#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Bishop TD Jakes, Andrew Young, Angela Yee, Willie Jolley from Global HOPE Forum
Episode Date: December 14, 202212.13.2022 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Bishop TD Jakes, Andrew Young, Angela Yee, Willie Jolley from Global HOPE Forum Support RolandMartinUnfiltered and #BlackStarNetwork via the Cash App ☛ https://c...ash.app/$rmunfiltered PayPal ☛ https://www.paypal.me/rmartinunfiltered Venmo ☛https://venmo.com/rmunfiltered Zelle ☛ roland@rolandsmartin.com Annual or monthly recurring #BringTheFunk Fan Club membership via paypal ☛ https://rolandsmartin.com/rmu-paypal/ Download the #BlackStarNetwork app on iOS, AppleTV, Android, Android TV, Roku, FireTV, SamsungTV and XBox 👉🏾 http://www.blackstarnetwork.com #RolandMartinUnfiltered and the #BlackStarNetwork are news reporting platforms covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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This is an iHeart Podcast. Thank you for being the voice of Black America, Roller. Stay Black. I love y'all. All the momentum we have now, we have to keep this going.
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Today is Tuesday, December 13th, 2022.
Roland Martin Unfiltered broadcasting live here in Atlanta from the Global Hope Forum on the Black Star Network. Folks, over the next two hours,
we will have an unbelievable array of people with some amazing conversations and words to inspire
you no matter what area you're involved in. We'll talk to the head of the Small Business
Administration for the Biden administration, talking about what they are doing to help black businesses grow and prosper.
Also, I sat down with Ambassador Andrew Young and we talked about his life motivation and what it means to be focused in building a world for black entrepreneurs. Ben Chavis, who runs the NNPA. We talk about the importance of advertising black-owned media
and how black-owned media must be working together as partners to make it happen.
In our second hour, an amazing words from Bishop T.D. Jakes
as we talk about how we are able to rethink how we are to operate in this new world.
Also, I'll sit down with Angela Yee.
She talks about her new show debuting on
iHeartRadio later this year. And of course, motivational speaker, entrepreneur Willie
Jolly has dropped a bunch of pearls, folks. You do not want to miss any of these conversations.
It is time to bring the funk on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Let's go. He's got it. Whatever the miss, he's on it.
Whatever it is, he's got the scoop, the fact, the find.
And when it breaks, he's right on time.
And it's rolling.
Best belief he's knowing.
Putting it down from sports to news to politics.
With entertainment just for kicks.
He's rolling.
With some go-go-royale. entertainment just for kicks he's rolling he's broke he's fresh he's real the best you know, he's Roland Martin.
Martin.
All right, folks, welcome to Roland Martin Unfiltered here on the Black Star Network.
We are broadcasting from the Global Hope Forum.
This is the 30th anniversary of Operation Hope.
It has been a fantastic couple of days.
We kicked this off on Sunday night with U.S. Senator Raphael Warnock and, of course, closed it out today with some amazing sessions.
And, of course, if you missed the one with Bishop T.D. Jakes,
go to our Black Star Network app, go to our YouTube channel.
You do not want to miss the conversation that he had with John Hope Bryant. We're going to kick today's show off with my conversation with
Isabella Guzman. She is the head of the Small Business Administration for President Joe Biden.
And we talked about what they are doing to break open opportunities and create new opportunities
for black owned businesses. Here is our conversation.
So the last time I talked to SBA administrator, Obama was president.
I ignored anybody who was in the Trump White House.
And we were talking about black-owned businesses, loans.
And I'll never forget, because it was 2014.
In the previous year, it was $23.09 billion that was handed out in small business loans.
In African-Americans, they had gotten $385 million.
And a lot of it was because of the housing crisis.
No home, no loan, no business.
So in terms of where we are now, in terms of lending, in terms of black-owned businesses, in terms of supporting those institutions. How have things changed to allow for those
companies to be able to grow to the end of the day without access to capital. It's a
little hard to grow your business. Yeah and that's exactly right because access to capital
is one of the key elements to growth and we need all of our firms including our black
businesses to grow to be able to create jobs to be able to create the economic output.
And right now there are still great inefficiencies in our economy because we underinvest in those very businesses that are also starting at the highest rates.
You know, black women and brown women for the last 10 years have been starting at the highest rates.
Starting at the highest rates, but the reality is actually the revenue.
When we had 1.9 million black-owned businesses, they were doing average revenue of about $110,000.
When it hit 2.6 million, average revenue was $54,000.
So we had more businesses, but half the revenue.
So that problem persists.
We saw during COVID pandemic the inequities persist,
and we saw that black-owned businesses were five times less likely
to get the full amount of PPP or PPP at all.
And that's what the Biden-Harris administration came and focused on is, you know, how do we
solve for some of those historic inequities that are debilitating our economy? And President Biden,
the very first thing he talked to me about was the fact that, you know, if you don't have that
accountant on speed dial or that banker on speed dial that can connect you to these programs,
you're less likely to have the success outcomes that we need you to have as a country.
But one of the issues that I saw, and also because I talk to folks all the time, I have
a marketplace segment every Tuesday where I feature black-owned businesses, is that
many of these black-owned businesses, they had bank accounts but did not have banking
relationships with those banks.
And so when it came to PPP, they were assisting folks who maybe already had lines of credit,
their loans, and many of these black-owned businesses didn't actually have that.
One of the other things is it also was based upon number of employees.
Many black-owned businesses had contract workers.
In my case, I think we had, I forgot what we had qualified for, but we had,
you know, five or six full-time employees, but I actually had about 13 total people,
but they were actually contracts. Right, right. No, exactly. And I think,
so this is the challenge is that, you know, we have to now take the learnings from PPP,
you know, what worked about it, that we finally went from an average of 60,000 borrowers at the
SBA, you SBA to millions.
While we can't replicate a forgivable loan with the kind of fees that were that were awarded to
the lenders, you know, we definitely want to be able to transform the programs. Half of black
businesses, you know, Federal Reserve says go online before they go to a bank. And, you know,
those types of statistics point to the fact that we need change in our programs. And so I'm proud that we have launched regulatory reform to expand the distribution network. We need competition in this space so that more small businesses can access capital. We've also changed the rules on the core program community advantage where we do over index and provide more support to black businesses. We need to scale that though. And so
we're providing those same types of simplification around eligibility, around underwriting, you know,
to our core 7A program so that we can hopefully drive more banks, more lenders into the system
overall and get more of our businesses with capital. How have you also used the weight of the federal government to get through these banks?
This is what I mean.
When Maynard Jackson was mayor of Atlanta, one of the things that he did was he called the banks in.
He said, look, these are black businesses that have contracts with the city, but they can't float their businesses for six months
and so he said um you should be extending lines of credit well the bank said no we're not doing
it so he said fine to the city treasurer fine remove the city money out of their banks so what
happened was he said you are benefiting from taxpayer dollars with the deposits into your banks
he said and so when he did that,
he forced them to have to deal with these businesses.
That was a huge thing because that provided
those black-owned businesses and minority businesses
and women-run businesses an opportunity
to actually be able to run their businesses,
to be able to pay their folks before the city paid
with a 180-day term.
When I was in Illinois running the Chicago Defender, I mentioned that to then-Governor Rob Ligovic.
I said, listen, these are folks that you're depositing state money in their banks every single day.
I said, you can create something where you say, hey, here are businesses that are getting state contracts.
We can make it a requirement for you to actually work with him.
And they were like, whoa, I never even thought about that.
To me, that's just, you know, we were hoping on the honor system,
but sometimes you've got to really push folks to understand that they will never be able to grow if they're constantly being locked out.
Well, and that's exactly at the core of the changes that I'm proposing at the SBA to our capital programs. IT'S NOT JUST ABOUT THE LENDING PROGRAMS. IT'S ABOUT THE INVESTMENT PROGRAMS AS WELL.
ONLY ABOUT 1%, JUST OVER 1% OF
VENTURE CAPITAL GOES TO BLACK
OWNED BUSINESSES.
SO WE ARE TRANSFORMING OUR
STATE OF THE MONEY.
IT'S NOT JUST ABOUT THE
LENDING PROGRAMS.
IT'S ABOUT THE INVESTMENT
PROGRAMS AS WELL.
IT'S ABOUT THE INVESTMENT
PROGRAMS AS WELL.
IT'S ABOUT THE INVESTMENT
PROGRAMS AS WELL.
IT'S ABOUT THE INVESTMENT
PROGRAMS AS WELL.
IT'S ABOUT THE INVESTMENT
PROGRAMS AS WELL. IT'S ABOUT THE INVESTMENT PROGRAMS AS WELL. IT'S ABOUT THE INVESTMENT PROGRAMS AS WELL. about the lending programs. It's also about the investment programs as well. You know, only about a 1%, just over 1% of venture capital goes to black-owned businesses. And so we are transforming
our small business investment companies as well to get more diverse managers and try to incentivize,
you know, investments in all of our small businesses with a more focused approach to
equity. But I do think that this is, you know, a challenge that we have to meet now. And if we
want to make sure that the businesses of the future can create the jobs and revenue that we
need, especially as President Biden at Tulsa race massacre commemoration announced that we're trying
to hit a 15 percent goal for small disadvantaged businesses and federal contracting. That's
nearly 50 billion dollars more in contracts by 2025. But that should be a
golden ticket. If you have that golden ticket of a contract, get the capital that you need to back
you up. And so we are launching initiatives like we did with Department of Transportation to better
match our businesses to investment capital, to debt, to loans, to make sure they can deliver
against those contracts and really build successful, resilient businesses.
So I want to unpack a couple of things there that you just talked about.
And first, when you took this to the private equity piece,
I think the problem with the private equity piece is actually working in reverse.
So you have folks who are trying to say,
oh, private equity, we need you to pay more attention to disadvantaged businesses and equity.
I do this because all around the country.
The reality is those pension funds, those are black and brown workers.
And so what I have been articulating is that the pressure has to be on you're not going to get our pension fund money unless you're diverse.
And so we're trying to have a conversation with them at the top
when the money is actually coming from here.
And so they're going out, and they're going to Texas,
and they're going to South Carolina and North Carolina,
and they're going to California.
And you're talking about teachers' fund, all these state funds.
And whenever I travel, the largest collection of black wealth
is actually black public workers
and those pension funds.
And I think making that point,
getting them to understand
you're investing the money
of a lot of black and brown workers
and it doesn't look the way your firms look,
the law firms you use,
the bond firms you use, the accounting firms you use, the bond firms you use, the accounting firms
you use, the PR firms you use, and all down the line. Right. There's a couple of great points
there that I love. And we manage the small business investment company that's about a $37
billion portfolio. And so the same goals apply to us. I mean, we want to make sure that our
portfolio is diversified. But also in terms of the types of firms that get into those high margin type businesses, we want to see our firms there.
And in fact, Chairman John Rogers is the chair of our council on underserved communities from Ariel Investments.
And so that's a focus of the council on underserved communities as well, is let's make sure we're looking at all contracts on the table and that we can bring in firms to
manage wealth and build wealth in communities. And the data also shows that those black minority
firms actually outperform the other firms, but they're never able to go to that next level.
I remember the Obama administration was a management of TARP funds. So I get called
to the Treasury Department. So I go in and they tell me that black minority firms outperformed
majority white firms in management of TARP funds. My first thing was, they get more money to manage?
Everybody went quiet. I was like, I'm sorry. Where I come from, if we do better and outperform,
it should be an increase. And everybody just went real quiet. I'm like, if we do better and outperform, it should be an increase.
And everybody just went real quiet.
I'm like, I don't understand what the deal is.
And that's part of the deal.
So those firms are never able to actually grow.
They're sort of just capped at a certain level when you start talking about private equity and investments.
And even when you're talking about the firm that handles the federal government's pension funds,
I'm also challenging them, okay, what are you actually doing when it comes to diversifying?
At the end of the day, who controls the money is exactly where your economic power, your wealth building is.
And we saw the same data during the Obama administration when I was deputy chief of staff at the SBA.
In our portfolio, small business investment companies, those firms that had diverse managers
outperformed, you know, whether that was women or people of color.
And so we want to make sure that we're bringing the best value to the taxpayer
dollar. And that actually is just the business case.
Like we need to invest in diversity just because that is the future of our small
business economy. We want to make sure that we're successful.
So I want to go, you mentioned contracts in these different agencies. Yes, yes.
I had a meeting with Susan Rice and her team probably the second month they were in the White House.
And I set up a meeting with Ben Gels with the NNPA, Carol H. Williams,
Terrell Whitley with Liquid Soul, Todd Brown was a media consultant.
And we were talking about advertising dollars.
So 2018, it was 2018,
Congressman Illinois Holmes Norton had the GAO do a study
that showed that a billion is spent annually
by the federal government on advertising contracts,
and black-owned media gets about 51 million
over the one billion,
which is on par in general market,
but it's the same agencies.
And so we walk them through that. And it's the sort of things, the same thing persists.
I think one of the things that would be helpful, especially in this area, which actually could
affect others as well, is first requiring these different departments to also to have what we
call immediate, we call up fronts.
Because in many ways, a lot of black-owned media companies have no idea what agencies actually handle advertising contracts.
And so what ends up happening is you sort of get in the runaround.
So when it comes to the census, when it comes to labor, when it comes to commerce, all different areas.
And so I suggested to them, I said, that's also what is needed.
We saw that when it came to COVID funds as well.
Because at the end of the day, it's knowing where the money flow is happening.
I worked with Congressman Hank Johnson on this issue as well, because for us in black-owned media, for there to be only 1%, barely 1% that's going to black-owned media, it's absolutely crazy
when you look at, one, who black folks vote for, when you look at our impact in terms
of on the economy as well.
