#RolandMartinUnfiltered - State of Black America report; Child tax credit $$$ arrives; Black women orgs' voting rights rally

Episode Date: July 16, 2021

7.15.21 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: State of Black America report released; Child tax credit payments arrive; Black women's orgs protest at Capitol Hill for voting rights and call to action; Rep. Ayanna Pressley talks about The Tenant Empowerment Act; Voting rights battle continues in Texas; Day 3 of the trial of California Sexual Predator Ed BuckSupport #RolandMartinUnfiltered via the Cash App ☛ https://cash.app/$rmunfiltered or via PayPal ☛ https://www.paypal.me/rmartinunfiltered#RolandMartinUnfiltered 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. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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at taylorpapersilling.org. Brought to you by Opportunity at Work and the Ad Council. Thank you. Today is Thursday, July 15th, 2021. Protests on Capitol Hill for voting rights and a number of them get arrested, including Ohio Congresswoman Joyce Beatty, chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. We'll hear from her, hear from Court Masters Barry, also Latasha Brown from Black Voters Matter. Roland Martin and Filchard will be live streaming the entire event and we have the exclusive for you. National Urban League, they have released their annual State of Black America report. We'll be joined by President Mark Morial to break it down. $15 billion in child tax credit payments were sent out today to the families of nearly 16 million children should the government do more to end child poverty. Folks, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts is going to be

joining us to talk about the Tenant Empowerment Act. Also, we'll update you with the latest out of Texas, where Democrat legislators left the state to protect your right to vote. They still have not returned home. It's also day three of the trial of California sexual predator Ed Buck. We'll give you the most recent developments. Plus, we'll show you what happened at another event today as well. Folks, a lot of news to cover. Time to bring the funk. I'm Roland Martin on Filter.

Let's go. He's got it. Whatever the biz, he's on it. Whatever it is, he's got the smooth, the fat, the fine. And when it breaks, he's right on time. And it's rolling. Best believe he's knowing. Putting it down from sports to news to politics

With entertainment just for kicks He's rolling With some go-go-royale It's rolling Martin Rolling with rolling now He's funky, he's fresh, he's real The best you know, he's rolling Martin Yeah, yeah, yeah. Growing with rolling now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's funky, he's fresh, he's real. The best you know, he's rolling, Martin.

Yeah. Martin. It has been more than a year since the death of George Floyd. Significant promises have been made to African Americans from corporate America, from foundations as well, to deal with racial inequality, to deal with the issue of race equity. President Joe Biden, his administration has talked about race equity when it comes to the federal government. All of these announcements, lots of press releases, lots of posting on social media, lots of black squares, but little action.

Not much has changed for black America. That is the assessment of also the National Urban League in their 2021 State of Black America report. This year's report has proposals to address the three pandemics that are drastically affecting the Black community, racial inequity in health care, in economics, and public safety. Joining us right now is Mark Morial, President and CEO of the National Urban League.

Mark, let's deal with these pandemics one by one. First of all, when we talk about racial inequity in health care, COVID showed us very clearly the level of inequity that exists in this country. Roland, thanks for having me and appreciate always the chance to talk to you. 2020, others learned what we knew. We knew, we lived, we experienced health inequity. It was splashed across the front pages of television and newspaper and the internet that Black people were dying more, infected more, less likely to get to the doctor or the hospital as fast. It exposed the inequities in our healthcare system. Our report this year against that backdrop says, if we are serious,

then we have to build a new normal of a more diverse, equitable America. It means a different approach to healthcare. It means we've got to expand coverage. It means we've got to make sure that there is a focus on prevention. It means that health care infrastructure, which leaves many Black communities without hospitals, doctors, or clinics, if we're going to rebuild it, we have to rebuild it differently. Ditto for the economy. Ditto for law enforcement and the justice system. The thing that I laid out at the top. And so we've gone through this whole year of people saying, oh, my God, now we really, really see there's a problem.

