#RolandMartinUnfiltered - RMU TOWN HALL, Stop The Attack on HBCUs. Live from Nashville, Tenn.

Episode Date: April 2, 2024

4.1.2024 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Stop The Attack on HBCUs TOWN HALL Live from Nashville, Tenn. We are live in Nashville, streaming from Pleasant Green Baptist Church.   Roland Martin will be joined by Students, Alumni, and community leaders to discuss the attack on HBCUs, especially what has taken place at Tennessee State University. The Republicans pushed out the Board of Trustees, allowing Governor Bill Lee to appoint new members to lead the school in the middle of a presidential search.  You don't want to miss this town hall, Stop The Attack on HBCUs Special. #BlackStarNetwork partners:Fanbase 👉🏾 https://www.startengine.com/offering/fanbaseAli Siddiq 👉🏾 https://www.moment.co/alisiddiq"Shirley" NOW available on Netflix 👉🏾 www.netflix.comBiden/Harris 👉🏾 https://joebiden.com/ Download the #BlackStarNetwork app on iOS, AppleTV, Android, Android TV, Roku, FireTV, SamsungTV and XBox 👉🏾 http://www.blackstarnetwork.com #BlackStarNetwork is a news reporting platform covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey. We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family. They showcased a sense of love that I never had before. I mean, he's not only my parent, like, he's like my best friend. At the end of the day, it's all been worth it. I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care. Visit adoptuskids.org to learn more. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. today's monday april 1st 2024 coming up on on Roland Martin Unfiltered, streaming live on the Black Star Network. We are here in Nashville, Tennessee, at Pleasant Green Baptist Church over the next two hours.

We'll be talking about Tennessee State University being under assault by Republicans in this state, not only vacating their board of trustees, but also refusing to fully fund the university. We'll also expand that to talk about the attack on HBCUs and how our HBCUs nationally are being grossly underfunded by various state governments. All of that and more. It's time to bring the funk. I'm Roland Martin, unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Let's go. He's got whatever the piss he's on it Whatever it is he's got the scoop, the fact, the fine And when it breaks he's right on time

And it's rolling, best belief he's knowing Putting it down from sports to news to politics With entertainment just for kicks He's rolling, yeah It's on go, go, go, yo Yeah, yeah, yeah It's Uncle Gro-Gro-Yo Yeah, yeah It's Rolling Martin, yeah Yeah, yeah

Rolling with rolling now Yeah, yeah He's funky, he's fresh, he's real the best You know he's Rolling Martin now Now what? all right folks we are here at pleasant green baptist church uh in nashville uh with that shot you can't see the folks sitting out here uh but uh folks are here uh we've got tennessee state university uh students alumni supporters as well. We've been talking about this story for really the last 15 months or so, what's been happening here

in Tennessee, how this university has been under withering assault from Republicans in the legislature. The latest action, of course, was the vacating of the entire board of trustees, which took place on Thursday. Governor Bill Lee appointed new trustees to the board. The university has had five audits in one year. But the crazy thing is the audit discovered that there was no fraud. So why would you be replacing an entire board when you don't discover any fraud whatsoever? But a lot of this really began after they began to demand the money that they are owed. A committee determined a couple of years ago the Tennessee state was owed some 544 million dollars.

That is separate from the addition of 2.1 billion dollars a university is owed. Republicans complain about issues with a lack of dormitory space because of the growing student population there, yet that's what you would want. You would want to see great progress in terms of the population increasing. Earlier today at the state capitol, a number of us participated in a news conference there, raising the awareness and bringing attention to this issue among the folks who were there. Of course, Reverend Dr. William Barber, Repairs of the Breach, Reverend Dr. Frederick Haynes III, who is Senior Pastor, Friendship West Baptist Church, President and CEO of Rainbow Push Coalition,

Latasha Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter, Tamika Mallory, co-founder of Untell Freedom, as well as a student government president, and the student trustee on the board as well. Here is what took place earlier today. I think it's important to understand why students choose HBCUs. I know a lot of individuals who question that, who might not have our best interests at heart. Well, I'll answer it for you.

Students choose HBCUs because this is the network of individuals where we are actually invested into. This is where we're given that opportunity, we're given that second chance. We're not blindsided and we're not thrown to the curb by the different disparities and systematic oppressions that we face on a daily basis. I think it's the way to allow us to overcome the challenges that we face within our communities, to become that change, to become that uplifter, to become a part of the new strategy, to become a part of the new expectations. I think it's about time that we understand what it means for a student to actually attend an historically black college or university. It's pouring into the foundation that have been left for African-Americans to perceive education. This is what matters most, correct?

As we know, the education is one of the most valuable keys in this country as far as success. So there's no doubt that the most valuable key to success is it's being taken or it's being underfunded or it's being negligent. It's very interesting to me that considering the disparities that HBCUs are facing, this isn't just Tennessee State University. Several, if not all, HBCUs are facing similar issues and it is not a coincidence. Irregardless of what the legislature has done the other day, the fight still continues. The fight still continues. I am Reverend Bishop William Barber with Repairers of the Breach. And we have here today Roland Martin,

we have Dr. Freddie Haynes, we have Latasha, where's Latasha Brown, and Tamika, did Tamika make it, Tamika here today. But I want to settle us in a couple of places before we move. Number one, we're here today to say to all alumni and students, it's time that we sound an alarm and fight back in every state. Number two, in every state, because all of the colleges that are underfunded,

except for the Black University of Oklahoma, are in the former Confederate states. All of them that are underfunded. $12 billion, almost $ billion dollars of underfunding. And every one of those states should have black and white and brown people bringing lawsuits to guarantee that those schools are funded properly. All of them should be. We're here today to say that everybody that's concerned about this issue, and especially students, need to be registered to vote and use those votes to determine who sits in these legislatures. I come from Texas. We have a land grant institution in Texas, Prairie View A&M University. And I'm simply saying as a proud alum of an HBCU, our HBCUs have always performed in an outsized fashion, outperforming in a real sense the limited resources that they have been given. In a real sense, HBCUs have been guilty of doing much with little. And as a consequence, land-grant colleges, which were founded,

thank you, Bishop Barber, for that history lesson, but the rationale behind land-grant colleges was to ensure that these colleges would make a contribution to the state where they found themselves. Tennessee State University has made an invaluable contribution. You can't think of the Tiger Bells doing what they did during the Olympics without connecting them to Tennessee State University. Tennessee State University with Wyomia Titus, not to mention Carl Rowan, not to mention Oprah Winfrey, we could call the roll of the contributions that have been made by graduates of this institution,

and yet they have made it being underfunded. Imagine what would happen if Tennessee State University was invested in in a way that was commiserate and with what you do, Tennessee, the University of Tennessee. Imagine what would happen if these young men had the same resources, the same kind of access to housing, access to scholarships that those at other institutions have. We're simply saying that this nation, this state is robbing itself of good resources when we do not treat Tennessee State University as we do others. And so we have come here to say with Bishop Barber and with these students that we're going to agitate, we're going to litigate, and we're going to legislate until education is equitable for all of us. And so, Bishop Barber, I simply add to what you've said. Yes, we want education through agitation, litigation, and legislation. And we're going to have it, and we ain't going to let nobody turn us around. Why is Tennessee State being treated differently than UT?

And you ask me, what do I mean by that? Well, let me tell you what I mean by that. Why is it that here we're hearing that part of the audit was as a result of, yes, there was housing, that the state, they accepted too many students and they needed extra housing. Well, in fact, the University of UT actually had more students that they needed, and they had the money, guess what, to purchase and buy a hotel. Why did TSU have to go back to the legislature?

Because their money, that they did not have $2.1 billion, and they had to go back to ask them for resources for the hotel. Perhaps they could have purchased a hotel as well if they had gotten the $2.1 billion. And I question whether either the UT was able to purchase a hotel, because perhaps some of the money that was meant for this university actually got allocated to that university, right? Other resources. So as we stand here in this space, even the audit itself,

let's just break down this whole idea of an audit. The state paid $2 million for an audit that the discrepancy actually accounted to $4,000. This is not about a discrepancy. And there were discrepancies at other universities. This was not about this. This is an attack. And so what we're seeing all across this nation, this attack on DEI, it's not just attack on DEI as a program.

It's an attack on diversity all across this nation. There's an attack on equity all across this nation. And there's an attack on equity all across this nation. And there's an attack on inclusion all across this nation. And so we're standing here now on the backdrop of TSU, but we're saying there's $13 billion that's owed us. Give us what we owe, what you owe us. It was important that we be here today and that we spend this day not just supporting the students of TSU and this institution that we are specifically in this state to focus on, but HBCUs across the nation that need the voice of all of us, all the organizers, the advocates, and every single student and administrator needs to be outside, outside of the buildings, on the ground, getting together with people in the local community

to say that this is not just a college issue, it is not just a student issue, it is a community issue. And the reason why we know it's a community issue I've heard as we were I was running in I could hear Roland talking about the attack in general that is happening across the board against our communities the banning of books and the banning of really our stories in the educational system the attacks against diversity equity and inclusion. The defunding of our programs. Voter suppression.

Actually, the other piece is the narrative is shifting around black folks and our needs and our contribution to this nation. There is an attempt to erase us and we must be clear that it is coordinated and it is actually very strategic if you're paying attention. And so we must be the same. We've done this before brothers and sisters. We are attacked constantly. What we cannot allow is the naysayers to get in our minds and tell us that we're uneducated, we're unqualified,

and that we do not deserve to reap the benefits for a nation that we built. We built this nation on our backs. And as my sister Angela Rye would say, we did it for free. For free, that's right. But we will not stand by and allow it to be for free. We didn't have a choice back then. We have one now to say you will pay us, you will respect us, and you will invest in our communities and especially in our young people. Now, if you missed that news conference, you can actually go to our

Black Start Network app. You can go to our YouTube channel as well. You can see the full one hour and 15 minute news conference. So that sets the table for the conversation we're going to have. And so right now we'll go to a commercial break and we come back. We'll chat with our panel here. We'll of course join in D.C. Dr. Greg Carr, of course a graduate of Tennessee State University, but we also have a number of folks here as well, folks here in the audience. And because, again, as we said, this is not just a Tennessee State student issue. You're talking students, faculty, staff, but also you have more than nearly 8000 students.

And we're talking about businesses in the community around the university as well. So it's a much broader issue. We're going to unpack that for you right here in this special edition of Roller Mark Unfiltered here in Nashville. We'll be right back in a moment. I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no.

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I'm a national civil rights attorney. I'm also the founder and executive director of Justice for Greenwood. Many of you guys know I've been leading the fight with the last two living survivors and the Greenwood community overall. We have a historic hearing coming up on April 2nd at 1.30 p.m. in front of the Oklahoma Supreme Court. I need all of you to support us as we try to get justice for this issue for the first time in almost 103 years. Sign up to support us during this hearing on Tuesday at justiceforgreenwood.org backslash watch party, April 2nd, 1.30 p.m. We need your support, your messages, and your prayers. We appreciate you. Justice forgreenwood.org backslash watch party april 2nd 1 30 p.m we need your support your messages and your prayers we appreciate you justice for greenwood as bad as trump was his

economy was worse and black america felt it the most he cut health insurance while giving tax breaks to the wealthy and big business as president i put money in pockets and capped the cost of medicine at 35 a month there's a lot more to do, but we can do it together. Hey, what's up? It's Tammy Roman. Hey, it's John Murray, the executive producer of the new Sherri Shepherd Talk Show. It's me, Sherri Shepherd, and you know what you're watching, Roland Martin Unfiltered. Keep clapping. All right, folks, we are back.

Pleasant Green Baptist Church here in Nashville. Let me introduce our first panel. Again, joining us from D.C. is Dr. Greg Carr, Department of Afro-American Studies, Howard University, Washington, D.C., Tennessee State graduate. So glad to have Dr. Carr here. Joining us on stage, a number of fine voices. We have, of course, Tequila Johnson, co-founder and executive director, the Equity Alliance. Kenny Smoove, vice president, urban programming director at WQQK-FM in Nashville.

