#RolandMartinUnfiltered - John Hope Bryant; Andrew Young; Chicago treasurer talks pension funds; honoring Gen. Colin Powell.

Episode Date: October 23, 2021

10.22.21 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: John Hope Bryant; Andrew Young; Chicago treasurer talks pension funds; honoring Gen. Colin Powell. The HOPE Global Forum hosted nearly 5,000 in-person & virtual leaders dedicated to empowering poor and underserved communities. This year's theme "Meeting the Moment," focused on racial & economic inclusion as well as how to thrive in a post-Covid economy. We sat down with some economic influencers who are changing the world a day at a time.#RolandMartinUnfiltered partners:Nissan | 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/3iP9zkvBuick | 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. Today is Friday, October 22nd, 2021. Coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered, streaming live on the Black Star Network from Atlanta. John Hope Bryan, he is the founder of Operation Hope. This week we will be in Atlanta with him for the eighth annual Hope Global Forum. We'll talk with John about what he achieved this week and also how he wants to lead an economic renaissance

for African Americans and other minorities with Operation Hope. Also folks, we have a fantastic interview with legendary, iconic Ambassador Andrew Young, former US Congressman, former UN Ambassador, former Mayor of Atlanta. We talk about civil rights, talk about Dr. King, we talk about mission in life and purpose.

First of all, he's amazing, smart, but also hilarious, you don't want to miss him. Also, folks, Melissa Conyers-Irving, she is the first elected city treasurer in Chicago. We talked about how she is using the power of her office to ensure that African Americans are getting their fair share of private equity dollars and over the $9 billion pensions in the city of Chicago.

Also, of course, Ryan Williams, the co-founder and CEO of The Gathering Spot, a private club operating here in Atlanta, D.C., is going to be opening in L.A. and how he's trying to connect people all across the globe. Also on today's show, I moderated one panel this week about action that should be taken in the C-suite. We'll talk with and hear from the CEO of Georgia Power and a top official of the National Urban League. Also, a fantastic panel discussion between John O'Brien and Lisa Osborne Ross,

who is the CEO of the powerhouse PR firm Edelman. She cut to the chase, honest and straightforward. Don't want to miss that conversation. And, of course, folks, we'll show you the interview that I did 10 years ago with retired General Colin Powell when I was with TV One and when he was being honored by the NAACP. Of course, he passed away this week. And so, we look back at that conversation.

Folks, it is time to bring the funk on Roland Martin Unfiltered, the Black Star Network. Let's go. 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. Rolling with rolling now. He's funky, he's fresh, he's real, the best

you know, he's Roland Martin now. Martin! Alright folks, glad to have you here on Roland Martin Unfiltered. This week in Atlanta, Hope Global Forum, the eighth annual Hope Global Forum, sponsored by Operation Hope, took place here because of COVID. They did not have the normal 5,000 folks here. But John Hope Bryan, who's the founder of Operation Hope,

we sat down and talked about how this week was important in terms of moving their vision forward to achieve economic social justice for African Americans and other minorities. Here's our conversation. All right, John. So, Global Hope, Hope Global Forum over. This was a

totally different experience than the previous seven. You didn't have it last year. We had it virtual. It's all virtual. It was all virtual last year, but this year it was a hybrid. So your thoughts? Well, I think from the feedback I've gotten, I think it was spectacular for the audience, which is what it's all about, to inspire people. It was a different model. With COVID and the Delta variant coming out, we didn't want to take any chances on anybody's health.

Yours, Ambassador Andrew Young, the last living senior lieutenant to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., 89 years young, doesn't want to take any chances. I'd be devastated if I did something to impair his health. And he had billionaires next to millionaires, next to thousandaires, next to somebody trying to buy some air. I mean, it was every white, black, red, blue, CEOs of the biggest companies in the world.

90% of these speakers decided to come in personally. We gave them a choice between virtual or in person. And to my utter amazement, they said they wanted to show up. And the few who didn't show up, it was a scheduling conflict. Even Reggie Jackson was trying until late last night trying to get here. So I think that given that we went from all virtual in a few months in 2020 to we're going to do a meeting mostly in person, then Delta variant hit. We moved back to mostly virtual. We thought it would be 20% in person and 80% virtual. And it actually flipped, at least on the speaker side, to 80 to 90% in person. The rest was virtual. We then had to make a decision about the audience, about the delegates. We've had 5,000 plus delegates before.

We decided to crunch that down, shrink that down to 400. Actually it was 300. We actually ended up accepting 800 RSVPs because everybody was somebody we, or at least they thought we couldn't say no to them. We don't argue over somebody else's importance. You wanna be here, we want you here. And it worked out beautifully.

Wasn't too crowded, enough for warmth. We talked about this. But you had, we had these labels. I think it was green for you can hug me or shake my hand. It was yellow for fist kick or elbow. And red was stay the hell back. Red was, I'm good. Stay, wave, wave.

And it just really, people respected everybody's distance. It was really quite beautiful. Three days of magic in a bottle. I had to one post, we were live for all three days of magic in a bottle. I had to one post. We were in live for all three days. It's an honor to have you here, by the way. Always glad to be here. Brother posted, he said, what does this do? He said, what's the value?

What comes out of this? Answer that question. What is the value? The value is the young brother who walked up to me on my way to this interview who said, this just changed my life. He said, I didn't think that anybody thought like me. I thought I was out here in the wilderness all by myself trying to be an entrepreneur, trying to be a black man in tech, technology, trying to be an entrepreneur, trying to be a black man in tech, technology, trying

to own a business, trying to create jobs in my community, thinking that social justice could be achieved economically. But I'm thinking I'm by myself. He came from Birmingham, Alabama at the recommendation of somebody else. He created a $2 million startup in tech. Even though he raised $2 million, he's a young black man, he clearly, as I looked in his eyes, had what it took to succeed. He felt like he was all alone. He said today, being here the last three days, completely transformed his confidence,

his belief in himself, his self-esteem. You know, we're not islands. We are interconnected. We're not human beings having a spiritual experience. We're spiritual beings having a human experience. Energy matters. We just talked about energy off camera. Giving people permission to dream. You know, you and I were growing up,

capitalism was a dirty word. You go to church, making money was a dirty word. What we are learning is money's not evil, it's the love of money that's evil. What we're learning is that capitalism's not bad. It's bad capitalism, like slavery, which was bad capitalism. That's evil. And it's good to see three days of consistency.

Black, white, rich, poor. You don't know what political party they're from. Everybody's saying the same thing. And they're saying what they're doing. So this is not some kumbaya party. $100 million committed by Twitter. That's gone to black banks. Well, that's material. The profits from that created five hope inside locations of Operation Hope inside of black banks. That's material. SunTrust CEO showing up. Sorry, Truist CEO, formerly SunTrust, Bill Rogers today,

announcing we're gonna be in a thousand Truist branches for Hope Inside. That's unbelievable. They only have 2,000 branches. Not only, they have 2,000 branches, making us 50% of all branches. When you create these events, you create a timeline. You create a deadline.

You create a sense of expectation that, okay, I need to do something by that date because I'm going to be held publicly accountable. We call this an annual meeting for the people. And because Operation Hope is owned by the people, because we're a nonprofit, the public has a right to know what we're doing with their money that is invested in Operation Hope. They also have a right to know what's going on with their money that is invested in Operation Hope.

They also have a right to know what's going on with these corporations and the government. This is a public accounting. And there was one commitment made tonight, today, by Airbnb's co-founder to help to bring in I think it's 20,000 Afghan refugees, to put them in Airbnb homes. Operation Hope is going to put them in Airbnb homes. Operation Hope is gonna help him with that. There was a commitment made, well, T.D. Jakes reported out on what he's doing in Atlanta to bring, he's a developer here in Atlanta,

Bishop T.D. Jakes, right next to Tyler Perry's studio. Unbelievable what he's gonna be doing on those acreage right next to the military facility that Tyler Berry took over. I'm just thinking about all of the people who came here, Tony Ressler, Atlanta Hawks, talking about what they're doing to get blacks into the pipeline through the HBCUs. So this is not a talk fest.

This is not a brag fest. This is not a brag fest. This is a do fest. And it's about holding folks publicly accountable, but also celebrating those who succeed. See, I think the biggest. And we raised $50 grand of venture capital for a new black inventor on a pitch event two nights ago, right off the floor.

Actually, we raised $150,000 for her. I started it with 50,000. 100,000 joined her. See, the thing for me when we talk about accountability, you know, we've dealt with all of these big announcements in the post-death of George Floyd. Yep. And, you know, I've had these meetings with people

who have made these announcements and commitments to black owned media. And what I've said in my conversations to them is, I'm not praising you for press releases. When you actually do it is when I'll praise you. And I was talking to the CMO of General Motors and their whole advertising team, Carrot, Dentsu, and I said, I'm gonna just be clear.

I said, because I think one of the things that we have done as African Americans, we have praised folks for small things that made us feel good. Oh, this one brother, us to get a point. Okay, which is great, it's appreciated, but how are you changing it for a multitude of people? And I think that's the thing that for a lot of people,

they don't, they hate the accountability part, but it's necessary because otherwise, it's just announcement after announcement, but it's not tangible and real for the people who are most impacted. Walmart, to that point, Walmart CEO, announced their average employee pay now is 18 bucks an hour and going up.

B of A announced that they went from, well, I don't know where it was, but it's $20 an hour for every employee, including the little, not the little, but the part-time tellers. Now, Roland, they're going a dollar a day per year for five years. Get the average employee paid to $25 an hour. That's material. I mean, everybody in that ball room didn't have a job or who has a cousin, Boo Boo, should have been running out the door trying to get a job at Bank of America at $25 an hour. That's real money.

I mean, what I love about this is everything is trackable. Like, you don't need to take my word for it. Go look for yourself and see what they're doing. Also, I've got four million clients. So I'm not in the conference business. Like, I'm not in the convention business or the forum business. Like I'm not in the convention business or the forum business. I'm in the transformation of life business and the scaled impact business and maximizing human potential. All this is, is a annual accounting of what we've been doing all year round. So it makes us a little different

than most organizations. You have a motivational speaking group and that's what they do you have an Operating nonprofit and that's what they do. We are a bit of a blend we operate on the ground 180 locations in 30 states as you know raise credit scores 54 points in six months 120 points in 24 months Nothing changes your life more than God or love than moving your credit score 120 points in 24 months. Nothing changes your life more than God or love. The move in your credit score, 120 points. Half of black folks have a credit score below 640.

Which means half of us are locked out of the free enterprise system. You can be the nicest person on the planet. Go to church every Sunday. Be gracious and kind. Still can't get a loan to start a small business because that requires a 700 credit score because it's risky credit. Can't get a good mortgage with a good interest rate because that's a 680 credit score. Can't get a decent car loan. That's a 650 credit score. But we don't know what we don't know. It's what we don't know that we don't know that's killing us, but we think we

know. We had a debate on your, well, it was on Twitter and then on your show, about whether there's any benefit to home ownership. What are you talking about? I mean, oh, the bank owns a loan. No, you own the home. You own the home until you default. If you default, then the bank owns a home. But by the way, if you borrowed the money from me, I'd own your home. So that's not a miracle. But if you own the home and you understand financial literacy, which is what we're teaching in these hope inside locations, you own the appreciation, you own the depreciation and you own and you get a write off of every mortgage payment for 20 of the 30 years because most mortgages are interest payments, which means that's the best way to get wealthy in America is owning a home. but only 41% of us are owning a home. So this work on the ground, we created $3.5 billion of homeowners

and small business owners at Operation Hope before we even showed up at a forum. So I could get a little defensive or cocky about, it's not my nature, it's not my style, but about a statement of, gee, is this important? I'd rather reframe it and say, when you got the power, you don't need to use it. I've got nothing to prove.

We prove all that we do every day of our work. This is about you. This is about you. This is about all of you and giving you access to what I already have. But see, here's why, one, why I get the question, why I have no problem even answering the question. Oh, I love it.

Because. I love constructive criticism. Actually, to me, it's not even constructive criticism. What it simply is is, to your point earlier, when you don't know, you don't know. Because part of the problem is that, I dare say, 90%, 95% of the conferences and the gatherings are talk fest.

Well, fair enough. And as somebody who's moderated a lot of these conversations, I'll go on these panels and I will go, okay, we were here last year. Where's the meat? What the hell changed? Right. Why are we having the same conversation this year than we had last year? Right.

And, in fact, I've done, I do sessions now where I say at the outset, okay, we're going to spend, if it's an hour, we're about to spend 10 minutes on the problem. Right. And the other 50 minutes on the solution. That's right. As opposed to normally what happens is 50 minutes on the problem. Admiring the problem. And all is this, is that. We can't do this.

We can't do that. And then it's 10 minutes left, and now you're trying to hurry up to get all five panelists laying out what the solutions are. Because for me, that doesn't help anybody. To me, you should walk away from a conference and be able to implement something short-term immediately. Do you know why we do that, Roland? There's a reason why.

We mean well. Our people are, we've been doing so much with so little for so long, we can almost do anything with nothing. We are an incredible people. When the rules are published and the playing field is level, we kill it. Professional sports, the arts. I mean, we even kill it in tennis, golf, F1 racing, don't know that we don't know. Right. And versus acknowledging and admitting, I'm clueless here.

I need some help because God gave us two ears and one mouth, so we listen twice as much as we talk. We fake it. And, or worse, we specialize in the thing that we can actually control, which is the problem. The problem narrative is easy. It's easy to be a critic, right? So, and here's worse.

There's three mentalities, but this is my book Up From Nothing. A surviving mentality, a thriving mentality, and a winning mentality. Now, anybody looks at you, sees a winner. You knew you were a winner, knew they were a winner before they ever won anything. A winner knew they were a winner

before they ever won anything. And a knew they were a winner before they ever won anything. And a winner is a builder. You've built a company. You've built an infrastructure. You've built a system. You've built a portfolio. You're building your life. You've built a brand up from nothing. And you're infecting everybody. I walked in your studio and everybody's got the same building ethos, the same sense of humor, the same energy, the same sense of love as you do. You're building a character and a culture. The opposite is also true.

