#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Emmett Till Lost Arrest Warrant, Richard Roundtree 80th BDay Celebration, Safer Communities Act

Episode Date: July 12, 2022

7.11.2022 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Emmett Till Lost Arrest Warrant, Richard Roundtree 80th BDay Celebration, Safer Communities Act It has been nearly 70 years since the death of Emmitt Till, and more information continues to come about the heinous crime. With the discovery of an unserved warrant from 1955, activists are now calling for the arrest of the woman whose lie led to the 14-year-old's brutal death. I'll ask two activists and Emmitt Till's cousin what justice can be served 67 years later. The Biden Administration is cracking down on Gun Violence across the nation. Today, a celebration on the South Lawn about the passage of the Safer Communities Act. A Pennsylvania state lawmaker goes off on her male colleagues who are determined to tell women what they can do with their uteruses. I can't wait to show you what happened during that late-night legislative session.  The original shaft Richard Roundtree reached an epic milestone by turning 80. Last night, I was in attendance for the celebration of life and had the honor of streaming the entire event. We'll show you some of what you missed.And we'll continue our recap of the 2022 Essence Festival. Folk, you don't want to miss out. Support RolandMartinUnfiltered and #BlackStarNetwork via the Cash App ☛ https://cash.app/$rmunfiltered PayPal ☛ https://www.paypal.me/rmartinunfiltered Venmo ☛https://venmo.com/rmunfiltered Zelle ☛ [e-mail] 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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You dig? Today is Monday, July 11, 2022. Coming up on Roland Martin Non-Filter, streaming live on the Black Star Network. It has been nearly 70 years since Emmett Till was lynched. Folks still want justice in that case. Protesters are looking for Carolyn Bryant. They want a warrant executed for her arrest, even though she is in her 80s. We'll talk with a member of the New Black Panther Party and also a family member of the Emmett Till family with regards to the uncovering of the evidence that showed that an arrest warrant was indeed issued for her years

ago. Also on today's show, President Joe Biden signs a major gun bill, but a family member of someone killed in Parkland shouted to him during his speech that he wants more, more from the president and Congress. We'll show you exactly what took place today. The battle continues when it comes to the issue of abortion. And state legislatures will show you a vigorous debate that took place in one of the nation's states. Also, last night I was in L.A. for the 80th birthday celebration of the original chef, the cool man himself, Richard Roundtree. We'll show you what took place.

You also can check it out on the Black Star Network app because we live streamed the whole event. We'll also talk about, again, more of what happened at Essence. We got some great, great stuff to show you from Essence. Some additional interviews, some fantastic stuff. The Proud Family, a new animated show, some great interviews with the director and the creator,

and some other great content. You don't want to miss that, folks, right here on Roland Martin Unfiltered. It is time to bring the funk on the Black Star Network. Let's go. He's got it. Whatever the go. He's got it. Whatever the biz, he's on it. Whatever it is, he's got the scoop, the fact, the fine. And when it breaks, he's right on time.

And it's rolling. Best belief he's knowing. Putting it down from sports to news to politics. With entertainment just for kicks, he's rolling. It's Uncle Roro, y'all Yeah, yeah It's Rollin' Martin, yeah Yeah, yeah

Rollin' with Rollin' now Yeah, yeah He's funky, he's fresh, he's real the best You know he's fresh, he's real, the best You know he's rolling, Martel Martel All right, folks, it was a huge, huge story when it was revealed that investigators combing through boxes in the basement

of a Mississippi evidence room discovered an arrest warrant for Carolyn Bryant Bonham. That is the white woman who testified and was the one who said that Emmett Till whistled at her or made a remark to her. It was her testimony that led to his conviction, excuse me, that led to the acquittal of her husband and others in the death of Emmett Till. Now, there's no statute of limitations for this.

She committed perjury, folks. Now, this warrant was discovered again by people who have been very much involved in trying to seek justice in this particular case. Now, look, Emmett Till was 14 years old when he was lynched in Mississippi and for supposedly whistling at her in a grocery store on August 24th, 1955. Now, Carolyn Bryant is in her 80s. She can still be arrested for that. So the question is, why aren't prosecutors actually going after her

Well this weekend There were a group of Protesters who literally went door to door In Raleigh, North Carolina Looking for Carolyn Bryant Even went to a nursing home Went to a senior living center Searching for Carolyn Bryant Dunham

So we want to talk about this with John C. Barnett. He's a national civil rights activist and also Deborah Watts, who is the cousin of Emmett Till and co-founder of the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation. I want to start with you first, John. This going to North Carolina, searching for her. You don't have the information in terms of where she actually lives. And so it was knocking on doors, going to a senior living center. How did y'all arrive

at that location? What happened? Well, first of all, thank you for allowing us to be on your show. And I love your show. I watch it all the time. We basically, we Googled, you can find anybody's address on Google now, but we Googled the last two known addresses for Ms. Carolyn Dunham, and we found the 8800 Stockbridge Drive, which is an apartment complex.

We went there first. And then the second location was the actual rest home that you may have seen some of the news stories where we were at. And the first one, no one answered the door. Myself and my big brother, Dr. Malik Zulu-Shabazz, we went to the back door. There were some shoes there, like someone was there, obviously living there. But no one answered the door. So we were there for like maybe 20, 30 minutes. And then we departed there.

And the convoy, New Black Panther Party, all of our friends, my members, my organization, we all went to the restaurant which is 10 minutes away. When we got there, the individuals that were there on the floor, we went very fast. There was about 60 of us, maybe more, and we just asked if y'all ever heard of Carolyn Dunham. Some people

said they heard that she was there. One person said she was there. Then the rest of them was just dumbfounded, like, we don't even know Ms. Carolyn. Neither do we know Emmett Till. So we just proceeded to go to the sixth floor. That's the address that we had on Google. And knocked on the door, I think a Hispanic man opened the door. We asked him how long he'd been there.

He said he'd been there a year. And then now we're at the point where we're just still looking for her. We did get information from a local officer that did say she is in Raleigh. He did inform us of that. I won't say that officer's name, but they did say that she was in Raleigh. So I don't know if they're moving around or whatever

the case may be, but all of us know she can run, but she can't hide. You have your critics. Folks say this is, some have suggested, your critics,, but she can't hide. You have your critics. Folks say, this is some have suggested, your critics, this is a vigilante mob searching for her, that you're not law enforcement. Allow law enforcement to do their job if they choose to execute this search warrant. Your response?

My response would be is that if you compare our situation to what they did at the Capitol, it's totally different last year. We went in very peaceful. Nobody was hurt. Nobody... We actually exercised our First Amendment. We have the right to assemble outside where we stay as our press conference. No one was arrested. No one was assaulted.

And it was very, very peaceful, unlike what maybe people may have seen. But it was the total opposite of what we've seen at the Capitol last year, D.C. Deborah, I'll go to you. Does the family of Emmett Till, do y'all want to see Carolyn Bryant brought to justice for her testimony

in that trial and, of course, her initial statements that we now know not to be true. First of all, thank you to Roland for having me on, and I appreciate this opportunity. Our family, starting with Mamie Tomeble, fought for 47 years to bring justice. And Carolyn Bryant did whistle. I want everybody to know she did whistle. There are so many rumors out there, and the witnesses that were with Emmett have stated that numerous times. So Carolyn whistled. What Carolyn did, though, also, which is what this warrant was about, she was involved as an accomplice to the kidnapping of Emmett Lewis Till and to the eventual lynching of him. So, yes, we would like, and we've stated this very clearly, and there weren't researchers there or investigators. It was

me, my daughter, Terry, our family advocate, Kali Rashid, Keith Beauchamp, who's a filmmaker, along with Melissa Ernest, which is one of our Emmett Till Legacy Foundation ambassadors. This has been part of our campaign that we established in 2020. And this was all a part of something that we felt needed to be determined and to be found. We had heard all along that there was a warrant for Carolyn Bryant's arrest, but it was never served. And nor did the investigators or anyone, the FBI and others, never look at Leflore County Courthouse, which is where the kidnapping charges were, and which is where Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam had been, it was warrant for their arrest, and they were held there as well. So LaFleur County was never a place where any of our investigation had taken place. It was all

Tallahatchie County. So our family, along with our foundation and our ambassadors, knew that that was something we needed to do. And this was established months ago. And we knew we needed we had a duty and a responsibility. And what we want is that warrant executed. We want the law enforcement to do their job and to execute that warrant and make sure that Carolyn Bryant Donham receives the warrant. And we also are asking for the Department of Justice to oversee this along with D.A. Richardson, who is the D.A. in that fourth district, to impanel a grand jury. So hopefully the jury will come up with a conviction. And so Carolyn Bryant, as we know, is an accomplice. She's culpable in the kidnapping

first and the murder and lynching of Emmett Lewis Till. That is what we want. We've made this very, very clear. We are looking for law enforcement to do their job. Now, have they done their job 67 years ago? No. The warrant was never served to Carolyn Bryant. So that's what we're asking for. We are not searching for Carolyn Bryant ourselves, nor are we expecting others to do that. They, you know, others have their First Amendment rights to, you know to freedom of speech and others, but we want the law to work the way it should. And that's why we've worked really hard to make sure that we secured the warrant, the file, the affidavit, and all of that information there in the Leflore County courthouse. So it's secure there. It's been given to the appropriate authorities, the sheriff in Leflore County, along with the DA and the Department of Justice. So we're moving forward and not trying to take the law in our own hands.

Now, one of the things that I said last week that I believe is important here. We saw a 101-year-old former Nazi soldier tried and convicted. There have been other former Nazi soldiers who have been in their 70s, 80s, 90s, convicted, deported from this country. So there's this notion that somehow, oh, Carolyn Bryant is too old. No. Robert Durst, who recently died, was tried several times for murder. He was elderly. He was convicted. And then, of course, he eventually died a little bit

after that. So it's not like, oh, this is somehow outside of the realm of American law enforcement. No, it has happened. And I dare say I will compare a former Nazi guard to white supremacists during the era of Jim Crow. They are the same. That's correct. Deborah first. Deborah, then John. You know, Edgar Ray Killens was actually convicted also, you know, of the three civil rights workers that murder. And so we have in this country that

opportunity to bring forward an accomplice. She's culpable in the murder and, excuse me, in kidnapping and murder and lynching of Emmett Lewis Till. This, you won't hear us saying anything about her age. You know, that's not coming from us. We've worked really hard, and Mamie Tomobi set the stage for what we're doing today. She always wanted justice. But the one thing that you won't hear from us is we don't hate Carolyn. We don't have malice or vengeance. We want justice to be carried out. We want this to occur as it should have occurred in 1955. So there's nothing that we're asking for or doing that anyone that has not been held accountable,

we're asking for the accountability to take place. What is different here is that this is a white woman, and this white woman, and there's not many white women that have been held accountable for any kind of offenses. So this would set a precedent. But I think Mississippi has blood on its hands. There's a stain there. And I know they want to move forward. They cannot move forward without clearing this up with Emmett. So I see it as a wonderful opportunity for the state of Mississippi, for the attorney general, the governor,

along with the DA, to have the will and the courage to move this forward. And then I think our country has an opportunity to see justice work, the wheels of justice work, like it does for every other citizen, other than Black and brown families in this country. And, John, look, Byron Della Beckwith, who was prosecuted for the murder of Medgar Evers, his trial was in 1994. He was convicted. He was 71 years old. Again, old white man.

Sorry, old white man, same as old white man same as old white woman. Right. And you know what's interesting? I really believe, Mr. Martin, that if you was to go back in time in 1955 and you see three warrants for three people, brother-in-law, husband, wife.

I've been hearing, don't know if Ms. Cousin here can elaborate on this. I'm visualizing cops coming to the house, picking the brother-in-law and the father up, I mean the husband up, and seeing Ms. Carolyn with the two kids and saying, you know what, you got the babies.

We're gonna put this warrant to the side, let you keep the babies, and we're gonna take the brother-in-law and the husband. And it's funny that you talk about the age factor, because a reporter in Raleigh last week, that was one of her questions. She thought she was going to throw me off, but it didn't work. She said, Mr. Barnett, don't you feel bad about an 87-year-old lady who's

losing her mind, and she gave me all these sad stories. I said, y'all just locked up Bill Cosby. You didn't care if he was losing his eyesight or not. You didn't care about his wife, Camille. You locked up Bill Cosby. And we still haven't found any tangible evidence on that.