Also joining us, Sean Wimbley, Jr., Tennessee State University student, and, well, listed as a former trustee, but that's sort of in question, but, of course, student trustee on the board. And Reverend Jeff Carr, founder of the Infinity Fellowship, and Grant's brother. There you go. So I want to start here, Sean. I want to start with you because what people have to understand is that there are a lot of moving parts here. And I fundamentally believe, because how we've been covering this, that the moment that that committee said that Tennessee State was owed $544 million,

then all of a sudden a bullseye was on the university's back. And then folk began to all of a sudden, who have ignored the university for the longest, now all of a sudden have care and concern about the university. So, and I asked this question earlier, so I'm just curious. Most of these legislators, have you ever seen them on campus? So I'll say this. The SGA president and I have been talking with legislators to get them on campus. We were not able to get anyone on campus for the past, I want to say, year. Whenever the underfunding crisis first hit TSU, it was him and our initiative to work with legislators to get them to see the state of our campus.

So the state capitals in Nashville. Yes, sir. Tennessee states in Nashville. Yes, sir. Tennessee states in Nashville. Yes, sir. And the folk who are voting to fund Tennessee state can't even be bothered to visit the campus to see with their own eyes the state of the university. Yes, sir. And I'll speak and I'll say this. There have, I believe we may have one or two that came and visited, but we have whole groups, whole committees that are only about 10 minutes from our campus, and we couldn't get them to come out to see our dorms, see our pool,

see our facilities, see the roofing and our academic buildings falling apart. I think one of the legislators that came to visit didn't come to see the issues. I believe that the person came to critique the school. So that's just my opinion. But when it comes to coming to see where the state of our university is in terms of not judging it in a negative sense, I don't think we've had that. See, Greg Carr, that for me is a problem. The problem for me is, how are you going to be making decisions, funding decisions, and you don't even show up? You won't even come actually see it. You're making judgments, and you've never actually ascertained yourself what the needs are. Even the, I would say, the education committee or the appropriations committee, that to me shows how nonsensical all this is.

That's certainly one way of thinking about it. Another way of thinking about it, Frank, that there are no humans at Tennessee State. See, what these white boys are doing, what these white nationalists are doing is what they've done since Tennessee State was founded, and certainly after the cotton curtain raised of Jim Crow. They don't have any respect for Tennessee State. They built a whole campus downtown called the University of Tennessee Nashville that took a lawsuit, the Geyer case, to eventually resolve that. They don't have to come to the campus because there's nothing there

for them to see. They are engaged in the latest iteration of trying to take their school. And as my brother would tell you, when he was student body president, what we would do is, oh, you don't want to come see us? No problem. We're coming to see you. We would go down to the legislature. You don't get to conduct general order of business without us there. And when they finally did that, I helped—I was one of the people who helped Avon Williams cut the ribbon when they renamed the campus.

They were going to build a new campus. The whole point is ignore the HBCUs and the state capitals, control them without engaging anyone there. And we've got to reframe this to have a conversation about what is really going on here. This is about power. Power only respects a demand. It never has and it never will do anything different. And that's, of course, what Frederick Douglass said. They don't have to come see. And we need to stop asking them to come see. No, you are against our common humanity. So at this point, we need to roll over you.

And that means organizing people, regardless of race, regardless of class, regardless of background. Tennessee State is a jewel, and it's a jewel that they well know the value of because they have been attempting to get their hands on it for decades. Tequila, that point there, I mean, 10 years ago, there were 9,000 students at Tennessee State. You've got about 7,600 right now. And what's 6,000?. Six thousand. And which has also been an increase. So the number's been fluctuating there. And I've said this, and so this is not just Nashville.

When I spoke at Southern, I said to them, you're in Baton Rouge. The state capital's right there. How is it that you haven't dropped the same number of folk who roll up to a homecoming on the state capitol when it comes to seeking funds? And so let's talk about that because at the end of the day, as Greg says, they're not going to move until they feel pressure. And I appreciate the students who were there Thursday. I appreciate the students who've been there, but it can't be 10, 12, 15. They've got to look up one day and see nothing but blue and white in the Capitol Rotunda. And they've got to see 2, 3, 5, 10,000 showing up saying, where's the money? What have y'all been doing, again, to educate, to get folks to understand that they've got to be in this fight, not just

have a few activists doing it? Yeah, you know, that's a great question. I tell people all the time when we talk about Tennessee, Tennessee is 51st in voter turnout. We are dead last. A state where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s life was claimed. The state where the KKK was founded. And that is strategic and that is intentional. And so one of the things that we've been doing is starting off with having conversations like this where we can begin the healing process. Because part of the reason why we are not showing up in droves is because we're divided and pointing fingers and trying to figure out whose deal is it anyway is it the students deal is it the community's deal or are there a

few legislators in there making deals on our behalf and so we have to heal one but two we have to have safe spaces like this where we can call a spade a spade where we can say what do we need to do to get what we want at the end the day, appointing black faces in high places is all good, but it's not good if it don't come with that $2.1 billion. So we have been really hitting the ground, hitting the pavement, one voter at a time, registering people to vote. We have a student that's working with us at TSU, a student that's working with us at Fisk,

and we're really trying to educate them but also give them the tools to be able to advocate for themselves. It's not just enough for me to show up when something hot happens. We have to empower people who are directly impacted, meaning the students, the community, the business owners, and so forth. Jeff, speak to when you were a student, you know, walk us through that process. How did you get the student attention to understand that, hey, yes, we're in school, we're trying

to get our degree, we're trying to graduate, but you got to fight for some stuff while you're here. You know, I'm glad you brought that up, Uncle Roro. And I call you Uncle Roro, though you're younger than me, brother. But I want to say welcome to the city and thank you for shining a light. You said you were coming. I told you we were

coming. I told you last year we were coming. You said you were going to come and you said you did and true to your word. Well, I had also I had pushed a lot of other civil rights folk to do this and a lot of them were unresponsive. So I said, fine, we're going to come.

Oh, no, no, no. They on a text message and I told them. And so they've been unresponsive and they're going to hear from me again. But yeah, go ahead. Welcome to Nashville leadership, brother. See, there's a reason why I don't come out much. It's because I have a light switch that doesn't have a dimmer. It's either zero and let's keep this peaceful, or it's 1,000, and the heat is on.

So I want to give you a little audience and occasion, knowing as I tell you about the history of that, we're in Nashville. So in D.C., I'm Greg's little brother, Jeff. In Nashville, Greg's Jeff's brother. And the reason why I say that is, and my brother and I know, we're going to laugh about this, because my brother and I share a distinction of being the only two biological brothers

to both be student government association president at Tennessee State University. My brother was the 47th, 1986-87. I was the 50th, apparently, the 89-90. When my brother was SGA president, he secured a promise from the governor in something called the master plan to invest in Tennessee State University because for 75 years, we were operating at half the appropriation than the other schools. This led to the stipulation of settlement, the Geyer settlement, the case that we have all been talking about and you've been highlighting on your show for the last several months.

This is a moment, however, where we see it. The second, the next SGA president after my brother, nothing got done. The president after my brother, nothing got done. By no fault of those presidents, but by the state dragging his feet. When I was elected SG president in 89 in that summer, I looked at the cabinet of student body and I said, before I leave this university, this state is going to promise go through on their promise. They're going to fund this university. Now what did it take? It took 14 days lying on the floor. Many of the faces in here, I look out here, I see Brenda Haywood, I see Benita Lewis, I see Gary Burke. When I see your faces, 34 years ago last month, we took over the

administration building and refused to leave. We went to the downtown campus and for 14 days we sat there. Nine of those days we went on a hunger strike. I didn't eat for nine days. I watched my fellow students at the age that Brother Wimberly is be carried out in ambulances with IVs in their arms. We marched through 150 riot policemen with a canine squad in the background, shoulder to shoulder, two by two. You remember that? I see the faces from the city. Y'all know, y'all know, there we are. We got out, and here's what happened. Here's what I know. As a result of that sit-in, two things happened. Number one, I sat down with Ned Ray McWhirter in his office after midnight, and he pleaded for this thing. Folks, you don't know who was that? The governor at the time. Got

it. Ned Ray McWhirton. Country white man said, call me Ned Ray. I said, he said, how do we end this thing? I looked at him and I said, you write the damn check. So respect to the house, brother Jackson. Thank you so much for hosting us here. Last time I was in this house, I was funeralizing my mom, my mother-in-law right there. So I know I have respect for the house, but that's what I told the governor. And he said, we will make it happen. Can you make it happen with Lois D Berry, who was a representative out of Memphis, Tennessee. This is Roland Martin unfiltered. This isn't TV one is in CNN. So Roland encourages us to be honest with people. So I'm going to be unfiltered. And if y'all never see me again, so be it. I'm happy with my divine purpose in life and I'm happy anyway. Listen, when we said this, we moved

forward. The reason why we had to have Locusty Berry out of Memphis is because of the Negroes who were state representatives here were terrified. They refused to support the students. The conversation that I had with our good representative Love, who I appreciate standing in. I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time. Have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was

convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Ad-free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts.

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

We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got Be Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette.

MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app,

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Making sure that we found this money with the representative that I had at the time was his father, Representative Love. He did the best he could. He was friends with the president though. That's the first time as a young man I was ever cussed out by a state representative who told us to get off the floor and go home and let them handle it legislatively we did not listen we started with the conditions in the dormitories we started with no hot water we started with no

security on campus and mtsu 28 miles up the road had all of that and more. That's what ignited the students to a point where they say, I am willing to risk life and limb to make a change. It produced $120 million in investment at Tennessee State. The buildings, even the gate up there is a result of that sit-in. Story's not been told because we talk about the sit-in in the 60s and the leaders in the 60s, C.T. Vivian, came down here and sat in with us. Congressman Ford came down here and sat

in with us. Bernard Lafayette sat in with us during that struggle and they said, keep going. They took on the president. They took on the governor. This ignited, you'll remember Jefferson Street. There were 2,000 people marching down Jefferson Street. The reason why that happened is we were operating from an authentic space that originated from the students. This is where this movement has to come from. We have to hear what the students want and we have to support them in a

powerful way. I got four words that I tell every single person almost every single Sunday. And so what next? I want you to meditate that on that. And so what next? There's racism in Tennessee. It's been happening for the hundred plus years Tennessee state has been here. The legislature is against us and so what next? We still ended up building a reputation that has been unparalleled and several things can be true at once and I know we're gonna unpack those things so as I close I'm going to say having been person who was partly responsible with other people of investing $120 million in the Tennessee state,

I operate from a place of fruit. If you invest in that, then talk to me. If you've got more, I'll sit on the floor and listen to you. But we have to begin to put our minds together based on practices that work so that we can force support for this university and recognize that several things can be true at once. It can be true that the state is against us. It can be true that the state owes us $2.1 billion. And it can also be true, Brother Sean, don't even say anything. I don't need you to say anything right now because I just won't

disresonate. It can also be true that it is a shame that 34 years ago, we invested $120 million in this institution and they got broken elevators in Rudolph Hall. It is also true that we have leaders locally who will not make a statement. You haven't heard anything from this city. You haven't heard anything from this council, the flagship

university here. It can also be true, and it can also be true that the current board that is coming on may be a good direction for us as well. Because knowing many of the people who are on this current board and many of the people on the last board, when it's time to make a change, you have to make a change. We want to be cautious in this, that we work together on all fronts to make sure that this university experiences growth. When I was in school, 7,500 students in Tennessee State. 28 minutes down the road, MTSU, a school that's dying to be TSU.

