#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Harvard Legacy Challenge, Baltimore Mass Shooting, FL Bodycam Videos released of Susan Lorincz

Episode Date: July 4, 2023

7.3.2023 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Harvard Legacy Challenge, Baltimore Mass Shooting, FL Bodycam Videos released of Susan Lorincz The supreme court overturned Affirmative action; a Boston civil rights group has now challenged legacy admissions at Harvard University. We will show you what the civil rights group is doing to make sure education is fair for all. The weekend saw a disturbing uptick in gun violence nationwide, including the 340th mass shooting of the year. We'll delve into this escalating issue and examine the factors contributing to this disturbing trend. Florida police have released additional police body cam footage that reveals a troubling pattern of aggression from Susan Lorincz, the woman who killed AJ Owens. After these disturbing revelations, we'll show you the footage and discuss the Owens family's pursuit of justice. Tonight, we bring you a disturbing incident of racial discrimination. Radio host Darlene Mccoy was subjected to racial slurs by a white restaurant cashier. We'll show you the receipt and show you what she had to say. Download the Black Star Network app at http://www.blackstarnetwork.com! We're on iOS, AppleTV, Android, AndroidTV, Roku, FireTV, XBox and SamsungTV. The #BlackStarNetwork is a news reporting platform covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. It's Monday, July 3rd, 2023, coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered, streaming live on the Black Star Network. Since the Supreme Court overturned affirmative action, a Boston civil rights group is challenging legacy admissions at Harvard University. Guess what? That's going to tick off a lot of rich white folks at these Ivy League institutions. A disturbing uptick in gun violence nationwide this weekend, including the 340th mass shooting of the year. We'll delve into the escalating violence, examine the factors contributing to this issue. Florida police released additional body cam footage revealing a troubling pattern of aggression

from Susan Lawrence, the white woman who killed the black mother of four, A.J. Owens. Naturally syndicated radio host Darlene McCoy says she was the victim of racial discrimination in Atlanta and has receipts to prove it. Also today is National Crown Act Day, and folks across the country are talking about the

importance of heraldry legislation that discriminates against African Americans. And also, what to the slave is the Fourth of July? That was the speech that Frederick Douglass gave that excoriated America when it comes

to its original scene. Seeing we put together a slew of prominent activists and entertainers to actually read that speech. We will have it for you right here on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. It is time to bring the funk. So let's go. He's rollin' Yeah, yeah It's Uncle Roro, yo Yeah, yeah It's Rollin' Martin

Yeah, yeah Rollin' with Rollin' now Yeah, yeah He's funky, he's fresh, he's real the best You know he's Rollin' Martin Now He's rolling Martel now. Martel. Since the U.S. Supreme Court last week gutted affirmative action in college admissions,

a Boston civil rights group is challenging Harvard University's admissions practices. The group contends that legacy admissions, which constitutes individuals who have family members who graduated from that particular school, giving them a leg up in admissions, they are saying that discriminates against students of color. Lawyers for civil rights on behalf of black and Latino community groups in New England filed the civil rights complaint alleging that Harvard's practice of giving priority to the children of alums violates the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The move comes in the wake of the Supreme Court recent decision that was dealing with a Harvard case where a white man in a blue suit on behalf of Asian Americans, alleging they were discriminated against due to affirmative action.

Now, many of us have talked about legacy and what it means and how actually more people are discriminated against due to legacy. Legacy doesn't just impact Harvard. It's all universities all across the country. Very few actually have outlawed legacy admissions. This, folks, again, is significant. Now, the civil rights complaint draws attention to Harvard's data, revealing that being a legacy student increases the likelihood of admissions to Harvard, with 70% of legacy applicants being white. The complaint urges the U.S. Department of Education to declare the practice illegal

and force Harvard and others to abandon it. Dr. Mustafa Santiago Ali, former senior advisor for environmental justice at the EPA, D.C. He's with us. The thing here, Mustafa, that folk have to understand when you look at this particular decision, you have Asian-Americans saying, oh, it's because of affirmative action that not more of us are getting into Harvard. And the data shows, no, it's white folks in legacy that's keeping many of you are getting into Harvard. And the data shows, no, it's white folks in legacy that's keeping many of you from getting into Harvard. Yeah, we know legacy is sort of like having a platinum card. It helps you to open doors. And when we have these types of situations going on, and many times people just don't understand the dynamics that are happening

behind the scenes when decisions are actually being made and they go with these old antiquated narratives of black folks are getting something or black and brown folks are getting something where they're not qualified. So we should make sure we eliminate that by folks understanding that, you know, the students who are applying to these schools, they have the grades. It is just that they often don't have those leverage points or the privilege to be able to get in when it comes to, you know, in relationship to our folks. So we know legacy gives, in many instances, those white students that additional leg up, if you will, and allows them to get in. And sometimes some studies have even showed when they didn't necessarily meet the requirements. So, you know, putting a spotlight on this is going to be very revealing for folks. It's absolutely going to be revealing.

And what you're seeing here, what you're seeing when you have, again, Asian-Americans making this claim, look, they want to be a part of the elite institutions, but they are elite for a reason. They are white for a reason. And we know exactly what that is. We understand the reality of racism in this country. There's a reason why Harvard has a $40 billion endowment. It's because those white folks have been, by going there, getting many of the top jobs, they're able to build up that massive wealth. You cannot escape the reality of wealth and whiteness from Ivy League institutions in America. Yeah, it is power and it is privilege. That's really what the Supreme Court case was about,

was about power. We understand that education is supposed to be an opportunity to level the playing field. And once we began to make strides in that particular area, then people began to say, wait a minute, you know, we've got too many black and brown folks who are now beginning to move in the direction of the American dream. And we also understand that the historical aspects that are tied to education were built for white men. And then after long, hard fights, of course, some white women were able to actually move into that space as well.

So we see, once again, this is about power and privilege. And, you know, we need those. And I want to make sure that we don't put a broad brush on all Asian brothers and sisters, because there are many who do stand in solidarity with our communities. But for that percentage that allowed themselves to be used to create this very devastating situation,

understand that the history was never meant for you or us, and that we actually need to stand together to make sure that we're dealing with these injustices that are happening from the Supreme Court. This weekend, Sherrilyn Ifill was on ABC News this week talking about this very issue of the Supreme Court decision and why it was so disastrous. Here's what she had to say. Trump justices. Yes, it was. I mean, I think this is what we expected from these justices. We all knew that these cases were coming through the pipeline. And what this court has shown since these justices

joined the court is a really aggressive approach to dismantling core and critical issues that have been championed on the progressive left and that are really part of the infrastructure of our country, our kind of post-civil rights country. They're moving quickly. I think they're moving in some ways in a manner that actually undercuts their legitimacy. And they are taking steps at a time when our country is deeply divided that I think will result in further division. I think this affirmative action decision is disastrous, is a mistake, and we're going to be left with the consequences of it.

I want to get to that specifically in a moment. But Jen, first, more than anything, this was a Roberts court. I mean, we had 59 decisions. He was in the majority 55 times. And there were some surprising wins for the liberals on the court. Well, I think that's true. And I actually think this term, actually, there's more consensus than there maybe has been the last several terms and less polarization. And if you look at some statistics put together by some Supreme Court advocates, at least current for the next to last day of the term this year, it was Justice Thomas and Justice Alito who more frequently were in dissent. I think Justice Kagan last term had perhaps over 20 dissents, this term 10 or fewer.

And so that suggests that actually the court's not necessarily always aligning how we would expect, but they're trying to decide each individual case in accordance with the rule of law as they understand it. So on the affirmative action case, you heard in Devin's story there, there's an effort from Harvard and from other schools to say, we are continuing our commitment to diversity. We're just going to have to do it in a different way. Well, that's easier said than done. And if you look at schools in California, which outlawed affirmative action in 1996, you will see that it is quite challenging. And, you know, it's important to remember the whole point of affirmative action, which

is to create this environment where people from all different backgrounds can engage, can do problem solving, can innovate, can learn about each other, and particularly at selective institutions, which, whether you like it or not, tend to be the places from which the nation's leaders emanate. I mean, eight out of nine of the justices went to Harvard or Yale. I'm just saying if these are the places that are incubating the leadership of this country, I would think at this moment in our country we would recognize that universities are quite correct, that that incubation has to happen in a way that trains leaders who are equipped and prepared to deal with people of different backgrounds, who have been exposed

to different perspectives, who have knowledge of lifestyles and ways of thinking that are different than their own. I certainly experienced this when I went to college. I, too, am from Queens, like the young men that were in that segment, you know, youngest of 10 children. And when I went to Vassar College, I learned about a whole different way of life and different worlds. And I like to think that my friends, many of whom were white and with whom I was quite close, learned a lot about the life that I led and about different perspectives and that

it shaped their lives. So that was the whole point of this. And to have this dismantled, it seems to me, is going to be quite, quite difficult. And I think it's quite dangerous, actually, for our democracy at this moment. In what had been the landmark decision, the Bakke decision in 1978, Justice Powell, who was the deciding factor in that decision, said that universities, colleges have a compelling interest in having a diverse student body. Is the court now saying, Jen, that there is no longer such a compelling interest? Well, the chief justice's opinion that six justices joined said, like, in consistency

with the strict scrutiny standard, that there has to be a compelling interest that's narrowly tailored. And the chief, in his opinion, said that the way in which the interest has been explained here by Harvard and UNC was tough to measure and that there was not anywhere close in those situations of enough of a nexus. I think the justices also were concerned about, in general, Bra-based stereotypes and that Asian Americans in particular had been negatively facing stereotypes under some of the admissions criteria. And so six justices joined the reasoning saying that there can't be discrimination or separate treatment on the basis of race. It maybe can be looked at as an individual factor if an applicant ties it to other circumstances in their life, but no longer will people be favored on the basis of class and race and admissions? Well, see, that's difficult because, in fact, this is a holistic admissions process

that actually doesn't just look at race isolated and independently, but within the context of many other factors. And I think what I find most disturbing about the majority's decision in this case is that in both of these cases, there were trials. There was extensive evidence that was submitted. There were expert witnesses. There were graphs. There were charts. There were students who testified in favor of affirmative action. And after a two-week trial in the Harvard case, we get a decision from a federal court judge, 130 pages, in the UNC case, 155 pages, meticulously going through the information that was submitted, that was vetted,

that was subject to cross-examination, and concluded quite the opposite, that in fact, these admissions processes do not discriminate against Asian Americans. That's the way our legal system works, is that we actually subject things to the rigor of trial. We get a fact-finding decision from the district court, as we did in both of these cases. The fact that six justices have a different opinion or a hunch about what they think is going on is not actually the way the legal system is supposed to work. Mustafa, I'm going to go to break when we come back. I want to unpack something here because I need people to understand that those, there's this white fear we're going to talk about in my book.

This is not the end. It bloomed. He's already made clear. They want to go after corporate America next. They want to go after all of the places in our society where they have been advocating on behalf of affirmative action and increasing opportunities. This is about maintaining whiteness, even if they're using Asian folk to do it. Hold tight one second, folks. Also, our phone lines are open. A lot of stuff we can talk about today. You can weigh in

and give your thoughts on affirmative action. You can talk about today being the National Crown Act Day. And so lots of stuff we can talk. Or we can also talk about, again, what's the slaves of 4th of July? Do you celebrate the 4th of July as well? Folks, pull the phone number up, please, so we can give that out. I want you to give us a call and weigh in and share your thoughts on all of these issues. And so we're opening the phone lines today. And so actually, I'm going to do this here. When we come back from the break, I have the phone number for you. You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network.

I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops call this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that Taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multibillion-dollar company

dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th.

Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives.

This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug ban is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown.

We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Caramouch. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does.

It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content. Subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Hatred on the streets, a horrific scene a white nationalist rally that descended into deadly violence white people are losing their damn lives there's an angry pro-trump mob storm to the u.s capital we're about to see the rise of what I call white minority resistance. We have seen white folks in this country who simply cannot tolerate black folks voting.