OK, where have you seen action take place that is moving in a positive direction? I would say, Roland, that number one, if you think about things like the selection of Kamala Harris as vice president, the installation of Vanita Gupta and Kristen Clark at the Department of Justice, the implementation of the child tax credit. These are steps. But in one year, one thing has become clear, and that is despite this work for racial justice, transformation and change has been met by a countervailing force. January 6, the tsunami of voter suppression. We are in a fight and in a battle. This is not a playing field where people are playing one-hand touch football.

This is a playing field where people are playing hard tackle football, albeit maybe without helmets or shoulder pads. So I think we've seen commitments. I don't think we've seen actualization. And I've candidly said, Roland, to people, if you want my fairest assessment, ask me in three years if the commitments that have been made have been consistent and followed through on or whether they were flashes in the pan. I hope that they're consistent. I hope that there's a follow through. I pray that people mean what they say. But at this point, we're still in an early stage. Make no mistake about it. The activism in the streets in 2020 led to the historic record voter turnout, which put not only the Biden-Harris team in the White House, but allow the Democrats to achieve 50 and then plus

one, a narrow majority in the United States Senate. And we rightfully expect to see results, substantial and meaningful results. But the political side of me understands that things like the filibuster stand in the way that out and out vicious resistance from some of the most hateful and racist people in the country when it comes to the stripping away the right to vote also stands in the way so this fight and this work is not easy so here's so here's what I think, for me, when I look at what's going on, I think some people get it, other people don't. I have been saying, Reverend Dr. William Barber says this, John Hope Bryant has a book dealing with this here. I have purposely been saying that we have to think about this in terms of the third reconstruction. And recognizing the first one lasted anywhere from 12 to 16, some take 20 years.

The second one, about the same period of time. And I said this one has to last as long. And I think a lot of folks, Mark, they're going about this wrong. And I'm going to mention, for example, only because we got the press release and I want to talk to them about it. So Urban League is working with Pepsi on an initiative to stand up black restaurants, $10 million over five years. Absolutely important. I support it. Pepsi is also going to be driving $100 million. They want to drive $100 million to black-owned restaurants over the course of five years. Not a problem. Support that as well. But I made this point. Pepsi spends about $3 billion a year

when it comes to marketing. I said, if Pepsi does 5% with black-owned media, that would come out to $150 million a year, $750 million over five years. So I juxtapose, and again, I am fully supportive of what they're doing. What I'm saying is $10 million over five years, important. Drive $100 million over five years to black restaurants, important. But if Pepsi did 5% with black-owned media, that would be $750 million over five years. That blows away the other numbers. Now, there are $322 billion that's going to be spent on marketing. If we say, yo, y'all must be doing minimum 5% with black-owned media.

Now, that's black-owned media. I'm saying also, Mark, we should be challenging black board members and saying black catering companies, black limousine companies, black event planning companies, black PR companies. Because the moment right now is to say we're not interested in I appreciate aid. I appreciate philanthropy. I appreciate philanthropy. I'm talking investment. And I think we've got to be we've got to be talking reconstruction, rebuilding massive programs and challenging not just corporate America, but challenge these massive foundations and these these these colleges as well, because billions are flowing through and they love us spending and we've got to be looking them in the eye and saying i'm sorry we're simply not satisfied with small amounts and i think that has to reverberate mark over all of these black organizations

because dr king wrote in uh in chaos or community where do we go from here he said there are four institutions that are positioned to unify black people, the black church, the black press, black fraternities and sororities and black professional organizations. And he said all four institutions have never fully gave themselves to free liberating freedom for black people. That to me is how I think we have to be challenging our own black organizations, Mark. And I'm up to the challenge Roland, because I don't think none of us have done enough,

but it takes more than, let's say, we're going to do it to sustain this level of pressure. Look, let me be honest. No black advertising firms have contacted me. Okay? Truthfully, most of them are basically out of business. They're only a handful. Yeah, well, there's one or two.