I mean, friends that go to MTSU, great institution, but no reputation. That's Middle Tennessee State. Middle Tennessee State. Whenever they say their name, they say, oh, Wilbur Rudolph. No, that's not us. We up the street. It's Oprah Winfrey. Oh, no, that's not us.

We up the street. So they're trying this identity thing. But how is it? TSU, when I'm in school, 7,500 students. MTSU, with no reputation nationally, 9,000 students. Now, MTSU, 21,000 to 24,000 students. Tennessee State, 6,300. Something's wrong. And it's time for us to begin to fix that. Kenny, what are you hearing? Are people talking?

What are they saying? Is this top of mind or folks just focus on other trivial stuff? All right, let me say my disclaimer stuff. What I'm saying is from Kenny Smoove, not necessarily reflective of Cumulus Media or 92Q. Y'all heard me say that, right? Okay, cool. You know, there is concern. When I'm on the air or when I'm on my morning show, people do chime in once the topic comes up and want to know what's happening, who's doing what, are the representatives saying anything,

are their leaders leading. And so I try to give them as a direct and as positive an answer as I can. But, you know, they can also see what's going on. They see that the traction is going away from where you wanted to go. So it's not going in a direction that we thought the leadership would be at the time. But we do know there's a lot of concern. There's a lot of concern for it. But, you know, of course, we got to make sure that we're not getting so caught up in Diddy that we're not paying attention to what's going on. And it's a lot of that, you know,

so I try to make sure that I put some balance into it and we're going to do a little bit of both because, you know, people need to know what's going on. And it can't be all jokes and games all the time. It's got to be some serious content in what we're doing. So we try to make sure we do that. Absolutely. Hold tight one second. We're going to go to a break.

We're going to come back. We can pick up more of this conversation. And not just in terms of, I want to pick up on something that we come back, that Joe said, leadership. Where is leadership? First, where is leadership? Two, is there leadership?

And are folk willing to challenge leadership and potentially remove them for being a bearish to progress. So we're going to do that. We come right back, folks. We're here for our town hall on Tennessee State University, the state of our HPCUs, here in Nashville, back in a moment. Thank you. Fanbase is pioneering a new era of social media for the creator economy. This next generation social media app Thank you. fan base or scan the QR code. Another way we're giving you the freedom to be you without limits.

This is Attorney Demario Solomon Simmons. I'm a National Civil Rights Attorney. I'm also the founder and Executive Director of Justice for Greenwood. Many of you guys know I've been leading the fight with the last two living survivors and the Greenwood community overall. We have a historic hearing coming up on April 2nd at 1 30 p.m. in front of the Oklahoma Supreme Court. I need all of you to support us as we try to get justice for this issue for the first time in almost 103 years. Sign up to support us during this hearing on Tuesday,

justiceforgreenwood.org backslash watch party, April 2nd, 1.30 p.m. We need your support, your messages, and your prayers. We appreciate you. Justice for Greenwood. I'm Dee Barnes, and next on The Frequency, Beyoncé has always been country. We're talking to music, pop culture, and politics writer Taylor Crumpton about her new article on Beyoncé's new country songs and how country music has always been part of Black culture.

Since the release of Texas Hold'em and 16 Carriages, there has been a definition of what Black country music is and a definition of what white country music is. White country music historically has always won the awards. We've always got the certification. Black country music has not. This is a conversation you don't want to miss. That's next on The Frequency on the Black Star Network.

Hello, we're the Critter Fixers. I'm Dr. Bernard Hodges. And I'm Dr. Terrence Ferguson. And you're tuned in to... Roland Martin Unfiltered. All right, folks, welcome back to our discussion here. Glad to be here. We're talking about Tennessee State. But this really, folks, is emblematic of what we focus on all the time, really, in our public HBCUs.

Last year, we had a town hall at Bethune-Cookman around this sort of same time talking about what's happening there and leadership and failure of leadership in so many different areas. But what we are looking at right now is a fundamental problem when we talk about HBCUs. Historically they've been underfunded from day one. And you have numerous reports showing what is needed. And you have folk who have been doing amazing work with half the money or two thirds less money than what white institutions are receiving. And so now is the opportunity for us to make clear that no, as Frank Lucas said in American Gangster, I'm going to get that money. And that really has to be a focus.

I'm going to turn back to the panel because before we went to the break, we talked about leadership. And Greg, I want to start with you because the thing for me is if you're talking about a university that's in this city. Jeff is right. That is mayor, city council, county commissioners, business leaders. See, I believe everybody has to be put on Front Street and ask the question, are you standing with us? Are you standing against us? I was here in Nashville probably a month ago, and it was a, I forgot the group I

look it up it was a minority what was it called the cut well it was like a it was like a multi-racial caucus and I said to them then are y'all standing up on behalf of Tennessee State I said because if they can find money to fund a football stadium then how do you not support a university? And I think, Greg, I think part of the deal is that a lot of us are actually afraid to challenge leadership to force them to be on the record. Yeah, I would agree with that, Roland. It's a different day.

I think, you know, with that, Roland. It's a different day. I think—and again, this is, again, why Black Star Network is so important and why this conversation is so important. This is a different conversation that we have to have as a people in this country. In many ways, Tennessee State presents a microcosm of what has emerged over the last two generations in the wake of the so-called civil rights movement. And let me just be very concrete about that. In 1947, the University of Tennessee started a continuing education campus in Nashville. Not much noise or fanfare around it. About 20 years later, Rita Sanders, now Rita Sanders-Geyer, and students at Tennessee State

filed a lawsuit under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which didn't exist when UT started that little campus program in Nashville, arguing what we see as the line in these Title VI cases around HBCUs around the country, whether it be in Maryland, as you've discussed many times, whether it be in Louisiana, with later with Ayers v. Fordyce and other places, Florida among them, Alabama among them, that these white institutions were duplicating things that were already going on in the city. Well, that was the Guyer case that you heard Jeff mention, and as he said, we talked about many times, ends up over the arc of the next 10 or 15 years, being at the base

of the war over Tennessee State, which is a proxy for the war over HBCUs, most of which, as Reverend Barber said today, are behind a cotton curtain. This is because you saw a minuscule uptick in the number of students, black students, at the University of Tennessee and other places in the state, but you didn't see white students coming to Tennessee State. And this is where the hot water happened. This is when the federal judge at the district court level, ultimately leading to the stipulation of settlement you heard Jeff talk about, says that, well, Tennessee State needs to become 50 percent white.

And they put a target date in the mid-'90s, something like that. And you can't force people into going to college somewhere. This isn't K-12. But the proxy battle over this was exactly because these folk knew that Tennessee State was— I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country,

cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1. Taser Incorporated.

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

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

It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug man. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL

enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey. We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family. They showcased a sense of love that I never had before. I mean, he's not only my parent, like he's like my best friend. At the end of the day, it's all been worth it.

I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care. Visit AdoptUSKids.org to learn more. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. Offering not only quality education, but superior education, and like Jackson State in Jackson, like Delaware State near Dover, like FAMU in Tallahassee, North Carolina Central in Raleigh, like Virginia State in Richmond or Alabama State in Montgomery. In these state capitals, and many of these HBCUs are in state capitals, coming out of the Civil War, because black folk moved into

those state capitals—they offer superior education for folks in government, folks who are in the state capitals doing business with government. You can get certificate programs. You can do all this kind of thing. So there's a reason you want this campus. Let me wrap this up, because you asked a question about leadership, and this is where I'm going with it. The folks who fought those battles, the man whose name is on the now downtown campus of

Tennessee State, Avon Williams, was not—he didn't have fear. When I was at Tennessee State, he was still in the state legislature. He was ill, ultimately, with the sickness that took his life, and he had just moved out of that position. But he was a warrior. The warrior class in our communities has become absorbed into this post-civil rights movement, integration-tilted, petty-bourgeois, DEI approach to fighting. Now it's about the folks who kind of represent black people by being there, by being present, but not voicing it. We used to call Tennessee State—we said, you know, it might not be a bad idea to have a branch

campus at Tennessee State in Memphis. Why? Because so many students from Memphis—he's called Dewantown— were in Nashville that we thought that was important. There was a representative, Jeff, you remember Rufus Jones, out of Memphis. We used to blast holy hell out of those legislators who were in the Tennessee's legislature who would not argue. Now, if memory serves me correctly, Justin Pearson is out of Memphis. I'm sure—I haven't seen Representative Pearson's statement, but I'm sure he's made a statement about what's going on in Tennessee. Justin Jones is in Nashville. And I'm saying, between the Rufus Jones generation, who might not have said anything, who thought they could go along to get along, in a legislation that's very different—because,

remember, the Democrats still had a majority. Nat Ray McWhirter, who you saw Jeff met with him, I met with him, and, in fact, we endorsed him for governor. That's how we got him in the pincher move. He was a Democrat. What has happened is all those Democrats, those good old boy Democrats who came out of that era have moved into the white nationalist party, for the most part. And what they've left with—what they left in the Democratic Party is any sense of broad-based coalition politics. What they took into the Republican Party is their white nationalism.

So the ground has shifted under our feet. And I'll end with this for now. Leadership now suffers because we don't have the momentum of memory. See, this is a problem. When you have people come into leadership who have not come out of black communities with long-range struggle,

who have not sat with elders, with people who are in the community to understand that they are receiving a baton, but who are quick to jump up and say, we have the baton. You don't even know where the damn baton is. You don't understand. Individuals don't be institutions. These white boys have institutional memory. These hillbillies in the state legislature now, the ones who have been interfering with

Tennessee state leadership for generations, Otis Floyd, who has got his name on the student center that Ned McWhorter gave that money to to have built, Otis Floyd was handpicked by them to be a person they could kind of manage. And guess what? When he left there, what? Middle Tennessee State University, the State Board of Regents, they've got Nick Rose they picked that they can manipulate. But then we show up, each generation, without that playbook, without the momentum of memory, then has to start from scratch. And we cannot do it that way. We need leaders who understand the history, and then they can plug in their techniques,

their strategies, into a long arc of history. And that is something I think this conversation we're having tonight will go a long way toward helping us do not only in the state of tennessee with tennessee state but at all our hbcus who have something similar in terms of the arc of struggle that we're engaged in see folks the reason i go ahead the reason why the leadership piece is important uh and as Jeff said, the show's called Unfiltered because I don't care if they don't like it because I own it. This is a fundamental problem. We organized, we were invited in by the students to have a news conference today. And I said, we're going to do the broadcast from here

because when you own it you can make those calls brother came up to me today and said to me he said i want to let you know at the naacp we're here but we can't we cannot wear our paraphernalia. And I said, why? He said to me at the state conference of the NAACP, sent them a note saying that because they did not get approval for this protest, they could not wear any NAACP gear. I said, well, first, this is not a protest. It's a news conference. And he showed me the text message. Now, I'm on a text thread where

Derek Johnson, the CEO, is on it. And I put on there, I'm flabbergasted by that decision. And see, that to me, right there, Jeff, is a problem. It's a problem when, if we are standing in the state capitol, fighting again, I'm from Houston, okay? I fight for Texas Southern, for Prairie View. Listen, I'm a Texas A&M graduate. I've called them out. I've blasted them. But this is a

perfect example for me of weak leadership. Of impotent leadership. That what the message should have been is flood members there. Wear your shirts. Wear your hats. If you have students at Tennessee State, and we're talking about fighting for them,

then I need the Alpha president, the AKA president, the Delta president, the Iota, the Sigma, Omega, Kappa, Zeta, all of them saying we're going to stand with our chapters on those campuses. I'm not interested in seeing all the photos and the videos of who just crossed line. If you ain't saying nothing about the money, where is the Nashville urban league? So again, I said on the show all the time, if you represent black people, which black people do you represent?

