#RolandMartinUnfiltered - HBCUs Under Siege: Anti-Black Agenda Escalates to Terror

Episode Date: September 13, 2025

Bomb threats have forced multiple HBCUs into lockdown, a crisis leaders describe as part of an escalating antiblack agenda. Calls are growing for the FBI and Department of Justice to treat these incidents as domestic terrorism, warning that Black institutions and students are being viciously targeted. The climate of intimidation reflects what speakers called a historical escalation, with Black America increasingly under siege. Despite the threats, the message was clear: communities will not be intimidated and will continue to resist.🔥 Bomb threats forced multiple HBCUs into lockdown across the country🔥 Leaders call on DOJ and FBI to investigate as acts of domestic terrorism🔥 “We are literally living in a climate where Black people are being attacked”🔥 “This is a historical escalation” — HBCUs are under direct, systemic threat #RolandMartinUnfiltered #BlackStarNetwork #HBCUSupport #RolandMartinUnfiltered and #BlackStarNetwork 👉🏾 Use Cash App by visiting Stripe https://buy.stripe.com/7sI3ccgYyfSQ8y45kl 👉🏾  PayPal ☛ https://www.paypal.me/rmartinunfiltered Venmo ☛https://venmo.com/rmunfiltered Zelle ☛ [e-mail] omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Sammy Hagar. Tate McCray. The offspring. Tim McGraw. Tickets are on sale now. AXS.com. Get your tickets today. AXS.com. Multiple HBCUs have been under a lockdown amid threats to their campuses.

Alabama State University, Hampton University, Virginia State University, Southern University in Baton Rouge, as well as Bethune Cookman University in Florida, were all placed on lockdown today, each citing potential threats made against their campuses in Atlanta, Spelman College urged students in the faculty to avoid campus and implement it heightened security measures following a threat made against nearby Clark Atlanta University. Campus Police at Clark Atlanta University confirmed a threat had been received, prompting a shelter-in-place order. These incidents come one day after right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk was shot dead on a college campus in Utah. hospital leader Hakeem Jeffries released a statement about these threats. This is what he had to say.

He said, the violent threats made today against several historically black colleges universities throughout the nation are despicable. And yet another indication that the explosion of hateful extremism is out of control. We stand with the students, faculty, communities that have had their peace and safety disrupted. I'm thankful to local law enforcement for their swift response. The Department of Justice and FBI must thoroughly investigate any potential act of domestic terrorism and not turn a blind eye when black college students are apparently being viciously targeted. These attempts to intimidate everyday Americans will not stand. We need leadership at this moment that brings the country together.

Now, a threat was also made against the Democratic National Committee headquarters. Senate staff received an alert from the U.S. Capitol regarding the responses of the National Party's headquarters, According to a statement from the U.S. Capitol Police, officers were alerted to the potential threat at 107 p.m. Eastern and began sweeping the building and surrounding areas. As of the latest update, the incident of the United States to the end up in the United States. Southwest of D.C. A DNC spokesperson confirmed that the incident was determined to be a non-c credible bomb threat. Keep in mind the DNC headquarters also, they still have not found the person who placed those pipe bombs outside of the DNC headquarters in January of 2021. I want to go to my panel. Greg, I want to start with you, your professor at Howard University, give us a sense of what it felt like on that campus. Today, Howard was not one of those schools that were impacted.

But the thing here, I mean, what does it say that after this day, HPCs were targeted? I mean, the reality is in this climate we're in, in this anti-black climate, HPCUs are a huge target for races in America. Roland, I'm trying to pick my words carefully here. When the first reports began to filter out earlier today, I went to several of my group chats because, of course, I have come. colleagues at every one of those campuses, and most of the HBCUs, of course, those students were from most of them. And the reports I got back, some were sheltering in place like Clark. Students in Spellman were locked down for about an hour next door, Morehouse. Of course, got report back, and we were in conversation. And the general sentiment was this,

you're not going to intimidate us, and you're not going to scare us. These white nationists are at war with each other. They've been at war with each other since they left Europe five hundred years ago. They are. In moments like this when they're desperate, in moments like this, they get more and more absurd. And we get pulled into this violence. This is not a nation. It is a country with a lot of different people in it. And if you want to go look for people who are killing people, the last place you should look at historically black colleges and universities. And if you think a few phone calls and some emails that will be taken seriously, of course,

but if you think for a minute, that's going to stop us. You know what I did today, Rowland, after I checked on my... Don't let biased algorithms or degree screens or exclusive professional networks or stereotypes. Don't let anything keep you from discovering the half of the workforce who are stars. Workers skilled through alternative routes rather than a bachelor's job. degree. It's time to tear the paper ceiling and see the stars beyond it. Find out how you can make stars part of your talent strategy at tear the paper sealing.org. Brought to you by opportunity at work in the ad council. Our IHeart Radio Music Festival, presented by Capital One, is coming back to Las Vegas.