I think what we're seeing is the inevitable result of violent denial. This is part of American history. Every time that people of color have made progress, whether real or symbolic, there has been what Carol Anderson at Emory University calls white rage as a backlash. This is the wrath of the Proud Boys and the Boogaloo Boys. America, there's going to be more of this. Here's all the Proud Boys, guys. This country is getting increasingly racist in its behaviors and its attitudes because of the fear of white people. The fear that they're taking our jobs, they're taking our resources,

they're taking our women. This is white fear. Bye-bye, Papa. Black Star Network is here. Oh, no punches! I'm real revolutionary right now. Thank you for being the voice of Black America. All the momentum we have now, we have to keep this going. The video looks phenomenal.

See, there's a difference between Black Star Network and Black-owned media and something like CNN. You can't be Black-owned media and and be scared it's time to be smart bring your eyeballs home you dig this is essence atkins what's the love king of rb raheem duvall me sherry shepard and you know what you want you're watching roland martin unfiltered. Să ne vedem la următoarea mea rețetă! All right, folks, here's a phone number for you to call in if you want to weigh in with your thoughts on this issue and so many other issues as well. Again, phone lines are open. And so you can call 202-890-1199, 202-890-1199. Mustafa, we already see right now, where a person in Missouri, the attorney general, has made it clear to the states and universities, don't use race in any way when it comes to scholarships admissions uh in employment you name it we will see the continued attacks on dei as well all across this country this is what we see going on all of these things are tied

together this was exactly uh what they were planning uh what you also are seeing is you're seeing that, again, they want to go after everything. Now, one of the things that how Charles Barkley responded, Charles Barkley announced that he was leaving, first of all, in his will, he made it clear that he was leaving $5 million to Auburn University. He changed his will to reflect that that money must specifically go to scholarships for black students. And so that's one thing that we're seeing. But the thing that I need people to understand, they want to go after anything dealing with race and equity, corporate America is going to have to make a decision whether they're going to stand for diversity, stand for fairness, or are they going to succumb to the pressures of largely white conservatives in this country? Yeah, and you know,

it's really interesting, Roland, that when we look at corporate America right now, we've seen that there are a number of the DEI programs are now being canceled at far too many of those. But we actually have power in this situation. Now, one, we have to make sure that we're illuminating the fact that this is happening. And that's why your show in the network is so incredibly important because you've been putting a spotlight on it for a long long time now but then we have to do something with that information we have to stop giving folks our dollars who are not willing to support us and so if we want to make sure that these types of programs continue to be in place because we see value in them then we got to hold the corporations accountable. We have a huge amount of influence with our dollars. We just have to realize how we

want to actually utilize those to hold people accountable and also to raise expectations. We cannot be quiet or silent in this moment because those, a smaller percentage of folks who have loud voices and are the squeaky wheels are the ones who are now pushing courts and others to do these types of things. So we've just got to utilize our power in this moment to offset what's currently going on. Well, and not just our power. That also means those folks who are allies, they're going to have to step up. They're going to have to publicly declare that we are not going to abandon what frankly has been, it ain't been perfect. It has not worked out as it should completely for us,

but it's a hell of a lot better than what the alternative is. I agree with you totally. We've got to hold our partners accountable. We got to make sure that people don't just say they're our friends, but there's action behind that. We saw what happened after our brother George Floyd died and people made a bunch of commitments and then they didn't live up to the fullness of those commitments. And in many instances, not enough voices were saying, you

know, we have expectations. So now, once again, we have the opportunity with our partners, with our authentic allies, white brothers and sisters and others, to make sure that we're pushing back. But doing it strategically is going to be critically important to make sure that it is sustainable and that real change actually begins to happen. The thing that's also interesting here as we as we begin to to now unpack the results of this decision, again, the march forward is going to continue. I talked about Ron DeSantis and what he has been doing in Florida, what we're now seeing in other states as well. We're seeing individuals, you know, continue to, you know, target these initiatives. And so DeSantis, obviously running for president, this is what he put out because their ending of

DEI in Florida went into effect on July 1st. So this is what he had to say. So this bill says the whole experiment with DEI is coming to an end in the state of Florida. We are eliminating the DEI programs. We are going to treat people as individuals. We're not going to treat people as members of groups. DEI is better viewed as standing for discrimination, exclusion, and indoctrination, and that has no place in our Now, we all know he is absolutely lying about that. But here's something that when you talked about this here that I think is important for us to understand.

I'm going to pull this story up in just a second. When you talk about how do you speak with your money? Well, you've had folks in Florida who are migrant workers, who are Latino, who have not been happy at all with what has been happening in Florida. And what they're doing is they are speaking with their feet. They're speaking with their dollars. And they're actually fleeing Florida. There were a number of people who reminded Florida that, listen, you guys do this, it's going to be a problem.

Now, what happened was the Republican lawmakers, they were like, oh, this is really no big deal. This is just sort of, this is just politics. It's really not that big of a deal. Well, guess what? Now there are people in Florida who are recognizing it is a big deal because now what they're seeing is they're seeing individuals who are leaving the state. They are folks are working there on farms, construction sites. You've had this thing building. And we talked about this beforehand. It was circulating all on it was circulating all on TikTok. And there were people, truckers and others were saying, you know what, I'm not going to do business in Florida. I'm going to stay out of Florida. And so again,

people said, oh, this is not going to have a great impact. I don't really see, you know, what the whole big deal of, you know, of this whole thing is. Well, now they are sitting here going, what in the hell did we actually do? And so this here is a Wall Street Journal article. I just want to pull it up here just real quick on my iPhone here. Migrant workers flee Florida as new immigration law takes effect. From owners, farm owners and construction work companies say the law will which started July 1st, has already diminished their workforce. So what right there, right there, Mustafa, what you're saying is, which Dr. King talked about, when he said we must redistribute the pain. He said redistribute the pain.

That's what he said April 3rd, 1968 at Mason Temple. What he was saying is use your economic power to put pressure on the system to do what's right. That right there is exactly what needs to happen. Our way of responding to this conservative Supreme Court is, OK, that's your ruling. We're going to show you how we operate when it comes to our money. Without a doubt, I mean, you know, I'm blessed that I had the opportunity and continue to work with a bunch of farm workers. Understanding that, I mean, just it's just amazing the things that they go through and still are able to do, excellent job, make sure that produce makes it to the table. Real power is when those fruits and vegetables

continue to wither on the vine and rot, then that is tied to resources, that is tied to money. Let's be very clear, when you have Governor Abbott, when you have Governor DeSantis, these folks do not care about humanity. They allow people also to go out and march, and there's nothing wrong with marching. But when you hit them in the pockets, that's when you get their attention. That's when you get the state legislature's

attention, because that's what they care about. They care about money because money is tied to wealth and money is tied to power. And when we properly utilize that, when we stand in solidarity with each other, then we can make real change happen. And we just got to realize that we have that power. We don't have to sit back and just take this stuff. That one will utilize the legal system, but we'll also utilize the economic system to hold people accountable. Indeed, indeed. All right, folks, the number to call is 202-890-1199, 202-890-1199. If you want to weigh in on what's next in this continuing battle in this country,

which, of course, we specifically are talking about this affirmative action decision. And we talk about it on this show as well. We know white women have benefited more from affirmative action than anybody else. That's contracting, admissions, things along those lines. But what you are about to see, and I'm telling you, I don't think people really want to have to deal with this. What you're about to see, you're about to see a continual march by many of these people to continue to attack anything dealing with the issue of race. This is

why I wrote my book, White Fear, how the browning of America is making white folks lose their minds. Folks, it's here. I kept warning people what was coming. And the thing, Mustafa, that I keep warning people on this show about,

I keep telling them why we cannot ignore the reality of the role that voting plays. Trump, over the weekend, talked to Moms for Liberty, that racist group of largely white conservative women who are targeting school boards across the country. In Ohio, and I need people listening to me very clearly, in Ohio, they beat back, they beat back several, three of these right-wingers from Ohio school boards. The Republicans in the legislature changed the law to take away and strip these school boards of power.

So the Republicans are using their levers of power. So even if, again, we elect local school boards, they'll use the power on the state level. We see this in Texas, how they're targeting Harris County, which means we have to not only vote our people in for school boards, but vote them out on the state level.

You know, it's interesting. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple.

Cops believed everything that Taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multibillion-dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad.

Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott.

And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves.

Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Caramouch. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things.

Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content,

subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. And Roland, you go back to when you launched this network. I remember watching the first couple of shows before I ever came on. And one of the things you kept sharing with people was about the courts and about the power of our vote to make sure that we are influencing and getting the right types of judges into those positions. And that our vote also played a critical role, both on the local, the county, the state and the federal level, because we usually only pay attention to what's going on on the federal level. The positions for senators and congressmen get people excited and motivated to vote, and they forget often about what's happening on that local level. And now we see it continuing to play out. Now, this is also, and I remember you sharing this in the early days, of how for the past 30 plus years, there has been a strategic plan being put in place

to actually take power away from black and brown folks and to lean this country in a much more conservative direction. And as you've said, and as your book points out to folks, you know, white fear is something that they are utilizing to actually, you know, garner more people to come into their way of thinking. And that's why we have to counteract it by making sure that people are fully educated and fully focused on what needs to happen over these next sets of election cycles. Let me say that again for folks, the next sets of election cycles, because it's not just for folks, the next sets of election cycles, because it's not just about what's happening in 2024. It's critically important, but there is

actions that have to happen in the midterms right after that and on the local, the county, the state and the federal level moving forward. Absolutely, folks. And the phone number to call call us 202-890-1199, 202-890-1199. If you want to weigh in on not only the Supreme Court decision, but what do you think is going to happen next? What should we be doing? How should we as African Americans be preparing for this battle? Again, 202-890-1199, 202-890-1199. You can weigh in on this, weigh in also on today being National Crown Act Day. We will be talking about that in our next segment as well. So a lot here for us to unpack. The number to call is 202-890-1199. 202-890-1199. Folks, later in the show, what to the slaves of 4th of July, that stunning, amazing speech Frederick Douglass gave. Well, I assemble a group of celebrities, entertainers, and activists to do a reading of that. We'll play that for you right here on today's show. Also, a major milestone we crossed with YouTube. I'm going to unveil

and show you what they sent us to mark us crossing the one million barrier when it comes to subscribers on our YouTube channel. And so that'll be later in the show as well. Folks, don't forget if you want to support the Black Star Network, support Roland Martin Unfiltered and the Black Star Network, download our app. This is why it's important to download our app. And I appreciate us crossing a million subscribers on YouTube.

In fact, we're close to having 1.1 million subscribers on our YouTube channel. But the reality is, we also, those are not platforms that we own nor control. There are things where they decide what gets monetized and what doesn't and who's suitable for it. Some information can be actually blocked. So the reason why our, like perfect example, right now, okay, I need all of y'all to understand. This is why I'm asking you to download our app. app is why I'm asking you to give to our show.

As we speak, Facebook has been throttling dust down. This has been going on now, folks, for a year and a half. We used to like we used to have two, three, four, five, six, seven thousand, ten thousand folks watching via our facebook page well the reality is uh they have been uh uh de-platforming if you will and de-emphasizing news and information and so the problem we now see is yo basically our facebook numbers are atrociously low atrociously low, atrociously low. And I'm talking about, and sometimes we're not even hitting 200 people watching on Facebook. I'm trying to pull up right now to see how many people on our Facebook channel right now.

We got people who don't even get the live notification when we go live on Facebook. And so this is why, this is why it's important for us to have our own app that we own, we control, and we're not operating at the whims of someone else. And so I would love for us to have a million and one downloads of our Blackstar Network app. Because what happens when one of these platforms decides to make some changes to its algorithm and then we're negatively impacted. And so download the Black Star Network app.

You're getting my show. You're getting Faraj Muhammad's daily show. You're getting Deborah Owens' weekly show, Jackie Hood Martin's weekly show, Stephanie Humphrey's show, Greg Carr's show. You're getting a Roland with Roland in one-on-one's show. You're getting a Roland with Roland, our one-on-one interview show. You're getting Dee Barnes' weekly show as well, which would eventually be in a month or two, a daily show. And so folks, these things are happening. We need you to download it. Download on Apple phone, Android phone, Apple TV, Android TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Xbox One, Samsung Smart TV. Speaking of Amazon Fire TV, our 24-hour, seven-day-a-week live

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Get your copy on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Target. Download it on Audible. We'll be right back. Hatred on the streets, a horrific scene, a white nationalist rally that descended into deadly violence. You will not. White people are losing their damn lives. There's an angry pro-Trump mob storm to the U.S. Capitol. We're about to see the rise of what I call white minority resistance.