Go ahead. I told y'all I own it, so I don't care. My brother, in like fashion, there's a language that we speak that some people cannot understand. Since I left Tennessee State University at 22 years old, I ran a newspaper called The Third Eye for 11 years. I ran a theater company on Clifton Avenue called the Amin Ra Theater for 11 years. I have a space called the Infinity Fellowship right now. Ten years in, there's never been a time in my adult life when I did not sign the front of the check. So it's different when you own stuff. Yep. Because then people can't tell you what to do. The issue in Nashville is the issue that is in very many other cities, as my brother elucidated.

He's great. The petty bourgeoisie. We have an issue in this city. Again, since I'm not employed by anybody, I don't have a revenue stream. I don't have hundreds of thousands of dollars coming in from outside sources and foundations and everything to pay me to say this kind of thing. I'm going to say it very clearly. Too many people in this city have been manipulated by small special interests whose job it is to create a city that disenfranchises the poor and black folk in favor of business and growth. Across the street from this church, Jefferson Street, Meharry, 15 years ago, 10 years ago, you could get a 50 by 150 lot for about $6,000, maybe $1,200 if you were lucky. That same 50 by 150 lot is now $350,000.

Behind Tennessee State, the place called College Hill, when we knew we were hurting as campus students, the NAACP, which is two doors down, showed up for us in full gear. Michael Grant was the president at the time. The Interdenominational Ministerial Fellowship, which at the time was the most powerful organization of ministers in town, Reverend Kelly Miller Smith, Jr., Reverend Wallace Charles Smith, all of these people came out and

said, don't touch these kids. And they stood behind us. They didn't lead us. And that becomes a difference. They did not lead us. They said, what do you want us to do? Right. Which is the way it should be. It's called, we're here to help.

We're here to have your back. And we have your back because when you move into a space of elderhood, you're there for the young people. When they make a move, you follow them. In the absence of that, if the students are not in a space where they speak up, we have to be careful in this city

because there are people who will take the opportunity to grab this camera lens and this light to promote their own agenda. And much of the time it is tied to those special interests who are making the donations to the campaigns. I have seen people on council go from, we will not stand to the developer to look at in their account and see $200,000 from the people they said they would stand about and everybody got quiet as our neighborhoods disappeared. How does this tie to the leadership of Tennessee State and how we move forward? Because many people who come into this space who are taught that the pursuit of capitalist ideals is the ideal. When they come in and they have potential and talent, when they have this fearlessness, somebody comes in

and says, let me introduce you to the right people in the room. And instead of doing the right thing, they're convinced that they're doing the best they can. So when it's time for the cameras to come on, they show up and they talk and they're there. But when it's time to do the day-to-day work, many of these students out here, I counsel personally, spiritually as a spiritual leader. And they come in and they're crying and they're hurting because they say nobody listens to us. And every time we try to tell our story, somebody from some random organization we don't know about pops up and grabs a mic and won't even listen to us. We have got to get this balance in. That's why I'm grateful for you for coming to this city, because there are things that you can eliminate and illuminate

that other people in this city are too afraid to illuminate because their hand is in the bag. I'm not saying this from a judgmental space. Listen, my wife and I got five kids. I got two adults, one adult in about two days. They're sitting in the back row back there. Three of my kids are in this space today. So I want them to hear this.

Because one thing, it's owners rolling. One thing that I can say my kids have never seen me do. They've never seen me be one person when I'm at these places and somebody else when I get home. And a lot of our young people growing up are seeing that when they go home. So they're learning to play a game. So this transparency as it comes to the university is what are we, this generation, willing to sacrifice to make sure that the next generation can be here? And some of that falls externally and some of it falls internally. The board had an opportunity, if I can talk real, to say,

let go of three people. The deal is you let go of three people, we're going to keep five in place. Now, as an owner and as a person who advises nonprofits professionally, that's real simple math to me. You line up eight people and you say, who's brought in the most resources? Let's rank them one through eight. The bottom three, write the letter in 15 minutes. There you go. And let's keep control of the school. Yeah. But, but one of the fundamental problems that when we look at many of our black institutions, we got folk who sit on boards, who have a contributor dime, who raised no money, but will be the first one to show up when

it comes to the reception yes look i've i've sat on look you've seen it i ain't got listen i've sat on numerous boards and i remember i was on the board of the national association of black journalists and somebody gave us 10 grand and people all excited they were like rolling and like you okay i'm like i'm sorry about what they were like, you okay? I'm like, I'm sorry, about what? They were like, when you talk about the donation, I was like, I don't mean no disrespect, but that's $10,000. Local chapters, it wasn't national. That was national. I said, I don't get excited

about $10,000. Now, but then, here's what I did, though. Then I stepped back and looked around the room. There's 15 people on the board. I guarantee you, only three of the people on the board had ever negotiated a six-figure salary. How about that part? So for somebody who's making $40,050, $10,000 is huge.

When you made a million plus, $10,000 is small. But when you also have big problems, you need big checks. Yes. So part of this deal is when we talk about leadership, our community is easily bought off by the least expensive Negro. There it is. That's plantation politics, though. What we have to understand about the nature of the framework is politics. This is the show every day, so I want to let y'all know.

This ain't nothing new for how we do the show every day. This is unfiltered for real. This is plantation politics, and I want everybody to understand this. Those of you who have been in a corporate environment, you experience this. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no.

Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multibillion-dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad.

Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes one, two, and three on May 21st and episodes four, five, and six on June 4th. Ad free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glod. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner.

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

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

It really does. It makes it real. Listen to does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey. We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family. They showcased a sense of love

that I never had before. I mean, he's not only my parent, like he's like my best friend. At the end of the day, it's all been worth it. I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care. Visit AdoptUSKids.org to learn more. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council.

Experience it too. You be you're successful, and they say, we like you. We want you to do your assistant VP job, and we also want to make you director of diversity. And we want to make you all that, but they don't increase the salary. And you have no budget, and all you have is a secretary. How about that? The plantation politics is simple when it comes to people who look like us. We want maximum

return for minimum investment. You need to be happy for that $10,000, although we gave another organization $150,000. But when we began to talk like this, when we've been having this conversation like this, that's why this network is so important. You're not going to have this conversation on

CNN, I guarantee you. You're not going to have this level of truth. But it's going to make you think, even if you get angry, you're going to think whose side am I willing to be on? And what legacy do I want to leave in the world for people after I'm going to say? Because

Walter S. Davis, William Jasper Hale, Frederick Humphreys, all of those ancestors there, they left a proud legacy. So it's time for us to now ask the question as we continue on tonight, what will be said of us and what we put into the atmosphere? Sean, so again, so folks understand the legislation vacated the board.

But the reality is you as a student trustee and the faculty trustee are not chosen by the governor. You're chosen by, because who actually chose you to go to the board? So the students, they pick us first through an application process. Got it. And then from there, the president's cabinet interviews the three finalists, and the board approves the final finalists. But the board has the ultimate say on who they want to serve as student trustee. And I believe the same process is in place for the faculty trustee as well.

So right now, folks, what's your status? Are you student? You're student, not student trustee. So you're going to have to go through this new board, go through that process. Yes, sir. I'll dare say this. I believe, and I saw a lot of people, I saw a lot of statements that people said, you know, thankfully they chose all Tennessee State graduates. This is what, now this is just me, and y'all tell me if y'all agree, that's fine.

This is what I believe all the folk involved should say when they have that first meeting all y'all should show up and say is this board going to go on record today with a resolution demanding the full funding from the tennessee legislature if if they don't do that on day one my deal is i ain't support none of y'all because at the end of the day they i believe that the new and I don't know none of them. I saw all the names, but they had to be challenged on the first day saying, are you going to demand and be they can pass a resolution, say the calling on the legislature to fully fund Tennessee state, the five, the full five hundred forty million plus the $2.1 billion. And that's the kind of pressure that has to be applied because now is not the time for go long to get along.

I agree. I think in the press conference I mentioned, right now, us begging and us asking and requesting, there's no more time for that. And I think that I wanted to add to someone's point when it came to leadership. Like our leadership right now, in my opinion, as a student on campus, I've been in this role for two years, been here for four years, and I've had a hard time understanding who I'm following. The leadership seems fractured. So when I got into the role and tried to address these concerns, it was almost like I was in a place of limbo. And so I'm trying to reel all this back into moving forward. And now I'm graduating when it comes to 2025 and beyond. The next leaders, student,

administrative, across the board, we have to change our strategy. We can't ask for it no more. And what you're saying, Mr. Martin, going to when this first meeting comes, are they going to address this issue? And I think that while I'm still working to get back into the role, that's something that myself will be working on as chair president. We'll be working on to ask those hard questions. Is this going to be on our agenda? Because from my experience before, I wish Darrell Taylor was here to mention that we've had a hard time trying to get a detailed plan from the board, from administration, on how we're going to address this underfunding issue. And at this time, the board issue.

See, and also, so let me just reach out this here before I go to Tequila. So, Kara, hurry up. Finish texting. Hurry up. Answer my question. Hurry up. She's slow with the text. All right. So I asked my producer, Kara, hurry up, finish texting, hurry up, answer my question, hurry up. She's slow with the text. All right.

So, uh, so I asked my producer Kara again, I said, because first of all, let me explain to you. So this was initially supposed to be on the campus of Tennessee state and as we're supposed to be, that's what we wanted it to be because we actually wanted this to be a form for as many students to attend as possible but you know look you got because of all this drama okay what's going to happen so it's kind of like hey needs to be moved off campus okay fine i do want to hold this on campus so i got a problem coming back uh and i then said look i told carol invite the new people appointed. So we did.

So we contacted all of the newly appointed board members, except Kevin Williams. We couldn't find contact info on Kevin Williams. Anybody got it, let me know. We will call him. And the only appointee that responded was Charles Trauber. Carol said that he told us he had another commitment tonight, but we did invite him to come on a future show, and then we'll see if he takes up on our invitation.

Because, see, my whole deal is I ain't going to problem talk to anybody, but they need to be on record as to where do you stand when it comes to the money. And Tequila, the same thing for the entire Tennessee black caucus and and the full Democratic caucus. I listen. We we've been inviting the Democratic caucus chair hasn't come on. We don't keep calling her. My deal is because my deal is I need everybody on record. I need you got to be on record. I need to, you got to be on record. I don't, the backroom stuff, no, no, no. I need you on record.

Because once somebody is on record and up front, then we can say, hold on, on this date you said this here. And to me, when it comes to this here, the entire black caucus, not just a couple of people, not just Senator Oliver, not just Representative Love, but the entire Black Caucus should, and I say, you know what, forget that. This week, I believe this group should be demanding that the Black Caucus release a statement this week calling for the full funding of Tennessee State University as a body. And then the full Democratic caucus should be calling for that as well to establish a marker, if you will, on how to move forward. I agree with you 100%. I mean, you said it. The full black caucus and I will go so far as to say our city leadership and leadership in Memphis as well,

considering we have a lot of students that go to Tennessee State that are coming from Memphis, Memphis City Council, Nashville City Council, and Mayors. So here's why I'm sort of laying it out that way, okay? So if, one, hitting the new board, y'all got to be on record now you got that in hand black caucus y'all got to be on record now you got it in hand so now when you go to nashville city council now you're like where you at right you got these two then okay uh county commission where you at but then we can we have a bill to nympho city council city council where you at but can we talk about Memphis city council city council where you at and now because then if somebody then goes yeah we sure hold up now we got three four

oh you don't stand with us but can we talk yes do we even have a caucus is our caucus even caucusing because from what I'm getting from what I'm hearing from what I'm hearing from alumni from what I'm hearing from people sitting in those seats from what I'm getting, from what I'm hearing, from what I'm hearing from alumni, from what I'm hearing from people sitting in those seats, from what I'm hearing from lobbyists, is that there are four different deals being passed around within the black caucus, and we are in a Republican trifecta. So before we can even begin to try and pull a caucus

to do something, we need to pull them together and hold them accountable, and we need to tell them what we want. They work us right but but that's why that's why i mean demanding from the caucus and every black caucus member sign the letter calling on the funding and again those who don't sign that's what we say i was gonna say where you at and then what where you at because some of them are not gonna sign we have black folk that ain what where you at because some of them are not gonna sign we have black folk that ain't even in the caucus some of them are not going to sign hold on so you got some black legislators who not in the car absolutely who

who well last because they will get called i'm just letting y'all know last i heard representative jones was kicked out of the black caucus so yes so this is this now he's on record but he was kicked out of the car i got he was kicked out of the car i'm hold up go ahead i'm gonna text him with he kicked out of the car because go ahead i don't wait to check now go ahead i don't like to get involved in they on the on the floor of politics because i believe that they work for the people and if they too afraid that they gonna lose they see that they stand up we can take them out of it so I even people who my business part former business partner is elected and when I ask her for something I show up like I'm showing up to talk to Governor Lee make no mistake about it this is this isn't about making friends this is about getting change and if

you want to make change you got to know that you're not going to be liked. And I mean, a lot of people don't like me, so I'm okay with it. So I'm going to go to a break. We're going to come back. But I want to talk about when we come back, I'm going to bring on a couple other people because I want to talk about how all of the people who are fighting for Tennessee State, are they working together? No.