And that's one of the areas that we see as a breakdown, because to be perfectly frank,
the largely white ad agencies are freezing us out of even government advertising contracts,
where they literally don't even return phone calls.
I had to call out whoever had the census contract.
I had to publicly shame them on my show and on social media.
And they called Carol H. Williams and they go, like, where's this coming from?
She said, because the guy went to your portal, filled it out, and y'all never even called for five months.
Well, Roland, it's the same in other industries, too.
And that's why President Biden has been a leader on this from day one, signing that equity executive order. And we've been partnering with Ambassador Rice and
the White House to make sure that contracting and the goals that we set around our small business
contracts are as transparent as possible. And you do track what you care about. And so for the first
time ever, the SBA released data on disaggregated data by race and ethnicity.
And it's 1.78% across the whole of federal government spend.
So the 560 billion being spent.
Correct.
And so there's disparity across the board, all these industries.
And it's our focus to try to reverse that.
We have, you know, we have issued transformational reforms to the way that agencies source around the
large contracts trying to cut that down you'll give an advantage to small
businesses but I think it just comes to the core of who we are as the nation is
President Biden he wants to create a competition make sure that we can level
the playing field and we have to remember that we were started at the SPA
over 70 years in the Eisenhower administration because we wanted to ensure competition, ensure an industrial base.
And another data that's important to remember and why it's really a call to action is that we've seen a 40 percent decline in the number of small business contractors doing business with the federal government.
We need them.
Absolutely.
We need them to fulfill our mission.
And so that's the goal of the SBA under my leadership is to make sure we can drive change in contracting to attract them back, but give them a pathway forward.
And I will say one more thing for folks who are interested in doing business with the federal
government is, you know, we at the SBA have business opportunity specialists at our 68
district offices around the country. And we are trying to do a better job in 2023 to make sure
that they leverage the great research resources
that we have because we have procurement center representatives who analyze every contract that's
coming down the pike. We need to get that information out there better. I know a lot of
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I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. So that firms who are in these various industries with great disparity can have access to knowledge and information.
Well, look, I work with the Black-owned media consortium that drives this area.
So we would love to somehow meet later and partner on this because, you know, our whole deal, again, is like, look, this is the opportunity to change the game we've actually forced General Motors McDonald's Target other companies to
actually go from 1% to create commitments from 5 to 8 to 10 it's great
percent lots of being called out so our deal is like we wanted to always call
folks out but this is the frankly our whole is this is the only way we can see
this pool expand for us to be able to grow and be able to build capacity. Well, we're committed to
the same because we know that the future of our economy is really dependent on it. It's a business
case more than anything else as well. And so I think it's beyond just the right thing to do.
It's what the economy needs. And these large corporations, as well as the federal government,
are using the power of the purse to be able to build up our economy from the bottom up in the
middle out, as the president says, which is a startup. All right. Well, let us know what we
can do. We certainly can drive it because this is, we deal with this on my show all the time,
really about building our black owned businesses and not, I tell them all the time, I say, I'm not
interested actually more. People think I'm crazy. I say, no, I want to build them
from just being one point, you know,
having one employee to really having
20, 30, 50, 100, 250
to be much larger.
And you know, Carla Harris did that
incredible study at Morgan Stanley. It's a
$4.4 trillion
in efficiency in our economy. I mean, that
would really create more leadership
for the United States. Oh, absolutely. I'm looking forward to it. Thanks a lot. Thanks for having me.
All right. Thank you. All right, folks, we're just getting things started. When we come back,
we'll hear from Ambassador Andrew Young, former congressman, former mayor of Atlanta,
where we talk about how this city has been able to grow and prosper for black entrepreneurs and
really what is the future for African Americans.
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Hey, I'm Amber Stephens-West.
I'm Avery Sunshine.
So this is Roger Ball. I got a message for Roland Mascot.
Oh, I'm sorry, Ascot Martin.
Buddy, you're supposed to be hooking me up
with some of these mascots.
I'm sorry, ascots that you claim to wear.
Where's mine, buddy?
Where's mine?
That's all I got to say to you, OK?
Mascot, goodbye.
Hi, this is Essence Atkins, and you're watching
Roland Martin unfiltered
all right folks welcome back to roland martin unfiltered here on the black star network we are
at the global hope forum here in atlanta ambassador Young, 90 years old, an amazing life he has led.
It is always great to talk to my Alpha brother.
And we had a chance to catch up on yesterday.
And here is our conversation.
Ambassador, Mayor, Congressman, Alpha man, how you doing?
I'm all right.
Rolling through doing what you do.
I guess so. Doing the same thing for a long time.
And I don't get tired.
But that's a good, you know, that's...
Was that my hair?
No, that's, uh...
I don't feel no way...
Right, right, right, right.
Come too far from where we started from.
Well, so funny, I was in the green room area,
and so this woman walked up, your wife Carolyn.
She says, oh, my God, you're looking great.
You're losing weight.
I said, yeah, he was in that scooter.
She's trying to keep up with him.
She's like, yeah, he got, she said, he keep me moving.
Yeah, well, it was either that or get two knee operations.
And I'm not afraid of surgery, but I'm afraid of anesthesia.
And when you get 90, you don't want anything fooling with your mind.
Right, right.
I mean, you've got enough crazy stuff going on in your life,
and ether just didn't seem like it was a healthy addition.
Right.
Well, I understand.
I've had to have a couple of surgeries in a year when you ain't doing that countdown.
Well, the last surgery I had, I didn't go on the ether. I let them do it with local anesthetic, and I watched.
Wow.
Wow. But it wasn't
internal it was on my arm I got it yeah well I had a tone right labrum my man
was doing he was giving me all the instructions if something could go wrong
and I see it now you know something go wrong destruct don't mean a damn thing
to me I said so you may want to record it for the family. He bust out laughing.
He went, I ain't never thought about it that way.
I was like, so you give me this instruction, don't do nothing for me.
But it was all good.
It was all good.
Back here at Hope Forum, and one of the things that you—
You know, everybody that speaks, that I've heard speak so far today,
starts off with, I'm a business owner.
And that's impressive to me. And I don't know what kind of business it is, and it might not be that big, but everybody's trying to find their place in a free enterprise society,
and that's extremely good. Well, the thing that I spend a lot of time on,
a lot of time on my show and all platforms,
even in my speeches and everything,
is trying to get our people to understand
that the last five years,
really the last five years of Dr. King's life,
I said, guys, if you really take your time,
he was talking about economics.
He was talking about, I said,
that I Have a Dream speech was an economic speech.
I said, you got to read where we go from here.
I said, we get, look, the Mountain Times,
that was a 43-minute, 16-second economic speech.
Yeah, but Martin's daddy was a businessman.
Right.
Helped start a bank and had a couple of funeral homes.
And Ebenezer built public housing as part of the church mission, and his granddaddy, who was treasurer of, his granddaddy was treasurer
of the National Baptist Convention
when it was six million members.
So they've always been very much aware.
Now that, he had a reaction that I inherited from him,
and only because he didn't believe
that he should have money.
And he didn't pay us for $6,000 a year, but that's all he would take from his church.
And if I had married a schoolteacher with a good job, a master's degree, and a good
pension, I'd be in real trouble.
I married two school teachers.
Both of them had pensions, both of them had master's degrees.
There you go, there you go.
But the thing that-
Let me say a difference.
And this is one of our problems in the nation.
My first wife's master's degree
was from Queens College in New nation. My first wife's master's degree was from Queens College in New York.
She didn't pay but $16 a semester, and that was the registration fee. That's all it cost,
$32 for a master's. Carolyn's master's was at Georgia State, and already it had gone up to about $1,000. So, 10 years later.
But now a master's degree costs you $25,000, $30,000 at least.
Yeah, at least.
Some places $25,000 a year.
Yeah.
No, I mean that and that.
Right.
Well, $25,000 a year is low now.
Right.
That's what I'm saying.
That's low.
Yeah. And you start talking about the Ivy League schools.
Well, my grandchildren are applying to colleges and it's driving me crazy because they apply to these colleges that are good colleges, good schools.
But I look at the tuition and it's $72,000 a year, $60,000 a year.
Nothing.
Well, that's more than I make.
Right.
And I don't want to see them come out of school and be strangled by death.
And it absolutely is.
I call it invisible shackles.
Well, and it came from Ronald Reagan.
In California, Ronald Reagan decided that school was too cheap,
and there were too many people wanting to get into colleges.
What we did in Georgia was different.
We expanded the colleges,
and we probably have a million college students in Georgia now
under the HopePE scholarship,
so that anybody that keeps a B average and can make $1,200 on SAT can go to college free.
The reason I keep, and we're talking about money, we're talking about how this company works.
I always tell people, if you ain't talking about money you ain't having an american conversation and and and the re and that's one of the reasons
why i came to admire john bryant that john bryant didn't get to go to college uh anywhere but
he's been a scholar all his life. And he knows people.
Of course, I tell him
where he got his confidence
and his ego
strength was
serving as a soul
train dancer with Don Cornelius.
If you got enough
balls to
go down a soul train line with a different
step every day, you are really getting it together.
But he translated that into financial literacy.
And as he learned, he taught.
And Operation Hope is now got,
we've got almost 4,000 young people here, all business oriented.
And that's what he says from civil rights to civil rights.
Absolutely.
Right.
Well, when we first met, I was also using that phrase.
And he said, man, we just started using that phrase.
I said, Doc, because I spent so much time studying the Black Freedom Movement and understanding
where it was going, where it was moving to.
And I said, I just think that one of the things that if we're so fixated
on political power and you do not focus on economic power,
then we're losing out on really what drives this country.
Very much so.
And even in our HBCUs, I think Atlanta University was the first one to have a business school.
And that wasn't until the 60s.
And, well, that's past.
The 60s and 70s, we started moving into business, businesses of our own,
and integrating the businesses and taking over businesses that were evolving.
But when you were mayor, I go back to also Mayor Jackson,
what his grandfather taught him in the 3Bs about the book and the buck.
What y'all also did was you took that political power to drive economic power and that's
why atlanta the city is today it was very simple we didn't strategic we didn't do anything unless
25 of every contract was done by a minority or female-owned company and i increased it up to 35% when I came in.
When we had the Olympics, we got it up to 41%.
It's now, it was running about 50-50, but I'm afraid it's slipping back.
Because when you're not pushing forward, you quietly slip back.
But like the Atlanta airport, I went out to the Atlanta airport. Now, the Atlanta airport is a $400 billion economy.
That makes the city of Atlanta, not the state of Georgia,
just the city of Atlanta, pretty much the same size as Norway economically.
So don't ever let anybody play us cheap and think we're not a major league player in the world.
So Steve Bartlett, I was talking to him, and he said when he became mayor of Dallas,
you were the only mayor who he called to get advice from.
To that point you just made there, what would you say, what advice would you give,
or do these young black mayors who are coming in, Little Rock and Birmingham and Jackson, Mississippi,
and other places.
He got the largest four cities in America right now with black mayors.
And all those small cities. So one of the reasons why Warnock was able to win was we got mayors.
They all happen to be from Morehouse and in Savannah, Columbus, Macon and maybe even Augusta and Thomasville.
But the other thing, Atlanta now has 7 million people.
When I was mayor, we were just getting to one million. And so it's rough adjusting to that now. But we took it in steps. And we were able to expand the infrastructure as we did it. Right now we're being hampered by the transportation
infrastructure.
What do you say to those new black mayors who don't have the
same tools that you had or mainly Jackson had when it came
to set asides, when it came to in terms of trying to drive
black business in their cities?
What advice would you give for them?
First place, there's really almost no such thing as black
business. There's business. no such thing as black business.
There's business.
And you want to get business.
You want to help business in your city. the new restaurants are Vietnamese, Korean, Persian.
We're becoming an international culture as well. And so there's another kind of
lateral integration that we need to maintain. Now fortunately in Georgia, most of the minorities coming in have followed our lead and taken part
and they voted for Warnock. We also had a Vietnamese woman, a Korean woman on the ticket that did not win.
But... And, of course, Stacey Abrams did not win.
And it's...
It wasn't that we didn't work hard enough.
I really...
I really expected to get more support from white women
that we didn't get. We expected to get more support from white women
that we didn't get.
I mean, I was surprised that so many of them
voted for Herschel.
52% voted for Trump in 2016 over Hillary Clinton.
Yeah.
All right, folks, we're gonna take a pause
in my conversation with Ambassador Andrew Young.
Gotta go pay some bills, go to a break.
When we come back, we'll conclude my interview with Ambassador Andrew Young. Got to go pay some bills, go to a break. When we come back, we'll conclude my interview
with Ambassador Young right here on Roland Martin Unfiltered
on the Black Star Network here from the Global Hope Forum
over Operation Hope in Atlanta.
Back in a moment.
We're all impacted by the culture, whether we know it or not.
From politics to music and entertainment, it's a huge part of our lives.
And we're going to talk about it every day right here on The Culture with me, Faraji Muhammad, only on The Black Star.
I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time.
Have you ever had to shoot your gun?
Sometimes the answer is yes.
But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no.
Across the country, cops call this taser the revolution.
But not everyone was convinced it was that simple.
Cops believed everything that taser told them.
From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley
comes a story about what happened
when a multi-billion dollar company
dedicated itself to one visionary mission.
This is Absolute Season 1.
Taser Incorporated.
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It's really, really, really bad.
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Hi, this is Essence Atkins.
Hey, I'm Deon Cole from Blackest.
Hey, everybody, this is your man Fred Hammond,
and you're watching Roland Martin, my man, Unfiltered.