So I'm thinking what happened was, and I wasn't there in 1955. I just have to go back in my civil rights mind and say those cops did not want to take her to jail because she had those two children there. But now that they is, these kids are older now, and they're grown and they can feed themselves. And I think it's the right thing to do now with the race relations. Well, you know what? I want you, I just want to pause it

right there, because I remember when Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. was convicted. He pled guilty. He had children. He and his wife, he and his then wife, were both convicted. He pled guilty. He had children. He and his wife, he and his then-wife, were both convicted. He went to prison first when he was released. She then went to prison because they factored in the caring of their children. So again, so all of these excuses

that people have offered, we can show numerous examples where individuals with children went to prison for the things that they were involved in. Deborah, the other thing is this here. Carolyn Bryant has admitted she lied. I mean, Timothy Tyson did this book called The Blood of Emmett Till where in interviews with him, She admitted she lied. Now the whole point is if you execute the arrest warrant, you now then get her, you have to interview her and get her now under oath admitting that. And so it's there. And so for these district, for this DA, I mean, he, the pressure has been put on him as well because he is allowing someone, your point that you made, someone who participated

in the kidnapping, frankly, and was an accomplice to murder, to walk around scot-free. Roland, I do want to clear something up. The Timothy Tyson book did claim that Carolyn Bryant recanted

her story. She later refuted that. She and her daughter-in-law said they're sticking to the lie, you know, the lie that Emmett sexually made sexual advances towards her. Now, everybody knows and they should know today, yes, Emmett did whistle. That should not have been a death sentence. Secondly, when the FBI reopened the case in 2017 because of Timothy Tyson's book, they closed it December 6, 2021, because they could not corroborate his statement, the statements in his book, or through any of his investigation and recordings,

he had no recordings of Carolyn Bryant doing this. So Carolyn Bryant is sticking to the, I guess, the claim that Emmett grabbed her about the waist, made sexual advances towards her, which we all know did not happen. That said that he whistled, they were there. And so they know that he didn't do that. He didn't have an opportunity to do that. So what we're talking about is specifically Carolyn Bryant being culpable in the kidnapping. There were two young men that were brought to Carolyn that night as well.

Those two young men were let go. Of course, they. Those two young men were let go. Of course, they were beat up. They were let go. But Carolyn said, no, those aren't the ends, right? So, but Emmett ends up kidnapped, lynched, 75-pound top-of-the-hand fan tied around his neck and thrown into Tallahatchie River. The other thing I want to say,

we don't have to speculate what happened. On the warrant, it says they couldn't find Carolyn Bryant in the county. Other reports, I just want everybody to know, a child was kidnapped and lynched. This isn't a story. This isn't a game. This is an open murder case. We don't want anything to impede with the legal aspects that have to move forward in this case. I don't want to be disrespectful, but I don't have time for opinions. I don't have time for speculation or what happened. Emmett was murdered. We're talking about my cousin who was lynched. We have bills after him. We have Emmett Till, Unsolved Civil Rights Crimes Act after him. His case is still open. So I just want people to respect the fact that we're moving forward. We're moving forward with earnest. We're not turning back.

We are not accepting what the Department of Justice has said about the case being closed. It is not in our eyes. And through the grace of God, we were able to uncover that last piece of evidence, maybe not the last piece, but one huge piece of evidence that we believe they can use to move forward. At the very least, serve the warrant to Carolyn Bryant. At the very least. Complete what you should have

set out to do. It's amazing. Roland, an old mentor of mine once told me that innocent blood cries from the grave. I was like, wow, innocent blood. We may not know exactly what happened to Dr. King or who shot JFK in the grassy knoll, but this is an obvious sign that innocent blood, that innocent blood cried from the grave.

And to know that the Justice Department closed the case last year in December, if they had had this smoking gun with this warrant, maybe things would have been a little better. So I'm definitely, I agree with my sister. DOJ need to open it back up. Much respect to the DOJ. They need to open this case back up because now we have a smoking gun. This is like the OJ glove. This warrant is just damaged.

Very damaged. There are a lot of people. Debra, go ahead. Final comment. There are a lot of people that Debra, go ahead. Final comment. There are a lot of people that don't know much about the case. And so I just want to make sure... There was enough evidence in 2004

when the case was presented. There was evidence that implicated two people, Carolyn Bryant Donham and Henry Lee Loggins. Those were the two last living accomplices. The grand jury was formed.

You know, that's done in secret. And they decided no true bill. But there was enough evidence that was gathered between 2004, 2006, and that case was broken in 2007. So we're saying that this is a continuation of that investigation. And this is one piece that they can prove, as it was proved in 2004, that Carolyn Bryant is an accomplice. And so without hate, malice or vengeance, without violence or anything like that, we are going to be moving forward. And so we just want to make sure that the country stands with us, that we have the prayer warriors out there praying with us, that Mississippi does the right thing. Mississippi has an opportunity to remove that stain. They have blood on their hands right now. They can clean that up. Dwayne Richardson,

please, and panel of grand jury, sheriff in LeFleur County, serve the warrant, wherever Carolyn is in this country or world. Deborah Watts, John Barnett, we surely appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you. Bringing in my panel right now, we have Reverend Jeff Carr. He, of course, of the Affinity Fellowship in Nashville, Tennessee. Dr. Nola Haynes, Georgetown University professor, Dr. Julianne Malveaux,

Dean, College of Ethnic Studies, California State University, Los Angeles. Glad to have all three of you here. I made the point, Nola, that I made the point when you compare how Jews across the world have made it clear they will do whatever is necessary to ensure that anybody who is still alive, who participated in the Holocaust, is brought to justice. They do not care where they are in the world. They will go after them. That should be the exact same position of African Americans in this country. If there are people who are alive, who participated in the lynching, in the killing of Black people, who discriminated against Black people,

everyone must pay for what they did to our ancestors. I absolutely agree. Listen, first of all, I'm just so excited to be here this evening, um, to join the famous panel. And, you know, what the Israeli state did, you know, following, um, the-the horrible crimes of World War II, in terms of going around the world, you're absolutely correct, going around the world and like literally collecting up Nazis, even if it was illegal

extradition, they still did it. And I want to point out, you know, what's interesting is that it was an outside factor, right? So you have this outside factor in many of these instances that came into where Jews were living and working and raising their families, right? And so the Israeli state said, we are going to take care of our people, we are going to find these people, and we're going to bring them to justice. Now, we all know that our own country, that our own state has a long history in kind of righting a lot of our internal wrongs.

And that's part of the reason why we are where we are today. And when I was listening to the opening segment just now, I was thinking about how powerful the Emmett Till Memorial is at the African American Museum in D.C. And listening to that quote about the innocent blood cries from the grave, if anyone has been to that exhibit and you've experienced that energy, you literally have to step out of the room because it is so strong, it is so powerful, because Emmett is crying from the grave because justice has not been served. So I completely agree with you. I think that the U.S. should absolutely step up and say this was not right, even though you were prosecuting your own.

You know what I mean? Because we are a part of this grand experiment too. And we have felt left out. We are left out in many of these processes. And I think that this is absolutely a step in the right direction in what needs to be done. Emmett Till deserves justice, period. You know, Jeff, one of the things that we've often seen,

and I think this is problematic, we have black organizations, we have individuals who have taken on this notion of, you know what, let's just move on. In the aftermath of non-black people being gunned down at Emanuel AME, Mother Emanuel, all of the national media, everyone was, oh my God, this is forgiveness.

They automatically go to forgiveness. I think vengeance serves a purpose. I believe the absolute pursuit of justice serves a purpose. I think what it says to anyone is if you do harm to our people, we will not rest until you brought justice. Excuse me. And to me, that has to happen. We've got to have people who are simply

unwilling to rest until each and every person who has done something to our people, they are held accountable. It's our responsibility every person who has done something to our people, they are held accountable. It's our responsibility.

It's our responsibility as a people. And when I say a people, it goes beyond just this epidermal layer that makes us brown and melanated. It goes to the very core of humanity. When we come together as humanity, we recognize that all of us demand and deserve justice, and it doesn't have to do with the state of our hearts. I remember being in college and being rear-ended by this really sweet couple.

They totaled the car. I had to be cut from the car. I had to be removed and taken to the hospital. I survived it. They visited me at my house. They brought me some cookies, asked me if I needed anything. They were the nicest couple you could ever, ever find. And yet, it was their responsibility to take care of my hospital bills.

It was their responsibility to take care of anything that could affect me in the future. They call it pain and suffering in the insurance world. So as much as I could forgive them for accidentally even running into me, they still had to pay the piper because when you cause an accident, when you cause something like that, you have responsibility. When we look at the egregious nature of what has happened to Emmett Till, one of our ancestors who left too soon, we recognize that I don't care how old you are, there is a bill to still be paid. There is still responsibility that is there, regardless of whether the family, the community, or organizations practice the awesome act of forgiveness. I'm a believer. I'm a practitioner of forgiveness.

Forgiveness is for ourselves, not for other people. But forgiveness does not I'm a believer. I'm a practitioner of forgiveness. Forgiveness is for ourselves, not for other people. But forgiveness does not exist in a bubble. We still have to take the responsibility to institute justice. We've been referencing the Jews' pursuit of Nazi criminals. I think it's important to point out that Joseph Schultz, who was the person that you referenced that was 101 years old, this cat could barely talk, couldn't move, couldn't walk. And yet he was hunted to the ends of the earth for being a prison guard in a camp. So if you look at that level of responsibility to pay justice and to return justice to people, especially their ancestors, we see that there is precedent for it.

It's a natural order of things. So although in our hearts we recognize forgiveness, we embrace forgiveness, we also embrace justice because we recognize that when you have those three warrants going, as our sister, Sister Watts, described, when you have three warrants going out and you only serve two of them, that means that there is complicity. Someone within that system decided to protect this woman.

Now that the covers have been ripped off, the Band-Aid is open, it's now time for justice to step in to provide whatever healing can be provided, considering we can't bring our brother back. JULIAN, SENATOR DOUG JONES, FORMER ALABAMA SENATOR DOUG JONES, SPONSORED A PARTICULAR BILL THAT WOULD CREATE A FEDERAL REVIEW BOARD FOR CIVIL RIGHTS COLD CASES. DONALD TRUMP DID SIGN

INTO LAW BUT DID NOTHING TO APPOINT ANY OF THE MEMBERS. IT WAS A FEW MONTHS AGO WHEN PRESIDENT Donald Trump did sign it into law, but did nothing to appoint any of the members. It was a few months ago when President Joe Biden actually appointed the members to that particular review board. And their job is to review these cases, these outstanding cases. Because the fact of the matter is, there are still cases out there. And I go back to, again, the attitude that we must have. Go to my iPad, please, in just a second. I want y'all to pull this up because it actually shows this. This was April 5th, 2022, where it was established in 2019, but Donald Trump did nothing when it came to it. And it said, this law requires the National Archives and Records Administration to create the civil rights cold case records collection and requires federal agencies to turn over

copies of any remaining records from civil rights era cold cases to the NARA for inclusion in the collection and release to the public. And so that's exactly Margaret Burnham, Gabrielle Dudley, Hank Klibunoff, and Brenda Stevenson are those four members. To the folks in the control room, I want you to call all four of those and get one or all of them on the show. I want to see exactly what it is they're actually doing right now. And as you see, the story says the board is charged with reviewing the records of civil rights era cold criminal cases of murders and other racially motivated violence that occurred between 1940 and 1979. Many of these records are still closed to the public. You know, you can run, but you can't hide, and stuff will catch up with you. I'm happy that

President Biden has appointed the members of the Cold Case Records Review Board, but I'm even happier that Deborah Watts, who's a dear friend, has been so persistent in getting justice for Emmett Till. I don't care how old that lady is. I truly don't. And in fact, Julianne, hold on one second. I'm going to go back. So the Department of Justice identified, first of all, that was an act that was called the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act. And this was all these people out here who say you don't have any specific black bills.