That's what we gonna talk about next. Absolutely not. That's a good one. You're watching Roland Martin. I told y'all I ain't got no problem talking about stuff. This is how we do, this is every day. You're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network.

All right, so. As bad as Trump was, his economy was worse, and Black America felt it the most. He cut health insurance while giving tax breaks to the wealthy and big business. He stoked racial violence, attacked voting rights, and if reelected, vowed to be a dictator and, quote, get revenge. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them.

From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multibillion-dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge episodes 1, 2, and 3 on May 21st and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th.

Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Cor vet.

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And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I always had to be so good no one could ignore me. Carve my path with data and drive. But some people only see who I am on paper. The paper ceiling. The limitations from degree screens to stereotypes that are holding back over 70 million stars.

Workers skilled through alternative routes rather than a bachelor's degree. It's time for skills to speak for themselves. Find resources for breaking through barriers at taylorpaperscealing.org. Brought to you by Opportunity at Work and the Ad Council. You can't go back. As president, I put money in pockets, creating millions of new jobs and capped the cost of insulin at $35 a month. There's a lot more to do, but we can do it together. I'm Joe Biden, and I approve this message. Fanbase is

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in the studio, whatever, whatever? And I said, no, not really, because we never argued in the studio. And she said, well, there's this piece we found and can you come over and watch it with me? And I said, sure. And I went over and watched it and I loved it. I just started laughing. I said, this is great's this piece we found, and can you come over and watch it with me? And I said, sure. And I went over and watched it, and I loved it. I just started laughing.

I said, this is great. This is great, Danny. And she said, okay, so you're okay with this? I said, yeah, I'm fine with it. Because literally, we worked together for, I mean, I don't know how many days we've been in the studio together. And literally, we had maybe one argument like that. Right. And it was captured.

But of course, that's the thing that, you know, people want to see. But yeah, that kind of thing happens. Some days that's with, you know, your voice is good today. Let's just go see a movie or let's go just chill.

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PayPal is R. Martin Unfiltered. PayPal is R Martin Unfiltered. Venmo is RM Unfiltered. Zelle is Roland at RolandSMartin.com. Hey, what's up y'all? I'm Devon Franklin. I'm Dr. Robin B, pharmacist and fitness coach. And you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. your cueing is on hey folks welcome back we are Pleasant Green Baptist Church here in Nashville

for our town hall regarding Tennessee State and our HBCUs. Added two more folks to the panel. Reverend Chris Jackson is a member of the Safe TSU Coalition. Also Reverend Barry Barlow, a TSU Community Coalition member as well. Glad to have you all here. Still on the panel, Jeff Carr, as well as Tequila Johnson. Of course, Greg Carr is back in the studio out of Washington, D.C. Glad to have everybody here. So let me deal with this here, because I got lots of folks who have been texting, emailing, and what always happens, we talked about it earlier, a lot of folk want to be on TV. A lot of people want to be talked to. A lot of folks say they've been working, they've been on the ground, they've been doing stuff.

And I get it. And the reality is everybody can't be on. Everybody can't be on a panel. Everybody can't be on air. But they can't be on. Everybody can't be on a panel. Everybody can't be on air, but it can't be doing that. But it does raise a question though, because whenever I come into cities, I hear all kinds of stuff. I hear they ain't doing this. They're not doing that. What are they really doing? What are they really doing? And so I have to put this out here. And I said it before we went to break. There are a lot of players. There are a lot of pieces.

There are people doing stuff. And I dare say, and this is not just dealing with Tennessee State, that one of the fundamental problems in the black community nationwide, nationwide, is that we are operating in individual silos. So we have all of these different entities that are frankly small. And what we're not doing is convening as a body and say, okay, what are y'all doing? What are y'all doing? What are y'all doing? What are y'all doing? So you're not, you don't have duplication. You're not doing overlap. And then, okay, what action are y'all doing? So you're not, you don't have duplication. You're not doing overlap.

And then, okay, what action are y'all doing? We're going to be there to support you. This is what we're doing. Y'all come support us because if the aim at Barry. So the question is, are you seeing different factions work together? And if not, why not? Okay, I'm so glad you asked me that question. Because we have, we being the Save the TSU Community Coalition. First of all, for people who don't know, what is that? Save the TSU Community Coalition is the coalition of individuals that came together in April of 2011 when we had a president named Dr. Portia Shields

who was systematically dismantling the institution. We worked with the governors, the folks at the time, and as a result, Dr. Glenda Baskin Glover was appointed president. So that's who we are. That's our history. We were started by the famed – partially started by the famed civil rights leader, Kwame Lillard, who now Kwame Lillard Hadley Park is named for. So that is our history. So what we have been doing even now for about the past two years is talking to folks.

I've been dying to say, in February of last year, we packed out. Where you stood today, you could not have stood in February of last year. But ever since March of last year, folks, different groups, have been doing whatever, sabotaging our town halls, not showing up. We put out flyers that don't show up. I'm in a group chat. You see I'm a single man. You're an alpha man.

I'm on a group chat with 800 members of the D9. That one group. 800. They're not here. And I'm like you, unfiltered, call it out. They're not here. Aside from that, I am the chair of the Nashville branch of the NAACP education. I did not get that email. I got the NAACP sign sitting out there because I did not get that information. So the fracturedness is coming because there are insiders causing havoc. Even when we asked the students to come, we asked the students to come. And then, you know, again, I'm a fundraiser for the school. I have two daughters at the school. The youngest one is right here. She's admitted, okay?

So they'll come back and tell me, well, we got this e-mail saying we didn't need to come down here, okay? I have personal friends on the faculty. We asked for the faculty to meet us at one of these meetings. We got word that an e-mail went out to the faculty telling them they didn't need to come down or it's just going to be one of these things they're going to handle. Even when they crucified TSU worse than Jesus on last Thursday,

people were told not to come from the campus. It wasn't needed. So what we really got to do is work to find out who these inside people are sucking up God's good air and helping nobody. Because that's what they're doing. And I agree with you and the rest of this panel so seriously. We have people who want to be all in the limelight.

They want to talk about the work, but they do not want to do the work. They just want... I'm going to leave it right there. I'm going to leave it right there. So how I sort of see this, at the news conference earlier today, Tequila, Reverend William Barber talked about, he mentioned SNCC.

And what a lot of people don't understand about SNCC, SNCC was called the Student Nonviolent Court and Committee. It was a compilation of organizations. It wasn't one organization. And so has there been an effort to literally call that meeting and say, look, it's a bunch of folk doing all sorts of stuff. Can we sit down as leadership and talk amongst ourselves and plot this thing out so we're not getting burnt out, we're not wasting money, and how we can move together? People can still do their individual stuff as an organization, but we're aware of what everybody is doing and working on one accord. Absolutely. You know, we had a Pack the House last week,

and I can say... You had a Pack the House? What's that? We brought students up to the state capitol to Pack the House. Danny Glover, who's sitting in the audience, was helping us organize. How many showed up?

We had about 50 students. Okay. You know, we built... That's what we do. We are an alliance. We build coalition with other organizations. Now, I don't say... I wouldn't dare say every organization is a part of the Grassroots Alliance because some people just don't want to be a part of it.

Okay, so first of all, so your alliance is made up of how many people? We have 15 organizations across the state. 15 different organizations. Black organizations across the state, yep. Across the state. Across the state. But in terms of the city, though, in terms of... In the city, we have seven.

Okay. They are? You want me to name them? Yes. So we, a part of the justice... You're going to say you got seven, you're going to name them seven. I mean, I don't mind. I'm just like... Yes. You know, so we try to do these things in silo because we do operate in a state that is super racist and will

target our partners. I got you. But we have the Equity Alliance. We also work with the 100 Man Stand. We also work with the Immigrant Rights and Refugee Coalition. We work with Civic Tennessee. We work with Action Tennessee. Who else am I forgetting? Labor is also a part of our National Justice League, the AFL-CIO.

We've worked with SEIU sometimes when we do election work. We probably have more than that. We've worked with IMF and did so to the polls. We're part of IMF. NAACP, we've coalesced with them before. A part of our grassroots alliance, though, are those first seven organizations that I named. But when we put out the call and say, I want to address that because I think the disjointness is not all black folk. I think we have a generational disjoint. I think there are people of a certain generation that are like, we want to do it this way. We want to put our flyers. And we're saying we don't want to put our flyers because we can put a QR code on the back of a T-shirt and we can get 500 people to sign up.

And we can get our student organizers to call and text them three times and make sure that they get there and so i think what we have to do uh to this brother's point and to your point is figure out how we bridge those generations well i think i think on that point and i think one thing has to happen. That is, younger folk and older folk have to actually understand that we communicate differently. So here's what I mean. So you take, I mean, the reality is you take television, okay? So when TV One ended my show, people who watch news are typically older. This is how they watch.

They ain't trying to sit here and pilfer. So, I actually kept telling my followers, when y'all go home for the holidays, teach them. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer

is yes, but there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated.

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

I'm Greg Lott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. We are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner.

It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. Got B-Real from Cypress Hill. NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette.

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

subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey. We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family. They showcased a sense of love that I never had before. I mean, he's not only my parent, like he's like my best friend. At the end of the day, it's all been worth it. I wouldn't change a thing about our lives. Learn about adopting a teen from foster care.

Visit AdoptUSKids.org to learn more. Brought to you by AdoptUSKids, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. Tell your relatives how to find my show. the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Ad Council. My point is you can actually do both. The key is how do you reach people? So my whole deal is if you've got a QR code, good. Flyer, good. Phone call, good. All of it goes together. I think what happens, though, is that the first thing is, that's why I asked the question. The first thing is there has to be a call made to say, all right, if we all say we all are fighting on behalf of Tennessee State, when are we meeting as leadership to go, okay, what is y'all plan for the next six months? day if I don't know what you're doing and he don't know what I'm doing and he don't know what Jeff

doing and Jeff don't know what she doing and the next thing you know folk is all over the place and and the day the money's still not coming and I think this is this is a just this is a huge thing that has to happen because if the goal is to fight for the resources we need everybody fighting for it i just think it's a whole lot of just territories and who doing what and who does what and i think the biggest thing is first of all call that what we call family meeting chris that has to happen you have to call a family meeting and you call a family meeting to also recognize who don't show up to the family meeting. Your thoughts? I think you are right on point with what you're saying.

I don't believe that there's going to be anything progressive wise in our community unless there's unity, unless there's oneness. We just came out of a fast here at our church and one of the tenets of the fast is unity oneness that's what you can get things done through that process and you know i think one of the tenets of the plantation politics that you alluded to is attack the leader divide the body and win the war and that same game has been played over and over throughout our communities. They attacked Dr. Glover and a lot of people said nothing. They said nothing. But how can you attack a woman who has doubled the endowment, doubled the research dollars, increased everything on every point, almost to an R1 status, and then you still have problems with her? I have a problem with that.