Folks, welcome back to Roland Martin Unfiltered
here on the Black Star Network.
Here is a continuation of my conversation
with Ambassador Andrew Young.
So looking forward, you've been in every facet, civil rights, politics, to that particular point.
My book is called White Fear, How the Browning of America is Making White Folks Lose Their Minds.
And I talk about the demographic shifts.
And what we're dealing with is the reality of this fear of losing power, losing control.
Well, and there's a difference
between control and influence.
And I think as a minority,
I've always been comfortable,
more comfortable influencing change.
I don't want to be in control making the change,
but I want to set up the mechanism.
And what we did in Georgia was improve the quality of higher education.
Now, we took a little criticism when we had the lottery go statewide,
but Zell Miller, who was governor governor then and I was working with him though I ran against him. I lost and I worked with him only because we agreed that all of the profits of lottery would go to higher education and preschool. And that was where we need to run it back in Yeah, that was where we needed more children to get a better start in education.
And then we need, we now have, we now have, we probably have close to a million college students in Georgia now.
I'm going to go back to what you said, rather than influence than control.
But the reality is by having black mayors, y'all had the control, you had the power.
No, we didn't. No, you really don't.
So how did it happen?
Well, it happened because we used our influence.
That there is no sense as a dictatorship.
Now, we had a majority black population,
and we had the best ideas,
but nobody who saw the airport we were building
could be against it.
Because that's one thing most people don't know. We didn't use any government money in the airport. No government money.
We went to Wall Street and we got private money. And it was a
partnership between the city and Delta Eastern. See when we
borrowed money on Wall Street,
the tombstone, they called it, had Delta Eastern,
Reunited American down the line, Marriott, the parking lot,
the Hertz, and things like that.
Everybody was on a list.
And at the bottom was city of Atlanta.
When I asked why we was at the why we were at the bottom they said
well before you libel everybody else has to go bankrupt.
You were like good idea. Yeah and but we have been able I can't we've gotten so much money from Wall Street, I can't find a number.
Wow.
I mean, it's billions of dollars. He talks about eight or nine billion dollars that they got from Wall Street for the expansion
of the International Terminal.
I remember getting only 400 million, just a measly 400 million to do the A concourse
and finish the D concourse,
and I was on the fourth runway.
The fifth runway, I think we're on the seventh runway now.
Wow.
So, and all of that requires money,
but we have the airline support and we have the passenger support.
You can't go anywhere in America without coming through Atlanta almost.
That's true.
I used to tell— I try not to. I like direct.
No, well, yeah, but that's what we did.
We decided we would be the hub.
Right.
And everybody would have to come here and change,
and then you can go anywhere in the world from Atlanta.
That's true.
John Hope Bryant talks about Black America needs a reboot.
I often talk about how we need to be reprogrammed.
Moving forward, looking at where we are,
knowing full well where we are in 2022, moving forward,
you've seen a whole lot, you've seen a whole lot,
you've experienced a whole lot. What do you say to that 20, 25-year-old African-American,
that 40-year-old African-American, in terms of where we should be with our thinking over the
next 20, 30 years? What do you see? Well, what I tell him is that Martin Luther King knew what he was doing, that W.E.B. Du Bois knew what he was talking about,
that Howard Thurman understood
that all of this was essentially a spiritual phenomenon
and it was driven by our faith,
and that I'm 90 years old.
I don't give a damn what you all do in the future.
I'm going on to glory, and I'm thinking about how to get into heaven.
And I'm not giving up on this country, but I did what I had to do, and I enjoyed every minute of it.
And there was no suffering.
Well, they say earth hath no sorrow that heaven can't endure.
And I've been doing it and I've learned from it.
And I think that's the wonderful thing about life.
You go into the fire furnace knowing you're not going to get burned.
But you've got to go through the fire.
And hopefully you know the Lord is with you and will lead you through that fire.
But I don't know what the fire is going to be.
But I'm not the least bit pessimistic or cynical.
I think things are better now than they've ever been.
I talk to my own grandchildren, and they talk about, I'm going to move to such a place.
I said, you last about two weeks.
I said, and then you come back here.
I've been to 152 countries, and I have loved them all.
There's no place where I've been really mistreated or abused or angry.
But I'm still anxious to get back to Atlanta and the United States of America. We have come further than most any country in the world. And rather than get upset about the fact that we still have problems, we have to realize that those problems are our opportunities. If it wasn't for a problem, there wouldn't be an invention.
Well, you just said something when you said,
I love every minute of it.
I tell people all the time, hashtag live life, love it.
A lot of people, they walk around and they're angry, they're upset.
I said, look, you've got to love it, you've got to enjoy it.
Well, you've got to love yourself.
Right. And you've got to love the fact, you've got to love it, you got to enjoy it. Well, you got to love yourself. Right.
And you got to love the fact, you got to know that you are not an accident.
You were created with a purpose.
And you don't get to know that purpose in one fell swoop that I've never known. Honestly I've never known today what I want to be doing tomorrow. I didn't know I was going to be running for Congress until the day they decided I had to run. I was sitting in New York had just bought a a home, and my wife said, we saw John Lewis and James Bevel, Diane Nash and others on television, and Nashville City and Story.
And I'd just gotten this job and just bought this house.
And my wife said, it's time for us to go home.
I said, we are home.
We just built this house.
She said, no, we're going back south.
We're supposed to be in that fight.
And I said, well, what am I going to do?
Where am I going to get a job?
She said, I don't know, but you ought
to be able to do something.
And if not, I can teach and take care of you.
But we're going back south.
And I said, well, what about the house?
Sell it.
And it happened that way.
And I've never, I mean, every step I've taken, I've enjoyed.
Well, look, we appreciate all that you've done.
It's always great to see you, talk to you,
and always love to hear what you got to say.
It's good to see you.
Keep representing Alpha, man.
Okay. I appreciate it. Very Keep representing Alpha, man. Okay.
I appreciate it.
Very good.
Yes, sir.
Okay, what kind of ring is that?
Oh, I got this,
my 30th anniversary gift of Alpha.
Okay, really?
Oh, yeah.
So I got my chapter on it,
my name, my line number.
Well, you know, I've,
I don't know,
I joined Alpha in 1950.
So how many years does that make me?
You're 72.
That's right, yeah.
I'm 33.
Okay, well.
I got some catching up.
I ain't got no ring.
I'll hook you up.
No, I'm not.
I'll hook you up.
Actually, Omega owns the company, but I told them we'd help them out.
In fact, I don't even have a fraternity pin because the little girl I was going with took it from me at Howard 70 years ago.
Well, I can arrange to get you a new Alpha pin.
I'll call National Office.
Okay.
I appreciate it, Ambassador.
Thanks a lot.
Thanks a lot.
Well, folks, I'll be sure to try to get Ambassador Young one of these Alpha rings.
It's always great to see him and great to talk to him.
But hold tight one second when we come back.
I talked with Ben Chavis, who is the CEO of NNPA, the group of black newspapers in the country.
And we talk about how vital black-owned media is and what is necessary to get our part of the $322 billion spent annually on advertising in media.
You don't want to miss that conversation.
Folks, you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered
right here on the Black Star Network.
Back in a moment.
I am on screen,
and I am representing what a black man is
to the entire world that's going to see this.
And this might be the only black man,
a representation of a black man that they see.
Right. So I am responsible.
Right. For how they see black men.
And it's my responsibility to,
if I am not playing an upstanding, honorable,
someone with a strong principle of moral core,
to make sure that this character is so specific.
Right. That it is him, not black men.
And I wish that more actors would realize
how important their position is as an actor,
as an actor of color playing people of color on screen.
Because there are people that see us all over the world
in these different images that we portray.
And not everyone knows black people to know.
Yes.
That's not all.
This is Judge Matthews. What's going on, everybody?
It's your boy, Mack Wilde.
Hey, what's up, y'all?
It's your boy, Jacob Lattimore,
and you're now watching Rolling Martin.
I know a lot of cops,
and they get asked all the time,
have you ever had to shoot your gun?
Sometimes the answer is yes,
but there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no.
Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution.
But not everyone was convinced it was that simple.
Cops believed everything that taser told them.
From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley
comes a story about what happened when a multi-ibillion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission.
This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated.
I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated
on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3
on May 21st, and episodes 4,
5, and 6 on June 4th.
Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus
on Apple Podcasts.
Right now.
Eee! Right now. E.
Welcome back to Roland Martin Unfiltered here on the Black Star Network from Operation Hope's Global Hope Forum here in Atlanta.
There's a lot of discussion here about entrepreneurship, major companies in here talking about what they're doing and how they are doing business with African-Americans.
But one of the areas where we are still suffering is in black-owned media. And Ben Chavis, the CEO of the NNPA, he and I talked about that and what is necessary in order for black media
companies to be able to grow and prosper here in the 21st century. Here's our conversation.
All right, Ben, we're here at, of course, Global Hope Forum. And one of the things
that we've talked about in the last, really, two, two and a half years, really what's happening
in terms of these major companies and support for black-owned media.
Yes.
We've had some companies that have actually made commitments. Target has made announcements, want to spend $2 billion on black-owned companies,
General Motors, McDonald's, a number of others.
But the thing that still jumps out at me,
and I want to get your thoughts on how you've had to deal with this,
is that we still get the runaround,
we still get these white ad agencies creating metrics
that, frankly, black-owned media will never be able to hit.
And so what ends up happening is we run the ads,
but then they say, oh, you didn't hit the metrics,
therefore we never get paid.
And so what have your conversations been like
in trying to break those barriers down?
Because that's like the latest game that they're trying to play. Exactly. Well, you're right. It's like the latest game.
Discrimination is multifaceted. And when a big company says, oh, we're going to provide this
amount of budget over this amount of time, all you have to do is go get the perform.
But then they changed the performance rules.
Believe me, if we could make the metrics, then they would make it something else.
One of the fundamental problems, Roland, is I think these ad agencies,
these middle, even with the big corporations that are saying they want to do right,
they go out and hire an ad agency that won't do right.
Right. And I think the CEO of Procter & Gamble recently said that they were going to change who they hire as their ad agency.
They're no longer going to do general marketing.
Because their ad agency, white ad agency, is saying, well, you don't need to do business with these black-owned media companies
because we can reach black people through our general marketing.
You don't need to do targeted marketing.
But targeted marketing has become almost something people are ashamed of
or something people avoid, but that is really the solution.
Right.
If you want to reach black Americans,
then you've got to target and select
and do business directly with those black-owned media
that can get to black Americans.
Same thing with Latinos or Asians or others.
We live in a segmented society.
Right.
And to do business pretending like we don't live
in a segmented society is disingenuous, Roland,
and kind of productive for our businesses.
So we're in the N.N.P.A., and I know that representing the black print press and the
black digital press and what you do so well, we all have to band together, continue to
prevent corporate America from changing the rules on us.
See, I keep telling these companies, it's your money.
It's not the agency's money.
It's your money.
I literally had a major company say, we're doing this deal with Roland.
Then the agency started trying to ask questions.
They get involved.
And I said, wait a minute, am I being vetted again?
And the company had to tell the agency, hey, we didn't ask y'all to vet again.
We're doing this deal with Roland.
Y'all are supposed to just process the paperwork.
That's right.
But they literally were trying to block it.
And I'll tell you, it's even been a struggle dealing with black folks in these agencies,
throwing up barriers as well. Because black folks in these agencies, throwing up barriers as well.
Because black folks in the agency, they don't own the agency. They are hired hands to block.
I run into so many persons of color who are supposed to be facilitators,
wind up being blockers, because that's what they're hired to do.
Right.
You know, and I think that that's something that needs to change. Either we
need to band together and form our own ad agency. This is another thing. You know,
there's been a serious decline. Absolutely. In black-owned ad agencies. And the agencies that
have taken the place of black-owned agents are not treating African-American-owned media fairly.
Yeah, absolutely.
Look, I've said, and I've talked to Carol H. Williams about this, and I've said that
we should be operating as a collective and going to these agencies and saying, look,
this is the...
We'll separate it here.
Send it to a Carol H. Williams that can, that understands how we operate, I understand because she's still independent.
There's no major ad agency that owns equity stake in her company
because that's also important as well.
And, again, people don't understand.
And I get people who come at me, man,
you're trying to sit here and get the white man's money.
I say, well, first of all, fool, there's no media entity that operates without advertising.
Advertising is the backbone of media.
So to act like we can't make demands of companies to advertise when they want black market share is stupid. Right. Well, again, I think sometimes we should not apologize for demanding that we have access to wealth.
$322 billion spent a year on advertising and black-owned media getting 0.5 percent, barely. interview at the Hope Global Forum. And I admire what John Hope Brown is doing
because
it opens the door
to at least
for people to understand
what business at a
billion dollar and a trillion dollar level
looks like.
Part of our problem,
Roland, has been
African American on media has been triaged.
And we wind up getting the crumbs off the table.
That has to change.
Going into 2023, 2024.
Right.
We've just seen in Georgia, if it had not been for the black vote, Georgia would be going in a whole different direction.
But the same thing happens on the political side
when it comes to political advertising.
Sinclair Media announced
that they were going to make, this year alone,
with all of their stations,
$340 million just on political advertising.
Just on political advertising.
And even in political game, because what happens is
the same white ad agencies controlling the media dollars in politics.
Right, exactly.
So the same thing happens there.
And so you had black newspapers not seeing any ads until middle of September.
That's right.
Election was in November.
That's right. Election was in November. That's right.
But we're seeing 60, 70, 80 million being spent on television ads because the media
strategists get paid all the TV buys and not when it comes to other advertisers.
It goes to what you said initially about what I would call metrical discrimination.
You know, there's a digital gap.