Well, this was one, y'all, that was passed that was actually passed in 2008. And the DOJ identified and investigated 132 cases involving 151 victims of racially motivated violence. 104 of the cases were closed with no further action. Remaining cold cases, but several are still open. Go ahead. But the point, Mayor, is it's important to deal with these cold cases. It's important to have justice for Emmett Till. And it's even more important for us to excavate what has happened and to ensure that our nation knows about it. The very people who you mentioned at the top, these African-American organizations who

want to let it go. Will they let it go if it's their mama or their daddy? No, they wouldn't. The fact is that they, uncomfortable, inconvenient, but real. And it hurts. You know, I don't know how much time I've spent with Deborah talking about the Emmett Till case and how she's been, I mean, I must've met her in the 90s. And she's basically, every time I see her, that's what she's talking about. She has been just basically laser focused on justice for her cousin, just like we have to be, if we have any integrity, laser focused on justice for our people. There are so many instances of people abusing, killing, lynching, stealing from our people. And I love Jeff's example of the lovely people

who wrecked his car. And I'll tell you what, Jeff, and if they died before they paid you, their kids were going to have to pay you. And we need to think about that, too. Absolutely, 100%. So we have to think about that, too. All these people say, I didn't have any slaves,

I didn't have anything to do with it. Yes, you did. If you didn't do it directly, you did it indirectly. Roland, I'm so glad that we have this segment to talk about Emmett Till, because you're... You hear... We know about Emmett Till. We know about some others. And you say there are a hundred and some still open.

But dig this. How many do we not know about? Right. How many black men disappeared in the middle of the night in Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana? We don't know their names. We don't know what happened to them. You know, in some cases, Black men disappeared in the middle of the night in Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana. We don't know their names. We don't know what happened to them. You know, in some cases, their folks thought they ran away or something. Not ran away like slaves, but, you know, the brother just left.

You know, I went to go to the store to get a quarter melt, and he disappeared. And we don't know whether these were lynchings, killings, or what. But here's what we do know. We know about economic envy. We know about economic envy. We know about white nationalism. Economic envy. If a brother had too much money, he might get killed. White nationalism. We know that the... I

refuse to use the term white supremacy anymore because they're not supreme. They're inferior. I will use the term white nationalism to talk about. But we know about white nationalism and the way that it has thrived in this country. So justice for Emmett Till, but justice for Black America. All right, folks.

Hold tight. One second. We come back. We'll talk about the gun bill signed into law today by President Joe Biden. And one of the family members who was in the audience challenged the president as he was speaking. We'll show you that exchange coming up next on Roland Martin Unfiltered right here on the Black Star Network. Don't forget, folks, The challenge the president, as he was speaking, will show you. That exchange.

Coming up next, Roland Martin Unfiltered, right here on the Black Star Network. Don't forget, folks, to support us in what we do, please download the Black Star Network app. Available on all platforms. Apple phone, Android phone, Apple TV, Android TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Xbox One, Samsung Smart TV. You can also support us with your resources. Every dollar you give goes to support this show, the great work that we do. We've got some amazing things coming up.

We'll be in Birmingham next week for the SWAC Media Day, Southwestern Athletic Conference. Looking forward to that. We'll also be attending the Rock Nation Social Justice Summit. Wendell Haskins has his original T-G Golf Classic where they're honoring Alonzo Mourning. They raise money for black and other minority golfers. And so we cover the gamut of things on this show.

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Roland at RolandMartinUnfiltered.com. We'll be right back. Of course I looked up to Spike Lee. Of course, who didn't? I mean, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, Of course I looked up to Spike Lee. Of course, who didn't? I mean, he's a genius.

But then also, I was this kid from Brooklyn that felt like, you know... Give me my damn respect. You know, I made this, you know, this creative art, right, that people are responding to. And it would have been great if we had the opportunity to sit one-on-one. Hold on one second.

Okay. Spike. Love, babe. So I'm in L.A. right now. I got a one-on-one series with my network, Blackstar Network. And I'm interviewing Maddie Rich. I appreciate that, bro. That was... That's a big moment, man.

That was like, man, that was good. Got me all choked up. That's good. Well, I'm all about connecting. Appreciate that, bro. 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 right here on The Culture, with me, Faraji Muhammad, only on the Black

Star Network. Hi, how's it doing? It's your favorite funny girl, Amanda Seals. Hi, I'm Anthony Brown from Anthony Brown and Group Therapy. What's up? I'm Lana Wells, and you are watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. All right, y'all.

Today, President Joe Biden signed the Safer Communities Act. Of course, it is the first piece of major legislation, gun legislation, in nearly 30 years. This is what he had to say to the many folks who were assembled in the White House guard on South Lawn. It's about the most fundamental. What we're doing here today is real. It's vivid. It's relevant. The action we take today is a step designed to make our nation the kind of nation we should be. It's about the most fundamental of things, the lives of our children, of our loved ones. We face literally a moral choice in this country, a moral choice with profound real-world implications. Will we take wise steps to fulfill the responsibility to protect the innocent

and while keeping faith with the constitutional rights? Will we match thoughts and prayers with action? I say yes. And that's what we're doing here today. Today's many things is proof that despite the naysayers, we can make meaningful progress on dealing with gun violence. Because make no mistake, sit down, you'll hear what I have to say. If you think you let him talk let him talk no one

okay because make no mistake about it this legislation legislation is real progress, but more has to be done. The provision of this new legislation is going to save lives. And it's proof that today's politics, we can come together on a bipartisan basis to get important things done, even on an issue as tough as guns. What we're doing here today is really... Many people have been talking about that particular exchange that took place today. The man who was speaking, first of all,

he was actually removed from the particular event by White House staff. His name is Manuel Oliver. His son, Joaquin, 17 years old, was killed in the Parkland mass shooting. One of the things that he said that was nothing to celebrate today. He said, quote, It's a big lie. We lie between ourselves thinking we have a solution to this when we actually don't. Also speaking today with the vice president, Kamala Harris, is what she had to say. Today is indeed an historic day. For 30 years, our nation has failed to pass meaningful gun violence legislation. Again and again, the American people have called for common sense action to protect

our communities. Last month, their call was finally answered when President Joe Biden signed the Bepartisan the bipartisan Safer Communities Act. Because of our president's leadership, and because of so many of you, we have passed a law that will make communities around our nation safer. For my whole career, addressing gun violence has been one of my top priorities, first as a courtroom prosecutor, then as District Attorney of San Francisco, where we created a gun specialist unit to go after violent offenders. Then, of course, as Attorney General, where our office worked closely with the California Bureau of Firearms to investigate and seize firearms from those who unlawfully possess them. As a United States Senator, together with my former colleagues in the Senate,

we supported various pieces of legislation to address this crisis. So I knew and I know now, as so many of you do, that we are overdue in getting this work done. And I know it will save lives. Now, folks, the law will fund crisis intervention, including red flag laws, keep guns out of the hands of people who are a danger to themselves and others, close the boyfriend loophole, require people under age 21 to undergo enhanced background checks, include the first ever federal law making gun trafficking and straw purchases distinct federal crimes, clarifies who needs to register as a federally licensed gun dealer and run background checks before selling a single weapon.

Now, the thing that jumps out here, Julian, is I agree with Manuel Oliver. More has to be done. And so the approach to this can't be that this is the only thing to do. Okay, this is nearly 30 years in the making. Let's wait 30 more years. No. That is, pursue the next bill.

Pursue the ban on assault weapons. Democrats, introduce that bill. Make folks vote on it before the November election. Be far more aggressive. Roland, you know, the thing that's frustrating about this, I agree with Mr. Oliver as well. Uh, this is a baby step in the right direction.

Kudos to President Biden for this bipartisan legislation, but it's a baby step. There are a whole bunch of other things that we can do. We know that, um, as an example. People have been sued. 78 million dollars went to the, uh, families of victims from Sandy Hook. There ought to be a whole lot more lawsuits

just like that. The Buffalo folks need to be suing. Who have these gun makers? These gun makers are making predatory profits on the backs of lives, and they need to be sued. These parents, these parents, how does the... Your son has threatened to shoot up your house and kill everybody.

Then you go get him a gun permit, and then you go on television or... No, he was on with The New York Post and say he didn't do anything wrong. Sue his you-know-what. Sue him, and all of them. People have to understand, you know, see, at the end of the day, I am an economist. Follow the money. People have to experience economic consequences when they do stupid stuff like this. Stupid stuff like me getting a permit for your child. And your child didn't do stupid stuff. They did criminal stuff. The folks in Buffalo, oh, they had no idea. Sue their behinds.

And when you connect some of this to economic consequences, you will begin to see something. Folks who have portfolios, take your stock out of Smith & Wesson or Remington or Beretta or some of those. There are things that can be done. The feds are going to move like molasses because the Senate is divided. But you know what? We as a people need to put our molasses because the Senate is divided. But you know what? We as a people

need to put our foot down and say this is unacceptable. And so the man who shouted out, I mean, it was rude and inappropriate, but he's frustrated. He lost his child. And in many, many ways, he did the right thing. Also, what you have to do here,

Nola, you've got to get rid of, again, the immunity for gun manufacturers where they can't be sued. How in the hell, again, that is still intact? You know, I am so, there are so many things I want to say about this. Both of my parents are military, so they raised me with an understanding of how serious it is to own a gun. And I'm also from the South. I am from the Bible Belt. I am probably from New Orleans, Louisiana. And so I know a lot of people who lean on the Second Amendment more than they care about actually human lives and love and inclusion. And personally, personally, what angers me the most is that we are held

captive by a minority who seems to want a theocracy and guns, you know, more than they want love and inclusion. And to the economic point that Dr. Melvo just spoke about, that's not a very good long-term economic plan for the country. I just want to go ahead and say that. And I think that being held hostage by this minority, we do this gradualism thing when it comes to policy, because they hold so much sway. And let's just be very honest about this. One of the things that I do in my work in national security and foreign policy is threats. My work is all about threats. The domestic terrorism threat is quite real. The material cache of weapons that a lot of people in these kinds of domestic terroristic organizations, they have a lot of guns.

And so in many ways, a lot of this legislation that seems like piecemeal, that seems like it's not enough, is to not to really just kind of push the country towards an out-and-out civil war. Now, there are some people who say we are already there, right, that the first shot has been fired. So I'm not necessarily here to say if we are or if we aren't, but I do know that there is some hesitation not to want to further aggravate the minority who is absolutely holding this entire country hostage. And I completely feel the anguish from the family member who lost someone. I am angry as an educator, you know, when the freedom that you once had in classrooms and the openness and, you know, just the positive

energy, that is gone. Fear has definitely entered the classroom, not just from fear of maybe possibly being shot, but also fear from even talking about these kinds of issues. There are a lot of my colleagues that I talk to all the time, who, especially your lawyers, are political scientists like me who deal with, you know, politics and presidents and all these different things, that they are scared to have some of these conversations in the classroom. And I think that's really, really unfortunate that because of this minority who seems to want this theocracy has held us hostage. We are continuing to be held hostage.

We are getting legislation that, yes, is very important, but it absolutely, it doesn't go far enough. And the last thing that I'll say about this is, you know, I'm not necessarily interested in this whole language of a superpower. But one of the things that I will say that. America has not done in terms of leading the rest of the world in progress is around guns, is around the Second Amendment. Now, the Second Amendment, all amendments are absolutely important. But at the same time, for a lot of these originalists and these constitutionalists, what is the context in which the Second Amendment was written? We no longer live in that type of environment. I just do not understand why anyone needs a weapon of war. I am in national security. These things are serious.

There is no need for anyone to have an automatic rifle, just to have it in the house. And so I'm sorry this is an issue that I'm very passionate about. And again, you know, I'm just I'm sorry this is an issue that I'm very passionate about. And again, you know, I'm just, I'm exhausted. I am exhausted with being held hostage by these people. Jeff. Yeah, Dr. Malvo framed it and Dr. Nola just named it. I mean, we've got economics working hand in hand with a white, oppressive nationalist mentality that is preventing us from getting done the things that would move us toward a higher state of civilizations, knowing that

civilization's root word is civil. It speaks to the social order and how things work. We are not living in a high space of civilization. We're not demonstrating it. The United States is absolutely a superpower. It is a superpower in a potential state. It has not moved forward in that way. Its superpowers have been squandered.

It is definitely leading the world. We're leading the world here in school shootings. We're leading the world in spaces where children, where families should be safe, where we should be able to move forward and know that people who are criminals, people who are abusers, people who are stalkers should never even feel comfortable thinking about owning a weapon, much less a weapon of mass destruction. But we see with this legislation and the conversations around closing what that's called, and that's the boyfriend loophole, that someone can be an abuser, someone can be someone who's convicted of stalking and can still walk in and buy a weapon and find a way to go out into the world and exercise what they believe to be their Second Amendment rights, but is really a hateful spirit and a lack of love and empathy that has led us to the state that we're in. When we talk about this package and its investment in mental health, with the investment in crisis intervention, with its investment in providing incentives to

states and to cities and municipalities that actually provide money to people who will say, legally speaking, we're going to let you know that people's juvenile records are going to come into play if they attempt to buy a weapon, especially if they're underage. We're going to use that as part of the screening. That is what we would call in higher academic language, duh. That should just be common sense. It's the duh moment that we got from Dr. Malvo. It's the duh moment that we got from Dr. Nola there. Who needs an AR-15? Who needs a high-capacity magazine to go deer hunting? I'm here in the buckle of the Bible Belt, and you hear this talk all the time,

and nobody's going to take my weapons away from me. Nobody's going to take it. I need to protect myself. For real, man, you're doing it that big where you need a cache of AR-15s. You have military offices and headquarters and the National Guard Armory around the corner from us, and I don't think their front office is stocked with AR-15s. So we see this energy and we see it manifest in the pain that parents have. Usually, Joe Biden, we recognize President Biden in the old days. He was known as a fighter.