We have seen white folks in this country who simply cannot tolerate black folks voting. I think what we're seeing is the inevitable result of violent denial. This is part of American history. Every time that people of color have made progress, whether real or symbolic, there has been what Carol Anderson at Emory University calls white rage as a backlash. This is the wrath of the Proud Boys and the Boogaloo Boys. America, there's going to be more of this. There's all the Proud Boys and the Boogaloo Boys. America, there's going to be more of this. Here's all the Proud Boys guys.

This country is getting increasingly racist in its behaviors and its attitudes because of the fear of white people. The fear that they're taking our jobs, they're taking our resources, they're taking our women. This is white fear. Bye bye, Papa. They're taking out women. This is white people. Next on A Balanced Life, we're talking everything from prayer to exercise to positive affirmations and everything that's needed to keep you strong and along your way. That's on the next A Balanced Life with me, Dr. Jackie, on Blackstar Network. Hello, I'm Jameah Pugh.

I am from Coatesville, Pennsylvania, just an hour right outside of Philadelphia. My name is Jasmine Pugh. I'm also from Coatesville, Pennsylvania. You are watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Stay right here. All right, folks, welcome back to Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. I found that, I told y'all, if you want to understand how Facebook is screwing us over, go to my iPhone right now. Forty-five people are watching on Facebook, y'all. They are purposely depressing black content and news content. And so that's why our Facebook people, look, come to our YouTube channel. That's where

you should be watching it. We're able to generate more revenue over there as opposed to what they're doing. And so again, that's the game Facebook is playing. And so we don't have to sit here and tolerate that. We can change that. And so that's what should happen. And so I appreciate the folks watching our YouTube channel. And so now you understand, again, why it's important for us to watch. And again, I got 1,085,000 followers on YouTube, 1.3 million on Facebook. You got nearly 2,000 watching live on YouTube right now, 43, 42 on Facebook. What does that tell you? What does that tell you right there?

All right, folks. A lot of folks are on the phone lines. Let's talk about this here. Anthony Stevenson calling there. All right, folks. A lot of folks on the phone lines. Let's talk about this here. Anthony Stevenson, a caller from Norristown, Pennsylvania. Anthony, you're on. Roland Martin, Unfiltered. What's your comment?

Do we have Anthony? All right, folks, talk to me okay uh all right put anthony on hold uh anthony you there i know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time have you ever had to shoot your gun sometimes the answer is yes but there's a company dedicated your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley

comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated,

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st, and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glod. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. We are back.

In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player,

Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug ban. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown.

Got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Caramouch What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things Stories matter and it brings a face to them It makes it real

It really does It makes it real Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season 2 on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.

Anthony, are you there? All right, Frank from the west side of Chicago. Frank, you're on Roland Martin Unfiltered. What's up, Frank from the west side of Chicago. Frank, you're on Roland Martin Unfiltered. What's up, Frank? Roland? Yes, sir. Frank, do me a favor. Turn your audio down on the program.

Frank, turn your audio down on the program so you can hear me talk to you. Roland? Frank, turn your audio down on what you're watching. Hello, Roland. Can you hear me? Yes, Frank, I can hear you. I can hear you. Roland. Frank, turn your audio down on what you're watching. Hello, Roland. Can you hear me? Yes, Frank. I can hear you. I can hear you. Roland. Frank, I can hear you. Frank, turn your audio down on the program.

So control room, tell everybody to turn the audio down on the program so they can hear. Frank, can you now hear me? Hello, Roland. Can you hear me? Okay. I just turned it down. Got it. So, Frank, what's your comment?

Can you hear me now? Yes, I can. What's your comment? I'm turning my audio down. Frank, Frank, Frank, Frank, I can hear you. What's your comment? Roland, can you hear me? Yes, Frank, I can hear you.

One, two, three. Okay, put Frank on hold, y'all. Roland, can you hear me? Put, Frank. I can hear you. One, two, three. Okay, put Frank on hold, y'all. Rolling. Can you hear me? Put Frank on hold. Okay, so I need y'all. So everybody who's on the phone lines, do me a favor. Turn the audio down on your program when I call on you.

Otherwise, you're hearing a delay when I talk to you, okay? Dara, Charlotte, North Carolina. Dara, you're on Roland Martin Unfiltered. What's your comment? Dara? All right, Dara, can you hear me? Dara? Dara?

Dara? Dara, you're on the line. All right, so let's do this here. Control room, y'all need to figure out what's going on with the phone lines, why they're not hearing me, okay? So y'all figure that out. So we're going to do this here. I'm going to come back to that in a second.

Folks, today is a National Crown Act Day. Remember, California became the first state that passed the bill and outlawed hair discrimination. We've now seen other states do so, but it's stalled on the federal level. We continue to see that battle. Texas is the most recent state that outlawed that particular issue as well. This, of course, impacts African Americans more so than any other, any other impact does. And unfortunately, again, we haven't seen enough happen on the federal level. Joining us, though, is Delegate Stephanie Smith out of Maryland.

Delegate Stephanie Smith, glad to have you here again. You know, we focused on this a couple of years ago in California, passed that particular law, which was huge. Become the first state. We are now seeing folks understand and the real effects of hair discrimination where you have students with their hair cut off. People are not allowed to graduate. I mean, just blatant discrimination because you've got a white folks don't like locks and braids. And I mean, you name it, which makes no sense at all. Thank you for having me on, Roland. And yes, today is Crown Day.

And I think a lot of times people think this is just about cosmetics. Nope. It's as you mentioned. This is about racial discrimination and how it essentially evolves over time. As much as we try to educate each generation out of racial animus, it largely evolves into new attempts to curtail access for black people to jobs, education, and opportunities. So I just feel grateful that I live in a state, Maryland, where many of my colleagues were

supportive of us becoming the seventh state to outlaw, you know, discrimination for natural and protective hairstyles. But I also want to point out that this is a very inclusive, unfortunately, form of discrimination. While black women have often been the face of discussions around the Crown Act, this impacts men, women, children, and people of all ages. And so I think it's really important for us to remember that this is just the evolution of addressing racial discrimination.

Well, I mean, you're absolutely right. But the thing that people have to understand. Look, we were just talking about affirmative action happening in college admissions. And so when you're denying opportunities to black people because of their hair, you're impacting economics. You're impacting the ability to actually be able to generate wealth, be able to buy homes.

And so this has a direct impact on the economics of African-Americans. You're absolutely correct. One of the things people would say to me was there were jobs I did not get because of my hair, and there were promotions within companies I was already employed in that I did not get because of my hair. And as many opponents to the Crown Act might propose, they will say things like, well, what if this isn't professional? What if this isn't X, Y, and Z? And in many ways, searching for an appropriate point by which they can discriminate against another person. But what you're saying is spot on. You are stealing wealth from primarily Black Americans when you're denying them opportunity to improve their educational lot or their economic lot. And honestly, no one can really defend this action.

One of the things that it's often conflated with and it is enraging is, well, is this an issue of hygiene? I'm like, well, no, no one is saying that the Crown Act is consistent with you, you know, not utilizing appropriate hygiene. We can go back hundreds of years where grooming codes have been used to limit opportunity and access for black people to traverse the economic ladder in this country. It's nothing new, but unfortunately we can't get a federal, you know, law across the finish line. But we've had 23 states that have agreed that this is something worth standing up for. It passed the House the last session. Republicans said, oh, we've got numerous other civil rights laws. We don't need a new one. Well, that's simply not true. First of all, I don't think I would rely upon the GOP at the national or any other level to

determine what are the necessary civil rights that we should be pursuing at any moment in time. But I wanna say that before it got to the Congress, there were people like my very good friend, Adra B. Asamoah, who was the national architect and policy strategist around the Crown Act that realized when you gain momentum at the state level, it's hard for the Congress to ignore. And unfortunately, we don't have a Senate

that is sympathetic and understanding of why this is important, not just to people like you and me, but to their very own constituents. But I do have hope that as we continue to get gains, particularly with Democratic senators elected, that we'll be able to get that national law passed because it's absolutely vital. If we are not protecting people from racial discrimination in hiring and in educational attainment, then what are we doing? Also, this also I'm constantly talking about why voting matters.

Here's a tweet here from Joshua Cole. Today is National Crown Day in 2020. I co-sponsored the Crown Act. This was in Virginia, which prohibited race-based discrimination on the basis of hair. In 2017, when I ran, I was told to cut my hair for electability. Now I'm rocking my curls in Mohawk like I did in the House when I was elected. I mean, this is what we have to deal with. We have to change who we are, change our look to make other folk comfortable. Well, as people know, certain professions tend to be a bit more conservative. I'm a proud graduate of Harvard University School of Law, and it wasn't lost on me that during campus interview season, it was never a surprise to see people that generally wore their hair in their natural kinks and curls,

press it out, flat iron it out for the campus interview season. I had locks then as I do now. And so my position was if you weren't going to hire me blatantly because of that, then perhaps that's not a place where I would thrive. But that was a privilege I had living in the DC metro at the time to know that there were various avenues I could take professionally. But in some parts of our state of Maryland, where I live now, or even other parts of the country, maybe there's only a very finite amount of people that are hiring in the field you're in. You shouldn't have to contort yourself to be seen as fully human. I mean, literally,

I met a black woman lawyer group on social media, on Facebook, where people agonize about their vacation hair, their braids, maybe being captured in a firm photograph that would be on the website indefinitely. These are the types of things that a lot of my colleagues who are not black do not even have to consider about their expression of their hair and cultural heritage. Mustafa, this is another tweet from a white legislator in Pennsylvania. It's past time for Pennsylvania to join the 23 states where the Crown Act is already law. Let's take a stand and ban discrimination based on natural hairstyles. No one should be discriminated or treated differently because of their natural hair and hair discrimination.

Hashtag in hair discrimination. Hashtag PA needs Crown Act. I love it. They're absolutely right. of their natural hair and hair discrimination, hashtag in hair discrimination, hashtag PA needs Crown Act. I love it. They're absolutely right. Mustafa? Yeah, no, I agree. The legislator is exactly right. I mean, we have to also understand that our hair in many instances is tied to our culture. Sometimes it's tied to religion. And then we also know that when we were enslaved in this country, that they would cut all of our hair off so that the various folks who are coming from different parts of Africa could assimilate together. So there's a deepness that's tied to this. There's systemic racism

that's tied to it. But also, if we want to live in a 21st century America, then they have to begin to honor our culture and in some instances, our religions that are also tied to our hair. This tweet just went out. Give me a second. This is from a sister, Delegate Smith in Texas, Representative Rhett Andrews Bowers. I love celebrating National Crown Day, but this year is special. Last year, HB 567, the Texas Crown Act, was not even filed, and now it will soon become law. Let's hear it for the advocates dedicated to making sure everyone can rock their crowns. And this, of course, is the image that she posted there.

And so we're seeing all of these images all across social media today, hashtag crown proud. Yes. I mean, that just warms my heart because I think, unfortunately, Texas has been at the center of so many controversies over recent years. But to see the success of the Crown Act, even in these trying times, I just want to stand in solidarity and celebration with my colleagues in Texas that were able to make it happen because let's be honest, we are being inundated with so many messages and images invalidating our history, our present struggles, and also our present wins. And I think that it's really important for us to have these mile markers where we know that when we unite and when we stick together, we can make a difference in policy. Absolutely. Absolutely. And Mustafa, again, this is one of those things when when I talk about why black owned media matters, mainstream media ain't focusing on the Crown Act. They're not focusing on how big this is. And so this is why we must have our own media driving this story, mobilizing people.

In fact, I'm looking for it right now. There was somebody posted because the folks at Color of Change continue the fight for a for on a federal level. This right here from their sister, Crystal Johnson. I just signed the petition on organized for with color of change. Will you join me? Is there a petition to challenge Congress when it comes to the Crown Act? And so you see it right there. So five hundred and nine thousand forty eight people have already signed that their goal is to get six hundred thousand signatures. This is via Color of Change. And this is when we talk about why activism matters, why mobilization and organization matters, Mustafa.