There's a metrical gap.
But undergirding all these gaps is racism.
Right.
It's systemic racism.
I mean, look, if we can't market and we can't advertise,
well, then we're not going to pick up more eyeballs.
Exactly.
But if you don't have the dollars to market and advertise,
because the reality, what people don't understand is CNN advertises.
Fox News advertises.
MSNBC advertises.
Not just on their channel, because they're generating the money.
So if I can't advertise my show on other platforms to pick up more eyeballs, it's going to have
to be an organic sort of thing. I had one company literally put in a deal.
I needed to have 11 million impressions.
Over what time period?
Over an eight-week period.
But here was the crazy part.
Then they said, well, we don't want the ads running on Roland Martin unfiltered.
We want it running on these two shows on his
black star network they were new shows and I said set up and I and I literally
said oh hell no I literally called a company I'm like no no no we got a
problem and they were like we understand you upset my yeah I'm upset I said the
quick because because then it was like, well, brand safe.
Because you cover politics and news, you got opinion.
That's not brand safe.
And I'm like, interesting. But I'll see pharmaceutical ads on Fox News.
Is that brand safe?
I see opinions given on Morning Joe.
Right.
Is that brand safe?
Well, one way to break some of this up, Roland, I think is that we have to look at what we provide to corporate America.
We're consumers.
We overconsume on social media, yet we don't own any of these social media channels.
Nope. We, a lot of the companies that refuse to deal directly with you
and other black-owned media,
they benefit from the consumerism of black buying, black buying power.
We just went through, quote-unquote, Black Friday.
Everybody went into the black except black people and except black-owned media.
Now, the stores that benefited from the mass consumerism, you would think, they would say,
well, wow, we're making all this money off black consumerism. At least what we could do is to
support black-owned businesses. So I think we have to have direct relationship with these
companies without the third-party ad agency. Number two, I think we need to have direct relationship with these companies without the third-party ad agency.
Number two, I think we need to do—you remember when Nielsen used to do this research?
Nobody's doing the research.
We need to partner with HBCUs like Howard or here in Clark, Atlanta, that has research capacity.
We need to be doing our own polling, Ronald. We need to be doing our own stuff
because we need to leverage what we do in the marketplace
over against how they do business with us.
This panel we just had with John O'Brien
and Andy Young and others
and the president of, CEO of Delta.
It's about building these relationships.
We've got to have the right business relationship, not charity.
We're not asking for charity, but this is business.
And they're making huge profits off of the consumerism of black people.
So that's what needs to be changed.
Also, I think, and I've said this to Marc Morial, the National Urban League, I've
said to Derrick Johnson, NAACP. I also believe black organizations should establish what I've been
calling a racial index.
And what I mean by that is
these companies
and these CEOs
want to come in, they want to speak on panels,
want to tout what they're
doing, but it needs to be
a series of questions asked.
What does your black-owned media spend?
Are you allocating
at least 5% to 8%?
Not even
the population number, but at least 5% to 8%.
What is your
spending on? Are you using any
black event planners, PR
companies, transportation companies,
catering companies?
Really establishing that because that's how you change the game.
It comes down to the annual contracts.
I told another company, they said, hey, we allocated $500,000.
I said, yeah, but that's not a multi-year deal.
I said, I can't plan for 2023 and 2024 based on a one-time deal.
Exactly.
Yet, I'm seeing you do deals over here.
Then they said, well, we don't do multi-year deals.
I said, oh, yes, you do.
I said, these companies know you're going to spend money with them every year.
It may not say multi-year, but they know doing the upfronts,
you're going to spend money with them every single year.
Exactly. That's the box them every single year. Exactly.
And that's the box they put us in.
Right.
So in essence, we are like begging and hoping,
man, I hope they come back next year.
When white media knows, they're gonna be back.
Well, I think, um...
Let me tell you why I'm optimistic.
What you have shown with your show, with your network, that it's not only possible to compete,
but the quality, to me, this is just not a matter of metrics.
The quantitative, the qualitative, Roland, in my view, is just as important as the quantitative.
In fact, when people buy black-owned media,
they're not just buying metrics.
They're buying a sphere of influence.
When I tell my people to sell for the NNPA,
we're not selling media impressions.
We're selling the influence in our community. Right.
And that's what they pay for.
And so we have to be measured on our influence,
not measured on our metrics.
Well, I just think that for the people who are out there watching,
and I try to walk my folks through this all the time,
that they have to understand that black-owned media
will never be able to grow as long as we're frozen out of the dollars.
Exactly.
We're not going to be able to hire staff.
We're not going to be able to cover more events.
So it is by design to starve us, which in turns will starve our viewers and readers
because we can't expand and build.
Well, I'm not offering a solution, but I want to tell you something I want you to consider.
In my view, black owned media should not be contained or restrained or cordoned off just as domestic business.
Oh, I agree.
We're not the global whole farm.
I want to globalize what we do.
Oh, absolutely.
Your show ought to be distributed around the world. And listen, if American corporations
are going to continue to triage us,
then we need to look for some other
multinational corporations to do business with.
This network.
I'm trying to develop an NMPA app now
that's just not a U.S. app.
It's a global app
where we can unite the press in Africa,
the press in Brazil.
I was just in Harvard the other day, talking to all of our Brazilian brothers and sisters.
There are more black people in Brazil than in the United States.
We ought to be doing business with them.
Well, that's why, when I created our OTT platform, for that very reason, that we were
not solely dependent upon Facebook, YouTube, Twitch, and those platforms.
But again, see, look, I'll be very transparent.
I tell my audience, that deal with Vimeo just to do it every year,
that's $160,000 a year.
So that app, that's what it costs.
And so I try to walk our people through, like, understand,
those are hard costs that have to be paid.
No question.
And as long as we're frozen out of the money piece on the advertising side, that's going to make it even more difficult.
Well, listen, again, everybody throws around that number that African-Americans spend $1.2, $1.3 trillion a year.
But it's just not what we spend, but how we spend it and who we spend it with. I really think another call to action, Roland, is for us to make it available
so people in our own community
should be investing in Black-owned media.
I discussed it with Robert Smith.
He's a black billionaire.
We have several black billionaires.
In my view, I know they have to,
if you're on a hedge fund,
there are certain disciplines you have to do.
But I also believe that the call to support, financially support, black-owned business by African-Americans is a call that we have to continue to make.
Oh, absolutely.
And that's because the reality is a lot of those same folk, when they get in trouble, they want to call us.
Oh, absolutely.
To do stories.
It happens all the time. How do you think this is paid for happens all the time
Yeah, and so I mean and I'll tell folk and I'm look I got my bring the funk fan club
And I had it was a member was a black ad agency that that
sued another firm and
So the brother called my one of my guys and he's like, you know what?
We won't do this this this, this with Roland.
And my guy said, Roland had you on the show almost an hour, he said,
and pushed it out to social media and everything.
And he said, and you haven't even bothered to contribute $50.
He said, so you want him to help you in this multimillion-dollar settlement,
he said, but you won't even invest in black-owned media.
You've got to be reciprocative. You know, Ben Crumple and I talk about this all the time.
A lot of these cases and settlements, and he's trying to build a national law firm like John
Cochran. Right. And I'm saying, great, but we got to work together to make sure that the financial
support is there. There you go. Because one thing for sure, freedom is not free.
Nope.
Justice is not free.
Equity is not free.
It costs.
Yep.
And one thing now, the disproportionality, we're spending.
Right.
But we're not receiving a return.
That's right.
The ROI.
And that's what tomorrow is going to return.
Return on investment.
Return on investment.
ROI.
All right.
Ben, we appreciate it. I think 2023 should definitely be the year where black-owned media accepts what Dr. King talked about, the collective.
Absolutely.
In that speech on April 3rd, 1968, where he said, individually, black people are poor.
But collectively, we are one of the largest economies in the world.
That's right.
We have to operate as a collective and not in our silos.
So, well, let's find time to huddle, the owners of Black on Me, we need to huddle
in all different formats, because that's another thing. Sometimes they play off the formats,
like there's stuff going on right now in Nabob. You know, Black on Radio, man, is struggling
to survive, you know, at this time.
So we need to huddle among ourselves.
Sounds good.
All right.
Appreciate it.
Thanks so much.
God bless.
All righty.
All right, folks, great to chat with Ben,
and I really do hope in 2023 we see Black on Media
come together as a collective to be able to get our fair share.
But, folks, look, we just got started.
The second hour is going to be even more powerful
than the first hour. Coming up next, Bishop T.D. Jakes, Angela, look, we just got started. The second hour is going to be even more powerful than the first hour.
Coming up next, Bishop T.D. Jakes, Angela Yee, motivational speaker, author, and entrepreneur Willie Jolly
are going to blow the hinges off the door in our second hour here from Operation Hope's Global Hope Forum here in Atlanta.
You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network.
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Next on The Black Table with me, Greg Carr. We welcome the Black Star Network's very own
Roland Martin, who joins us to talk about his new book, White Fear, how the browning
of America is making white folks lose their minds.
The book explains so much about what we're going through in this country right now and
how, as white people head toward becoming a racial minority, it's going to get, well,
let's just say, even more interesting.
We are going to see more violence.
We're going to see more vitriol.
Because as each day passes, it is a nail in that coffin.
The one and only Roland Martin on the next Black Table, right here on the Black Star Network.
Hey, what's up everybody? It's Godfrey, the funniest dude on the Black Star Network. Hey, what's up, everybody?
It's Godfrey, the funniest dude on the planet.
I'm Israel Houghton.
Apparently, the other message I did was not fun enough.
So this is fun.
You are watching...
Roland Martin, my man, unfiltered.
Welcome back to Roland Martin Unfiltered
on the Black Star Network.
Folks, Bishop T.D. Jakes has a thousand titles.
He is a pastor.
He is an author.
He is a filmmaker.
He is a producer.
Whatever he puts his mind to, he can do it.
Now he's involved in real estate development.
And so he and I had an opportunity to talk after he was on the panel here at Operation Hope.
If you missed it, go to our app.
Go to the YouTube channel. It is
an amazing conversation he had
with John Hope Bryant. But here's my chat
with Bishop T.D. Jakes.
Bishop Jakes, always good
to see you. Thank you, man. Looking clean there.
I'm trying to keep up with you. I was surprised you
didn't bring any of those cakes and stuff
I keep looking at on Instagram.
All your bacon. Yeah, whenever
the kids come over, that's how I show love.
Oh, I understand.
I understand.
Look, my mom has done cakes professionally for 30-plus years.
And so when I went home for Thanksgiving, that was the family cakes,
and there was one that said Roland.
Okay.
Oh, yeah.
So, no, I was like, no, no, no.
I said, I need my own pineapple cream cheese cake right there.
Pineapple cream cheese.
That cake is ridiculous.
Yeah, I bet.
It's ridiculous.
Ridiculous.
Yeah.
Let's talk about, first of all, the session you did was absolutely amazing.
And the thing that really jumped out, and we've had this conversation before,
when someone wants to put you in a box.
Right.
And they only see you as this.
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As opposed to, wait a minute, I can do all of this
And a lot of people are afraid to actually let somebody know that
And tell them, I can do more than one thing.
You know, if you look at what has worked well
in the black community, it is diversified modeling.
Whether you're talking about Serena Williams
or Oprah Winfrey or Puffy or,
it doesn't matter what the industry it is,
the more diverse you are
and the more you are true to your core
and not allowing yourself to be locked in,
the more productive you can be you can only be on the stage for a short period of time but you can be the
stage the rest of your life that was um that was a video i saw i think uh it was jay-z and he said
some people go with the flow or you can be the flow right there go. How can you top that line? Yeah, you want to be the flow. And I
think what happens is in the process of going with the flow, you meet the people that makes it
possible to form the partnerships to be the flow. And there's a jump off point. And I think we focus
on when to get in. but the smartest thing in the world
is to know when to get out.
Right.
Yeah.
You got to know when to stop playing the game
and start coaching.
Right.
You got to know when to stop following the drum major
and start beating the drum.
And if you can sense that and figure it out
and the conditions around you help you to know,
like COVID, this was a moment of disruption.
Yep.
And understanding how to benefit from the disruption
rather than to be destroyed by it
is what I'm writing about now, is disruptive thinking.
Well, there were a lot of black churches
that the silver lining, COVID forced them to catch up.
Right.
They were ignoring digital.
They were ignoring streaming.
And I remember I was getting phone calls left and right because people were hitting me.
They were like, Roland, you were properly prepared for this.
We launched this September 2018.
We go through 19.
So when 20 hit, all these other people were interviewing, FaceTime and Skype.
We were already doing that.
Right.
And so they were calling me up for advice and counsel.
And I said, if y'all want to survive, if you're going to have to do this, you have no choice.
That's right.
That's right.
And what it has done, it has sped up what was going to happen eventually anyway.
The digital influence is taking over big box stores, airports, grocery stores, everywhere.
We cannot be naive enough to think we're going to be the only institution that's not affected by it.
Taxis were ate up by Uber.
Look at all the changes that technology is bringing about.
I'm trying to get our people to understand you either fight the flow or you get with the flow.
And the flow is going toward
technology. I'm old school. I like face to face. I like shaking hands. I like hugging people,
touch your neighbor. But the reality is it's not about what I like. It's about what the society
demands at this time. Absolutely. And I think that, you know, one of the things that was very
interesting when you talk about haters and what people, how they want to draw from you.
And I really do, for me, people ask me all the time, like, man, how do you deal with these people hating?
I say, look, y'all, I've been writing commentary since I was 17 years old.
I'm going to give my opinion for a long time.
I really don't care.
Right.
Right.
And when you don't care, then I'm not trying to make you happy because my philosophy is if you do good, I'm going to talk about you.
