#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Hollywood legend Sidney Poitier, civil rights lawyer Lani Guinier die; Arbery murderers get life

Episode Date: January 8, 2022

1.7.2022 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Hollywood legend Sidney Poitier, civil rights lawyer Lani Guinier die; Arbery murderers get life in prisonThe three white men convicted for killing Georgia jogger Ahmaud Arbery were sentenced today. We'll show you what happened in the courtroom.And we have lost a Hollywood giant. Sidney Poitier has died at the age of 94. We will have a special tribute with Lou Gosset, Jr., Debbie Allen, Blair Underwood, Glyn Turman, and many more as we celebrate the life of Sidney Poitier.#RolandMartinUnfiltered partners: Verizon | Verizon 5G Ultra Wideband, now available in 50+ cities, is the fastest 5G in the world.* That means that downloads that used to take minutes now take seconds. 👉🏾https://bit.ly/30j6z9INissan | Check out the ALL NEW 2022 Nissan Frontier! As Efficient As It Is Powerful! 👉🏾 https://bit.ly/3FqR7bPAmazon | Get 2-hour grocery delivery, set up you Amazon Day deliveries, watch Amazon Originals with Prime Video and save up to 80% on meds with Amazon Prime 👉🏾 https://bit.ly/3ArwxEh+ Don’t miss Epic Daily Deals that rival Black Friday blockbuster sales 👉🏾 https://bit.ly/3iP9zkv👀 Manage your calendar, follow along with recipes, catch up on news and more with Alexa smart displays + Stream music, order a pizza, control your smart home and more with Alexa smart speakers 👉🏾 https://bit.ly/3ked4liBuick | It's ALL about you! The 2022 Envision has more than enough style, power and technology to make every day an occasion. 👉🏾 https://bit.ly/3iJ6ouPSupport #RolandMartinUnfiltered and #BlackStarNetwork via the Cash App ☛ https://cash.app/$rmunfiltered or via PayPal ☛ https://www.paypal.me/rmartinunfilteredDownload the #BlackStarNetwork app on iOS, AppleTV, Android, Android TV, Roku, FireTV, SamsungTV and XBox 👉🏾 http://www.blackstarnetwork.com#RolandMartinUnfiltered and the #BlackStarNetwork are news reporting platforms covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Today is Friday, January 7, 2022, coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered, streaming live on the Black Star Network. He is royalty, a legend, an icon. Sidney Poitier, the first African-American to win Best Actor Oscar. Activist passes away last night at the age of 94.

We'll pay tribute to him and hear from a number of folks who respected him in Hollywood, including Debbie Allen, Glenn Turman, Lou Gossett Jr., Harry Lennox, Sterling K. Brown. We'll talk to Janice Rochelle Littlejohn, a film critic. Dr. Greg Carr will be joining us as well. In addition to some of the other voices we'll have on the show, folks, they also include Clifton Davis, Courtney B. Vance, Norm Lewis, Reggie Hutland, Tim Reed, Clark Peters, Isaiah Whitlock, Blair Underwood, Clifton Davis, and also we'll talk with the former prime minister of the Bahamas, Perry Christie. Also another passing today, Lani Guinier, the first woman of color to be tenured at

Harvard Law School, whose nomination to run the Department of Justice under Bill Clinton was pulled because of outcries. She has also died at the age of 71. And today in Georgia, the three white men convicted of killing Ahmaud Arbery are going to spend the rest of their life in prison. Folks, it is time to bring the funk on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Let's go. He's got it.

Whatever the mess, he's on it. Whatever it is, he's got the scoop, the fact, the fine. And when it breaks, he's right on time. And it's rolling, best belief he's knowing. Putting it down from sports to news to politics. With entertainment just for kicks, he's rolling. It's Uncle Roro, y'all. It's Rolling Martin, yeah It's Uncle Roro, y'all Yeah, yeah It's Rollin' Martin

Yeah, yeah Rollin' with Rollin' now Yeah, yeah He's punk, he's fresh, he's real the best You know he's Rollin' Martin Now The three white racists who chased and murdered Ahmaud Arbery have been sentenced to life in prison with a judge denying any chance of parole for the father and son who armed themselves and initiated the deadly pursuit of a 25-year-old black man. This was what happened today in court.

That said, with regard to the sentence in this case, as to Travis McMichael, Mr. McMichael, the court sentences you as follows. Count one, malice murder, life without the possibility of parole. Count two, felony murder, vacated by operation of law. Count three, felony murder, vacated by operation of law. Count four, felony murder, vacated by operation of law. Count five, felony murder, vacated by operation of law. Count six, aggravated assault, merges into count one. Count seven, aggravated assault.

The court sentences the defendant to 20 years consecutive to count one. Count eight, false imprisonment, merges into count one. Count nine, attempted false imprisonment. Five years concurrent to count seven. That is life plus 20. Greg McMichael, the court sentences you as follows. Count one, malice murder. Defendant was found not guilty. Count two, felony murder, life without the possibility of parole. Count three, felony murder, vacated. I'm going to say vacated. It's vacated by operation of law in all cases. I'm just not going to repeat it. Count four, vacated. Count five, vacated. Count six, merges into count two. Count seven, aggravated assault, 20 years consecutive to count two.

Count eight, 10 years concurrent to count seven. Count nine, five years concurrent to count seven. That is life plus 20 years. Roddy Bryan, I do want to separate a little bit because the state is making a different recommendation. And despite the back and forth that Mr. Goff and I had during this case, I do want to point out a couple of things that he raised that I think are appropriate to raise with regard to the sentence. As far as the remorse, I think Roddy Bryan stands in very different shoes. It is obvious from the beginning that he questioned the tragedy that had occurred at the scene. It was on, I can't remember whose body cam, but the body cam in fact questioning whether or not what had occurred had occurred.

And then took steps early on in this process, I think that demonstrated that he had grave concerns that what had occurred should not have occurred. And I think that does make Mr. Bryan's situation a little bit different. However, Mr. Bryan has been convicted of felony murder. And I do not believe it can be disputed based on the facts of this case, that the verdict was an appropriate verdict based upon the evidence presented, at least. And when I say appropriate, what I mean is legal. Because I believe there's been some discussion about some differences between Mr. Bryan and the McMichaels. There may be some differences, but it does not change the fact that was it not for the fact that Mr. Bryan used his vehicle in a way to impede Mr. Aubrey's course of travel, this may not have ever occurred. And that is sufficient

for felony murder. He did cooperate with law enforcement. I will point out Mr. Goff 1710-1B. There's actually a case out of Chatham County that says it would not apply under the circumstances of this case. So the court recognizing that Mr. Bryan's position is different. Again, Mr. Bryan was found not guilty on count one and count two. Court sentences Mr. Bryan to life with the possibility of parole on count three. Count four is vacated. Count five is vacated. Count six, the defendant was found not guilty. Count seven merges into count three. The defendant is sentenced to 10 years consecutive to count three

on count eight and five years concurrent with count eight. Both of those counts, though, will be suspended sentences, which gives Mr. Bryan a life with the possibility of parole sentence. Those are the sentences, the court having pronounced sentence. First, with regard to Travis McMichael. Mr. McMichael, you are hereby notified that under the law of Georgia, you are entitled to appeal the guilty verdict of the jury. And if you decide to do so, you must file your appeal within 30 days of this date. Prior to being sentenced, the Auburn family had an opportunity to speak to the court about the death of this date. Prior to being sentenced, the Aubury family had an opportunity to speak to the court about the death of their son. This verdict doesn't bring you back,

but it does help bring closure to this very difficult chapter of my life. I made a promise to you. Today, I laid you to rest. I told you I love you, and someday, somehow, I will get you justice. Son, I love you as much today as I did today that you were born. Raising you was the honor of my life, and I'm very proud of you. Your Honor, these men have chose to lie and attack my son and his surviving family. They each have no remorse and do not deserve any leniency. This wasn't a case of mistaken identity or mistaken fact. They chose to target my son because they didn't want him in their

community. It's a hard time for me and my family. You know something that I just doesn't sit right with me at this time. The man who killed my son has sat in this courtroom every single day next to his father. I'll never get that chance to sit next to my son ever again

not at a dinner table not at a holiday and not at a wedding he'll never get to have a I pray that no one in this courtroom ever has to do what we had did, that buried their child. Of course, they could have gotten the death penalty as well, but the judge chose to sentence

them again to life in prison without parole. Brian, of course, doesn't have a possibility of parole because he showed formal remorse and actually cooperated to more than the other two individuals. Joining us right now is Matt Manning, civil rights attorney. We have Kelly Bethea, communications strategist. Also, Michael Imhotep, host of African History Network. Matt, the judge opened this up by taking a moment of silence of one minute to say that was a portion of the time Ahmaud Arbery was running for his life. It was a total of five minutes. As I listened to him, and then he read back the comments of Gregory and Travis McMichael.

As he was doing that, I'm sitting here going, this judge is not going to play with these guys here. He clearly gave them essentially almost max penalty. That's exactly right, Roland. In the state of Georgia, a judge has a lot of latitude to determine whether someone's going to get parole or not get parole on a homicide case. And I thought Judge Walmsley did a magnificent job of delineating a number of the comments. I mean, the fact that Mr. McMichael likened Mr. Arbery to a rat and talked about him being trapped like an animal underscores precisely what these men thought. They dehumanized him. And I think the judge was spot on, not only in his sentencing, but in delineating all of those quotes, because

frankly, there are going to be people who say that he bent to the pressure and his sentence is representative of liberals and all these other people who are angry about this. But the reality is this was a callous murder. And they said as much in their statements to the police, and he went through each one of those methodically. So I thought he did a wonderful job with that, and I thought that this sentence was definitely reflective of the evidence. So I'm very, very pleased with the outcome. Michael? Yeah, Roland, you know, I watched it live today, and when Judge Walmsley started out with one minute of silence to show how long one minute was, and Ahmaud Arbery ran

for his life for five minutes, I knew he was going to lower the boom on him. So, you know, I think the sentencing was correct. I also thought that William Riley Bryant would get a little lesser of a sentence. So he got life in prison with the possibility of parole, while the other two got life in prison without the possibility of parole. So, you know, this is, I think this is a good sentencing, and we continue to fight this battle. Kelly. I agree with the panelists. In my opinion, justice was certainly served here, because Ahmaud Arbery should be among the living right now. And it's a result of three racist white men who did not think that a black man belonged in their vicinity.