But the only handful is still alive, yeah. Part of it, too, is we have to also curate closer working relationships around this agenda. Absolutely. Absolutely. Because calling a press conference and calling people out is important. But if there's no follow through. Absolutely. There's no strategy behind it. We'll get nowhere. So I think you're absolutely right.

All of these companies, I don't want anyone to think because anybody accepts a contribution that ends up helping the community, that somehow that equates to satisfaction. I'm not satisfied. That's right. And I think that phrase, I'm not satisfied, has to be our clarion card. And I think, I can't speak for anyone else, but I think that very few of us are satisfied. And I fight every day like you do to fall into a trap of being frustrated that leads to ineffectiveness. Right. And so I do believe you're absolutely right. And I think that black owned media should consolidate, set the agenda and open a conversation with historic civil rights organizations about how we can surgically go after and increase the advertising dollars that we have. I'm only, obviously because Black on Media, I'm using that as an example, but what I'm constantly doing on this show. It's a visible example, and it's an opportunity to do something at scale.

But what we're doing is, you know, we created a segment called Where's Our Money? And what is happening is I'm trying to get our people to say we should be asking this in every sector. And, again, our black engineering firms, architecture firms, design firms. You know, we're built. We move into a new studio. First thing I did was black lighting companies, black drape companies, black set companies, forcing that whole. And looking these companies and the federal government in the eye mark and saying, no, no, no, no. We're saying diverse. We ain't saying multicultural. We ain't saying minority. We saying black. But also, let's understand that the American

Rescue Plan that Biden passed has a specific program for black farmers. Now, I count that as a success. It is now being challenged in court. Yep. So it's going to be a fight to sustain it. But a specific program specifically enumerated to assist debt relief for black farmers. So what I don't want to leave the impression is that there are no steps in the direction you've described, but I will embrace the idea that they're not enough, right, and that we have to absolutely do more when it comes to the economic front. You know, I have fought very hard with a number of companies to get them into agreements around diverse business participation, and in some instances they've made progress in some areas, but not in other areas. So, you know, we're together, Roland, on this issue, on the necessity to do more when it comes to the economic front. And I'm concerned right now, I had a conversation

today with a member of the United States Senate about the infrastructure bill and about whether the infrastructure bill is going to benefit black communities and black business owners. And whether there's going to be a specific provision, a specific provision in it that's going to mandate and require black business participation. Look, we had we had the secretary of Labor with the Secretary of Labor and Transportation Secretary Walsh and Buttigieg. I said, are y'all going to challenge the labor unions to make sure that our black craftsmen

are in the trade? I said, I'm looking at contracts, I'm looking at labor unions, I'm looking at all of it. And the last time that happened, when Obama was president, Gene Sperling was on my show. And you should have seen the look in his eye like, I don't know what the hell he's talking about. And I told him, I said, Gene, y'all want us to fight for it to create a trillion dollar infrastructure plan that the trade union is going to freeze us out. I said, Doc, y'all got to call them in. So let me also offer focus because what Dr. King taught us, the march had an objective.

It was to change the law, to place public policy on the books. In this instance right now, while this infrastructure bill is being debated, we need specific provisions, specific provisions in the infrastructure bill that do what we're talking about. Karen Mitchell, who inserted the 10 percent set-aside law into the surface transportation bill way back in 1978 and started, if you will, the modern approach to minority business participation. So I think we're together, but we ought to elevate the conversation and the need for provision, the need for law, the need for policy in this legislation, not just the goodwill of the president, the vice president, the secretary of transportation, secretary of, they're going to be, they could be gone before all this money is deployed. This money in a transportation bill will end up in the hands of states, ports, airport authorities, regional planning associations.

If they're not required to include us, they'll leave us out. And that and that's why and that's why when I look at this report and I look at the which which y'all lay out these three, three pandemics. The thing that I have been saying to black people are two things one stop playing ourselves small by asking for small amounts that's one the second thing I say it is we got to be willing, Mark, to make the ask and be willing to challenge folks. Because I'll tell you, I've had meetings with advertisers and this was my position. I got zero last week. I got zero right now. Hell, ain't no sense in me sitting here trying to play go along and get along.