If you do bad, I'm going to talk about you.
At the end of the day, I'm going to talk about you.
And when you're building something, if you get caught up in that nonsense, then actually you stop being focused on building.
You took the words out of my mouth.
And focus is a critical thing.
And anytime you're about to get there, there's always a distraction.
Sometimes it comes to a hater.
Sometimes it comes to a sickness.
Sometimes it comes to a family issue.
But distractions come to break your focus because you are so close.
How have you, because I was having this conversation earlier with someone,
a CEO once said, and I've seen you do this, so I know you speak to this.
A CEO once said, the people that made me a $500 million a year corporation
are not the same people that can take me to a billion.
And I've seen people who work with you who no longer work with you.
How have you walked people through the understanding that you're great, you're wonderful, but I've now gone to another level, and the reality is you can't go with me.
You don't have the skill set needed for me to go to the next level.
And it's hard for some people to deal with that because they say,
wait a minute, but I've been loyal to you. Right.
And, yes, you have been, and you've been a great worker,
and I've compensated you fairly for it.
But I'm trying to go here, and you actually can't go with me.
That's hard for a lot of people to have to make that decision.
You know, it is and it isn't. It's your responsibility to grow with me
so you can go with me.
You can't go with me if you don't grow with me.
If you see me growing, you may have to take classes,
you may have to get on LinkedIn in order to keep up.
If you want to be with me in that way,
you need to go with me.
If I have to let you go, understand it's never personal.
Maintaining a personal relationship, a friendship, we can still be friends. You can work over for
AT&T or for GM or somebody like that. And we can still be friends. I'm not mad at you.
I'm not angry with you. I don't dislike you. It's just for where I'm trying to go.
Your skill set doesn't fit.
I think a lot of times because we have been rejected so much, we have rejection issues.
When they find out that you can preserve the relationship and it still be a different relationship from a work relationship, sometimes it eases the pain.
Some people are petty.
They're just going to be mad and be haters.
You can't worry about them.
I think that when John talks about reboot, I use the phrase reprogram.
And I really do believe that black America needs a massive reprogram
in that not believing in white validation, not believing that the ice is colder,
and also not being hung up on, well, that's a bigger platform.
People have come to me and said that,
well, man, I wish you were on a bigger platform.
I said, yeah, but you don't understand.
I own it. I control it.
I have freedom. I have flexibility.
Even if they were paying me $10 million,
I wouldn't have all of that. And it's hard for people to understand what I'm thinking.
And they look at me like I'm crazy.
I'm like, but you don't understand.
That ain't my motivation.
Right.
It's something else.
You know, if you're not careful, you'll live everybody's dream but your own.
And I think it takes great courage and great focus to follow your dream and your values and what's important to you.
And it may not be about money. It may be about independence. It may be about your uniqueness.
And to have the freedom to do that is your God-given right, your choice to choose. And people
don't get it, that's okay. The people who get it are going to benefit from it. The people who don't,
it's a big world. It's 8 billion people here.
Find somebody else. Last question
for you. How do
you
maintain
the desire?
And what I mean by that is
things can get
monotonous.
You've been preaching a long time.
You've been in business.
But for you, how are you, not anybody external,
but how do you maintain your personal desire where that fire is burning inside
and it doesn't just, you just reach a comfort zone where you're on autopilot.
Yeah, you know, so I'm laughing because if you'd have asked me that question
three years ago, I don't think I would know how to answer it.
I realized as I got older that I've been raised by the giants,
and what I mean by that is what keeps me fresh is the giant that's in front of me.
And I have to have something that's big and scary and intimidating that makes me read and study and pray.
You want to take down something.
Yeah, I got to take down something, dude.
And so now I'm at this point in my life, this real estate stuff that I'm doing,
this intervention into our communities for the
upraising of underserved communities is a giant for me, you know? And gosh, I'm 65 years old,
and I still get to be in a fight that I believe has value, closing food deserts, opening up schools,
creating better opportunities for the next generation. Maybe it's an old man's dream because it's more about the people coming after me
than it is me, but it's a giant.
And I found out...
You're supposed to see something new.
Yeah.
I can tell you're like, okay, I don't know this.
So it's like you're educated.
So it's a new thing.
Yeah, and it keeps you fresh to be curious,
to have something you're curious about.
I think what makes you bored is when you know the industry so well there's nothing to be curious about.
That's the time to evolve to something new where you're not the smartest guy in the room.
You want to be in a room where you're scared to say something.
You want to be in a room where you're Googling terms.
You want to be in a room because it gives room for expansion and growth and development.
And I like living that way.
It gets my adrenaline going.
I don't want to be a Baptist preacher.
I am going to ask one final question.
That wasn't a final question.
But it really resonated me when you mentioned your father.
Yeah.
I have a hashtag.
I call it Live Life Love It.
And I turned 54 in November.
And it's very interesting because ever since my grandfather,
my grandfather was the first major death I had when I was 15.
And actually a fear of death kicked in at that point,
and it's always been there.
But what you said resonated because you said by watching him die
and labor to live gave you life.
Yes.
And I run into so many people, they be like,
man, you out there dancing and partying, having a good time.
I said, because I may not be able to dance tomorrow.
Right, right.
I said, so there's going to be some video of me getting down.
And I just think that for so many people not understanding that
there is no day, no hour,
no minute, no second.
And so having that joy
and happiness and
living it to the fullest
is so essential. And that's what
really jumped out. Why don't you say that?
You know, one of the things that my father told me
as he was dying, he said,
by the time I figured out what life was all about,
it was time to go.
That scared me to death.
I thought, I got to figure it out quicker than that.
Because I don't want to figure it out on my deathbed.
So I start the zest for life, the zeal for life,
and the appreciation for life came through the tears of grief
falling down my face.
I never thought that a dying father could teach me so much about
living, but he did.
He really did. It's always good to see you.
Thank you. I appreciate it. It's a pleasure, man.
Keep handling your business. Thank you.
Thank y'all.
Alright, folks, always
glad to see Bishop T.D. Jakes.
Coming up next on Roland Martin Unfiltered,
I talk with Angela Yee.
She recently left The Breakfast Club.
She's launching her own midday show on iHeartRadio.
Folks, she's doing some amazing things.
I think you're going to enjoy my conversation with Angela Yee.
That is next right here on Roland Martin Unfiltered,
broadcasting live from the Global Hope Forum in Atlanta on the Black Star Network.
We'll be right back.
On the next Get Wealthy with me,
Deborah Owens, America's Wealth Coach.
Inflation is on the rise.
Interest rates are high.
Can you still thrive during these uncertain times?
On the next Get Wealthy,
you're gonna meet a woman who's done just that,
living proof of what you need to do
to flourish during these uncertain times.
These are times where you take advantage of what's going on.
This is how people get rich or richer.
That's right here on Get Wealthy, only on Blackstar Network.
This is Judge Math.
What's going on, everybody? It's your boy, Mack Wilde.
Hey, what's up, y'all? It's your boy, Jacob Lattimore, and you're
now watching Roland Martin right now.
Yee!
Welcome back to
Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network,
folks. Angela Yee, she's worked
for Sirius XM Radio.
You've seen her on The Breakfast Club,
but now she's embarking on a new opportunity,
the host of her own show on iHeartRadio.
Here's our conversation about that and some other stuff as well.
So, Angela, new beginnings.
You were on The Breakfast Club how long?
For, they say, 13 years.
I thought it was 12 12 but I'm not sure
it was interesting a lot of people
and I guarantee you you've already heard this
people will say
Angela why are you doing this?
why would you leave this popular
show oh my god
you're at the heights
but the fact of the matter is
you're now going to be centered
yeah it'll be my own show with my name on it and people told me that when I left Sirius But the fact of the matter is, you're now going to be centered.
Yeah, it'll be my own show with my name on it.
And people told me that when I left Sirius.
I had my own show at Sirius the morning after with Angela Yee.
And I left that show to go to iHeart.
And people told me, why are you leaving a successful show where you're the main person?
It's not going to work. So I feel like a lot of times you have to go with what you want to do, what's in your heart, what's in your gut.
If you start listening to what everybody else has to say and second-guessing yourself and thinking too hard, I'm a big fan of just I want to do something.
Let's go for it.
But also, most people also, I was having this conversation with Major.
And I told him, I said, the two words that I've always had in my career, I mean, from the beginning, we're freedom and flexibility. And what folks don't understand is different shows have different rhythms,
and they flow totally different.
So going from that, going to the Breakfast Club,
and now transitioning to your own show,
it's about different speeds and rhythms based upon where we are also in our life.
Yeah, absolutely.
And I think from my new show, it's Way Up With Angela Yee,
I do really
want to focus on financial empowerment, on entrepreneurship. That's going to be something
on my show that you'll see a lot of. Yeah. And obviously I'm going to have Roland Martin on a lot,
okay, as much as his schedule allows. But it's nice for me to be able to curate the content that
I want. You know, we have... Okay, so I want you to, I want you to look right there, say that again,
by curating the content.
Because people don't understand what that means.
Right, because right now I'm on a show.
Well, I was on a show.
And there's three of us.
And so everybody has different things that's important to them, different agendas.
And for myself, I have my own thing that I want to do.
And there's things that I might feel like are important to me as a black woman.
And say, this is what I want to do.
But for them, because they're men, they may not understand it.
And I'm not even saying that in a negative way.
It's just, there's things that they want to do that I might not really understand.
Look, when Meghan and Harry got married.
No, seriously.
My producer came to me and he said, you know, we really should go big on this.
And I was like, no.
And he goes, well, he goes, you know, the women in the office are discussing it.
I was like, well, they can get their own show.
And the reason, and I had to walk him through,
I said, listen, I don't give a damn about no royal wedding.
It would be really weird for me if I would have seen you,
like, going really hard discussing that.
Yo, I just did.
It just doesn't fit you.
I mean, I just did.
I didn't even do much of anything when Queen Elizabeth died. Right.
Because again, because just what you just said,
for me, my whole deal is I've got two hours.
Right.
And there's so much stuff happening with black people
that, and you know what?
If you want to watch that, go to CNN.
Yeah, there's a space for that.
And we didn't do a lot when Queen Elizabeth died either.
You know, it was in the news and we mentioned it,
but it wasn't the focus at all.
It was all over the news every day, nonstop.
Matter of fact, I think our most viewed segment was,
why do black people care about Queen Elizabeth?
And it was like, it got big views.
But it was just, and I walked people through that,
and it's just like, for me, I don't care. I don't care who you
marry. I don't care if y'all have a
baby. I don't care if you come out.
Even Diddy right now? No, I'm playing with you.
I send him a text
that I would never discuss on the show.
I mean, because my whole deal is
I say, hey, you want that,
go to E, go somewhere else,
but I'm going to give you, this is where
we're going to focus on.
And you know what you're going to get.
Right.
And it might sacrifice views and clicks or whatever.
But my whole deal is that's just not my thing.
Although sometimes there is like an intersectionality between what's happening in pop culture and in politics.
Right.
But it has to.
It has to make sense for you. Like you would cover Dave Chappelle talking about Herschel Walker on his SNL intro speech.
I feel like that's something because that was interesting or why people like Trump.
So I did a whole hour after the Chris Rock-Will Smith deal.
Yep.
But I wanted to do it totally different.
I knew how everybody else was going to do it.
Exactly.
And also because I know both of them.
So my approach to, if it is pop culture,
I try to do it differently than how,
I'm not doing salacious because I just don't care.
It's so much of that.
And I think we get so much of that information,
which is why we were talking about my last appearance.
Like I was still just blown away how people were responding.
They were like, yo, we were getting it real.
And it's just like.
I always was like, we need Roland up here more often.
Because I honestly love the fact that you can say,
look, where are the facts?
We can say they said this, they said that,
and that's happening all over.
But what are the actual facts?
And that's important, and that's something people need to get to.
Where can I see or where can I hear this information firsthand
from where it came from?
And I can go look online and see what's actually happening in the government.
So you can critique things all you want, and we should,
but make sure you're critiquing that with actual facts.
I remember on social media when it blew up,
Angela, he's out at the breakfast club.
First thing I did, text, you leaving?
And again, so my whole deal is always I'm going to check on it first versus just running with it because so many people just run with stuff all the time when somebody dies or something else.
Everybody wants to be first, too.
Everybody wants to be the first to report something.
So I want to ask you, do people ever get mad at you for anything that you report?
Because you do know people and you reach out to people and not necessarily that it's a friendship.
But has anyone ever been really irate about something?
Oh, I'm trying to think.
And do you sometimes have to hold back because of your relationships?
No, I don't.
I'm trying to think.
I mean, there have been people who have been upset with when I've,
like when I went off on Revolt when they got the Death Abyss marquee wrong.
Oh, right. Never be on Revolt when they got the Death Abyss marquee wrong. Oh, right.
Never be on Revolt again.
It didn't find out later.
But we were fine because I came,
and here's the whole deal. I'm going to come back at you.
Right.
Because me, it was about a standard thing.
And it's the same thing. Like, yo,
get it right. Because for me,
I also, it's even
extra for me with black media.
Right.
Because people are trusting us.
And when we get it wrong, I'm like, no, we got to get that thing right.
But I would say I've had people who are ticked off if I might go hard in my commentary.
But they also have to understand.
It ain't personal. My philosophy is very simple. If you do good, I'm going to talk about you. And I feel like people do bad.
I'm going to talk about you. And I feel like people get mad at us more than mainstream media.
If we report on something, even it's not our fault that, you know, sometimes everyone's talking
about something and it's not in a positive light. And so you report on it.
But for some reason, we are held to like a.
Oh, yeah, because they because they want us to protect.