You hang around nine broke people, you'll be the 10th. So builders, winners are builders. Then the thriving, that's the middle class. Those are getting people. Get me a promotion, get me access to a country club, get me a vacation, get me right to a country club. Get me a vacation. Get me a right to vote. That's the majority of America. The third group is the problem.

The third group are the folks with a surviving mentality in a thriving world. We talk about who are spectators. Who are spectators. Who are experts at what they are against, not an expert at what they're for.

Now you're admiring the problem because that's what you understand. And when you go into a barbershop in a 700 credit score neighborhood, black or white, they're talking about their ideas and they're talking about how they're gonna move on those things. You go to a barbershop and a 500 credit score,

equal brilliance, but bad culture, they're talking about other people. You go to a winner's barbershop and a 500 credit score equal brilliance but bad culture they're talking about other people you go to a winners winners barbershop here's what I'm doing you go to the barbershop of the way people feel defeated they talk about other people either celebrities or or or people they admire but also often I don't like Joe I don't like I don't like Roland Martin let me tell you something if I don't want to be why don't like, you know, I don't like Roland Martin. Let me tell you something. If Roland, I don't understand people. How could you not like anything here you see? You should just be like, this is amazing. It's cool. You may not even like how he does it or how I do it, but it's like, you know what? They're succeeding. They're killing it. All you should be is that's

fantastic. But if I don't like me, I'm not going to like you. If I don't feel good about me, it's hard for me to feel good about you. If I don't respect me, don't expect me to respect you. If I don't love me, I don't have a clue how to love you. And here's the big one. If I don't have a purpose in my life, I'm going to make your life a living hell. Always great to talk with my man, John. All right, folks, when we come back, my interview with Ambassador Andrew Young.

Man, first of all, it's always great to talk with him, but the stuff that he broke down, civil rights going back to the past and then present, you do not want to miss this conversation right here only on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. ДИНАМИЧНАЯ МУЗЫКА Betty is saving big holiday shopping at Amazon. So now she's free to become Bear Hug Betty. Settle in, kids.

You'll be there a while. Ooh, where you going? Hey, I'm Arnaz J. Black TV does matter, dang it. Hey, what's up, y'all? It's your boy, Jacob Lattimore, and you're now watching Roland Martin right now. Stay woke. Andrew Young has seen a whole lot in his 89 years on this earth. He shared a lot of that with me in our exclusive conversation here in Atlanta at the 8th Annual

Hope Global Forum. Look, there are a lot of people who came out of the Civil Rights Movement and it was about different reasons. Everybody had their own reasons. And one of the things that I've always said about you and appreciate, your deal is about connecting. Yeah, but let me just put it this way, see. I haven't come out of the cell room.

No, no, that's not my point. I mean that Martin's death in 1968, the last time we had a long conversation, he was in New York and it was with Harry Belafonte, John Conyers, Dick Hatcher, and myself, sitting around in his suite after he had made a speech up at Cathedral of St. John the Divine. In fact, I'm going there this Friday

to do a memorial for Dave Dinkins, Saturday. But it was after that, and the whole conversation was, how do we get the energy of this movement into politics? We ought not have to have a thousand people get out in the street, raised in hell, just to get a simple decision made. See, and the answer is that we need to get people elected to public office who come from this movement

and who really will come to us with a consciousness and see what it is we need to do yeah to keep the movement going and of course I'm not even prejudiced I'm just a realist everything that's in this bill that they fussing about with Joe Biden and everybody, that's the sort of thing that Dr. King was talking about in 1968 before he was killed. See, no reason why there isn't free college education in community colleges, no reason why we don't have some kind of aid for children regardless of their wealth or status, that a civilized nation should have universal health care. And Obama, God bless him, got us that. And now we've got to fight to keep it. But I mean, I'm still around, but I've been in the hospital off, you know, maybe three times. But each time, it would have broken me if it hadn't been for

Medicare. Right. Yeah. But you made the point about those who have consciousness, who are in the movement, but who still have the consciousness, they're just simply in another different area. That is the piece that your relationships with corporate America, Delta and Coca-Cola and others, also the connection. That is, your deal is you, you, put it together. Well, that's what Operation Hope is trying to do YOU PUT IT TOGETHER. WELL, THAT'S WHAT OPERATION HOPE IS TRYING TO DO. AND THAT'S, I MEAN, WHEN WE

STARTED SCLC IN 1958, THEY ADOPTED THE SLOGAN TO REDEEM THE SOUL OF AMERICA FROM THE TRIPLE EVILS OF RACISM, WAR, AND POVERTY. WELL, THAT'S what this is about. Redeeming the soul of America from poverty. And homelessness is poverty.

And in Atlanta, half of the people that are on the streets homeless are veterans. And that shouldn't be. Never. See, because. Not with the billions we spend on defense in this country. But the veterans coming back didn't get the personal care. Right. That they could or should have gotten.

They didn't have the institutional connections. See, they joined in school, you know, and they, like I always see this, veterans insurance, see, and my brother gets it because he was a lieutenant in the Navy. And I got put out of ROTC. But it wasn't for misbehavior. I broke my arm when I was four years old.

And I can't turn my hand over because they said it without giving me any anesthesia. And my daddy said, look, these white folks are not going to treat you right. But he rolled up his handkerchief and he said, bite down. He said, it's going to hurt like hell, but it's not going to hurt any less if you holler. He said, so let them fix it and take it like a man. He said, I'm poor. Well, I always thought of that as punishment, segregation. But it kept me out of Korea. You like, appreciate that.

I mean, the Lord works in mysterious ways. I've been kept here for some reason, see, and I just try to do the best I can to find out whatever, what is that reason today that I'm supposed to be here? That's the thing that is, I had a young sister came up to me earlier, and she said, we were here a few years ago. It was another event. And she said, I didn't feel as if I belonged. Why? And she just said, I felt that. And she said, you spoke to me and you said, no, you do. And she said something I told her and I can't remember.

And she came to me and she says, I want you to know that completely altered. I've gone to me and she says, I want you to know that completely altered. I've gone on to do this and this and this. And she said, I wanted to tell you that. She said, because it just, I thought I didn't belong. And you said, no, you do. Yeah, that's exactly. And we all need somebody to tell us that.

Not only do you belong here, but you belong here to do one, two, three, four, five. Right, right. Well, that's what, because she asked me, because I told her, I said, you know, this. I told her, I said, when I launched this, people told me I was crazy. Show had gotten canceled, TV won. They said, what do you want? Go get a job, go to CNN, MSNBC. I said, no. I said, we need something that's black, that's ours, that we control, and I don't have to ask somebody's permission to go cover. And I told her, I said, we started small,

we had different cameras, we had smaller lights, but we grew, I said, to have this footprint, but the whole point is, the mission has never changed. That is, let's serve our people and give them information. Well, let me say something that I think we ought not let brother Colin Powell go past without being celebrated. Oh, I did. I did a whole hour and a half celebration on the show and we're going to do another one because what to that point. But you know, when he came here, I was the mayor and he was the general in charge of Fort McPherson,

and I never paid much attention to Fort McPherson until I realized that they had nine black generals out there at one time. Wow. And I said, what are they there for? Well, they were in charge of the entire United States Armed Forces in North and South America, Europe and Africa and the Middle East. Everything was run out of Atlanta. And he was in charge. And I never paid much attention but he called me and said you know I really would think like you to go down to Fort Benning and he said we're graduating about 1,500 young officers non non-commissioned officers, sergeants. And he said, we got a sergeant school down there.

We're training sergeants from all over the world. He said, I wish you would go down there and talk to them. And lo and behold, I did. But they put me through just about everything. I was younger then and in much better shape. I did everything but jump out of a parachute. And I said, no, that's George Bush's thing. I'm perfectly safe on the ground.

But he saw himself as a part of this community. See, that's why I read an article. Even though he was general. I read an article the other day. And Kevin Powell, who's our frat brother, and I disagree with him in this. He said he felt that Colin Powell did not embrace his blackness, was not a part of us.

He's full of shit. And I spread the argument. He is full of shit. And I spread the argument. He is full of shit. I'm like, Kevin, I disagree with you. But he, look, this man knew who he was. You can't grow up in the Bronx and think you something else. And, well, I happen to have been on the committee that got President Carter to appoint Clifford Alexander as the Secretary of the Army. And President Carter gave Clifford Alexander the suggestion that the command officers in the military ought to look just like the soldiers.

And he said, when you start appointing generals, he said, we ought to have about the same percentage of black generals as we have black soldiers and he just made that casual comment and cliff took it seriously and they sent about 10 or 12 lists and cliff would look down the list and see how many black generals they were and he'd send it back not enough Bob Brown told me he did that when he worked for Nixon. And again, when I interviewed Bob and when I read Bob's book, it was one of those things that, and here's what I think the deal was.

I think that a lot of people, because Colin Powell is a Republican, but you've known a lot of black Republicans like I did. They were brothers and sisters. We were all black Republicans when I came to Georgia because it was the Abraham Lincoln Republican Party. The black and tan Republican Party was the name of it. And here's the thing. It was Maynard Jackson's grandfather that said, we need you to run a voter registration drive down in Thomasville in Beechton.

And I said, I'll be glad to do that. And I never thought it'd be any problem. And I had him coming down there to speak. And the Saturday before he was coming down to speak when we were starting to drive, I was driving from Albany, Georgia back to Thomasville through a little town called Doe Run, Georgia. And we came around the curve. I had a little Nash Rambler and it looked like they had a thousand folk hanging out at these stores in Doe Run, Georgia. And they all had their white sheets and their pointed hats. And I said, oh, Lord, what have I gotten myself into? And I had between three o'clock in the

afternoon and six o'clock that night before they came to town to figure out what I was going to do. Now, my first thought was, I'm going to talk to them if they come mess with me. But I want my wife to sit in the window with the rifle. And she was a very religious woman. And this woman who could shoot. She could shoot. She could shoot. She really could. In fact, we, on the way down there,

we stopped somewhere, there was a shooting gallery. She had 19 out of 20 moving targets. You're like, I'm good. See, yeah. But she said, no, I can't. I can't point a gun at a human being. I said, baby, that's the Ku Klux Klan. And she said, and you're a preacher.

I said, what's that got to do with it? She said, everything. If you ever forget that under that sheet is the heart of a child of God, you need to quit preaching. I said, damn, where you get all this from? Well, she had been to a little college in Indiana where she had studied New Testament nonviolence. And that was before I got to be committed to nonviolence.

And so I said, but look, this is a raggedy house. All they have to do is throw a firecracker up here, and we go up and smoke. And we all dead. And she said, so? I said, so. I said, we got a three-month baby, and you, are you ready to die? She said, don't you preach about the cross and the resurrection? She said, if you're scared to die,

you need to get into another business. I said, damn, woman. Where you get it? And she said, no, stop and pray and think. See, and that was really wise advice. Now, coincidentally, she came from the same little town in Alabama that Coretta Scott came from. Martin King's wife. And her parents talked the same way.

See, they burned Coretta's house down when she was 15. And her daddy made her pray to forgive the people who burned it down and not to hold any hatred in her heart so these were some interesting and unique black women and and Juanita Abernathy was from that same county wow see and so uh the Lord had put a hook up together. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But anyway, I picked up the phone and called the mayor. And he put me on the phone with the Sunnyland Packing Company and Flowers Bakery, the two largest employers in South Georgia. with the Sunnyland Packing Company and Flowers Bakery, the two largest employers in South Georgia.

And both of them said, look, we don't want any race trouble down here. They have the right to vote, and Sheriff, you need to see to it that nobody bothers them. But the Klan has the right to have their parade, but only in front of the county courthouse. And you can let them keep them on the county courthouse block. Don't let them go through the black community.

And this was in 1956. And Eisenhower was running. And Eisenhower used to come down there to play golf and shoot quail and most of my church members knew Eisenhower so they told me I was voting Republican and I said why and they said because if he is elected, there are no white Republicans. We get to nominate the federal judges. See, these were not educated folk, but they were smart folk. And do you know that this was 1956? Well, 54 or 56.

I got there in 54. And every single judge that we recommended to Eisenhower, we picked the smartest and the best white folk across the South. He appointed them all. THE SOUTH. HE APPOINTED THEM ALL. AND EVERY CASE WE WON WITH MARTIN LUTHER KING IN THE 60s, WE WON IT IN FRONT OF ONE OF THOSE REPUBLICAN JUDGES. THAT'S WHY I CANNOT TELL YOU

HOW FOR THE LAST THREE YEARS WITH THE SHOW, I KEEP SAYING CONNECT THE DOTS. I'M LIKE, FOLKS, I GET FRUSTRATION WITH POLICY. I GET THAT. BUT UNDERST folks, I get frustration with policy. I get that. I said, but understand politics is a 360 degree deal. I said, I can be ticked off with Biden on this, this, this. I said, but the judges that he is going to appoint will be far different than the Trump judges. And when you sue, I said, who do you think you're going in front of? The federal judge. Yeah.

But when you're indicted, see, I mean, they threw the book at me. They tried to charge me with everything. Every time I made a decision as mayor, I got sued. See, because if they're almost every contract, there are at least five people that are capable right and I had to pick one and I never picked them myself we had processes that we went through in a system but whenever there was a black person that won, I got sued. And they just assumed. And it meant that the black contractors, I couldn't even go to the homes.

Yeah. See, I couldn't. Because you would get single. Oh, favoritism. Yeah. So for eight years, you know, I was the mayor and the congressman before that. But that's the price you pay. But it's. But I keep telling the audience, you have to connect the dots. You can't just say, well, if I don't get this one thing, I'm not going to vote. And I'm like, no, we're going to fight for that one thing.

I said, but if the person's not in power, I said, you get none of it. I said, you get none of it. You got mostly black folk looking at you, huh? But you don't know. I say, you got mostly black folks looking at you, huh? But you don't know. I say you got mostly black folks looking at you. If you don't vote one way or another, you're going to get fucked. I can't make it any plainer than that. That's why the show's called Unfiltered.