When they attack Dr. Glover, I say, it's going to be soon. They coming for you? Let me tell you, just understand. Again, because I've been in media since I was 14 years old. When she testified before the hearing, and when they were questioning about the dormitories, I said then they ticked off about asking for the money. Because see, look, the easiest way you run anybody out is you focus on the money. So the foundation, when they were questioning her in that hearing and we aired it and I said, oh, this thing is about to escalate because they were just putting the pieces in place. And the folk didn't understand what was happening.

Audit after audit after audit. You don't do five audits in one year if you don't have a game, you don't have an end game in mind. And we have to understand when we see that thing happening, all right, they about to come. Listen, today somebody wrote a story that says if Trump wins, they plan to create an entire initiative focused on anti-white civil rights laws. No, go after laws that they deem to be anti-white. I've been talking about that since 2009.

I'm like, y'all, they come and they listen. They're going after every single program in corporate America, in education, everywhere that they perceive as discriminating against white people. And I've been saying, again, since 2009, y'all, they coming. Okay, they coming. And I'm telling you, what they have done here in tennessee republicans are looking at this in georgia florida mississippi alabama texas everywhere going we can do the exact same thing and so i believe in the spirit of the nashville movement

nashville in 2024 has got to be on one accord to know how to fight this. You are so right. Go ahead. Go ahead. You and Jeff. Go ahead. Yeah, because I just want to keep addressing it because I think that the narrative that we're not getting along or that we're disjointed, it's not all the way real. I think when you have national figureheads, no disrespect, like yourself, that pour in that don't really understand the landscape

and you start talking to different people, then you have people get territory because you got every big national group finally paying attention to that thing that I've been pouring myself into. And, you know, not us because we're an organizing organization, so we do power building work. We do voter registration and things like that. But when this TSU thing came along, TSU reached out to us. Chris Jackson reached out to us and said, how can we begin collecting data?

And that's where we came in. But I think that we love that we have this being amplified, but I think national organizations and media has a due diligence to make sure that when they come into states that are underfunded where there is resource scarcity that they are not upsetting the infrastructure we have infrastructure what we don't have is national attention and so when you put that on top of a underfunded shaky infrastructure of course it looks like we're all over no no no but follow me here when you say but again but the point but next point is you may— But next time I got you. No, no, no, but—

I'm going to organize all of them. Right, no, but the point we say shaky infrastructure because here's what happens. When you come in, it then becomes, well, talk to this person or that person or that person. And then what I always do, I then go, okay, are they talking to each other? And then typically they're like, no. And so then that's when I go hold up how you talking to each other and that's because again for me when i'm putting together a show my whole deal is i want multiple voices sure and so and that and jeff the the the thing here and again it happened it

happened today somebody after the news conference said uh brother Martin, I'm with these churches. We want to stand with you. I said, no, no, bro. You need to go talk to them. They hear, not me. And again, that's part of it. Because our job is to amplify because the reality is CNN, MSNBC, Fox, ABC, CBS, they not hear. And so we also know in terms of how you sort of drive media because the other piece is there are people who are watching who are they already asking a question. How can we give? Well, if there's no avenue for folk to give, then it's like, wait a minute, I just wasted the opportunity.

And so, Jeff, that's I'm pushing this. I'm going to go to you. I'm going to go to Greg. I'm pushing this because I see this everywhere I go in the country is that it's a lot of folk who are doing stuff. They don't necessarily just talk to one another. And I'm going, listen, make the job easy. If you are doing some work, cool, you got that. OK, we're going to do this over here, not replicate. Yeah, indeed. and roland you you you spoke a lot there that needs to be unpacked and again i'm glad we're able to be transparent here on this network and have this conversation tonight because there are things that just need to be said and one one principle i operate by and that is am i going to be able to sleep with myself when i go tonight to bed tonight that that it. I can paint houses. I can cut grass if I need to.

But I come from a line of people who said that before I let somebody boss me around and tell me what to do, I will walk back roads naked and eat dog crap and feel that I have dignity. That's my personal ethos. I don't put that on other people. But there is seriously an understanding of the law of attraction principle that is your vibe attracts your tribe, right? What does that mean? That means like energy attracts like energy. We are too concerned with being one finger instead of a hand. Let me make this visual for you. The spirit is here in this space making it visual. On a hand, a hand cannot function if it's all thumbs.

A hand cannot function if it's all four fingers, middle fingers, ring fingers, or pinky fingers. If we look at this as a community coalition, there have to be people who point the way. They have to have standards and experience pointing the way away because a proven practice outweighs a brilliant theory if you tell me you want to have people organized you better show me and demonstrate that you have organized thousands of people and you can handle it if you want to fundraise you need to tell me that you could you could show me that you have the capacity to fundraise and to manage it transparently. If you are an agitator, I'll go to the middle finger and won't hold it up out of respect, Brother Jackson.

Because there's some people, including our wonderful staff here, is going to tell people when it's time to go to hell. That's the street agitators. That's the CE Magruder's. That is the Zuli Ursary's. That is the Kwame Leo Lillard's. I call the lineage. I sat on the floor and listened to these elders as I was coming up at Tennessee State and beyond. I've sat on the floor with elders as a grown man because I will always defer to wisdom that is based on experience

and resume. Any other time, I'm pleased to offer advice and instruction. There are people who are going to make the commitment to go through the hard times. There are people who are going to do things with style and grace behind the scenes and there are people who are going to be the encouragers and get people out. That's how we operate as a hand. Now I'm going to tell you because I'm always cautious. Everybody can't date my daughters because they look like me. Just because they look like me just because they look like me i got some standards for my daughters and i need to vet you i need to know who your mother is i need to know where

you're from i need to know if you've got goals in life i need to know where you're going in your all of those things are better there is nothing wrong with building coalitions because i've been a part of building coalitions for the last 30 years walking up and down Jefferson Street my office was in the hallway of the NAACP with the third eye you all remember that days that pay I was there paying 125 a month getting 10 ads from businesses all up and down Jefferson Street to support that Amon Roth Theater we built coalitions that had me sleeping on roofs to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars to put kids in an arts program. We built Nashville's first tiny house community. Now the gentrifying community is building on, but we built it. We didn't have any money, but we crowdfunded

in it. And over 68,000 people came around and helped us build that. I've raised $750,000 or more on crowdfunding initiatives. I'm always one to say, if you got some place to send the money, send the money. Rolling Nose and we're on the show. We're not going to let this network die. We're going to make sure that it is the biggest network, grassroots network, period. And notice I didn't say black. It's already that. But we're about to expand this thing because we know what it takes. And why? Because consistently throughout the years, from TV 1 to the first time I heard this brother's voice when we were on News and Notes.

Carol, I'm here. Okay. Well, they're in conversation, but the feed has frozen. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no.

Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multibillion-dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. Listen to new episodes of Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated, on the iHeartRadio app, radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your

podcasts binge episodes one two and three on may 21st and episodes four five and six on june 4th ad free at lava for good plus on apple podcasts i'm clayton english i'm greg glad and this is season two of the war on drugs podcast we are Sir, we are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate

choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug man. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill.

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

Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. Set up goals. Don't worry about a setback. Just save up and stack up to reach them. Let's put ourselves in the right position. Pre-game to greater things. Start building your retirement plan at thisispreetirement.org. Brought to you by AARP and the Ad Council. So, Carol, as soon as they do, just go straight forward to resume. I know you will.

Just sitting here listening as my brother was talking about this question of how we move together in terms of solidarity and coordination, I had a few thoughts. This Tennessee state moment is a point of entry. It's a proxy, really, for our battles up and down in black America. And so a few things. One, to talk about unity. Talk about the unity Reverend Chris talked about. You know, we can talk about how solidarity politics informs this work. And I want to take that right back to Tennessee State. The reason I went to law school, in fact, was the Geyer case in 1968. By the time I was a student body president in Tennessee State in 1986-87, a bunch of us went to law school because we were going to be lawyers, modeling after the lawyers we saw fighting the legal battle with victories.

And I'll never forget being at the Legal Defense Fund in Manhattan. There was a young lawyer named Sherrilyn Ifill who was on staff there. The great Julius Chambers was the director of LDF at the time. They had a national meeting of the black lawyers who were filing these lawsuits to get the resources for HBCUs. Alvin Chambliss is still around. Roland knows Alvin. He's talked about—talked to him many times.

This is what led directly to the lawsuits, United States v. Louisiana, where you saw money go to Grambling and Southern and other places, Ayers v. Louisiana, where you saw money go to Grambling and Southern and other places, Ayers v. Fordyce. That's the money that went to Jackson State and Mississippi Valley and Alcorn. There was Knight v. James. That was a settlement in the state of Alabama. That's where that football stadium came from. It was down there in Montgomery for Alabama State.

Alabama State got $25 million for capital improvement, and Alabama A&M got $7.3 million. So what does that have to do with today? The lawyers now have to coordinate. Is it going to be the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights? Is it going to be the Legal Defense Fund? We need to have a national meeting of lawyers to coordinate the strategies. So I'm going to tell you what these hillbillies are doing. The hillbilly horde with the American Enterprise Institute, the hillbilly horde with ALEC,

they coordinate. And so it's very important for us to understand that. The gentrification of education, we heard that mentioned a moment ago. My brother was talking about property values in Nashville. Well, you see the same thing on Georgia Avenue with Howard University. You see Norfolk State University in a gentrified community, gentrifying community. Virginia State University, you see it with Morgan and Coppin, Coppin State University, North Avenue in Baltimore. We have to have our black folk who are involved in real estate and business coordinate with local and state elected officials to talk about how

our HBCU campuses are under siege like that. Look at Johnson C. Smith and Charlotte, where we see this. And of course, this is a role for the Thurgood Marshall Fund. This is a role for the Negro College Fund to convene these meetings more than just talking about policy. No, we need to have an alarm that involves solidarity politics. A couple more things. Our HBCUs are not just regional campuses. Our public HBCUs in the South. They're also national campuses. We all remember what happened in North Carolina A&T when the hillbilly horde tried to punish them. A&T is projecting having 13,500 or so students in their entering class,

I mean in their total student body coming up for the 2024 year. Well, guess what? The state of North Carolina imposed a 35 percent cap on out-of-state enrollment. Now, that doesn't impact the other state schools, which are regional schools with a national dimension, but they're not going to overflow that. Remember, A&T had 41 percent out-of-state enrollment. Why? Because students from all over the black world and the black nation do not tick off whether or not they're not from Mississippi, not from Tennessee, not from Alabama or Florida when

they come to A&M, Florida A&M or Prairie View, when they come to Tennessee State. That goes back—that's a vestige of the 1960s, when the hillbillies accused those black folk who were from Chicago, who were from New York, who were from Detroit, of coming down to the HBCU campuses and riling up their good, docile undergraduate Negroes. And they tried to blame them for the black power movement and the civil rights movement. That's another element. We have to coordinate. These are coordinated attacks on our institutions that we can fight back from in a solidarity politics. We have to educate folk.

In other words, we have to educate folk as to the history of this long-range struggle, because these are not unrelated incidents. These are not unrelated issues. And if we do that, we can then begin to apportion out, as Roland was talking about a moment ago, the tasks at hand. When you have young people, for example, young people—and we heard that a moment ago when you heard Tequila talk about that—young folk who know how to use the technology differently, then they need to apply that strategy.