And that is the only reason that Ahmaud Arbery is dead today. What I was able to see today out of the hearing, the victim impact statements were certainly the takeaways for me. Something about victim impact statements that a lot of people maybe just kind of take for granted is that the victim being Ahmaud Arbery, he's not the only victim in this case. It's the rest of his family that have to bear the burden of grief for the rest of their lives as a result of these three men. And when the mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, said, I wish he had cut and cleaned his toenails when he went out on the jog that day, you know, I could have burst into tears right there because the fact that a lawyer would have stooped so low and have been so unethical in her closing to say such horrendous derogatory things about a victim. I don't care how hard you go for your client. That was just beyond the pale to me. So the fact that the mother still had enough gumption to clap back, if you will, to that attorney and all of her vile,

just kudos to Wanda Cooper Jones and having her head held high in that regard, as well as Ahmaud Arbery's sister commenting on how his skin glistened in the sun. That is how I want Ahmaud Arbery remembered across the board, nationally, internationally, as opposed to the horrific details of the last five minutes of his life. What's also I thought was interesting here was the fact that we're not at this point if Brian doesn't and his attorneys don't release that video. It was three months after the fact. You had multiple prosecutors

who were covering up for them who declined to prosecute. They released the video. The mother was putting pressure. The father was putting pressure. The family and the attorneys are putting pressure for action. Brian and his attorney then released the video thinking that was going to exonerate him. And it was that video which led to the Georgia Bureau investigation getting involved, which led

to that happening, which led to them being indicted, them being convicted. So Brian is going to spend a lot of time in prison, life with a possibility of parole for video him and his lawyers released. Well, his lawyers made a very, very bad strategic mistake, but it was in the support of justice, right? So ultimately, you know, thankfully they made that mistake because otherwise this may not

have been brought to light the way it was. There were people advocating, but you know, thankfully they made that mistake because otherwise this may not have been brought to light the way it was. There were people advocating, but, you know, video evidence is the best evidence. And I think that's very important, especially because Judge Walmsley, again, when sentencing Mr. Bryan, talked about how he used his vehicle in the commission of this crime. So had they been a little smarter in their strategy, he may not be sitting there at the table, at least not indicted. But I'm glad that they released that video so he, too, could be held to account for his crimes. Michael? You know, Roland, as Tiffany Cross would say, the caucasity of it. So you actually think this video of Ahmaud Arbery being hunted down and executed, you think this is going to absolve you? You see, this is, and it's

important for us to understand this in the context of Georgia. Georgia is the state that has the largest Confederate monument anywhere in this country. It's called Stone Mountain. And the 1863 Georgia Fugitive Slave Law that turned into this Citizens Arrest law that they concocted after the fact. That was specifically designed for fugitive runaway slaves, runaway from Georgia plantations when Georgia was part of the Confederacy, running behind union lines. It was targeting them. OK, so just to think that this video of Ahmaud being executed is somehow going to absolve William Roddy Bryan just It just shows how stupid

these people are. Absolutely, Kelly. But again, thankfully, and it's unfortunate that if we didn't have that video, we're probably not here. I mean, thank God for video, right? But also thank God for the shift in legal culture being that black people deserve justice as well. Because if you just look at the optics of this entire case, you had a white prosecutor, white judge, white attorneys on the defense. If I'm not mistaken, majority white jury. And everything, maybe not even 20 years ago, had this case been tried 20 years ago, we would have had a very different result, even with all the evidence laid out. So the fact that we are now in a culture that is shifting, it is not perfect by any means, but it is shifting in the direction towards justice for everyone, which is really what the law is supposed to do in the first place. The irony being that these laws were not meant for black people to thrive in, and yet here we are getting justice anyway.

Absolutely. All right, folks, got to go to a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about the passing of Lonnie Guineer, the legendary civil rights attorney. She died today at the age of 71. And then we'll pay tribute to the great Sidney Poitier, Hollywood icon. So many people are going to be joining us to talk about his life and legacy. We look forward to that tribute as well. You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Blackstar Network. ТРЕВОЧНАЯ МУЗЫКА I knew the plane was going to crash. I'm trapped underwater in my seat.

First thing that hits me is all the negative stuff that comes up, all the skeletons and all the things that you have dealt with, panic, fear, whatever, the negativity. Because I knew that plane was going to crash. Before it happened. Before it happened. The whole process, when I was about to get on the plane, I had that.

It hit you. It hit me. So I battled, battled to get off this plane. Right up to the very end, where we're getting ready to take off, the lights came on, and, get off this plane. Right up to the very end, where we're getting ready to take off, the lights came on and that snow was blowing sideways. And it was like, stand up, just stand up. They have to stop the plane and turn around.

If you just stand up. And I froze and the plane took off and it just rolled immediately to the side. I said see and then I Saw this big flash out orange on the buildings over there It had struck something and then it went to flames and then it tumbled and wound up in the bay, but I knew I knew now What does it do for me today?

It is in terms of listen. Ralph Waldo Emerson says, genius is following your first impression with good humor and flexibility even when the whole cry of voices is on the other side. Till's murder. We saw struggle for civil rights as something grown-ups did. I feel that the generations before us have offered a lot of instruction. Organizing is really one of the only things that gives me the sanity and makes me feel purposeful.

When Emmett Till was murdered, that's what attracted our attention. Hi, I'm B.B. Winans. Hey, I'm Donnie Simpson. What's up? I'm Lance Gross, and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Folks, a major voice of voting rights has also passed away. Lonnie Guineer was a Bennett Boesky Professor of Law Emerita at Harvard Law School.

She was the first woman of color granted tenure at the university. Guineer was nominated to lead the U.S. Justice Department's Civil Rights Division in 1993 by President Bill Clinton, but because of a huge outcry, her nomination was pulled. She was never happy about that and was a fierce critic of President Clinton, a longtime friend, for that decision. Guineer was surrounded by family and friends when she passed away. Again, she was 71 years old. Michael, I'll start with you. Many people who were around those times remember that. Conservatives really went after her, chastising her legal writings, things along those lines. And it was a very contentious battle that still resulted in them pulling her nomination. Yeah, Roland, you know, I remember that period of time. I remember her nomination being pulled.

I remember I was in college at the time. I remember the exuberation of her nomination in the first place and then being attacked by these white male Republicans, which reminds me of when Kristen Clark was attacked by these white male Republicans as well, and not even Senator Tim Scott voted for her, but that's another story. But this is, and I remember her tenureship at Harvard as well. So I think she's a legend. And the issue that she was attacked on was voting rights, largely, and her views on voting rights also. And it's interesting that we're having this debate now

and this fight now for voting rights in 2022 also. So this is a big loss as well. Kelly, she obviously was a pioneering figure, first woman of color, at Harvard University Law School, but also someone who was a brilliant legal mind, and many civil rights attorneys praise her for her teachings, her leadership. Absolutely. I mean, without her, we wouldn't have so much jurisprudence theories now, you know, in regards to civil rights, in regards to women's rights, in regards to so many hot topic issues of today that, frankly, were still really controversial and somewhat taboo at the height of her career. So I was not necessarily around during the Clinton administration. I was, but a little too young to

remember those things. But the fact that I, too, went to law school and, you know, read her works and researched her and knowing that without her, I wouldn't be where I am today. You know, just rest her soul. Matt. I echo some of Kelly's sentiments. I was a little young during the Clinton administration, but from what I've read, I just want to echo that, you know, we should all stand to be as courageous as she was. We should stand to be courageous, even when we stand to lose things that might otherwise be, you know, benchmarks of our careers, things like appointments. And what I've read, she was okay with letting that go if that meant that her life's work was something that she got to stand on. So I appreciate her work and I appreciate her legacy. And as a civil rights lawyer, I appreciate her blazing the way forward

for people like me. We have him on the talk about the, for our Sydney Poitier tribute that I do want to get a lot of Dr. Greg Card with the Department of Afro-American Studies at Howard University to share his thoughts on the passing of Lonnie Guineer. We're going to do something more expansive on her on Monday. Obviously, the passing of Sidney Poitier overshadows her death as well, but we're going to be sure to have more voices discussing her on Monday. But Greg, go ahead. I appreciate that, Roland. Yeah, I'll add my voice to everyone else. I was three years out of law school when the Clintons, when Bill Clinton betrayed Lonnie Guineer.

I think the thing that strikes me about Lonnie Guineer is the context of her courage and her intellect and her work. After that betrayal, she took a professorship in Philadelphia at the University of Pennsylvania, and I was living in Philly at the time. So I had the occasion to see her, to hear her. Her father, E.Y. Gournier, was actually the first chair of African American Studies at Harvard. And she was, in fact, as you say, the first non-white woman to gain tenure, to be appointed with tenure to Harvard's law faculty.

And that came after Derrick Bell, another of her kind of jegnas or mentors, resigned from the faculty of Harvard in protest because they had never tenured a woman, a nonwhite woman. And Lani Guinier came after Derrick Bell had left Harvard. Her writings, and I'll end with this, her writings, as we've just heard, very influential. I think about her book The Miner's Canary. I think about her book Lift Every Voice,'s Canary. I think about her book, Lift Every Voice, where she really does have this theory of voting rights, as Kelly said,

that is really, I think that's really what got those white boys mad at her, because she had a concept of proportional voting and distributive voting that was considered out of the box, but really spoke to the heart of democracy. Her last book, The Tyranny of the Meritocracy, really took on the idea of a society where you claim that if you work hard enough, you can achieve. But the simple fact of the matter is the game is rigged from the beginning. Lani Guinier was a giant, and 71 is young. But yeah, I'm glad that in the coming days, you'll have more of a, bring some people to go to the tribute. But she was a remarkable figure and a great, courageous person. Indeed she was.

Not only were we on our panel longer, but obviously because of the numerous guests we have on with Sidney Poitier. I want to thank Michael. I want to thank Kelly and Matt for joining us on today's show. Thank you so very much, folks. And I'll see you guys next week. Coming up next, we'll pay tribute to one of the greatest actors of all time. Me too. Thank you.

Sidney Poitier passed away at the age of 94 last night. We'll honor his life and legacy with numerous tributes. First up will be Clark Peters and Clifton Davis. We'll be joined later by Debbie Allen, Sterling K. Brown, joined by Glenn Turman, Norm Lewis. The list goes on and on and on. Folks, you do not want to miss this tribute to one of our true icons and legends, Sir Sidney Poitier.

That is next on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. We'll be right back. ТРЕВОЖНАЯ МУЗЫКА I knew the plane was going to crash. I'm trapped underwater in my seat. First thing that hits me is all the negative stuff that comes up, all the skeletons and all the things that we have dealt with, panic, fear, fear whatever the negativity Because I knew that plane was gonna crash Before that before it happened the whole process when I was about to get on the plane I had that it hit you it hit me so I battled battle get off this plane

Right up to the very end where we're getting ready to take off The lights came on and that snow was blowing sideways. And it was like, stand up, just stand up. They have to stop the plane and turn around. If you just stand up. And I froze and the plane took off and it just rolled immediately to the side. I said, see? And then I saw this big flash out orange on the buildings over there. It had struck something, and then it went to flames,

and then it tumbled and wound up in the bay. But I knew. I knew. Now, what does it do for me today? It is in terms of listen. Ralph Waldo Emerson says, genius is following your first impression with good humor and flexibility

even when the whole cry of voices is on the other side. Y'all know who Roland Martin is. He got the ascot on. He do the news. It's fancy news. Keep it rolling. Right here. Rolling. Roland Martin. Right now. Rolling. Rolling Martin.

Right now. You are watching Rolling Martin. Unfiltered. I mean, could it be any other way? Really. It's Rolling Martin. ¶¶ ¶¶ Folks, this morning we awoke to the news of the passing of one of the greatest actors of all time, Sidney Poitier. He passed away last night, surrounded by his family at the age of 94.

He was the first African-American to win Best Actor for Lilies of the Field. He also, of course, starred in numerous movies, In the Heat of the Night, A Raisin in the Sun. He was the measure by which many African-American actors, many, many actors, period, measured themselves by. He was a tall man, that amazing, booming voice, but actually it was that voice that also caused him not to become an actor because when he was working with the Negro Ensemble, his Bahamian accent was so thick, he got booted out. He worked on it, came back, and of course, the rest is history. This is, of course, it was really a sad news. I confirmed the news this morning

with one of the foreign minister of the Bahamas. It was Foreign Minister Mitchell. And this was the announcement, and we're going to show you in a little bit, this was the announcement that the current prime minister of the Bahamas made in a national address for one of their national heroes. My dear friends, it is with great sadness that I learned this morning of the passing of Sir Sidney Poitier. Our whole Bahamas grieves and extends our deepest condolences to his family. But even as we mourn, we celebrate the life of a great bohemian, a cultural icon, an actor and film director, an entrepreneur, civil and human rights activist, and latterly, a diplomat. We admire the man not just because of his colossal achievements, but also because of who he was,

his strength of character, his willingness to stand up and be counted, and the way he plotted and navigated his life's journey. The boy who moved from the tomato farm of Cat Island to become a waiter in the United States. The young man who not only taught himself to read and write, but who made the expression of words and thoughts and feelings central to his career.

The man who expressed his rage against racial injustice through quiet dignity. The humanitarian who used his steely determination not just to better himself, but to better the world that he lived in. Filtered through the milk of human kindness. And all of it achieved without sacrificing integrity, charm, elegance or wit. These things don't come easily, but the fight can be good. Your peers don't give you an Oscar, you win an Oscar.

Success is not a given, but it can come to those who translate talent into craft and perseverance. As the Sydney said himself in his autobiography, you don't have to become something you are not to be better than you were. This is the mark of the man. In our national anthem, we remind ourselves to see how the world marks the manner of our bearing. Sir Sidney's bearing upon the world shines as among the best of us.

