#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Manchin meets Civil Rights leaders; Cops DNC list; RBC: Freedom to Discriminate

Episode Date: October 29, 2021

10.29.21 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin meets with leaders of the top civil rights groups to discuss voting rights and what is needed to pass critical legislation. Melanie Campbell from the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation and Janice Mathis from the National Council of Negro Women were there. They are here to tell us what happened. It's a "Do Not Call" list for cops who are not reliable. We have Prince George's County, Maryland State's Attorney here tell us why so many law enforcement officers have been barred from testifying in courts. The Supreme Court rescinds Oklahoma death row inmate Julius Jones, stay of execution. His only hope to stay alive is Tuesday's clemency hearing. And we'll tell you why the NAACP is urging black professional athletes to stay out of Texas.  In my book club segment, I talked to author Gene Slater about his book "Freedom to Discriminate: How Realtors Conspired to Segregate Housing and Divide America." You don't want to miss that interview.#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 28, 2021. Coming up on Roland Martin Unfiltered, streaming live on the Black Star Network, live from Indianapolis, Indiana. Civil rights leaders, they meet with Senator Joe Manchin over the For the People Act. The question is, is he going to do what's necessary to end the filibuster? We'll talk with Melanie Campbell, the National Coalition of Black Civic Participation, about that particular meeting. Also, it's a do not call list for cops in Maryland. Two state's attorneys have made it clear these cops have serious credibility issues and they will not

call them to the witness stand in a significant number of cases. Also, the Supreme Court rescinds Oklahoma death row inmate Julius Jones' stay of execution. Now the countdown is on for his clemency hearing in that particular state as well. Also, NAACP, they're urging professional athletes not to sign with Texas teams. Why? We'll explain on the show as well. Plus, in my book club segment, I'm going to talk about a new book called Freedom to Discriminate, How Realtors Conspired to Segregate Housing and Divide America. It is a fascinating conversation. If you want to understand the housing crisis in America today, it all dates back to policies in the 40s, 50s, and 60s. Folks, you don't want to miss that.

All of that, it's time to bring the funk on Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Let's rolling. Best belief he's knowing. Putting it down from sports to news to politics. With entertainment just for kicks. He's rolling. It's Uncle Roro, y'all. It's rolling, Martin.

Yeah. Rolling with rolling now. It's Rollin' Martin Yeah Rollin' with Rollin' now Yeah He's bunk, he's fresh, he's real The best you know, he's Rollin' Martin Now Martin A number of leaders of historic civil rights organizations met with West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin about the issue of voting rights legislation. He of course has made it clear he does not want to end the filibuster.

That's the only way it is going to get passed in the United States Senate. They met yesterday with the United States Senate. They met yesterday with the West Virginia senator. Lots of pressure has been placed on him, as well as Arizona Senator Christian Sinema, when it comes to the For the People Act and the John Lewis Act. One of the folks who met with him is Melanie Campbell, who's the CEO of the National Coalition of Black Civic Participation. She joins us right now on the show. Melanie, glad to have you back. This has been one of several conversations y'all have had with Senator Manchin. Has he moved?

Has he budged? Is he going to do anything on this issue? I am one to continue. Can we prep? Okay, we have issues with Melanie's audio. And so, guys, let me know when we have that taken care of and so I can go back to Melody, get an understanding of what is going on. As I said, folks, what has been happening is very simple.

And that is there's been a number of protests and pressure that are being applied to United States senators, the Democratic senators, because no Republicans are going to vote for the issue of voting rights. They're not stepping up. They're not being, they're not listening to it. Sure, one is named after John Lewis, but they're absolutely not supporting that bill. So I think we have Melanie back. So, Melanie, where do we stand? Because y'all have had several meetings with Senator Joe Manchin, and he keeps talking about bipartisanship and productive

meetings. Look, when they had a vote a couple of weeks ago on a voting bill, not a single Republican voted with the Democrats. So what the hell is he talking about by bipartisanship? I'm not certain. I can't speak to what he has in his mind. He did not commit that he would deal with the filibuster in the way that to do what needs to be done to protect our voting rights, which is at the same time protecting this nation. And so what's at stake is we all know, which is why we all continue to fight, you and everybody else are continuing to fight, and that to urge him to really to just do what needs to be done. And the filibuster is not the protector of democracy. What protects democracy is the right to vote. What's the deal here, Melanie? We, Melanie, we've established, we've established the problem. Y'all have repeated ad nauseum how

critical this is. He has made no effort to move at all. And so in this, I mean, first of all, how long did the meeting last and what did he say? I mean, y'all are repeating over and over and over again. There were previous meetings with him. I mean, so here's the point. What does another meeting do if he's not going to move? Well, you know, Roland, you are a person who understands politics and you keep pushing, right? We're not the only ones.

We're the outside in pushing in and we have to also challenge the people who are also the heads of the party and all the people who are inside when it comes to the politics. So, you know, we left that meeting and did the Freedom Walk, as you well know, because you supported it and, you know, and did the speak out and went to and went and nine of us got arrested yesterday. Reverend Barber was there with us. Latasha was there with us. So we know we have to keep pushing. And I'll speak for myself, is that I think that the leadership of the Democratic Party, the the head of the Senate, they have to do their

job to get their caucus in line, not just Joe Manchin and the Senate. Make sure folks—and so—and we have to also on the outside keep pushing. I don't know anything else to do but to keep fighting, because I don't—we don't have an option not to. And at some point, I'm hopeful that the people will do what's needed. They will seize the moment and lead. And so we keep saying the same thing because the facts don't change. The fact is the filibuster is not something that's going to protect this country. And we have to all keep and get more and more people to speak up and speak out and use every opportunity and means that we can to keep pushing

until we win on this issue, because we have a whole lot more to fight about once we get past getting voting rights passed. Well, I mean, obviously, meeting and pressuring is important, but it is fundamentally clear. First of all, it's clear that Joe Manchin is not going to move on this issue. And that's one of the reasons why Reverend William Barber and the Poor People's Campaign continue to have protests and action in his home state of West Virginia, because clearly he's ignoring civil rights organizations. Maybe he'll listen to actual voters in his home state of West Virginia, because clearly he's ignoring civil rights organizations. Maybe he'll listen to actual voters in his home state. Roland, he's ignoring civil rights organizations. He's ignoring the president.

He's ignoring the head of the Senate, Chuck Schumer. He's ignoring his base, right? So we all have to keep pushing, right? We all have to keep pushing from every angle. All right. Melanie Campbell, we certainly appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you. Let's bring in my panel

now. Michael Imhotep, African History Network. Also, Caleb Athea, Communication Strategy. Dr. Cleo Manago, Chief Advisor for the Black Men's Exchange, BMX National. Glad to have all three of you here. Michael, you heard Melanie say, you know, got to keep the pressure up. You see people who follow Senator Kyrsten Sinema in bathrooms, pressuring her as she's in DC.

I mean, look, that's the only thing that's going to happen here. And so folks have done things a nice way. They've had... ...responsive to that up against him and all the other Democrats. And yes, President Joe Biden is going to have to stop with this. Hey, we might have to do this. No, he is going to have to commit. Yeah. You know, Roland, thanks for having me back again. It's good to have to commit. Yeah, you know, Roland, thanks for having me back again. It's good to see you again. There's a few

things here. Now, we've talked about this a number of weeks here on this show, and some of what I'm going to say today is the same thing I said the previous weeks. Yeah, you have to keep the pressure up, but they're not putting the right type of pressure. They're not using the right type of pressure.

If we go back to 2015, Roland, when you had the transgender bathroom bill in the state of Indiana, corporations were tripping over themselves to come out and denounce the transgender bathroom bill, and they put economic pressure on the Indiana state legislature. They were threatening to cancel conventions in the state of Indiana. One convention was canceled. And within a week, within a week, the Indiana state legislature changed the bill because of economic pressure from corporations. Now, remember, a few months ago, corporations were putting out statements here and there,

but notice how silent they've been. And one of the things that's missing is putting economic pressure on corporations. And one of the things that needs to happen is, I remember back when Cindy Hyde-Smith was running against Mike Espy in Mississippi for a senator. ProPublica put out a list of corporations that donated to Cindy Hyde-Smith. This is when she made those public hanging comments.

And this caused a fury. Now, she still won, but this put pressure on corporations. So, one, we need to look at the corporations. FEC.gov has the list of corporations that donated to Joe Manchin and Kristen Sinema's campaign. Those corporations have to be called out, and economic

pressure on them. We know that a carve-out to the filibuster has been used 161 times over the past last half century. Filibuster only came into existence in 1917, by the way. It's not in the Constitution. And the other thing is that this has to be expanded beyond just an African-American issue. This is a 19th Amendment issue, which deals with white women's voting rights.