I'm probably going to get zero again. And so by aggressively challenging people, and here's the other piece, to your point, when they go, well, do you have the numbers? Yep, we got the numbers. See, so we got capacity. We got the numbers. We can deliver. I just think that what has to happen, more of our professional organizations beyond the national urban league i'm talking about our black groups that are in these age these industries they have got to be

willing to say we're standing with you i'm a vp digital for the national association of black journalists we're gonna hold down on the journalism front but we gotta have national black mba being far more aggressive we've got to have a Society of Black Engineers, the black folks in advertising. We have all these professional organizations. And we're alphas. And you and we, same thing. We just can't. The alphas are meeting right now at our convention in Indianapolis.

The AKAs just installed and announced their new honorary members. I'm saying we've got to use our collective black power. And look, let me say this to you also, Roland, because I think this is an important point. We have to re-elevate the economic civil rights agenda. Yes. We are rightfully focused on voting. We're rightfully focused on policing. But the economic agenda, housing, jobs, business participation has to be re-elevated in this discussion that we're having and on our agenda.

So I think, look, we agree, and I think your sense of urgency, and I'll say this, the advertising issue is something I'd like to talk to you more about because I think that it is a prime, if you will, opportunity because we are consumers to the tune of $1. half million, one and a half trillion dollars a year. And when you take black and brown and Asian people together, we're almost five trillion. We are as large as we'd be the fourth or fifth largest economy in the world if you took us all together. So I think we agree. And this is what the report says. We got to build a different kind of economy. And part of this is minority or black business participation. Last question for you.

And so NAACP used to do this when Kweisi and Fu Man was the president. And I really believe that these things, report cards, are effective. Have you and the Urban League considered either partnering with NAACP or just doing this, bringing back those industry report cards, making them public and saying, we're going to award A, B, C, D, and Fs? That was a project that Kweisi did. It's a very difficult project.

You have to have a tremendous amount of work. I've never really considered doing it. Not that we shouldn't, but I do think you're right. It would be something that would be good. You know, the human rights campaign puts out a report card on corporate America insofar as their policies and treatment with the LGBTQ community is concerned. And so I think you're right. I missed the report. I know that in the 1990s, the report was something I look forward to, and it shaped a number of discussions that we had in those days. Yeah. I just think that it would dovetail perfectly with the State of Black America report, because what it would do is, because the other piece the other piece, Mark, is that I'm just that like

and I'm not and I'm clear. I know people think I don't pick on anybody. I pick on everybody. And my deal is always about I think about y'all do an annual report. For me, it's always what what change, what what transpired, how did we move the needle? Did we move it a lot? Did we move it some? Or did we digress? And I think, as a journalist, I understand that light, darkness hates light. And I think that if we're talking about on the economic piece or even the same thing on the other areas, these three pandemics,

if all of a sudden Urban League goes, we've got report cards for the top 30 industries. And if you're sitting there with a D or F, folks are going to all of a sudden, and when that becomes public and we get to tell black America, these are the companies who we gave an F to. These are the companies that got a D. I think some folks will be moving a hell of a lot faster when they start getting those Fs dropped on them based upon hiring and contracts and procurement and all of those different things that are critically important. And so I think we do that because this is what I said, Mark, I'm 52, I'll be 53 in November. Somebody told me, well, these things take time. I said, look, we all have an expiration

date and we ain't trying to leave it for the next generation to fight the same battles. I say we go hard or we go home. And also it's a relay race. We got to run our lap. It's not about staying in the starting blocks. We have to run our lap and we'll pass the baton. But you know, you can't pass the baton unless you run your lap. Right. Absolutely. Where can people, I got people who are on YouTube and Facebook, they want to know right now, where can they actually go read the report? Stateofblackamerica.org. Stateofblackamerica.org.