Our country is in mourning and so I've instructed that the Bahamian flag be flown at half-mast at home and in our embassies around the world. We know the world mourns with us. Sir Sidney's light will continue to shine brightly for generations to come. All right, folks, we're joined by three incredible actors in their own right. Clark Peters, he joins us live from London. We're also joined by Harry Lennox, Blair Underwood. Of course, we still have Dr. Greg Carr, who is still with us.

Clark, you are the senior statesman among this group of actors, and so I'll go ahead and begin with you. Share with our audience your thoughts, reflections on Sidney Poitier. First time you met him, what was it like? Just whatever you have to share. I was doing—well, first of all, thank you for that. And I think that the prime minister of the Bahamas said what was needed to be said for all of us. I had not been in the States for many years. And I was, my first job back there was in 1998, I believe. And I was doing Iceman Cometh. And at the end of the show, I got a

call to come down to the stage. Someone wanted to meet me. And I came down and entered stage right, and there was a woman there who said, my husband would like to talk to you. So I crossed the stage and it was dark I was after the show and I was looking down to make sure I didn't fall and I saw a pair of shoes and the shoes turned into some cuffs and legs and I followed them up in the shadows and there was Sidney Poitier. And I almost fainted. I let him know that I had read his book and wanted to talk more about distribution,

film distribution, as well as production and directing. And he said, well, there's no use in writing, producing, acting, directing if you don't have distribution. So that's the conversation that, unfortunately, I never had with Sidney. But I know that I stand on his shoulders, as we all do. Blair, I'm not too sure. Go ahead, Clark. Go ahead.

I wasn't too sure. It was silent there, and I didn't know whether I was just talking to myself. No, no, no, no. You can go ahead. I'm giving everybody space to share. Oh, yes. I could go on. I could go on. And, you know, this, you know, from from his politics, you know, to his acting, you know, a man who started on the stage in Harlem and wound up on the stage of the world. You know, this is this. This is no. These are no small achievements. stage in Harlem and wound up on the stage of the world. You know, this is no small achievements, you know.

And I thank God that I had him in my life for the moment that he was here. And I will continue to carry on the way that he has mentored all of us to be, you know, with integrity. Play your truth. You're an actor. Play your truth. Don't sell out. You know, tell your story. Use your craft to mold and change the world. Simple as that. I got that from him. Blair Underwood, you posted a photo on Twitter today of a conversation you and he had on stage. I think we had that photo, so the guys if so, show it. And he was certainly the gold standard.

When I do interviews with actors, when they talk about who do they want, who do they look up to, who they love to work with, the first name that always comes out is Sidney Poitier. Absolutely. First of all, Roland, thank you for having me tonight. Man, Harry, Clark, everybody on the Zoom, it's great you for having me tonight. Man, Harry Clark, everybody on the Zoom, it's great to see you all. You too, baby. You know, and to celebrate Mr. Poitier, you know, if you knew Mr. Poitier, he was a man, I have, in one sense, my heart breaks, but he was a man of such joy, had such a great sense of humor, and would always find the happiness in every moment, the upliftment in every moment.

But you're right, that quote you're referring to, he said to me years ago, he signed in his book, his memoir, he said, you know, I expect twice as much from you than I did from myself because you are better prepared. He said, I had an accent I had to overcome. The opportunities weren't there at the time. So I expect that much from you and more. So I carry that always. As I said, I hope to make him proud. And he was there. I love hearing Clark's story because that's how I met him. The first time I met Mr. Poitier was on a plane ride. It was my first week. I was doing LA Laws in 1980s and

things are opening up career-wise. And I had left college, and I had to write a final thesis. So my three years out in the world would serve as credit for that year and a half I missed at school. And I was going to spin that plane ride from New York to Los Angeles, writing that thesis. And as God would have it, I walked on the plane. I turned the corner. And like Clark said, the first thing I saw were these feet. These long legs. And this tall, elegant man was sleeping, and my seat was right next to Mr. Poitier. Wow. That thesis ended up being this five-hour conversation with Mr. Poitier, and he'd

just been there every step of the way, every part of my career, he'd been there. I did a one-man show once, 99 seat theater, and he was there on the front row. But like Clark said, he mentored so many of us from afar and intimately. For him to take the time after a show to say, I want to see you, tell his wife, please, I want to see and meet this gentleman. I am eternally, and so many of us feel this way, just grateful for his humility and selflessness. Harry Lennox, you are not a small man. You are also a rather tall big brother. when you

when anyone who met Sidney Poitier, I mean, when you talk about people talk about stature, but he was a tall man. He towered over people. He had stature, presence. Yeah, certainly. I mean, in bucket loads of it.

But what an honor to be able to talk about it. I didn't have the great experiences of a personal connection like Brother Blair and Brother Clark. But actually, the first time I ever saw him in person, he was somewhat older, you know, and I was in awe. I sort of didn't want to get to know him in the sense that there could be no greater impression that I would have of him, you know? So I just remember him in every aspect of my life.

Like, without Sidney Poitier, I would not be an actor. And I wanted to sort of keep him in that sort of distance reverence just because I knew that there was no higher esteem that I would ever be able to hold him in. And he was always this icon that I revered. You know, I think about all of the credit that he gets for what he did off screen, but what he did on screen can never really truly be equaled. That is to say, he was the first, perhaps to this day, the only person who embodied

the ethos of the time. I mean, he was the icon of the civil rights movement. He was the sort of aspirations of black people in the American experiment. He didn't have to say anything other than he ever said off screen or off stage. Everything that he did on there was the very epitome of the hopes and dreams of the people. And so, you know, I mean, there's really no way to get around him. I don't think. He is a titan. He cannot die. You know, he is an indelible part of the American fabric of film history.

There's nobody like him. There will never be another person like that. There can be no sort of reinvention of the wheel in that way or putting the toothpaste back in the tube. He did it just by what he represented through his vocation. I'm going to do one more round with each one of you. We've got tons of people who we have booked on the show, but I want to play this.

This was a news conference where Sidney Poitier at his best chastising the media for placing him in a box. Clark, I want you to respond to this after we play it. Watch this. There are many aspects to my personality that you can explore, I think, very constructively. But you sit here and ask me such one-dimensional questions about a very tiny area of our lives. You ask me questions that fall continually within the negroness of my life.

You ask me questions that pertain to the narrow scope of the summer riots. I am artist, man, American, contemporary. I am an awful lot of things, so I wish you would pay me the respect due and not simply ask me about those things. That was 52 seconds of brilliance, Clark. You know, the world doesn't begin and end at the Atlantic and the Pacific coast in America. The world and artists and our artistry is bigger than all of that.

And not only should the flags be at half mass on that island, they should be half mass across America. And when America can rise to, can raise itself to the level of integrity that Sidney is addressing here, then we might be somebody. But right now, they still need to be chastised the way that Sidney has chastised them in that interview.

Blair? Blair, I think you're on mute. Sorry about that. There we go. There we go. That's one of my favorite interview responses of all time. One of my favorite movies is Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. Mr. Poitier has that scene with his father and he says, Dad, you see me, you see yourself as a

colored man. I see myself as a man. His response in real life was an expansion of that moment in that movie. And so many of us as black actors, I know speaking for myself, I am profoundly proud of my blackness, my negroness as it was back in the day. Profoundly proud of that. But I will be damned if I let somebody limit me in the roles I'm allowed to take or the roles we will create, the stories we're able to tell by just promoting me as a black man. We are men. We are human beings that are black, and that is not to be taken off the table. One of my phrases I hate the most is colorblind. I don't want you to be colorblind. I want you to see my negroness, my blackness. But beyond that, there is our humanity. And he spoke to us so eloquently in that moment. It's as relevant today as it was then. Harry Leonard, he is not limited to acting. He was a director.

He was an activist when it came to the work of the civil rights movement. But he also was a diplomat serving as ambassador. And so Timmy Poitier was a renaissance man. He wasn't just in front of the camera. That's very true. I think he falls, you know, he was sort of the natural predecessor, successor, I should say, of the great Paul Robeson that is more than an actor. But, you know, I think whatever, you know, the anger that he had in that moment at that particular time,

he achieved what he wanted. I think that now people do see him as all of the, you know, what he's asking for, clamoring for, really, in that response, he achieved. And I think that that's probably the greatest tribute that we could pay to him. It's very interesting. Brother Clark was talking about it. He said, without distribution, you know, what's the point of doing all of these things? And I'm reminded of the fact that, you know, even there, he had achieved already in some measure those things that he is and was then instructing and mentoring us to do. He was one of the, he was a member of United Artists, you know, for example. So he was about producing, directing, doing those things that he suggested,

living the examples that he set forward and encouraging others to do. So he did it. I don't know what else we could have expected of an artist. I think that he paid dividends on anything that we might reasonably expect for for somebody that we admire and emulate to be able to do that. And then some, as I say, it's going to be he's a hard act to follow. And I think that he got to see all of the all of his flowers while he was alive. Indeed. Well, not only got to see the flowers, but he also got to see the next two to three generations

of black actors follow in his footsteps and to be able to be on the big screen, the small screen, streaming, all of those services. And he did pay attention. I'm not going to do it right now, but later in the show, I've never told this story. But it's a personal story of me and Sidney Poitier from 2013. And I'm going to read exactly what he said to me.

Folks, absolutely blew me away. And again, when you talk about his grace and dignity, when you hear what I'm going to read, you'll understand that. So that certainly was who he was. Clark Peters, Blair Underwood, Harriet Lennox, gentlemen, I certainly appreciate you all joining us here on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Thank you, Roland. Thank you. Have a good night. Thanks a lot.

Company brothers. Nice to see the screen. Yes, indeed. Folks, we've got a lot more. A lot of folks who are going to be joining us, sharing their thoughts and reflections on Sidney Poitier. When we come back, we'll talk with Clifton Davis, Glenn Turman, and also show you when President Barack Obama awarded the President's Medal of Freedom to Sidney Poitier in 2009 at the White House. You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered as we remember the great Sir Sidney Poitier in 2009 at the White House. You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered

as we remember the great Sir Sidney Poitier on the Black Star Network. © BF-WATCH TV 2021 Субтитры создавал DimaTorzok ТРЕВОЖНАЯ МУЗЫКА We'll be right back. What's up, y'all? I'm Will Packer. Hello, I'm Bishop T.J. What up? Lonnie Wells. And you are watching Rolling Martin Unfiltered. Folks, we reached out to a lot of people today who want to share their thoughts and reflections about Sidney Poitier. Many of them could not join us because they are on projects, they're traveling. But social media has been filled with so many tributes pouring in.

Folks, go ahead and pull up the first one that we'll share with folks. Again, people have been posting on Instagram and Twitter. I mean, you name it, they've been doing it. And so we want to share with you some of those social media posts. You guys, let me know when we have those ready. Right now, I want to go to actor Clifton Davis, my Alfred brother. Clifton, how you doing? I am blessed and saddened, so deeply saddened by the passing of this giant, this amazing human being who touched my life profoundly. Share with us your personal recollections, meeting, talking with, acting with Sidney Poitier. Share with us. Let's say first I was a fan.