This is a 26th Amendment issue, which deals with college students as well. So, so, but here's the deal. But here's the deal. But hold on. But here's the piece, Kelly. Mark Elias tweeted this the other day as well. He said, hey, what happened to all, to Michael's point, what happened to all these companies that were going to, in these law firms that were going to have this major effort. And in fact, you had Ken Frazier, the brother who was the CEO of one of the pharmaceutical companies. You had Ken Chenault. People were lauding them for what pressure they were putting on. Where in the hell are they gone? I couldn't tell you because right now it just feels like everything is stalled because of Manchin and Sinema. And last I checked, I voted for Biden as president, not Manchin, not Sinema, and not anyone else

who wants to railroad democracy in this way. The fact of the matter is, we need every initiative that was in the original Build Back Better Act, because that is what we voted for as a people. That is why we put Biden in office. That is why we worked so hard to make sure that we had a modicum of a majority in the Senate and the House come 2020. And now all of that feels like it's for naught because people are weak in that they don't want to fight, except for the people outside of Capitol Hill, such as Melanie and the like, who are fighting on our behalf. But we didn't vote for Melanie to fight on our behalf. We voted for Biden. We voted for Democrats. We voted for progressives

to make sure that the agenda on the line is actually fulfilled because literally our lives are at stake. The thing here, Cleo, is at the end of the day, Manchin obviously only wants to deal with money. He loves fossil fuel money, oil and gas corporations. And so, you know what? The pressure needs to be placed on Exxon, placed on those coal companies and say they should be standing up for voting rights. Clearly, that's the only people who he listens to. And so that's how he must be targeted. And I've been saying it, what Michael said, I've been saying this for actually years, got to challenge also all of these white folks, these young voters out here who sort of been silent on this issue

because, frankly, the only people who I see constantly protesting and getting arrested are black people. And Latinos got stepped the hell up. Asians got stepped the hell up as well. First of all, Roland, you've known me long enough for me to be able to come up and ask you for that jacket that you got on. So know that I want that jacket when you finish. You got to get your own made. Okay, well, all right. Well, see, I thought you knew me.

But anyway, back to the topic. I agree with both of the panelists, particularly Mr. Hotep, who referenced to begin his comments on how the trans issue became an issue that everybody got behind in terms of supporting that, bathrooms, et cetera. It became a policy, a structural issue relatively quickly. But what I keep hearing, and maybe there's more that I could have heard, but I keep hearing Biden, Biden, Biden, and Biden needs to step up. But the LGBT community and the people that had bathrooms changed, et cetera, don't care who's president in terms of that being their only focus of what they, who they talk to to get what they want. As Michael mentioned, they, and as I mentioned in previous shows, they have a machine. They have a consistent machine that is relentless and focused no matter who's in the White House.

As a matter of fact, most people who are trying to get in the White House reference that machine to make sure they're in good with it because they know that the machine is powerful. And that machine is omnipresent. It's in Congress. It's in every part of human life. But we don't have black people in every part of human life who are courageous enough to care about black people to that point. And that's one of our problems. And along with problem solving conversations, we need to look at what I call the trance that black people are in, including black people who are in Congress, et cetera, we are in a trance that makes us, that paralyzes us where we only go so far. And when the right white person doesn't support us,

we give up and go back into this paralysis or back into the trance. Like you said, Roland, these corporations and all these other people who like dollars need to feel concerned about what black people will do and won't do, what black people will and will not support. They need to be afraid of us. But for us to create that kind of reaction to us, we have to love ourselves more and be more and value black people and value black power and stop tiptoeing. And what about white gays? I mean, white G-A-Z-E this time, not white G-A-Y-S. Because that's part of what's going on.

We have an unconscious anxiety around hurting white folks' feelings. And the people who have power and give what they want in this country, they don't have that anxiety. That concludes the RGBC. All right, folks, hold tight one second. Got to go to a break. Got to hold tight one second. Got to go to a break.

We come back. We're going to talk about cops in Maryland who, folks, hold tight one second. Got to go to a break. Got to hold tight one second. Got to go to a break. We come back. We're going to talk about cops in Maryland who, frankly, are so untrustworthy, two state's attorneys will not even call many of them to the witness stand when these cases go to trial. We'll talk with one of those state's attorneys next on Roland Martin Unfiltered, broadcasting live from Indianapolis on the Black Star Network. Nå er vi på veien. ТРЕВОЖНАЯ 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? Peace and love, everybody. I'm Purple Wonder Love. Hey, I'm Donnie Simpson. What's up? I'm Lance Gross, and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. All right, folks.

In Maryland, two DAs, state's attorneys, are making it clear that they have a do not call list. No, not when it comes to scam calls, but when it comes to police officers who they will not call to the stand because they frankly are untrustworthy. Marilyn Mosby in Baltimore has made it clear she has a list. So has Aisha Brave Boy, of course, the Prince George's County state's attorney who joins us right now. And they've released this particular list. Glad to have a state's attorney, a brave boy back on Roller Martin Unfiltered. So walk us through this. I mean, these are officers who have such credibility issues. You can't trust them testifying. Unfortunately, that is correct. There are officers who have conducted themselves in a manner that is just outside of their duties, where we, as the state attorney's office, have to send a

strong message that certain activities and behaviors of officers will be unacceptable. And if they continue to remain on the force, they will not be called in cases that our offices prosecutes. Okay. Can you, when you say behavior, what does that mean? So there are officers who have lied in cases, lied to get people arrested. There are officers who are racist, homophobic, and sexist. And these officers do not represent the vast majority of officers on our police departments. They disrespect their profession and their oath of office. And so from our perspective, that these are people who have

disqualified themselves from serving our communities, and we will not call them to testify as witnesses in our cases. What are these chiefs saying? How are these folks still even on the force? Well, that's a very good question. I think that when we sent a notice to the police department earlier this year that we would no longer be calling these individuals, I want to commend our department and our administration for removing these officers from the streets. Now, what they decide to do with them is their choice. What we have said is that we will not call them. And so they are no longer actively participating in cases because the department knows that we are not calling them as witnesses. So they would certainly be problematic if they were handling cases, arresting individuals or, you know, filing police reports. How many are we talking in Prince George's County? How many in Baltimore?

We have about 57 in Prince George's County. But we believe it was important to have our entire list available because some of these officers will try to go to different departments to get jobs. And so we want to ensure that everyone understands that these officers are not credible individuals, that they should not be trusted, and that they have, again, disqualified themselves from serving in this capacity in our communities. And so we have about 57 officers, about 12 from our municipalities, and the rest are Prince George's County police officers. We have about 17 of them that are still on the force. Now, some of them have pending criminal charges. And so those cases have to be tried. And after the outcome of those cases, we'll determine whether or not they will stay on the list. But for right now, they are on the list because we cannot credibly call them as witnesses

in cases. All right. State's Attorney Aisha Brayboy, we really appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you very much. All right, Kelly, this is the kind of stuff when we talk about, you know, all these all these people who get mad about defund the police. It's amazingly how silent they are when you have district attorneys who make it clear they cannot trust what these individuals have to say. I mean, yeah, this is, you know, something that I was kind of surprised to hear about. But I'm glad that it is not a dynamic between the police and the district attorney's office such that, you know, traditionally they would work in tandem no matter what the cost, right? But now we have DAs who are trying to hold both parties accountable, both their own attorneys and the police department accountable for their actions. Thankfully, a lot of these officers are not on the force anymore, but it does show you just how perverse the corruption has been, how biased these police officers have been over the course of years. Who knows how many cases

they worked that was not in anyone's favor but their own. So I'm interested to see what the outcome of future cases are going to be now that this list is out there and just how accountable both parties will be to the public. Well, and was it just again, as I said, Cleo, when when you have these police unions who get real quiet about this, all of these folks who holler back the blues. It's amazing how quiet they are as well. Well, this makes me smile because even though Mosby is everybody's legal force and source, she symbolizes what black power looks like and symbolizes what happens when somebody who cares about black people are in a decision-making role that impacts policy and how things are rolled out.

Because even though her job is to take care of everybody and she does, she's inspired by the murder of Gray and what happened to those cops and the constant discovery of corruption among cops and she's not having it and I am aware of other people in her position across the country who are having it, who do allow this so it's just wonderful that this is what black power looks like

black power is responsible for everybody but that ensures that issues that are disproportionately affecting us are taken care of. And this is why she's controversial. And this is why she's always dealing with petty stuff, like she did something wrong by owning property somewhere on the planet, which is not illegal. So I just want to underscore that that's why she's controversial and underscore that this is what Black power looks like and why it's important to look at voting from a local level instead of waiting for the next Biden, whatever people are going to jump behind for the president and look at how what happens when these

people like her have can make decisions for us. And of course, the thing that. Michael, the thing here, we talk about accountability and then also folks talk about credibility and trust and trust the police and folks want to give them even more power. I mean, not a single one of these officers should have a badge and a gun when you say that a prosecutor cannot trust putting them on the stand. I remember in Chicago last year where there was a judge they got sick and tired of, and he literally reported to the oversight board of eight cops who consistently lied on his stand. And he said, how are the people still on the force? I mean, this was a judge who said they kept lying. This wasn't the jury. This was a judge who said he got sick and tired of it as well. I mean, this is pervasive. But again, it's the, oh, no, they're just a few

bad apples. Well, you know, Roland, right here we have 91 bad apples. I don't know how many barrels these bad apples are in, but you have 91. And this is the hit on Cleo's point. This is an example of how elections have consequences. These prosecutors, and this is something people have been realizing over the past few years, prosecutors are elected. These bad prosecutors, you can vote them out of office, okay? 67 have been convicted of crimes or face internal affairs investigations, but you got 23 to have pending criminal cases. So one of the questions I ask affairs investigations, but you got 23 to have pending criminal cases. So one of the questions I ask is like, okay, so wait a second, these, these officers that have been convicted, um, are there cases being investigated where they've

gotten people convicted and they testify previously? Is that being investigated? And this is another example of why many of us need to apply to these police departments and become the officers that we say we want to see. It's clearly some bad people out there, some bad officers out there. And there's a system like the Fraternal Order of Police and some police unions that protect these bad officers. So this is good. We need more prosecutors like Marilyn Mosby, but also when these officers get convicted and things like this, we need to have the right people to take these officers' place, as well as the white supremacists who keep getting kicked out of police departments, some of them as well. Absolutely. I just, again, to watch this consistently unfold is amazing and just, it just continues and continues and continues.