Vegas. September 19th and 20th. On your feet. Streaming live only on Hulu. Ladies and gentlemen. Brian Adams. Ed Shearrett. Fade. Glorilla. Jellyroll. John Fogarty. Lil Wayne. L. L.L. Cool J. Carrie, Maroon 5, Sammy Hagar, Tate McCraig, the offspring, Tim McGrath. Tickets are on sale now at AXS.com. Get your tickets today. AXS.com. People, and as I was checking on my people, I want to teach my classes. That's what I did. Nola, again, we talk about threats. Our HPCUs obviously have to be proactive. And again, we talk about this stuff. It's real what we're living in.

We are literally living in a climate where black people are being attacked. you look at social media are being vilified you take one black man who's schizophrenic who kills a white woman on public transportation and every black person in

America has to be held into account but if somebody white is killed it's not like every white person has to address that this thing is real the constant attacks on DEI the I mean we can go on and on and on

And so we have to stay alert and be vigilant because we are on. I mean, not only that, you take Latinos and now the Supreme Court has said they can be searched at any given time just because of how they look and how they sound. I mean, what we have literally is an attack on people of color in the United States by white America. Absolutely. And this is, this is a historical escalation, right? It doesn't matter what the person may or may not look like who shot Charlie Kirk or what their ideology is. The fact is folks with guns, folks with chips on their shoulders, a lot of insurrectionists

who were let go after January 6th, these people have already made up their minds a long time ago about who the enemy is, right? they have already made up their mind it doesn't matter it doesn't matter what facts say it doesn't matter what logic says what matters is to them we are the enemy we are their oldest enemy right and then you have immigrants that come in you know from from different parts of the world who also get put into this this categorization of the other and the enemy so that is the reality in which I know that I was raised in. And as we sit here still in 2025, that reality is starker than ever. There was a post on Dear White Staffers on Instagram from a black student asking her white professor at a PWA, a public white institution, private white institution, however you want to phrase it, asking her professor if it was okay if she stayed.

in her dorm or in her apartment because she was afraid to come to campus. And her professor's response was, don't let them win. And then her response was well, as like one of three black people, you know, in this classroom, I stand out. I am a target. And as someone who teaches at a PWI, I can tell you in these moments, my black students are actually the most worried because I stand out, they stand you know red was talking about being at an hbc u there is that community aspect there is that resilience those aspects aren't necessarily there at pwis and so it's a very interesting kind of um parallel where you have black students in one instance they have that community we stand together like i wish you would kind of mentality and then where i work my students it's a

completely different situation. But the last thing I'll say is this. This is not a new situation for us, but I will say from my professional, through my professional lens, things are escalating. We are beyond warm. We are approaching hot every single day when we are talking about this kind of nuanced civil war. We're definitely in a warm to hot phase. And see, Tim, the issue that we are dealing with, the issue with dealing with is that historically, if we go back to the Department of Justice, we go back to the Black Freedom Movement, we talk about the protection of civil rights workers and marches and protesters, Bobby Kennedy was the Attorney General. And so historically, we're talking about looking to the federal government for protection. The problem that we're now living in is that the folks running the federal government see us as enemies. And the American people, especially black people, do not have the trust in the Department of Justice, the trust in U.S. Marshals, the trust in federal law enforcement.

Again, when you have Stephen Miller and Corey Lewandowski and Tom Holman, when you have Ice Barbie Christie Gnome, when you have Donald Trump as their leader, literally saying the things that they are saying and what they are doing, folk are saying that, man, we can't look to them for protection if we're being targeted. I mean, this is the same guy who can't the security deed, the secret service detail for Vice President Kamala Harris just because Yes, I mean, to be perfectly honest, I am not surprised about the bomb threats today based on what Donald Trump

and his administration and MAGA talks about on a daily basis. You guys are correct. They offer people and they create this right-wing media ecosystem where they're only pumped full of this racist nonsense, and they end up believing it at the end of the day. I don't think if I was a black American, I would not trust the Department of Justice. They gutted the Office of Civil Rights. I mean, Janine Piro, who is now what the acting district attorney or whatever, D.C., is saying she's not going to prosecute

people who are open carry. Well, that's a signal to. to white America. That is... Don't let biased algorithms or degree screens or exclusive professional networks or stereotypes. Don't let anything