And, you know, he's not afraid of a conversation of somebody interrupting him normally. I think he may have been a little bit cautious because, you know, like three days ago, he actually read that repeat the line, end of quote, that was on the teleprompter. He got gassed a little bit for that. But I think in this case, you can feel the pain of Manuel Oliver. If you're a parent, if you're a cousin, if you're a friend, if you've known somebody that's been lost senselessly, you feel the pain. His son was one of the 17 murdered in that Parkland shooting and the 17 injured. You never lose that sense of loss. You never lose that sense of justice. And it is specifically why we have to continue

to push even as we celebrate. And as the great Ella Baker said in the Sweet Honey in the Rock adaptation in that song, we who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes. Let me go to a break, folks. And by the way, White House staff,

don't be simpletons and put in the script, repeat the line. Just type the damn line again. Just saying, that's somebody who has a little experience with teleprompters. All right, y'all, coming up next, Black and Missing. We'll also talk about a fierce abortion debate in Pennsylvania. We'll also hear from the president of Florida Memorial University about his plans

for to grow that Miami school. You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered right here on the Black Star Network. Back in a moment. Hi, I'm Dr. Jackie Hood Martin, and I have a question for you. Ever feel as if your life is teetering and the weight and pressure of the world is consistently on your shoulders? Well, let me tell you, living a balanced life isn't easy. Join me each Tuesday on Black Star Network for a balanced life with Dr. Jackie. We'll laugh together, cry together, pull ourselves together, and cheer each other on. So join me for new shows each Tuesday on Black Star Network,

A Balanced Life with Dr. Jackie. Pull up a chair, take your seat. The Black Table with me, Dr. Greg Carr, here on the Black Star Network. Every week, we'll take a deeper dive into the world we're living in. Join the conversation only on the Black Star Network. Hi, I'm Amber Stephens-West from The Carmichael Show.

Hi, my name is Latoya Luckett, and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. All right, folks, we hate to always have to do uh one of these uh stories but the reality is we have our black and missing segment for the purpose of giving some attention uh to cases that uh often get ignored by uh white mainstream media 13 year old black girl is on her way but excuse me first of all uh this is a first of all five foot two inches young woman here, folks. Sandra Ingram, last seen July 3rd in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. She's five foot two, 144 pounds, black hair, brown eyes. Again, she has been missing from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. And we just have way too many folks of these stories. If you have any information, any information with regards to her, please call 954-764-4357, 954-764-4357.

All right, folks, we have seen, of course, Supreme Court overturn Roe v. Wade, which has led to the returning of this issue to various states. Well, in Pennsylvania, there was a fierce debate on this very issue. Pennsylvania is often considered a blue state, but Republicans hold significant sway outside of your major urban centers like Pittsburgh as well as Philadelphia. And so on the floor of the Pennsylvania legislature, they were going back and forth. And I saw this video of a sister who was fired up, ready to go when it came to this particular issue here. Her name is Joanna McClinton. She's a state representative.

She went after her fellow lawmakers after various new amendments were proposed to the state's constitution. Those changes would explicitly say the document does not guarantee any rights related to abortion or public funding of abortions. She had little to say about that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wasn't going to say anything, but in rules tonight, we had timely filed amendments and we couldn't run our timely

filed amendments. All the members of the rules committee know how that went down. There was no camera. So the people watching right now at home that are texting and tweeting and Facebooking about this nonsense, they didn't see what occurred in the rules meeting. But there were timely filed amendments that we offered in the rules meeting. And guess what happened in the rules meeting in this Democratic chamber that loves votes and loves voters? Well, the members of the committee in the rules meeting, Mr. Speaker, and this is why we need to suspend the rules now, with our timely filed amendments, we were not allowed to vote on one of them.

We offered three timely filed amendments, and Mr. Speaker, you and the majority leader know the nature of the rules of this institution do not provide us the opportunity to provide a timely filed amendment tonight. You're aware of that because you made those rules. So here we are on a Friday night, glad to be at work because we know our voters sent us here to fight this battle. And we can't even suspend the rules for one consideration of something that is very important.

As the maker of the motion stated, we're talking about women dying. We're talking about more than half the population not being able to make decisions when not even half of this body has a uterus. That's what we're talking about tonight. And that's why these rules need to be suspended, because we don't follow the rules in this body. Let the people back home know. That's why the rules need to be suspended, Mr. Speaker. That is why the rules need to be suspended, Mr. Speaker,

because we had timely filed amendments that were tabled. And in case you're watching, because so many are, as we heard from constituents, voters are watching, we filed them in a timely way so they could be considered in committee, which is what the majority leader likes to lecture my caucus about each and every legislative day but here we are being silenced yet again and understand when you're silencing us we are actually elected officials like you all so you're silencing millions of voters from every corner of the commonwealth when you silence us and don't allow us to amend bills that won't let people vote, that won't allow women to make their own decisions. You're silencing all of us.

So we need to suspend the rules and let this amendment come through before we rush this off to the voters, those same voters that you tried to silence in 2020 when you didn't like the outcome of the election. Those same voters that you said it didn't matter what they chose. Those are the people you're trying to shut up. Governor lady please suspend. For what purpose is the gentleman the majority leader rise? We want point of order. You may state your point of order. It would seem that the previous speaker is trying to impugn the motive of some of our speakers. I just ask her to stay on topic

House of Police come to order House of Police come to order so the leader can be recognized for his point of order, just as the prior leader was recognized to speak on the suspension of the rules. I will once again remind the members that disrupting the orderly debate of session is contrary to the rules that we all voted on previously in the session. So, Majority Leader, you may state your point of order speaker ask the majority leader to please restate your point of order thank you mr speaker I was encouraging the member to stay on topic of the bill and not be impugning some the motives of our

members and actions of other elected officials prior or we could start talking about the Secretary of State gentlemen speaker thanks the gentleman for raising a point of order however I will remind the members that we are to engage in an orderly debate regarding this generally and once again remind the members of this as well, both leaders are giving a little bit more latitude to speak on items, both policy and procedure of the House. However, it is not productive to unnecessarily excite members from either sides and that applies to both sides.

The gentleman's point of order is noted, and Leader McClinton, you may conclude your remarks. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I was saying, in this undemocratic chamber that cares so much tonight about voters and rushing off a constitutional amendment to voters, we need to suspend these rules because we wanted to make this better. If we're going to get a product to voters as early as the primary in 2023, then let's work on a product that explains to voters what these issues are. Let's not jam them all through on one very convoluted question that they may receive in the future. If we want to care about the voters, we need to suspend the rules

because the voters elected Tom Wolf. The voters elected us to legislate, not rush amendments down the turnpike to their voting booth at the next primary off-year election. So I ask everyone to support the gentlelady from Montgomery County's motion to suspend these rules.

Sure. Thanks. The good lady. What we are seeing, Nola, we're seeing speeches like that happen all around the country. And I think one of the key lines when she said you've got half of this body, you don't even have a uterus. Okay, let me gather myself. You know, I'm going to say three things. Ideology has no place in decision-making. Ideology has no place in decision-making. Ideology has no place in decision-making. And the reason why I want to reinforce this point is because for the life of me, I cannot understand what the long-term goal is here. To alienate 50% of the entire population does not make sense. It does not make policy sense. It does not make political sense. It does not make economic sense. So we go back to control

and we go back to audiology because that seems to be the only thing that's really driving this. And for the minority of women who do support so-called pro-life legislation, you know, I wonder what it is that they're thinking about, you know, because at the end of the day, I cannot stand the lazy talking point that, you know, people who are pro-choice, we just want to get our abortions and kill babies. I think that is a very lazy, lazy talking point, especially for people, for women who have fertility problems. You know, that talking point infuriates me. But the thing about it is you start chipping away at freedom of choice, as we have seen erosion of separation of church and state. You know, we're seeing erosions of civil rights

protections all over the place. And these things are happening quickly. I mean, what the Supreme Court has been up to in this last session has just been mind-blowing. And collectively, we've all had to catch up and catch our breath because it's just been part of this larger project. And I'm going to say it again. These folks who want this kind of Anglo-white Christian theocracy, I do not understand what the end goal is. You want to push all the folks who look like everybody's sitting here out of the country, perhaps, or at least you want to definitely push them out of red-leaning states, as that was basically the plan that was kind of leaked and admitted to last night. I can't remember which governor. It was either Florida or Georgia. I

can't remember because they kind of just run into each other at this point. But what is the end goal here? Diversity has literally always been this country's strong point. And you are pushing out the voice of women. Why? What is the end goal? I do not understand it. It is infuriating. No one, no one but the two people involved in how a child is made should make the decision about what to do with that child. What's going to happen when tons of black and brown babies are born and people cannot take care of these children? What legislation is going to be passed in? What type of new Jim Crow or black codes are going to be passed in? So I'm new Jim Crow or black codes are going to be passed in?

So I'm just trying to look at the end game here and I'm not understanding it. Well, I'll say this here, Dr. Malvo, and I was on a Twitter Spaces discussion yesterday. Luther Campbell had it and I was trying to explain to the folks on here, look, y'all,

we better be girding for battle in state legislatures because that was always the goal of the conservatives. They did not want, by having a hard right Supreme Court returning states' rights, powers back to the states, they know that they control 30 states in this country. And by controlling both chambers and the governor's mansion, they then can do what it is they want to do. And so you hear the representative of the law and

Boebert's of the world. These people want a hard right conservative theocracy to be in charge as opposed to a democracy. You know, Sister Nola knows what the end goal is, the end game, and it's re-enslavement.

Think about it. If people cannot have access to their body, they don't have bodily autonomy. People can be forced to give birth to children that they cannot support. What happens to those children? Will they be placed in orphanages? Will the orphanage conditions be those that replicate

those of the early 20th century? What will happen to those children? They don't really care because if they can get free labor, understand that if you're able essentially to force people to have children, so you get free labor, then the next thing you have is basically a labor force that you can exploit because they won't know anything. I mean, they won't educate these people. They, you know, these orphans, it, it, Roland, I'm, I, I, I'm almost speechless. I do want to say this though. Sister Joanna McClinton is all that and then some. And what she was really articulating is what many people are going to be articulating. And these

legislators need to be asked what the endgame is. I also am amused by the assonanity of the, whatever he was, speaker, and the other one who wants to basically lecture people on decorum. See, this is the game. You have good decorum, but you savage me. The gentle lady, there ain't nothing gentle about what you are doing to people. And so in so many ways, you're right, this is going to happen on state houses across the country. But the only thing I would invite people to reread Olivia, Octavia Butler's The Parable of the Talents. She talks about dystopian world where all order has broken down. We live in such a dystopian world and the only answer we have, folks, is we got to organize, organize, organize. We have to do our work. Otherwise,

we will end up not in mayhem, but just basically in a system where predatory capitalism rules and where people, not women, but people have no rights. Again, Jeff, what I continue to remind people, you are seeing these battle lines being drawn on the state level. And so while so many people are focused on the federal elections, we cannot ignore state reps, state Senate, gubernatorial races, statewide races, because conservatives are trying to consolidate power on the state level. And we're talking about Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Florida, Tennessee, South Carolina, North Carolina. We can go on and on and on. But mainly, states where black people are, southern states, the old confederacy.