You can get the report. It's free. It's online. Got a lot of great authors, great information. Love. Hit us up on social media in terms of what you think. We've been doing the report. And also, I should say, Roland, this year we've got a tribute to the late, great Vernon Jordan,

whose idea it was in 1976 to publish this report. Well, you know, you can come here any time. We're building something. We're going to have a big announcement on September 3rd. I can't wait. But and which is the next phase of what we're doing, because the other piece is that, look, networks and other places, they might have you on. They're going to have you on for a few minutes. We've got to be, to me, educating and enlightening our community

about the issues. And then once we enlighten and educate them, then we got to activate them. Well, Roland, we know you're our generation's activist journalist, and we know you not only are a great journalist, but you're an activist and a champion for our community. So always, thank you, brother. I appreciate it. Thanks so much. We'll talk soon. Okay. Thank you. God bless you. Yes, sir. I've been bringing my panel, Recy Colbert, Black Women Reviews. I have the Greg Carr, Chair of the Department of, first of all, Greg is some might ask, man, why are you so ornery on this whole stuff? Because I have been spending an inordinate amount of time, and I haven't even finished the book. And y'all have been hearing me talk about Martin Depp's book on Operation Breadbasket. What jumps out in that book, Greg, was that Depp says the greatest failure of Breadbasket was the follow-up.

He said we were successful with the announcements. We were successful with the campaigns. We were successful with the boycotts. But where we failed was on the monitoring. And the monitoring is how you achieve the result. What I want to see one year is for the National Urban League to come back and say gains in black America over the last year because of the activism, because our black organizations stepped up and maximized their power and did not just look insular. They then thought more about the collective and how we actually can build. And that's why I am thinking about King's book,

Where Do We Go From Here, as well, when he challenged those four black institutions. Because what the hell is the point of having black power if you don't use it? And for the people who say, man, I'm too tough, King wrote in that book to the Negro press, he said, maintain your militancy and don't fall for the conservative. So for y'all who think I'm too tough on some folk, understand I'm just following what King wrote in 1967. That's what you're doing, Roland. I mean, and we're family. If being black means something other than a label that was put on our ancestors as we were getting off those boats, then it has to mean something. That means we hold ourselves to a stamp, anything we hold to anyone else. And I think, of course, Mark Morial

would agree. I mean, and I read through the report. I'm not quite finished, but I read, you know, the executive summary and then went down through most of the essays. And I think in comparison to earlier state of black America reports, and I actually contributed to the 2012 state of black America report in education. I think this was the most, to borrow that phrase from Dr. King, militant language that I've seen in a state of black America approach. But understand, I that I've seen in the state of America, Black America approach. But understand, I have to put that in context. This is the Urban League. The Urban League was always the business oriented arm. So even when King was battling it out and SNCC was involved, Whitney Young and Roy Wilkins were always a little timid. And Whitney Young's approach was very conciliatory. Now, when Whitney Young, of course, tragically drowned off the coast of Nigeria, and then ultimately Vernon Jordan takes

over, Vernon Jordan, you know, only stayed at the Urban League for a brief period of time, and then moved into the corporate orbits. And that's important to note, because the strategy has always been an attempt to transform America from within and from the corporate side. Now, fast forward to where we are today. When you read the State of Black America report, and I'm lingering now, I'm thinking particularly about Margaret Sims' piece on the wealth gap. She says, most Black people in this country, if they're going to have some form of wealth to be able to transfer to the next generation, it's going to come from their house, from their home, from property. And the reality is, and Mark says this at the beginning of the

report, he says, you know, I don't talk in terms of pie. Rights don't mean a piece of the pie. There is no pie. I kind of have to disagree. When you're talking, the pie metaphor fits because we're in a capitalist society. And what you have to understand is that the reason these people are engaged in voter suppression, the reason they're trying to shave off points to steal elections is because the business interests in this country use the politicians to advance that capitalist agenda. And that's not an American agenda. That's a global agenda. And as a result, you can it ain't with so much reform you can do coming at it from the business side. And the Urban League can't go