Okay. No, we're fine. See, that's all the difference. I don't have to bleep that because I own it. But that's the deal. I mean, ambassador, I can't tell you how I argue with people and they, oh, man, you're a democratic shill. I said, let me tell you something. I said, I've never identified as a democrat or republican. I said.

Well, I'm a democrat. I've been both. Right. But I voted for both. But I never identified with a party. No. Well, I've been both. I've been both. I've been both. Right. But to see in New York. But I voted for both, but I never identified with a party. No.

Me neither. Well, I've... But you've also run for office. You've had to do that. I've never had to pick. But see, even when I was the Democratic nominee and the Democratic congressman from Georgia. I couldn't get anything passed unless I got some Republican support. Right.

And Ed Brook was a conservative Republican in many ways. But he was, but I would go see him before we had the conference committee with the House and the Senate, and I'd tell him what I needed. And he always found a way to deliver it. Now, he didn't tell me. He didn't make any commitments. Right. But we got almost everything passed. For the rest of you fraternities out there,

that's what happened when two alpha men get together. He was a good brother. But that was the thing that, again, I think when people criticized Colin Powell, I kept saying, folks, yes, he worked for Bush. Yes, he worked for Reagan. I said, but to your point, if they're in the White House, you got to have somebody to talk to.

You got to have somebody. I had Congressman Maxine Waters on talking about his passing. And she said, you know, she said she went to him, blamed him, blamed him for getting Aristide out. And he said, no, he said Aristide can leave. He was being held somewhere. And she said, Roland, she said, well, I'm going to get him out. And she said, I got a phone call. She said, and Powell helped with the visas and everything to get Aristide out. And she said, Roland, she said, well, I'm going to get him out. And she said, I got a phone call. She said, and Powell helped with the visas and everything to get Aristide out.

And she said, I thank them. Powell did just about everything he could. It didn't make any difference to him whether he was a Democrat or Republican. He endorsed Obama before I did. And I didn't endorse Obama because I thought Hillary might win. And I had known her since she was in college. Nice relationship. Yeah. And, in fact, her roommate was my mother's godchild.

That's Grant Hill's mother. And she's been very ill here lately, I understand. But I mean, that was in the 50s, see, and 60s. Yeah. You said something earlier. You talked about being 89 years old, and you said, every day, while I'm out here, I still am doing something and putting in the work. Exactly.

I mean, I'm not here to rest. You know, like the song says, I don't feel no way as tired. Well, see, John is always messing with you. We always talk about it. He's like, he's not. He's going to be everywhere. That's how that's how our brother C.T. Vivian was. And he'd be marching somewhere. He'd be moving. And I was talking to the sister Tyson's her book literary agent I had the same one. Yeah, and they said they said literally Literally up until she took her last breath. Yeah, she was doing interview. She was working That she was doing her thing. Let me just say I ain't here giving my last breath

But a boy see but but she what you say, you, no, no, right, right. But the point is, see, but she, when you say I'm not just going somewhere and sitting in the corner, hey, you still got purpose. And I'm not sleeping. I mean, you know, Dr. King used to talk about folks sleeping through a revolution. And there's too much going on now. You've got to stay awake.

You've got to put in 10 hours a day of work. At something. Right. See, because whether it's making phone calls or speeches or giving interviews, I mean, I've been blessed. And I've been through many dangers, toils and snares. And I made it through and never had a...

Well, even when I got stomped and beat up by the Klan, the thing I remember was I didn't even have a headache. See? And I said, you know, damn, I thought it was going to be worse than this. But you get beat up on one corner and then they pulled me out and I went to the next corner. They said, no, we can't stop. We got to get through this. And then the white folks get scared of you. They said, that's a bad nigga.

I ain't bad. Like the old folks said, you know, through many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come. It was grace that brought me safe thus far. And grace will see me home, see. And I remember marching through that mob of the Klan. And the only reason I went out front was there wasn't nothing there but women and children. And I didn't want them to get beat.

So somebody said, when we kept coming, they said, them niggas got some nerve. Like they ain't going home. No. And one of the sisters said, it's not nerve, son. Weans got faith. See, we know that you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you don't need to fear evil.

See? Because God is with you. And folk believed that. And they didn't need to hate and they didn't need to cuss. They felt sorry for these sick white folk. And you know what happened? That's what passed the civil rights bill. We were in St. Augustine just as the civil rights bill was being argued in the Congress. And the Saturday before the vote, the Klan that had been beating us up for almost a month in various ways and couldn't get anybody to fight back.

Because if we'd gotten angry and bitter and fought back, we'd have killed the cause. And they decided we're going to fix them. They goes, we're going to come in their community. So they were walking, marching. They didn't come at night. They came in the daytime, but they had on their sheets and everything. And we knew they had the guns and everything under there, but I didn't know what we were going to do when they hit that street coming through Lincolnville. Black folk were lined up on

both sides of the street and they started singing I love everybody. I love everybody in my heart. You know, you can't make me doubt him because I know too much about him. That's why I love everybody in my heart. I said that niggas is bad. I said that's God's children. You can't fuck with God's children. I got to ask you one last question. I know you run around here. And as you were talking, and you were describing those songs, and I've asked this question of a lot of people.

Share with the audience what black love feels like. Now, love everybody, but I'm talking about when your people come up to you, and they say, when they embrace you, when they say, and that's what you mean, I know what it feels like when I get it, but for you, what does that black love feel like? It feels like the people who come up to me,

I know have been praying for me whether they knew me or not. See? And I know that when I thank them for their prayers and their support, when I thank them for their support, I'm not thanking them for what they do. I'm thanking that they keep me connected to the almighty God, see. And that's how we got over. You know, song said, my soul looks back and wonders how I made it over. And that's how.

It's on the prayers of these old folks. But the reason I had to get beat was it was nothing but old folks and children marching behind me. That's right. The niggas were in the pool halls talking about being bad and they couldn't be non-violent. I said, no, these white folks been fucking with you all your life and you ain't slapped one of them yet. And now you're going to try to tell me. I said, no, it's not that you can't slapped one of them yet. And now you gonna try to tell me,

I said no, it's not that you can't be non-violent, you can't be violent. You ain't shit. See? And until you get some confidence in yourself and some faith in God and stand up and be a man, they gonna continue fucking with you. And did you remember James Orange?

Yes, never met him, but oh, I've read. Yeah, James Orange was, James Orange's cousin was the first black coach in the Southeastern Conference. He was black, he played football at Alabama, but he was the first black coach and coached Mississippi State. Oh, yeah. But Sylvester. Sylvester Coombs. Yeah. Sylvester Coombs. Yeah. And Crooms. Yes. Sylvester Crooms. Yes. And he. But James was bigger than him. That's the best with a big brother. But James was bigger and just as bad.

But they weren't recruiting folk from high schools in Birmingham then. And he went with Martin Luther King instead of playing football. But he would go in the bars, and quiet everybody down and they'd quiet down a big brother walking in and saying y'all need to chill out they chill out but i got another one like that that i don't know what's gonna happen to him but he's six". He's 305 pounds. And he's in his...

He's been at Georgia Tech just one year. But he went for the summer and then first semester and somebody gave him a bee and he went to him and said wait a minute he said I don't make bees he said look he said look at my high school record I don't have any B's. He said something's wrong. You didn't take my paper, my work seriously. And he made them go over his paper and they gave him an A minus. But when you find a brother that size, see, and with that kind of brain, you know that the Lord put him here for something special. That's right. And it's not necessarily football. That's right.

Well, that's why I tell people when I'm wearing my Texas A&M stuff, folks ask, did you play football? And I'm like, no. Like, we can go to an A&M and not play ball. And people are like, why are you getting mad? I said, because don't just look at me as an athlete. I said, we got the inlet. We got that. Well, Ambassador, look, it's always good to see you. And first of all, I got to thank you.

Because in my whole career, when we call you, you answer the phone, you come on, you share with us. When Maya Angelou passed away, we actually called you and we told you it happened. And you've always taken our calls, you always had respect for black-owned media. Let me tell you, nobody, you know, there was 60 houses bombed in Birmingham, and it never got to Atlanta in the paper, 150 miles away. It wasn't until they had jet, and to Bob Johnson. John Johnson.

No, Bob Johnson was jet man. Yes, the editor, yes, yes, yes. And John Johnson was old at all. Right. But Bob Johnson had been Martin's classmate. And I think they started with the killing of the young fellow. Emmett Till. Emmett Till.

Yeah. of the young fellow Emmett Till. And that put Ebony and then Jet put us on the map. And we couldn't have run the movement without the press. I tell black politicians today, I tell black CEOs, others, I said, look, I know we love, I said, look, I spent six years at CNN. I said, look, I know we love you. I said, look, I spent six years at CNN. I said, look, I get it. New York Times, Washington Post. I said, but never, ever leave out black-owned media. I said, because when they don't put you on, I said, you got to be able to come home for my people.

Well, congratulations for keeping on. Yes, sir. And we appreciate your service. I appreciate it. We appreciate your service. You keep giving them hell. All right. No, I raise my share of hell.

Yeah, you still doing it. Okay. All right. Ambassador, take it. Always good to see my frat brother, Andrew Young. All right, folks, when we come back from this break, we'll talk with the sister who was the first elected city treasurer of Chicago about how she's using her power to ensure African Americans are getting our fair share

when it comes to private equity and pension funds. It's a conversation you do not want to miss. That is next right here on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network, live from Atlanta. Oh, that spin class was brutal. Well, you can try using the Buick's massaging seat. Oh, yeah, that's nice. Can I use Apple CarPlay to put some music on?

Sure. It's wireless. Pick something we all like. Okay, hold on. What's your Buick's Wi-Fi password? Buick Envision 2021. Oh, you should pick something stronger. That's really predictable. What's your Buick's Wi-Fi password? Buick Envision 2021. You should pick something stronger that's really predictable. That's a really tight spot.

Don't worry. I used to hate parallel parking. Me too. Hey. Really outdid yourself. Yes, we did. The all-new Buick Envision. An SUV built around you.

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Well, who cares? Prime changes everything. Hey, what's up, everybody? It's Godfrey, the funniest dude on the planet. Hi, I'm Israel Houghton. Apparently, the other message I did was not fun enough. So this is fun. You are watching...

Roland Martin. My man, Unfiltered. Alright folks, welcome back to Roland Martin Unfiltered. We are here in Atlanta. Folks, Melissa Conyers Irvin is the city treasurer of Chicago. You may say, okay, what's the big deal? Folks, she oversees six billion dollars when it comes to the city pension fund. And so, we sat down and she made it clear that she learned a

whole lot since she got the job. And what she's doing is using her power to let these private equity companies know, don't come in here thinking you white and right. You better have some diversity. And she is dropping the hammer and making it plain. Here's our conversation. All right, Melissa, let's talk money. You're in a unique position being the city treasurer

of Chicago. One of the things that I have always talked about, whether I've been in Houston, Dallas, the six years I've spent in Chicago, is that if we are not maximizing the taxpayer dollars to ensure that black-owned businesses are getting their fair share, it's not going to happen in the private sector as well. How are you making, how are you using your position to ensure that happens in Chicago, which has the third largest concentration of black people outside of Africa, behind New York and Atlanta? So, first of all, hi Roland. See, we didn't get right to it.

I'm telling, I'm like, hi Roland. We get right to it. See, we get the high part of stuff. We get right to the money. Hi Roland. See, we get right to the money. It's all about the money, and it ain't a doggone thing funny We get right to the money. High rolling. We get right to the money. It's all about the money. It ain't a doggone thing funny.

All right. We get to the money. All right. So it is good to see you rolling. Let me just tell you that I have, I would like to say that I grew up watching you early in the morning. But it's just good to be with you, especially at this great forum. So let's talk about it.

City of Chicago, third largest municipality in the United States. You mentioned that I am in a unique position. Let's talk about the position first. We, and I was just saying earlier today, no matter where you live in the United States, you pretty much have heard of a county treasurer, the one that collects tax revenue. But you don't always hear about the role of the city treasurer. And if there are city treasurers in municipalities, you typically do not hear about an elected city treasurer, which makes sense that the city of Chicago, being the third largest municipality, would have an elected city treasurer, someone

not only that's fiscally responsible, someone not only that's protecting taxpayers' dollars, managing and investing, which I invest, my portfolio is about $9 billion of what I invest of taxpayers' dollars. But where the elected representative come in is that what can I do to help people, but not just make money, because to the individual resident what does that mean it's about changing lives and so we always talk about and this is something that I started since I took office in May of 2019 being the first elected and by the way from what we know of I am the first elected city treasurer of Chicago and so for, it's very personal.

I was telling the young man that works with you, I was born in Englewood, raised on the west side. And even if you're not from Chicago, you've heard of Englewood. Okay. And so I've always lived in underserved communities, understand what working families, what their struggles are. I was so excited to be the first in my family to go to college. Went on to work in corporate America, but decided I wanted to work for my community. I say all of that to say, which brings me to how can we help people, especially those in underserved communities. And it's very serious. You talk about black-owned businesses. I look at not only black-owned businesses, but also residents that just want to be able to purchase their own home. For me,

my mission is building generational wealth. How do we help to do that? Purchasing homes, helping entrepreneurs. And so there is just a myriad of things that we can talk about today. But for me, as the treasurer, it is getting money in the hands of small business owners and residents that aspire to purchase homes. During the pandemic, which since I took office in May of 2019, most of my work has been during the pandemic. During the pandemic, we really wanted to help small business owners. And I was so proud to commit up to $50 million to help small business owners. We were able to provide loans from very little interest rates to small business owners in Chicago, and I was so proud that over 50% of the loans provided went to businesses on the south and west sides of Chicago.