And again, you hear all the cute excuses of what we can and cannot do and what we shouldn't do. But bottom line here, action has to be taken. All right, I've got to go to a real quick break. I'm going to come back to Indianapolis where, of course, broadcasting, I'm here for the Stewart Speakers, their annual series. You have Dr. Eddie Glaude.

I'm going to be moderating the panel with him and Alicia Garza. I'm going to be live streaming that as well. But more news right when we come back 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.

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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. 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 break. Now, her hairdressing empire is killing it. And the prince? Well, who cares? Prime changes everything. Hi, I'm Eric Nolan. I'm Shantae Moore. Hi, my name is Latoya Luckett, and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. All right, folks, 16-year-old Misha.

This is, again, one of these sad stories for us. 16-year-old Misha Morgan went missing from Waco, Texas on October 14th. The 5'2", 90-pound teen has black hair, brown eyes, and braces. She was last seen wearing blue jeans, shorts, and a purple hoodie. If you know where Misha is or have seen her, please call the Waco Police Department Crimes Against Children Unit at 254-752-2600, 254-752-2600. All right, folks, we're going to stay in Texas where Derek Johnson here at the NAACP is calling on professional athletes not to sign with any Texas teams as a result of the policies being put in place by Republicans in that state, including a voter suppression bill. This was a letter that he released publicly. It says, legislators to violate constitutional rights for all, especially for women, children, and marginalized communities.

As we watch an incomprehensible assault on basic human rights unfold in Texas, we are simultaneously witnessing a threat to constitutional guarantees for women, children, and marginalized communities. Over the past few months, legislators in Texas have passed archaic policies disguised as laws that directly violate privacy rights and a woman's freedom to choose, restrict access to free and fair elections for black and brown voters, and increase the risk of contracting coronavirus. If you are a woman, avoid Texas. If you are black, avoid Texas. If you want to lower your chances of dying from coronavirus, avoid Texas. We're now pleading with you. If you are a free agent and are considering employment in Texas, look elsewhere.

The Texas government will not protect your family, demand that Texas owners invest in your rights and protect your investments. Texas is not safe for you, your spouse or your children until the legislation is overturned. Texas isn't safe for anyone. And the teams mentioned include the Houston Astros and Texas Rangers and Major League Baseball, the Houston Texans and Dallas Cowboys and the NFL, the Houston Rockros and Texas Rangers in Major League Baseball, the Houston Texans and Dallas Cowboys in the NFL, the Houston Rockets, Dallas Mavericks, San Antonio Spurs in the NBA, Dallas Stars in the NHL, and the Dallas Wings in the WNBA.

Cleo, what do you make of this letter from Derrick Johnson trying to appeal to professional athletes not to sign with Texas teams. It's pretty powerful. I mean, he broke it all down. He made it real clear that people should think about what they do and look at the consequences of being in Texas. I didn't realize being in Texas was that dangerous. Are you in danger? Am I in danger?

No, I'm not in danger, but I do have a significant problem. But I do have a significant problem with what's happening in the state capital there. And I get Derek's point in terms of the free agents, but here's what I want to know. Will the NAACP directly challenge those teams? Will Derrick call on the Texas State Conference and their chapters to launch massive protests in front of the offices of every single one of those professional teams? Are they going to demand that the owners say something and do something? And so I get the whole deal with the agents, but I want to know, is he going to deploy the NAACP and their branches to initiate, again, massive protests all across the state in Austin, in Houston, in Dallas, in San Antonio? When was the last time they've done something like that?

Has it ever happened? Don't know. Yeah, actually, it has happened in terms of in terms of simultaneous protest. But again, I get a letter is one thing to the to the to the agents. But to me, there should be mass mobilization, specifically targeting the teams and targeting the owners, demanding that they use their power and influence on the folks in Austin. And I agree with that. I'm sorry? Kelly, go ahead.

No, just Kelly, go ahead. It was delayed. No, I agree with you, Roland, in that when I read the letter, although I applaud NAACP for taking initiative and pushing that forward, it did have like a little bit of hint of victim blaming to me because of what you just said. It's not necessarily the free agent's fault that these laws are in place, but the people who are actually empowered to do something about it substantially are the owners. They are the general substantially are the owners. They are the

general managers and the like. So like you said, unless NAACP is going to them regarding this matter and pushing that they lobby on behalf of who they represent, more or less, by way of being a sports team, I don't see how it would be much of an impact if the free agents do it. And in fact, Michael, if you look at all of those teams, those stadiums that were built for them, taxpayer dollars. And so, again, I would say put that pressure as well. I got no problem with the letter, but what I want to see,

I want to see Der I want to see Derek Johnson instruct the Texas State Conference of the NAACP, instruct all of the chapters in that state to undergo a massive protest in front of every single, here's the deal, right now, okay, my Houston Astros are playing the Atlanta Braves. Game three is tonight. The next two games are in Atlanta. Okay, if the Astros win one of those games, it's coming back to Houston. This is the deal. Derek, have massive protests outside of Minute Maid Park where the Astros play. In fact, we know about the Georgia bill.

Where are the NAACP protests going on tonight in front of the Brave Stadium in Cobb County, games three, four, and five? Why aren't they passing out leaflets to all the fans who are coming there? You got Trump, who's coming to the game tomorrow night there in Atlanta. How about that? Also,

you've got basketball season starting. Here's the deal. Have the NAACP launch protests at every home game of the Dallas Mavericks, Houston Rockets, San Antonio Spurs. That, to me, is how you mobilize and organize and really expand the attention and not just talk about free agents because here's the deal. A free agent ain't signing with any one of those teams until the season is over. Yeah. That's part of it, Roland.

But see, where I stand, we should be talking about not watching the games in the first place. Where I stand, we should be going after the advertisers that advertise on the networks, that advertise on the networks during the games. You leverage your economics to enforce your political agenda. So, protesting in front of the stadium, that's good. But, see, we have more power than we're using.

We can strangle... I was about to cuss on your ear. No, no, no. But, Michael, here's the deal, though. You can't, again, understanding how you build attention for the protest, you can't do that until you mobilize and organize. I agree.

And so imagine if, yes, you have people who are signing people up who are at the games. Right. That is one of the ways you actually do it. Again, I appreciate the letter from Derek, and I appreciate that. I want to know, okay, NAACP, what's the next step? That's the point you asked as well. What's next?

Well, I totally understand it's a process leading up to economic withdrawal strategies, things like this. But with the NAACP, they don't get to that point. They don't get to that step. So we have to understand this long range and

really understand how to bring it to fruition, what it is we say that we want, and really leverage our economics to do this. The protests in front of the stadiums are good, but then you've got to go to the corporate. You can put economic pressure on the corporations that run ads on the networks while the games are playing.

Where are you? Why are you silent? Where do you stand on this? Many people in the state, Republicans in the state legislature, okay, who voted for SB8, the strict anti-abortion bill, and voted for the voter restriction bill in Texas. Which corporations helped finance them?

We should be... That's part of the process to leverage the economics and put pressure on these corporations. That's not taking place here. So sometimes we confuse activity with productivity. Sometimes we confuse activity with productivity, brother, and it's like, look,

either you're going to kick their asses or you're going to get your ass kicked. There's just all this to it. The corporations are already working on... I'm sorry. Did I continue? No, no, Khalil, go ahead.