When we think about what Byron Price, who was the head of the Associated Press, said in 1932, and what Tip O'Neill picked up in the 1980s, that phrase, all politics is local, we really have to understand what that means now. It doesn't mean that you don't participate in federal elections. It means that the policy is made where you live. And I think you got some people who are a little angry at you for, and they misinterpreted and tried to say that you said to go to hell with the federal elections. Of course, people hear and see what they want to see and hear. But the reality is politics is very local. And when people

say, how do we get into a space where we have a majority Black population? How do we get into a space where we have a primarily blue state in terms of the voters? And yet the legislatures, the metro councils, even now down to the school boards and the police forces, even in tiny municipalities, are opposite. It's because there was a concerted effort to go for the local politics first, because the local politics mean that you can capture the city council. It means that you can capture the state house. It means that you can control what students are learning in schools. And while we're focused on the big picture, not to take the eye off the big picture, but

we are focused on that big picture and missing the opportunity to actually infect, effect, and affect the change that we need. When we talk about the McClintons of the world, I thought it was a powerful message. It was a message. It was a sermon. She was doing three things. She was talking to three people. She was first talking to the lawmakers there and demonstrating how unfairly they are treating

even the law itself and how disrespectful they are being. Secondly, she was teaching a class on parliamentary procedure. And she was teaching you how a person who is a master of this procedure can point out the flaws. And then the third thing that she was doing, which I thought was brilliant and masterful, I don't know if it was strategic, the way it was delivered, I would say that it was a direct download from spirit. She was speaking to the voters who are coming up now. She was talking about the voters and referencing the voters. When we filter through what could happen if 50% of the people who do not have or uteruses are trying to control the other 50%, we can't discount something that comes up

on the show on a regular basis. The concept of the myth of the white woman ally. Since 1950, primarily white women have leaned to and voted Republican. Fifty six percent of the women in the last election, white women voted for Trump, even though they are voting against their own bodies. They are voting against their own bodies, they are voting against their own self-interest, there's something about this ideology that says that if it can at least be associated, if I can at least exercise my white privilege, then I'll do whatever I need to to be loyal

to this institution that we call white nationalism, that we call white theology, as Dr. Nola has discussed. We have this space where people are focused on their own self-interest over the interests of everybody else and them being a part of that pyramid. That's how we get this unique mix. And I'm so glad that Sister McClinton not only demonstrated those rules, but she broke those rules. So it's time for us to suspend the rule. If the rule says we focus on federal only, we should suspend that rule and focus on local. If the rules say that we have to be quiet, we got to suspend that rule so that we can make our voices heard. And if the rules said and the

rules need to be suspended, we got to suspend this rule where we feel as if we have to just put our heads down and go along to get along. It's time for this transformational change. And with that speech, Sister McClinton definitely put it into the world for all of us to follow. Indeed. And speaking of changing the rules in Arizona, a new law has been signed by the governor keeping people from videotaping police officers inside of eight feet. That's right.

Bystanders are recording cops. They must be at least eight feet away. Republican Governor Doug Ducey signed the law requiring bystanders to be at minimum distance. Disobeying an officer's command could land a person with a misdemeanor charge up to $500, jail time up to 30 days, or probation up to a year. The law comes after the Department of Justice's investigation into the Phoenix Police Department for excessive force and discrimination against people of color and the homeless. Opponents of the law say it will reduce the power of video recordings

in holding police accountable for their actions. In Kentucky, a black inmate filed a federal lawsuit against a state prison for religious discrimination after being forced to cut his dreadlocks. A 2021 The or to the hospital or were placed in solitary confinement. And braids, cornrows, dreadlocks are not permitted if they are not searchable. Carlos Thurman said the rule violated his Rastafarian religion. Thurman also alleges that long-haired white inmates were allowed to keep their long hair. Folks, in Iowa, a black John Deere employee is suing the company for harassment and discrimination based on race and retaliation. Johnny Ray Hogan III said in 2020 he was called the angry black man by co-workers, received racist remarks about eating fried chicken and black people and cornbread.

Hogan, who worked in the cotton department, contends a co-worker said, quote, is good. You and your ancestors have something in common. He reported the incidents, but nothing was done by management. In 2021, Hogan began being called boy and was threatened by his supervisor, who said that Hogan needed to be chained to a dock. John Deere did fire one of Hogan's supervisors. After the supervisor was fired, Hogan was isolated from his co-workers and harassed by his managers. This is the statement from Hogan's attorney, Roxanne Conlon. She says, John Deere has allowed a culture of racism to flourish and thrive within the Des,

the Des Moines, the Des Moines works facility. Johnny Hogan has been insulted, harassed, belittled, humiliated, and excluded all because he is a black male. Folks, some good news here. 13 year old black girls on the way to becoming a doctor after being admitted into medical school. That's right. Lena Wicker of Fontana, California, yes, 13 years old, was accepted into the University of Alabama at Birmingham's Hearsink School of Medicine through the school's Early Assurance Program, which partners with HBCUs in Alabama to provide early acceptance for medical students.

Lena graduated from high school at 12 and in one year completed, y'all, listen to this, in one year, she completed half of her undergraduate studies in biomedical sciences at Oakwood University and HBCU. With her plans to study immunology, she says she wants to show underrepresented communities that we can help and find cures for these various viruses. All right, y'all, coming up next, my interview with the president of Florida Memorial University also will take you to the birthday party,

the 80th birthday party of the homeboy Richard Rowntree. Yesterday in Los Angeles, we had an opportunity to live stream the event as well as to attend it. And so, again, we'll show you that folks. You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered right here on the Black Star Network. We'll be back in a moment. I'm Deborah Owens, America's Wealth Coach.

And on the next Get Wealthy, have you heard that it's not how much you earn, but how much you keep that matters? Well, the secret to building wealth could be hidden in our tax code. That's right. Joining me on the next Get Wealthy is someone who calls herself the gatekeeper to the IRS. And she's going to be sharing the secrets and strategies you need to know, whether you're a business owner or an individual, how you can get wealthy. That's right here only on Black Star Network. Hi, everybody. This is Jonathan Nelson.

Hi, this is Cheryl Lee Ralph, and you are watching Roland Martin, Unfiltered. All right, folks. The first HBCU I ever got a commitment speech at and also got an honorary degree was for Florida Memorial University. Well, at the UNCF Summit of Higher Education, I talked with their president, Dr. Jaffas Hardrick, about his plans

for Florida Memorial located in Miami. Here's our conversation. All right, so let's talk about what's happening in Florida beyond the heat. In terms of where you are at the university now, everybody has been dealing with COVID, been dealing with shifting of priorities, dealing with students on campus being away or whatever. Did you experience a significant drop of students enrolling and have you recovered or were you stable? Most definitely. The pandemic was certainly traumatic on everyone in this nation and particularly our world. Most definitely. And I think you know as well as I do, anytime we experience these type of situations most most often our students are some of the first to stop out and and we were negatively impacted by the

pandemic but at the same time we were also a safe haven for many of those students who could not go anyplace we did experience a decline in enrollment we dropped about 20% lost about 20 percent of our students. We went from 1100 down to around 900 students and but nevertheless, I'm so proud to say that because of all the transformation that we were able to make during that time period, we are now seeing a significant increase

in enrollment at the university. We went from an institution that was extremely manual when I came on board in July of 2018, everything done manually, enrollment, you name it, brother, everything in 2018. Wow. So was that culture shock for you? Because you came from where? I came from Baylor and also from Florida International University. It was culture shock. You're probably like, yep, like all this manual? Yes, brother. It was literally manual. But I'm so proud to say that

today we are now fully automated. Our students enroll, do everything on their mobile devices the entire campus is wireless renovations throughout the university man it is truly a beautiful campus and so we got to get you back there I would love to have my first commencement was ever was at Florida Memorial Al Reynolds actually made that possible and so yes it it was my first commencement and first honorary degree. And so, absolutely. So I want to go back to this, to what you were just talking about, the manual piece, because what I've said to many other HBCU presidents, and they've actually echoed it, COVID forced, if there was a silver lining, COVID forced HBCUs and other black institutions to have to accept

new technology. And that's a shame, right? I think that's a shame that we have to experience a pandemic, right, to understand just how far off we are, right? I've been dealing with technology, honestly, brother, ever since I've been in higher education when I started at Baylor in 1995, right? And to be able to come in 2018, we are doing things manually. I mean, from the entire operations, it was manual. And what little technology that we did have, it was so antiquated, it wasn't even working anymore. Wow. And so, and I've just been one of those kind of individuals that I know we should leverage technology to drive efficiency. It's a different day and time, a different type of student. These students want to be, listen, man,

they will go without food before they go without waffle, right? What I say is this is a generation that literally came out of the womb. That's right. Immediately in social media, in technology. That's right. My nephew, Chris, who's now beginning his ninth grade year, high school freshman. I mean, he was three years old and was operating and finding his favorite cartoon in the Netflix app, knowing how to get there.

He was three. Yes. And my granddaughter is the same thing, doing the same thing, man. And it's just, it's amazing. So that's what it's, so that says to me and to our institutions, we have to be much more innovative. We have to stay in tune.

And on top of the technology that drives efficiency in every aspect of our operations. And when you have good technology, it causes you to be more diverse in our delivery of education and so on and so forth. Because this is a time in this nation when just the traditional student is not in school, right? That population is declining. So that means our institutions got to be thinking about how do we then go and tap into the non-traditional student? How do we be able to tap into that working professional

who wants to come back to school? And it's online, right? Leveraging online to be able to deliver diverse modalities and giving access to our historical black universities. Did you have to encounter faculty or staff who were resistant to that new world? No doubt, man. And I remember when I arrived at the institution, the board invited me to come to be the president, I started talking about doing online and we have to get out of this traditional way of doing things. And I talked about let's move to an online platform because I've been accustomed to this for years. And people are literally like, oh, no, we're not doing it. We're not doing it.

But then when we. Or we can't do it. Or we don't have the resources. Or we don't have. It's all of the reasons why we can't do something. Absolutely. Versus what's possible. Absolutely.

Absolutely. But that means that that's the kind of either you have to educate people about those opportunities. Or you've got to find people who are going to embrace those type of changes right and realize life moves on and nothing stays the same man and so that means we got to always be inventing and reinventing ourselves as organizations because the generations every generation is different and we got to be able to compete with some of these other organizations who are tapping into the people that I know we can reach and even more that we should be reaching than what we're currently doing. And so that just means you got to get the right people there with the right mindset and understand it's about making sure our

students, our parents, our family members, they have the best and we are making ourselves accessible to everybody. How are you, in terms of positioning Florida Memorial, what are the majors or the careers that you are marketing yourself to say, if you're a student, if you're looking for to go into this career, this is the place that you want to come to? Right. Well, so for me, it's definitely around the STEM disciplines, whether it's engineering, whether it's nursing, and those careers that I know that are in high demand, right? And that's what we have to make sure we're doing in our institutions.

Now, you don't want to kill someone's spirit if they know that they have a calling to be a musician, right? But if that's not your school, though, you should be going to the place where you can excel at. No doubt. And for me, though, we even offer all of those liberal arts type of degrees. But what I want our students to be able to do when you get out, I want you to be marketable. So we're trying to get them to understand, couple that with technology, couple it with cybersecurity and something else, right, that's going to really make you marketable and

competitive for those high-paying career opportunities. Absolutely. Well, I think that is what is crucial. And, you know, the whole point for me is, again, we're operating in a completely different world. I've spoken to numerous HBCU alumni conferences and I've said listen your University when you went there ain't the same one now and so you can't keep trying to put that level those type of restrictions of mobility on the president, on the leadership, because, again, you're stifling progress and you're going to die. You're going to fall behind. Brother, you're spot on, I have to say.

And that's one of the things that we try to always say and educate our alums as well. We can't be living and operating vicariously, right? You graduated 15, 20, 30 years ago. It's a new day. This is 2022, and we gotta think about the future. And that means you guys gotta be thinking about and understanding how time changes. And we gotta make sure that we are

on top of these things as well. It does put a lot of pressure on us as presidents when you have individuals like that who just, well, I remember I had an experience in that old dorm and that's where I fell in love and all those things, right? But they're antiquated. It's time for them to come down. It's time to do something different. It's time to build new facilities because many of our students, they're growing up in households, in homes now, man, that are six, seven bedrooms and so on and so forth. They want the best amenities and that's what we got to be able to do and bring to our students. And getting our alums going back, we got to get everybody understanding. It's about collaboration. It's about working

together to continue to elevate our institutions, man, and stop competing against each other. That's it. That's it. Well, look, I look forward to being back on the campus. I love Miami. And so I think y'all might want to create, you know, I was a scholar in residence at Fisk last semester. So I think y'all might want to create, you know, I was a scholar in residence at Fisk last semester. So I think y'all might want to create something like that so I can spend a little more extra time in Miami. I love the idea, brother. I love the idea. I'm just saying.