And even if you're not from Chicago, you know primarily what the makeup is for the south and west sides of Chicago. See, the thing, when I talk about elected officials, you have a considerable amount of leverage. And I think historical people have not properly used the leverage. You talk about that $9 billion, okay? And we have these conversations that are going on right now. And in fact, I believe I think cranes Had a story just the other day. We're talking about the lack of diversity. Yes, private equity. Yes. Oh, yes But I keep reminding folks private equities money is coming largely from pension funds Those pin are known again. And so those pension funds are made up of black and brown workers. And so We're having this debate up here

with how can they diversify when it needs to be, no, no, no, no, you're not going to get our money unless you diversify. Can I talk about that, Roland? Yeah. Okay. So as the city treasurer of Chicago, not only am I responsible, I mean, Roland, you just on my street, not only am I responsible for managing the $9 billion taxpayer portfolio, by the way, you use the word leverage. That is my daily conversation. Leverage. Because they want your money. And so what I say is I have $9 billion or acting on behalf of taxpayers. We have to leverage it. So I'm working to change behavior with the banks, with the banks,

with the brokerage firms that we work with within the treasurer's office. But while I'm changing behavior, on the other hand, I have to work with the residents to financially empower them, to prepare them. Right? Right, for the change of behavior that we're doing with the banking institutions.

But in addition to being the treasurer managing that portfolio, I also, and you didn't even know this and you're just talking about pension funds, I also am the only elected official that is a trustee on the board for all four pension funds in Chicago. Municipal, laborers, police, and fire. And that's total what? About $8 billion. Right. And for the people who are watching who don't understand,

it is pension funds that actually powers Wall Street. When you talk about what folks are investing in, private equity, all these people, that's where the money is coming from. And what we have seen is a blueprint capital. They are suing the state of New Jersey for that very reason. You've got companies like BlackRock and others that are pretty much all white, and they are controlling this. They're the ones that are driving Silicon Valley, driving the investment. And what I have long said, New York State, Carl McCaul did this when he was in New York State. They made it clear. If you want our money, we want to see what black law firms are you using? Are you partnering with black private equity? Who are your boards of directors?

And it's real simple. They're not going to change unless you say, I ain't giving the money up unless you change. I mean, and that's what I mean by how we have to leverage political power. Absolutely. That changes because now what happens is you force them to change who they invest with, the makeup, and all of a sudden, opportunities are being created. So let me tell you this. Oh, my gosh. I'm getting excited. On the pension fund. See, no one gets as excited talking about money. Come on. You better know, Roland, on the pension fund, there is no organization that comes before

the board knowing that I sit there. And by the way, the word gets around fast. When you're talking about money, word gets around fast. Because they need it. The word has gotten around that in the city of Chicago, if you want to do business with the pension fund in the city of Chicago, you need to know that there's a city treasurer that sits on the board that is going to not only ask you tough questions, but is going to be influential with the vote to determine if you will get that deal. So let me tell you what I've seen.

I've only been there since May 2019. When I first started, I was floored. No one looked like me that came before the board. We're talking about millions of dollars in transactions. When I tell residents, especially on the south and west sides of Chicago, the amount of money that we're transacting, I say, you haven't seen this type of money that I'm talking about, right?

Easily, $50 million, 25, I mean easily. Which is nothing. Easily, for a deal, for one deal. These are small, for them, these are really small deals. And I'm talking about about that's one deal, right? They're building more. And they're also working that if they get one pension fund, you better understand that they're going to try to go to others, right? We're helping their resume. So the word has gotten up. So when I first got in office in May 2019, I was floored to see

that people coming before the board not only not look like me, but then I started asking questions, Roland. I said, talk to me about the employee demographics of your organization. Then when they started to talk to me about it, I said, now I wanna see your chart. And I wanna see C-suite. Because I know they did. They probably gave you the numbers,

which really were your low level position where most of the black folks are. Roland, no, no, no. Let me probably gave you the numbers, which really were your low-level position where most of the black folks are. Roland. No, no, no. Let me tell you what they had it as. A category of other. Uh-huh. Wait, so first of all.

Or diverse. Or minority. I keep telling people. No, no, no. No, no. They spell it out. I need to see black, Hispanic, white. This is what I see now.

Don't throw the women in the minority. Come on. Go ahead. Okay. So now after two years, the word has gotten around. Not only will I look at your employee chart, okay, and I'm looking for if there's other, first of all, you only got 2% black. Right. And the 2% is another. What exactly is other? Do they sweep the floors? What do they do? Yep. Right? So now I'm looking at, I want to know what is your percentage black? What is your percentage Hispanic? And then I also want to

know what level of executives they are. So here's what's happening. The word has gotten around. I am so grateful. I always say that you are in a position for a reason, leverage it to help the people. That's what you're elected to do. How can I hand over tax? But most of the pension funds, by the way, are funded by taxpayers dollars. How can I turn over taxpayers dollars to organizations that do not respect the makeup of Chicago? How can I do that? I can't. Right. Not how I was raised. And so we have those tough conversations. And so now we are at a point that even just two years in, and there's more to come, Roland, you're going to hear more. Organizations know for a fact when they come before the board, they are going to have to answer. See, this is the thing that Reverend Jackson, well, first of all, you take it back further.

When you go back to Operation Breadbasket, which was Reverend Leon Sullivan, president of Dr. King, Dr. King, they adopted it, put Reverend Jackson over it, that created opportunities in the late 60s and early 70s, which he's also been doing with a lot of these companies because that's when Rainbow Push was taken, when they were buying shares in companies, which then gave them an opportunity to go speak at shareholder meetings. And so what we now have is with these publicly traded companies, now you've got the whole push, like Enterprise and others in the 80s, to get black people on boards of directors. What I am now arguing right now is,

are those black people sitting on boards of directors, are you personally benefiting or are black people benefiting? So if you're a black board member, and so what you are doing in your position, what these black board members are not doing, they should be saying, hold on, where's our money going? Not just the senior positions, but what black law firms are we using? What black architectural firms are we using? Engineering firms. How much money do we spend with black-owned media, not black-targeted media? See, this is the

only way this system changes. And so, and the thing, and I've spent a lot of time over the last decade, speeches all around the country, walking our people through. In fact, I was in Indianapolis two years ago. This was prior to, was it 2019? And I asked, I said, how many of you, I said, stand up. It was more than a thousand likely. I said, stand up if you are or have been a public worker. 80% of the people who stood up. And what I told them, and I blew them away. The largest collection of black wealth is actually in the hands of public workers. I said, so y'all know you're funding all these companies who are turning around screwing you because they don't want to hire us.

And they were sitting there and they were going, are you serious? I'm like, yes. I said, pension funds. Yes. Those are the drivers of the economic engine in this country. And I said, which is making a whole bunch of white people really wealthy in private equity. And they're freezing us out of actually what's our money. So I now sit at the helm of that. And please know that even as a board member,

in some instances, I am the only black board member. Okay? Unfiltered. So let's unfilter this. Which is still a problem in itself because when you talk about pension funds, what is the makeup of the people? Of the members, right?

See, that's what. OK, but it's OK where I'm filtered. Let's talk. What I like about where I'm at is that the conversation has even shifted with the board members just yesterday. And I had a pension fund meeting this morning, pension fund meeting yesterday on my way in just yesterday conversation where my white fellow trustee, before I even had to say it, my white fellow trustee knows, right? So let's ask Treasurer Conyers-Irvin, what does she think about this organization that lack diversity and what we

can do to hold them accountable? Roland, I can't make this up. I'm grateful that this is intentional conversation, Roland, that I wasn't embarrassed to have. I'm the only black person in the room, not only with the board of trustees, but also with the asset managers that's coming before us. And you better know this young lady born on the south side of Chicago, raised on the west side, is not afraid to step up to say it's not good enough. You can't come here and ask us for money and disrespect the makeup of this city and disrespect the people, the employees that work here, okay? And so things have changed. Things have changed tremendously. And when they come before us, diversity, equity, and

inclusion is the first topic of conversation So before we start talking about money, we're talking about what are you doing now? Let me go a step further This is what I think so first of all, there is about 69 trillion dollars in the financial services industry trillion I Tell my young black and brown men and women, this money you see on the streets, that's nothing. No, that's nothing compared to what's

in the financial services. But guess what, Roland? They don't know that. Right. That's what, that's the, you know, one of my favorite phrases from Hootland, Lawrence Fishburne said, when you don't know, you don't know. And but that is, you know, the reason I created the platform, why I created Black Star Network is because it's like walking people through and educating them.

Yes. But I can't even tell you even this conversation that I've had with black elected officials across the country. I know. And they don't know. I know. And I'm sitting there going, what is wrong with you? Because it's a hidden secret. They're just voting and approving stuff.

And I'm like. So before I became the city treasurer, I didn't know all of this. First of all, I didn't even really know how in depth my relationship would be to this industry. And then when I became city treasurer, then when I became the trustee of the pension funds, I'm like, wait, wait, hold on a second. We're talking about real money here,

and we have influence on who gets this money. So here's what I want to see. I want to see more black-owned asset managers that can position themselves to come before the board. But here's the thing, though. And I have the report somewhere in my phone here. The report has already been done. Black and brown asset managers have outperformed their white counterparts.

Definitely. Diversity pays off. But they've been capped. They literally won't give them the higher deals. The only black asset firm that is at that scale is Robert Smith's Vista Partners. But there are others who are actually doing it. When Obama was president, and this is one of the criticisms I had of him,

and I told his team to get over it. I had a meeting one year after he was in, Treasury Department, two African Americans, and they told me, they said, that black and brown firms outperformed the white firms in the management of TARP funds. My next question was, oh, does that mean the black and brown folks now get more money? Everybody went silent. I said, hold up, where I come from, if I outperform you,

it pays off, then I should now be able to now manage more money. Folks went silent. I said, what the hell? I said, we got a problem. I said, this is the thing we're talking about. When you look at the federal pension fund, BlackRock controls nearly 80% of the federal pension fund. The rules are written where they're the only ones who can actually apply, because they basically write the RFP. And that's the other thing as well. I cover city hall. I cover county government. And I saw bureaucrats, how they wrote the RFPs. I walked, when I was in Chicago, I walked several Illinois legislators through it. I said, you passing a bill don't mean nothing if you don't

understand how the RFP process is being written that purposely will exclude these firms. And so, I think, so a big piece of this is the education piece of the elected officials to say you need to re what we call a game recognized game because you're voting on stuff and you're just oh it looks great like no no no hold up no no you can hold that vote up now I'm sort of asking the question behind the question let me be the one that's a part of that, because let me tell you, I have educated myself on the process. Right now in Chicago, what you're saying is that's

happening federally is not happening in Chicago, and I'm proud to say that. With our RFP process, we are allowing for minority firms to have a leg up. Let me tell you how. If a minority firm applies, and by the way, we don't even have the same requirements for minority firms as we do non-minority firms. We are welcoming them into the process in Chicago. So if they're listening, please know we're welcoming them to Chicago. And then we're saying if they apply, and let's say my investment consultant advises the board hey we have 40 people that applied of the 40 two were minority owned guess what i'm going to say and for the finalization process final finalist process two of them need to be interviewed no that's huge right

so don't tell me about the number of years in existence right don't tell me about the number of years in existence. Don't tell me about the assets under management that they manage. Bring them in so that I can interview them and allow them an opportunity to come before the pension fund and get this deal. Bob Johnson said something years ago. He said, when you're not in the deal flow, you will never get the deal. And that's the piece. We've always been locked out of the deal flow. And the leverage point that I have been yelling, kicking, and screaming for years is, folks, it's taxpayer funds.

Oh, it is. So when you're talking about majority black and brown cities, I said, now it changed the whole conversation. Because, see, and they don't want us to deal with that. And so this is why, for the audience, because I get some audience members who are thinking, well, yeah, only this person. I said, no, no, no, you don't understand. If you now expand the pool of asset management, now you're expanding who those companies invest with.

And you're also holding those black and minority firms saying, no, no, no, y'all don't try to play the same game as the white firms where you want to exclude us as well. So now all of a sudden if you're investing in black and brown companies, now all of a sudden we know who they are hiring. That's how capacity is built. But that really is not understanding this financial system because they keep, again, which Coretta Scott King said this. She said they killed my market when we started talking about the money. That was the peak. Again, which Coretta Scott King said this.

She said they killed my mark when we started talking about the money. That was the peak. No, when MLK started talking about the money. See, I've always said this. They got no problem.

Truth be told. You can hear all this defund the police crap. They have no problem with us talking about mass incarceration. They are perfectly fine with us protesting policing. They are perfectly cool with us

protesting voter suppression. But when we start dealing with the money, that changes the conversation. And that's the conversation that they have always been afraid of and we never had first, second or third. But this is also why it is so important to elect people like us. Right. So when I say like us, what do I mean? Yeah, first of all, that doesn't mean black.

Okay. It's called having a consciousness. Because there are some black people who are always, like I said, who are on boards of directors, who are all about them. Oh, no, I got you. Okay. Electing people like us. In this role as treasurer, everyone is saying, we've never seen this before, right?

People ask about diversity, equity, and inclusion, but no, no, no. We know what this treasurer is going to talk about. I hate most DEI stuff anyway. Rola, you're just something else. No, no, I do. Because, no, look, anybody, first of all, read Ellis Cole's book, The Rage of you're just something else. No, no, I do, because no, because see, look, anybody, read, first of all, read Ellis Coase's book, The Rage of a Privileged Class.

Okay. Okay, Coase, C-O-S-E. Got it. That book was about the group of black corporate executives who came about in the 70s, 80s, and early 90s, who all hit the glass ceiling. The DEI position today is the old VP Community Affairs.

See, the VP Community Affairs used to, that was the Negro position. So whoever was the VP Community Affairs in nearly every corporation, that was an African American. I see where you're going with this. So what they did was, so then it shifted. Okay. Then it shifted to, okay, then they started putting black folks in the HR position,

even though most HR people don't actually hire. They push, they process paper. Rolling. They don't hire. Rolling. They're not the hiring manager. They're not. Because, look, I have an-hmm. I understand. I understand

She process I understand. Come on a new position Are the DEI positions which is why I keep telling the black people keep getting the DI jobs. What is your P&L responsibility? What is your budget or do you only have a secretary or an assistant and no budget? How much are you in control over? Here's the key to that. Who's the sponsor of the DE&I department? Let me say this. Do you report directly to the CEO?