I'm like, yeah, but you screwed up.
Like, so I'm not going to sit here.
And also, I think there's a difference between some people and how they go overboard.
Right.
Malicious intent.
As opposed to I'm offering a critique.
I'll get people like, perfect example, I'm not going to name his name,
but a very prominent attorney came up to me at the Alpha luncheon
during CBCF, was upset with my criticism of Florida A&M.
Okay.
Big alum, big donor, all that sort of stuff.
Also an Alpha.
Yes, also an Alpha.
And I literally was like, you want to have this conversation right now?
Let me tell you what I didn't say.
And so after about 15 minutes later, he was like, okay, Roland, okay.
You got it.
And my whole deal was like, bruh, don't roll up on me.
Man.
And I'm like, what did I say was wrong?
Yeah, but did you have to put it out there?
Yes.
Right.
And, you know, Roland, for you, I feel like you've always had a really strong opinion on things,
and I love watching your show and listening to you speak,
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You get a lot of hate from the other side, too.
Oh, yeah.
Does that ever affect you?
No, it doesn't affect me.
Because the reality is, look, I went to communications high school.
I've been writing commentaries since I was 17.
So I've been getting hate since I was 17.
Right.
I worked for the local newspaper in college.
I wrote columns then,
blasting Clarence Thomas and others.
And I was getting hate letters to the editor
when I was in college.
In fact, the Texas A&M band played Dixie at halftime.
And I wrote a column in the school paper
blasting their ass.
So I came home, my brother was like,
what your ass do? I was like, what your ass do?
I was like, what you mean?
He's like, bruh, the answering machine is feel.
And I was like, yes.
I know.
Listen, that's good hate.
I feel like, and I've always said this, when certain people hate me, that's what you want.
But then you got the black hate. I don't want certain people to agree with me or be on my side.
I'd rather you not.
I'm not going to be, for me, I'm not going to be nasty about it.
But when I go there, do understand, I'm going to back it up.
Right.
And if you come at me, I'm not backing down
because you didn't like what I have to say.
I remember Bernice King.
So I ripped the King children over licensing and stuff along those lines.
So we had the 50th anniversary of the march in Washington.
And so they had two marches.
They had one Saturday, Sharpton had his march, and they had the actual,
the real one, the major one on Monday.
And so Bernice King, Martin Luther King III, he's like,
he's like, y'all don't walk in our shoes.
The stuff y'all say, I said, what did I say that was wrong?
So then Bernice came up to me.
And Bernice, she goes, you know, I still love you,
but y'all don't realize stuff is hard.
I said, Bernice, you see all these people here?
Everybody here know I will get in that ass if I have to.
And I said, Bernice, there's going to come a day when you're going to want me to get in somebody's ass on your behalf.
I said, now, what do you want?
You want me to be somebody who's going to pull back?
This was a Saturday.
I said, that's going to come a day when you're going to call me
and you're going to want me to light somebody's ass up.
Three days later, three days later, her brother sued her
and tried to get her fired from the M.O.K. Center.
And you know my petty ass.
I know.
I went.
She didn't text. I went. She didn't text.
I went.
Remember what I said?
And I lit into her brothers for the lawsuit.
But it was three days.
I said.
Three days later.
I said, see, I told you.
No.
So that's why.
So for me, I don't sweat it because somebody has to speak truth.
And if it's truth and it's not malicious, I'm not trashing you.
But I'm just going to give you hardcore truth.
That's how we're going to do it.
All right.
Well, I really just came here to make sure that when Way Up With Angela Yee starts,
I can expect to see Roland Martin on there getting in people's ass.
All you got to do is call me.
I mean, that's the thing.
My deal is I'll be happy to come on.
And look, my philosophy is, first question, how much time we got?
If it's five minutes?
No.
If it's 15, we going to bring that funk?
We going to bring the funk during the time.
So first of all, so when does the show start?
So the show is going to be first, before we syndicate it nationally,
it'll be in New York for two weeks.
Got it.
So January 17th, two weeks in New York.
It's a morning show? It's from 10 to 2, right after the Breakfast Club. for two weeks. Got it. So January 17th, two weeks in New York. It's a morning show?
It's from 10 to 2, right after the Breakfast Club.
Midday show.
Got you.
Yes.
And it'll be a podcast as well.
So just the same way all the shows are now available on podcasts and iHeart,
which is how a lot of people listen.
Yep.
That's why they're building out this slot the way that they are.
Got it.
And so it'll be on nationally after that, starting the 30th.
Now, I've got to ask you this here, because I crack up.
I literally crack up every time I see one of these damn clips.
So how did your podcast go to become the freakiest podcast in the land?
Because when I see a clip, I'm like, Lord, they done lost.
Well, wait till tomorrow when you see Glorilla.
Oh, Lord.
Because wait, because wasn't AJ on your podcast?
Oh, yes, she was.
AJ Johnson.
Mm-hmm.
Her 50th birthday.
I sent AJ a text.
I said, AJ, you had me hollering.
And then AJ was like, I need to come back to explain this some more, you know, because
people really had an issue with it.
But it does show you what type of misogynistic society we have, where if a man said something
like that. Oh, I remember. So when WAP came out,
so I remember, first of all, Boyce Watkins is an idiot.
We already know that. But when Snoop Dogg criticized it,
and I was like, yo, hold up, Snoop.
I know, wait, we can't be criticized.
I was like, the stuff you done rapped about?
And it was like, but so part of the whole deal
is this idea that women cannot talk
freely and openly about sexual desires. That's why I started my podcast. Honestly, I actually
started that when I was at Sirius. It was a nighttime show once a week. And it started off
as a segment on the show when I was on with Cypher Sounds. And then they made it into a full show on
its own because it was so popular. And it was really a space.
The way that I started it was I felt like a lot of women
were being seen but not heard.
A lot of the video vixens, the women in the magazines,
artists, everybody.
People were lusting after these women,
but nobody cared about what they had to say.
And so I started Lip Service as a way for women to have a voice,
for people to see their personality
and help elevate them to another level,
but to also not feel ashamed to have certain conversations that it was always okay for men to have a voice, for people to see their personality and help elevate them to another level, but to also not feel ashamed to have certain conversations
that it was always okay for men to have,
but for women, we were not supposed to do that.
And I feel like it's done a lot of great things.
It's, I think, been educational.
There's women who have told me they've learned so much
just from listening to the show.
There's men who, thank God, have learned a lot, too,
because y'all needed some help.
But, yeah, it's benefited everyone. When she said y'all needed some help. But, yeah, so it's benefited everyone.
When she said y'all needed some help, she look at that camera.
Y'all men.
Because, look, I ain't, look.
Don't do it, Roland.
No, no.
Don't make people know everything.
No, no, no, no.
No, one doesn't know everything.
Because they said.
I don't know who that is.
I'm playing.
I can count mine.
But, look, I look.
You can count high, too.
I know.
No, I'm playing with you.
I remember I was in college, and his older sister was like,
I can teach you a few things because of me being a reporter.
She's about six, seven years older than me.
I said, hold on.
Went and got my reporter's notepad.
I was like.
Teach me.
I said, I take copious notes.
Yes, I did.
I was like, oh, you want to be smart with me?
I'm like, yeah, I'm smart with you.
We take copious notes.
Here we are now.
Well, look, looking forward to it.
Again, it is something that is awesome and liberating when you're sitting in the driver's chair.
Yes.
And you get to, or as, what's my man, Eddie Glaude was on my show.
And he was like, this is jazz.
He said, watching is like watching Miles Davis.
So when you're conducting, that's what other people don't understand.
Successful shows really are about you conducting.
Right.
It's not you driving.
It's really bringing in other characters and conducting the whole flow and just making
it pop.
Right.
Well, I'm really looking forward to it.
I have like a thousand different things that I already have planned that I want to do.
You are included in those plans.
Well, you know, all you got to do is hit me and I ain't that person you got to call
me a week in advance.
He could be like, yo,
can you come on in an hour? All right, I'll
be up. I'll be up. But
thank God it's a midday because I don't really wake up
until about nine. Okay, perfect. So that
works perfectly because that early morning stuff.
I don't know how in the hell I did. Listen, I don't know how I
did it as long as I did. I am not a morning person.
I did that for 19 years
of mornings. And are you a morning
person or night person? No, I am not.
I'm the same way.
I am not a morning person.
I mean, you hit me at 2 o'clock in the morning.
I'm like, yo, what up?
Oh, no.
Not me.
You're like, I ain't that much of a night person.
8 o'clock is good.
8 a.m., I'm saying.
I wake up, like, if I could wake up every morning at 8 a.m., perfect.
Nah, give me about 10, 10.30, I'm good.
Because I don't go to bed until 5 o'clock, so.
Oh, no, not me.
Okay.
All right, darling, it was good to see you.
Well, good to see you, too, Roland.
Good luck.
I cannot wait for it to drop.
And it's going to be a lot of fun.
You will be at that lunch party, too, because we need your dancing skills.
Well, you know, I ain't, you know.
I do got blue suede shoes on.
And they're not for Elvis.
So, good to see you, darling. You, too. Thank you. I ain't. I do got blue suede shoes on. It ain't not for Elvis. Good to see you, though.
You too.
Thank you.
I appreciate it.
I was always glad to see Angela, and trust me,
I look forward to being a regular on her show on iHeartRadio.
All right, folks, got to go to break, pay some bills, and we come back.
Motivational speaker and entrepreneur Willie Jolly is going to drop some pearls of wisdom for us.
Trust me, you don't want to miss the second half of this
second hour.
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Unfiltered.
Welcome back to Roland Martin Unfiltered, broadcasting from the Global Hope Forum here in Atlanta.
Well, it's Willie Jolly. You've seen him on my show many times.
He is an amazing speaker, always lots of energy, always positive. And we really talked about how we need to be intentional in changing our mindset in the
black community. Here is part one of my conversation with Willie Jolly. Willie, how you doing, doc?
I'm incredible, Roland. It's good to see you. Man, so I'm a bit perturbed. Here's why.
I've had a lot of people, not just here, but a lot of places I've been recently.
They come up to me and they say, I got a podcast or I want to do a show with you.
And I've been doing it about six months, but I can't get on a major platform.
And I look at them and I try not to cuss them out.
But I literally have to explain to folk it wasn't designed to be easy.
No, it's not.
And I tell them, I'm like, y'all, this didn't just happen.
That's right.
I mean, I've even tried to walk people through just these light panels aren't the light panels we started with. That's right. I mean, even like I've even tried to walk people through just these light panels aren't the light panels we started with.
That's right.
We didn't have a step and repeat when we started.
That's right.
We didn't have these pop-up or these chairs.
We didn't have those C300 cameras.
Right.
We had two levels below.
I'm like, y'all,all this And so it literally drives me crazy
When folk today just think it's just you they just gonna wake up and you're just gonna be larger than charge, right?
it's a process that they don't understand because
It looks easy because when you do it well when you do it well like you do it, and they think, well, it's easy. They just
get up in front of a mic and they talk and people will give them money. And it's not that way. I
started at XM 16 years ago. And I had tried for two years to get on and couldn't. And I got in on
a backdoor. And then here's the key. You've got to make it a commitment to excellence.
The key is a commitment to excellence and to be willing to do the uncomfortable in order to get to do the comfortable.
And that's the thing that, you know, I say, you know, I'll have folk, especially a lot of young folk,
who say, you know, I want to do what you do.
Yes.
And then my response is, but do you want to do what I do?
Or do what you had to do to get to do what you do.
But even still, do you want to do what I do?
Okay.
Do you want to actually do that work?
Do you want to carry that equipment?
Do you want to?
We were here in Georgia covering the Warnock runoff, and this guy said,
man, I'm really impressed I'm seeing you pack gear.
And I said, well, two of my guys had to fly out.
One guy left.
The gear got to get packed.
I mentioned you one day on one of my shows I said the secret to success is
When you are willing to do the grunt work to make sure your operation
I saw I said I mentioned you I said I saw rolling one day at Freedom Plaza
Roland was rolling up cords putting stuff away. It was hot day
He was working.
We gave each other a hug, and he went back to work.
I saw Miss Virginia Ali at Ben's Chili Bowl.
She's busting the tables, 90 years old.
Right.
Still busting tables.
I said, Miss Ali, no, no, no, no, I got it.
That's how you get to where it is.
So what I want to encourage people to do is this.
I got a new book coming out called
Rich is Good, Wealthy is Better. And in that, I'm talking to people about the fact that there are
levels of thinking that you must grow. There are five levels of money that we think about. We got
the indigent who think day to day, give me enough money to eat today. They got a cardboard box.
You give them some money and they do that every day. Then you got the poor who think day to day, give me enough money to eat today. They got a cardboard box. You give them
some money and they do that every day. Then you got the poor who think month to month. Did I get
my welfare? Did I snap? And then they got to do that every month. Then you got the middle class
who think year to year. Did I get a cost of living raise? Then you get the rich who tend to think
decade to decade, usually in sports. They get a $10 million, $100 million, 10-year contract. They
balling for 10 years.
But what happens after those 10 years if you don't modify?
But then you get the wealthy, who are you and Ms. Ali,
who are willing to do the things that think generationally.
And then my goal in this book is to get each level to come up one level
because it would be too big a gap or jump for the indigent to go to wealthy.
But if I can get the indigent to go to 30-day and the 30-day to go to year, that's what
we got to get people to do.
Raise their thinking.
I posted, it was a video or a photo, I can't remember, on Instagram.
And I said I was, it was like 3 or four o'clock in the morning.
I've been up at nights because I was thinking about the third and the fourth quarter of 2023.
Right.
And how to pay staff.
There you go.