First I was a fan. I think it was Blackboard Jungle or something like that. And then, of course, the other films that he made early on in his career. And when Defiant Ones came out, something stirred within me. And then he did a movie with Clark Gable, and Gable respected him. You could see it on screen, and he was a giant. I first met him walking down 57th Street in New York, and I spotted him. I was unknown. I was a chorus boy in Hello, Dolly

back in 1967. And I saw him. I said, Sidney Poitier. He turned around and looked at me and said, hello, son, and went on about his business. I mean, I was a total stranger just bumping into him on the street. Years later, of course, I met him and I got, you know, my little moment of fame. And we happened to be together at an award show in Oakland, California, Black Filmmakers Awards. And That's My Mama was a very popular show at the time. I was backstage just humbled and in awe because I was there with Sidney Poitier and Ruby Dee, who Glenn is going to talk about. He's got, good Lord, he's got really firsthand, wonderful stories. But I stepped out of the door and there was a crowd of young ladies out there who were screaming and tearing at my clothes and trying to get me. And we backed into the theater and Sidney was standing there and with the most charm you can imagine

he looked at me with a twinkle in his eye and said Clifton what did you do to those young ladies I said Sidney I'm trying to do what you've been doing for 25 years let me try to catch up just a little bit. He must not laugh because he was making a joke, obviously. But he was very kind and very gracious throughout that day and always humble. He didn't walk around like, I'm the first black man to win an Oscar. He was someone who was approachable. He had so much dignity. He inspired me so much because he was black nobility and he was so tall. He was a giant. It was just wonderful to see him in person,

to talk with him, to hear his dignity, his humor, his honor. Wow. His humility. The man didn't have to be that humble, but he was. And at the same time, he was proud. It was amazing. And then down through the years, we bumped into each other here and there. I never had the privilege of working with him but uh the last time i saw him was in uh the bahamas and i came walking out of the atlantis hotel with my wife and uh he looked at her and he looked at me i said mr poitier

ambassador poitier he was going to a lunch meeting or something. He looked at me and he didn't address me. Turned to my wife and said, he is a very lucky man. And we have all been lucky to be able to touch the greatness and spend just a little time with Sir Sidney Poitier. Clifton Davis, I know you're busy on the road with Wicked. I appreciate you stopping by and sharing with us your thoughts about Sidney Poitier. Thank you so

much. I'm going to miss him. Appreciate it, Fred. Thanks a lot. All right, folks, in a second, we're going to be chatting with actor Courtney B. Vance, but right now, I want to go to my man, the biggest cowboy in Hollywood, even though he's from New York City, Glenn Turman. Glenn, how you doing? How you doing? I'm doing great. I can hear you. You know,

one of the first things I thought about this morning when I saw the news and I called the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Bahamas who confirmed his passing. When we talked, you were like, Sidney, Sidney. I mean, it is like when you say Sidney, there's only one person you think of. You don't think about Sidney Australia. You don't think about, you think of Sidney Poitier. Sidney P., he's the man. That's right. He always will be in my book, you think of Sidney Poitier. Sidney P, he's the man, that's right. Always will be in my book.

You know, first of all, I'm so heartbroken, you know, so heartbroken with this news, you know, because I kind of thought he'd live forever, you know, and 94 is a good run, you know, any way you look at it, you know, and my heart, of course, goes to the family who I've already put in a call to, but I haven't spoken with yet, you know, especially his daughter, Pam, because we grew up together as teenagers when I was doing A Raisin in the Sun at the age of 12, 13. So she and I are about the same age, and I look forward to speaking with her. But she was always considered my—we considered each other play sister and brother, you know.

We were that close as a result of my working with him on Broadway in A Raisin in the Sun, you know. But he was a kind of man that influenced me so much in all of my career and as well as my character building as a man, you know, because he caught me at an influential age, that age where you go from boyhood to young manhood, you know, young adulthood, a teenager. And some of the things that I remember, you know, we were on Broadway, and right down the road, down the street on 46th Street, he was starring in the movie Porgy and Bess. And the play, Raisin, was around the corner. So I could go out the back door, the stage door of the theater, the theater that we were playing at, and go to the corner

and go into the movie on the side door, go into the movie and watch him on screen doing Porgy and Bess, you know, and there he was larger than life, you know, like what, 60 feet, you know. And then I realized that I had to get on stage for my cue and I'd run out of the theater and then run into the stage door and run on stage and run to his arms and there he was, you know, the same guy I just saw on the movie theater so it was a very fascinating time to see this man lodged in life and then run into his arms and have him say and this is my son

and he is the fourth generation of our family and we are proud. We are very proud people, you know. It was quite an experience for me. You know, again, we see people on the big screen and we see them on television and folks like, oh my God, I mean, they are these iconic figures. I did an interview earlier today and we were talking about Dr. Dorothy Cotton and Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. And I said they were icons, but they were also just regular, ordinary people. Well, that was silly.

You know Art Evans, the actor Art Evans, great actor, dear friend. You know him from Soldier's Story or High Heart. You know, dear friend, you know him from Soldier's Story or Die Hard. And we used to run into Sidney at a park here in Los Angeles called Poinsettia Park.

This was back in the day. And Poinsettia Park had a tennis court. And we thought we could play tennis. Sidney could play tennis, but we thought we were better than him. So we challenged him individually to a game. He said, no, I won't play you. I'll play both of you at the same time. He whooped our butts.

And it was great to hear him talk smack, you know, as he was whipping us. You call that a game? Is that the best you can do? He just, I whip your ass. Man, he feels, I'm not talking about that to this day. So yeah, he

can talk a lot of trash and he can back it up. Well, that's the whole point. If you're going to talk trash, you absolutely back it up. Glenn, share just your final thought about Sidney Poitier. Well, I'm honored to have known the man. He was, you know, so, so influential in my career, the choices that I made. He was always accessible for me. You know, Sidney, how do I deal with this?

Sidney, they're doing this to me. They put up this roadblock. How do we get around that? How do I, you know? Sidney, I've written a play. Would you come see it, you know, and tell me what I need to do with it? You know, and he'd show up. He'd do it.

Sidney was responsible for me getting my first agent here in California, Marty Baum, you know, a man named Marty Baum, who was a giant of an agent who was part of an agency called GAC, that later became ICM, that later became CAA. You know, it was... So he was just a... Oh, God, I'm going to miss that man. Glenn Turman, we appreciate it, man.

He was indeed a man of big stature. And that was nothing like when you walked in his presence. He had a smile that was as wide as Broadway. Yes, indeed. Glenn, always a pleasure, my brother. I'll see you soon. And when I come back to L.A., we're going horseback riding. Okay, baby. I'm ready when you are. All right. I appreciate it. Thank you so very much. Folks, we, again, so many thoughts and memories about Sidney Poitier in 2009, President Barack Obama. Of course, recognize Sidney Poitier with the presidential medal of freedom at the White House. Here is that ceremony. It's been said that Sidney Poitier does not make

movies. He makes milestones, milestones of artistic excellence, milestones of America's progress. On screen and behind the camera in films such as The Defiant Ones, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, Uptown Saturday Night, Lilies of the Field, for which he became the first African-American to win an Academy Award for Best Actor. Poitier not only entertained but enlightened, shifting attitudes, broadening hearts, revealing the power of the silver screen to bring us closer together. The child of Bahamian tomato farmers. Poitier once called his driving purpose to make himself a better person. He did, and he made us all a little

bit better along the way. Sidney Poitier has left an indelible mark on American culture. Rising from the tomato farms of the Bahamas, his talent led him to Broadway, Hollywood, and global acclaim. In front of black and white audiences struggling to write the nation's moral compass, Sidney Poitier brought us the common tragedy of racism, the inspiring possibility of reconciliation, and the simple joys of everyday life. Ultimately, the man would mirror the character, and both would advance the nation's dialogue on race and respect. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Just share your thoughts and reflections on Sidney Poitier. Well, we miss him. It's been, he was 94. You know, oftentimes we don't realize that we have angels in our midst, and he was that. You know, and when he was in his prime, we saw him, and a lot of times we thought in the midst of the Black Power movement, he wasn't doing enough. But he was a trailblazer. He won the best Oscar for Ladies in the Field. He was the number one box office in the world.

Number one box office star in the world. And we were so proud of that. But five years later, when the Black Power Movement happened, we were ready to push him aside. But that's the way of the world. He was who he was. He was, for the time period, he made us stand up taller.

They call me Mr. Tibbs. And when he slapped that police officer, Rod Steiger, and when Rod Steiger slapped him, he slapped him right back. That was a revolution. That was a revolutionary movement. That was a revolutionary movement. That was a revolutionary event. And that cannot be taken away. You can't look at things from 2020, 2022 eyes and go, oh, yeah, he was Uncle Tom, whatever.

No, no, no. He was a trailblazer. He always was. He always will be. And we have to recognize that he was an angel then, and he is and always will be an angel for us. He is as tall as Nelson Mandela was, as Obama was, as Ossie Davis was, as MLK was, he was a trailblazer. He was an icon of epic proportion. And in fact, Norm Lewis, Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. talked about the importance of Sidney Poitier and his representation on screen to the Black Freedom Movement. Well, for me, I just, you you know like Courtney B was saying it was revolutionary to see him slap this white man at such as a young black man seeing this because you know we didn't have those a lot of those images and you know to see him in the movies to serve with love and to deliver these these artistic events with such grace and such, you know, he wasn't kowtowing to what the man was.

And so he was definitely an inspiration. And I'm glad to, you know, to have actually gotten the chance to meet him. I didn't know him that well, but I got to meet him a couple of times. And he hugged me and gave me his grace of being an actor. He was like, you know, you're going to make it. And so maybe that from his touch, I have done pretty well. Courtney, he often also talked about the weight that was on him, having to represent literally an entire race. We can't overlook that as well. No, no. And we'll never understand it. No one will ever understand what that generation of trailblazers went through. Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, the Negro Ensemble Company, when there was no one else to look up to.

And they set the path. They set the standard. And for that, there was a great deal of stress and a great deal of weight on them that we can't appreciate. like MLK when the world passed him by after he came out against the Vietnam War. He was as as as gosh, he was right hand man, Andrew Young. Yes. Andrew Young said he was better off dead. He was so depressed about the fact that the world passed him by. And I'm sure Sidney felt the same thing. He saw the writing on the wall that he was no longer going to be the first go-to black person. The world shifted. Denzel's of the world came up.

There were other actors. There were more effective spokespersons for the time period. And that's something, that's just the way the world goes and works. And he understood that, stayed tall, did other things, directed. Bill Cosby and he did some wonderful things that lifted us up. But his legacy will always be what it was. He was, quote, unquote, the man. Indeed, indeed. Norm, final comment, please. I just want to say thank you to you to bring all of us as Black men to honor such a great legend. We are his legacy. And so thank you for this opportunity. Yeah, you will definitely be missed.

But we will remember him and his books and his movies and everything else. So we miss you. And we love you. Indeed. And Courtney, when you were talking about those movies with Bill Cosby, A Piece of the Action, Uptown Saturday Night,

Let's Get It On. Let's Get It On. No, that song was in it. It was three movies. And Sidney directed all three of those movies. And when we talked before, I was joking with you. I was like, man, when are we going to see you in the comedy? And when we got you on the show today, the first thing I thought about was Sidney in that comedic role in those three movies with Bill Cosby.

So maybe somebody would do a sequel to Upstown Saturday Night starring Courtney B. Vance. Well, you know, he taught us how to be. He taught us how to transition. He taught us how he taught us. He was continually teaching us to let it go, let it change, let me be me. And, you know, the world is shifting around me. I've got to shift with it. You've got to shift and let me be different. And he showed us how to be, showed us how to transition into silence because there was time for him to go quiet now.

You know, there's a time for everything in life. That's what my Bible tells me. So I know that I was honored to have been in his presence. His wonderful, beautiful daughter, Pamela Poitier, took me into his presence in the house, in the big house, and I was able to sit with him and fellowship. It was of the the seminal moments in my life and uh like norm i'm just grateful to have had a moment a moment with him you know to be able to say he knew me you know little old me from a little boy from Detroit, you know, you know, hanging with the giants. I'm just happy. Courtney B.

Norm, gentlemen, I appreciate it. Norm, I hate that I was so busy. I couldn't come see your play in New York, but we definitely going to make that thing happen. Watch Women of the Movement. Watch that. It's on Hulu. We'll be watching it.

All right, gentlemen, I appreciate it. Courtney, tell the queen I said hello. Certainly will. Love you all. Thank you, Roland. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Before we bring up our next guest, Dr. Greg Carr, the point that Courtney made there about just how vital Sidney Poitier was to black America during that tumultuous period of the late 1950s and the 1960s cannot be underestimated. Tonight has been, and it will continue to be, I'm sure, but so far it's just been nothing short of remarkable. Norm Lewis says

something that's been reverberating in my head from the first moment when Clark Peters began to talk. We all, of course, you'll see a lot written in the white-facing press about the Academy Awards evening when he and Denzel held up Oscars to each other and Halle Berry read the genealogy of black women who she followed and footsed up. A kind of black family moment inside the Academy Awards. But tonight, to have this many black men, and there are so many deep connections between them that run through Sidney Poitier. The Yoruba people have a word, etutu. It means coolness.