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Get your ticket. It's today aXS.com. Not a signal to black America. Let's be very clear. And it is dangerous rhetoric like this that is putting us in the situation that we are in. You know, the shooting of Charlie Kirk

is a horrible, horrible act. But they have been fomenting violence on the right forever. And all you have to do is Google which side is the perpetrator of most political violence in this country it is not trans people which they have tried to do it is not black americans it is you know it is it is the right wing because they are they drive people with fear and fear delivers for them

electorally and to be perfectly honest more people who look like me need to be saying this to their communities so that we break the stranglehold that they have on on white america especially older white America and say no you this is not correct this this has to stop and we need to address the real problems rather than othering people like we have done for honestly 200 years or how long 250 years or something like that it is time to change that and more people have to stand up and shout it so here's a thing that um is confusing to me um and i'm i'm seeing uh all of these different networks in their coverage, Time magazine. Let me see, I saw it.

I sent some people yesterday. Time magazine put a cover, enough, the killing of Charlie Kirk and the epidemic of American political violence. And it goes on and on and on. Here's the problem that I have here, Tim. No one knows what the hell of talking about. Now, assumptions obviously are being made. Assumptions are being made because he kicked off whatever this tour at Utah, this university in Utah.

Okay. But to me, it is journalistic malpractice. And you're seeing, a journalist's malpractice to start assigning reasons behind what happened yesterday when you don't know what the reasons are. you have no suspect or suspects FBI puts a photo out you've got no manifest you've got nothing

an early report by the Wall Street Journal about these anti-fascist transgender markings on the inside of the rifle 20 minutes later the ATF was like hey time out we haven't checked into this out so all of a sudden and so you're seeing this whole deal

and what I have been saying to people is shut up. Shut up. You literally don't know what you're talking about. And I just think that when people jump to the conclusion, we've seen this before in other stories, when something happens, and then it's like, oh, we found out later what the truth was. You don't know. There's nothing wrong with just shutting up and letting law enforcement do what they do. I believe that what you have seen, in the last 24 hours

with the ramping up of all of this are folk wanting to jump to conclusions it does not serve anybody to jump to a conclusion and even Donald Trump did the exact same thing

and this is the problem when you heighten these things how about actually waiting for real information is it that hard for a normal sane person, no, it is not hard, but the reality is that the Republican Party takes their marching orders from Donald Trump. And he sat in the Oval Office yesterday, I believe,

behind the resolute desk and blamed Democrats for this shooting. And like you said, Roland, we don't know who this person is. The same thing happened last year with the assassination attempt of Donald Trump. Right-wing media immediately jumped on the fact that And they said this was clearly a Democrat. This was left-wing violence. And what did we find out later? This guy was a mentally disturbed Republican. And I think that there is a lesson here that I don't think the media is getting,

and I don't think people online are getting, is that a lot of times, and when you are fermenting this type of rage on the right, you're radicalizing people with mental illness who may just lash out at you. We don't know. But I have not said any of that. I have not said it was a Republican or a Democrat. And I think more people need to take a breath. And there's such a need on the right to weaponize all of these things for political gain.

And it's disgusting. And sadly, a lot of the media has been going along with it. We simply don't know who this guy is. And we don't know what his agenda is. He made some mistakes. So hopefully we will be able to find him. But until then, anybody who is claiming that this is a left or a right problem, is full of it, and it really should be ashamed of themselves.

And see, what this does, Noah, it, it, it fires people up. It gets them, it gets them all hype. You've got Jesse Waters on Fox News declaring there's going to be retribution, all this sort of stuff. You don't even know what the hell you're talking about. And so we often talk about police, how they, should de-escalate. This is where a lot of these media people should shut the hell up as well. To me, it's utterly ridiculous. You know nothing. You literally know nothing about what happened,

the reason behind it. Nothing. Not a little bit, not some, Nola, literally nothing. Roland, you are still operating as a professional. We all know that professionalism, facts, and logic, no longer exist on this timeline. You know, I want to say, you know, two things. I want to say something through my national security lens, what I see there. And then also from a comms and media perspective in this kind of new media ecosystem where it's rapid response and it's very hard to fact check and to get things correct because you're trying to beat the algorithm, right? You're trying to ride that wave.