I was going to simply say that the corporations... I'm getting back to the paralysis and the behavioral brainwashing issue. The corporations through their media are constantly creating messages that keep black people from going to these steps that you all are talking about and keep black people from being apprehensive to behave in ways that mean we mean business. So, it's time to start protesting corporations before all of this stuff occurs. We need to protest how Black people are depicted and how Black people are made to not even love themselves and value other people, see other people as more important than a Black person as a choice. These are all things that are getting in the way of black people acting out on a holistic basis on multiple levels, like the LGBTQ community does, in ways that defy anything against us. So, you know, I get kind of frustrated by the theoretical conversations about what we

should do, because we have a whole bunch of shoulds that will fill up the ocean. But what we do and how we behave needs to be addressed. And we need to look at the barriers, systemic barriers, including corporate messaging barriers that get in the way of Black people behaving as if we want to be powerful and as if we want to be respected. Absolutely. All right, folks, hold tight one second. Going to go to break. We come back. I'm going to tell you about the Julius Jones case, give you an update on that in Oklahoma, as well as them moving forward with an execution last night

that went wrong again. That's next. Roland Martin, unfiltered on the Black Star Network, broadcasting live from Indianapolis, Indiana. Back in a moment. ТРЕВОЖНАЯ 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, a New York State trooper facing several felony charges for killing

an 11-year-old black girl after ramming his police vehicle into her family's car. Christopher Ballner pulled over the Goods family for speeding. During the stop, Ballner sprayed pepper spray in the car. Tristan Goods drove away in the chase and sued. Baldner rammed into the vehicle, causing Goods to lose control. Monica was killed and her 12-year-old sister was seriously injured. This is not Baldner's first time abusing his power. He's facing three additional charges for ramming another vehicle in 2019. He is currently suspended without pay.

If convicted, he could face up to 25 years in prison. A Minnesota judge denies the request to reduce the most severe charge for Kim Potter, a former Minneapolis police officer who shot and killed Daunte Wright during a traffic stop. Potter is going to face first and second degree manslaughter charges for the shooting. The ex-cop alleges she thought she reached for her taser instead of her handgun. The trial is set to begin on November 30th. Let's go to Oklahoma, where the state of execution order has been lifted in that state as Oklahoma moves forward with the executions.

Last night, they actually executed John Marion Grant, who was convicted with a 1998 murder of a prison cafeteria worker. Now, there was an issue there he threw up. During that whole deal, Oklahoma's had major issues with executions because of the drugs that were used. They actually stopped the executions because of the cruel and unusual treatment that these inmates were receiving when they were being executed. They resumed the execution, still had those problems last night. Now, again,

this decision by the Supreme Court to lift that stay means that if Julius Jones is not granted clemency Monday, the state is going to move forward with his execution on November 18th. What's crazy here, Kelly, is that you had a parole board who said that his sentence needed to be commuted, then the governor, he didn't want to act. And so therefore, he said, well, let's have a clemency hearing. And so the prosecutor's still saying that we should move forward. But you literally have a board who is saying, they were quoted, we have major problems with this case. We should not put this man to death. Oklahoma's saying, eh, what the hell, kill him. And that is a huge problem in and of itself, right? And for me, it just feels like,

I can't help but think that if it were a white man in this same predicament, that they would move hell and high water to make sure that he was not killed unjustly at the hands of the state. But because it's a black man, it's a black body in the prison system already, who's going to miss him, right? Like, that's what it feels like their logic is. When the fact of the matter is, he still has a life. However it is lived, it is still a life. And if you cannot, without a shadow of a doubt, make sure that his execution is justified, then you shouldn't be doing it. Further, again, Oklahoma has a history of botching death sentences.

They shouldn't be doing it at all. The death penalty is something that should still be on the books or not is beside the point, but Oklahoma doesn't know how to do it right. So until they fix that, there shouldn't be any on the books at all. And this is why people, Cleo, say there should not be the death penalty because when there is doubt, we should not be sending someone to the death because you know what? After death, there is no coming back from that. That's finality. Well, this is an issue of the luck of the draw as far as I'm concerned because when and often this doesn't happen to poor people.

And economically, often that's black people, but not all the time, I should say. But what I mean by the luck of the draw is when people are lucky, they get the assistance of, like, the Innocence Project and other projects that help get people out who don't deserve to be killed. And, of course, it's logical to say that if we're not sure of what they've done, they shouldn't be killed.

However, that stuff't be killed. However, that stuff doesn't matter. What matters is what kind of cards that the person is playing and what's there for them to have to deal with. When it comes to the death penalty as a phenomena, I'm mixed on it. I'm not mixed about the fact that it's mostly Black men who are victimized by it because this is a racist system that victimizes black men. And I used to, once upon a time when I was younger and more naive, be totally against the death penalty. I'm not anymore. Some folks need to be up out of here because of some horrible things that they did. However, what occurs in the final analysis is simply based on what they have to their disposal. And unfortunately, a lot of these people don't have powerful law protection on their side.

So it's a sad situation when someone who is put to death didn't do it. But how do you know until you do the proper investigation? Michael. OK, well, I think you called me. Yeah, you know, I was reading about this. Yeah, I did, Michael. Okay, yeah, your voice was fading. Your voice was fading.

It's hard to hear you rolling. There's a delay. Okay, first of all, you never heard anyone say my voice fades. Your voice was fading. Okay. Don't get it started, Michael. Don't get it started. You know, this is Oklahoma number one, okay? This is where Tulsa, Oklahoma is. This is where the Tulsa race massacre was. But I was reading about this, and, you know, Tulsa has, I mean,

Oklahoma has had a problem with executions in the past, number one. Number two, with Julius Jones, there should definitely be, it appears, a state of execution. And, you know, this also plays into who is governor of your state, because governors can give states of executions, okay? I don't think Governor Kevin Stitt will, who's a Republican, I don't think he will. So this is, hopefully, Julius Jones' life can be spared. And I'm one that because African Americans, one of the reasons because African Americans that disproportionately make up those on death row. OK. And and also we see many instances where you have African-American men have been in prison 20, 25 years and then come to find out they were innocent and they're let go.

You know, this is one of the reasons why I'm against the death penalty. But I do make exceptions for like Dylan. Gotcha. Somebody like that, you know. So but hopefully Julius Jones life can be spared on this one all right folks some sad news out of Atlanta where a bright light in the journalist community has passed away it was announced this morning that Jovita Moore a longtime anchor at WSB TV in Atlanta died after a seven-month battle with brain cancer. She was diagnosed. She was found two masses seven months ago. She was diagnosed three months ago with brain cancer. She, of course, won a number of Emmy Awards.

So many people have been expressing their shock and dismay at this news. Many folks were praying for her and pulling for her. But, again, to go from getting the news of seven months ago, having two masses to now passing away. She was an active member of the National Association of Black Journalists. I would often see her at our convention. She was an active lifetime member of the Atlanta Association of Black Journalists and certainly was a mentor for many young and upcoming journalists. She has survived by her mother, two children, as well as her stepdaughter, Jovita Moore, dead at the age of 53. And so certainly condolences go out to

her family, her WSB family, her NABJ family, and those, all those who knew and loved her. She was a, she was a really sweet sister. Always had a great smile. Last time I saw her, we had the opening of Tyler Perry's studios when he had his gala weekend. So we had a chance to catch up. That was in October of 2019. And so it's certainly sad losing her at the age of 53. All right, folks. First of all, let me thank Michael Kelly and Cleo for being on the show. That is it for us broadcasting here from Indianapolis. But the show is not over. You don't want to miss the next interview that I have. It's with a book author who talks about realtors and how they played an instrumental role in driving racism and discrimination in America with housing segregation and how we are still impacted by their decisions and those housing laws today. It's a fascinating conversation

that you don't want to miss, that you're only going to see right here on Roland Martin Unfiltered, streaming live on the Black Star Network. We'll be right back. Oh, that spin class was brutal. Well, you can try using the Buick's massaging seat.. That spin class was brutal. Well, you can try using the Buick's massaging seat. Ooh, 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. I'm 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 break.

Now, her hairdressing empire is killing it. And the prince? Well, who cares? Prime changed everything. But I'm back at it and I'm feeling myself. I'm Chrisette Michelle. Hi, I'm Chaley Rose and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. Let's get right into it. It's very interesting to me.

Whenever we have this conversation and folks talk about, oh, well, you know, African-Americans, I mean, look, we're all on the same page and we're all in the same boat. And these things dealing with race, those things were just so long ago. And what I keep trying to explain to people is that you cannot negate what has happened since 1619, but you can't also act as if everything stopped for African Americans with the end of slavery. You have to deal with the 92 years of Jim Crow. And one area where we are still impacted in 2021 is housing segregation. Yes, that's exactly true. And we talk about that.