There is something that ties together every one of those black men actors we've seen so far. They don't take roles where they bucking and eye rolling and they're all cool. You don't see a lot of teeth. You don't see whether it be Courtney B. Vance and his role as a lawyer on Law and Order, whether it be Norm Lewis and his work in the theater or even in Defy Bloods, whether it be Clark Peters as Lester Freeman in The Wire, whether it be Blair Underwood in an early Western power that makes, I'm sorry, Posse in 1993, that makes us think about Sidney Poitier and Halle Belafonte in Bucking the Preacher, whether it be, and of course, one thing Blair Underwood shares with Sidney Poitier is they both play Jesus Christ. Blair Underwood made,

but people forget that there was a film called Brother John that Sidney Poitier made. It's one of my favorite Sidney Poitier movies, where he basically said, what if Jesus came back to the South in the middle of the 1970s? What would he do to judge the world? I mean, so you see, and of course, Harry Lennox. Nobody's cooler than Harry Lennox. I think about when he played Adam Clayton Powell. The power of Sidney Poitier, and I love the way Brother Vance framed it.

During that moment, he could have been, he was critiqued. He was critiqued widely, particularly among the younger folk. But he was so subtle, because if they had gone back even 20 years after he had some success in film, his first movie, No Way Out, he plays a medical doctor. He plays a South African in a film based on a novel out of South Africa, and then plays two African characters. The one we mentioned with Clark Gable, he had been in a film based on a novel out of South Africa and then and plays two African characters. The one we mentioned with Clark, with Clark Gable, he had been in a film with Rock Hudson playing an African, continental African during the during the anti-colonial movement.

Sidney Poitier was very careful and deliberate about his roles and he was teaching all the way through. And that clip you showed where he was like, yeah, you know, you can ask me about a whole lot of other things in the wake of that. Perhaps his blackest films, these are the things that I find the best. I mean, that trilogy, Uptown Saturday Night, A Piece to Action, Let's Do It Again, as you said, when Mavis Staples was coming in, Bucking the Preacher, Brother John, and then you, that slap, that slap, when Sidney Poitier, I remember something Clyde Wood said, a film historian said, you know, black people don't get to slap white people on film. And so, in fact, he quoted Dick Greger.

He said the white man would have had to burn your house down, rape your wife, kill your dog, and then you might be able to look at him crazy. But when that character, Endicott, slapped him and he turned around and slapped him again, there's a line that that white man says after that, that frankly, me and my friends, this is our joke, right? When you see a white person who you know wants to say something crazy but knows better, we repeat the line Endicott said right after that, which is, there was a time when I could have had you shot. You can see it in people, but you ain't going to say it. But who is that butler standing there, the black man looking at this go down? The great Jester Harrison, which is from that generation of Candidly, which ties us back to Paul Robeson, which takes us back to Frederick

O'Neill. As you said, told the man, you can't act. And then he said, well, can I be a janitor and just clean up here? Okay, you can keep having acting lessons. Frederick O'Neill named his early theater company for Ira Aldrich, who was Paul Robeson's hero. What connects all those cats together? Coolness. Sidney Poitier was a revolutionary. He was a revolutionary because he never allowed himself

to portray who we are to the world out of pocket, with a stereotype, and every actor you've had on so far, Roland, if we think about their roles, none of them have either. And that's a testament to him and, of course, Denzel and the rest. Now, not everybody on the show tonight is a brother. I've invited a lot of sisters. People have been very busy. They're acting.

Debbie Allen, my fellow Jack Yates alumnus, she, of course, choreographer, director, actress. She a Renaissance woman herself. And of course, y'all, she had that killer speech at the Emmys when she was just honored. Debbie, it's always good to see you.

Thanks for joining us to share your thoughts and reflections on the great Sidney Poitier. Thank you, Roland. Nice to be here and a cause of celebration and honor. Take it away. Just share what you want. What's on your mind? Well, what's on my mind is that Sydney Poitier.

There we go. I think we lost you there for a second. Now we got you back. Go ahead. Go ahead. Yeah, Sidney Poitier made such an incredible impact on me as a child. You have to know, growing up in the South, in Texas, where there was a movie theater that was segregated and that certainly played movies with, you know, Elvis Presley and all the white stars

and Tammy, all those movies. It was so great to go to the movie theater and see yourself up on the screen. All right, never will forget seeing Porgy and Bess on Christmas. It was the biggest thing in the whole family that we all went to see Porgy and Bess on Christmas. It was the biggest thing in the whole family that we all went to see Porgy and Bess. And we saw Sidney Poitier, we saw Dorothy Dandridge,

I saw Sammy Davis, Brock Peters. But Sidney Poitier became a real inspiration to all of us who, even as young kids, had ideas about what could be possible. He, you know, when you think about the history of film and how, you know, when you look at David Bogle's Coons, Mammy's, Tom's book, that wonderful historic book, how actors of African origins were always playing caricature kind of stereotypes. You know, the big mammy, the tragic mulatto, the coon, the big sprawling buck and Sidney Poitier dispelled all of those myths catapulted us into a whole nother generation of respect and acceptance he was for the first time a black man who was articulate and always played scenes with great dignity.

And, you know, all of this was so much about what was acceptable to white people. But at the end of the day, it was his talent that emerged and went beyond even placing him in a place where he was acceptable. So Sidney has long been the inspiration for the great actors that we know today. Denzel Washington idolized him. They had a very close relationship throughout all this time, even when he was very challenged with his health. And Chadwick Boseman, all of them would pledge allegiance to the legacy of Sidney Poitier. Share with the audience this thing. It's very interesting.

I mean, I've been around musicians and actors and folks in these different fields, and when you talk about music, also entertainment, there were few entertainers where entertainers were these, were like, not, I hate to use the word groupies, but for lack of a better word, groupies when they see them. And so Prince was one of those folks. When we talk about actors, like if Sidney Poitier in the room, I don't care who you

are and how many awards you got. You walk over. I won't necessarily kiss the ring, but you're going to bow down to say that's the great Sidney Poitier. I mean, and that was something about being in his presence and watching how others reacted just being in his presence. I think that's a very fair statement. I've been in his presence many times. But what I noticed even more was his love of young people and the willingness to take time to touch them, to be with them, to, you know, inspire them.

He never was one that was resting on the laurels of his greatness. It was his humanity that spoke much louder than anything else to me. To me. Well, one of the things, I was watching Stir Crazy the other day about a month ago, and I'm sitting there and I didn't even realize that he directed Stir Crazy.

And then I immediately went to IMDb and I was like, wait a minute, he directed this and this and this. Same for you, not just being somebody who's acting, but also directing and producing. That was all, I just literally never, it never occurred to me that Sidney was also directing.

Well, he was a man of many means and such great talent, which is so, it'll be a time right now where people will start. I just taught my middle school class, and I changed the whole curriculum today to be all about Sidney Poitier, the legacy of black people in film, and why young people need to not just see everything

as what it is in the moment, but look back as to how did this happen, where it is right now, and where might it go, because they are the future. So we spent the day today, and I'm talking about 10 and 11-year-olds who don't know who Sidney Poirier is. So we spent the whole afternoon. I played excerpts of To Serve With Love, which I thought would relate to them. I played excerpts of Porgy and Bess. All of these things.

You know, this is going to be a time for us to educate a lot of young people. Not just what we remember, but also teach them the history and how do we get to a Denzel Washington, how do we get to the next Chadwick Boseman or to the Michael B. Jordans of the world. Where is their inspiration? Indeed. Debbie Allen, always good to see you, always good to chat with you. Please tell your sister, fellow JY grad Felicia Hillel, and also my man Norm, tell them what's up as well. I will, and thank you for this conversation. It's very, very meaningful and valuable.

Debbie, thanks a lot. Take care. Okay. Bye. Folks, Sidney Poitier was not just an actor, director, humanitarian. He also was a diplomat. He served as ambassador to Japan for the Bahamas. So joining us right now is someone who knew him quite well, and that is the former prime minister of the Bahamas, Perry Christie. Doc, how you doing? Oh, I'm doing fine, Roland.

And I can tell you that as a result of listening to your program, I am now very, very pleased that we gave Sidney Poitier as a gift to the United States of America and to the world. Everything said today demonstrates how wonderful his impact has been, a great source of inspiration, not just to the United States, but to countries like ours. And particularly when I think back of him, that if you look at the 50s, when he did the film No Way Out, acting as a doctor, faced with bigotry, describing by his performance the ugliness of bigotry and demonstrating a very very 21st

century way of dealing with it and allowing us to know the level of dignified presence he had. So I'm so happy my friend to be able to pay tribute to Sir Sidney Poitier, because he was a Bahamian who was an exemplar, an exemplar for the world. And the final point I want to make about him is that to all persons who have some question as to what they could become, they despair because they've had little education. Sidney Poitier's human experience must stand as one of the greatest sources of inspiration to all who would wish to achieve something for themselves. Starting in very humble circumstances on an island in the Bahamas,

working at a time where he had to teach himself, work in menial jobs. It is unimaginable that he could have dreamt of becoming an actor for all it took. Yet he did it, he achieved it, and he achieved a level of magnificence. So this, to me, is the greatest asset for all of us that we should preserve. Someone whose journey is so enriching, so powerful in his reach,

and so meaningful in the way that he was able to do it, notwithstanding inhospitable conditions, racial bigotry that he had to overcome, and to do it with dignity, using his charisma, and most certainly that character that shone through. And I can tell you, sitting in his home, surrounded by books in Los Angeles, and I said to myself, here is a man who had to teach himself to read, and he's now become an author. Here is a man who, when he speaks, you almost feel like eating his words.

He speaks so properly, so firmly, so clearly. And I'm just trying to emulate when he sat in my office and we spoke how extraordinary his impact was. And as has been said, he walks into a room and his presence is magic. We owe so much to him, not just in the United States of America, not just in the Bahamas, but the world. In fact, a Bahamian television network ran this package. Well, a few years ago, you and others were on your way returning from China. Y'all had a long layover in Los Angeles, and y'all went to the home of Sidney Poitier. He had a few words

to share. I want to show a bit of that. We'll come back and I've got a couple more questions with you. Y'all go ahead and fire that piece from the Bahamas win on the visit to Sidney Poitier's home. Almost to the next level through providing opportunities for the disadvantaged. The winner is Sidney Poitier. It is a long journey to this moment. I am naturally indebted to countless numbers of people. And just like that, Sidney Poitier became the most decorated black actor on the international screen, etching himself into the history books of film and television. Later in his career, he would shed light on the Bahamas as a place he called

home and where he grew up on Quincet Island with his Bahamian parents. He was no stranger in achieving greatness. Some suggest the indomitable spirit that led black Bahamians to realize majority rule was the same spirit that led Sir Sidney to overcome surmounting hurdles to earn his spot on the big screen as he refused to be denied. And while many argue where he actually got his start in theater, one thing is undeniable. The break he received while carrying out a mediocre task in the U.S. proved that his undeniable talent and love for the cameras could no longer be ignored.