out there rah-rah because the simple fact of the matter is to tell that truth might mean the donations dry up. And that's why I think it's, you know, which means I think there is some progress in this report because even the chair of the board, a white man, said, you know, you see what happens when business withdraws its support. He gave the example of businesses, you know, intervening in Georgia to say they don't support this voter rights legislation. I thought about the All-Star game the other night when it was played in Colorado and not Atlanta. If those guys are saying that, that's because last summer scared the hell out of them. And what you were doing today is basically encouraging our brother and the Urban League

and everybody else, damn it, mash the damn pedal to the floor. It's time to break the back of this thing. But Martin King was not part of that. He was a preacher. And the thing that really began to tank Operation Breadbasket, sadly, one of the other factors, is they put a bullet in the brother's head. He came out against Vietnam. He began to attack the politics, the military industrial complex, and the economy.

You can't cross those things in America. When you start messing with their money, they let you know where their agenda is. Well, Coretta Scott King, Reese, she said that. She said they killed Ma Martin when he started talking about the money the reason the reason i am am am so so hard about this because at the end of the day you got a you got a group of people out here who are saying reparations got it but that requires the political people to find some courage to vote. Well, hell, they can't even vote on the For the People Act. What I'm saying is I'm going after the billions upon billions upon billions that are sitting there right now

where we got to convince 218 people in the House. We can use our buying power to say, y'all better start spending some more money with black people. And this is where, again, to me, the challenge, look, I sent, I sent a tweet to Darren Walker, the brother who was the CEO of the Ford Foundation. I've never met him, but I saw that he sits on four corporate boards. And I said, hey, I would love to talk to you about Pepsi, Square, Ralph Lauren, and it was another one. And then

the head of communications for Pepsi sent me an email a couple days ago saying, hey, I saw this post, can we talk? I said, sure. I've hit him for two days now saying, when you gonna call? I'm ready to talk. Here's my whole deal. And I'm not picking just on Pepsi. I'm going after everybody. I read the list of all the people who took our ads during the BET Awards and asked,

how much are you spending on black owned media? Because BET is black targeted. I want to know what's your black scheme with other black businesses? See, we've got to be challenged, these black board members, to say, are you sitting on the board just to collect stock options and compensation, or are you there presenting a black agenda? This is how we change that pandemic in the Urban League report on the economic piece, Recy. Absolutely. And I saw those posts that you made, Roland. And what I thought was interesting, too, is some of the responses, even from Black people, were almost like, you know, don't do that. Don't be too loud. Or people were saying, well, Roland, you're on the talking about this because it benefits you. And that is the problem that we have as a community is that we fail to see the collectivism that we have and how we all have a shared vested interest. Even if you're not specifically benefiting from something, that doesn't mean that that it benefiting like, for instance, Roland Martin unfiltered the company,

the media company that you have new vision doesn't mean that it's not something that benefits all Black people. And so we have to come to grips with ourselves and how we often try to discourage people from being that loud voice in the room, how we often try to sit up there and tell people to go along, to get along, and how often people get their little piece of the pie and then that shuts them up, as Mark talked about, you know, in his segment. And so we have $1.2 trillion of buying power. Nobody is asking for anything other than a return on our investment. And that's the problem. We are consumers and we don't realize that every dollar that we spend is an investment. We're just not getting the return. All we're doing is getting depreciable goods.

All we're doing is getting fleeting goods and we're not getting the return, whether it's in our communities, whether it's in the pipelines of talent or anything. We're just getting depleted and taken advantage of. And so we have to realize our buying power. We have to realize our cultural power to be the trendsetters, to be the tastemakers, and to say that we validate you, or we can invalidate you. We can cancel you, or we can put you on. Either way, we're the ones who are making the decisions, and we have the power, but we have to harness it, whether that's with our voting, or whether that's with our buying power So I want us to see the power that we have and quit acting scared Quit acting scared to make demands Nobody else is scared to make demands. Why are we always so damn scared to make demands?