So bring us into 2021, into the 21st century, where the average person walking around doesn't really understand how devastating housing segregation has been and how it continues to impact African-Americans and others. Right. Well, first of all, I think it's important to understand that housing segregation was an invention. It wasn't like the norm. It wasn't part of the myths that the realtors promoted that segregation was always the way it was. Segregation was invented when it was the same way as the airplane was invented at about the same time in the way it was. Segregation was invented. I mean, it was the same way as the airplane was invented at about the same time in the early 1900s as a marketing tool by the country's realtors, who then used racial covenants, racial steering, shaped federal

programs, federal housing programs in the Depression, all to enforce segregation. And there were great battles. Finally, when this continued by the early 1960s, African Americans were excluded still from 98 percent of new homes and 95 percent of existing neighborhoods, and with tremendous disinvestment because all federal money and federal investment went into the all-white suburbs that were being created. And that legacy directly from that history, from the differences in household wealth that were created in that era, from the creation of single-family zoning, which realtors were the key promoters of as a way to support keeping cities all white and fragmenting local suburbs, that legacy of the view that an African-American or minority moving into an all-white neighborhood would destroy that neighborhood, that legacy

remains and remains powerful. One of the ways, one of the best examples of this, I think, was a study done by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago in 2017. They looked back at the lines that were drawn on redlining maps in the 1930s. Redlining maps were created when the realtors shaped FHA. They were its key lobbyists. They helped draw up the maps. And what they did was they said, okay, and the maps, by the way, everybody talks about them now, but at the time they were secret. The NAACP didn't have copies. Nobody had copies of them.

So they looked back. Federal Reserve in 2017 went back and looked at the lines on those maps where they were drawn simply down the back, you know, the edge of the street. And at the time, there were very little differences on three blocks to the right and three blocks to the left, six blocks to the right, six blocks to the left. They were arbitrary lines that were drawn to try and distinguish neighborhoods where presumably there would be all, it would permanently be all white, and so that the federal government could make loans. So they looked at the differences.

Back in the 1930s, there were almost no differences on either side of these lines. In 2017, these differences were tremendous in terms of home ownership rates, in terms of the prices of homes, in terms of housing condition and overcrowding and investment. So, in effect, the history of that era, the legacy that was created during those 60 years of formal segregation, government-backed segregation, has compounded over time. It's compounded, as I say, geographically in terms of, you know, by cities, by single-family zoning, by fiscal zoning, by what can be invested in areas. It's compounded in terms of racial wealth. When Blacks were denied the ability to participate effectively in FHA programs, in VA programs, in the loans that were made by banks, for decades, after decades, this had, at a time when housing prices were roughly a fifth in real terms what they are today, this has had

an enormous impact on the country today and on the persistence of segregation. So I think there are these direct economic legacies, but there are also political legacies as well, which have tremendously weakened efforts at fair housing and efforts at integration. So this is the thing that for so many people, again, especially a lot of white Americans who don't understand how deep embedded this has been in our system. We're not talking just about that Southern town.

We're not talking about, Oh, uh, this particular area, uh, in, uh, the, the, in, in, in the ghettos or the slums of New York. No, what we're talking about was national. We're talking about how the federal government, the purse, billions of dollars, created this racially segregated system that we have been trying to claw our way out of. And then when we look at our neighborhoods today, our schools today, when we look at the resources in these areas, when we look at what was built and what wasn't, when we look at what is dilapidated today, all of these things go back to this housing segregation in the United States of America. Yes. So, you know, I've worked in, you know, affordable housing for 50 years,

starting with looking at every abandoned building in the South Bronx in the 1970s, worked on all sorts of things. 30 states and hundreds of cities. And one of the things, without my understanding the history of it, was the similarity of the patterns of inner city ghettos, of borderlines, of all white suburbs, as though this was somehow a natural phenomenon. It was just always this way. It was this way because it was created this way. The realtors, which was the organized real estate industry, the local real estate boards in every city in the country,

were the ones who created and promoted residential segregation, would kick out any and freeze out of the business any realtor who sold to a minority in a white neighborhood. That was their code of ethics. And they imposed this system, the system of racial covenants. And then in the 30s, they shaped, they were the key lobbyists for the federal housing programs, which then took the racial system the realtors had created informally and ad hoc, neighborhood by neighborhood, going around organizing petitions from neighbors paid by Bank of America and other banks to get petitions for racial covenants. This was now organized in an institutional way by the federal government. The Federal Housing Administration and the creation of

long-term, fixed-rate, low-down payment mortgages that didn't exist at the time was probably the most powerful invention in the history of housing finance in the history of the world. It helped create tremendous affordability. You could buy a home for less than it costs to rent. But that program was designed and shaped by the realtors to work for white Americans and to keep areas exclusively white. And so the reason the patterns are exactly the same in 350 cities is because they were designed to be exactly the same out of the same blueprint, which then had the consequence. Picture the 1930s when, if you're a developer, you're a builder, and you're building, you can get an FHA commitment. Only if you show you have racial covenants or you're in far-off

suburbs, far from any minorities, you can get a commitment for 100% financing. On 100% of the homes in that area, you can get a commitment for all the dollars that it's going to cost you to build that, sometimes for more than that. But if somebody wants to invest in housing in a mixed racial neighborhood, they can't. There's no money for that at all. So it was like starving some areas and putting money elsewhere. The other thing that I think is important to recognize is this racial system was originally excluding anybody other than Caucasians. And Caucasians meant what realtors decided in each area. Often it meant Jews, Italians, Hispanics, Japanese, Chinese Americans.

Over time and after World War II, as more of these groups became accepted by realtors basically who were the gatekeepers, became accepted as white, as being allowed to move into the neighborhoods. What you had with the remaining neighborhoods, which had always been the racially mixed areas of cities, became effectively all black because they were the only people who were prevented from moving out. And that's why the system is so universal. North and South is exactly the same. And from the point of view of those people who are excluded, they're African-Americans, it was a tremendous denial of opportunities, both in housing, they had to pay 20 to 30% more for the houses in the same condition.

Because like in any, you know, restricted market, you have to bid up the costs, often if they could move into white neighborhoods by paying speculators that difference. So it had that enormous difference, and the pattern was the same in every city in the country. So I think that's really important to understand. This wasn't a phenomenon simply in the Deep South in some ways. The first racial covenants that created America's restricted neighborhoods were in Berkeley, California, a mile and a half from the University of California campus. They weren't in Alabama or Mississippi. Segregation was created in the north. All right, folks, back to that Rolamark unfiltered video in just one moment. Субтитры создавал DimaTorzok Nå er det en av de fleste stående stående i landet. I'm going to go get my bag. I'm going to go get my bag. I'm going to go get my bag.

I'm going to go get my bag. I'm going to go get my bag. I'm going to go get my bag. I'm going to go get my bag. I'm going to go get my bag. I'm going to go get my bag. I'm going to go get my bag. I'm going to go get my bag.

I'm going to go get my bag. I'm going to go get my bag. I'm going to go get my bag. 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. I'm Dion Cole and you're watching... Roland Martin Unfiltered stay woke

i'm back to your roland martin unfiltered showtime had a really great documentary on the reagans and you know you talk to republicans today and it's, oh, my God, it's Ronald Reagan and how he was this political god. The fact of the matter is Ronald Reagan was a racist. Ronald Reagan supported that statewide ballot initiative in California. There's a great article that actually I pulled up, and the piece was how the L.A. Times helped write segregation into California's Constitution. It was white populism in California that also drove this as well. And so this is the precursor. This is before the Fair Housing Act of 1968. How white populism echoes of today played a role in segregation. And it was by design to say, we're going to put it into the law. You don't have to sell to those people. Right, right. So because segregation remained so powerful in the late 1950s, let me give you another example from California. In the entire decade of the 1950s, of 325,000 new homes that were sold in the Bay Area, 50 were without regard to race,

50 out of 325,000. In the San Fernando Valley with 750,000 people living in all white neighborhoods, the Fair Housing Council knew of one black family that had been able to move into those neighborhoods. So that was how powerful and how organized a system of segregation was. It didn't depend on individual decision. It was an organized system, the realtors. When fair housing advocates, people trying to end this discrimination, passed a state fair housing law in 1963 called the Rumford Act. Fair housing, a very modest law that applied to a quarter of single family homes and to larger rental properties, the maximum fine was $500.

And in the first 18 months, it handled like 82 cases or so within the state. When they passed this law, the realtors had a choice of how to respond. In a couple of states, in Massachusetts and Colorado, realtors decided to go along and try and make this work. But in the vast majority of the country, and especially in California, which had half the realtors of the United States, they decided to organize a ballot proposition, a state constitutional amendment that would forever ban any type of fair housing, would create an absolute right, the absolute discretion of any owner to sell or rent to whoever they chose without any restriction by the state or any city.

This would prohibit any limit on residential discrimination. This was such a radical measure. No state had something like this in its constitution. The realtors were entirely politically isolated, no prominent politician. And at the time, not Barry Goldwater, who was opposing the US 1960 Civil Rights Act, nor Ronald Reagan would touch this proposition, would endorse it for fear of seeming racist. So, the realtors, in order to win a campaign, and here they are in California, a fairly liberal, moderate state, with a popular two-term governor, Pat Brown, who had been reelected over Richard Nixon by making fair housing his highest priority. the support of big business, the support of labor unions,

the support of all the church leaders and all the archbishops. How were the realtors going to combat that without seeming racist? How can you run a campaign for a proposition that permanently denies people the choice of where to live and make that seem not like a racist campaign. And their technique was to take, it was to come up with the exact opposite of the idea of freedom that Martin Luther King talked about and was at the heart of the civil rights movement that anyone's freedom depends on everyone,

that freedom is something shared. They decided to turn this on its head and they created the notion of absolute individual freedom and freedom of choice that now came to shape the Republican Party that led to the rise of Ronald Reagan, and it shapes our politics today. And what was at the heart of this was a couple of techniques, and it's important to understand these techniques because this still drive American politics on issues from vaccines to masks, to guns, to abortions, campaign contributions.