I'm just saying. You know, because I ain't got no problem, you know, teaching a class that ain't going to play golf. And you know in Florida we have some of the best golf courses, man. I know. Trust me. Trust man. I know. Trust me. Trust me. I know. I'll be happy to get you on some of those courses, too, man.

Hey, I love it. So congratulations and good luck with it, Fred. Thank you, brother. Appreciate you, Fred. Thanks a lot. Hey, as they say, ask not, receive not. Right, Jeff? Look, I'm just saying.

I say make it happen. Yes, sir. Claim it. Also, some other HBCU news. Charles Barkley has donated a million dollars to Spelman. He was impressed with the education that his business partner daughter was receiving. His name was John Hudson. And so he donated a million bucks to Spelman.

Again, his business partner daughter, Jordan Hudson, is going to be a sophomore. He's going to be serving as the class president. And so Charles said, John's been a great mentor, a great friend, and a great business partner. I was ready to do another HBCU and with his daughter doing great things at Spelman. So I told him, why not there? That's certainly good news there, Julianne. But one of the things that we're seeing, and then we talk about this all the time, you have the haves and the have-nots. You see the spellings of the world that receive these type of donations, but there are so many other smaller HBCUs,

whether it's Bennett, whether it's Rust, whether it's Tougaloo and others that also are trying to grow and prosper, but they're simply not located in the major cities and don't get all the attention in the press. Well, I would encourage our superstars who are being so generous with their resources to consider some of these colleges, to learn a little bit more about them or to have their philanthropic leaders learn a bit more about them, about who went to these colleges. What did they do? Did they know at Bennett College, for example, that Dr. Martin Luther King in 1957 spoke that only the president there, Willoughby Player, first woman president of an HBCU, had Dr. King there. He would have gone to A&T. They wanted him to go to A&T, but A&T was a state school.

And because it was a state school, the legislature threatened the president, told him that they'd cut their funding if they had Dr. King. Then the white folks said they were going to protest. So our brothers who were veterans said they picked him up at the airport and brought him to the campus. That's the kind of history that often is hidden and that I wish that our celebrities would think about when they think about who they're contributing to. But right on to Charles Barkley for the contribution. Just think about another college next time. The thing there, Jeff, you heard from the

Florida Memorial president, trying to get people to understand that you cannot deal with today's student through the prism of when you went to school 10, 20, 30 years ago. Yeah, you got to update yourself man that'd be like me uh sitting here trying to cram uh one of those eight track tapes i got uh in my attic into this mp3 player or try to get it play in the sound system it's just not going to work it might have some really good music on it but you just can't

translate it and like you said these kids are dealing with a new era. We've got to, as an HBCU alum, I can say that. I went to Tennessee State. My wife went to Fisk. So we got an HBCU family, and we agree wholeheartedly that we also have to step it up on our end, too. So we have to be great stewards of money. We have to be exceptional in the way we reach

people. And we also have to be innovators. Why? Because HBCUs is where innovation came from in the last hundred years or so or more. So we have to be bold. HBCUs have to step out there. They have to name what they want. They have to claim what they want, they have to offer such an exceptional product that people will have no choice but to choose to bring it on home. So I'm glad that you demonstrated what it takes, that speaking what you want into existence, and you're going to be touring all of these HBCUs. I don't know if you have enough time to be artists in residence for all of them, all of them in residence, but those are innovative things. Those are things that people didn't do at HBCUs even 30 years ago when I was in school.

We didn't have scholars in residence. We didn't have people who were having practical life experiences come to the campus on a regular basis and say, I know what you read in the book, but this is how it operates in real life. So we're seeing a rebirth of that. And I'm glad that we are standing in a space where we're going to see HBCUs just spring back to life and continue to bring in money like this. Noah. You know, so I had the amazing pleasure of growing up on Xavier's campus in New Orleans. My dad worked there as an engineer.

And, you know, every single summer, you know, it was either ChemSTAR or BioSTAR, whatever sort of STAR program was going on when I was in elementary school. I was at Xavier. And to the point of contributing to some of the lesser known celebrated HBCUs, although in a New Orleans context, you know, there is no other HBCU but Xavier. I just want to say, you know, in terms of STEM, this is something that Xavier does really, really, really well. And also it's where I got my research bug. Growing up on a college campus, it just kind of like opens your mind up to the world. And I owe everything, you know, as a black academic in political science and international relations,

a space where you do not see a lot of people that look like me, it is because of growing up on a very proud black campus. And I wish that I could have gone to Xavier. My dad is still, his heart is still healing over that. But, you know, it's a school that I know for a fact, you know, many of my friends to this day are successful because of growing up on that campus and attending the programs from elementary school, high school, through college to their master's and, you know, beyond. And they are thriving in the world today. So I am all about HBCU life in a different kind of way. I'm more of a cultural product of an HBCU, not necessarily the kind of practical product of an HBCU, not necessarily the kind of

practical product of an HBCU, but I'm here for it. And I think that to the naysayers that like to say that having black universities in this context and all these different things, you know, isn't that racist? Well, let's think about why those schools exist. If we want to go ahead and talk about why the Second Amendment should still exist as it is, let's talk about why HBCUs exist. And anybody saying it's racist, they say nothing about the white schools. Hello. So I'm like, whatever. So once you start questioning why a lot of these schools are still predominantly white,

then you come talking about HBCUs. So I'm like, whatever. Y'all got to go to a break. We come back. We come back. 80th birthday bash last night for the smooth debonair, the original shaft, Richard Roundtree. Cameras were there and we'll take you inside the party

and show you what took place. You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered right here on the Blackstar Network. Pull up a chair. Take seat the black tape with me dr greg carr here on the black star network every week we'll take a deeper dive into the world we're living in join the conversation only on the black star network hi i'm israel houghton with israel the new breed what's up what's up i'm dr ricky billet the choir network. All right, folks, last night I was in Los Angeles for the 80th birthday celebration of actor Richard Roundtree.

He has starred in so many different movies and television shows. We know him, of course, from Shaft, Being Mary Jane, Rock. We could go on and on and on. The movies, the stage plays, he has done it all. And so last night, many of his friends and family were there in Los Angeles to celebrate him for his surprise birthday party that his children wanted to put on for him. Our cameras were there, we also live streamed the event.

So here's some of what took place last night. You got a chance to work with the legend. Tell folks about what that was like. Oh, my God. Incredible. Every day. That's the man. You already know that. You already know that, but that's the man.

Every day, just hanging out with him, just soaking up everything that I could possibly do. Now, one thing people don't realize, Richard is low-key funny. Oh, he is now. Trust me. How you doing? Oh, he's definitely funny. He's a comedian, for real. He'll just, but it's quick. It's quick. You got to catch it. He's real quick with it. But, yeah. So give me one moment on the set that, folks, that really stands out for you, working with him. Working with him.

For me, I think it's just the prep work. We were staying in the same hotel. So I'd come downstairs and I'd see him in the patio. I did, you know, smugging a cigar, drinking his Gentleman Jack, going over his lines. And I'd just come in front of him and just sit down. And he'd be like, oh. And I'm like, you want to run some lines?

And he'll just start spitting it. I'm like, wait, ain't got to that scene yet. Ain't got to that scene yet. He already gone through it. He already gone. He already gone. He on it. I'm like, let me catch up, man. Let me. Ain't got it that seen yet. He already gone through it. He already gone. I'm like, let me catch up, man. Let me catch it. He's still on it.

How you doing? Good to see you, my man. Good to see you. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't think you saw me. Y'all, you know Glenn Turman. First of all, he walked through here, got his hat on.

See, him and Richard got. See, you know they old school. They got the straw hat. Well, you know how that go. You know straw hat. Well, you know how that go. You know, of all people, you know how that go. We already had that conversation. I saw them sitting over there looking like Pete and repeat. You ain't wearing the quarter.

I'll see you, baby. So, so Richard, here's the deal. I wasn't supposed to be here working. I was supposed to be here attending the party. Then Bill hits me up and said, hey, Richard wants this thing live streamed. A lot of his relatives couldn't make it. So I was like, I was on the plane.

I didn't bring my equipment. We had to call somebody. So I said, fine, Richard, for you, I work for free. Now y'all know I don't work for free. That's love. You ain't lying. I don't work for free. That's above and beyond the call of duty.

Precisely. But folk who don't know, y'all go way back. We do. We go way back, me and Richard. We go back to the, well, what? To the early 70s. You know, when we was doing films back in the day. But Richard is the only man I know that every time he walk into a room,

his own theme song precedes him Hard to compete with a man who got his own song song, you know, I mean, you know cooley eyes song ain't bad But that's at the end of the show. Right, right, right. He's at the beginning. At the beginning of the show. And the leather jacket. And the whole thing. And he didn't get the one woman. No.

There she is. There go to find one he got. There she is. At the beginning of the movie, the middle of the movie, the end of the movie. And they were all different. She need to be in here. So, baby, y'all have known Richard.

But just what's the... We traveled to Cuba with Richard. We took him to Cuba with us. Vacation. We vacationed in Cuba, and everybody else was coupled up. Richard didn't care. Richard was the only one who was single.

Richard said, y'all going, I'm going. We waited for him to come back with stories. I ain't gonna go no further than that. Well, look, it is great to be here. We're going to have a great night. And so I'm sure there are going to be a lot more stories being told. Most of them likely not PG-13.

You got that right. How long have you known Richard? 50 years. 50 years. We've been good friends for 50 years, yeah. So tell us some, your funniest, craziest, wildest Richard Roundtree story slash memory. Okay. I had this big crush on Richard once, okay?

And so I thought, okay, we're all going to go to this party and whatnot. All right, I'm going to catch his eye then. And he saw Frida Payne, and that was it. So, wait a minute. Okay, so you were going to this party. No, I wasn't throwing it. We were all

at a party. Y'all were all at a party. And Richard was there, and you were like, you were thinking about that Frankie Beverly song, that look in your eye. And you were trying to connect. And so you at the party looking all cute and fine, and Frida Payne looking all cute and fine,

and, well, Frida went home with Richard. Well, I don't know about that. No, I already talked to her. Oh, yeah, okay, okay. She said, me with Richard. Well, I don't know about that. No, I already talked to her. Oh, yeah. Right. Okay, okay. She said, me and Richard. I said, we know what. What that mean?

No. So we've been friends. As a matter of fact, Richard is responsible for me becoming an actor. How so? Well, I had a terrible stutter. And so he convinced me to go to the Negro Ensemble Company. And I was like, I'm going to go to the Negro Ensemble Company. And I was like, I'm going to go to the Negro Ensemble Company.

And I was like, I'm going to go to the Negro Ensemble Company. And I was like, I'm going to go to the Negro Ensemble Company. And I was like, I'm going to go to the Negro Ensemble Company. And I was like, I'm going to go to the Negro Ensemble Company. And I was like, I'm going to go to the Negro Ensemble Company. And I was like, I'm going to go to the Negro Ensemble Company. And I was like, I'm going to go to the Negro Ensemble Company. And I was like, I'm going to go to the Negro Ensemble Company. And I was like, I'm going to go to the Negro Ensemble Company. And I was like, I'm going to go to the Negro Ensemble Company. And I was like so he convinced me to go to the Negro Ensemble Company. And I did.

And I got in. And so then when I heard that Gordon Jr. was going to do a new movie, I ran into Richard, and Richard set up the appointment, the audition, and the rest is history. Wow. That's history. Wow. That's awesome. Yes. And we got a chance to, like, play husband and wife in a pilot series called Firehouse and different things, you know.

Y'all go back 50 years. We are close friends. Well, it is great to be here to celebrate his 80th birthday. He looking good, looking clean. You're looking fabulous as well. Freda says she turns 80 in September. And I say, look, black don't crack. Well, let me tell you about how much I admire you, okay?

Any issue that we have, you go to the heart of it, you know? And it's such a pleasure to, like, watch it. You don't care, you know? Nothing is political, you know, with your motivation. You know what? You really care about us. And so you're one of my heroes. Well, I certainly appreciate it.

I want you to know that. I appreciate it. I'm going to keep giving them hell. Hey, listen, and I'll keep praying for that. I appreciate it. I'm going to keep giving them hell. Hey, listen. And I'll keep praying for you. I appreciate it. I'll take them. I be Talma Hopkins, and I work with Richard on Family Reunion.

I play Maybel. Now, you were telling me when y'all first met. Well, I didn't actually. Oh, okay. I didn't actually get to meet him first. First, I flew to California to do a little album called Shaft with Gordon Parks.

