational wealth, these secrets of how to get and what to do, we can have all the financial literacy classes we want to.

We can teach our kids all this. But if we are not making sure that those that have those secrets bring those secrets down, then, yeah, our bank account, it may not be $400. We may have $1,000 in it. But did we really get some generational wealth? I literally had somebody say to me, they said they rolling man you know you know you sharing all your stuff i said why should i keep it to myself exactly exactly exactly exactly it's not the way that i see it i'm gonna get mine yeah but i should keep the information to myself right because that doesn't stop you

getting yours doesn't stop somebody else from you know it doesn't stop you getting yours. It doesn't stop somebody else from, you know, it doesn't stop you from eating. But if you tell somebody else, like, how do you not eat? How are you not well because you told somebody else how to do their thing? You know, but now I will say this. We also want to make sure that folks pay us our worth. That's right. And we want to make sure that people understand the, what we have put in to be able to get there. And so,

you know, that's the other thing. People don't want to pay us. They don't pay us. They don't pay us. And so anyway, so that's, that's my soapbox. It's all about the money.

It's always good seeing you. We don't keep swinging, keep swinging. That's right. That's right. All right. I appreciate you. Thank you.

I got a few more interviews, but I do want to get final comments and release my panel who join us today. Mustafa, your final comment on this 100th anniversary of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre. Well, black wealth equals black opportunity, which equals black power. And we should understand that when those three things come together, then we can actually transform our communities and we can hold others accountable for the changes that have to happen. Ben Dixon. I think of the amount that black people are able to get done when white supremacy is not in our way. And if white supremacy would get out of our way, not only in terms of the racism, but in terms of the capitalistic grip that it has on the black community, if we were able to get the

escape velocity out of it, we see what we can do. We saw it in Tulsa, but that wasn't good enough for the white people in this country. They bombed it. We see it in the military, but that wasn't good enough. We didn't get the GI Bill. We saw it when it timed to buy properties, but then they started redlining. And then we got properties and we had the crash of 2008. And we see over and over and over again, the grips of both white supremacy and capitalism has on this, on black people particularly. But if they ever let us free and we ever get the shackles off of us, we can do so much more because we have been taught all of our lives that we have to be 10 times as good to get half as much. But wait till we get what we deserve.

Teresa. The time is now more than ever for us to stick together, for us to grow and to empower each other. So not only supporting black media outlets, but supporting black businesses and supporting black people. So we have to make sure that public policy elected officials are held accountable, but more so corporations are being held accountable as well. Well, I certainly agree with all that. Glad to have you all today on our special edition of Roller Martin Unfiltered from Tulsa. Thanks a lot.

Thank you. Dr. Pamela Hill is a professor at the University of Texas at Arlington in African American Studies. And I had a chance to catch up with her to share her thoughts again on where we stand in terms of going next when it comes to Tulsa. Here's our conversation. But what should it do going forward? Going forward, we should first understand what reparations is. We need to know that historically other people have been granted reparations. And it's nice that we have a festival and they're building things,

but that is not going to take place of what is owed to the people. been granted reparations. And it's nice that we have a festival and they're building things, but that is not going to take place of what is owed to the people. It's important that we know this is a commemoration and not a festival to have fun, but to remember that we are on sacred ground, that blood was shed here, that the ancestors' bones lined some of these streets. That's why the words matter. Yes. Some people have used celebration. Exactly. I keep saying, no, you got to use commemoration. It's the same thing when we commemorate the anniversary of Dr. King's killing. So, you know, they celebrate. And so even that words matter. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. And again, what we see happening here is to change the narrative to say, well, we're celebrating and we're doing this, but what are you doing for the survivors and the descendants?

If you understand generational wealth, it's been lost. And no building of a history center or a wall of hope or whatever it's called or naming the street black lives matter is going to have an impact on what truly happened it's a cover-up say see we're doing something so y'all just be quiet now be happy be glad and don't and by the way don't learn your history don't learn your culture and one of the things that's very important uh roland is that people must understand this attack on critical race theory, that's not being taught to children. At all. That's taught at the institutional level.