But in order to do that—OK, we're going back to Roland now. OK, thanks. Good. Thank you. All right, Greg, we appreciate that our signal froze here, but we are back. Senator Charlene Oliver is having a show. She joins us right now and glad to see you here. Listen, Reverend Barber said it earlier. This is going to require action from students, alumni, supporters, community as well well but also legislative and so uh where do we stand right now what are the marching orders uh from first of all we ask

this question has the black caucus as a body i'm just i gotta ask the question, has the Black Caucus as a body stated emphatically calling for the full funding of Tennessee State, the $544 million, the $2.1 billion, has that happened? Good evening, everybody. A short answer of that, officially, no. But unofficially, we have taken stances on this. The Black Caucus, that is. Chairman Sam McKenzie has led the charge on that and has been very vocal. We have put in budget amendments every year to make sure the issue gets its appropriations. But the short answer is no.

Unfortunately, I really hate to say this, but when I came into the Senate last year, I got elected, it's been a disappointing environment to come from organizing where we have to work in coalition, where we have to be a team. And then to come into the legislature, and it is not a team effort. I will have to say that. Everyone is out for themselves. Everyone is out to make themselves look good. It's about their legislative agenda.

And that's just the unfortunate piece. We haven't been able to really be unified inside the building. I mean, we all know theoretically everyone supports the issue. But outwardly speaking, we haven't seen that as much as we should have. Okay. So what then? Okay, so what is next? Okay, look, the governor's appointed these board members.

What do you need this audience to do? What do you need them to do? Because you, on one hand, doing one thing inside the state capitol, along with others, that's one thing. But there has to be an inside-outside. What do you want from these folks here? To keep the pressure on, I think, and not get distracted. For me, I felt like this whole conversation around audits, the board, sending the board under the TDR, which is Tennessee Board of Regents. All of this, to me, was a distraction away from the real conversation.

It's about the money, right? And so I think I would ask and implore you all to become more unified and continue to put that pressure on about when are we going to receive our appropriations for Tennessee State University. Do not let them continue to divide us and distract us with all these different bunny trails that we tend to go on when it comes to the money. We can have a conversation about it, but now that conversation is over now that they have vacated their board. No more to talk about with that. Let's move forward and maybe let's get ahead of this and build some more national coalitions around this. Because, look, the board has to now deal with the search, choose a president, whoever that person is.

They didn't put in their team, but they still are going to need the resources. And so, again, that's where I think the marching orders are critically important so folk know what to focus on. Because I personally, I think what's going to happen, people are going to go, okay, when does the board meet? What's going to happen with the search? Who's going to be the president? We want involvement in that. It doesn't matter who you bring in if you still don't have the necessary resources to deal with growing the student population. That's right. That's right.

That's right. Again, keeping the pressure on, but I would love to see more alumni to be more vocal about this. I, in full transparency, did not go to TSU, right? But I can stand on ten toes down for TSU. And so I would love to see more folks doing that, even if you did go to TSU. Even if you don't live in Nashville, this should be everyone's problem to deal with.

So I would implore the National TSU Alumni Association to get involved, more faculty to get vocal. But, you know, from all of that, right? Absolutely. Well, look, we appreciate it uh keep up the good fight i'm gonna keep putting that pressure on as well so thanks a bunch thank you i appreciate it appreciate it here we go uh we're gonna get uh we're gonna get the final comments and then uh i'm gonna go to a quick break and i'm gonna interview a lawyer tomorrow in the oklahoma

supreme court uh they will hear oral arguments in the case for the last two survivors of the Tulsa race massacre. They have been fighting to get reparations to get them to compensate the victims of that race massacre. And so they have oral arguments tomorrow. So we're going to hear from one of the lawyers in a second well let me just get uh final comments uh from folks here uh chris you first i just wanted to say back on the issue of unity my last uh session when i was the president of imf i brought together the nacp brought together the urban league brought together uh all of those entities that are here to say, let's work together, let's find some common ground, let's find some issues that all of us agree on, and let's push together and make a difference in this city.

That's what I would like to see happen. Gotcha. My final comment, I want to stress that Tennessee is 51 in voter turnout. We are on historic Jefferson Street where there are over 100 black-owned parcels of land. There are no more black-owned businesses on Ward Street anywhere else in the country, and we have to protect this through our vote. So if you have a son, a grandson, granddaughter, make sure they are registered to vote because we can get that money from TSU by hook or by crook.

If they don't let us get it, we can get their feet out of those seats, put new people in and get that money. There you go. Craig. Yep. Yep, I'm fully cognizant of the reality that we as a university very well may be the inspiration for Bebe's kids because we don't die, we multiply. Tennessee State has always dealt with this, and we're going to deal with them again. So I want to thank those who have worked in coalition. And even if you have to vet, listen, my personal ethos is this.

I will show up for you and with you, and I will show up transparently, and I will show up authentically. Now, what does that mean in real terms? Any organization, any individual, we sit in the room, I'm going to show you mine, you show me yours. I need to know who's donating to you. I need to know who you're connected to. I need to know if you used to date somebody who's connected to something there and I'm going to walk into a hornet's nest. Once we get that all clear, then we can go strong and go forward into the night. We will win. I want to shout out the alumni across this nation who assisted in the process going forward.

And I got permission to say this. I need to say this so that there are no conspiracy theories that come because as Senator Oliver said, a lot of this comes from thumbs. We hear something and we start spreading bad rumors and then we attack people. There are some business people on this current board, this new board, that could run circles around every business person that you've ever met from any Fortune 500 company. Some people have run those companies who are on this new board. There are some good people on the other board as well, and that's great.

But people said in conspiracy spaces, they said, how in the heck did the governor sign a piece of legislation and an hour later, he had a whole doggone board. We got to look at that. We got to break that down. Six weeks ago, some alumni who were forward thinking said, we got to not play checkers on this and be reactionary. We have to get ahead of this game.

I got permission to say Dwight Beard's name. Those of you who know Dwight Beard, great guy. He will hold on to you, and if you mess up, he's your fraternity brother. He will curse you out 100%, but he will stand with the university. They sent out a national email, Roman. Have you heard this already? Okay. They sent out a national email to alums.

They sent them to alums who were business leaders, who were contributors to the university. And they said, we want you to give us your top five people who are all alumni. And let's put together a list to get ahead of this. And there are qualifications we want. There are people who have advanced business experience, who can basically read a profit and loss statement to make sure that we're fiscally responsible. They must love TSU. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time,

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

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

and episodes 4, 5, and 6 on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Lott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Apple Podcasts. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug thing is. Benny the Butcher. Brent Smith from Shinedown. We got B-Real from Cypress Hill.

NHL enforcer Riley Cote. Marine Corvette. MMA fighter Liz Karamush. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad-free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple Podcasts. I always had to be so good, no one could ignore me. Carve my path with data and drive. But some people only see who I am on paper. The paper ceiling. The limitations from degree screens to stereotypes that are holding back over 70 million stars. Workers skilled through alternative routes rather than a bachelor's degree. It's time for skills to

speak for themselves. Find resources for breaking through barriers at taylorpapersceiling.org, brought to you by Opportunity at Work and the Ad Council. And be active. And they must be willing to serve as either a board person or they could qualify to be president of this university. They did that and went through several rounds over the course of three weeks of emailing on a list serve back and forth. When they finished, they had 15 candidates who everyone felt comfortable with. That is the list that they provided to the government and to the governor. So the reason why it happened so quickly is because he didn't want to get caught. Right.

He was healed. Now did all eight come from that list? All eight came from this list. Okay. So the reason why I say this is I got to give props. I got to give props because I always recognize excellent thinking. And I recognize getting in the street, but I also recognize and outsmart folks in the classroom and the courtroom. So when you have that kind of action happening, we also want to make sure that all things are true and accepted. We've got to fight for the money.

We've got to make sure every single entity that has a microphone or a platform stands and fights for the money and holds them accountable. And we also have to be supportive of a board who for the first time in the history since this FOCUS Act happened and the boards of individual schools got founded are all accomplished and all love Tennessee State University. I can't wait to see what the future is going to bring on this end. Very good.

So let me start by saying that I believe there's three things that you can give an institution. Yourself, your money, and your children. And I'm proud to say that I'm a part of the Barlow Jones TSU alumni group. We've earned 38 degrees from the Tennessee State University as a family group. I'm even prouder to say that my two daughters are working on degrees number 38 and 40. I'm proud to say that as a member of Phi Beta Sigma, we gifted TSU our first $100,000 last year in June,

and we'll be doing direct scholarships for students coming real soon. And it is an absolute must that when we get this money, we must be able to develop and build those large dormitories because dorm rental and tuition will make us not have to have these negotiations and bargains that can go away simply because right now the state only gives tennessee state university about 20 percent of his funds. So we need to talk to this board and make sure they're on board with making sure that we get the infrastructure piece right. And all of you football fans, don't tell them you want a football field. Tell them you want an entire sports complex. Because the state says you cannot use state dollars to build an entity to raise

funds. But the loophole says you can build a sports complex that has as a part of it its football field. So now you've been educated on what to do, let's go forward and do it. And in the words of Nancy Mandela, it's time for us to unite and stand together. So I want to do this here because, again, I think it's important that we have the right information. So when you've seen a lot of these, we're talking about the underfunded. And remember, year one, it was $285 million. Folks were texting me, TSU has not got that $285 million. I think what has to happen is when we start talking about $2 billion,

there are multiple pools of money. The $544 million, that's one. The $2.1 billion is another. And so this is where, again, where I think it's important for organizations to get together, have everybody have the right data so everybody's operating from the same point. Because what I've already heard, and I talked to folk earlier today what the Republicans are trying to do and the governor they're trying to co-mingle all the money so they're trying to say oh no no no what we're allocating is from this no it's actually not and so moving forward is getting the right data on

exactly how much money we're talking about. Because remember, you have all these different pools of money, and so you've got to know what you're arguing for at that very moment. So the federal, the land grant money, that's a whole separate, that $13 billion from the HBCU, that's a whole separate pot of money than the $2 billion. So understand, when the governor said all this first, that money has not been allocated. It's $285 million. We're just supposed to go to a STEM center, supposed to go to program updates,

supposed to go to endowment and scholarships, as well as an academic sports complex. So what you're talking about, that money has not actually been allocated. So that's supposed to be in year one. So just understand what to actually be fighting for. Look, we're going to keep

covering the story. We're not going anywhere. It has to be covered. But if there's one thing, before I go to the break, I'm going to uh it has to be covered uh but if there's one thing before i go to the break i'm going to talk to our folks oklahoma next but the way for the one thing that i that i have to implore folks uh is this and and and i have folks hit me and they said man that church should be packed the reason i'm not sweating that because one by utilizing digital media uh what folks should be doing they should be taking these clips and sending them out. You put stuff on your Facebook and Instagram

and TikTok, all sort of stuff. It should be flooding the zone. Not only this two-hour show, but also the news conference earlier. Get in the algorithm and that is whatever hashtag, same thing, create one hashtag that

y'all figure out whatever it is and tell us what the heck it is and then that way when people are posting on all these platforms you're building a resonance because as senator oliver said they have to feel the pressure i fundamentally believe the reason this legislation took that took the action in the past year because only 10, 12, 11, 50 showed up. I do not believe that if 1,000 or 2,000 or 5,000 showed up if we don't then put it into action. And then to your point, we have to explain to people, and I deal with this all the time, man, you keep talking about voting. I said because that's also power. You cannot talk about TSU needs the money if you don't change the politicians who are the ones who vote on the money. I mean, I just, they all

go together. I don't want to take over. I know you got to go to some... Let Greg make his final comment. I'll give you 30 seconds on this. And I don't know why the spirit is here. But what you said about voting is voting. But also added to voting is leverage.

You've got, we haven't heard anything from the city on this. Right. But the city wants to put out those contracts for that new stadium. They're going to be asking us to raise our sales tax to build a transit system. There you go. So there are things that we leverage. You say, guess what? You step to us first.

There you go. Then maybe we'll reciprocate because the stats say they need us to get all of this new gentrification nation work that they're trying to do on Nashville. There you go. And so you leverage that. There you go. Greg. Thank you, Roland. Again, this is why the Black Star Network is essential. By the way, one of those elements of solidarity politics, we've got to have our media, the black newspapers, NNPLA, we've got to have the platforms to do this as well. There's a common denominator here, and the common denominator is control. Control.