It's the same idea. Rather than freedom meaning something that the role of government, the Declaration of Independence is to secure these rights, to balance the rights of all so that nobody dominates those of government, the Declaration of Independence, is to secure these rights, to balance the rights of all, so that nobody dominates those of others, just like in freedom of speech and freedom of press, where government has to balance those rights, was to create an idea that freedom isn't that, that freedom is your absolute personal property, like your home, with your absolute ability to do whatever you want, regardless of the rights of others,

that your rights trump those of others, in other words. And that was the idea they created. And they made this into the mantra of colorblind freedom by saying, we're in favor of the same rights for Black owners and white owners. What was that right? The right to discriminate. So they argued they were the ones in favor of equal rights, trying to steal that message from the civil rights advocates. And they did something. They then took a narrow right that nobody had ever talked about, the right of an owner to decide they didn't want to just sell for the highest price, but to pick the race of who they were going to sell to. A right nobody had ever talked about, and realtors had spent 50 years

violating the racial covenants. They took that right and they elevated it as being the litmus test of American freedom itself. The same, and by totally ignoring the right to own a home, the right to choose where to live, the right to rent. They left out all those other parts and said, this is freedom. The same technique could then be used on guns, on abortion, on campaign contributions to elevate and single narrow right and say, this is the litmus test of freedom itself. The other thing that they did was conservatives at the time were quite divided between social conservatives who were in favor of tradition and school prayer and so forth and wanted government controls to enforce tradition versus libertarians who are against government restrictions. So what the realtors did was they created the language of, they used the language of libertarianism, of your absolute individual rights to do the opposite, to enforce past social traditions

and say nobody can challenge it. In effect, it said, you have an absolute individual right to a conforming community. And that's what we see today throughout this. And by creating a racially neutral language of freedom, they created the ideology for what became a new Republican Party. 1964, 80% of Republican Congress, more than Democrats, voted for the Civil Rights Act and voted for the Voting Rights Act. This was a new Republican Party emerged, one that had first been designed in the late 1940s by Charles Wallace Collins, a Southern racist banking lawyer, to say if Jim Crow was going to be preserved, the Southern Democrats needed to leave the Democratic Party

and join with those Republicans who would agree to not want to restrict local control of civil rights in return for the federal government being kept out of business regulation. That party became possible in the mid-1960s. And in the midst of Goldwater's debacle, this ideology became that ideology. And Ronald Reagan picked up the language of the Realtors. He didn't support Proposition 14, the Realtors' Proposition, at the time, because it was fair to think it seemed racist. Two years later, it proved popular, won 65 percent of the vote, 75 percent of the white vote at the height of American liberalism. Reagan then, when it was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, he picked up the realtor's language.

He said if an individual wants to discriminate against a Negro in selling or renting his house, it's his right to do so. It's his absolute freedom. And this, he was sort of an amateur trying to find a message. This provided, this idea of freedom provided his message. And that's what you're laying out. And this is important, Gene. And this is why I want to go beyond just the root of this. So what you're saying is that if you take this issue, you take Senator Barry Goldwater's campaign against the Civil Rights Act, and a lot of people don't understand that the likes of William F. Buckley and other conservatives were in support of civil rights, but it was Goldwater's position, this notion of

freedom that shifted the party, that you take Goldwater's position, you take this proposition, you take Reagan embracing the language, that is what has established today's modern day Republican Party. Today's modern day Republican Party has been born out of supporting segregation. It came out of an idea that was designed to permanently divide Americans racially in terms of residential segregation.

And they took this idea of using freedoms, your absolute right, to permanently divide people, and they applied this to everything. So to understand why this is important, imagine a conservative movement that consists of all these very diverse causes, with some people caring about abortion, some people caring about guns, some people caring about limiting civil rights. You had all these campaign contributions or the Koch brothers about business regulation, climate change, whatever. You have all these diverse campaign contributions or the Koch brothers about business regulation, climate change, whatever. You have all these diverse issues. What unites them is the same vocabulary, the liberal government is out there to take your freedom away. And that's what – and it's the dynamic of that message that's driven this party, Republican Party, so that only those people can aspire to lead it who endorse this and who view this. And so, you know, when I look at, you know, what's happened with vaccines and masks,

for example, here's a sort of a new case of this. Why has this become such an issue? It's become such an issue because Republican leaders have no choice but using this idea of absolute freedom to oppose mask mandates and vaccine mandates. Here's DeSantis in Florida having campaigned and made his whole thing, the left is coming to take away your freedom. So he therefore has to violate the most basic conservative principles of local control of schools and employers deciding on how to treat their employees. He has to do those things to maintain that ideology. Here's Abbott in Texas who's being run against on the right for his own mask mandates a year ago, having to oppose mask mandates. Here's Donald Trump

told by his advisers who would be politically wise if there were mask mandates and support for masks during the presidential run. And his response is that would be off brand. Right. Republican leaders are trapped by the message that's been created that has driven their party. This has become their only issue. And see, here's the thing. Here's the thing that is so important here as what you laid out and what we're talking about. It is that notion, freedom, freedom. Even the use of that word.

The juxtaposition is that here you had a black freedom movement, a civil rights movement that was based upon freedom. But then you had this appeal to white voters that essentially the Republican Party was saying, you're losing your freedoms because of them. Exactly. Your freedom depends on not giving rights to other people. It's the very opposite of the idea that freedom belongs to the country as a whole and freedom is shared and your freedom depends on others. And so what you have, you know, it's like the paradox at the heart of American politics that nobody talks about, that if you ask Americans right and left across the political spectrum who disagree on almost everything, what's the highest value of the country, what's the purpose of the country, they will all tell you the answer is freedom.

But as the assumption is that we're talking about the same thing, that when Ronald Reagan talked about freedom, he was talking somewhat more or less about what Jimmy Carter or Joe And the assumption is that we're talking about the same thing, that when Ronald Reagan talked about freedom, he was talking somewhat more or less about what Jimmy Carter or Joe Biden or somebody might be meaning by freedom, saying nothing of Martin Luther King. OK? But that's not true. And part of what the history in this book I have written about the history of segregation in the realtors, part of this history shows this was deliberate.

This was designed as an alternative political vocabulary precisely to oppose that of the civil rights movement. What you have are two opposite ideas of freedom. Part of, you know, where I come to in the book is to say, if you want to change this vocabulary, if you want to go back to, you know, Martin Luther King used the word freedom 20 times in his speech at the March on Washington. He used equality once. This was a movement based on the power of the idea of freedom. Right.

Because what King kept saying is, he said, in fact, he said it on April 3rd, 1968, when he said, be true to what you put on paper. And the whole movement was America. We are going to force you to actually do what you put on paper. Because what's on paper is different from what you're actually doing in action. And when you think about, and to really broaden this thing, Gene, is that people don't understand that this period was also the advance in the beginning, the underpinning of these conservative foundations. Heritage Foundation. Scaife Mellon's, what they founded. the underpinning of these conservative foundations, Heritage Foundation, Escape Melons, what they founded, all of these things,

because they were also angry that it was the federal courts, which is also why the Republican Party has made an assault on a federal judiciary, a major part of their focus is because they were angered at the federal judges were taking their freedom. Right. You know, the Heritage Foundation in 1984, 20 years after Proposition 14, said the secret to victory in civil rights for conservatives. They were writing this in 1984 as advice to the Reagan administration for their second term for the justice to work. The secret to victory has been to redefine the terms that Americans were in favor of equality. They were against segregation. So the key to victory has

been for conservatives to redefine the terms. The most critical of those terms was the idea of freedom. That was the key to victory. And with the notion, and so, you know, where I started that led me to this book was I was in a graduate human rights seminar at Stanford, and I asked the question of myself, I said, why is it that on every issue, every issue affecting civil rights, conservatives argue that civil rights are violating American freedom? Where did that come from? Has that always been the case? And the answer is it goes back to this precise period in the 1960s as a way to oppose the civil rights movement, to say that your freedom means what the government is giving to, is taking away and giving to somebody, is allowing people not like you to have, that that's what the government is giving to, is taking away and giving to somebody,

is allowing people not like you to have, that that's what your freedom means. You know, there's a lot of, you know, centrist Democrats sort of view what happened in the 60s as well, this was white backlash. And so this was some, you know, sort of natural reaction to, you know, the uprising in Watts or to, you know, the uprising in Watts or to,

you know, extremism or something else. No, it wasn't that. It was an organized effort to claim a populist mantra in the name of freedom that was organized precisely to oppose any change in the kind of segregation that existed that was so overwhelming. It happened, this was, as Martin Luther King talked about this white backlash, this was before Watts, this was before, you know, the Voting Rights Act, this was before those things.