I've taught that course. What it is, is that it's the fear that little Johnny and little Timmy will become anti-racist activists, leaders, and guess what, politicians. Yeah, because they will then know I would say they will then know history, not his story. Exactly. And so, but one of their leaders actually wrote it. What he said on Twitter.

He said, our whole point here is to essentially put anything dealing with, using critical race theory, by attacking that, is to put anything dealing with race underneath that. Exactly.

So that way they want to invalidate and attack everything, and that's what the strategy is. And also what they realize is over the summer of the last couple of years, they've seen their white children out on the protest line saying, Black Lives Matter, or we can't have that. Let's change the narrative quickly. Let's put it into law quickly so that we can force people not to teach it. On Friday, when we had to march down Greenwood and cover middle school children were outside, and one little boy said, put me on film. I turned the camera on him. I said, what do you want to say? He said, don't be racist. His friend next to him said, I want to learn black history because I think it's interesting.

And these are two little white boys. This is the fear that these little white boys will grow up to be anti-racist and activists and leaders and politicians and make laws to be correct. Well, I think that, first of all, you're absolutely right, because what I tell folks is that after George Floyd's death, the reason you get this shift, if you will, because it was a whole bunch of white folks who were out front, who were driving that, and who was also forcing these chains inside of these corporations. I said, and then they were like, oh, damn, we've got to figure out what in the hell to do, because, see, now our own folks are doing it. But, see, what I'm now challenging them is, so perfect example,

millions were out in America and across the world after George Floyd's death. The question is, are they going to return to the streets to make sure the George Floyd justice act gets passed? Are they going to return to the streets to make sure the suppression ends? They have to understand, which we've always understood, you can't be in this thing for a couple of days, a couple of weeks. Yes. And just be a t-shirt or a name-bearer. You can't do that. Right. And just like in Texas, okay, what has just happened is that

the Republicans are getting ready to pass another voter suppression law. And one of the issues is that you can't vote on Sundays after 1 p.m. We know how to use church at 9 a.m. and go to the polls. You know, I mean, so what they're failing to realize is that you can't pull that okey-doke on the people who already know. There you go.

Try it on somebody else. All right. I appreciate it. Thank you, brother. Thanks a bunch. All right. See, I got you. All right. Glad to talk got you. All right.

Glad to talk to Dr. Hill there, getting her expertise. Rashad Robinson, of course, leads the Color of Change. They have been very much involved in holding corporations accountable, working with folks here on the issue and the Justice for Greenwood Committee. And so we talked to Rashad the other day at the luncheon for the Sbaras and descendants. This weekend, but moving forward, what should folks be focused on moving forward to make sure folks here get black economic social justice? Well, we need to be focused on real structural change and real resources. You know, so much money was raised around this moment by white establishments,

was given by corporations, and that money did not actually go to the survivors, to the descendants, not being controlled actually by the community. And so much of what needs to happen moving forward is to not have things happen in people's names without them actually being part of it. And that's why back in 2019, we got involved with supporting the work of Dr. Crutcher and DeMario, and really through our petition work, we launched a petition campaign. And over the last several weeks, I've only ramped that up to really try to put the focus and the energy on ensuring that resources go to the right places and that the community actually gets to control the resources.

And none of this sort of the people who are outside the community are controlling things in their name. Well, one of the things that I have been saying that, look, white folks are scared to death of the word reparations. Okay, fine. I'm going to use what they would do with 9-11, a victim's compensation fund. I argue that if Tulsa wants to sit here and they want to do tourism and they want to sort of bring people here, fine. You need to ensure that portion of those hotel rooms, a fee, receipts from restaurants, that

the money should go into that particular fund. Because we've seen how other southern cities have monetized Black Payne. They admitted here going to Montgomery, studying there there what they've done with museums and whatever. And so Alabama, Mississippi, these places, they're now marketing the civil rights movement, places where they fought to keep black folks in place. I mean, the Disneyfication of our pain is absolutely outrageous. In all of the sort of years of exclusion,