So I got to sing on that. And then when I did meet Richard, I told him to look at the cover. And if he saw a little girl with bucky teeth and a bad Diana Ross wig, that's me. So if you have it, you can blackmail me with it. But I'm just so honored to be here

to wish Richard a happy 80th birthday. I swear he told me he was 74. No. Lying, lying, lying. He 80, he 80. But he a fine 80. I got to say it. Mm! Well, look, glad to see you here. It's been great, folks celebrating him. He 80, he 80. But he a fine 80, I gotta say it.

Well, look, glad to see you here. It's been great, folks, celebrating him. And it's good hanging out, and it's good to see you. Well, he is an icon in this city, even for us who are in the same age category. Almost, almost. So good to meet you. I appreciate it. Love your show.

I appreciate it. I want your show. I appreciate it. I want to say thank you to everyone for showing up for this. Those of you that are near and those of you that came from far away, I appreciate you. I know my dad appreciates you. We all have been on this ride together. My dad is famous for saying, I was just riding the horse in the direction it was going. He tends to negate the influence on the culture that he has had. Right. Right. Right. Right.

Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right.

Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right.

Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. that means a lot. It means that he has had an impact on all of us together and the culture. And I just want to say publicly here and now, I love you, Dad. And can I give a little personal anecdote about, I'll get a little teachery here because I am a teacher. The magic years when you are six and seven years old are years, that's how you can tell kids about the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus and all of that stuff. Imagine as a child when I was six or seven years old seeing my father on the big screen. When Shaft came out that's how old I was. I was in the magic years of development so it left a lasting impression on me. My dad for me

will always be magical. magical because of the impact and the age I was. I don't think my siblings have that same, because it was a convergence of that, my age and that event at the same time combined to make quite an impression. Let me try that. Thank you. Love you, Dad, and I'm done.

Thank you for all showing up. I'm going to hand the mic to this gentleman. It's his birthday. I got the mic. All right, I'll say a couple of words. You're absolutely right. One of the coolest brothers ever. We had an opportunity, there was an Icon Man event where we got to sit at the table together and fellowship for several

hours. I have always loved him from afar. Then we had this great one-on-one interview. We talked about everything from family to his dad, having nothing to say about him getting a shaft, growing up, his long history. As a black man, I've always used my platforms to affirm brothers. This is no disrespect to sisters, but typically when you see brothers on the air, they're talking about praising their mothers. And very rarely do you see black men affirming other black men through television. And so the reality is what Richard has done through all of his various roles,

whether we're talking about Shaft and then of course other television shows and movies, he has always represented the finest of black manhood. And so when you saw him on the screen, trust me, young men were watching him do his thing. And for those brothers who did not have brothers in their lives, that is important. Those movies and TV shows will be here forever. And so it's not just a question of what has he accomplished in his life. The reality is as long as this nation and this world is here, folks will always be able to see the work and the art of Richard Roundtree and what it means to be a strong black man. Man, great night. How do you feel?

Roland, as I said earlier, reaching the age of 80, I had no concept of that to begin with. But I'm a very private person, and my oldest daughter, who has never asked me for anything came out from Illinois and I found out that the reason that she came out was she wanted to throw me a surprise birthday party what now normally the surprise birthday party you don't know about it

right but she kind of needed you to tell her who to invite exactly, you don't know about it. Right. But she kind of needed you to tell her who to invite. Exactly. Exactly. She said, I don't know who you want to invite. I don't know what facility you would like to have it at. That's when I turned it over to Bill Hammond. And we've known each other for a long, long time.

And I know he's the best black man in this town to throw an event. Well, look, I was honored when she called me, left me a voicemail, and she said, I want to invite you to my dad's birthday party. And I tell people all the time, I don't expect things. People don't have to invite me to anything. And so when she called me, I said, I will be there. So when I saw you in New Orleans and you asked me,

I said, don't worry, I will be there. I'm I saw you in New Orleans and you asked me, I said, don't worry, I will be there. I'm going back to New Orleans in the morning to finish the job. Man, I'm so happy to see you here. And the words you spoke. My brother, I appreciate it, my brother. You're the man. We love you, Billy, baby. Happy birthday. Thank you. Thank you. All right. All right, Roland. That's it, y'all. And here's the deal. Richard wanted this because a lot of his family members couldn't fly east. So when Bill called me, I was in the air.

Bill said, Richard want to do this. He was like, how to do it? I'm like, I got this. Don't worry about it. So that's how they can see it. It'll be saved. We're going to restream it. It's supposed to celebrate your lives.

Richard, I appreciate it, baby. All right, y'all. So we talked to other people. Ben Vereen arrived a little bit later, and I had a chance to catch up with Ben Vereen. He was an icon before icon was a word, okay? Richard and I did groups together. I'll never forget. I always tell the story. When you had to bow down and grovel, the man said, you're gonna ask, champ, grovel, you

out of your mind. And he turned to the boy, and he said, you know what? I'm gonna ask Shaft, Bravo, you're out of your mind. And he turned to the producer and he said you got one take. And he did it and everybody said okay goodnight. That's Richard. Richard is one of the, one of the, how can I say this? There's four runners in our lives. Not only Chad, he's a great man. I love you. I love you.

Got it? Folks, y'all might know this next person, Art Evans. He starred in Soldier's Story. An artist known Richard for more than 50 years and he and I got a chance to also chat about his longtime friend Richard Roundtree. I stopped because I saw him in his latest movie and he was fabulous as always. And we became friends. I was getting ready to do a movie. I let him look at the script. I did the music and the acting. And we've been friends ever since. What makes him so special, so unique?

Whenever you talk to him, you notice that it's not always about him. He has a wonderful way of engaging you about the conversation. And he speaks low and quiet, but he speaks honestly and directly at you. And we became friends after that. We've been friends ever since. But he speaks honestly and directly at you. We became friends after that. We've been friends ever since. He's also a- He would probably do a lot. Yes, he is.

That's to buy the two wheels. Yes, he is. I'm sorry I don't have any weird comments to make. I've heard him before. We all good? So we got it. So just your final thoughts on Richard Ford's 80th birthday. Pardon? Just your final thoughts about Richard Ford's 80th birthday.

Pardon? Just your final thoughts about Richard Ford's 80th birthday. Simply, happy birthday. I'm glad to be here, and I'm glad to be able to wish you a happy birthday on your 80th, even though I was March 27th. It was my 80th. All right, then. I'm glad to see you, brother's my idiot. All right, then. What was he thinking about? All right.

Jeff Carr, it is, it's always something when we get to meet, honor, celebrate our icons. Don Dre Whitfield and I were talking talking and we interviewed him as well. You can see the interview in the livestream. We may try to pull it up. One of the things we said is that any time you're in the presence of cats like Richard Rowntree or Harry Belafonte, whether it was Diane Nash or Fred Gray, we can go on and on and on, you just want wanna soak up as many opportunities as possible

to hear from them, to hear their reflections, what they went through, what they experienced. And I tell people this all the time. I tell young folks this all the time. Never ever walk into a room where you have our greats and you don't make an effort to make your way to them because they're not always going to be with us. And I'm, you know, when I go to National Association

of Black Journalists in Las Vegas, when they'll be honoring us in August, our Hall of Fame class of 2022, I'm the youngest living member ever inducted in 2021. But when I was a student, I would always seek out our founders and want to talk to them and listen to them and get advice from them. And it's always amazing to me when I see folks, whether it's Reverend Jackson, whether it's Bernard Lafayette, I'll see them places and I'll see folks just walk right past them not knowing who is in their midst. And so I just tell folks all the time, I don't care what it is,

you take the time to be able to fellowship with them again because you want that moment because there's no guarantee you'll ever get it again. You're absolutely right, man. It's so joyful to see brothers who age gracefully and age well. And I want to encourage people around the world who are watching this program, everybody in your studio, all of the panelists, to join me in the call and response recognition from the gospel according to Brother Isaac Hayes, and say, that shaft

is a bad mother. Shut your mouth. I'm talking about shaft. So when we talk about this, I don't know if Ernest Tiedemann knew when his blockbuster novel came out in 1970 that in 1971 Gordon Parks was going to create this icon called Shaft. We have these memories around what we call in history the first black action hero of that era. We think about that music that Isaac Hayes put together, a four minute and 39 second

piece of music that starts out with just those cymbals that you heard. And then the bass comes in. Then the keys join. of music that starts out with just those symbols that you heard that's and then the bass comes in then the keys join then the horns come in and it builds two minutes and 56 seconds into it you hear the lyrics to not 30 seconds in not eight bars you hear two minutes and 56 seconds of the groove before you hear that voice coming in depending on the mix who is the man who would risk his neck for his brother man? Shaft! Can you dig it? And so you have this understanding of can you dig it? This is a space of self-pride. This is a culmination of a lot of work that told a lot of stories. And when we look at not just

Shaft who became an icon, but Richard Roundtree, we got to go back to his beginnings. One of the reasons why people say, well, Shaft is so smooth. Richard Roundtree is so good. He looks so cool. He looks so good. He started out as a model in 1963. He was modeling with the Ebony Fashion Fair. In fact, in fact, his modeling partner was there last night, and she actually spoke. Again, folks, if y'all want to see the actual full live stream, actually go to the Blackstone Network app. You can actually see it. Absolutely.

So he starts 1963, Ebony Fashion Fair, which ran for 64 years. Eunice Johnson, our fraternity brother's wife with Johnson & Johnson, just putting together images that went out there. He was modeling for that and Salem Cigarettes and Duke Hair Grease. For those of you who remember Duke Hair Grease. He was a spokesperson for there. Then comes along 1967.

This is prior to Shaft and the Negro Ensemble Company appears. You got Doug Turner Ward. You got Robert Hooks. You got people coming out of there like Esther Rolle, Moses Gunn, Cheryl Lee Ralph, Lawrence Fishburne. It is a who's who of black excellence. So he becomes a part of that tradition. And when we look at this, we look at this 80 years old, still shining,

80 years old, still exuding strength and energy, 80 years old and being recognized by brothers and sisters around the world, including what you did, Roland, which is exceptional. I think we can all conclude together that not just Shaft, but Richard Roundtree is a bad mother. I'm talking about Richard Roundtree. You know, Nola, you know, there are a lot of folks. Again, I know some people I was talking to. It was the last night. She's like, oh, my God, I've never seen Shaft.

I said, I'm definitely snatching your black card. But there were a lot of people who were introduced to Richard Roundtree in the 90s with the show Rock. With Charles Dutton. Then you had the folk in the 2000s who were introduced to Richard Roundtree via the show that was on BET called Being Mary Jane. We saw BJ who was in that show. Richard Brooks is one of the actors. He played Richard Roundtree's son in Being Mary Jane.

And here is the conversation that I had with him. You know, I grew up watching Richard now and then have the honor of playing his son in Being Mary Jane and getting to hang with him and just see how smooth he stayed forever and ever. You know, it's just been amazing. So I talked to BJ. Yeah. And BJ said, he came downstairs to the. So I talked to BJ. Yeah. And BJ said, he came downstairs to the hotel and he wanted to run a line.

And Richard just started hitting, he was like, hey man, I ain't got those pages yet. Right. And he said he was just so, just was always prepared. Oh man, yeah, Richard is the professional of the professional, man. He's the baddest, yeah. No, we always gotta have a great time working together. I mean, it's too bad we don't get to do it more. You know, being Mary Jane was too much fun.

But Richard is the tightest man, yeah. One of the things that I said, he asked me to speak, I talked about how he represented black men. Right. From being Mary Jane, I mean, so he represented that black father who cared deeply about his family, about his children. Right, right, exactly, yeah.

Well, being Mary Jane, yeah, Richard was the ultimate father. You know, watching out for being Mary Jane, obviously Mary Jane and all the boys, the Patterson brothers. And just, you know, it was a rare opportunity to get to play a family like that, you know, to have everybody, mom, dad, brothers, sisters, and just tell that kind of human story. You know, I haven't done that since like maybe Sleeper Anger. So it kind of was really great.

So final words, what you want to tell him about his 80? Sue, happy birthday. Man, you the man. Another 80, yo. You're just the baddest ever. Love you, definitely. Happy birthday, Rich.