But, you know, from a national security perspective, first of all, to automatically go to, you know, it's the left, it's liberals, you know, blaming black people, we are the perpetual enemy. It doesn't matter what we do or what we don't do. I want people to first understand the demographics in Utah because this happened in Utah. where there's under 2% of black people that live in Utah, first and foremost, right? So if there's a black person perched somewhere with some sort of rifle or some sort of weapon, they will probably stand out. First, you know, let's start there. Secondly, to your point, we don't know anything. So why, 2.5 seconds after Charlie Kirk was shot, before he was announced dead, that corporate media, right-wing media, was blaming

the left, blaming the liberals. This is dangerous and it's all so strategic. So what in some people may say? It's exactly this, right? It's the fear on HBCU campuses. It's all the rage baiting that's happened and all the

videos and the clips that you're seeing. It's the rapid response. It's the kind of spike in an algorithm. I personally believe that too many people have already bought into this kind of this belief that this is the right way the country should be heading in, you know,

in terms of this is how white people get this country. Don't let biased algorithms or degree screens or exclusive professional networks or stereotypes. Don't let anything keep you from discovering the half of the workforce who are stars. Workers skilled through alternative rocks Rather than a bachelor's degree It's time to tear the paper ceiling And see the stars beyond it Find out how you can make stars part of your talent strategy

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People are traumatized and terrorized, and that is the end goal. That is what's in the toolkit of fascism and totalitarianism, period. I just, again, I what I say to people is

be quiet. When you know nothing, don't just make up stuff, Greg. But that's but that we know there's a cable news system now with social media and now people just, it's like not even forget a new cycle. News cycles don't even exist anymore.

We literally are living on not even hour by hour, minute by minute, it's second by second. And I was a lot of people would just shut the hell up because you don't know what the hell you're talking about. So if somebody asked me, what do you think? There's nothing to think. you don't know

well I mean the scientists tell us don't they rather than nature of boys a vacuum and I agree with everything that the Haynes just said Nolan you know as you were talking about earlier you know being at a white college campus you know I my heart goes out to you

because I absolutely you know I went to Temple, went to Ohio State after that Tennessee State meanwhile working at me so I know exactly what it's like to be in a sea of whiteness and with your head on a swoop. So, I mean, I can't express the depth of a feeling that I have for that. And so that's a very real thing. I agree with you 100%.

The objective of these fascists is not de-escalation, but escalation. You know, these small-minded folk, they have no morals. They have no ethics. All they want is power. And, you know, they are, and I'll give you, Tim, they're taking the directions for Donald Trump, but they were primed to take those directions by New Greenwich, you know, by Barry Goldwater, George Wallace, Richard Nixon, Lee Atwater, you know, Roger Stone. I mean, in other words, this is the trajectory.

There isn't a left and the right. There's fascism and anti-fascism at this point. And being quiet is not an option because our silence is filled in the void with the lower lumers. You know, Charlie Kurt, God bless his family. God bless him all. I have nothing to say about Charlie Kirk. He's not, he's not relevant to me. He wasn't relevant yesterday. He's not relevant today. He won't be relevant tomorrow. Charlie Kirk is a symptom. He lost his life. That's a tragedy.

Preston Brooks beat the hell out of Senator Charles Sumner on the floor of the United States Senate in the days before the civil war. Now, Sumner survived, but there was blood all over the place. This is the kind of violence we see on the verge of other types of violence before it was over hundreds of thousands, 7,000 people lost their lives in the United States Civil War. That's not going to happen again

in the same way. However, when you see a moment when somebody loses their life in a way that is then broadcast over the entire world, the entire world, and in the wake of it before this man's corpse is cold. The president of the

United States is on the air blaming the people who he has called the enemy of the people and like a cascade of purebred clan-bred fascist Nazi hatred. His choir begins to tune in on everybody in the world who they see as their open enemies. I'm not sure that silence is the strategy to combat fascism in this moment. I'm not saying I know what it is, but I know these people aren't interested in de-escalation. Their whole objective is escalation. Hello, I'm Isaac Hayes III, founder and CEO of Fanbase, and I'm here with a very important message. We are at a turning point in the black community where we must have equity in the apps we use that scale to billions of dollars.

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keep you from discovering the half of the workforce who are stars workers skilled through alternative routes rather than a bachelor's degree it's time to tear the paper ceiling and see the stars beyond it find out how you can make stars

part of your talent strategy at tear the paper ceiling.org brought to you by opportunity at work in the ad council our iHeartRadio Music Festival presented by Capital One is coming back to Las Vegas. Vegas. September 19th and 20th.

On your feet. Streaming live only on Hulu. Ladies and gentlemen. Brian Adams. Ed Sheeran. Fade. Glorilla. Jelly Roll.

John Fogarty. Lil Wayne. L.L. Cool J. Mariah. Maroon 5. Sammy Hagar. Tate McCray. The offspring.

Tim McRaw. Tickets are on sale now at AXS.com. Get your tickets today. AXS.com. This is an IHeart podcast. Thank you.