Why do we always have to look at somebody else was making a demand and act like they're agitating and that it's gonna hold Don't agitate. Oh, that's gonna be upset What are you talking about? Agitate, agitate, agitate, okay? It's not taking no money out your pocket. If Pepsi gives Roland Martin Unfiltered or New Vision or whoever more money, it's not doing nothing to hurt you.

It can only benefit our community. But we have to believe in our community first in order for us to really get behind people within our community. And I think Faraji, and again, I am in support of Pepsi's restaurant initiative with the Urban League. But what I'm saying is that's just one piece. When I'm talking about corporate America, I want money for black-owned media. I'm also saying that black PR companies, black agencies, black transportation companies, black catering companies, black event planners.

I mean, I'm like, I want all of them getting paid, too. I think part of this is also, Faraji, black people, and I've experienced this in my career, black people, a lot of black people get real scared when you even say black. Come on. I mean, I'm talking about like, oh, shit, Roland said he unapologetically black. Oh, man, can you like tone that down? I'm like, why? Why? And that's because here's the deal. This is very basic for me, Faragi.

This is very basic for me, Faragi. This is very basic. You can't show me anything in the history of America that black people have gotten being passive. Look, let me tell you something. You are absolutely on point. And I want to say with Reese and Dr. Carr, it's the same thing. All of us have been on point. But I want to say, you know, Reese, you brought up a point about, you know, why aren't we making the type of games? You know, why are we afraid to agitate?

And let me tell you why. Because when we were brought here, and I know people are like, oh, man, this is bad. But we got to look at, and I know know Dr. Carr, you can testify to it. When we were brought here on these shores and we had undergone the great travesty of slavery, we were broken down. And then as the years have gone by, once we got out of chattel slavery, we came into a different place. But there were some things that were left off the table for black people to know. One of those things is the art and the science of business. Because why? Business is warfare. That's something that I learned from the most honored

Elijah Muhammad, Minister Farrakhan. Business is warfare. When you start talking about real money, then you're going to have a problem with white America and corporate America. Along with that, look at the beginnings of our oldest, one of our oldest civil rights organizations, the NAACP. Look at the basis and the philosophy of the NAACP was non-economic liberalism. You can talk about voting. You can talk about civil rights, but you can't talk about economics. You can't talk. And this was something, look in the history of Joel Springard

and others who helped to establish the NAACP. So when we're looking at these things, we have to understand that we have already been told and the parameters have already been set. But then on another note, let's look at even with the state of black America report. I appreciate and I respect and I thank Mr. President Mark Morial and the National Urban League for putting out this report. But one of the big things that crossed my mind as I was reading through the report too, Dr. Carr, is this, what is the state of America? Because the state of black America exists

because of our codependency in the relationship to the state of America. So we can't say the state of black America as if we are some separate entity. We are wholly, I mean, we all in to the American way. Now, if you look at the state of black America as if we are some separate entity. We are totally, I mean, we all in to the American way. Now, if you look at the state of America, I heard Minister Farquhar said this in his book, Torchlight for America. He said, America's on her deathbed. That was back in the 90s.

But why do you say that now? Because look at everything from health care is declining. The education system has failed us. The political system has more devices now than it's ever been. All of these things. America's on its deathbed. So that must mean the state of black America is already in the car. So we're at this point now where we have to not just talk about minor gains.

And I'm with you, brother. We can't talk about minor gains. And I'm with you, brother. We can't talk about minor gains. We got to do major game-changing moves because the urgency and the time is so critical. The crisis is so big and it's upon us that if we don't make those major moves right now, then guess what's going to happen? We are going to essentially pass on the same struggle to our children and grandchildren and their children. And that's not fair. That's not fair. And to add to your point, Brother Rowley, nothing that Black people have gained in this country has not come without struggle. We can't run away from struggle. We

can't run away from making the ultimate sacrifice. Even if it's talking about taking lives, we have to make the ultimate sacrifice because enough is enough. And I'm with you, and I'm with Mr. President. I'm not satisfied with a couple of hundred million, especially when you have corporations that are bringing in billions of dollars. it's not enough. I'm not satisfied. And that's why, you know, that phrase, you know, again, not satisfied is important. And see, and I'll say this to people.