Do you want, that's where, because DE&I can be, can be effective. Right. But my question is, who is the sponsor? So that means going back to like the pension funds, when I have the asset managers coming before me and we talk about DE&I. And my question is to the owner. And by the way, because these are owners of the firm. Oh, when it comes to money, the owners will show up. Okay. So the owners of the firms, they're coming before us. And my question to them is, what is your role in DE&I? And what I'm looking for is that you are the sponsor as the owner of this program. That's where you got

to get it at. But where I was also going early, I want to say this, and I don't want to miss this before we close. $69 trillion in the financial services industry. Minority and women own about 1.3% of that. Yes. Now you take that. I said minority and women. Right. So now if you pull the women out. It's so minuscule.

It's no higher than 0.5. Minuscule. Of 69 trillion. 69 trillion. 69 trillion. So here's what I say. And I'm going to, please know, I'm going to do my role and deal with what we have today, okay?

But what I also have to do is change that makeup, okay? And so what I want to do is attract young black and brown men and women to this industry. That, by the way, they're not taught in school. Oh my gosh it breaks my heart. They're not taught in school. Okay hold on first of all that's not what school is for. Roland.

That's to get a sheet of paper. Roland. So it's not you're not going to actually learn it there. I mean I don't care what you learn in media that's going to last you about two days because when you walk into my office, what they taught you is going to be a wake-up call. But, which is why, again, it's the deal flow. If you are not in the professional organizations, if you're not having the internships, if you're not interacting and doing these things as freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors, yes, you're walking out with a business degree, with a

finance degree, but you can't get a job. So let's talk about that. Okay. So I spoke about the amount of money in the financial service industry. I also spoke about leveraging my role to introduce black and brown youth to this industry. So let me tell you what I've done. First time ever, and I would encourage any elected official that has any type of influence with pension funds to do this. First time ever what I did was say, okay, all these asset managers that has come before all four

of the pension funds, guess what we're going to do? I'm going to bring the diverse candidates to you. I am going to have an open forum. What you we're gonna do? I'm going to bring the diverse candidates to you. I am going to have an open forum. What you're saying is, I don't wanna hear we can't find them. I got you. Because they do tell me that, by the way. Yeah. Okay, so this is what I'm going to do.

Okay, that's cool, I got it. So now I'm going to bring them to you. So guess what? If you are part of this process, and the next time you come before a pension fund, because guess what? Even if you hold our money now, you still have to come back before me, whether that's for a checkup, whatever, re-up, whatever you want to call it. You have to come back. And so when you come back, I'm going to ask the question. Guess what? I held an open forum where I wanted you to introduce jobs to young people.

Were you there? And guess what? I have a list. So don't tell me you can't find diverse candidates because I'm going to bring them to you. I'm going to do my part to help. There you go. Right?

Because as the young man said last night, this is a partnership, not a patronage. And I need you to partner with me to help change the makeup of this. And so guess what I say to this? It's not easy if you want to do work with the city of Chicago pension funds. You know why? Because things have changed. And what I am saying as a trustee on all of the Chicago pension funds, that I'm going to hold these asset managers accountable. And I'm going to do my part to help change the makeup of this industry of $69 trillion.

Keep giving them hell and as we always say, stay unfiltered. Thanks so much. Thank you, Roland. Fantastic conversation there with the city treasurer of Chicago, Melissa Conyers-Irvin. Alright, folks. When we come back on Roller Martin Unfiltered, we'll talk with the young brother who is the co-CEO and

founder of The Gathering Spot, a private club here in Atlanta in D.C. And how he is trying to connect brothers and sisters to each other all over the country. That's next on Roller Martin Unfiltered, the Black Star Network, live from Atlanta. and how he is trying to connect brothers and sisters to each other all over the country. That's next on Roland Martin Unfiltered, the Black Star Network, live from Atlanta. ТРЕВОЧНАЯ МУЗЫКА Maureen is saving big holiday shopping at Amazon. So now she's free to become Maureen the Marrier.

Food is her love language. And she really loves her grandson. Like, really loves. Hi, this is Essence Atkins. Hey, I'm Deon Cole from Black-ish. Hey, everybody, this is your man Fred Hammond, and you're watching Roland Martin, my man, unfiltered. One of the hottest spots in Atlanta is the gathering spot.

I talked with the co-founder and CEO, Ryan Wilson, about the company and what they're trying to do to connect African Americans in a very unique way. Check this out. So, Ryan, how you doing, man? I'm doing okay. How are you? All good. So I've been at your spot. You haven't been there when I've been at your spot. So tell folks who don't

understand exactly what the gathering spot is. Gathering spot formally is a private membership club. There's really two ways to think about it. The first way is through space. We have event space, a restaurant bar and workspace. The business that I'm actually in is in the community business. We have a membership community now that is the largest in Atlanta, 21 to 89 creatives, entrepreneurs, folks working for the biggest companies in the world. My job every day is to connect people. And so that's what we actually do. And so we've built the first one here, but then have them across the country at this point. D.C. was our second one. Okay, so Atlanta, D.C., where else? L.A. is about to open. Okay.

And the thing that first of all, again, for a lot of folks, I keep having this conversation, you don't know, you don't know. And the reality is there have been clubs like this for years, for decades. We were not members. We couldn't

be members. Absolutely. So a place for not, for decades. We were not members. We couldn't be members. Absolutely. So a place for not only for us to be a member, to eat, to hang out, but also, yeah, when you need a space for meetings or whatever, as opposed to going to a hotel, things along those lines. Exactly. We're intentional at TGS. We have been since the very beginning,

knowing that, yeah, we have not been a part of these spaces that have existed for a long time. These city clubs. Yeah, but stuff gets done in them right like you're watching the connections form if you go to these places and that's where i really got started i i was looking around and saying well hey i'm not i'm not a part of any of these networks we should we should build one and and we have i mean at this point you come to any gathering spot you will find to me the best of what the city has to offer. There's a little bit of everybody there,

whether it's for social purposes or for business purposes, the folks that you need to connect with are inside of the club. And I'm sure you've had to deal with folks who, yeah, you're the CEO, but I know of some white folks who are actually behind this whole thing and own it. It is amazing to me how often even I hear that, man, you ain't really black-owned. You don't really control your show. And I'm like, what the hell are you talking about?

It, for me, has been very frustrating. We started this journey when I was 24 years old. And so to have those sort of comments come in early and often, a lot of times it was confusing because there were times I wish that there was some sort of backer that folks didn't know about. Because, I mean, we went through the process. I mean, it was first round was three million dollars. It's tough. I mean, we were told no. Ninety seven straight times we started to count. And to get across the first finish line, I mean, it took a lot to get there. So I encourage folks when they have those sort of concerns, ask the question. Because what you'll find a lot of times is that what you think is happening is

not the thing that's actually going on. Well, but I think it also speaks to this whole notion of us not believing that we can actually do it. And I was just in L.A. doing some interviews and I was joking with Michael Ealy and Laz Alonso and others. And we were talking about, you know, when you own, when you control, when you.. And I said one of the things we were talking, I was like, yeah, I said, no, I didn't rent the lights. I own the lights. I own the cameras. I own the switcher. I own the laptops.

I own the backdrop. And folks look at you like, so, yeah, yes. Yeah. Like, yes, we can do that. Yeah. I think, I mean, it's hard to become something that you haven't seen before. So, I think it's important. And the work that you're doing in telling stories and making us have the opportunity to go and see stuff, right,

that to me is the first step in defeating that mentality. Past that, though, we've got to continue to believe. I went to Georgetown for undergrad. The thing that was fascinating to me there is that I would go into these rooms and it was almost implicitly understood that I wasn't supposed to do as well as the rest of my classmates. And then one day I looked around and said, well, my mother didn't send me up here to do this any less than anybody else. I've got to compete. Once I did, I found that I was as capable as anybody else. So speaking in that way, speaking with confidence to folks, I mean, any business

owner that I talk to, I talk about the biggest and best possible version of their idea. What is that? Don't settle for anything less than that because you're capable of achieving. To me, whatever it is, I don't think the ideas that we have as entrepreneurs specifically are random. I think that if you have it, there's a reason why you have it, so let's maximize it. But I do think it is a huge difference when you grow up and know I'm supposed to be here. I mean.. Yeah, absolutely. LaMell McMorris, a fraternity brother of mine, he had a sports agency and they represented Cam Newton. So, I was in Florida. I had a speech with a massive winter storm on the east coast. Travel was shut down.

And he said, hey, I'm flying to the NFC championship game. I got my plane. We're taking it. He said, yo, go to the game with me. I was like, alright. Because he's supposed to be going to New York. I'm supposed to be going to the NFC championship game. I'm supposed to be going to the NFC championship game.

I'm supposed to be going to the NFC championship game. I'm supposed to be going to the NFC championship game. I'm supposed to be flying to the NFC Championship game. I got my plane. We're taking it. He said, yo, go to the game with me. I was like, all right. Because he was supposed to be going to New York after that for Susan Taylor's National Kids Mentoring Gala. I was supposed to speak there. So I said, cool. That's the only way I can fly out.

So here we are flying on this private plane. Before it, I'm waiting at the private terminal for him to show up. And so I'm sitting there. I'm the only African-American there. And I'm looking around. I'm waiting at the private terminal for him to show up. So, I'm sitting there. I'm the only African-American there. And I'm looking around. I'm looking around. I'm seeing all these kids. I'm seeing these other planes come in, take off.

I'm seeing all these young white kids. And I said, these white kids, I'm looking at three, four, five, six six and seven they are going to grow up where flying private isn't yeah what you were saying was expectation right like they're like whereas let's be honest we grew up exactly exactly yeah and and that is a and I think that when we talk, that's one of the things that we really have to, we talk about expose, but drill into the next generation's mind. I don't know. You belong.

Absolutely. And you don't apologize. At all. For how you walk into the room. You walk in like I'm supposed to be you can in this room at this table you we have to tell particularly younger people that every single setting that they're in they can absolutely compete right again what i witnessed my peers have was it was confidence it was an expectation of what was supposed to happen someone told me someone said i wish i had the confidence of a mediocre white man yeah no and

and that's that's that is a super i mean it's it's it's actually concerning sometimes when you're in some of these settings and you're like you really right like we once once our kids see it, they can absolutely start to understand, like, I can get in the game. And examples of that are in the things that we talk about all the time. When there is line of sight to a goal, we over-index and are at the top of whatever those industries are. We just have to continue to make sure that there are direct lines that our community can see. You're in two cities. You're going to a third one. Five years from now, what do you want the gathering spot to look like?

So, again, we're in the community business, and we have communities in five other cities right now, New York, Chicago, Houston, Charlotte, and Detroit. And for me, we'll eventually build physical locations in all of those places, but we'll continue the work. I mean, TGS at this point is as much an advocacy organization as it is anything else, and I continue to be impressed by just the connections that are being formed in the club. At scale, I think that becomes really powerful, certainly from a black-owned business standpoint. We're going to start to watch businesses start in one location and be able to scale because of the power of the network, because of the collective.

So we're going to keep going. I'm going to keep building physical spots so that we can gather. But I'm going to keep, more importantly, bringing people together, which is what I'm excited about. All right. Well, man, look, good luck with it. I appreciate you. The space in Atlanta is fantastic. Thank you. Like I said, we did the show from there the night Pastor Raphael Warnock and John Ossoff

won the runoff here in Georgia. And so it was good to see folks. It was good to hang out. Absolutely. And look forward to going back. Absolutely. We'll see you at the next one. All right. Appreciate it. Thanks so much.

All right, folks. We come back on Roland Martin Unfiltered. I moderated a panel here at the 8th Annual Hope Global Forum about what should be done in the C-suite to ensure diversity. It's a conversation that was full of fire and funk. That is next on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Oh, that spin class was brutal. Well, you can try using the Buick's massaging seat. Oh, yeah, that's nice.

Can I use Apple CarPlay to put some music on? Sure. It's wireless. Pick something we all like. Okay, hold on. What's your Buick's Wi-Fi password? Buick Envision 2021. Oh, you should pick something stronger.

That's really predictable. That's a really tight spot. Don't worry. I used to hate parallel parking. Me too. Hey. Really outdid yourself. Yes, we did.

The all-new Buick Envision, an SUV built around you. All of you. Once upon a time, there lived a princess with really long hair who was waiting for a prince to come save her. But really, who has time for that? Let's go. Spill it myself. go. Spilling myself.

I'm spilling myself. She ordered herself a ladder with Prime one day delivery. And she was out of there. I want some hood girls looking back at it and a good girl in my text brand. Now, her hairdressing empire is killing it. And the prince, well, who cares? Prime changes everything.

But I'm back at it and I'm filling my head. Hey, yo, peace world. What's going on? It's the love king of R&B, Raheem Devine. Hey, I'm Qubit, the maker of the Qubit Shuffle and the Wham dance. What's going on? This is Tobias Trevelyan. And if you ready, you are listening to and you are watching Roland Martin, Unfiltered. When it comes to corporate America, a lot of power is held in the C-suite where a few African-Americans are. This week at the 8th Annual Hope Global Forum, I sat down with Chris Womack,

who is the CEO of Georgia Power, as well as Don Cravens with the National Urban League, and we talked about what must be done to advance equity, power, and inclusion in C-suites. All right, so glad we're here. We're going to have a great conversation. They have given us, hey, y'all got to change the clock. Y'all have got seven minutes, but please wrap up. Damn, we just sat down. Like grand opening, grand closing. All right. Hello and goodbye. Yeah, let's get right to it. I think they sent y'all some prepared questions. I won't be asking any of them, so don't worry about whatever they sent y'all. We knew that.

We actually knew that. I don't read from those. We talk about the power of the C-suite. And one of the issues that I have is that you have numerous folks, you've had generations fighting for African Americans to be on boards, to be CEOs, to be executives, to be senior leaders, but we're still dealing with some of our folk who are only benefiting themselves and not the collective. Right.

Right. and not the collective. Right, right. How do we effectively challenge them to say, you're not sitting in those positions just for you. It's about expanding the opportunities for all. No, and I look at it this way. Here at Georgia Power, part of Southern Company, the responsibility is we've got a bunch of stakeholders, and they're all bigger than a mean, bigger than individuals, whether it's customers, whether it's employees, whether

it's investors. But also there's a community out there that is looking for us to provide value and benefit to them as well. And so I think if you look at it the right way, you're going to say, this is not just about me, but this is, I've got a platform to do something to help somebody, to help a community. How do I use my creativity? How I use this company to make investments, to leverage, to collaborate, to help make people's lives better. And so David Thomas was just here from Morehouse.