How to.
How to meet payroll.
How are we going to do this?
How are we going to grow?
And so all of a sudden people started texting me. You know, Roland, you okay?
You okay? And I said, well, first of all,
I said, I'm fine. I said, but
I need y'all to understand
that's what
owners do. That's what they do.
I said, I'm not just thinking about
I'm not just thinking about
okay, well, what's going
to happen in January? I'm literally
sitting here now. Okay, what's going to happen in January? I'm literally sitting here now.
Okay, what's going to be our tax liability?
What can I pay off now that's going to lower my tax threshold,
bringing down to zero versus sending $100,000, $200,000, $300,000, $400,000 to Uncle Sam,
which is a waste?
I'm like, guys, that's how you have to be thinking.
That's how you have to be thinking. There are times, sometimes it's hard for me to sleep because I'm literally thinking about 2023, 2024.
And I just, and again, I just, it irks me when people just walk up
and they think it's just going to happen.
I literally had somebody say, you know,
I want to get my show on a major platform, but it's hard.
And I said, it's supposed to.
It is hard.
I'm like, what are you?
You know, like I tell them all the time, you know, it was four years before I got signed at CNN.
Yes.
That was four years of free appearances on CNN, MSNBC, Fox, BBC, BET, on and on and on.
Right.
And I'm like, y'all, that's the work you got to put in.
That's right.
To go to the next level.
And I just think, Willie, a lot of folk, they want the recognition.
Yeah.
They want folk taking selfies with them.
I'm like, but you got to do all that stuff that leads up to that.
Absolutely.
You got to do it, and you got to get a mindset.
So that's the thinking that I want people to get.
What I do and what you've encouraged people to do,
because we've done a number of events together, is change your mindset.
Your thinking determines your results, good or bad.
And who you hang out with also determines your results.
If you hang out with nine losers, you're going to be number ten.
That's for sure. So you want to be around people who are thinking, who
are talking about ideas, about what's possible and how to grow. And that's why I'm glad to
see you here at this Hope Global Forum, because the people who are here are making stuff happen
and are trying to make stuff happen.
See, I think that the idea of how do you think differently, I've said this numerous times, that really what black America
desperately needs, John likes to say, John O'Brien,
he likes to say we need a reboot.
Right.
I like to say that what we desperately need is we need a complete reframing.
I call it a reorganization.
Some call it a rebirth.
But we absolutely need to have it completely transformed
in terms of how we think.
Because I think what just happened,
and I've just talked to black people all over the place, that so many are stuck because they are seeing it, but they're only seeing what's right in front of them.
Right, right.
They're not actually seeing what's behind, what's around the corner.
Right.
And as long as we continue operating with an old mindset, we're not going to be able to break through and move forward.
Absolutely.
You've got to think different.
Now, I will tell people.
Actually, the phrase I use is a reprogramming.
Reprogramming.
Scripture.
That's scriptural.
Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
Reprogramming.
That you will be transformed by renewing, new
thinking, transformational,
reprogramming,
a different mindset. Someone took and
gave you a brain transplant.
That's why I'm encouraging people
to read more. Encouraging
people that the difference between the
winners and losers are those who are
reading. Everybody I've had on my XM
show talks about how their library has helped them to become wealthy.
And so Jim Rohn used to say, if you go in a $10 million home, it always has a library.
Now, does it have a library because it's a $10 million home,
or did the $10 million home is the result of their library?
And I believe it's the result of your library.
Oh, I agree, because I think what, I mean, for me, what I learned reading, what I learned studying,
what I learned other people's mistakes and processes and where they failed.
One of the best books I ever read, it was called You'll Know I'm Dead When I Stop Talking.
I love that.
And it is Jerry Weintraub.
Okay.
Movie producer.
He's a promoter.
And it really is an amazing book.
I was reading it.
I'm on a train going to New York, and I'm finishing the book.
And I said, I got to tell this man just how great his book is.
So I'm seeing the book where his office is.
I think it was on the Warner Brothers lot.
So I call.
Call Warner Brothers.
Right.
That's what a person like you and I do.
Just call.
And I asked, I want to speak to Jerry Weintraub.
They transfer me.
The secretary answers the phone.
And she says, Mr. Weintraub is not in.
So it probably was like 10 o'clock LA time.
And I said, well, this is who I am.
I just wanted to tell him how great his book is.
And so left my information.
About 30 minutes later, my phone rings.
I'm still on the train.
It's Jerry Weintraub.
Wow.
And I say to him, I said, look, you don't know me.
I've seen your movies.
I said, but your book should be required in MBA classes.
Wow.
It should be required.
And he was like, oh, my God, really?
I said, yes.
I said, because the thing about reading the book,
his whole deal was I've got to think my way out of a situation.
He has this great story where John Denver was a pain in the ass.
Okay.
And they're on tour, and John Denver is calling.
And the tour is going great, but John Denver is just complaining and whining.
So Jerry's like, to hell.
So he goes, John, everything is going to be fine.
He said, I fired, I think it's, I forgot the name.
I think it's, I fired Johnny.
Fired Johnny.
Everything is fine.
I forget, it was some other name, but.
Right.
And so John Denver goes, it was Jimmy.
He said, I fired Jimmy.
Okay.
Jimmy was a problem.
John, we're all good.
So John Denver goes back, calls the whole crew together.
Hey, folks, things are going to be fine.
I talked to Jerry.
He said, he's fired Jimmy.
We're moving forward.
There was no Jimmy.
Jimmy did not exist.
He needed John Denver to calm his ass down
and stop being a
worrywart. And so
when he told him that, but he had to figure
out, how can I get this dude
to focus on singing?
But it was just a story of a story. Yeah. And I was, but it was just story after story like that.
Wow.
And it was just, and I told, so he says to me, he says, hey, well, you ever get to L.A.?
I was like, yeah, I get to L.A.
He said, well, next time you come to L.A., I'm going to take you to my favorite lunch spot.
He said, I never have to pay.
I've got items on the menu.
And that's what happened.
Wow.
I sent him an email. He gave me his phone number, gave me a cell, gave me his email. I've got I've got items on the menu and that's what happened Wow
Cinnamon even he gave me his phone number gave me a sale gave me his email. I
Sent him an email said hey, I'm coming to LA he met the restaurant had a two two and a half hour lunch
He signed my book. I gave my book
Amazing conversation Wow. I stayed in the contact with Jerry until he died Wow And I wrote a column in the rap when he died about that. I stayed in contact with Jerry until he died. Wow.
And I wrote a column in The Wrap when he died about that,
and they call it Lunch with Jerry.
And his family actually invited me to the funeral.
Wow. I couldn't make it out, but I run to his son at George Lopez Golf Tour
and Michael Weintraub.
Uh-huh.
But just reading that book.
Wow.
Just opened my mind just to how he figured his,
I got to figure out a solution.
That's right.
To this problem.
And that's just reading.
Just reading.
And I'm encouraging everybody who's watching, who's listening, to make a commitment to become a reader.
Readers are leaders.
And you want to start reading not the Harlequin novels, not the Shades of Grey.
I don't read any of that.
No.
I don't read any fiction.
No.
I read nonfiction because my deal is I need to be able to apply it.
Apply application.
You get the information, and then you have application.
Then you have manifestation, and then you have monetization.
All right, folks.
Got to take a break.
And when we come back, part two of my conversation with Willie Jolly.
You can hear him on Sirius XM radio, book author, you name it.
And man, he is dropping the knowledge.
So hold tight one second.
We'll be back in a couple of minutes right here on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network.
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All right, folks, welcome back to Roland Martin, Unfiltered on the Black Star Network.
We continue with the conversation with Willie Jolly.
I'm going to ask you this right here,
because I guarantee you get it all the time as well.
Everybody and their mama think they can speak.
Oh, everybody and their mama think they can speak.
Everybody. And they think...
Oh, you're just getting up talking?
Right. And they pay you
a lot of money to get up and talk. I can do that?
Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.
Without understanding
that, like everything else,
it is an art form,
it is a craft. That's right.
That you have to study,
and you have to know what's that audience?
Who came up before me?
How do they feel?
Am I between them and lunch?
It's an art form.
You're not getting up and just talking.
No.
Not if you're going to be invited back.
So what we encourage people to do is to learn and get mentors.
Look, two ways to get to any goal in life, mentors and mistakes.
Both will get you there.
One just gets you there with less headaches, heartaches, and knots upside your head.
Mentors, get a mentor.
Les Brown was a mentor to me.
Hold on, hold on, hold on.
This is what I want to know, though.
Yeah.
How did they become a mentor?
Did they pick you or did you pick them?
I pursued them.
I pursued.
Didn't just pick them.
I chose them.
I saw the people who had done what I want to do.
Right.
And then I pursued them.
No, no, no.
But you pursued them.
But at some point, they had to make a decision.
I'm willing.
Because here's why I'm saying that.
Yeah, yeah.
I use the biblical model of mentorship.
Okay.
Elijah.
Yep.
Elisha pursued Elijah.
That's right.
But Elijah had to see something in Elisha.
That's right.
To want to actually take time.
That's exactly right.
Moses
picked Jonathan. Yes.
What? It wasn't...
So people come up to me all the time, I want to be my mentor.
I don't know you. Right.
I don't know you.
I ain't seen you work.
So why am I going
to invest into you
when I don'll know you?
Right.
It takes a process.
And just what you said, I've got to see.
I've got a number of mentees.
I've got to see.
I'm going to give you a task.
I'm going to tell you to do something,
and I want you to come back when that's finished.
Most of them, like 90%, never do that task.
Right.
Okay.
Oh, you have 97?
I say 99.5. And, in fact you have 97? I say 99.5.
And in fact, here's what I've discovered.
It's the craziest thing.
I've actually been a mentee in media to far more women than brothers.
Wow.
Okay.
Sisters will call me, hey, Roland, I got a contract issue.
I'm working on this.
It's amazing how many brothers got so much pride they won't pick the phone up.
Wow.
Wow.
I'm serious.
Wow.
I'm talking about, sister was like, hey, Roland, can you look over my reel?
Yeah.
Can you look over this whole deal?
And it's very few.
I've got two brothers in media.
Wow.
Wow. Two brothers in media who I mentor, give in media. Wow. Wow.
Two brothers in media who I mentor, give advice to.
Yeah.
It's probably 10, 15 sisters.
So brothers, you know that Roland, now we can't call him and just say mentor me.
You've got to say what will it take for me to get your attention or what can I do to help you?
Yeah.
All right.
You've got to do something.
You've got to do something and do some action.
I've got people come up and speak.
And what I do first of all, Roland, I say, you want to speak?
Okay, I'm going to send you to a website.
It's called youcanspeaknow.com.
Youcanspeaknow.com.
When you go to that website, get that program.
When you finish the program and do what I say doing that program,
call me back.
Very few. See, I stopped, call me back. Very few.
See, I stopped even carrying business cards.
I understood.
I don't carry business cards.
Because I'm like, why am I going to print some stuff off and literally 99.9% of folk never email.
I'm like, no.
So I'll tell people, they're like, how can I reach you?
Send me an email.
And I'll give them the email.
Right.
And most of them never send an email.
I just told the young lady who walked me over here, I told her, I asked her while we were waiting, I said, tell me about yourself.
And I said, what do you do?
She said, I'm a TV producer.
I said, where do you work?
She said, well, I used to work for this one, and now I'm working here, part of the program.
I said, okay.
Now, I said, this meeting, John Hope Bryant's Global Forum, incredible place, the network.
Here's what you've got to do.
Get the business card, and within 24 hours, send them a note.
Give them a call.
Right.
24 hours.
Because three days from now, I'm not going to be, I'm going to be in another one of these places.
There you go.
I'm going to be in another group of people, and I'm going to forget all the people who didn't hit me.
But if you hit me, I'm going to say, oh, that puts an anchor right in my brain
to say, oh, I remember that person.
We talked after that.
We communicated.
Cool.
What can I do to help you?
Sometimes I'll say, hey, I got an opportunity.
Somebody just came across my desk.
There you go.
Let me connect you all right now.
I do the exact same thing.
It is, to me, part of the deal for folks who truly want to be successful.
It's the follow-up.
That's right, the follow-up.
Most people, they never, ever follow up.
They never, or if they do, hey, I sent you an email one time.
Right.
Like, you know I get 500 a day.
You didn't send a second one?
And that's where persistence comes in.
And persistence breaks down resistance, and persistence makes opportunities come alive.
Now, one of the things you just said I really love a lot is the fact that you've got to follow up,
and then you've got to make sure that I got it, okay?
Because sometimes I get email, go to spam.
I might try me again.
And I told you if you reach out, I will respond.
Just give me time.
But you also have to have something to say.
Yeah.
If you're trying to get somebody's attention
and that person's a busy person,
you need to have something to say.
And don't take a long time saying it.
There you go.
Come on.
I don't need two, three pages for you
to tell me what you got. Make it a paragraph.
Or when folk walk up, look, give me,
you better have your 30-second pitch.
When they say, can I get five minutes?
No. One guy got mad. I said,
bro, I said,
you see that line?
I said, if each one of those
folks in line asked for five minutes, that's
an hour right there. I said, no. You got 30 seconds. And it asked for five minutes, that's an hour right there. Right.
I said, no.
You got 30 seconds.
Right.
And it's like, man, he's so brusque.
No, you got 30 seconds. Like, Doc, if you cannot lay your thing out in 30 seconds.
Well, which is why we're trying.
And part of what we teach and train people, and you can get it on our website, the speaking programs, the goal-setting programs, the communication programs.
Be working on your elevator pitch.
That's it.
And they say elevator pitch.
Yeah.
I got on the elevator.