the generational ways in which it's had deep impact on our lives. You know, the chair of my board, Heather McGee, recently came out with a book where she talks about all of the sort of filling in of public pools after the Civil Rights Movement, how they would rather fill in the pool than let black people swim there, right? And sort of black people were already paying taxes for those pools to actually be in place. And then when it says black people get to use it,

we're just going to fill the pool in. Well, the sort of drain pool politics that has sort of animated how, not just what's happened in the South, but what's happened throughout the North and throughout this country has to end. And part of, if we are going to move forward, we have to hold institutions fully accountable. That is why we run corporate accountability campaigns,

because corporations can't just come in with charitable solutions to problems that are actually structural. Just don't send water bottles to Flint if you're not paying your fair share of the taxes, and that's why the community doesn't have clean pipes. Don't just do service days in inner-city schools if you're not actually paying your fair share of taxes, not actually contributing, that you've actually been responsible for your lobbying for the desecration of public education in this country as it became more integrated. The inequality is not unfortunate like a car accident. It is unjust, and it's been manufactured.

And those that have manufactured need to be held accountable. But just as importantly, we need to build new structures to move forward so communities get better. All right. We appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Appreciate you. All right.

That was Rashad Robertson with Color of Change. Folks, we are almost done here. We have had some amazing conversations with folks about what's been happening here in Greenwood, what they're trying to have get done, what they're trying to build, what they're trying to start up. And that was one woman we caught up with, and one of the things that they did was try to get people to support black businesses here. And so this sister here, she came by our spot.

I said, I got 90 seconds for you. And she explained how they were using a QR code on banners to be able to get people to, when they come to Tulsa, to actually go do black businesses and spend their dollars. Watch this. So, Tracy, you are one of the descendants of the Tulsa Massacre. We've been here. Folks have been talking about Greenwood, Black Wall Street.

But you were sharing with me something that y'all have done to make it easier for folks to support black businesses, black-owned businesses in Tulsa. Explain that. Absolutely. As you noticed, being on Greenwood, there's not a lot of African-American business in that particular area. So what we've done is we create a banner that's in memorial for those that have lost their lives, as well as the descendants descendants as well as those that are yet living to tell their story. The banner has been established to represent the businesses that are in North Tulsa and so those that may visit Greenwood, if you would go to that banner which is right next to Vernon AME Church, you'll see a QR code on the banner. You just take your phone,

pull out your camera, you take a picture of that QR code, and it will pull up all the black-owned businesses in North Tulsa that have registered to be a part of that particular push that we're doing. It was free for the businesses. We didn't ask anything of the businesses. The only thing we asked for them to do is to register the information, and we put them on this QR. All right. Sounds good. We'll be sure to get a photo of that and put it on social media.

We really appreciate it. Thank you so much. Okay. You take care. I appreciate you. Thank you. Bye-bye. All right, folks. Again, those are some of the innovative things that people are doing to actually bring attention to what's happening here and to help black owned businesses. Let me give my final words. One of the things that I wanted to be able to do here while we wanted to come here, while we wanted to broadcast here, we did not come here because President Joe Biden came here. We didn't come here just to cover his speech. We invested the time and energy to come here to spend five days. We got here on Thursday. Last Wednesday, we were in Fort Worth trying to help Deborah Peoples, who was running for mayor of Fort Worth, her being mayor of Fort Worth, the runoff is June 5th, can change

the economic condition of a community. It could actually change her being in power. We've talked about Maynard Jackson being the mayor of Atlanta and how him being the mayor used the power of the political office to change the economic condition of black people. In 1973, when he became mayor, black folks were getting.0012% of all contracts in the city of Atlanta. He changed Atlanta. He changed the South. He changed what actually happened there.