Yeah, once again, we have powers, my grandmother says, unless we give it away, you know, by making sure we're signing up, but also showing up and making sure that we are holding people accountable. If you want our vote, if you want to be in office, then these are the types of things that we need you to be supporting in a very active way. So I'm so glad to see folks beginning to rally around this issue. I lived it out when I was at EPA. That's for another story. But the change is coming. The 21st century demands these types of basic things be put in place.

Delegate Smith, final comment. I just want to say, you might not know, but Mustafa and I had an opportunity to work together for many years on environmental issues. So he is not new to this. He is true to this, as am I. But I just want to wake up in a world where little girls and boys know that they can be taken seriously about what's in their head, not what's on there. All right. Delegate Smith out of Maryland, we appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you. And again, everybody who's watching, if you go to colorofchange.org, we want you to sign this petition. It says right here, to lawmakers across the country, help us in hair discrimination in the workplace, schools, and pools. And so it was created by the Crown Coalition. They want to get 600,000 signatures.

Right now they're 509,048. Let's put them over the top, Black Star Network family. All right, we come back, folks. We're going to hit the phone lines again. If you want to weigh in on the Crown, I'll tell you, being Crown Act Day. Also, of course, if you want to weigh in on the Crown, today being Crown Act Day. Also, of course, if you want to weigh in on the affirmative action cases, give us a call 202-898-1099. Pull the number up, please. 202-890-1199. 202-890-1199. We'll be back on the Black Star Network. My early days on the road, I learned, well, first of all, as a musician,

I studied not only piano, but I was also drummer and percussion. I was all city percussion as well. So I was one of the best in the city on percussion. There you go. Also studied trumpet, cello, violin, and bass, and any other instrument I could get my hand on. And with that study, I learned again what was for me. I learned what it meant to do what the instruments

in the orchestra meant to each other in the relationships. So that prepared me to be a leader. That prepared me to lead orchestras and to conduct orchestras. That prepared me to know, to be a leader of men, they have to respect you and know that you know the music. You have to be the teacher of the music. You have to know the music better than anything. There you go.

Right. So you can't walk in unprepared. When you talk about blackness and what happens in black culture, you're about covering these things that matter to us, speaking to our issues and concerns. This is a genuine people-powered movement. There's a lot of stuff that we're not getting. You get it. And you spread the word. We wish to plead our own cause to long have others spoken for us.

We cannot tell our own story if we can't pay for it. This is about covering us. Invest in Black-owned media. Your dollars matter. We don't have to keep asking them to cover our stuff. So please support us in what we do, folks. We want to hit 2,000 people. $50 this month. Waits $100,000. We're behind $100,000. So we want to hit that. Your money makes this possible. Checks and money orders go to P.O. Box 57196, Washington, D.C., 20037-0196. The Cash App is Dollar Sign RM Unfiltered.

PayPal is R. Martin Unfiltered. Venmo is RM Unfiltered. Zelle is Roland at RolandSMartin.com. Hello, I'm Marissa Mitchell, a news anchor at Fox 5 DC. Hey, what's up? It's Sammy Roman, and you are watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. All right, I think we've got our issues sorted with our phone lines. And so 890-202-890-1199, 202-890-1199. Let's see here.

You have to pull the first caller. Just give me the name. Omar from San Francisco. What's up, Omar? Hey, Roland. How you doing? Doing great. As always. Thank you. I know a lot of cops

And they get asked all the time Have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes But there's a company dedicated to a future Where the answer will always be no Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion

dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott.

And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves.

Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Caramouch. What we're doing now isn't working

and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Everything you do, I'm proud to donate to you uh great good to hear it sir um just a really quick comment actually on frederick douglas um i'm so glad that you're doing this with the speech today because i did the very same thing similar thing on my podcast today um played a bit of davis uh speak reading some of the speech, and I read some of

it myself. And my whole point is that we should read the whole speech. It's available online, of course, to download, and we should read every word of that speech. It's such a very important and profound speech, and I do not celebrate July 4th, but we must continue to keep studying our history and teach our people about what we do, because we've done so much in this world. We started civilization, and we are still here, and we are going to be here, and we must get active and vote. Roland, thank you very much for your time, sir.

It's a pleasure to speak to you, brother. Omar, I appreciate it. Thanks for being a donor to our Bring the Funk fan club. Thanks so much. All right, let's go to, let's see here. Let's see here. Who do I want to go to? I want to go to, okay.

I don't have a name. It's 623. I don't see a name. Oh, it's Robin. Let's see here. Let's see if this works. Robin? You're on the air. Robin?

Hi, this is Robin. Can you hear me? Go ahead, Robin. Yeah. This affirmative action thing is so funny to me. I worked for the Southern Cal Edison over in the 80s, and it was a big deal about the two black girls and the two Mexican girls. Those affirmative action girls they called us. What was so funny was I passed the typing test before the white girl, and I got the job because I passed the typing test.

So I never understood this affirmative action thing. Shout out, everybody, to the Crown Act, by the way. I'm wearing my crown today, too. All right. Yeah, I just thought that was interesting, and I'm wondering, huh? No, go ahead. Go ahead. I'm wondering, okay, I was wondering how this is going to affect us over here in Arizona because I'm hearing A-Z.

Not sure. We'll double-check to see if a bill has been filed in Arizona. Let's see if Arizona is one of the states. Let's see here. Guess what? You're good there, Robin, right here. Arizona governor. This took place, uh, three months ago, Arizona governor signs executive order banning discrimination based on, uh, so based on a hairstyle texture, but again, that's, that's an executive order. That's not

the law being passed. Uh, and so I'm sure there are still efforts there in Arizona. And again, Mustafa, this is why elections matter. You have Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs, Democrat. She beat that nutcase Republican, Carrie Lake. And so if Carrie Lake is governor, she's not signing this. You don't see this photo right here of Kerry Lakers Governor Mustafa. You know, our vote pays dividends and we need to remember that, you know, that that's why we, you know, do all the things that we do around trying to educate folks about how it plays out in so many different ways. It's interconnected. Our vote touches everything that happens either positively or negatively inside of our communities.

And when we understand the power there, then we can make sure that there's more positive than negative that's happening. Indeed. Indeed. All right, folks. Let's see here. Isaac Bronson out of Sumter, South Carolina. Isaac, you're on Roland Martin Unfiltered. What's your comment? Yes, my response is regarding the affirmative action and policies like that. I think we need to start going on the offensive. And as far as push back to the front of the action i think we need to have our organizations um start filing lawsuits um against legacy admissions well actually well

actually i remember the top of the well at the top uh you had that case, the civil rights group out of Boston has actually done that. So we'll see how that makes its way through the courts. All right. Then we need to, yes, then we need to elect more politicians who are willing to expand the court. We don't have a chance with the present court because they're definitely an activist court and we need to balance that out. But here's the deal, though. You cannot, Mustafa, here's the reality.

First of all, Isaac, thanks for your phone call. Mustafa, here's the reality. You cannot expand. First of all, you cannot expand the court unless you have the votes. If you ain't got the votes in the House and the Senate, you can't expand the court.

Yeah, and again, that's why this show is so important, because it helps people understand what's actually happening, as I said before, behind the scenes, but also in front of the scenes. We need to really be educated on how these processes play out on Capitol Hill and how they are actually tied to whether it's the Supreme Court or what's happening

inside of our agencies and departments. But we also got to get prepared. So one, President Biden has said that currently he's not interested in pursuing the opportunity to expand the court. And the reason being is because he knows that the votes don't currently exist. But when there are openings that will happen, then that's why we have to make sure that we have those candidates that we know will uphold the law and will also understand the dynamics

that are happening inside of our communities. So that is about getting prepared for the moment. Whether they say you don't have to get ready because you stay ready, that's what we should be doing. Jacqueline Grimes calling from Los Angeles. Jacqueline Grimes, you're on Roland Martin on Filtered of the Black Star Network. What's up?

God day, Roland. I am so glad that you are on here, and I just ask everybody that listens to Roland, you all have to make sure you let your friends know about this man because they need to listen to the black perspective of news. I'm so tired of arguing with people because they listen to Fox and all those other stations. Just yesterday,

I was telling so many people about all the stuff that I have been listening to you talk about since this Clarence Thomas and the criminals have changed this law around. So I just need everybody to make sure we get out and tell folks it's important that we vote. And I want to say God bless to Holly Mitchell for getting the Crown Act passed in California because I can wear my hair the way I want to. Love you, Roland. All right. We appreciate it. Thank you so very much. You're absolutely right.

And we greatly appreciate the people who support this show. Y'all, there were people who literally walked up to me at Essence Festival in New Orleans who said, hey, I want to put my money right in your hands to make sure that you get it. And so, again, we appreciate everybody who supports this show, supports us as well. Sarah from Charlotte.

Sarah, we dropped you earlier, but it looks like we got this sorted out. Can you hear me, Sarah? Hello? Yes, Sarah, you're on the air. Hey, good evening, Uncle Roro. How you doing? Doing great. Real quick, lifelong listener, very proud to be here with you tonight.

But I'm just excited for this upcoming election season to have black people put their money where their mouth is and actually come together with our money. And in this education system, especially with how we are choosing to or not choosing to put our children in these schools. I'm just really excited to see our action collectively. OK, thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thank you so very much. I'm just really excited to see our action collectively. Okay. Thank you so much. Sarah, I appreciate it. Thank you so very much. Let's see here.

I'm going to take two or three more phone callers. Let me see here. Okay. Robert in South Carolina. Robert, you're on Roland Martin Unfiltered. What's your comment? Hey, Roland. Thank you so much for taking my call, man. I just got done reading your book, White Fear. That thing was amazing, by the way.

I appreciate it. So just a couple of things with the affirmative action, with the affirmative action case. Let's be realistic. The Supreme Court has been bought and paid for by the pimps of the billionaires and millionaires. We got to get that fixed. Facts. So what we need to do is we actually need to really go hard in this election. We got to get the House back. The Democrats have to take the House so we can get the Democrats in charge. But in the Senate, we need to get a five-seat majority. If we get a five-seat majority, then we can force Chuck Schumer to change the filibuster rules because the reason why, as you know, you said we need the votes, and you need the votes to close the debate. If we can get a five-seat majority, we can force Chuck Schumer to change

the filibuster rules so that we can get D.C. to be past statehood. That's two more senators. And then we can reform the court system, the Supreme Court. But instead of expanding the court, because you know the Republicans will do it, we'll rotate the justices out. So you can get Clarence Thomas's Uncle Tom looking behind out and Samuel O'Neill's dumb ass out and put two more progressive judges on the bench that interprets the Constitution as a living document. And then we can still have those challenges like with the legacy admission and everything. But if the Democrats get a five-seat majority in the Senate, that'll force Chuck Schumer to change the filibuster rules.

So that way we can get, you know, they can close debate and be able to get those bills passed. But I think for us, this was a wake-up call. You said this in 2016, that we didn't vote. And of course, as you can see, the courts have been bought and paid for by the millionaires and billionaires. And also, as you, I don't know, I'm pretty sure you're aware of this, but Amy Coney Barrett, in my opinion, is an affirmative action judge case because she is the only justice on the bench that has never tried a case as a lawyer or a trial judge. And we just put this child on the bench. So this person who's

never tried a law, has never tried a case, is actually making opinions. So we have an unqualified judge on this bench. anyway Roland again you're amazing I will continue to support your platform you're awesome you have a good one sir Robert I appreciate it thank you so very much folks we're gonna go North Carolina here let's see me go back down James Johnson Reeves Ville North Carolina James you're on Roland Martin unfiltered. Hello, Roland Martin. I am so glad to be able to hear you and looking at you at this present time. I am a 75-year-old Vietnam veteran, and I came from Vietnam, and I got a job as a teacher in Guilford County Schools. I taught

high school, and I stayed with Guilford County for about 35 years. And I just want to thank you for all you've been able to do for North Carolina. I appreciate you coming here covering Sherri Beasley back when she was in judgeship. And I hate that she didn't win, but you've done a lot for North Carolina with Dr. Barber. I was with him in the Mall Monday march. I marched with him every Monday. Even though I had a hip replacement, I was there with Dr. Barr because I believed he was doing the right thing for North Carolina. So I donate to your show.