And so a year or so ago, we made a commitment of $50 million to historically black colleges and universities coming out of a conversation that I had with one of our board members, a guy named David Grain, who had facilitated a conversation in Silicon Valley about the lack of diversity in Silicon Valley. And so we're saying let's address that, let's fix that by helping David and other HBCUs enhance their curriculum to help students understand data analytics, to understand coding and other technical fields so they can go work in Silicon Valley companies.

So that's some of the stuff I think is part of the mindset and the philosophy that we must have as we assume these roles of leadership. Don, for me, I believe it has to be 360 degree. What I mean by that is there are a lot of companies who want the applause. So, oh, we have the scholarships or we fund this initiative with the Urban League or the NAACP. Whereas I'm saying, no, no, no, no.

I want to know what is your spending on black-owned media? Black law firms, black engineering firms, black accounting firms, black publicists, black transportation companies, using car service, black catering companies, black event planners, black audio sound. It has to be a much broader conversation because we are long past being happy to see an African-American in the C-suite.

No. How are you delivering in a 360-degree way? Brother Martin, I'll say this. At the Urban League, just after the murder of George Floyd, what we have seen is that many corporate citizens had an inflection point. Some of them are people who have

given money to the Urban League and organizations like the Urban League for generations. And to those people, we've said, thank you. We will continue to do the good work. Some, it was an awakening for them. And all of a sudden, they came to us and said, we want to do more to help the Urban League. What I've said to those companies is, I hope that it's not a flash in the pan, a one-time giving. I hope that it is the end to corporate

philanthropic redlining, because that's what it has been. Organizations like the Urban League and others, we've been trying to do this work for many, many years. We have been asking for diversity on the C-suite level for many, many years. And some of that has been met with no, and just pure racism and get out of our face. Some of it has been met with, well, here's some money, go do something good in your community. But we're not going to tell you how many blacks we have on staff. We're not going to tell you how many black businesses we do business with. And what we are saying to them, what I am saying to them is, one without the other is not good enough. It's how we've gotten to this point in our nation's history. To your point, we can't just count on black folks to fix black folks'

problems. And that's what this philanthropy, in some regards, and look, I appreciate the corporate giving that we get from many of our corporate partners, and Georgia Power supports our urban leagues here. We're going to do what we can with the resources we can, but we need more resources, and we need to know that the people in those companies look like us, sound like us, and you asked the question to Brother Womack, and I just, I want to answer it. I served some time in corporate America. You brought up, Brother Martin, about the some of us in corporate America don't look out for some of us. And you're very correct about that. What I'll say about that is corporate America even

has a culture that does breed this feeling as an African-American, it's got to be just me. Right. And then what I have experienced in corporate America, and I'll just say it, is people who look like us were sometimes the people who I had to look out for. Because— Oh, I can tell you, in the conversations that we've had when it comes to getting advertising,

the first person in some conversations go, Roland, you controversial, is the black folks. I'm like, I need you to shut the hell up. Because y'all ain't got a problem spending money on MSNBC and Fox News. Are you calling them controversial? No, I'm just being honest. And so, see, this is an uncomfortable conversation for a lot of us because what happens is we say, well, we don't want to criticize somebody. And Chris, I know you felt it, but here's the deal.

If I'm in your position, you should be saying, no, no, no, challenge me to do what's right. Don't just sit here and say, well, I don't want to say nothing about the— Look, I had a lot of people—look, Obama got mad at me when he was the president. Yeah. And I told him and his people, I said, y'all thought I was joking before the election, huh? I said, no, there's a return on investment. And if you want somebody to carry your water, there's going to be some expectation when you get in to use your power for good. I said, now, if I criticize the previous 43, you damn right, I'm going to criticize 44.

Now, I know at 45, but I'm going to jam up 46. But that really has to be our position. No, and it does. And you have to hold us accountable. We've got to hold ourselves accountable. I've got to make sure that I'm saying when I move on from where I am, I'm helping other people grow and develop. I'm making sure that I identify opportunities for

black folks to do business for the company. And yeah, I've got to make sure I do that. And you and others have got to say, well, Mac, what have the company. And yeah, I've got to make sure I do that. And you and others have got to say, well, what have you done? And yeah, I feel good about what we have done, but I've got to continue to do more. Roland, let's put the blame to where it belongs, not on the one or two brothers and sisters who were the lucky ones. One percent of the Fortune 500 have a black CEO. One percent.

We have 13 percent of the population is 2021. We've had an African-American president, but yet we still can't run the titans of this country. We are expected to participate as Americans. We are told all the time, pull yourselves up by the bootstraps, black folks. And yet when you look at the participation on the C-suite, the boards and directors of these companies are in the positions of CEO. Those doors have been closed to us. And they're not opening. If you look at the bench, the bench, who becomes a CEO typically at a company? It's the person who runs the profits and losses, the CFOs, the chief operating officers. If you look at those positions, gentlemen, those positions are largely white men. They're not women. We do the human resources. We're hired

to do diversity, equity, inclusion. By and large, those are not the positions that rise to become CEOs of the company. So if you even look at the benches that these companies are creating, we're not even on the bench, right? But this is also, again, you're absolutely right in terms of where you place it. But I'm still going to challenge even our own when they do get in positions of power. Because remember when Brian Gumbel interviewed Mike Tomlin about the lack of black head coaches. And Mike Tomlin was commenting. And so Shannon Sharp blasted Mike Tomlin saying, wait a minute, Mike. You've been an NFL head coach for 14 years and you've never hired a black coordinator.

So it's also when you do get in, how do you open the door to say, no, no, no, I'm going to create my own coaching tree, my own executive tree. And that's also sort of how I think how we have to challenge folks that when you get in, are you expanding the opportunities? Agree. Identifying the people. Because to your point, look, you're not going to be there forever, but you want to be able to have a coaching tree or an executive tree that comes behind you. No, absolutely. And we get in the position, I can't not say, okay, well, I can't talk about diversity.

I can't talk about race issues. I got to still be the champion. I mean, I've got to be one leading the charge and making sure that I'm developing the bench, making sure that what's the finance organization operations, it is full of people of color, of diverse people in all parts of the business. So there is a succession plan, succession tree available to fill this seat. And so, man, that's what we have to do. I mean, everybody's got to hold us accountable, our employees, our community. I mean, and if we do

that, we'll get there. I mean, there are a lot of good conversations that are taking place today. And I do think we have an opportunity to do things that we've never done before and to really make some changes that otherwise would not have happened. But we've got to hold ourselves accountable. We've got to stay to it. It's have happened. But we've got to hold ourselves accountable. We've got to stay to it. It's a long journey. And we've got to stay committed. And I think we can get it done.

Johnny, you mentioned George Floyd. And there were a lot of people, there are a lot of companies, some here, that made announcements, that made pronouncements, that issued press releases, that people applauded. I've said to folk, I'm not giving you credit for a press release. And you shouldn't. I'm going to give you credit when you deliver on what you put in the press release. And so that's also, I think, what has to happen. And I know, I'm sure our brother Mark was a little uncomfortable. I had him on the show and I talked about Pepsi. And I'm not picking on Pepsi. I'm just our frat brother Mark was a little uncomfortable. I had him on the show, and I talked about Pepsi. And I'm not picking on Pepsi.

I'm just using an example because I think we also have to be thinking differently when we're having these conversations. So Pepsi has a 10-year, 5-year commitment with the International Urban League to stand up black businesses. Full support, 10 million. They have an initiative where they want to drive $100 million over five years to black-owned restaurants. But Pepsi spends about $3 billion a year on marketing. If Pepsi committed 5% of its marketing dollars to black-owned media, that would be $150 million a year, $750 million over five years.

$10 million to the Urban League over five years, $100 million they want to drive in receipts to black-owned restaurants. But $750 million could go to black-owned businesses over a five-year period. That's the number. And I think we have to be making a level of demands of companies that are different. And that's why I'm saying we have to be far more specific in that we appreciate the support of civil rights organizations.

But the real flow of resources is when it comes to the companies, and that's the demand, and we must be that specific with every single company, whether you're Wells Fargo, whether you're Bank of America, whether you're Citi, whether you are in whatever industry, because, again, philanthropic support is one thing, but standing up and supporting and investing in black-owned and minority business is a completely different thing. Absolutely. And Roland, you make an

excellent point. After May 25th, George Floyd's death, and I think it was the BET Awards. If you go back and look at some of the ads and some of the... Oh, no, no, no. Do you need them? Because I wrote them all down. Okay, but it was... Because I posted on Instagram every single one of them. Go ahead.

It was some phenomenal creative work that was done. Y'all think I'm lying. Keep going. And so I do think, and whether it's press releases or whether it was wonderful creative, yeah, we got to hold ourselves accountable for what did we do after that? I mean... No, no, no. I want you to put a pin in that because here's the deal.

Because again, this is where the game comes in. They hired black and minority creatives to produce the spots and paid them. What I said is, no, no, no. But are you also running ads on black-owned media? So what happens is they want us to be happy. No, no, no. But we hired some black creatives. I'm saying, no, no, no, but are you also running ads on black-owned media? So what happens is they want us to be happy. No, no, no, but we hire some black creatives. I'm saying, no, no, no, we want that pot and that pot.

And that's one of the conversations I know that we have internal. What are we doing today? I mean, not just what we did in June or July of 2020, but are we still on this journey? What progress? I mean, what advance what we did in June or July of 2020, but are we still on this journey? What progress? I mean, what advancements, what causes are we continuing to invest in that we talked about back in May and June of 2020? And I think that's something we've got to all hold ourselves accountable to as companies. See, Don, this is business.

We're not talking a handout conversation. No, that's right. We're saying there are actual businesses and I need people to understand when you talk about businesses, specifically African American, prior to COVID, with 2.6 million black-owned businesses in America, 2.5 million had one employee.

Doing an average revenue of $54,000. That's right. So, the problem is, we really only have 100,000 black-owned businesses. Right, that have employees, that have capacity to really... They have more than one employee. That's right. So you can't even break down how many of them have two or three. Right. When I launched

my show three years ago, the day I launched, I was in the top five percentile of black-owned businesses and employees. So going from launching the business, going from that to $3 million a year, three years later, I am actually doing better than 95% of all black-owned businesses in America. That's in three years.

That's crazy. So it's a capacity conversation that has to happen. And companies, we talk about C-suites, we talk about who you're doing business with, the challenge has to be there. And then, we talk about whole accountability. No, no. What is it this year? What is it next year?

Then what's the benchmark the following year? As opposed to, hey, we got a diversity award of being a great place for minorities to work. That's right. But we can't live on accolades. Because we can't deposit awards. And so that's my thing. I mean, yeah, give me an award. I'll take a photo with it.

But I can't stand all that. Yeah, I ain't never deposited a selfie. No, so we can't live on accolades. And so all the work we're doing, one of the things we're going to do is at the end of the year, we're going to do what I call the transformation report that will highlight everything that we're doing. And we'll benchmark ourselves against other companies to say, okay, am I good, bad, or indifferent? And where is it I can get better?

And I'm going to do that every year. Every year we're going to do a transformation. We're going to grade ourselves. That's right. And I'm going to have somebody come in and audit to say, how well are we doing? I think that's the way we get better. That's right.

But really, you're making the case for this panel. The reason why things are the way they are is because we don't have people who grew up like we did, know people that we know, go to church where we go, know that black businesses are very small businesses. And so if those people don't work in the businesses, they don't sit in the C-suite, they don't have a chairman and CEO like this gentleman. They just don't know.

So a lot of that conversation, that frustration that I hear in your voice, we feel it, we live it, is that PTSD of being a black American until we diversified the C-suite. We're really speaking in a vacuum. And so that is the reason for this panel today is you're right. You bring up, we can have both. We can have philanthropic, but we need supplier diversity. But if no one in that room understands anything you and I are talking about today, or Chris is talking about today, it doesn't happen. Well, and the thing is, one of the things that we are, and I get it, I understand, we're

afraid to, a lot of us are afraid to call folks out, to challenge folks. Martin Depp has a great book about Operation Breadbasket 1966-1971 that created the opportunities for many African American businessmen in Chicago that was really one of the lasting things of Dr. King and the idea came from Reverend Leon Sullivan. And I had a friend, he said, you know, Roland, you know, do you have to be so aggressive in calling companies out? Yes. And I had a friend, another friend who said, well, can you do this quietly?

I said, show me how that's worked for me so far. See, at some point, you have to get some people's attention by alerting their customer base who's not doing business with us. And if anybody say, that's not me, all you should do is go to April 3rd, 1968 and listen to Dr. King's speech from Mason Temple in Memphis where he specifically said in the speech, Jesse, what do you call it? Redistribute the pain. And what has to happen is, and I'm not saying this requires launching massive boycotts of companies.

I'm saying we cannot want two or three points off your market share and some folks probably will then lose their job. Because at some point, and see I'm not, and I get that things take time. Here's the deal, I'm not interested in waiting. I'm 52, okay? We don't know how long we all got. I'm not interested in a 30-year conversation. No.

I want to know, change it in three. Two, one. Capacity is here. Opportunity is here. You've got to have folks who are simply willing to do it. And I think we're just going to be a lot more aggressive in making that demand. Yeah. No, you do it.

And make the ask. Don't be afraid to make the ask. I mean, don you do. And make the ask. Don't be afraid to make the ask. I mean, don't be afraid to have the conversation. And not the small ask. And not the small ask. I mean, the big ask. Yeah. Okay?

I mean, maybe not. You can say the big ask. You said the big ask. No, I didn't want to say that because we're, you know, we're being recorded. But you almost said the big ask ask. No, I didn't. I said it. Go ahead. No, but you—

Because I have no problem asking for all of the money. But make the ask and engage in the dialogue. I mean, I do think, and I understand exactly what you're saying. I do think companies now are, in fact, more sensitive than they ever have been to these issues. Yes, we've got to keep the conversations going. We've got to make the ask. We've got to follow up to see what has been done. Apply pressure when necessary.