This is a story about control. And we have to understand that higher education, we're at an inflection point in this country and in the world where it relates to higher education. Higher education is in a crisis right now. But our HBCUs are different. While you all were out and working the tech stuff out, I mentioned what happened at North Carolina A&T that you covered, Roland, back in 2021. When their out-of-state enrollment was 41 percent and the state of North Carolina put a 35 percent cap on and then took $2 million back from A&T. Why? Because our HBCUs aren't just state institutions, aren't just regional institutions. They are national and international institutions when it comes to black folk.

They're also great value when you start talking about public institutions. This is a fight over control. And when you have a fight like this over control, the other side is coordinated. When we talk about the lawsuits, we need to file all the lawsuits. This is what got Alabama State, as I said a minute ago, those resources, and Alabama A&M. That was the case of Knight v. James back in 2005. Between that and 2014, they got millions of dollars, because they went to court.

United States v. Louisiana, that's what did Grambling and Southern. Still not the money we need. And Ayers v. Fordyce were all the Mississippi public HBCUs. And it goes on and on. We have to have the Legal Defense Fund, the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights. There needs to now be a coordinated effort. Finally, in this fight, we have to never forget that image matters and that at any moment, as Malcolm X says, as long as you have the ingredients for an explosion, you have the potential for explosion on your hands. Image matters. We are in March madness.

We're in March madness right now in terms of basketball. And I'm glad you said that, Brother Chris, because I remember when Tennessee State joined the OVC and all the students at Tennessee State, we protested. Why? We wanted to be in the SWAC or remain independent. Why? Because the control of athletics was a proxy for control of the image. And the federal lawsuit, the stipulation of settlement, said that Tennessee State needed to lose its racial identifiability. So that's why they joined the Ohio Valley Conference in the first place. Here we are

finally in a season, in a season where we need those who have platform, our athletes, student athletes, those who are committed to HBCUs, a guy like Chris Paul, who did not go to a white, a black school, but who supports Winston-Salem State coming out of North Carolina. We have to encourage them to now train their eyes on these institutions. Because I tell you right now, if you can get about 20 of these top high school sisters who play in basketball to not go to LSU but go to Southern, not go to University of Tennessee, maybe go to Tennessee State, not go to University of Florida like Shaq's daughter is about to

do and go to Florida A&M, they can carry this message in a different way. And that all requires coordination and unity. And the Black Star has struck a mighty blow with this point of entry to a conversation we should have been having all along. So thank you, brother. Okay, I'm going to assume. All right, Greg, I appreciate that.

And, Roland, let me just say, Stick will be bringing the lawsuit. I know a lot of cops, and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no.

Across the country, cops called this taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad.

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

And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast. Yes sir, we are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves. Music stars Marcus King, John Osborne from Brothers Osborne. We have this misunderstanding of what this quote-unquote drug man. Benny the Butcher.

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

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

We got to set ourselves up. See, retirement is the long game. We got to make moves and make them early. Set up goals. Don't worry about a setback. Just save up and stack up to reach them. Let's put ourselves in the right position. Pre-game to greater things. Start building your retirement plan at thisispreetirement.org.

Brought to you by AARP and the Ad Council. We will. Save the TSU Community Coalition. You can look to hear from us. We will be bringing a lawsuit. Okay. And I did check. Representative Justin Jones still is a member of the Black Caucus. He has not been kicked out. He is a member.

I know he texted me, baby. I got it. I got it. Sheila, he is. I'm like, I know. He just told me. Right here. Okay.

Appreciate that. Hold on one second. I'm like, I know he just told me right here. OK, great. So appreciate that. Hold on one second. I'm going to go to a quick break and then we are going to have a quick interview. This huge case tomorrow. I mean, all y'all praying for the attorneys in this regarding the Oklahoma State Supreme Court as they this is their final effort to get justice. Those two survivors, both of them are more than 100 years old. We just lost one of them, Uncle Red, last year. We'll talk to them next on Roller Mark Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. As bad as Trump was, his economy was worse, and black America felt it the most. He cut health insurance while giving tax breaks to the wealthy and big business. As president, I put money in pockets and capped the cost of insulin at $35 a month.

There's a lot more to do, but we can do it together. Fanbase is pioneering a new era of social media for the creator economy. This next generation social media app with over 600,000 users is raising $17 million and now is your chance to invest. For details on how to invest, visit startengine.com slash fanbase or scan the QR code. Another way we're giving you the freedom to be you without limits. This is Attorney Demario Solomon-Simmons. I'm a national civil rights attorney. I'm also the founder and executive director of Justice for Greenwood.

Many of you guys know I've been leading the fight with the last two living survivors and the Greenwood community overall. We have a historic hearing coming up on April 2nd at 1.30 p.m. in front of the Oklahoma Supreme Court. I need all of you to support us as we try to get justice for this issue for the first time in almost 103 years.

Sign up to support us during this hearing on Tuesday. JusticeforGreenwood.org backslash watch party April 2nd, 1.30pm. We need your support, your messages, and your prayers. We appreciate you. Justice for Greenwood. Hey, what's up? Keith Tony in a place where you got kicked out your mom's

university. Creator and executive producer of Fat Tuesdays, an air hip-hop comedy. But right now, I'm rolling with Roland Martin. Unfiltered, uncut, unplugged, and undamn believable. You hear me? y'all can clap hey folks welcome back pleasant green baptist church in Green Baptist Church in Nashville in Oklahoma tomorrow before the state Supreme Court is going to be a oral arguments in a case we've been following for quite some time. And that is their final shot at getting justice for the survivors of the Tulsa race massacre that took place in 1921. Joining us right now is Randall Adams, a partner with Schultz, Roth, and Zabel Law Firm.

Randall, glad to have you. So for folks who don't understand, look, y'all have been going through, I mean, all sort of court efforts. This thing goes back to Johnny Cochran and others trying to get support for these survivors. There were a lot more when that thing started 20-plus years ago. Now there are two.

So is this your final shot, this effort that's taking place tomorrow before the Oklahoma State Supreme Court? Yes, it absolutely is, and thank you for having me, Roland. So tomorrow we have oral arguments before the Oklahoma Supreme Court. And in July of last year, the trial court in this matter dismissed the case on a motion to dismiss, which essentially was a ruling that we weren't going to get the chance to have a trial at all, and essentially said that this case ends right here, that we hadn't even stated a claim for a case. And so the court dismissed us last July, and we've appealed to the Supreme Court of Oklahoma

to reverse that dismissal. And at this point, truly, all we're asking for is to go back to trial court and have a trial in this case, which would be the first time that any court in Oklahoma, anywhere in America, has heard a case about the Tulsa Race Massacre, which is a real travesty that it's never— our survivors have never even had their day in court yet. So, again, they will make this decision. Y'all have gone through so many different avenues. After these oral arguments, let's say the Oklahoma State Supreme Court doesn't rule in your favor.

Is that it? That's it. That's it. So we can't appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court because this is a question of state law. So this is the final show. It really is. There's nowhere left to go after this. Mother Randall and Mother Fletcher, as you mentioned, are both 109 years old. And this case that we brought, which is a public nuisance case, and the reason this public nuisance case is special is that there's no statute of limitations, which means that there's no amount of time that it can be too late to bring a lawsuit. So that's why we're still able to bring this lawsuit 100 years later. But you're right. That's it. There's nothing. There's no

other lawsuit that can be brought based on the massacre if this doesn't proceed. So that is taking place at what time tomorrow? That's 1.30 Central. Does the Oklahoma Supreme Court, do they allow a live stream? I know the U.S. Supreme Court, they allow audio to be streamed. What about Oklahoma? There will be a live stream. So if you go to Justice for Greenwood's website, you can watch the live stream there.

All right. Well, look, I'm going to talk to DeMario. We're going to be carrying that on the Black Star Network. And so the folks here in Nashville, I'm sure around the country are praying for you and all the other lawyers that these two survivors will finally be able to get some justice. But what took place that just the total destruction of Greenwood in 1921, which was a state action. That involved the city and the state in all of these years, more than a century later. They have refused to financially compensate folks for what they did to the black community of Greenwood there in Tulsa. Absolutely. Absolutely. It was a white mob deputized by the city and the state to go in and destroy this flourishing Black Wall Street neighborhood.

And again, in 100 years, this is the worst act of domestic terrorism in U.S. history. And no court has ever even had a hearing or heard evidence or done anything about that. And this is truly, this tomorrow is really the last chance for that. All right. Rihanna, we appreciate it. Thanks a lot. Thank you very much. All right. I want to thank everybody here, all of you who are watching. Please support the effort because, again, today is Tennessee State. Tomorrow it could be FAMU, Texas Southern, Prairie View.

It could be Alcorn State. It could be any of our state public institutions. Also, folks, don't forget to support us in what we do. Look, we don't have billionaires and millionaires cutting us checks. We don't have any of that. We really built this bootstrap from the beginning, and our fans have been huge, huge supporters of this show, playing a big role in our ability to be able to grow, to be able to do this.

Our fan base has given us more than $2 million over the past five and a half years. That has been absolutely critical. I said earlier, so the brother's name was Sam Lofton. Sam at the Capitol today, he's like, look, I don't do all that other stuff. And we got a lot of our folk who are old school. They don't do Cash App, PayPal, Venmo, Zelle. They still send checks and money orders. And I'm glad because not one of those checks, I think one check did bounce,

but there ain't been no bounce checks. So I appreciate all of our folks. So you can support us by joining our Bring the Funk fan club. We purposely don't charge a subscription fee. A lot of folks out here, they charge that. We wanted to have our content

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Venmo is RM Unfiltered. Zelle, Roland at RolandSMartin.com. Roland at RolandMartinUnfiltered.com. Download the Black Star Network app, available on Apple Phone, Android Phone, Apple TV, Android TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Xbox One, Samsung Smart TV. As I said, you can watch our 24-hour, seven-day-a-week live streaming channels on the four platforms. You can go to Amazon Fire, put Amazon News on Amazon Fire. If you have an Alexa, you can say Alexa, play news from the Black Star Network. You can hear the audio. You can also go to Plex TV, Amazon Freebie, and Amazon Prime Video. Just look for our Black Star Network channel.

We're right there along with the other networks, ABC, NBC, CBS, Black Star Network is right there as well. And so we appreciate all the folks. We appreciate Pastor. We appreciate for allowing us to be here at Pleasant Green Baptist Church. We want to appreciate all of y'all for coming out as well. Thank you to our panelists as well. We're going to stay on the case, folks. And so y'all stay tuned as well.

Y'all take care. I'll see y'all tomorrow back in Washington, D.C. Howl! Black Star Network is here. Y'all stay tuned as well. Y'all take care. I'll see y'all tomorrow back in Washington, D.C. Out! Black Star Network is here. Oh, no punches! I'm real revolutionary right now. Thank you for being the voice of black America. All the momentum we have now, we have to keep this going.

The video looks phenomenal. See, there's a difference between Black Star Network and Black-owned media and something like CNN. You can't be Black-owned media and be scared. It's time to be smart. Bring your eyeballs home. You dig? I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun?

Sometimes the answer is yes. But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season 1, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Clayton English. I'm Greg Glott. And this is Season 2 of the War on Drugs podcast.

Yes, sir. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This kind of starts that a little bit, man. We met them at their homes. We met them at their recording studios. Stories matter, and it brings a face to it. It makes it real.

It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We asked parents who adopted teens to share their journey. We just kind of knew from the beginning that we were family. They showcased a sense of love that i never had before i mean he's not only my parent like he's like my best friend at the end of the day it's all been worth it i wouldn't change a thing about our lives learn about adopting a teen from foster care visit adopt us kids.org to learn more brought to you

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