I support you in what you believe in. And I thank God for you. You're a man who is doing what is right for the African-American people. Keep going, Roland. I'm going to keep supporting you. If I have to give the last dime to help you, I will do it because you speak for those of us who don't have a person to speak for. Thank you very much, Mr. Martin. My brother, I appreciate it, man.

Thank you so very much. Let's see here. So I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this here. First of all, Mustafa, your final comment before I let you go. Well, I just remind folks of the words of my grandmother. You have power unless you give it away. So let's make sure that we utilize it to make the change that we know needs to happen.

All right. Appreciate it, my brother. Thanks a lot, Frat. Folks, we come back. I'm going to unveil for you a little something we got in the mail from YouTube. And then we're also going to play for you that Frederick Douglass, the reenactment of the Frederick Douglass, What to the Slave of the Fourth of July, delivered in 1852. I assemble a really great group of activists and pastors and entertainers.

Folks, it's phenomenal. Sam Jackson is one of the folks. Pauletta Washington, Denzel Washington's wife, who's an actress as part of this. Some great folks. You don't want to miss this. That's next. Roland Martin, Unfiltered on the Blackstar Network. On the next Get Wealthy, did you know that the majority of households headed by African American women don't own a single share of stock, no wonder the wealth gap continues to widen. Next on Get Wealthy, you're going to hear from a woman who decided to change that. I have been blessed with good positions, good pay, but it wasn't until probably in the last couple of years that I really invested in myself to get knowledge about what I should be doing with that money and how to productively use it.

Right here on Get Wealthy on Blackstar Network. Up next on The Frequency with me, Dee Barnes. She's known as the Angela Davis of hip-hop. Monet Smith, better known as Medusa the Gangsta Goddess, the undisputed queen of West Coast underground hip-hop. Pop locking is really what indoctrinated me in hip-hop. I don't even think I realized it was hip-hop at that time. Right. It was a happening.

It was a moment of release. We're going to be getting into her career, knowing her whole story, and breaking down all the elements of hip hop. This week on The Frequency, only on the Black Star Network. Hi, everybody. I'm Kim Coles.

Hey, I'm Donnie Simpson. Yo, it's your man, Deon Cole from Black-ish, and you're watching... Roland Martin, Unfiltered. Fam, before we actually play for you the Frederick Douglass speech that he delivered in 1852, What to the Slave, was the 4th of July. I want to show you all this because want y'all to participate in this. So when I got home today from Essence, landed around noon before I took a quick nap because I got no sleep, this was actually in

the mail, folks, and y'all actually made this possible. When we started this show, I actually want to take it back. It was September 2017. And Kenan and I were talking. Kenan is my digital director. We had, I believe, 70 or 72,000 YouTube subscribers in September 2017. There was a panel at NABJ, Facebook was on the panel, and I inquired to them about their revenue. Inquired to them about, you know, monetization.

And Facebook did not have a content creator monetization program in September 2017. I remember saying to Keenan, why the hell are we putting our content on there? When I was at TV One, we could not upload video to YouTube per our cable deals. We did it anyway. We broke the rules. And so we didn't care. And matter of fact, Jonathan Rodgers, our former CEO, encouraged me to do so. He's like, yeah, I want them to sue us because this is not right. So I didn't really spend much time on our YouTube channel.

Really, most of our views came from when I loaded the eulogies from the Bernie Mac funeral that took place in Houston. So we launched Roller Martin Unfiltered September 4th, 2018. We launched with 157,000 YouTube subscribers. Okay. That was the basis that we launched this show. And we've been building and growing ever since. Y'all are the reason we've been doing it. I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time,

have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution.

But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that Taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is

Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1

Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6

on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glod. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way.

In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This has kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug man. Benny the Butcher.

Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Caramouch. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real.

It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. So, folks, this came in the mail today. We're going to figure out where to place it in our studio. And so this came from YouTube, and it says,

presented Roland S. Martin for passing 1 million subscribers. And so YouTube sends out this gold plaque. Of course, I love it because it's been an alpha. This old gold plaque. Of course, I love it because it's been an alpha. This old gold plaque. And so this is the plaque that they sent out for folks who crossed a million YouTube subscribers. We got to thank y'all for that. That is a huge deal here. Anthony's trying to get a better shot here. So put your camera right here. All right, there you go. And so you see it right here, folks. So y'all are the reason we have this. It has been amazing. Right now, let me just look at my numbers here. Again,

we have 1,085, 949 total subscribers. And so again, we appreciate all of you for subscribing to our YouTube channel. And so again, we're going to place this somewhere here. I'll figure out where in the heck we place it. That way it's prominent. And, again, thank all of y'all so very much. I cannot express to y'all the love that I got, that our staff got for this show at Essence. I mean, even when I fly through airports, I mean, I was in Atlanta, folks were stopping me.

And so it's hugely important. This show is hugely important. There's nobody doing what we're doing. This show is two hours a day. Farraji Muhammad's two hours a day. Our weekly shows, but I add a third daily show. And so no one is doing this. This stuff matters because we got to be able to have our own voice, tell our own story and not

be just so focused on, you know, entertainment and gossip and stuff along those lines. I don't do that stuff. I don't do that stuff because we got enough of that crap out here right now and so I'm just not and I'm not going to do it. So let me perfectly clear okay I'm not doing gossip. I'm not doing mess. I would rather go get a job doing whatever then to have more that crap. I not going to do it because we have too much of it right now. And so it's important for us to have our own information. In fact, what I'm about to do next is a perfect example of that. Mainstream media is not going to do what we're about to show you.

Other black owned media is not going to do what we are about to do. A few years ago, I came up with this idea to reach out to a number of my friends, a number of folks, and I said, hey, I would love to do a reading of What to the Slave is the Fourth of July. And I sent text messages out to different people, and folks responded, and it was amazing. They sent in their videos. And so what you're about to see

is something that we air every single 4th of July. We're going to do it today since it's July 3rd. We're going to run it again tomorrow. We're going to stream it again tomorrow. And these are the words of Frederick Douglass delivered in 1852 in one of his most prominent speeches that is called What to the Slave is the Fourth of July. I hope you enjoy this, folks. And what you're about to see is why black owned media exists.

Because, again, nobody in white mainstream media would even remotely do this. We do it every single year because when you own, you control. Kathy Hughes said information is power. She's absolutely correct. And this is what happens when you don't have to ask permission. Hope you enjoy it. We started. Mr. President, friends and fellow citizens. He who could address this audience without a quailing sensation has stronger nerves than I have. I do not remember ever to have appeared as a speaker before any assembly more shrinkingly, nor with greater distrust of my ability that I do this day. The feeling has crept over me quite unfavorable to the exercise of my ability that I do this day. A feeling has crept over me, quite unfavorable,

to the exercise of my limited powers of speech. The task before me is one which requires much previous thought and study for its proper performance. I know that apologies of this sort are generally considered flat and unmeaning. I trust, however, that mine would not be so considered. Should I seem at ease, my appearance would much misrepresent me. Little experience I have had in addressing public meetings in country schoolhouses avails me nothing on the present occasion.

The papers and placards say that I am to deliver a 4th of July oration. This certainly sounds large and out of the common way, for it is true that I have often had the privilege to speak in this beautiful hall and to address many who now honor me with their presence. But neither their familiar faces nor the perfect gauge I think I have of Corinthian Hall seems to free me from embarrassment. The fact is, ladies and gentlemen, the distance between this platform and the slave plantation from which I escaped is considerable. The difficulties to be overcome in getting from the latter to the former are by no means slight.

That I am here today is to me a matter of astonishment as well as of gratitude. You will not, therefore, be surprised if in what I have to say I evince no elaborate preparation nor grace my speech with any high sounding exordium. With little experience and with less learning, I have been able to throw my thoughts hastily and imperfectly together. And trusting to your patient and generous indulgence, I will proceed to lay them before you. This for the purpose of this celebration is the 4th of July. It is the birthday of your national independence and of your political freedom. This, to you, is what the Passover was to the emancipated people of God. It carries your minds back to the day and to the act of your great deliverance and to the signs and to the wonders associated with that act and that day. This celebration also marks the beginning of another year of your

national life and reminds you that the Republic of America is now 76 years old. I am glad, fellow citizens, that your nation is so young. 76 years, though a good old age for a man is but a mere speck in the life of a nation. Three score years and 10 is the allotted time for individual men, but nations number their years by thousands. According to this fact, you are even now only in the beginning of your national career, still lingering in the period of childhood. I repeat, I am glad this is so.

There is hope in the thought and hope is much needed under the dark clouds which lower above the horizon. The eye of the reformer is met with angry flashes, pretending disastrous times, but his heart may well beat lighter at the thought that America is young and that she is still in the impressible stage of her existence. May he not hope that high lessons of wisdom, of justice, and of truth will yet give direction to her destiny. Were the nation older, the patriot's heart might be sadder and the reformer's brow heavier. Its future might be shrouded in gloom and the hope of its profits go out in sorrow. There's consolation in the thought that America is young.

Great streams are not easily turned from channels worn deep in the course of ages. They may sometimes rise in quiet and stately majesty and inundate the land, refreshing and fertilizing the earth with their mysterious properties. They may also rise in wrath and fury and bear away on their angry waves, the accumulated wealth of years of toil and hardship. They, however, gradually flow back to the same old channel and flow on as serenely as ever. But while the river may not be turned aside, it may dry up and leave nothing behind but the withered branch and the unsightly rock to howl in the abyss-sweeping wind, the sad tale of departed glory as with rivers, so with nations. Fellow citizens, I shall not presume to dwell at length on the associations that cluster about this day. The simple story of it is that 76 years ago, the people of this country were British subjects. The style and title of your sovereign people in which you not glory was not then born.

You were under the British crown. Your fathers esteemed the English government as the home government and England as the fatherland. This home government, you know, although a considerable distance from your home, did in the exercise of its parental prerogatives imposed upon its colonial children, such restraints, burdens, and limitations as in its mature judgment it deemed wise, right, and proper. But your fathers, who had not adopted the fashionable idea of this day, of the infallibility of government and the absolute character of its acts, presumed to differ from the home government in respect to the wisdom and the justice of some of those burdens and restraints.

They went so far in their excitement as to pronounce the measures of government unjust, unreasonable and oppressive, and altogether such as ought not to be quietly submitted to. I scarcely need say, fellow citizens, that my opinion of those measures fully accords with that of your fathers. Such a declaration of agreement on my part would not be worth much to anybody. It would certainly prove nothing as to what part I might have taken had I lived during the great controversy of 1776. To say now that America was

right and England wrong is exceedingly easy. Everybody can say it. The dastard, not less than a noble brave, can flippantly descant on the tyranny of England towards the American colonies. It is even fashionable to do so. But there was a time when to pronounce against England and in favor of the cause of the colonies tried men's souls. They who did so were accounted in their day plotters of mischief, agitators and rebels, dangerous men to side with the right against

the wrong, with the weak against the strong, and with the oppressed against the oppressor. Here lies the merit, and the one which, of all others, seems unfashionable in our day. The cause of liberty may be stabbed by the men who glory in the deeds of your fathers. But to proceed feeling themselves harshly and unjustly treated by the home government, your fathers, like men of honesty and men of spirit, earnestly sought redress. They petitioned and remonstrated. They did so in a decorous, respectful, and loyal manner. Their conduct was wholly unexceptional. This, however, did not answer the purpose. They saw themselves treated with sovereign indifference, coldness, and scorn. Yet they persevered.