Because, yeah, I do think things are different now. And the thing I say to our company and I say to all of us, we have this wonderful moment in time. We have this wonderful moment. time. That's right. Really, you brought up something. We have this wonderful moment. We can't let it pass.

We can't let it go by. But on the moment, Reverend Barber has been calling it this year, and I've been with him as well, this literally is the third reconstruction. And both the previous two reconstructions, they were about changing laws with civil rights, but the one area where they failed was economics. This has to be an economic change. Now is the time. Yes.

You know what, when you and I are in the same age group, Roland, when we saw George Floyd and we had to explain to our children, to our teenage and I've got two 20-year-olds, what we put up with in our generations, our children are not willing to put up with that stuff anymore. And you're right about it has to stop now. There is no more time to wait. My children kept asking me why, and I had no responses to the why other than that's just the way it's always been. And I started to even feel like a deficient parent as a deficient black man when I had to look my children in the face and they say, but why does it have to be that way? We know better. We're better than we've ever been. We're more educated

than we've ever been. We've been through this before, Daddy. Why? And so to your point, Roland, we can't wait anymore. It doesn't have to be that way. And I think that in what we're seeing, and I'll be honest, the reason I think you saw the corporate response wasn't because black folks were protesting.

They saw a lot of white folks protesting. And they were like, oh hell no. Because again, if you study history, the period after the Civil War, poor whites and freed slaves began to make substantive changes across the South. Dr. King mentioned that in his speech in Montgomery after the 7th Montgomery March. And he talked about that. And you had what they called the bourbon class that said, oh, we cannot have this happening. That's what we saw. But the challenge for white allies has to be don't just show up to the George Floyd protest for two or three weeks. Where are you a year later when they haven't passed the bill in Congress. That has to continue, and it has to be continuous inside the companies as well

if we're going to see the kind of change in C-suites as well as when it comes to the companies. Final comment. Now is the time, and to your point. We also have to make sure that our white friends of goodwill, not let them be silent. As the philosopher Frantz Fanon would say, silence is dishonesty. We cannot let them be silent. Okay, as the philosopher Frantz Fanon would say, silence is dishonesty.

We cannot let them be silent. Now is the time. Let's not miss this opportunity. We need to educate our young people that working in corporate America is not a bad thing as well, though. We need brothers and sisters in corporate America. We need our next titans, our next CEOs, CFOs,

chief operating officers in corporate America to be our young people, to be us, CFOs, Chief Operating Officers in corporate America to be our young people, to be us. And so let's educate our young people to go be good corporate citizens in corporate America so we can change some of these systems you talked about, Brother Martin. My final comment is real simple, and that is I've started every job with the premise, I'm going to get fired anyway. Just a matter of time. So you can be the model employee who shows up work early, who stays late,

and then when you get laid off, now you're at home and you're mad as hell. Because you're like, damn it, I did everything right, and I don't have a job. Whereas me, I'm going to say what the hell I need to say while I'm there, and if y'all get rid of me, I'm at home going, hell, I said everything I need to say while I was there. There are some people who are parking lot militants, and there are some people who use their voice on the inside of the company. I dare say, and we all have different styles, but it's very simple.

If you are in a company and you have left no footprints or no fingerprints, you have wasted a career. No question. This is the opportunity for us to literally redefine America in the image that it should be because we are not going back to the country that we used to be. That's right. It's not happening.

It's simply not. And so either we make the shift now and we change what is happening or we're going to have a bigger problem in the future. And that means supporting and investing in, yes, those companies, folks with black-owned media who are willing to tell a story, and also stop using the buzzwords that we all know, who you're afraid of, who's not the right type of person, because the reality

is you sometimes need that strong voice that doesn't give a damn, who's willing the right type of person, because the reality is you sometimes need that strong voice that doesn't give a damn who's willing to change the system. Boo, I see you waving in the back, we good. Thank you very much. We are out of time. Hope y'all enjoyed this conversation. Thank you. She's a CEO, top PR companies.

We come back on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network, the conversation between John Hope Ryan and Lisa Osborne Ross, the CEO of Edelman PR. Nå er det en av de fleste stående stående i landet. ДИНАМИЧНАЯ МУЗЫКА Maureen is saving big holiday shopping at Amazon. So now she's free to become Maureen the Marrier. Food is her love language. And she really loves her grandson. Like, really loves. Hey, everybody, it's your girl, Luenell.

So what's up? This is your boy, Earthquake. Hi, I'm Chaley Rose, and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. All right, folks, this week I was supposed to moderate the conversation with Edelman PR CEO Lisa Osborne Ross, the first African-American to lead this major company, but I was busy with other interviews, and so John Hope Bryant stepped right in, and folks, it is a conversation that you do not want to miss.

She was straight, no chaser. I'm constantly amazed when we do this, these interviews, and my heart is just so full. You expect nothing wrong with it, all good. You expect a male, 60-year-old Caucasian walking out in these rows. And it's just, this only happens in America. I mean, I love the world. I've been all over the world.

I would never be who I am if I was in France. I'm not sure in Germany or Japan. We would not have the opportunities to have our full strengths acknowledged. And clearly, I can look at you in your eyes and see you're not letting anybody not acknowledge your full strengths. You're completely transparent.

In two minutes, I read you as somebody who's reasonably comfortable in your own skin. And you're the first CEO, female black, in this role ever, right? Absolutely, yes. So normally I would take time to unpack. I don't think I need to do that with you. I want you to have a relationship with this global audience, and I want them not just to know who you are as a relationship with this global audience.

And I want them not just to know who you are as a person, but I think they are best informed about you through what you do. The data that you have is unbelievable. I could not be more happy, more proud, more full, as you have said, to be here. I have watched this conference. You all have had a parade of all of our clients on this stage. And for me to be able to talk about what is critically important, something that Thelma and Daniel Osborne taught me

too many years ago for me to say publicly, that money matters. And our ability to make it, to keep it, to share it, and to pass it down is the only way that we as a people, because that's my first identity as a black woman, but we as business people, but we as a nation will ever survive, is if everybody can participate in this American dream, and that is rooted in money. Amen. Amen.

I have the pleasure of working at Edelman, which is a global communications firm, and we do brands, and we believe that brands should follow their purpose, working at Edelman, which is a global communications firm. We do brands, and we believe that brands should follow their purpose. We believe that purpose and profitability go hand in hand. After the murder of George Floyd, our clients fell into probably three or four different categories. One, those who were already doing it and then went for it.

No, no, no. Hold on. Wait a minute. See, she's so serious. She's like a corporate killer. She's going right in. You are no joke. I want people, before you get there, I know you got this. When I looked at you in the back, I saw your mother. I saw your mother.

I saw your father. I saw your ancestors. That reasonable comfort in your own skin, which is very rare, that self-esteem and that confidence. The confidence is clear. You're competent. That's why you're in this role. But the self-esteem, black women in this audience,

white women in this audience, Asian women in this audience, they need to know, Indian women, women and people of color need to know not just what you do, but how you did it. Where does this self-esteem, just spend two minutes on it, where does this self-esteem come from? You know, my mother and father. Where do all good things come from? And my God. And I'm very comfortable talking about my faith as a corporate leader. You know, my parents raised us to believe that, and you talked about this earlier, not only can you, but you must do well and do good at the same time. That's right. And so I am very clear.

So you talk about women in my position when I am asked, you know, how did you get this role? What do you do? And I say, I'm not scared of money. I'm comfortable with money. Say that again. I like money. And I want everyone to have that comfort level. And for women who are in the positions that we are in, you have to be able to manage the money. You have to be able to make the money. And you have to, in a position like mine, talk to your clients about how to do the same thing.

So, again, this is a gift. We weren't even, so this is gifted because you weren't even supposed to be doing my interview. And we saw each other in the back and we were like, all right, let's do this. And so, but I do want to talk about this research and I want to talk about the things that we've learned and the things that we're going to do as a result of it. So one, our clients, like everybody else, were like, what can I do? And we were like, put money into the community. Advance agendas.

Recognize, particularly in financial institutions, that there is systemic bias and racism in financial institutions. Straight up. It just is. And I don't subscribe to unintentional bias. I just don't believe it. I think it's the way that we let people off the hook. You know exactly what you're doing when you're doing it. And until you are held accountable, you will continue to do it. So our research found one affirmation

of a hypothesis. If you were thinking that there was systemic racism, I'm here to tell you that it is, and it's in every level and in every institution. Everywhere. First finding. Second finding. Did that come out? It's fine. You can still hear me. Second finding is it doesn't matter who you are. It doesn't matter if you are like our good soldier Colin Powell, who had some money, or if you were like cousin Tommy, who probably also has some money, but you are treated the same when you interact with the financial institution. So it doesn't matter whether you have money or not.

You and your white coworker at the same time are looking at, I think I will refinance my house because the rates are so low. And then Tuesday, your white coworker is like, I'm good, I'm done. And you're like, well, damn, they haven't even called me back. And when they do talk to me, why are they asking me a series of questions that they're not asking you? And why do they keep asking me the same questions over and over again?

And you've gone on and bought your second property, and I got more money than you do, but they're still testing me and questioning me. So second finding, regardless of your income, it's an issue. The third one, and this is the travesty for me because we know how to make money, right? First black, first woman millionaire in this country, black woman.

And a history of taking the money that we've created. I learned backstage that you've been making money since you were seven, selling something. So we know how to make money, right? But this third finding is that because of an absence of trust in institutions, we put that money in places where it's never gonna grow, like the freezer. It's not gonna grow in the freezer it's never going to grow, like the freezer. It's not going to grow in the freezer. It's not going to grow under the mattress, and it's not going to grow with your cousin Tommy either.

And so the travesty of us taking that money out because we don't feel comfortable is loss after loss after loss. Because it doesn't go anywhere. And then the fourth one, and this is a big issue for me, particularly in communities of color and emerging majorities. Before I leave the stage, I'm going to have to talk about how we've got to stop using the word minorities because that's not who we are. We are emerging majorities and sit in a room and use that language and see how the conversation

shifts because you are no longer less than the other side, a little bit of what's left over, but we are emerging majorities as communities of color. But the painful part of that is that this impact, this racism that I'm talking about, has a palpable impact on our souls. You talked about soul, you talked about self-esteem. And the records of people that we talked to who said, I get so anxious, it just makes me sick. I know I have to go into the bank and I have to prepare for that. And it just makes me sick. And this was particularly acute with the Hispanic community. So in a world where we are struggling with chaos and challenges to our souls and our

spirit, then you're so damn scared of having a conversation that you recoil and then you go back and put your money in the freezer. It's a self-fulfilling, horrible prophecy. So I never talk about problems unless there are solutions. One, everybody that you had on this stage, make sure we all hold them accountable that the workforce has to be representative. The workforce has to be representative. The workforce has to be representative.

Number two, in addition to making sure that the workforce is representative, weed out that bias, that unintentional but that real systemic bias that is in everything. Three, and some of your other speakers talked about this, look differently at how we are assessing risk. Assess risk for real people, not for your imaginary perfect person, but assess risk for real people. And go into it with an attitude of not I can't, but I can if. Right.

So I can if. And I've heard several of your CEOs, other CEOs talk about it. And then the last one is, as my mother would say, open your damn mouth when you see somebody. So when you walk into the bank, greet somebody. When you have an experience, treat that person like a human being. Yes. So it's pretty simple. Respect me, see me, and I will give you my money.

And I need you to help me grow it so I can give it and I can make a difference. So that's me. And that's it. You know, as you were talking, I'm thinking how much you remind me of the silent but strong spirit of Coretta Scott King. I'll take that. Yeah, she talked, she didn't have as much emotion in her voice as you have, but it was

that same strength, looked you straight in the eye. Her daughter, Bernice King, who's a friend of ours, has that same spirit today. So I commend you for speaking your truth and carrying it with you wherever you go. There's one thing you said that I want to make sure that people watching this broadcast are not fearful of, and I've said this before, I'm going to say it again. She said emerging majorities. We're not a minority. Fantastic, that's great. But I don't want my white brothers and sisters

who may be 55, 60 years old, male, whatever, maybe high school education, sitting in rural someplace, watching this and seeing what she just said is a threat to them. That's wrong. There's enough room here for all of God's children. Right, right, right. I learned early to talk without, I learned this from Ambassador Andrew Young,

talk without being offensive. Right. Listen without being defensive. And always leave even your adversary with their dignity. Yes. Because if you don't, they'll spend the rest of their life trying to make you miserable. It becomes personal.

And very much like what you said about we responded to the pain by putting pain on ourselves, by putting the, oh, I'm not going to give you my money, so we put it in the freezer. Like that's doing something. You're just hurting yourself. Right. Right?

But conversely, I don't want my white brothers and sisters to see this beautiful, bold commitment to just our fulfillment of our somebody-ness is somehow a threat to them. When we grow the economy, everybody wins. It's good for everyone. Yeah. It's good for everyone. Yeah. It's good for everyone. And, you know, what I say, you know, I run a company that is mostly white. You know, we're working on that.

Yes. So that it is representative. I don't also use the word to diversify. Yes. The world and our companies and our stages and our actions have to be representative. Census Bureau is right out there. You know, they just shared the data, about 42 percent. So it should be representative.

But this is not about moving people away. It's making the table bigger and inviting everyone to it. So I'm not trying to move you away, but I am trying to make room. Move us forward. Yeah, so that the table is representative of the real world around us. Stephanie Ruhl was with us yesterday, and she said, of NBC, CNBC, she said, it's about expanding the table and adding a seat. Right. So there was a Citigroup.

Or making your own table. I mean, that's the other thing. You know, go ahead and make your own table. Put your own table together. Citigroup had a report during the pandemic that showed that racism against blacks alone in the last 20 years alone, not 200 years and not other races, just 20 years for blacks alone, cost the U.S. economy $16 trillion. And if you would just knock it off right now, just knock it off,

the American economy would pick up another trillion dollars a year of GDP, which would, by the way, in four years, pay for the stimulus from all of last year. Just that one thing. And so I say in this example we're giving of people should not be afraid, if those with the worst bedside manner, racist in other words, help black people to succeed, if black people succeeded, even the racist wins. Right.