They call me Mr. Tibbs. The Bahamas continues to celebrate Sidney Poitier's legacy, hailing him as a hero, an example for Bahamians to follow. It was no surprise that during the layover visit in Los Angeles, while traveling back from China, the prime minister and his delegation visited Sir Sidney at his Beverly Hills home. It's a visit one can remember for a lifetime. And though he's aging and experiencing challenges with his health, Sir Sidney's voice remains uninterrupted, sustaining the same sound and the same wit that made him famous. Sir Sidney Poitier, despite his many world-class accomplishments, still has an insatiable desire to impart his knowledge to the young generation of Bahamians. What I say back to them is what I dream of saying back to them, that I would love to always spend the rest

of my life in their presence. Sir Sidney's advice to the Hamings is simple but profound, indicative of his undying love for country. All I could say to them is wherever they go, whatever they do, they must remember that they come from one of the greatest countries in the world. And while he's done sharing his on-screen gifts with the world, he's certainly relying on the next generation of Poitiers to fulfill that legacy. I have 12 children, all girls. And that means I'll be spanking a lot of bottoms if they don't do as well as I expect them to do. Expressing his appreciation to have the high-level delegation visit him during the lengthy layover in Los Angeles from China,

Sir Sidney welcomed the group to return in his usual witty fashion. I thank you all as friends and fellow human beings and fellow Bahamians and I'll be pissed if you all don't come back. Clint Watson, Zeta Nest Network News. Quite funny there, Prime Minister Christie. He was, again, someone who people thought serious in terms of how he carried himself, but he had a wicked sense of humor. Absolutely. And, you know, again, to think that he came from the Bahamas,

to see the extent to which the world has acclaimed him, enables us to say to young Bahamians, and for that matter, people all over the world has acclaimed him, enables us to say to young Bahamians, and for that matter, people all over the world, particularly in our region, that anything is possible. And I keep on saying that when President Barack Obama coined, yes, we can, Bahamians had been living that out for generations. It took an indomitable spirit to be vested in Sidney Poitier. He believed that he could do it. He invested in that belief, and he did it. Yes, we can. So long before President Obama came into being, people like Sidney Poitier and thousands of others throughout the world and region believe in themselves, and they have a source of inspiration in Sidney Poitier to emulate.

And I think when we look at memorializing him, we ought to ensure that our teaching institutions that will have a culture of perpetuation in perpetuity, being able to keep the memory and the meaning of one's life, particularly when it had such a powerful impact in perpetuity for future generations to learn and learn from. And so for me, it was a pleasure when the Bahamas named him ambassador to Japan. We knew that he was going to represent us magnificently. And we had an additional pleasure

of naming a prestigious bridge leading to one of our leading resorts in Paradise Island, the Atlantis, naming the bridge after Sir Sidney. And like our Prime Minister said in his broadcast today, that the government will be giving consideration to further research on the best way to memorialize and to ensure that future generations, not only of our country, but of the world,

come to understand that the journey of Sidney Poitier, or Sir Sidney Poitier, was one in which that could be emulated and shared by millions of people worldwide. He gave us a sense of pride. And Roland, I went to see, as a law student in London, I went to see Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. And I left that movie theater feeling inspired, feeling a sense of satisfaction that I had seen a man who never compromised on his blackness, who was prepared to demonstrate a level of dignity in the face of severe questioning, who understood who he was

and was able to communicate that in the film. And so his magnificence as an actor was only reflecting what we have come to know were his personal values and what his personal beliefs. Sidney, much to his credit, was able to take his personal beliefs and have them enshrined in all of the diverse parts that he played in the movies. One final point. I honestly believe when we look at what happened in the Bahamas, where we had a march to majority rule in 1967, up to that point, we had a minority

government running our country. Sidney Poitier was here to inspire the new government, to inspire them in their campaign, and to celebrate with them when, for the first time in 1967, January 10, 1967, when a majority-ruled government was formed in the Bahamas. That helped us on the road to independence, because he also believed that we had to demonstrate as a country that we were capable of ruling our own affairs. And so the civil rights movement in the United States was a source of reminder to us of what we should avoid, what we should not let happen in our country. And I can only say that the movies that Sidney Poitier did helped to shape and strengthen the level of consciousness on the part of the Americans towards enabling them to understand in increasing numbers

the rightness of the cause of Dr. Martin Luther King and all the others and all the other messengers who came behind extolling the virtues of equality before the law and equality in the United States of America. And that happened to be a voice and a message that the world must see, understand, and continue to work on and continue to enhance. Perry Christie, former prime minister of the Bahamas, always a pleasure to see you and chat with you. And I can't— You must come back to the Bahamas. I mustn't let you go without saying it's better in the Bahamas. And we need you back here. Every time we talk, you will sell

the Bahamas to come back. Sigma Pi Phi, actually has their national convention in the Bahamas. It was supposed to be there last year with COVID, but it's going to be there. So I will actually be in the Bahamas in July, but I'm going to try to get there before July.

But I'll see you then. And I can't let you go. I always tell people, never just go to the public figure. Always say hello and greet the wife or the husband. And so every time I try to need to get to you, I call Bernadette. So you please tell your gorgeous wife I say hello and thanks a lot. She's listening to you, and, you know, you are one of her favorite personalities. Well, I appreciate it. Look forward to seeing both

of y'all soon in the Bahamas. Excellent. Thank you so very much. Greg Carr, I don't think people here really understand what it means to have Sidney Poitier as a national treasure of a

country like the Bahamas? No, I mean, no. I mean, how could we? How could we? We were born in a country where we are minority. And, you know, something very interesting, Roland, listening to you talk to the former prime minister and how you opened this evening with the current prime minister,

Brother Davis, and the deputy prime minister behind him. Those brothers are cool. The women and men of the Caribbean, you know, the Bahamas, like Barbados, like Jamaica, like there's a certain, I don't want to call it dignity. Dignity is the wrong word. There's a certain coolness, to use that Yoruba word again, that kind of emanates out of the ethos of black culture. But in majority black countries, you certainly see that, I think, almost as a structural element of their structural identity.

So even though Sidney Poitier was born in Miami because his family was going back and forth between the Bahamas and Miami selling their produce, tomatoes primarily. He was very much a son of that island. He was a son of that country. He was a son of that nation. And it came through. So even now, as we, again, we'll read in these other media sources, he had to, you know, lose his accent. He never really lost his accent. But because you hear it when you hear, you hear the prime minister.

In other words, he shaped it to its purpose. And so I think it is it is kind of difficult for us because we will tend to read Sidney Poitier through a lens that is an American lens. Right. Right. And that's and that's a problem. Give one quick example. People will talk a lot about to serve with love, of course. You know, I mean, Petunia Clark's song and Edmund Braithwaite's novel that was made into a movie. But, and I thought about Cheryl Lee Ralph, as well, you know, I know you're friends with them. So, who played a teenager in a piece of the action where Sidney Poitier and Bill Cosby were teaching these young people in this community center. And I think that is much more, that's closer to how I think black people should be thinking

about even Sidney Portier's work. When he had the clout, when he had the power, when he had the platform, he was literally helping us think about culture in a very kind of deep way. And I think a great deal of that, to the point that you're raising, really comes from the nation of his origin, even if not his literal birth, certainly his origin. He was Bahamian through and through. Absolutely. Folks, we're going to go to a break. Here is some of the American Film Institute tribute to the great Sidney Poitier.

And on the flip side, we'll talk with more folks. Dondre Whitfield, we'll talk with actor Isaiah Whitlock and many others as we continue to pay tribute to the life and legacy of Sir Sidney Poitier, who passed away last night at the age of 94. You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered right here on the Black Star Network. How possible was it then, in 1967,

to make a film like that in America? It was close to impossible, primarily because the industry was not ready for such a film. You know? So it took a guy, Stanley Kramer, who said, I would like to make a film like this. Not because it's going to be sensational, not because it's going to be provocative, Kramer, who said, I would like to make a film like this. Not because it's going to be sensational, not because it's

going to be provocative, but because I'm a filmmaker in America, and this is a part of America. It is a part of America. And if I use this format, I could speak to the humanity in people. So he sent me a script. I read it, and I thought it was a wonderful idea. Terrific idea for the time.

Seen with my dad who had difficulties with what was about to happen. It was interesting for me because I have a dad, you know, a guy that I loved a great deal. him as my emotional reference when I was speaking to my movie dad, played by Roy Glenn, fine actor. It wasn't easy, but it was a scene that had to be played so I played it as best I could and worked out okay © BF-WATCH TV 2021 Субтитры создавал DimaTorzok ДИНАМИЧНАЯ МУЗЫКА I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom.

I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom.

I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom.

I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm going to go to the bathroom. It ain't just about hurting black folk. Right. You got to deal with it. It's injustice. It's wrong. I do feel like in this generation, we've got to do more around being intentional and resolving conflict. You and I have always agreed. Yeah.

But we agree on the big piece. Yeah. Our conflict is not about destruction. Conflict's going to happen. © BF-WATCH TV 2021 ¶¶ here in the nation's capital where our new studios are located. Sidney Poitier was very much beyond an actor. He also was someone who was extremely involved, Greg Carr, in the Black Freedom Movement. When I interviewed Harry Belafonte for the first time, this is what he— folks, let me know when we have that ready. He shared with me the role that he and Sidney played.

He told a story of them traveling down to the south to deliver about $50,000 or $100,000 to free workers, Greg, in Mississippi. And they landed. They were shooting at their plane and their cars as they were driving off. It was a high-speed chase. And they're in the backseat tossing back and forth. And when they arrived there, Sidney said, he said, man, he said, I will never come with you again to anything like this. But Greg, when they walked into that room and they saw all those young folks who were there registering black folks to vote, standing up to

Jim Crow, Sidney remarked, and Mr. B talked about this in his documentary, but also in his book. He said, this is one of the great things of my life. He was very, very involved in raising money for the movement. Absolutely. Yes, yes, he was. I mean, you know, I was thinking about you this morning, Roland, when we got the news. It occurred that while you were talking to Mr. B yesterday, that this moment of transition was taking place. And you talk about cats that have been lifelong friends. I mean, as you said, when Frederick O'Neill was like, dude, you really don't belong as an actor. You need to leave. And Poitier talked him into letting him stick around at the American Negro Theater to be,

you know, clean up in exchange for acting lessons. He made a friendship with Harry Belafonte, and of course Belafonte, who had family responsibilities, of course, young family at the time, didn't always make practices, and it was a practice

that Belafonte missed that Poitier got his break because he was Belafonte's understudy all the time. So that led to Anna Lucasta. He got to go on the road and the rest was history. But I raised that because they were more than buddies. They were brothers. And so when you're riding with your brother like that through Mississippi, and everybody knows now, at least people should know, of course, the role Harry Belafonte played, they raised money. So while folk are going to the box office and applauding Harry Belafonte and going to the movies, they are raising money. They are putting in their own money. When Malcolm X was killed, was assassinated, you know, Poitier, Ruby Dee, Ozzie Davis, Harry Belafonte put money together to make sure Betty Shabazz and the girls had a place to stay.

I mean, he didn't have to wear a sign. The people who knew, knew. And his activism is a book called Stars for Freedom that talks about the 1963 March on Washington. And, of course, we just heard the prime minister talk about a critical moment in the post-colonial history of the Caribbean where Sidney Poitier weighs in. Well, he's doing the same thing in the United States of America. For Martin Luther King, for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, for the Student Nonviolent

Coordinating Committee, to be able to rely on a Sidney Poitier means more than any of us can ever know. And all we have to do, as you have done over the course of your career, is talk to the people who lived it. If you want to know the contribution Sidney Poitier made to the Black Power movement, the civil rights movement, you don't look for that in the books for people looking through archives. You go to ask the people who were putting their lives on the line what it meant to get

money, to get contacts, to get protection, for him to say a word in a space. Sidney Poitier, yeah, it's hard to even describe the role that Sidney Poitier played in that movement. In fact, to understand how close those two are, Sidney Poitier would have been 95 years old on February 20th of this year. Harry Belafonte's birthday is nine days later, March 1st, when he will be 95 years old. This is the clip, some of what Harry Belafonte had to say in my interview with him several years ago that we aired on TV One. In your book, you also offered some advice to artists. And you talked about their responsibility and how they have the voice, the platform to address these social, cultural issues. Assess this generation of artists, black or white,

and are they as involved as you would want them to be on some of the critical issues facing this country and this world? From my perspective, by no stretch of the imagination can I say that the cultural community, the arts community, is anywhere near a commitment to the cultural community, the arts community, is anywhere near a commitment to doing things about changing the pain that exists in a lot of different levels socially.