They were not the men to look back. As the sheet anchor takes a firmer hold when the ship is tossed by the storm, so did the cause of your fathers grow stronger as it breasted the chilling blasts of kingly displeasure. The greatest and best of British statesmen admitted its justice, and the loftiest eloquence of the British Senate came to its support. But with that blindness, which seems to be the unwavering characteristic of tyrants, since Pharaoh and his hosts were drowned in the Red Sea, the British government persisted in the exactions complained of. The madness of this course we believe is

admitted now even by England, but we fear the lesson is wholly lost on our present ruler. Oppression makes a wise man mad. Your fathers were wise men, and if they did not go mad, they became restive under this treatment. They felt themselves the victims of grievous wrongs, wholly incurable in their colonial capacity. With brave men, there is always a remedy for oppression. Just here, the idea of a total separation of the colonies from the crown was born. It was a startling idea, much more so than we, at this distance of time, regarded. The timid and the prudent, as has been intimated,

of that day were, of course, shocked and alarmed by it. Such people lived then, had lived before, and will probably ever have a place on this planet. And their course, in respect to any great change, no matter how great the good to be attained or the wrong to be redressed by it, may be calculated with as much precision as can be the course of the stars.

They hate all changes, but silver, gold, and copper change, of this sort of change, they are always strongly in favor. These people were called Tories in the days of your fathers, and the appellation probably conveyed the same idea that is meant by a more modern, though somewhat less euphonious term, which we often find in our papers applied to some of our old politicians. Their opposition to the then dangerous thought was earnest and powerful, but

amid all their terror and affrighted vociferations against it, the alarming and revolutionary idea moved on, and the country with it. On the 2nd of July, 1776, the old Continental Congress, to the dismay of the lovers of ease and the worshippers of property, clothed that dreadful idea with all the authority of national sanction. They did so in the form of a resolution. And as we seldom hit upon resolutions drawn up in our day whose transparency is at all equal to this. It may refresh your minds and help my story if I read it. Resolved that these united colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent.

I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes, but there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multibillion-dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission.

This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English.

I'm Greg Lott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player,

Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug ban is.

Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working, and we need to change things. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them.

It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. really does It makes it real Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season 2 On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content Subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Citizens, your fathers made good that resolution. They succeeded, and today you reap the fruits of their success. The freedom gained is yours, and you, therefore, may properly celebrate this anniversary.

The 4th of July is the first great fact in your nation's history, the very ring bolt in the chain of your yet undeveloped destiny. Pride and patriotism, not less than gratitude, prompt you to celebrate and to hold it in perpetual remembrance. I have said that the Declaration of Independence is the ring bolt to the chair of your nation's destiny, so indeed I regard it. The principles contained in that instrument are saving principles. Stand by those principles. Be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost. From the round top of your ship of state, dark and threatening clouds may be seen.

Heavy billows like mountains in the distance disclose to the leeward huge forms of flinty rocks, that bolt drawn, that last chain broken, and all is lost. Cling to this day, cling to it and to its principles with the grasp of a storm-tossed mariner to a spa at midnight. The coming into being a nation in any circumstances is an interesting event. But besides general considerations, there were peculiar circumstances which make the advent of this republic an event of special attractiveness. The whole scene, as I look back to it, was simple, dignified, and sublime. The population of the country at the time stood at the insignificant number of three million.

The country was poor in the munitions of war. The population was weak and scattered, and the country a wilderness unsubdued. There were then no means of concert and combination such as exists now. Neither steam nor lightning had been then reduced to order and discipline. From the Potomac to the Delaware was a journey of many days. Under these and innumerable other disadvantages,

your fathers declared for liberty and independence and triumphed. Fellow citizens, I am not wanting in respect for the fathers of this republic. The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men. They were great men too, great enough to give fame to a great age. It does not often happen to a nation to raise at one time such a number of truly great men. The point from which I am

compelled to view them is not certainly the most favorable, yet I cannot contemplate their great deeds with less than admiration. They were statesmen, patriots and heroes. And for the good they did and the principles they contended for, I will unite with you to honor their memory. They love their country better than their own private interests. And though this is not the highest form of human excellence, all will concede that it is a rare virtue

and that when it is exhibited, it ought to be command respect. He who will intelligently lay down his life for his country is a man whom it is exhibited, it ought to be command respect. He who will intelligently lay down his life for his country is a man whom it is not in human nature to despise. Your fathers staked their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor on the cause of their country. In their admiration of liberty, they lost sight of all other interest. They were peacemen, but they preferred revolution to peaceful submission to bondage. They were peace men, but they preferred revolution to peaceful submission to bondage. They were quiet men, but they did not shrink from agitating against oppression. They showed

forbearance, but that they knew its limits. They believed in order, but not in the order of tyranny. With them, nothing was settled that was not right. With them, justice, liberty, and humanity were final, not slavery and oppression. You may well cherish the memory of such men. They were great in their day and generation. Their solid manhood stands out the more as we contrast it with these degenerate times. How circumspect, exact, and proportionate were all their movements. How unlike the politicians of an hour. Their statesmanship looked beyond the passing moment and stretched away in strength into the distant future. They seized upon eternal principles and set a glorious example in their defense. Mark them. Fully appreciating the hardship

to be encountered, firmly believing in the right of their cause, honorably inviting the scrutiny of an onlooking world, reverently appealing to heaven to attest their sincerity, soundly comprehending the solemn responsibility they were about to assume, wisely measuring the terrible odds against them, your fathers, the fathers of this republic, did, most deliberately, under the inspiration of a glorious patriotism and with a sublime faith in the great principles of justice and freedom, lay deep the cornerstone of the national superstructure which has risen and still rises in grandeur around you. Of this fundamental work, this day is the anniversary. Our eyes are met with demonstrations of joyous enthusiasm. Banners and pennants wave exultingly on the breeze. The den of business, too, is hushed. Even Mammon seems to have quitted his grasp on this day.

The ear-piercing fight and the staring drum unite their accents with the ascending peal of a thousand church bells. Prayers are made, hymns are sung, and sermons are preached in honor of this day. While the quick martial tramp of a great and multitudinous nation echoed back by all the hills, valleys, and mountains of a vast continent, bespeak the occasion, one of thrilling and universal interest, a nation's jubilee. Friends and citizens, I need not enter further into the causes which led to this anniversary.

Many of you understand them better than I do. You can instruct me in regard to them. That is a branch of knowledge in which you feel perhaps a much deeper interest than your speaker. The causes which led to the separation of the colonies from the British crown have never lacked for a tongue. They have all been taught in your common schools, narrated at your firesides, unfolded from your pulpits, and thundered from your legislative halls, and are as familiar to you as household words. They form the staple of your national poetry and eloquence. I remember also that as a people, Americans are remarkably familiar with all facts which make it in their own favor.

This is esteemed by some as a national trait, perhaps a national weakness. It is a fact that whatever makes for the wealth or for the reputation of Americans and can be had cheap will be found by Americans. I shall not be charged with slandering Americans. If I say I think the American side or any question may be safely left in American hands, I leave. Therefore, the great deeds of your fathers to other gentlemen who claim to have been regularly descended will be less likely to be disputed than mine. My business, if I have any here today, is with the present, the accepted time with God, and his cause is the ever-living now. Trust no future, however pleasant. Let the dead past bury its dead.

Act. Act in the living present, heart within, and God overhead. We have to do this with the past, only as we can make it useful to the present and to the future. To all inspiring motives, to noble deeds, which can be gained from the past, we are welcome. But now is the time, the important time. Your fathers have lived, died, and have done their work, and have done much of it well. You live and must die, and you must do your work. You have no right to enjoy your child's share in the labor of your fathers, unless your children are to be blessed by your labors.

You have no right to wear out and waste the hard-earned fame of your fathers to cover your indolence. Sidney Smith tells us that men seldom eulogize the wisdom and virtue of their fathers, but to excuse some folly or wickedness of their own. The truth is not a doubtful one. There are illustrations of it near and remote, ancient and modern. It was fashionable. Hundreds of years ago, for the children of Jacob to boast, we have Abraham to our father, when they had long lost Abraham's faith and spirit. The people contented themselves under the shadow of Abraham's great name while they repudiated the deeds which made his name great. Need I remind you that a similar thing is being done all over this country today? Need I tell you that the Jews are not the only people who built the tombs of the prophets

and garnished the sepulchres of the righteous? Washington could not die till he had broken the chains of his slaves. Yet his monument is built up by the price of human blood, and the traitors in the bodies and souls of men shout, We have Washington to our father. Alas, that it should be so. Yet so it is. The evil that men do lives after them.

The good is oft interred with the evil that men do lives after them. The good is oft interred with their bones. Fellow citizens, pardon me. Allow me to ask, why... I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes.

But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated.

I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. We are back.

In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne.

We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug man. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush.

What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things. Stories matter, and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content,

subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Am I called upon to speak here today? What have I or those I represent to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice embodied in that Declaration of Independence extended to us? And am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us? Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to these questions. Then would my task be light and my burden easy and delightful. For who is there so cold that a nation's sympathy could not warm him?

Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? Who so solid and selfish that would not give his voice to swell the hallelujahs of a nation's Jubilee when the chains of servitude had been torn from his limbs? I am not that man. In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak and the lame man leap as an ark. But such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity

between us. I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary. Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you this day rejoice are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence bequeathed by your fathers is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you has brought stripes and death to me. This 4th of July is yours, not mine.

You may rejoice. I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean citizens to mock me by asking me to speak today? If so, there is a parallel to your conduct, and let me warn you that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation whose crimes lowering up to heaven were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty,

burying the nation in irrecoverable ruin. I can today take up the plaintive lament of appealed and woe-smitten people. By the rivers of Babylon there we sat down. Yea, we wept when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. For there, they that carried us away captive required of us a song, and they who wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How can we sing the Lord's song in a strange land? If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth. Fellow citizens, above your national tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions.

Chains heavy and grievous yesterday are today rendered intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them. If I forget, if I do not faithfully remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day, may my right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth. To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs, and to chime in with popular theme would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me reproach before God and the world. My subject, fellow citizens, is American slavery. I shall see this day and its popular characteristics

from the slave's point of view. Standing there, identified with the American bondsman, making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate to declare with all my soul that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on the 4th of July. not hesitate to declare with all my soul that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on the 4th of July. Whether we turn to the declarations of past or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting.

America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to the false to the future. Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave, on this occasion I will in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in the name of the Constitution and the Bible which are disregarded and trampled upon. Dare to call into question and to denounce with all emphasis I can command everything that serves to perpetuate slavery, the great sin and shame of America, I will not equivocate. I will not excuse. I will use the severest language I can command. And yet not one word shall escape me that any man whose judgment is not blinded by prejudice or who is not at heart a slaveholder shall not confess to be right and just.

But fancy I hear some one of my audience say, it is just in this circumstance that you and your brother abolitionists fail to make the favorable impression on the public mind. Would you argue more and denounce less? Would you persuade more and rebuke less, your cause would be much more likely to succeed. But I submit, where all is plain, there is nothing to be argued. What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? That point is conceded already. Nobody doubts it. The slaveholders themselves acknowledge it in their enactment of laws for their government. They acknowledge it when they punish the disobedience on the part of the slave.

There are 72 crimes in the state of Virginia which, if committed by a black man, no matter how ignorant he be, subject him to the punishment of death, while only two of the same crimes will subject a white man to the like punishment. What is this but the acknowledgement that the slave is a moral and intellectual and responsible being? The manhood of the slave is conceded. It is admitted in the fact that Southern statute books are covered with enactments forbidding under severe fines and penalties the teaching of the slave to read and write. When you can point to any such laws

in reference to the beasts of the field, then I may consent to argue the manhood of the slave. When the dogs in your streets, when the fowls in the air, when the cattle on your hills, when the fowls in the air, when the cattle on your hills, when the fish of the sea and the reptiles that crawl shall be unable to distinguish the slave from a brute, then will I argue with you that the slave is a man. For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the Negro. Is it not astonishing that while we are plowing and planting and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools...

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I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes, sir. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives.

This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote unquote drug man. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. Got B-Real from Cypress Hill.

NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Caramouch. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real.

Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Directing houses, constructing bridges and building ships, working in metals of brass and iron and copper and silver and gold, that while we are reading, writing and ciphering, acting as clerks,

merchants, and secretaries, having among us lawyers, doctors, ministers, poets, authors, editors, orators, and teachers, that while we are engaged in all manner of enterprise common to other men, digging gold in California, capturing the well in the Pacific, feeding shipping cattle on the hillside, living, moving, acting, thinking, planning, living in families as husbands, wives, and children, and above all, confessing and worshiping the Christian's God and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave. We're called upon to prove that we're men. Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? That he is the rightful owner of his own body? You've already declared it. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery?