All right. I think you're on mute, Nola. Huh? There you go. There you go. There you go. Go ahead. You know what I love about this is, so first of all, thank you so much for giving a living legend his flowers while he is still here,

you know, because that does not happen all the time. And then it also doesn't happen where you are doing a lengthy segment around celebrating his life and his achievement with family and friends. So that's just beautiful in and of itself. So thank you so much for doing that. And then secondly, you know, being from a city where Breaking Beverly and Maze is still like the number one act, it doesn't matter how old they are. I definitely have appreciation for the legends. You know, before I knew about Shaft, I knew about the music. I grew up in a very musical household. And so it was the soundtrack for me. And then like,

you know, getting older, once my parents allowed me to watch Shaft and seeing the movies and then following his career, you know, it's just been a really beautiful thing to see. And then I like, you know, I like what you said about his representation of being a black father. I am a product of a very strong black father, and I'm always celebrating black fathers. And being Mary Jane was definitely one of my favorite shows to watch. And I'm just, I'm just, that segment just gave me so much joy. Like I'm texting with my mom, like, mom, you'll never believe this. Just because honestly, you know, Southern culture, you know, I think does a really good job at celebrating, um, getting older, you know, and what that means. And I definitely, you know, think that that comes from the continent. You know, I spent some time there

and I love how older people are celebrated, you know, in their communities versus just being tossed away, you know, after people do not find them useful anymore. So that was just a beautiful combination of legendary, of respect and talent and what he represented. You know, not just for like swag and blackness, but, you know, he also was like a detective, you know. So there's like that kind of connection with like the cool and interesting kind of swag that the black detective always have to play, you know. So I think, you know, that's also part of his legacy. So that just brought me so much joy. And I think that's a great way to end this amazing, amazing

two plus hours just talking about all things black. So that just gave me so much joy. So thank you. Julian, it was emotional on many levels. There were a couple of moments that I caught that were interesting. And so there was a moment where one of Richard's sons came up to him.

And many of y'all who saw my one-on-one with Richard roundtree for Rollin' with Roland, he talked about issues that he's had with his children over the years. And, in fact, we're preparing. We're going to run that interview after we end this show. So Kenan is prepping that. We'll end this stream, and we'll launch that one. And so I'm sitting there shooting video, and one of his sons walked up to him. I'm just going to play it. prepping that will end this stream and we'll launch that one.

And so I'm sitting there shooting video, and one of his sons walked up to him. I'm just going to play it. And go to the video, please. So he walked up to him, and they were having this moment. And they were talking, and Richard just began to tear up. And afterwards, he and I were talking, and I asked him what happened there. And he said, my son just came up to me and just said, Dad, I just need you to know that I absolutely love you.

And you can see right here, you can see Richard just absolutely being brought to tears. In fact, I had to go get him. See, look at him. I had to go get him a tissue because he was just broken up by that. And then there was another moment that happened a little bit earlier. Dondre Whitfield and Sally Richardson Whitfield, they came in. And Dondre has his book dealing with the issue of manhood. He actually has a manhood initiative.

And so when they came in, the program had already been over. And so they came in and they were, you can play the video, they were coming up to him. And so he was hugging them. And so there was a moment there. Y'all can pull the audio up just a little bit, just a little bit. And there was a moment there. I got the audio. Go ahead.

Where they were just talking, and I kept rolling. And what happened that was very interesting, Richard was telling him how proud he was about his manhood initiative. And Dondre turns to Sally and he goes, he said, man, I wish y'all could come back. He goes, I wish I had that on video. And he turns around and I said, Dondre, turn your iPhone on so I can add you up to this too. He's like, what, you got it? Now, y'all need to understand. I play in the golf tournaments of George Lopez,

Hithy Entertainer, Jeffrey Osborne, and I see Dondre. And they're always joking with me, Julian, about me always having my cameras. They're always like, Roland, you always got cameras. Every time we turn around. In fact, we were in Essence. Chris Spencer was hooking up, me meeting Kevin Hart. He's like, man, don't bring them damn cameras. So they're always talking about the cameras.

But they always end up saying, say, man, can you give me a copy of that video? And I keep telling them, I said, see, that's what happens when you always have the camera rolling. You capture moments. And the thing that was interesting, watching last night, watching how so many, now you had the sisters who kept talking about how fine and smooth Richard was, but you had all, you had so many brothers who were talking about what, again, what Richard represented in terms of black masculinity on the screen. And there were just so many of those emotional moments and Richard literally was just blown away by all the love and affection that was in that room last night.

I was blown away watching it. You know, that was just amazing. First of all, I had the biggest crush back in the day on Richard Roundtree in that black leather coat. I think that was freshman year and I think we must have seen that movie three or four times because we, the Bunch of sisters, we just really loved it. Let's go back and see Shaft.

Like, don't you want to see anything else? Nope. Let's go back and see Shaft. But it was, you know, he is a bad mammer, you know what? And the movie was a bad mammer. And Jeff, as either a frustrated musician or something, but laying out the two minutes of all the sound effects and everything else, that was nice, my brother.

I really enjoyed that. And you got to remember the whole thing. And then, of course, Isaac Hayes. But what more than just, you know, Roland, you said something that's so important. You know that Reverend Jackson just had his Rainbow Push convention about three weeks ago.

And it was very interesting to, as you say, some people glom toward him, want to spend a minute with him, just want to touch his hand. And then you have a lot of other younger people. They don't know who Reverend Jesse Jackson is. They don't know how he's made a difference in their lives. And so one of the things you said is when you're around these elders, I don't care who you are, how hired, how you are, take a minute just to speak to them because it means something to them. I cherish the times that I had with Dr. Dorothy Irene Hike. Now we fuss a lot, but I cherish the times. And sometimes she tell you these little anecdotes that you wouldn't hear unless you've taken the time. And so, I mean, Sister Nola is right. On the continent, our age is revered.

Here, we're throwaway. But beyond that, I mean, I'm almost speechless thinking about that, thinking about, you know, Roland, how very blessed you are to have been there, but also to move in these circles and to see these Black people who are doing so well and making us all so proud. And yeah, those brothers are all fine.

I mean, I may be a little old, but I ain't too old to appreciate, you know, fineness. I really am not. So, folks, the story was true. Literally, look, normally I always got my gear with me. I completely scaled down. I had just had my iPhone 13 Pro Max. I didn't bring any of my other stuff because literally I flew in Saturday. The party was Sunday. It was 6 to midnight. I was on an 8.18 a.m. flight to fly back here to host the show. Landed here at 4.14 and drove straight in.

And so I'm in the air Saturday and Bill Hammond with Hammond Entertainment. He was he put the whole thing together. So, Bill, I get a text message. I'm in the air. Hey, Roland, you know, Richard really wants this thing live stream. And he said, look, this is what you do. I was like, well, damn, Bill, why didn't you like text me last night? I would have brought my live view unit with me and we just could have got a camera crew. So I hit up Henry. I was like, hey man, we got to find somebody who has a live view. We can live stream this whole

deal. And luckily we found somebody. We got it going. And I hit Bill back. I said, Bill, we got it. Don't worry about it. And I told Richard I said, only you Richard could I be invited to your birthday party and work for free. I said, only you, Richard, could I be invited to your birthday party and work for free. I said, only you. And so we hooked it up. And I said, we're going to get the interviews because there were a number of his family members who could not fly back from the East Coast due to COVID. And so by live streaming it, it was able to do so. And folks who are watching, if y'all want to understand why I created Roland Martin

Unfiltered and why I created Black Star Network, it is for moments like this here. Nola said it when she talked about this amount of time. Y'all know how I feel. I was not interested in asking some white producer at a network, and let's just be clear, very few black people, hey, can we give some time to celebrate Richard Roundtree? Y'all remember when Cicely Tyson died? She barely got any mention on the network, and she was 96 years old, the great Cicely Tyson.

We did a more than two-hour tribute to Cicely Tyson. And this is precisely it. Being able to own a show and own a network where, yeah, we can live stream it and I don't have to ask anybody, that's why we created this. The ability to have these stories and be able to have this and share these stories

and all the people who were there last night. The great Jim Brown was there. I told you one of the early Ebony Fashion Fair models, my man Arnold right there, who does all the celebrity events. Again, Sheila Frazier, Frida Payne, the great Frida Payne was in the room as well. Billy Davis Jr. and Marilyn McCool, you saw them earlier. All of these type of people were there. And y'all, that's right there, Jeff. That's one of the models. Y'all can pull the audio up.

She talked about it. She was one of the Ebony Fashion Fair models with Richard Roundtree. And so Beverly Tide, we showed her earlier. And so, y'all, this is why black-owned media matters. When you watch this show, you're watching the visual representation of Ebony and Jet. You're watching when Ebony came out every single month and Jet came out every single week covering these different events.

It was stuff that was in Jet and Ebony you were not seeing in Time. You were not seeing in Life magazine. You were not seeing in Newsweek. And then of course when People magazine came along, you were not seeing that. And so I love my haters when they love start talking trash and oh, you don't care about black people. And I go, well, what you doing? What voices are you offering?

This was Nola's first opportunity on the show. Reesey Colbert hit us up and said, man, I got a great guy. Somebody roll. I know you like having new panelists. I got somebody. Y'all, this is why this was created, because here's the deal. And I'm telling y'all right now, I'm telling y'all right now what's going to happen. Nola

said her expertise is in national security. I'm telling y'all right now, in two or three months, don't be shocked if all of a sudden you see Nola pop up on MSNBC or CNN. Because they watch. No, no, no, no, no. But regularly. They're going to tell you about it. Trust me.

They're going to be hitting you on like, see, we're talking about contracts, Nola. See, follow me here, Nola. There's a whole bunch of folk that are going to come through who they're like, oh, damn, we need to put them on a more regular basis. Ebony Hilton was on here a lot. And then all of a sudden NBC signed her to a contributor deal after all this stuff with COVID. So the point I'm making there, you have, by creating platforms for people to be able to speak and talk and share their expertise, that's the whole point of this, and be able to tell these stories. And so that's why when I am trying to get our people to understand why we have to support our own, why we must download the app or you must also give because y'all this is about us and I rule the day when we have to ask somebody else to tell our story we should never be in a position

where we're begging someone can y'all please do 30 seconds on Richard Roundtree can y'all please give Cicely Tyson a minute of coverage? No. I'd rather say we're going to do 15, 20, 30, 45 minutes. And again, because I already did a one-hour interview with him, literally I made the call while we were talking. Hey, Kenan, pull the interview up. We're going to stream the interview with him,

that one-hour interview right after the show. And so Richard, congratulations. 80th birthday. Thank you so very much for inviting me. Glad we could hook this thing up, have our cameras there, and showcase all of the folks. Let me thank Nola. Let me thank Jeff. Let me thank Julianne for being a pal today. We went a little long today, but we're supposed to do also some of our Essence Fest stuff I'm going to have that tomorrow in the second

hour of the show, we got some fantastic stuff to show you there as well again, this is why we do what we do because we keep it black, keep it real and again, I ain't got to ask nobody because I own this shit so please support us y'all download the app, Blackstar Network app

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a year, that's $4.19 a month, 13 cents a day to our Bring the Funk fan club. Every dollar you give goes into the show. It pays for staff, for equipment, for travel, for all of those things. I put the call out, y'all, on social media because, you know, of course, our Sprinter, the RoboMobile, was completely destroyed, like completely destroyed. It was totaled in the accident that we had in Alabama coming back from Essence. And when I put the word out to our fan base as to what happened, y'all have already responded.

Because I said, look, our insurance, we can only get up to $125,000 worth of insurance on the Rover Mobile. And so what has happened is already, since we put that up, our fan base has contributed $25,000 already to our repurchase. We're actually designing, as we speak, the new vehicle. We hope to have it by the middle or late September. This was almost a week ago. All of that equipment, we had a lot of equipment that was damaged. Again, that completely totaled.

And again, y'all have been responding in a huge way. This allows for us, again, to be able to travel. We've got major events happening coming up in Alabama, in Georgia, in New York, in New Jersey, all across the country. And so we hope to be back up and running on the road with our new vehicle by mid or late September. And so I appreciate what y'all have been doing because, again, what we are all about is telling our story and not having to ask anybody's permission to do so. Again, we'll see your checks and money orders to P.O. Box 57196, Washington, D.C., 20037-0196. The Cash App is Dollar Sign RM Unfiltered.

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And yes, I'm rocking the Rock Deep shoes here. You know, you had some haters who were trying to talk trash because I was rocking them yesterday in LA. And talking about my outfit, I was wearing black-owned clothing from King McNeil Collection. Then I was rocking these shoes from Rock Deep Global.

We support black-owned businesses. And so whenever your haters are trying to diss you, they also dissing black-owned companies while they at it. That's why you should not follow your ignorant haters. But we gonna keep doing what we do. I'm gonna see y'all tomorrow. Howl! Bye.