National Press Club one day got on the elevator.
And who's there but Bishop Desmond Tutu.
And I said, Bishop Tutu, I'm Dr. Jolly,
host of the Willie Jolly Show on Sirius XM, Radio 1, iHeart.
And I wrote books. I wrote the book A the Willie Jolly Show on Sirius XM, Radio 1, iHeart, and I write books.
I wrote the book A Setback Setup for a Comeback.
I love to be able to help you as you do things to transform South Africa.
He said, give me your card.
I gave him my card.
He said, thank you very much.
And he got off the elevator.
His door opened.
He was out.
Six months later, I was in South Africa.
Folks, it makes a difference.
Have your 30 seconds.
Make it short and tell them what you can do for them.
Now, see, for me, because I ain't carrying the business cards,
this is what I do.
I'm going to email you right now.
Yep, there you go.
Email.
What's your email?
I email right then.
Right that moment.
Then I go, is this it?
There you go.
Double checking.
Boom, clicks in.
There you go.
But, again, I just think that for so many people,
they're missing the opportunity.
Let me take a moment to do what I do on SiriusXM and say to you, There you go. But again, I just think that for so many people, they're missing the opportunity.
Let me take a moment to do what I do on SiriusXM and say to you, Roland Martin, you've done a phenomenal job,
phenomenal, of turning setbacks into incredible comeback.
I study comeback stories.
You know, I wrote the book Setbacks Set Up for Comeback.
So you're with CNN for a while,
and then you're on TV One for a while. And then you're on TV
One for a while. Well, I was with TV One while I was at CNN.
Oh, no. I was at TV One before
CNN. I never left. Alright, so
all those deals
ceased at some point in time,
but you did not cease
your dream, your vision.
Tell me how. Well, because it was never
a setback. Oh, okay, good. Tell me.
It was never a setback. Okay. The, good. Tell me. It was never a setback.
Okay.
The day I, so you take TV One.
Yeah.
Jonathan Rogers became the founding CEO of TV One.
Right.
Jonathan calls me when they agreed to the deal.
So I knew before the even name existed.
Okay.
Jonathan says, your voice is important.
I'm going to put you on the network.
I got to get this thing off the ground first. So joined TV One. I'm doing interstitials.
That leads to doing a weekly show. Leads to doing specials. Then leads to a weekly show.
We do the weekly show, Washington Watch, for four years. And then I knew in 2012 I was ready
to host a daily show. I went to Wanya Lucas, who was now the CEO, because Jonathan retired.
And I'm like, I'm ready to do it. Then then I was like, I'm ready to do it. And then I was like, I'm ready to do it.
And then I was like, I'm ready to do it.
And then I was like, I'm ready to do it.
And then I was like, I'm ready to do it.
And then I was like, I'm ready to do it.
And then I was like, I'm ready to do it.
And then I was like, I'm ready to do it.
And then I was like, I'm ready to do it.
And then I was like, I'm ready to do it.
And then I was like, I'm ready to do it.
And then I was like, I'm ready to do it. And then I was like, I'm ready to be a host. Right. I was not going to be a sidekick.
Right.
Got it.
That's the point right there.
And I was very clear.
You made it clear what you wanted and what your vision.
And he goes, the second thing he's like, damn, you sure threw cold water on my idea.
But I was very clear.
Yeah.
I totally understood that.
And so then we did that show for four years.
So when I joined CNN, the day I joined CNN,
and this is people don't understand,
the day I joined a place, I'm already preparing for the exit.
There you go.
That's what I wanted to get to.
Always.
That's what I wanted to get to.
Always.
It's going to end.
Every media person, every time you get a job in media,
I say start planning your exit the day you get there.
It's going to end.
It's going to end.
It's got to end.
Nothing lasts forever.
Very, very few shows go 10, 15, 20, 30 years, and then the host retires.
I mean, it's very...
So you start planning your exit the day you join the station.
So when I join CNN, I tell my agent, Mark Watts,
okay, we're going to go get us a deal that matches or exceeds the salary at CNN.
Okay.
Time to join a morning show.
Yep.
We sign a time to join a morning show deal.
I say, we're going to go get another opportunity that matches or exceeds time to join a morning show deal.
Because I had a 360 degree view.
OK.
So I had TV One, Tom Jordan morning show, CNN,
published my own books, had my own speeches.
Yeah.
So the philosophy was, if any one of these ends, I just shift.
There you go.
So when CNN, Jeff Zucker comes, I knew he wasn't going to keep me.
He was going to cut folks, cut salaries.
So I leave in April 2013.
We're negotiating the News 1 Now show.
I had a publicist and a manager.
They actually sent me a letter.
Now, first of all, what's funny, I'd already dropped them.
But they sent me a letter, and they say, well, we're dropping you from this deal because
your media profile has now lowered.
Now, here was the crazy part.
I lose CNN, but I sign a deal to host a daily syndicated radio show at Radio 1, have a News
One Now show, the first morning show talking to African-Americans, and I'm on Tom Joyner.
Yeah.
And I go, how has my media profile lowered?
In their mind, oh, because I wasn't on CNN.
Right.
I'm like, no, actually, it's gone higher because I'm now hosting my own show.
Right.
And so in their minds, oh, you're not as valuable.
But I knew I was.
Right.
Even though it's to CNN.
They wanted me to leave TV One.
I said, why not?
Why?
Why am I going to give up my stuff on an idea of a promise?
Right.
No, I ain't going to do it.
And so when News 1 Now ended December 2017,
literally I'm sitting in the office and Alfred Liggins tells me
they're canceling the show.
I don't flinch. I don't move.
It wasn't a punch to the gut.
Literally, as he is talking, I am literally listening to him
and already saying who I'm going to call when I walk out of the meeting.
Amen.
So it never—
So, folks, that's what I wanted you all to get from this.
It never was—so people are like, man, you ain't not on major media.
I'm like, okay, you don't understand.
No.
I said I own, I control—
That's what I wanted to get to.
What I wanted folks to make sure you heard.
You know, on my XM show, I pull the pearls that drop sometimes by the side
because you don't hear it.
One, he had a plan, and he prepared for the inevitable,
which was going to happen before it happened.
I was acquiring, people don't understand, I was acquiring equipment.
There you go.
When I was at TV One, literally, I bought my own cameras.
Yes.
I bought my own switcher.
Good.
So when it ended, I could do my own productions and didn't have to go out and have to hire crews and rent equipment.
Right.
So basically, I mean, literally, this is what I said.
I said when CNN was not going to give me a daily show, go back to mindset.
Right.
I literally said CNN is now my personal venture capitalist.
Love it.
The $283,000 I was getting at CNN, I began to acquire my own equipment.
There you go.
And then the same thing at TV One.
Yep.
So when the TV One show ended.
Yes.
And they wanted to sign me to a new deal.
Uh-huh.
But they didn't have a plan.
Yeah.
I walked away from $330,000, and I said, y'all, you don't have a plan what I'm going to be doing.
Right.
And I already knew it was cheaper for them just to pay me every month
and produce nothing.
Wow.
Wow.
Because it happened before.
Yeah.
So I said, no.
I walked away from it.
So when I walked away and when we launched,
I had enough stuff to launch my show.
Yeah.
Because when I was there, I was buying stuff,
and I was buying stuff piece by piece, piece by piece.
That's it.
So when it happened, I just shifted right over.
So I want everybody to get to shift, to pivot, to think about the new ideas that you can implement when this thing doesn't happen.
So we've got now, I've got Jolly Media.
I've got Jolly Publishing.
I've got Jolly Music.
I've got Jolly Media. I've got Jolly Publishing. I've got Jolly Music. I've got Jolly Speaking.
I've got Jolly Podcast.
And then all of those radio shows through XM, Radio 1, iHeart, they license the content from my...
Hold up.
Stop right there.
Now, see?
Somebody watching missed that.
Yeah.
You own it. I own it. They're licensing it. Yes. They're paying you watching missed that. Yeah. You own it.
I own it.
They're licensing it.
Yes.
They're paying you a licensing fee.
Yes.
You still own it, which means, which is why I try to explain to people the same thing.
When I was at TV One, it was their show.
Uh-huh.
I was being paid by them.
Right.
They own the content.
Yes.
Now, I own all the content.
Hello. I can now, so if somebody comes to me and they say,
man, we want your series Rolling with Roland.
Right.
Richard Roundtree and Jack Hay and Bill Duke and Basil Alonzo,
Michael Ealy, all the people we interviewed last year,
well, you're paying me a licensing fee.
Licensing fee.
I'm going to still own the content.
I own the content.
Which means that not only.
I can repurpose it.
I can repurpose it for any multiple purposes.
And we talk about what you said earlier about generational.
Yes.
My estate will own my content.
That's right.
This is the same concept as owning your master's.
There you go.
The estate will...
So what I'm encouraging people to do is you think...
My wife and I were blessed to sit down and start learning about wealth creation.
And we got
a trust, not just a will, a trust. And the trust we set was a hundred year trust. We put enough
resources in there that a hundred years from now, we won't touch the corpus. We only let people get
for the next hundred years, dividends from that corpus to get whatever things they got to get
college. And we were very specific college home ownership, things that will put no buying stuff,
they're going to depreciate, only appreciating assets.
And if you don't work on your education, you don't get nothing.
Now, 100 years from now, there will be money in that trust for some kid to go to college.
That's what you're thinking now.
The IP, the intellectual property, is what you're talking about,
and that's why we got here,
Roland Martin Unfiltered,
and why his gentlemen here have their jackets on.
Roland Milton did.
Well, one of them do.
One of them didn't.
I had a conversation with Henry earlier.
Wear your jacket.
I did say your name, Henry Peterson.
Got his name on the jacket. I said, where's your
jacket? The house. But not be at the house next time. Because when you walk around with that
jacket, that's branding. I'm a new artist and resident at High Point University. Became artist
and resident in September. High Point is the fastest growing college in America. The president is Nito Cobain, the wealthiest man
I know, the wisest man. They brand
everything. Everything
you touch, they
brand it. They got their picture up. They got
something about High Point. I wear a High Point
hat now because they're paying me. I wear a
High Point hat on the plane.
And people say, oh, I've heard about that. Where is that?
You send your kid to go do a tour.
Almost seven out of ten people who visit want to go.
Branding.
Look, folks, we want to build wealth.
That's why we are here.
That's why we're encouraging people.
We want to encourage your mindset.
Read.
Get around big thinkers.
Talk to them.
Ask for advice.
Ask for 30 seconds.
I got 30 seconds. Yes, give me 30 seconds what you got.
If you got some value, then it'll stretch.
I'll say, hey, meet me after this line is over.
Here's my number. Call me tonight or whatever.
That's how we build wealth in our community.
It's just being wise.
And one more thing I do is often I'll have somebody for one of my books, I need a
forward or a quote from a big
baller shot caller, and
I'll say to them, hey, look, I need a quote.
Now, they get a thousand
people want a quote. So what I do is
I write a quote. I send it to
them and say, would you just
put your spin on this? Would that work for you?
I know you're busy. They appreciate
the fact that I took the time to honor their time.
So, man, Roland Martin is one of our icons in media because he keeps showing up in multiple variables and verticals, and he keeps showing up with excellence.
Folks, excellence, it paves a path for you.
It paves a path.
People know you by your excellence.
That's what you're doing.
Well, I love how you've set your piece up.
And, again, you're thinking, and somebody's,
trust me, somebody's watching, and they're like 100 years
without understanding that Rockefellers.
Yep.
Carnegie's.
Kennedy's.
Carnegie's. Yeah. All of those folks, that. Carnegie's, Kennedy's, Carnegie's,
all of those folks,
that's why they have
individuals who,
some of them lost
their mind
with all the money,
but part of our,
part of our,
again,
this whole,
how we reprogram,
one of the biggest
problems in black America
is that we keep
having to start
over every generation.
Every 10 years
we got to start over
and it never creates any
traction.
One more last story.
I just had on my show the president
of
Dale Carnegie Institute.
Now, I asked him,
man, what's your
business model? Oh, we have franchisees.
I said, how many franchisees? Oh, in 200
countries. I said, wow, they pay you what, a franchise fee? Yeah. I said, how many franchisees? Oh, in 200 countries. I said, wow.
They pay you what, a franchise fee? Yeah.
I said, hey, where can I buy
stock? He said, you can't.
It's owned by the family.
How long? 110 years.
Roland Martin,
you're a gentleman and a scholar.
It's a pleasure, Doc. I appreciate it.
I'm proud of you, man. Proud of you as well.
Blessings to everybody. God bless you you as well. All right, you make it happen. Blessings to everybody. God bless you.
Thank you.
All right, folks, great chat there with Willie Jolly.
I appreciate him being on the show.
And, again, let me thank everybody who's been on today's show.
Let me thank John O'Brien and all his folks with Operation Hope.
This is the sixth year we have broadcast from here,
and we appreciate them being partners with us on Roland Martin Unfiltered
and the Black Star Network so much, so many things that that are going on, and again, we appreciate it. If y'all
missed any of this, go to our app, go to our YouTube channel. You can see the previous videos.
We live stream the events on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. You can check all of that out, folks.
Again, we've had a fantastic time here. Lots of great information. It is about empowering us to
get better, to go stronger, to do more.
And so we certainly appreciate that.
And so thank all of you for watching as well.
I'll see you guys tomorrow from Atlanta.
We're focusing on the Celebration Bowl.
We'll be broadcasting live from the World of Coke
and also showcasing both teams, North Carolina Central and Jackson State,
coming here to Atlanta to participate in this Saturday's Celebration Bowl.
So I will see y'all tomorrow.
And you know how we always end the show?
Holla!
This is an iHeart Podcast.