Is that a question for Republicans? Is it to be settled by the rules of logic and augmentation as a matter beset with great difficulty involving a doubtful application of the principle of justice so hard to be understood. How should I look today in the presence of Americans dividing and subdividing a discourse to show that men have a natural right to freedom? Speaking of it relatively, positively, negatively, and affirmatively, to do so would make myself look ridiculous and offer an insult to your understanding. There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven that does not know that slavery is not for him.

What? Am I to argue that it's wrong to make men brutes, to rob them of their liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them ignorant of their relations to other men, to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh with the lash, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them with dogs, sell them at auction, to sunder their families,

to knock out their teeth, to burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters. Must I argue that a system thus marked with blood and stained with pollution is wrong? No, I will not. I have better employments for my time and strength than such arguments would imply. What then remains to be argued is that that slavery is not divine, that God did not establish it, that our doctors of divinity are mistaken. There is blasphemy in the thought that which is inhumane cannot be divine.

Who can reason on such a proposition? That they can. May I cannot. The time for such an argument is past. At a time like this, scorchering irony, not convincing argument, is needed. Oh, had I the ability and I could reach the nation's ear, I would today pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not the light that is needed, but fire. It is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind,

and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened, and the conscience of the nation must be aroused. The propriety of the nation must be startled, and the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed, and its crimes against God and human must be proclaimed and denounced. What to the American slave is your 4th of July? I answer, a day that reveals to him and her more than all the other days in the year, a gross injustice and cruelty to which he and she is the constant victim. To him and her, your celebration is a sham.

Your boasting liberty, an unholy license. Your national greatness, a swelling vanity. Your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless and your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence, your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery, your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all of your religious parade. The solemnity are to him and her mere bombast, fraud, depiction, and hypocrisy. A thin veil to cover up the crimes

which should disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on this earth more guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States at this very hour. Go where you may. Search where you will. Roam through all the monarchies and deputisms of the old world. Travel through South America.

Search out every abuse. And when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me that for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival. Take the American slave trade, which we are told by the papers is especially prosperous just now. Ex-Senator Benton tells us that the price of men has never been higher than now. He mentions the fact to show that slavery is in no danger. This trade is one of the peculiarities of American institutions. It is carried out in all the large towns and cities

in one half of this confederacy, and millions are pocketed every year by dealers in this horrid traffic. In several states, this trade is a chief source of wealth. It is called, in contradistinction to the foreign slave trade, the internal slave trade. It is probably called so, too, in order to divert from its horror with which the foreign slave trade is contemplated. That trade has long since been denounced by this government as piracy.

It has been denounced with burning words from the high places of the nation as an execrable traffic. To rest it, to put an end to it, this nation keeps its squadron at immense cost on the coast of Africa. Everywhere in this country, it is safe to speak of this foreign slave trade as a most inhuman traffic, opposed alike to the laws of God and of man. The duty to extirpate and destroy it is admitted even by our doctors of

divinity. In order to put an end to it, some of these last have consented that their colored brethren, nominally free, should leave this country and establish themselves on the western coast of Africa. It is, however, a notable fact that while so much execration is poured out by Americans upon those engaged in the foreign slave trade, the men engaged in the slave trade between the states pass without condemnation, and their business is deemed honorable.

Behold the practical operation of this internal slave trade, the American slave trade, sustained by American politics and American religion. Here you will see men and women reared like swine for the market. You know what is a swine drover? I will show you a man drover.

They inhabit all of our southern states. They perambulate the country and crowd the highways of the nation with droves of human stock. You will see one of these human flesh jobbers armed with pistol, whip, and bowie knife, driving a company of hundred men, women, and children from the Potomac to the slave market at New Orleans. These wretched people are to be sold singly or in lots to suit purchasers. They have food for the cotton field and the deadly sugar mill marked a sad procession as it moves warily along and the inhuman wretch who drives them hear his savage yells and his blood chilling oaths as he hurries on to his afraid captives there see the old man

with locks thinned and gray. Cast one glance, if you please, upon that young brother, whose shoulders are bare to the scorching sun, her briny tears falling on the brow of the babe in her arms. See too that girl of thirteen, weeping, yes weeping, as she thinks of her mother from whom she's been torn. The drove moves tardily. Heat and sorrow have nearly consumed their strength. Suddenly you hear a quick snap, like the discharge of a rifle. The fetters clank, and the chain rattles simultaneously. Your ears are saluted with a scream that seems to have torn its way to the

center of your soul. That crack you heard was the sound of a slave whip. The scream you heard was from the woman you saw with the babe. Her speed had faltered under the weight of her child and her chains. That gas on her shoulder tells her to move on. Follow the drove to New Orleans. Attend the auction. See men examined like horses. See the forms of women rudely and brutally exposed to the shocking gaze of American slave buyers. See this drove sold and separated forever. And never forget the deep sad sobs that arose from that scattered multitude. Tell me, citizens, where, under the sun, you could witness a spectacle more fiendish and shocking? Yet, this is but a glance at the American slave trade as it exists at this moment in the ruling part of the United States.

I was born amidst such sights and scenes. To me, the American slave trade was a terrible reality. When a child, my soul was often pierced with its horrors. I lived in Philpott Street, Fells Point, Baltimore, and have watched from the wharfs the slave ships in the basin, anchored from the shore with their cargos of human flesh, waiting for favorable winds to waft them down the Chesapeake. There was, at that time, a grand slave mark kept at the head of Pratt Street by Austin Wood Falk. His agents were sent into every town and county in Maryland announcing their arrival through the papers and on flaming

head bills headed cash for Negroes. These men were generally well dressed men and very captivating in their manners, every ready to drink, to treat, and to gamble. The fate of many a slave has depended upon the turn of a single card, and many a child has been snatched from the arms of its mother by bargains arranged in a state of brutal drunkenness. The flesh mongers gather up their victims by the dozens and drive them chained to the general depot at Baltimore. When a sufficient number have been collected here, a ship is chartered for the purpose of conveying the crew to Mobile or to New Orleans. From the slave prison to the ship, they are usually driven in the darkness of night, for since the often aroused by the dead, heavy

footsteps and the piteous cries of the chain gangs that passed our door. The anguish of my boyish heart was intense, and I was often consoled when speaking to my mistress in the morning to hear her say that the custom was very wicked and that she hated to hear the rattle of the chains and the heart-rendering cries. I was glad to find one who sympathized with me in my horror. Fellow citizens, this murderous traffic is today an active operation in this boasted republic. In the solitude of my spirit, I see clouds of dust raised on the highways of the South. I see the bleeding footsteps. I hear the doleful wail of fetter humanity on the way to the slave markets where the victims are to be sold like horses, sheep, and swine knocked off to the highest bidder. There I see the tenderest of tithes, ruthlessly broken, to gratify the lust, caprice, and reciprocity of the buyers and sellers of men.

My soul sickens at the sight. Are these the graves that slumber in, but a still more inhuman, disgraceful, and scandalous state of things remains to be presented. By an act of the American Congress, not yet two years old, slavery has been nationalized in its most horrible and revolting form. By that act, Mason and Dixon's line has been obliterated. New York has become as Virginia, and the power to hold, hunt, and sell men and women and children as slaves remains no longer a mere state institution, but is now an institution of the whole United States. The power is co-extensive with the star-spangled banner in American Christianity. Where these go, may also go the merciless slave hunter. Where these are, man is not sacred. He is a bird for the sportsman's gun. By that most foul and fiendish of all human degrees, the liberty and

person of every man are put in peril. Your broad Republican domain is hunting ground for men, not for thieves and robbers, enemies of society merely, but for men guilty of no crime. Your lawmakers have commanded all good citizens to engage in this hellish sport. Your president, your secretary of state, our lords, nobles, and ecclesiastics enforce as a duty you owe to your free, glorious country and to your God that you do this accursed thing. Not fewer than 40 Americans have within the past two years been hunted down and without a moment's warning, hurried away in chains and consigned to slavery in excruciating torture.

Some of these had wives and children depended upon them for bread, but of this no account was made. The right of a hunter to his prey stands superior to the right of marriage and to all rights in this republic, the rights of God included. For black men, there are neither law, justice, humanity, nor religion. The fugitive slave law makes mercy to them a crime and bribes the judge who tries them. An American judge gets $10 for every victim he consigns to slavery and five when he fails to do so. The oath of any two villains is sufficient under this hell-bent enactment to send the most pious and exemplary black man into the remorseless jaws of slavery. His own testimony is nothing. He can bring no witnesses for himself.

The minister of American justice is bound by the law to hear but one side. And that side is the side of the oppressor. Let this damning fact be perpetually told. Let it be thundered around the world that in tyrant-killing, king-hating, people-loving, democratic, Christian America, the seats of justice are filled with judges who hold their offices under an open and palpable bribe and are bound in deciding in the case of a man's liberty. Hear only his accusers. In glaring violation of justice, in shameless disregard of the forms of administering law, in cunning arrangement to entrap the defenseless, and in diabolical intent, this fugitive slave law stands alone

in the annals of tyrannical legislation. I doubt if there would be another nation on the globe having the brass and the baseness to put such a law on the statute book. If any man in this assembly thinks differently from me in this matter and feels able to disprove my statements, I will gladly confront him at any suitable time and place he may select. I take this law to be one of the grossest infringements of Christian liberty. If the churches and ministers of our country were not stupidly blind or most wickedly indifferent, they too would so regard it. At the very moment that they are thanking God for the enjoyment of civil and religious liberty and for the right to worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences. They are utterly silent in respect to a law which robs religion of its chief significance

and makes it utterly worthless to a world lying in wickedness. Did this law concern the mint, anise, and cumin, abridge the right to sing psalms, to partake of the sacrament, or to engage in any of the ceremonies of religion? It would be smitten by the thunder of a thousand pulpits. A general shout would go up from the church demanding repeal, repeal, instant repeal. And it would go hard with that politician who presumed to solicit the votes of the people without inscribing this motto on his banner. Further, if this demand were not complied with, another Scotland would be added to the history of religious liberty, and the stern old covenanters would be thrown into the shade. A John Knox would be seen at every church door and heard from every pulpit and Fillmore would have no more quarter than was shown

by Knox to the beautiful but treacherous Queen Mary of Scotland. The fact that the church of our country with fractional exceptions does not esteem the fugitive slave law as a declaration of war against religious liberty implies that the church regards religion simply as a form of worship, an empty ceremony, and not a vital principle requiring active benevolence, justice, love, and good will towards man. It esteems sacrifice above mercy, psalm singing above right doing, solemn meetings above practical righteousness, a worship that can be conducted by persons who refuse to give shelter to the houseless, to give bread to the hungry, clothing to the naked, and who enjoin obedience to a law forbidding these acts of mercy is a curse, not a blessing to mankind.

The Bible addresses all such persons as scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites who pay tithe of mint and yeast and cumin and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith. But the church of this country is not only indifferent to the wrongs of the slave, it actually takes sides with the oppressors. It has made itself the bulwark of American slavery and the shield of American slave hunters. Many of its eloquent divines who stand as the very lights of the church have shamelessly given the sanction of religion and the Bible to the whole slave system. They have taught that man may properly be a slave,

that the relation of master and slave is ordained by God, that to send back an escaped boardman, bondmanman to his master is clearly the duty of all the followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. And this horrible blasphemy is palmed off upon the world for Christianity. Welcome infidelity. Welcome atheism. Welcome anything in preference to the gospel as preached by those divines. They convert the very name of religion into an engine of tyranny and barbarous cruelty and serve to confirm more infidels in this age than all the infidel writings of Thomas Paine, Voltaire, and Bolingbroke put together have done. These ministers make religion a cold and flinty-hearted thing, having neither principles of right action nor bowels of compassion. They strip the love of God of its beauty and leave the throng of religion a huge, horrible, repulsive form. It is a religion for oppressors, tyrants, man-stealers, and thugs. It is not that pure

and undefiled religion which is from above and which is first pure, then peaceable, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy, but a religion which favors the rich against the poor, which exalts the proud above the humble, which divides mankind into two classes, tyrants and slaves, which says to the man in chains stay there and to the oppressor oppress on it is a religion which may be professed and enjoyed by all the robbers and enslavers of mankind it makes God a respecter of persons denies the fatherhood of the race and tramples in the dust the great truth of the brotherhood of man.