And so what happens when we actually use that political power, and then we leverage that in corporations, leverage that in philanthropy, and all of a sudden, what we're then doing is we're changing the condition of our neighborhood. And so we've had the opportunity to talk to business owners and share with them and talk about what they're doing and how they're trying to start businesses. And so if you go all along here, we've had people who are artists and people who have shirt shops and who are, have all sorts of different things. And, and what they are all about is,

is trying to redefine the black community. And see, here's the thing that, what I keep trying to say to a lot of these people, it's a lot of folk who are running their mouths on social media. It's a lot of people who are talking bumping gums, saying what we should be doing as opposed to what we're not doing. I just want to give you all an indication of what I'm talking about that people really don't understand. When the White House, they said that if folk wanted to carry President Joe Biden's speech, they could get the pool fee.

Well, first of all, it costs millions of dollars actually to buy into the pool. I said, black media can't do that. I said, so if you guys, you should be streaming the whole speech introduction and knowing there's a program before the president speaks. I said, you should also stream him visiting the cultural center so we have access to that. That's me communicating directly with the White House, explaining to them something that they weren't fully aware of, how we are limited in terms of being able to access the content.

See, when you have people who don't understand, like this fool Brian Chambers on YouTube saying, well, you're running your mouth. No, there are people who are running their mouths and not providing information to the people that could change the condition of their street, their neighborhood, their city, their state, their country. See, what we're talking about is how we use our power. And so when I was pushing the White House, when I was saying, no, stream all of it so we will be able to actually see it, be able to actually to share it. We also may, as I've been saying with Tiffany Crutcher, you make sure that black media was on the inside of that. And we had an opportunity to talk and to share and to speak. If y'all saw the stream that we did of a sister who gave President Biden his tour, Michelle, he gave her the tour.

She gave him the tour just a little bit earlier. What happened there was by having that tour, by being able to show him around, then we had opportunity to ask her questions after she finished her tour is because we were in the room. We can't be in the room if we then are not able to leverage our influence. And so that's what happens. And so when I play this video here, this is the sister who gave President Joe Biden the tour of the Greenwood Cultural Center today. This is why we have to be in the room. And so a lot of folks who run their mouths, these fake YouTube historians, folk who love to say that they are for the people, they aren't using, they aren't even talking about anybody who's in the room. This is why you get to see this conversation.

The Browns, okay. Say it again. Program coordinator, Michelle Brown Burdex. Burdette. Burdex, B-U-R-D-E-X. So you spoke of the overpass, you spoke of the interstate, but there's also an issue of the minor league baseball field is right next, it's not even next door, it's right on the half a block of Black Wall Street. You also have Oklahoma State, a campus, a satellite campus. I mean, there's white prosperity now on the land where black prosperity used to be.

So there is no chance to rebuild, or is as a Black-owned business district on this land. Black Wall Street today is an idea. It's a concept that can be duplicated and replicated across our country. It is an effort to support and empower Black entrepreneurs to begin to reopen their businesses, to recreate Black Wall Street. However, a physical location in this space may never exist again. You also have the issue you have no exit ramp here. So if somebody wants to come here, they would have to go around to even get to this Greenwood district.

Absolutely. The expressway completely separates North Tulsa from the city of Tulsa as a whole, North Tulsa being predominantly African American. So absolutely. The railroad tracks that you can see just south of here are still a dividing line between our community and the community as a whole. It was those railroad tracks that white rioters crossed over in 1921. And I do want people to know when we talk about the history of the massacre that took place here was how African Americans stood up to help protect Dick Rowland, how they went to his defense, how lynchings were all too common in Oklahoma during that time. And they knew that he would be lynched because of inflammatory articles

that appeared in the local newspapers, including the Tulsa Tribune. So when you consider that 100 or so black men went to the jailhouse to offer to help protect Dick Rowland, and as they are approaching, they already see that there are several thousand whites who have gathered there, and yet they press on in an effort to help protect this young black man. So that speaks to their courage and to their resilience and to their strength.