This was simply the first efforts to try and break down in the mildest way possible the limits of segregation that denied opportunities in everything, in jobs, in housing, in schools, in transportation. To break those down, here was the response. You know, at the time, to tell you how much a change this was, they asked, you know, Goldwater only won 40% of the vote on the same ballot, Proposition 14, both in California and nationally. And they asked voters at exit polls of this 40%, how many had voted for him because he was a conservative? And the answer was less than a quarter, less than 10% of all voters voted for him because he was a conservative. This was the great debacle in the conservative movement. Everybody wrote them off. This language of homeowner rights, that freedom belongs to you, was the language that allowed

the conservatives to then become the most powerful force in America for the next 50 years and shift the country more and more to the right. That's what's happened. All right, folks, back to that RoboMark unfiltered video in just one moment. 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,'s wireless pick something we all like okay hold on what's your buick's wi-fi password buick envision 2021 but 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 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? Hi, this is Shira Lee Ralph. Hello, everyone. It's Kiara Sheard. Hey, I'm Taj.

I'm Coco. And I'm Lili. And we're SWB. What's up, y'all? It's Ryan Destiny, and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. This is fascinating. You know, I sit here, and right here,

I have a variety of books. I've got White Supremacy Confronted by Gerald Horne, W.B. DuBois' Black Reconstruction in America. There's a book by Denton Watson called Lying in the Lobby. It's about Clarence Mitchell and the NAACP. And what I constantly am trying to explain to people is that for that the peer that I call the second reconstruction, that I call that

the black freedom movement, the civil rights movement, the second reconstruction is what you had here was you had this moment where fight for our rights and it was, and when you talk about the percentage of Republicans who voted

for the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, but I remind people, I remind them that that last one was the toughest. That Republicans aligned,

Northern Republicans aligned with Southern Democrats to filibuster in the Senate that Fair Housing Act. It was Senator Edward Brooke who was able to break it in early 1968. And the only reason the 1968 Fair Housing Act got passed is because King was assassinated. And on April 5th, LBJ sent a letter to the House saying, let's honor the life of this man and pass the Fair Housing Act. And that's when it was signed nine days later. But Republicans aligned because they said, OK, now now look we didn't give you all right to vote we let y'all ride on buses and stuff along those lines oh but hell no when it comes to living in our neighborhoods yeah i mean this the the the fair housing act was the one and his prior efforts were the

first major political defeat youon Johnson suffered in 1966. It took an enormous effort because the realtors, just as they had in Proposition 14, organized national letter-writing campaigns and political campaigns precisely about this. And it took both King's assassination but also also before that, basically, legislative trickery to lull the realtors into thinking this law that was being, the Civil Rights Act of 1968, originally was only protecting civil rights workers in the South. It got through the House of Representatives just as that, and then was amended by Senator Brooke precisely because the realtors had not been paying attention to it. And then it got to the point, right, I mean, this was the whole strategy,

was instead of having all the hearings and everything else, here's the biggest issue in some ways politically in the country. They had no hearings on this, nothing else. They just said, all right, we're just adding this to the law. OK? And it was King's assassination that then made that, you know, clearly possible. But what's important to recognize, so you think of this as the last, you know, great triumph of the Civil Rights Movement, but it was dramatically weakened by the fear of the populist revolt of Proposition 14. So, by supporters, as well as opponents, it got watered down. Funding was always very weak to it. It didn't have any administrative enforcement issue, any enforcement provision, which has been true. That's what the whole issue

was in California over that law. And more important, to this day, fair housing has remained weak precisely because of the power of this idea of freedom to drive American politics further to the right. And so you look, so if you ask why segregation persists in this country today, why African-Americans still making $75,000 a year live in neighborhoods where the median income is $20,000. Why does that happen? Why are they so excluded? The answer is because of the legacy of that era. Partly, it's the weakness that fair housing has had.

It's always been a target for conservative politicians. Say, oh, they created fair housing, so if people aren't living everywhere and they're dispersed, it must be because they want to, right? Not because they have no, not because segregation has continued. So they've used that messaging. But what's happened is, so if you can look at a couple of levels, if you really enforced fair housing, if people really lost their licenses for discriminating or appraisers for appraising things improperly or banks for turning down loans, application by African Americans with the same credit scores at twice the rate as whites, if you really provided

enforcement money for that, that would make a difference. And in the larger picture, what's going on is, this idea is that it would have taken powerful government action, federal action, to enforce fair housing, to make a difference. And it's precisely the political legacy of this era that we're talking about, this idea of freedom that's been used. The idea of Senator Rubio in 2015, you know, they sponsor a bill, you know, for freedom to zone, protect the right to zone, the freedom to exclude. They call that American freedom. Rather than the freedom to be able to buy a house, they say that's the basic freedom of the country,

the freedom to control and shape the destiny of a community at a community level. It's the power of that idea that has prevented successful government action. And so you have the enormous legacy, the economic legacy, the household wealth legacy, the legacy of single-family zoning, all those legacies. We're taking enormous government action to overturn those. And that's precisely what this political legacy, this ideological legacy, freedom as a way to divide people, has made impossible. That's what I think is really at stake. When you talk about these realtors, 68, law gets passed. How do they respond? Do they go, what the hell happened?

And if they then say, oh, we're about to go into overdrive. Because people don't realize this was the very – those point about the realtors. People don't realize when King was in Chicago, when they were fighting for housing, they brought the very issue up that the realtors were the problem. Yes. Well, you have to understand because now you think of realtors just as sale agents for homes, and you don't think of them as this enormous political force. But they were considered in the 1950s in congressional investigations the most powerful lobbyists in the country. They organized the home builders, the appraisers, every aspect of the real estate industry. They could get letter writing campaigns

in every neighborhood in the country. So they were a very enormous political force. I'm sorry, go back to the question. I sort of lost my track. Yeah, in terms of how did these realtors react and fight back when that law was passed? I'm sure they were like, what the hell just happened? They thought this was a dirty trick, you know, that had been gone through the Senate. They were totally opposed to it. And what really made them irate was the law said that it, first of all, banned realtors from discriminating,

but gave an extra year for homeowners to discriminate. And they said, we're going to lose all our business because homeowners won't choose to use us. And so they decided they were going to try and support candidates to overturn the law. But two months later, the Supreme Court in Jones v. Mayer went back to the 13th Amendment, and they said housing discrimination was basically prohibited in this country. The Supreme Court had never held this or ever dealt with this before by the 13th Amendment, by the 1866 Civil Rights Act. In response to this, the realtors basically said the game is up. And so they wrote a message to all the individual realtors in the country, in their weekly messaging, realtor highlights, they said, there's no point in fighting anymore. This issue is done.

And they said, and this sort of made ironic all their claims that they were in support of equal rights all these years. They said, the Negro in America is henceforth a free man. And they then try to educate their members on the history of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and Reconstruction and so forth, because they were desperate because they didn't want to be seen as violating this law. They still resisted somewhat. It took them five years to sort of start using the word fair housing. They had always opposed fair housing by calling it forced housing. Not that zoning was forced zoning or that any law forced subdivision regulations. They used this. Finally, they accepted the term fair housing, and they changed the name of all their organizations

to what they are now. National Association of Real Estate Boards became the National Association of Realtors. So at a a high level they've endorsed fair housing and they're supportive at an individual level among many realtors there still continues lots of discrimination which hasn't really been effectively eradicated but at a formal level they stopped their battle after you know uh the summer of 1968. Alright folks back to that Robomock unfiltered video in just one moment. 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.

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Hey, I'm Donnie Simpson. What's up? I'm Lance Gross, and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. It's a day of realtors steering people away from white neighborhoods. We still see these things. And so earlier you talked about the Fair Housing Act being grossly underfunded. Where do we stand today on this issue? How pervasive is it?

Obviously, it's not as overt as it used to be. And what needs to change? Well, I think, you know, probably there are a couple of things. One is money to enforce this act and the willingness to use it to suspend licenses. So Newsday did this tremendous story in 2019 called Long Island Divided, in which they traced exactly what was happening in every neighborhood across Long Island of racial steering. The New York Times and other studies have shown about appraisals of lenders knew that their ability to lend under the control of the currency was really at risk because of the continuing discrimination against African-Americans. If they really took that seriously, there would be a change at the individual level. But that's not the only way that segregation works. It's a factor of single-family zoning. It's used in many areas. Massachusetts recently passed a law in California in a modest way with duplexes to begin to challenge the hegemony of single-family zoning, of the right to single-family zoning, large lot zoning for entire suburbs. This was a creation of the realtors in the 1920s to support racial covenants. They couldn't directly zone racially. The Supreme Court ruled against

that. But they created these all-white suburbs to basically enforce zoning laws to make certain that nobody was going to build who was going to sell to African Americans. That's where single-family zoning comes from. So you have challenges to that, and that's become in many ways the biggest obstacle to housing affordability. In fact, it doesn't affect only African Americans. It affects people and their children and their grandchildren in so many metropolitan areas in the country. It is driven by this. This is one of the big issues. So I think more money for enforcement. There's what's called a disparate impact rule. Fair housing had two provisions in it, in the law, one of which said, you know, anti-discrimination. And the other said the federal government was to use its powers to further fair

housing in how it gave money to local communities, whether it gave money for any kinds of grants, had to be certain they were breaking down the barriers of segregation. When Richard Nixon was elected in 1968, and he promised Strom Thurmond and Southerners that he wasn't going to effectively enforce fair housing. When George Romney, his secretary of housing and urban development, promoted open communities to really challenge and said federal money is not going to be used unless you break down these barriers to segregation in your communities. Nixon replaced him. And he used the language of the realtors. He said segregation exists because of the individual choice of millions of people, black and white. So this notion of – it was not – that wasn't how segregation was created. It was created as an organized system by the realtors.