All this we affirm to be true of the popular church and the popular worship of our land and nation, a religion, a church, and a worship which on the authority of inspired wisdom we pronounce to be an abomination in the sight of God. In the language of Isaiah, the American church might be well addressed. Bring no more vain ablations. Incense is an abomination unto me. The new moons and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies I cannot away with. It is iniquity, even the solemn meeting, your new moons and your appointed feast, my soul hateth. They are a trouble to me. I am weary to bear them. And when you spread forth

your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you. Yea, when you make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood. Cease to do evil. Learn to do well. Seek judgment. Relieve the oppressed. Judge for the fatherless. Plead for the widow. The American church is guilty when viewed in connection with what it is doing to uphold slavery,

but it is superlatively guilty when viewed in connection with its ability to abolish slavery, the sin of which it is guilty is one of omission as well as commission. Albert Barnes but uttered what the common sense of every man at all, observant of the actual state of the case, will receive as true. When he declared that there is no power out of the church that could sustain slavery in our way, if it were not sustained in it. Let the religious press, the pulpit, the Sunday school, the conference meeting, the great ecclesiastical missionary, Bible, and tract associations of the land array their immense powers against slavery and slaveholding, and the whole system of crime and blood would be scattered to the winds. And that they do not do this involves them in the most awful responsibility

of which the mind can conceive. In prosecuting the anti-slavery enterprise, we have been asked to spare the church, to spare the ministry. But how, we ask, could such a thing be done? We are met on the threshold of our efforts for the redemption of the slave by the church and ministry of the country. In battle arrayed against us and we are compelled to fight or flee

from what quarter I beg to know has preceded a fire so deadly upon our ranks during the last two years as from the northern pulpit. As the champions of oppressors, the chosen men of American theology have appeared, men honored for their so-called piety and their real learning. The lords of Buffalo, the springs of New York, the Lathrops of Auburn, the Coxes and Spencers of Brooklyn, the Gannetts and Sharps of Boston, the Deweys of Washington, and other great religious lights of the land have in utter denial of the authority of him by whom they profess to be called to the ministry, deliberately taught us against the example of the Hebrews and against the remonstrance of the apostles. They teach that we ought to obey man's law before the law of God. My spirit wearies of such blasphemy and how such men can be supported as the standing types and representatives of Jesus Christ. And I want folk to understand who listened to this.

The audience he was speaking to was primarily white. White people who are part of the abolition movement, whose spirits also wearied. He said they call themselves representative of Jesus Christ. How they do that is a mystery, which I leave others to penetrate. And speaking of the American church, however, let it be distinctly understood that I mean the great mass of religious organizations of our land. There are exceptions, and I thank God that there are. Noble men may be found scattered all over these northern states,

of whom Henry Ward Beecher of Brooklyn and Samuel J. May of Syracuse and my esteemed friend the Reverend R.R. Raymond on the platform are shining examples. And let me say further that upon these men lies the duty to inspire our ranks with high religious faith and zeal and to cheer us on in the great mission of the slave's redemption from his chains. But one is struck with the difference between the attitude of the American church toward the anti-slavery movement and that occupied by the churches in England toward a similar movement in that country.

There, the church, true to its mission of ameliorating, alleviating and improving the condition of mankind came forward promptly, bound up the wounds of the West Indian slave and restored him to his liberty. There the question of emancipation was a high religious question. It was demanded in the name of humanity and according to the laws of the Living God. The Sharps, the Clarkstons, the Wilberforces, the Buxton, the Birchels, the Nibs were alike famous for their piety and their philanthropy. The anti-slavery movement

there was not an anti-church movement for the reason that the church took its full share in prosecuting that movement and the anti-slavery movement in this country will cease to be an anti-church movement when the church of this country shall assume a favorable instead of a hostile position toward the movement. Americans, he said, your Republican politics, not less than your Republican religion, are fragrantly, flagrantly inconsistent. You boast of your love of liberty, your superior civilization, and your pure Christianity while the whole political power of the nation is solemnly pledged to support

and perpetrate the enslavement of three millions of your countrymen. You hurl your anathemas at the crown-headed tyrants of Russia and Austria and pride yourselves in the democratic institution, while you yourselves consent to be mere tools and bodyguards of the tyrants of Virginia and Carolina. You invite to your shores fugitives of oppression from abroad, honor them with banquets, greet them with ovations, cheer them, toast them, salute them, protect them,

and pour out your money to them like water, but the fugitives of your own land you advertise, hunt, arrest, shoot, and kill. You glory in your refinement and your universal education, and yet you maintain a system as barbarous and dreadful as ever stained the character of a nation. You shed tears over fallen hungry and make the sad stories of her wrong the theme of your poets and statesmen and orators till your gallant sons are ready to fly to arms to vindicate her cause against her oppressors. But in regard to the tens of thousands of wrongs of the American slave, you would enforce

the strictest silence. You're all on fire at the mention of liberty for France or Ireland, but you're as cold as an iceberg at the thought of liberty for the enslaved of America. You declare before the world and are understood by the world to declare that you hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain and a-level rights and that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and yet you hold securely in a bondage which according to your own Thomas Jefferson is worse than

the ages of that which your fathers rose in rebellion to oppose, a seventh part of the inhabitants of your country. Fellow citizens, I will not enlarge further on your national inconsistencies. The existence of slavery in this country brands your republicanism as a sham, your humanity as a base pretense, and your Christianity as a lie. It destroys your moral power abroad. It corrupts your politicians at home. It saps the foundation of religion. It makes your name a hissing and a byword to a mocking earth. It is the antagonistic force in your government, the only thing that seriously disturbs and endangers your union. It fetters your progress.

It is the enemy of improvement, the deadly foe of education. It fosters pride. It breeds insolence. It promotes vice. It is a curse to the earth that supports it. And yet you cling to it as if it were the sheet anchor of all your hopes. Oh, be warned. Be warned. A horrible reptile is coiled up in your nation's bosom. The venomous creature is nursing at the tender breast of your youthful republic. For the love of God, tear away and fling from you this hideous monster, and let the weight of twenty millions crush and destroy it forever. But it is answered in reply to all this, that precisely what I have now denounced

is in fact guaranteed and sanctioned by the Constitution of the United States. That the right to hold and to hunt slaves is a part of that Constitution, framed by the illustrious fathers of this republic. Then I dare to affirm, notwithstanding all I have said before, your father stooped, basely stooped, to palter with us in a double sense, and keep the word of promise to the ear but break it to the heart and instead of being the honest men i have before declared them to be they were the

various imposters that ever practiced on mankind this is the inevitable conclusion and from it there is no escape but But I differ from those who charge this baseness on the framers of the Constitution of the United States. It is a slander upon their memory, at least so I believe. There is not time now to argue the constitutional question at length, nor have I the ability to discuss it as it ought to be discussed. The subject has been handled with masterly power by Lysander Spooner, Esquire, by William Goodell,

by Samuel E. Sewell, Esquire, and last, though not least, by Jared Smith, Esquire. These gentlemen have, as I think, fully and clearly vindicated the Constitution from any design to support slavery for an hour. Fellow citizens, there is no matter in respect to which the people of the North have allowed themselves to be so ruinously imposed upon as that of the pro-slavery character of the Constitution. In that instrument, I hold there is neither warrant

license nor sanction of the hateful thing, but interpreted as gateway, or is it in the temple? It is neither. While I do not intend to argue this question on the present occasion, let me ask, if it be not somewhat singular that, if the Constitution were intended to be, by its framers and adopters,

a slave- instrument why neither slavery slave holding nor slave can it ought to be interpreted the constitution is a glorious liberty document Read its preamble. Consider its purposes. Is slavery among them? We're asking. Is it at the anywhere be found in it? instrument drawn up legally drawn up for the purpose of entitling the city of rochester to a track of land in which no mention of land was made now there are certain rules of interpretation for the proper understanding of all legal instruments these rules are well established they are plain common sense rules such as you and I and all of us can understand and apply without having passed years in the study of law. I scout the idea that the question of the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of slavery is not a question for the people. I hold that every American citizen has the right to form an opinion of the constitution and to propagate that opinion and to use all honorable means to make his opinion the prevailing one.

Without this right, the liberty of an American citizen would be as insecure as that of a Frenchman. Ex-Vice President Dallas tells us that the Constitution is an object to which no American mind can be too attentive and no American heart too devoted. He further says the Constitution, in its words, is plain and intelligible and is meant for the homebred, unsophisticated understandings of our fellow citizens. Senator Barian tells us that the Constitution is the fundamental law that which controls all others, the charter of our liberties, which every citizen has a personal interest in understanding thoroughly. The testimony of Senator Brees, Lewis Coz, and many others that might be named who are everywhere esteemed as sound lawyers, so regard the Constitution. I take it, therefore, that it is not presumption in a private citizen to form an opinion of that instrument.

Now, take the Constitution according to its plain reading, and I defy the presentation of a single pro-slavery clause in it. On the other hand, it will be found to contain principles and purposes entirely hostile to the existence of slavery. I have detained my audience entirely too long already. At some future period, I will gladly avail myself of an opportunity to give this subject a full and fair discussion. Allow me to say in conclusion, notwithstanding the dark picture I have this day presented of the state of the nation, I do not despair of this country. There are forces in operation which must inevitably work the downfall of slavery. The arm of the Lord is not shortened and the doom of slavery is certain. I,

therefore, leave off where I began with hope while drawing encouragement from the Declaration of Independence, the great principles it contains, and the genius of American institutions. My spirit is also cheered by the obvious tendencies of the age. Nations do not now stand in the same relation to each other as they did ages ago. No nation can now shut itself up from the surrounding world and trot round in the same old path of its fathers without interference. The time was when such could be done. Long-established customs of hurtful character could formally fence themselves in

and do their evil work with social impunity. Knowledge was then confined and enjoyed by the privileged few, and the multitude walked on in mental darkness. But a change has now come over the affairs of mankind. Walled cities and empires have become unfashionable. The arm of commerce has borne away the gates of a strong city. Intelligence is penetrating the darkest corners of the globe. It makes its pathway over it under the sea as well as on the earth. Wind, steam, and lightning are its chartered agents. Oceans no longer divide but link nations together. From Boston to London is now a holiday excursion. Space is comparatively annihilated. Thoughts expressed on one side of the Atlantic are distinctly hurt on the other. The far-off and almost fabulous Pacific rolls in grandeur at our feet.

The celestial empire, the mystery of ages, is being saw. The fiat of the Almighty, let there be light, has not yet spent its force. No abuse, no outrage, whether in taste, sport, or average, can now hide itself from the all-pervading light. The iron shoe and crippled foot of China must be seen in contrast with nature. Africa must rise and put on her yet unwoven garment. Ethiopia shall stretch out her hand unto God and the fervent aspirations of William Lord Garrison,

I say, and let every heart join in saying it. Godspeed, the year of Jubilee, the wide world o'er when from their galling chain set free, the oppressed shall vilely bend the knee and wear the yoke of tyranny like brutes no more. That year will come in freedom's reign to man his plundered fights again restore. Godspeed the day when human blood shall cease to flow and every climb that be understood the claims of human brotherhood and each return for evil good

not blow for blow. That day will come all feuds to end and change into a faithful friend each foe. God speed the hour, the glorious hour, when none on earth shall exercise a lordly power nor in a tyrant's presence cower, but to all manhood's stature tower by equal birth. That hour will come to each to all and from his prison house the thrall go forth until that year day hour arrive

with head and heart and hand i'll strive to break the rod and rend the guy the spice the spoiler of his prey deprived so witness heaven and never from my chosen post what are the peril or the cost be driven. right now. Support this man, Black Media. He makes sure that our stories are told. Thank you for being the voice of Black America, Roller. I love y'all. All momentum we have now, we have to keep this going. The video looks phenomenal. See, there's a difference between Black Star Network

and Black-owned media and something like CNN. You can't be Black-owned media and be scary. It's time to be smart. Bring your eyeballs home. You dig? this is an iHeart podcast