And for some time, until white rioters were deputized, they were able to defend their community. They were able to defend their community. So we want to remember that. And Michelle, even this land is owned by the city. Yes. And so, Demario, what you're saying is part of this whole issue with the Victims' Compensation Fund is for the city to give this land back to community activists. So this, at least this center, is in black-owned hands.

Yes. Michelle, what's it like to have the president in the debate? It is so significant to have a president who is willing to acknowledge this history, to bring national attention to this story. Did he mention a presidential apology by any chance? Because their talking were paired with. Did he take it another step further than say anything about press social apology? The only conversation that I've had with him

was the conversation that you just witnessed, so he has not said that to me, and I'm sure I wouldn't be the first to know. Okay, folks, we've got to clear this area. Thank you so much. See, folks, if you're not in the room, you can't get that. If we're not on the ground, we couldn't have got all this stuff. This is why we ask you to support us in what we do.

A lot of y'all might even just understand. I'm going to go ahead and show this here. It takes a whole lot for us to do what we do. That's why in terms of us being here, in terms of us broadcasting. And so, Zim, you should be able to take this shot here. This, of course, is our whole setup here. This is our whole setup here. Being here, all of our camera gear and everything along those lines,

as we hear, As we hear broadcasting, we're right across the street again from the Cultural Center and then where we are right here, this is Vernon AME. We really appreciate the Church Security allowance to be able to hear. You can

switch back to the other shot. Folks, this is how we are able to do what we do. Your donations make it possible for us to do so. We want you to please join our Bring the Funk fan club. It makes it possible. And that's why we're here. We're not just going to be here in Greenwood. We're going to be in other cities as well, telling our story. So you can support us, of course, by going to our cash app, Dallas Sign, RM Unfiltered. Vidmo.com is forward slash RM Unfiltered. PayPal.me forward slash R Martin Unfiltered. Zell is

Roland at Roland S Martin dot com. We want you to please support us what we do. We're about covering our stories, being on the ground, being here. I told you the nation's first black newspaper, Freedom's Journal, said we wish to plead our own cause. Too long have others spoken for us, and that's the case. And here's the deal, Angela Hill, you're running your mouth on YouTube. If you don't want to support the show, that's fine. But guess what? You sure are watching it for free.

See, that's what happens, how some folk operate. But see, we are doing the work that other people are just running their mouths talking about. And so I certainly appreciate Janae. We'll say we'll continue to donate. Angela Sanchez, I appreciate it as

well. Folks, y'all can go to, of course, again, all the platforms. We're going to end the show with this. My frat brother, Reverend Dr. William J. Barber. Uncle Red, what did he do? Uncle Red, he asked Reverend Barber to sing Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Us Around. And so we're going to end the show with this. Y'all can actually check it out.

I'll see y'all tomorrow. I'm back in D.C. I'm coming home. I'll see you tomorrow. Holla. Take it back in D.C. I'm coming home. I'll see you tomorrow. Holla. Take it away, Reverend Barber. Turn me around. I'm going to keep on walking.

Keep on talking. Walking up the freedom way. Ain't going to let no racism. Turn me around. Oh, turn me around. Oh, turn me around. Oh, turn me around. Ain't gonna let no racism. Turn me around.

I'm gonna keep on a-walkin', keep on a-talkin', walkin' out to freedom. One more time, everybody. Ain't gonna let nobody. Come on, y'all. Turn me around. How y'all Turn me around Turn me around Ain't gonna let nobody

Turn me around I'm gonna keep on walking Keep on talking Marching out the freedom way That's all I have for you Marching out the freedom way. And all right for you. I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun?

Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast.

Yes, sir. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This kind of starts that a little bit, man. We met them at their homes. We met them at their recording studios. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey. We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family. They showcased a sense of love that I never had before. I mean, he's not only my parent, like he's like my best friend. At the end of the day, it's all been worth it. I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care.

Visit AdoptUSKids.org to learn more. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. This is an iHeart Podcast.