So – and then the Obama administration, after Reagan sort of devastated fair housing, the Obama administration recreated a new rule on affirmatively furthering fair housing. Trump vetoed that. That was his whole campaign last summer to suburban housewives saying, we're going to protect you against those people moving in by ending this rule. Again, fair housing has always been the whipping boy that conservatives have used, the easy target to attack. The Biden administration has replaced this, and there are efforts currently in Congress now that would strengthen these things. So I think it's possible to change this, but underlying all this is the idea of does freedom mean the right of a

community to zone, to exclude people, or does it mean the right to be able to choose where to live? That's, I think, what's at stake. It's that broader discussion. That's what's driving what's possible. And you said something that we're still seeing. We've seen the stories, appraisals, how African-Americans have had white appraisers come out, and then they realize, oh, these are Black people, significantly lower the appraisal, and then they bring somebody else out, and they radically increase. And to your point, the only way you change that is saying, yeah, you do it, you lose your license. But see, that's the thing. It's sort of like bankers. Congress was afraid to say, bankers, you loan the drug money, you're going to prison. I mean, at some point,

there has to be repercussions. It can't just be some measly fine or a letter. No, it has to be you are going to be out of business. Exactly right. That's exactly right. If you want to take this seriously, there has to be penalties. And I think that's exactly right. There has to be the will to enforce it and the ability to do so. You know, I want to go back to something you said earlier about this broader theme that I think is important, which is that when the realtors created this idea of freedom, standing

on its own nakedly, this idea that freedom means your right to deny choices to other people. It wasn't enough. It wasn't powerful enough to make it. What was essential was they wanted to redefine American history. To say the purpose of the Declaration of Independence was to have owners have the right to choose who to sell their property to. All their ads showed patriots in the Prycorner hats, as though the realtors were Paul Revere. They created a property owner's bill of rights. They said this was the original bill of rights that should have been in there from the beginning.

So they redefined the purpose of the American Revolution. When you talked about what was the piece of paper Martin Luther King was talking about, the Declaration of Independence says life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. To secure these rights, government is established. In the 1947 Truman President's Committee on Civil Rights, basically the greatest threat to American freedom, to that idea of freedom in the Declaration, was segregation, both by the Realtors, residential segregation, and Jim Crow and stuff. Those were the two central denials of that right. So the Realtors had to tackle and redefine the purpose of American history, the purpose of American Revolution, now not became a government established to create and balance the rights of all.

That's what freedom had meant in the Declaration. And Lincoln had used in the Gettysburg Address, and the king was, you know, re-evoking. What they were claiming was that freedom meant your right not to be intruded on by government. Freedom meant instead of government balancing the rights of all, the purpose of this use of freedom was to delegitimize the right of government to do precisely that, to protect the rights of everyone. And they used this language of freedom as a zero sum belonging to you separately. So when government tries to balance those rights, it's taking away your freedom. They needed to redefine American history. That's why these battles over the meanings of the past are so important and so effective.

And part of what I argue is if you want to change this dynamic, you want to change the way freedom is used by conservatives calling themselves the only freedom-loving Americans. It's by using two different terms. It's by constantly saying there's exclusive freedom, which is the freedom to exclude, the freedom for some people, versus inclusive freedom, inclusive for all Americans, where government balanced the rights of all. And every time a conservative uses this meaning of freedom, you say, that's exclusive freedom. That's not the freedom we mean. We mean inclusive freedom. And to constantly use that language to distinguish these two opposite meanings would allow liberals and progressives to begin to combat the way freedom has been used in

this country and monopolized largely for the last 50 years. Well, again, that's a messaging issue. Frankly, Democrats and progressives have been horrible at for a very long time. And it's understanding word usage and what it means, because when they say that, it means one thing and a lot different than what others others are seeing so a fascinating book i always ask this question this will be my last question uh i ask this question of every author and that is what was the wow moment when you were doing the research and writing this book that one or two things where you went, wow, that's crazy. Yeah. One was reading the statement from a Black real estate broker in Los Angeles in 1904. I sort of assumed, because it was part

of the common myth, that segregation had always existed. And this Black real estate broker said, you know, Negroes in this city, Los Angeles, the fastest growing city in the country at the time, have prudently refused to segregate themselves and live in many of the best neighborhoods with the best services and the best homes. Thirteen years later, in African-American-same-city, the whites have encircled us with invisible walls and made it impossible for us to go beyond those walls. That something dramatic had changed.

Segregation hadn't always existed. That was one wow moment. A second wow moment was going to the archives of the National Association of Realtors who preserved these materials in the 1960s and finding this physical package, a binder, or I'm sorry, a loose leaf, a folder, an inch and a half thick, that was called the Forced Housing Action Kit. And what this was, they distributed this confidentially to every real

estate board in the country to fight fair housing. And it contained like a five-minute script, a 10-minute script, a 12-minute script. It contained every press release, everything you would need with just a blank to fill in to run a campaign against fair housing. And the key messages were, were, and this was just written in these languages, never speak about race, only speak about freedom. And that was ran throughout and say the problem is government, that if government, if you allow government to do this, it will take all your freedom. And so what I could see in this kit that had been drafted by the realtors to run these campaigns and sent to every city in the country, where all you had to do was fill in the name of

the city to run a campaign. Here was the technology, the techniques that had been created systematically that have come to shape the country ever since. There was, there's one thing that, as you were talking about that, that jumped out. I absolutely love the movie The Banker, starring Sam Jackson and Anthony Mackie, playing Bernard Garrett and Joe Moores, two African-Americans who could have built a multi-billion dollar real estate company, but because of those segregation laws, how they use the system, how they put a white man up front and how they were able to acquire two banks. I mean, these, what your book lays out, what the realtors did, what the politicians did, what the bankers did, all these people, this entire system, this entire

system is why today you don't have these multi-billion dollar companies, why you have African-Americans who don't have the same wealth, because these folks used every lever of power to ensure that African-Americans would remain a permanent underclass in this country. And it's just, as somebody who's 52, and I'll be 53 in November of 2021, You think, what if? What if we were simply allowed the opportunity of being a people who say, oh no, we're all created equal. We all start from the same place. That is still the thing that just jumps out for me. When I saw that movie, when I saw what they went through, and when they went to prison, in fact, their story played a role in that 68th Fair Housing Act being passed. And it was stunning that I had never heard that story until the movie came out.

I asked Sam Jackson, there hasn't even been a book written about those two and what that whole story was about. But what you lay out here is just, it just goes to show what this country has done to ensure that we don't get what we rightly deserve. And that is birthright, the birthright to truly be free. You know, one of the things I learned, I don't know if it's exactly an aha moment, but was that it took enormous work and organization to basically take America's free market, free market, basic ideas of free market economics that anybody should be able to buy and sell to each other, regardless of race or anything else, a rambunctious, powerful free market to racially organize it. It transformed America, America's values, America's courts, the legal system, the real estate system, the banking system. It took tremendous organized power. It was because the realtors, with their multiple listing service, controlled, there were a small percentage of all brokers, controlled 80% of home sales. In fact, it took this all-white cartel of real estate boards and their political power to transform the country's free markets. People in a realtor said,

well, segregation is just a result of racism. Obviously, racial prejudice drives all these things. But racial prejudice was just as powerful, if not more powerful, in 1900 than it was in 1950 or 1960. It wasn't racism that created segregation. In fact, what residential segregation did is it reinforced segregation and said, you can't view a lawyer or doctor moving into your neighborhood as an individual. You have to view him as he's a threat. He's stealing your home. He moving into your neighborhood as an individual, you have to view him as he's a threat. He's stealing, you know, your home. He's stealing your neighborhood. It reinforced racism, but racism wasn't the source of segregation. It took an enormous effort to transform the country,

and that effort and the legacy of those battles still affects the country for everybody. Absolutely fascinating. It is the history lesson we all need. And I certainly hope folks will check out Freedom to Discriminate, How Realtors Conspired to Segregate Housing and Divide America. Gene Slater, thank you so very much for a fascinating conversation. I'm going to use the same method for the other side. I'm going to use the same method for the other side. I'm going to use the same method for the other side.

I'm going to use the same method for the other side. I'm going to use the same method for the other side. I'm going to use the same method for the other side. this is an iHeart podcast