Because the economy is growing for everybody. Right. And that's why we love math. We love math because it doesn't have an opinion. This is the CEO, the chairman of Starbucks quote, Melody Hobson. I think that we're sitting in this moment in history, and I love that you bring not just your passion and your emotion, you bring data.

What, as we wrap up, is there a piece of data that you carry around with you, sort of in your virtual pocket every day, that gives you hope for the future? That maybe is an indication of where we come from, but a hope for the future? Is there a data point or an inspiration for you? It's actually not a data point, John. It's a picture. It's a visual.

And it looks kind of like this room. When we gather, and we gather with grace, and we gather with data and information, and we gather with positive intent, we get to a good place. And so the data is critical. Everything we do has to be rooted in it, but what drives me, what inspires me, is when I see rooms like this, and I know we can get to a good place, and I'm so excited to be a part of it.

We're so glad to have you, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you so much. All right, folks, after this quick break, we will honor again retired General Colin Powell, who passed away this week at the age of 84. You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Oh, that spin class was brutal.

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What's up, y'all? It's Ryan Destiny. And you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Many of us were shocked and stunned at the news of the death of retired General Colin Powell, who passed away this week at the age of 84. We wanted to further honor him by replaying the interview that I did with him 10 years ago in Los Angeles, where he was being honored with the NAACP's top honor, the Sping Iron Medal. Here he is, that conversation. Well, General Colin Powell, certainly welcome to Washington Watch. And of course, I had to come all the way to Los Angeles to catch up with you.

You caught me there, man. Washington Watch, one of my missed. That's what I was saying. Well, same thing. We talked to Russell Simmons last week on the show. We never could get him in D.C., but we caught up with him in L.A. So it happens. I'm glad to be here at the Beverly Hills SLS Hotel. Well, it's good to be with you, Roland, and congratulations on Washington Watch. Well, you know, it's been a fabulous time, and so we love to have the conversation, so let's get right into it. Okay. I definitely want to get to, obviously, the award that you're getting, the President's Award from the organization, of course, took place on a Friday night in Los Angeles, but there's so many things happening in the world, and your experience is certainly

vast in this area, so let's talk about some of that first. Libya, stunning what is happening there. Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, you know, frankly going after his own people. What do you make of what's taking place in Libya and what's really the next step for this country as we watch this whole thing unfold? Well, you know, you have to watch not only Libya, but all the others that have gone through this transition in the last couple of months, Egypt, Tunisia, and there are movements afoot in Bahrain and Yemen and other places. What you're seeing across the North African region and down through the other Arab lands is a yearning for representative government. People are saying, why are we being led by these unelected monarchs? Or why are we being led by people who may have been elected at one time, but they've been there for 30 years. And so social sites and the people in these regions looking to what

happened in the old Soviet Union and how democracy has spread, they want their chance. And now they're pushing back and they're pushing back with protests and demonstrations and unfortunately with quite a level of violence. And that's what's happened in Libya. In Libya you have Muammar Gaddafi who's been there forever and I'm not sure how stable he is and he has decided that he will fight his own people. He would kill his own people rather than try to reform or get out of the way and let other forces take over. It's too early to tell where this is going to end up. But however it resolves itself in the days and weeks ahead, Qaddafi's over. He's out. He's got to leave. His time has passed, and he ought to understand that. His son, the younger Saif, he ought to understand that. You can't stay in power by killing your people and trying to make

the whole country a jail. That won't work. When you were Secretary of State, you made it perfectly clear as it relates to how the United States should be looking at the rest of the world. You have U.S. senators saying, hey, let's establish a no-fly zone over that particular country. Yet others say, wait a minute, the last thing we want is for America to step into a situation where Qaddafi could say, see, they're the ones behind all of these protests. How do you respond to those people who say, let's intervene militarily to assist those fighting for freedom in Libya? There is a danger in intervening, but there's also a danger in doing nothing.

But I think before you intervene, you better have a clear understanding on whose side you're intervening, for what purpose, what is our national interest in it, other than the moral outrage of seeing people being killed because moral outrage takes place in many places throughout the world when we don't intervene. And don't let the vividness of the images drive you to a position that isn't sensible. And you have to ask yourself this question. If we're going to intervene militarily and start bombing and shooting people

in order to keep the planes from attacking people what do we do about the ak-47s that are attacking people what do we do about all the weapons that are being fired back and forth uh can we just pick out a no-fly zone and say this is terrific or are we getting ourselves involved and so this is a difficult decision for not only the United States, but for the international community to make. I think it'd be much preferable if it was a completely indigenous resolution to this crisis, that the people who are protesting and demonstrating

and fighting for their rights win. But we have to be careful, we have to watch it, but don't just jump in because the heat of the moment suggests you should jump in if you're going to not let their planes fly what are you going to do about the forces the ground forces that are really doing the killing the planes don't seem to be doing that much damage compared to what's going on in the ground so what's the difference and if you're going to go into the ground then you got a whole new ball game and you better think it through carefully

as to where we want to go in how would we go in and where we come out right now i think just putting pressure on qaddafi and the regime is the way to go while you take no options off the table to include military options but be cautious as you decide which military options might be appropriate to bring to a higher level of consideration on On another story, a couple weeks ago when I saw the story about curveball basically recanting the claims about WMDs in Iraq, you were very upset with that reaction. We've seen former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld come out with his comments. What do you make of the comments that he has made as it relates to what you knew, what you didn't know as it relates to WMDs? Well, I think Don and I are, we have other, I have other disagreements about the book, but on this one, we're both in the same ballpark. I didn't know that there was a person named

Curveball. I didn't know that all the information. And no one shared that information with you? We didn't know about Curveball. I don't know where the name came from, but I had four days to review the intelligence information and get this presentation ready for the United Nations. And I tossed aside anything that was not presented to me by the intelligence community as multi-sourced. And on this specific item, the biological vans, which is what Curveball was the source for, I was assured repeatedly for a period of four days by all of the intelligence agencies, defense and CIA, that we had four independent sources that could verify this. for a period of four days by the defense, by all of the intelligence agencies, defense and CIA, that we had four independent sources that could verify this. And they were even able to create pictures

of what this van would look like. And so I went forward with the understanding that this was multi-sourced. It was only months later, many months later, that it started to unravel. And I heard, well, it wasn't four sources. It really turns out to be one source. And oh, by the way, we never interviewed him. Well, I could tell you, I was not a happy

camper when all this information came out because I did the big presentation. But we have to keep in mind that that same misinformation was in the national intelligence estimate months before I spoke and it was given to Congress. And then Congress voted a resolution on the basis of that. That same information was in the president's State of the Union address two weeks before I spoke and it was given to Congress and then Congress voted a resolution on the basis of that. That same information was in the president's State of the Union address two weeks before I spoke to the UN. So we got bad information. The real question is why wasn't it known to the intelligence community? And some people say it was known. It just never surfaced to the higher levels. Why didn't we do a better job of finding out what we really knew from this particular source since we were relying so heavily on him? Two months, three months after the war started and we had this van in our hands. It didn't look like any biological van to me,

but the CIA was continuing to insist that's what it was, but it wasn't. And it all rested on this one fellow who we now know as Curveball. So people are asking me, well, did you know about it at the time? Of course they didn't know about it at the time. If I'd ever known that this was a single source in a German detention facility that we had never interviewed and that there were people within the intelligence community of the United States that felt it was a bad source, I never would have used it. And is it the key, a single source? Just like in journalism, you always want to get more than one person to corroborate. Absolutely. General, it's one of the issues that

has jumped out. We were watching the state of politics in this country, what's going on. Some recent comments by Mike Huckabee this week talking about the president being born and raised in Kenya and Madrasas, things along those lines. What jumped out at me, though, was this whole notion of his worldview. Huckabee saying we grew up with Boy Scouts and the Rotary Club. What do you make of, as a son of immigrants, what do you make of this whole notion that somehow there is one American worldview, as opposed to the many different communities that we grow up in where they're all not the same? Well, there are many worldviews out there, or different views of the world is another way to put it. And in the course of my career, I have been privileged to meet people from all over the world, all races

and religions of different political systems, social systems, different histories and cultures. And I think that as an American, I can be very, very proud of my country. And I think my country and my system is unique and the best, but not everybody shares that view with me. And so what I want to do is to show others what the American system is all about and why it's worked for us and so many other countries. But let me hear about your system. What are you doing? And for us not to be arrogant in our view of the rest of the world, but to realize it's a big world with lots of different attitudes and points of view out there. With respect to Mr. Huckabee, I just think he was having a bad morning. Mr. Huckabee is a decent individual, but I think he would acknowledge now that he misspoke. He has. But we've got to

knock this nonsense off. Barack Hussein Obama, as I have said before, was born an American. He is an American. He's never been anything but an American. He was raised for the most part in, guess where, Hawaii, which is a state. It's a state. And so we've kind of got to get rid of all this nonsense about where he was born and where he was raised. And there's no question in my mind that President Obama, just as every president before him, wishes the best for the American people and is a defender of American values. That's the oath he swore when he was inaugurated. But beyond just the different different this is these across the world. This is just another way of attacking him politically by throwing up this chaff,

as we sometimes call it in the military, to confuse people. We're trying to confuse people. And to some extent, it works. There's still people claim at a high percentage that he was not born in the United States, the birthers. But most of those birthers know better. They know he was born here. They're using this birther issue as another way to attack the president politically. What bothers me is beyond just, you know, different views around the world, even in this country, I'm African-American. I grew up in Houston, Texas. And so my experience is different than that of somebody who might've grown up in Iowa or in California or in New England or in the Bronx. Absolutely. And so what happens is when we start hearing these phrases, what does middle America think?

Well, no, I think what does southeast Florida think? Or what is the Midwest or Southwest, other parts of the country? And so when we start saying these kind of phrases, I think it's in many ways it's coded language. It's coded language and it's dangerous. And during the 2008 campaign, when I was making statements of support for President Obama, I made the point there is not a good America and a bad America There is not in a small town America is good and big-town America is bad Don't tell me that I live in a bad America because I was born in Harlem and raised in the South Bronx

I had a great upbringing and I had parents who believed in America with all their strong value even strong value Oh, tell me about it. But they were immigrants. So I am of the immigrant tradition. I come from a rather modest background. I was a black kid living in a segregated country and all that has now changed. And so any American is a good American if that American believes in the country, believes in themselves and is contributing to our society. And we shouldn't fractionate ourselves by North, South, East, West, rural, or urban. You've been honored by the NAACP. You talked about that childhood, talked about your life. Look, you've got tons of awards. You're a four-star general. You've gotten all kinds of different things. But what does it mean for this particular organization to honor you because of its history and what it has meant to the cause of African-Americans and really all Americans and making this nation a more perfect union?

Well, I'm very honored to receive this award. I'm also a recipient of the Spingarn Award from the NAACP. So it means a lot to me to be recognized by this organization. I often tell people that I started out in the Army just a few years after segregation ended in our armed forces. If I'd come in five or ten years earlier, I would not have had the opportunities that I got to go all the way to the top. And I worked hard for it. I had my commanders who encouraged me and trained me as I went along, but I never forget, I always point out to any audience I speak to, that I stand on the shoulders of

thousands of black men and women who served in combat for the armed forces of the United States who never had the opportunities I had. And if they hadn't served and demonstrated they could do the job, I would not be where I am. And we also had organizations like the NAACP in the darkest days of our country's history in that post-Civil War period, in the beginning of 1909 on, was the NAACP among other organizations. It was the NAACP that constantly drove this case that America is going to be faithful and true to its Constitution and to its Declaration of Independence, it had to change.

And without that kind of pressure coming from the NAACP, we would not be where we are today. And I will always be grateful to all of those who were part of that second Civil War that the NAACP was a leader in. Lord General Colin Powell, congratulations on the NAACP Image Award, the President's Award. I look forward to chatting with you again on Washington Watch. Thank you Roland, thanks a bunch. I want to thank TV One for allowing me to be able to show that interview to you folks. It was certainly an honor to talk with him then.

We had many conversations, we've seen each other ever since then and so we certainly will miss him. And of course, he's gonna have a major funeral take place on November 5th at the National Cathedral, where it will certainly be standing room only, honoring the life and legacy of one of America's greatest patriots and a brother who was indeed a brother, that is retired General Colin Powell. Folks, that is it for us. We appreciate you watching us being here in Atlanta.

It's been a fantastic week. We've been here, great conversations, great interviews. We will live stream the entire conference. And so if you go to Black Start Network, you can see all three days of the Global Hope Forum. And so folks, check that out. Again, you don't wanna miss it. Some fantastic conversations, some great folks

who are here committed to black economic social justice. And so please do so. And of course, we always end the show by showing you all the folks who support us via our Bring the Funk fan club. If you want to join, what we ask is we're trying to get 20,000 folks

annually to give a minimum of 50 bucks each. And so that's $4.19 a month, $0.13 a day. You can join our Bring the Funk fan club, Cash App, Dollar Sign, RM Unfiltered. Venmo.com is forward slash RM Unfiltered. PayPal is rmartinunfiltered. Zelle is rolling at rollingmastmartin.com, rolling at rollingmartinunfiltered.com. And so here's our list of all of our folks who are members of the fan club. Folks, thanks a bunch.

I will see you on Monday. Y'all take care. Holla! ТРЕВОЖНАЯ МУЗЫКА I am to be smart. Roland Martin's doing this every day. Oh, no punches! Thank you, Roland Martin, for always giving voice to the issues. Look for Roland Martin in the whirlwind, to quote Marcus Garvey again. The video looks phenomenal, so I'm really excited to see it on my big screen.

Support this man, Black Media. He makes sure that our stories are told. See, there's a difference between Black Star Network and Black-owned media and something like CNN. I got to defer to the brilliance of Dr. Carr and to the brilliance of the Black Star Network. I am rolling. We're rolling all the way. I'm going to be on a show that you own. A Black man owns the show. Folks, Black Star Network is here. I'm real revolutionary right now. Rolling was amazing on that. Hey, Black, I love y'all. I can't commend you enough

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