My mentor, Paul Robeson, once said to me that it was a great adventure that I and others were embarking on. So when I was quite young, Ozzie Davis and Ruby Dee and Sidney Poitier, all listening to our mentor speak when he came to see a play that we were doing. And he said, you know, artists are the gatekeepers of the truth, are the gatekeepers of truth. And it is through you that people are going to be instructed about not only where they came from, but where we should be going. And I think if you look at great art, if you look at art that is in the service of social need, you'll find that the greatness of literature, the greatness of fine arts painting, all those

things came from men and women of consciousness who tried to better the plight of human beings. In that context, I've often looked upon the power that we have in what comes out of celebrity. When I first went to Japan to sing, and I found myself before 50,000 Japanese trying to sing the banana boat song, I really understood power. I said, my god, here I am in a strange place with a bunch of people that I didn't know anything about except adversarially because of the war. And I said, here they were singing my song. And what do you do with this platform besides harvest money? How do you use this platform to impart a sense of our common humanity?

And I think art that does that has been art that serves us well. And in my generation, we had a large number of people who stepped to the plate, whether it was Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, or it was Richie Havens, or it was Josh White, or it was Lead Belly. I mean, a litany of people, Sidney Poitier, all the actors of the period that did what they did. It's always about moving the human family ahead.

And I think that artists have that power and they have the obligation to sending out information and to giving ideas and thoughts to people that will help enrich them and get them out of the quagmire in which we find ourselves. If we draw a line. As one would expect, Mr. B., Harry Belafonte, is certainly taking the passing of his comrade in arms very hard.

I did reach out to him and his family and offer an opportunity for him to join us on tonight's show to share his thoughts. And, of course, whenever he's ready to talk, if he wants to talk, he certainly has an opportunity to come on the show anytime to do so. And so certainly, our thoughts and prayers are not only with the Sidney Poitier family, but all of the folks who were extremely close to him over the years. Joining us right now is actor Dondre Whitfield. Joins us from Los Angeles. Dondre, glad to have you on the show. This is not an easy day for Hollywood,

but definitely for black Hollywood. Ro, good to be with you, but really saddened why we're getting together. I'm very emotional because Brother Sidney was, you know, we're fathered

by so many different men in our lives as men to get us to come to the kind of manhood that we're required to come to. And so it's not just your biological father that fathers you. There are a myriad of men that should come into your life to play an important role to matriculate you into manhood. And while I didn't have a personal relationship with Brother Sidney, he fathered me in some great ways. What he taught me was that I could not only have great activism in my life outside of my home, but I can have activism in my work as well. And what we heard from Brother Belafonte talking

about how artists are the truth keepers, we absolutely are that. And I am saddened that be lacking enough of artists, men in particular, and this is no disrespect to any of my sisters, but right now I really have to speak to the kind of men that we're talking about right now in this particular cloth, where we seem to be lacking those that walk with that same spirit, that walk with that same intention. And I'm also angered by the fact that we have all of this power, all this collective power, but we seem to be influencing a generation to, as Brother Belafonte said, harvest riches, harvest money. What else do you do with that platform? And so for me, Brother Sidney was one of those that served as an example that not only was it okay for me to do something with that platform? But in fact, I had a responsibility to do so.

As you were talking, I thought about Jamie Foxx telling the story after he portrayed Ray Charles. And he was winning everything. And he was, and then of course he goes on to win the Oscar. I mean, he is living it up. He is partying. He is, I mean, he is going buck wild. And Oprah Winfrey and Sidney Poitier go and sit down with him and explain to him the responsibility that he now has.

And he said it completely altered his perspective. That's also the kind of, as you say, fathering, if you will, that Sidney Poitier made sure to do. Yeah, it's so, I mean, I'm honestly having a tough time breathing because in this moment, in losing such a pioneer, such a stalwart in Brother Sidney, it makes me, look, he played some great characters on the screen, but in this time we should be focusing on the great character that he had off the screen.

And I struggle to think of brothers like that that are even my own peers. I struggle to think of many. There are a handful that I look to, you know, and even in this industry, I mean, of course, you being one of them, and we often have these kinds of conversations, but it saddens me that I don't have or that we don't have a bigger stable of men that feel like this is their responsibility. I feel like we're having the kinds of conversation about how to get at the bag. And, and I hate those kinds of conversations because what it seems to suggest is, is that our lives are really about how we garner more in order to get clothes and shoes and, and jewelry and cars and, and,

and, and, you know, and make these live posts on Instagram about how we're living it up as opposed to how we impact the lives. Brother Sidney had no idea that he was impacting me, but he was. And that's why every single day when I walk through this life, I know that I have to walk in a very specific way because I know that I'm

impacting someone's life. I have to walk in a very specific way because I know that I'm impacting someone's life. I have no idea who that is. I just know that that is what it is. And so I have that responsibility. And so given this platform, I know that my maker intended me to do something very specific with that. And, you know, I've been asked on occasion, what's the greatest role that you've ever played in your life? And I always say the role that I play as a man, because not throwing shade at anyone, and we don't have to name any specific names. I'm sure that we can come up with quite a few, But there are example after example of brothers who have not walked in a very specific way,

and it has tainted and tarnished things that they've done in their career, even their great works of philanthropy, based on the things or the missteps that they have taken in walking this life out as a man. And so our activism has to be not only off screen, but on screen. And those are some of the greatest lessons that I took from Brother Sidney's life. And I'm so glad that you intertwined both Brother Harry and Brother Sidney, because they are great examples that I look to every single day about how I better walk my life out every single day. Donjee Whitfield, I appreciate it, brother. Thanks for joining us on Roland Martin Unfiltered to honor Sidney Poitier.

Love you, Brother Roe. I appreciate you. Appreciate it as well. Thanks a lot, my brother. Say hello to the wife, Sally, and to that golfing son of yours. Yes, sir. All right, then. Folks, Tim Reed, comedian, actor, director, producer, studio owner.

He's done it all. He joins us right now right here on Roland Martin Unfiltered. Tim, always good to see you, my fellow Alpha brother. Yes, brother. How are you? I'm doing great. Just share your thoughts and reflections about Sidney Poitier. Well, we lost a giant and we gained an ancestor. I loved him. The first time I ever had an

opportunity to be in a film, even very briefly, was Uptown Saturday Night, and he cast me in a very small part, opening of the credits. But just the short time I was with him and over the years since I've had the pleasure of seeing him or having a chance to talk to him, I always walked away with a sense of this is what it's like. This is the grandeur. You know, he has gravitas. This is the kind of person that I want to pattern as much of my life as I possibly can as a man, not just as an actor. He and Harry and those kinds of people, you know, for a little colored kid raised in segregation and dreaming upon dreams, seeing these people on television, and then having the pleasure to sit next to them and talk and meet them has been one of the greatest

blessings that I've had in my life. You mentioned that comedic role of his that he also directed in, and that's what I also just loved about him. Again, you watch people talk about the serious roles, but when you look at those movies, him and Bill Cosby together were absolutely hilarious. In fact, I do want to read this. Let me know if you guys have the graphic. This was the statement that was sent to us from the publicist of Bill Cosby.

He said he was honored by AFI and along with many stars of stage and screen politics and higher education who came out to speak. I brought with me the paperback of his autobiography and I said of all groundbreaking movies that Sidney starred in, this book is the real story of this man and his journey. I am honored to have been close enough to him

and work on serious matters. The two of them in those trilogy of films, two of them obviously extremely funny, one funny and serious, but we got to see the comedic aspect of Sidney Poitier. Yeah, he had a great sense of humor. I mean, you know, we always see him and think of him in these serious roles. But person to person, you know, he had a great sense of humor and he was fun to be with. And in just general conversation, you know, he had always had this smile that sort of just, you know, relaxed you and made you feel that you could you could actually be yourself. And it would be back and forth. It was that part of him.

But he had a great sense of humor. He certainly did. Tim, I appreciate you joining us, sharing a few words with us about Sidney Poitier. Be sure to tell your lovely wife, Daphne, I said hello. Will do. And thank you, Ro. Appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Folks, young actor, many say is following the footsteps of Sidney Poitier, is Sterling K. Brown.

He joins us on the phone right now. Sterling, thanks for coming on. Roland Martin on the filter to talk about Sidney Poitier. Mr. Martin, thank you so very much for having me. It is an honor and a pleasure to be here to discuss this great man. What does Sidney Poitier mean to you? Class personified. Someone who not only showed you how to conduct yourself in front of the camera or on set,

but also someone to show you how to conduct yourself in this business, how to sort of make sure that you were trying to put your best foot forward in making sure that the people that you represented, be that your family, your community, your race, felt good about what they were seeing when they saw you and the work that you did. I asked Debbie Allen this question. I mean, when people were in the room and he walked in, the room shifted. Yes. It changed. Absolutely. There's a presence. There is a respect for someone who was the first of so many things um you know it's funny because people will talk talk to me about you know the first person to to win a SAG award in this category or or Golden Globe but I'm like nah I'm just I stand on the shoulders of giants

in a time in which the industry really only permitted a couple of people. There was Sidney. There was Mr. Belafonte. But, like, there wasn't a lot of folks who we could look to for representation. And the fact that he was in those rooms, that he had respect in those rooms, that so many people would say, like, you know, well, we don't open movies across seas or whatever. But he could do to serve with love. Like, he was the exception. He was exceptional. It is right that when he walks into a room,

people take notice. They stand still and they give their respect. First time you met him, what do you recall? I never got a chance to meet him. I have been in his presence. Let me say, I was too nervous. I didn't have chance to meet him. I have been in his presence. So let me say, hey, I was too nervous. I didn't have someone formally introduce me.

I am so serious. Nah, bro. Nah. Let me tell you something, Sterling. I tell everybody, ain't no guarantee you ever going to be in a room again. Man. That's the truth. My whole deal.

This is a room again. That's the truth. Man, my whole deal, this is a true story. 2012, we find out that Harry Belafonte and Sidney Poitier are going to present an award at the NAACP Image Awards. Guys, that's photo one. Pull it up, please. And so I called Ben Jealous, who was then the CEO of NAACP. He tells me it's true. I then called Mr. B. And so I called Ben Jealous, who was then the CEO of NAACP. He tells me it's true. I then called Mr. B.

I said, yo, I ain't never met Sidney Poitier. I want to meet him. So when they walk out on stage, everybody stands up. Everybody stands up. And that's the photo right there, 2012. Everybody stands up and they're cheering. I get up from my seat and I go backstage because I don't know how long he's going to be there after the award.

So Sterling, I go backstage and I'm waiting. And so I walk up and Harry goes, Sidney, Roland Martin. And I said, Mr. Poitier, good to meet you. He goes, no, we met before. When? When? I look at him. Poitier, good to meet you. He goes, no, we've met before.

When? When? And I look at him. I'm like, no, we have not. He says, oh, yes, we have. You and I have met through television. And he then goes on to talk about and he's talking about how much he enjoys my work

now I'm like man I'm talking about your work okay I'm now about to share with you a story I have never told publicly let's do it the next year at the NAACP image awards they honor Harry Belafonte.

Okay. So I go back, you know, I'm sitting on the front row. I've got, I've taken, y'all, a roll of photos, photos too. I'm taking photos. And so there's a photo of the two of them on stage. I shot that photo. I'm on the floor. So when it was over, I didn't go backstage.

No, guys, that's 2012. The next batch of backstage. No, guys, that's 2012. The next batch of photos. No, that's that right there. Okay, hold that photo right there. So I go backstage. So he was more frail a year later, Sterling. Sure. So we're walking out, and Mr. B got his cane.

He's in front of me. And Mr. Poudet's to my left, and he and I are talking. And then all of a sudden, he stumbles. And I catch him. I catch him. And so my left hand is in the middle of his back, and my right hand is holding his right arm. And I'm holding him up, and I'm walking him backstage.

And then we walk into his car, and I hand him him up and I'm walking him backstage and then we walk into his car and I hand him over to his assistant. This is February 1st, 2013. So two weeks later, Sterling, two weeks later. Yes, sir. I mean, he said, my phone rings, TV one, Roland. Sidney Portier's office is trying to reach you. And I was like, well, give him my number.

And so like five or six people are calling me. They're calling me. And I'm like, yo, what's the deal? I said, give me his number. So I give him my number. Mr. Sterling, this is what happens. He answers the phone. He says, he thanks that.

He said, thank you for calling. He begins the phone. He says, he thanks that, he said, thank you for calling. And then he begins to talk. And he says, you were really effective. So I don't know why he's calling me. So I'm a reporter. So I got my computer. And so I'm just sort of like typing. He goes, you really were effective.

My situation that night. I have this heart thing. I get them from time to time. As a matter of fact, I'm quite close to doing something about it, which has to do with surgery. I did try to reach you to let you know how deeply appreciative I was and still am from what you did on that evening. But this is where he made me cry, Sterling.

Give it to me. He says, and I'm trying to hold it back now. This is what Sidney Poitier says to me. This is February 15th, 2013. Okay. He says, I watch you constantly on the show that you work on. And I find your point of view on issues that are very immediate in the lives of all Americans. And you're quick of mind.

And you are a very, very, very reliable person. Your intellectual disposition is many layered. And you do a great job. You handle the words. The alphabetic word. You handle them with great aplomb. And you express things clearly. And you've got more than your share of guts.

I just have an appreciation of how you conduct life. And he ends it by saying, but you do it with such grace and you're not a backer upper. Bruh. The only, I'm going to tell you right now, the only reason I was just not streaming tears is because I've been trained to go into reporter mode where you remove emotions and you just sort of just work as a reporter.

Bruh. Yes, sir. That's beautiful. That's amazing. Had I not said, no, I'm going to meet him. That's why, man, I tell everybody, hey, if they in the room, I'm going to meet them. The lesson has been learned. Consider the lesson learned.

You schooled Brother Brown on this evening. I thought I was calling to speak about brother 48, but brother Martin had something to say to brother Brown and it has been received. Thank you, man. Beautiful, beautiful story.

I had never shared that publicly. I didn't want to share any of his health issues. Um, yeah. And, and I'm telling man, I was just, I was blocked. I was blown.

He was just calling to thank me for catching him. And he shared that. And Sterling, I can't even just, brother, I just, you know, and that's how he was. And so if y'all show the photo, the last time I saw him from the Oprah event is when she had the Legends Ball. Selma came out. This was December 2014. And this

photo we're showing right now is at the house. And so when they had a, it was a brunch and I saw him. And again, he's this tall, big man and he sees me and he just throws his arms out and then just hugs me. And this smiles on his face. And then we took this selfie right here. And man, it was just, it was just, man, amazing. Just, man, just to be in that brother's presence. I'm telling, listen, I'm still struck by the words that he used in describing you, because those are words that I would use in describing him. And to have someone like him who embodies all those things

and for him to see them in you, I'm crying for you. You can be a reporter. I'll shed a tear or two on your back. That's beautiful. My brother, man, I appreciate it. Again, he was a giant. He'll be missed. But with his books, with his movies,

with the TV shows, all of that, we have a whole lot to share with future generations about Sidney Poitier. Amen, brother. Thank you for having me, Mr. Martin. I'll talk to you soon. I appreciate it, my brother. Tell the wife I said hello. You got it. Peace. All right, man. Take care. Greg Carr, we're almost done with this tribute. We're gonna chat with Reggie Hutland in just a moment. But I'm telling you, Greg, it was,

and I'm a firm believer in that. I don't care who it is. I'm gonna get to them. I'm gonna say hello. I'm gonna shake they hand. I mean, it don't matter. I, hey, I mean, I there people I I'm in all them. I see them but I never take for granted that you might be in the room with them a second time

Man, if you got that I tell him this is what I mean. In fact in nabj Greg You know, I've been this is 1989. We were founded in December of 1975. I remember one year I got the President's Award and I stood up and I said, I said, y'all, I'm an alpha. And we have, there's never an event where we never recognize the seven jewels. I said, we should never have an event

where we don't recognize the 44 founders of NABJ. Because many of them at the time were still living. And we're losing them. We're losing many of our founders as each year go by. And so I say to everybody, when you come upon an elder, I don't care where I am. If Andrew Young is there, Reverend Jackson is there, when C.T. Vivian was alive, when John Lewis, I don't care. I

never took for granted that I was in the same room with them. I always walk up to them and pay homage. You have to. And you just gave us a master class in how to do it. While everybody's standing on their feet, you make a beeline to backstage, because you know he's not going

to be sitting there for that whole thing. That's the technique, brother. That's born from experience. My mother, Fisk gave Mr. B an honorary degree, now the faculty you're on. And she stepped out in the middle of commencement and was like, give mother a hug. Because like gave Mr. B an honorary degree, now the faculty you're on, and she stepped out in the middle of commencement and was like, give mother a hug. Because like several generations now of black women, not just black women, but I'm thinking now about black women, Harry Belafonte and Sidney Poitier were their imaginary boyfriends in their mind. So, I'm sure there have been any number of folk who did what you did

to Sidney Poitier, but to the point you're raising, you did it because you never know. You don't. Again, thinking about, I mean, we can't obviously, in even a long special, go through all his body of work, but even mentioning a piece of the action again, and that, that,

that trilogy, um, you know, folks, again, the white stream media will mention, you know, in the heat of the night, they call me Mr. Tibbs, the organization, that trilogy, but that trilogy of Uptown Saturday night and a piece of the action and let's do it again. It was Portier's comedy, but he played the straight man. Which is hilarious. The hypnotist, all that stuff. But the reason

I'm raising that is because, and I almost forgot about this until a second ago, remember it was James Earl Jones who forced Cosby and Poitier to go teach those kids in a piece of the action. And that made me think, wait, James Earl Jones is still here. I mean, so you never know.

In fact, I've never been in the same room with James Earl Jones. And seriously, I'm like, yo, I never got to meet Ossie Davis, never got to meet Gordon Parks, and I've always wanted to meet James Earl Jones. I've never been in the same room with him. And that's why I said this thoroughly. Hey, man, I don't care. I'm telling you right now.

Hey, I'm telling you right now. If I was on the streets of D.C. Yes, sir. And James Earl Jones, when I saw he was getting in the car. We already know. I would stop traffic. Hell no. Y'all ain't moving. I'm going to shake your hand. I getting in the car. We already know. I would stop traffic. Hell no.

Y'all ain't moving. I'm going to shake your hand. I ain't. I was in the middle. Traffic will stop. I'm going to say hello and say, brother, thank you for all that you've done. No question. Hey, man, I just want to say this to you right quick, Roland, as well.

Tonight, you've added another special as you pay tribute to these new ancestors. I mean, this is one of your fortes. And I just want to, I was listening to our sister Debbie Allen, ever the master teacher, helping those young people understand. And I just wanted to say to you that this intergenerational convening, particularly when you had Brother Whitfield and then Sterling Brown on, Sterling K. Brown, it helps us understand that we have an obligation to share with young people who these folk are. And, you know, maybe those children in Debbie Allen's class today may not have heard of Sidney Poitier before today, but they were impacted by him, even in ways we might not think.

Remember, was it Let's Do It Again, where they had Jimmy Walker and all that? Remember the two characters, John Amos, Brick City's John Amos, played 40th Street Mac, and Calvin Lockhart played a character named Biggie Smalls. Now, these young people don't even realize that that name came out of Sidney Poitier and Bill Cosby.

They were never associated. But tonight, there's nobody else that's going to do what you did, brother. There's going to be tributes pouring out, and they are from everywhere. But tonight, this is black folks. To the world. Not just for black folks, but to the world. But it's unique, brother. And I

want to thank you for doing this, man. I appreciate it. I sat there today and I watched mainstream news. I looked at, yeah, packages were done. But truth be told, folks, truth be told, there's no reason in the world we didn't see wall-to-wall coverage. There's no reason we didn't see panels. There's no reason we didn't see far more than that because there are not many folks in Hollywood alive on the level of Sidney Poitier.

Yeah. And when I say not many, I'm talking about less than on one hand. I mean, you know. I can't think of anybody wrong. I mean, look, Gene Hackman is still out, Robert Duvall, but again, Sidney Poitier was heads and shoulders above. But Hackman and Duvall, or any of them, for example, another example, just what we're talking about,

the relationship between black women and black men. Right. In a warm December, he had the Jamaican actors, Esther Anderson played a couple. For the love of Ivy, he had Abby Lincoln. They were a couple. Uptown Saturday Night, Rosalind Cash, let's do it again, Lee Chamberlain. Even

the way they modeled the relationship between black women and men. No white actor in Hollywood did that. I can't think of anybody rolling, quite frankly, who would take a seat there. You're right. This should be wall-to-wall comedy. So, I want everybody to understand when you hear Greg's

brother, Reverend Carr, say in our promo, bring your eyeballs home, tonight is a prime example of why Roland Martin Unfiltered was created after TV One canceled News One Now. And it's a prime reason why I created Black Star Network. Folks, there is no other place. Our tribute began two hours ago on Sidney Poitier. I can't even tell y'all the people who I reached out to

who couldn't come on for a variety of reasons. Run the list down, I reached out to them. And so this is why again, what does that Freedom's Journal say? We wish to plead our own cause, too long have others spoken for us. Mainstream media has not given Sidney his

just due today and tonight. But that's why we did this. There'll be more next week. The others who are still reaching out. People have been outpouring on social media But I want everybody watching Share this video Because what you heard tonight from all of the folks here the people who met him the people who didn't meet him

Was someone who is again? Hollywood royalty who is an, who is a history maker. He was an actor, he was an activist, he was a director, he was a diplomat, he was a proud black man. And so I appreciate everyone who joined us tonight to pay tribute to the life and legacy of Sidney Portway. There will be more. I didn't realize that. We got one more. I didn't realize that he was on.

Actor, Mr. Sheed. Isaiah Whitlock, how you doing, Doc? How you doing, man? I'm all good. Just share with us, you do take us home. Share with us your thoughts about the great Sidney Poitier. You know, it was very heartbreaking when I heard that he had passed away today. And it was very sad. A lot of emotions and things ran through my whole body about when I first started watching his films.

Inspiration he was to me as far as my career. Watching Guess Who's Coming to Dinner with my mom and Studebaker Lark at the drive-in really made me want to be an actor. And it was incredible, the inspiration that he had for me, not just for me, but for other actors. And I was stunned, but we all got to go, I guess. Absolutely true. It's a question of how we live our life. And the reality is I heard a preacher once say the hardest eulogy to preach is that of an irrelevant Negro. He said it's hard to preach a eulogy of somebody who went through life, who left no fingerprints and left no footprints.

And the reality is, even though Sidney is now an ancestor, the body of his work is what will live on. So the reality is Sidney physically is no longer here, but he will always be here. Yeah, he will never, ever be forgotten. Some of the roles and things like that were just iconic. And the people that he touched uh and he was kind of like he was kind of like the brown uh the uh groundbreaker i mean he was when i remember sydney he was all we had that was all we had uh there was not much more. And so to see him work.

I never got a chance to meet him, unfortunately, but I feel blessed. Indeed. Well, Isaiah, we appreciate your work and all that you do, and we certainly thank you for joining us to share a few words about Sidney Poitier. You bet. Thank you. It's always good to see you. Yes, my brother.

Thanks a lot. Folks, that is it for us. Please, we want you to download. In fact, we've crossed 25,000 downloads of the Black Star Network app. We appreciate all the folks who have done so. Now we want to go after the next 25,000. So please download the app on all available platforms, Apple phone, Android phone, Apple TV, Android TV, Roku, Amazon Fire Stick, Xbox, and also Samsung Smart TV.

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Zelle is roland at rolandsmartin.com. Roland at rolandmartinunfiltered.com. Greg Carr, always a pleasure. You joining with us, sharing your historical perspective when we lose one of our elders, when they become ancestors. And, folks, again, we hope that you share this video, spread it around. People spend a whole lot of time. It's amazing when I see them sharing lots of clips of stuff they see on CNN, on MSNBC, shows that other black folks host.

But share this. Spread this. Send folks this tribute. We'll be restreaming this all weekend as we continue to show our appreciation for that great Bahamian, the brother, like no other, who said, call me Mr. Tibbs. Nope. In fact, we call him Sir Sidney Poitier. Folks, we pray for his family. Thanks a bunch.

We'll see you on Monday. Have a good weekend. © BF-WATCH TV 2021 I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad.

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