Folks, they can hear my commentaries on, you know, iHeartRadio's Black Information Network. Okay, so here's a perfect example. When they launched, okay, this was a new product. These were the founding partners, which means advertisers of Black Information Network. Bank of America, CVS, Health, Geico, Lowe's, McDonald's USA, Sony, 23andMe, and Verizon. Okay?

So here's my whole deal. I've said this to my ad team. I want the same founding partners. I want the same multimillion-dollar, multi-year deals. So let's say these deals were $3 million a year. Well, that means that, go back to it. So if it's $3 million from Bank of America, $3 million from CBS, Geico, Lowe's, McDonald's. So that's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.

That's eight companies. That means, I need people listening to understand what I'm talking about. If those eight companies became founding partners of Roland Martin Unfiltered and some things that we're working on, y'all, that's $24 million right there. That's $24 million solely from those companies. Y'all, that's eight. That's $24 million. Y'all, that's $24 million every year times three. That don't even include other people who comes along.

Now, and I'm walking through this, so I need people watching to understand, because to Reese's point, to the arrogant, dumb people out there who like, ah, this is all about benefiting you. Let me do the math for you. If we got three million each from these eight companies, that's 24 million. And I decided to go higher. 40, 40 people at one hundred thousand dollars each. That would be $4 million. Y'all, let me do the math.

That's $4 million, 40 people, $100,000 each. Let's say you threw in benefits and other things like that. Let's just double it. That comes to $8 million. Y'all, 16 is still left over. That's 40 people who are probably going to largely be black because it was like me the company that me do y'all now understand the folks who are watching and listening how companies now build capacity now have the ability to be able to grow now have the ability to be able to say oh no

it wasn't just me and anthony going there live streaming at the state capitol. We have a team in Georgia. We have a team that in Texas today when they when the preachers were at the state capitol. We have a team here. See, now all of a sudden. But as long as black media and I'm using black media as the example, because you can substitute Roland Martin unfiltered, you can substitute using black media as the example because you can substitute, Roland Martin unfiltered, you can substitute any black-owned company in there because prior to COVID, I told y'all there were 2.6 million black-owned businesses in America, 2.5 million had one employee doing average revenue of $54,000. That's why when COVID hit, we lost 41% of our businesses because frankly, no disrespect,

they weren't real businesses. If you got one employee, you are not a business. I'm sorry. You're not. So that means out of 2.6 million black-owned businesses, only 100,000 in America had more than one employee. Folks, that's why the Urban League State of Black America report talks about an economic pandemic. And when you talk about $100,000 jobs, the most places

the place where most black people are actually able to make at least $100,000 government jobs. Brother Rowley, can I throw something in there? Hold on, hold on, let me add this here. And what's the one place Republicans want to slash big government? So when they take over and they slash on the federal level and slash on the state level and slash on the county level and slash on the city level and slash on the county level and slash on the city level and slash on the

school board level, disproportionately, they are slashing black jobs where they're likely making $100,000 because we've been locked out of corporate America. This is why we can't go hat in hand saying, please please we have to go in and when they say and i've been there uh uh here's a hundred thousand no he he is two hundred thousand no come on y'all see y'all don't even understand even politically when the biden campaign first put an offer on table i said hell I ain't even responding to that. And they came back with a second offer. I said, I ain't responding to that one.

They came over the third offer. I said, I ain't responding to that one. See, they were like, who is this Negro? it's because we've had a generation of black entrepreneurs who have been too willing to accept five thousand dollars when they should have been asking and demanding five hundred thousand well guess what i am a media frank lucas I'm going to get that money. Because that is the only way we change the dynamic is when somebody says, no, you can't offer me no small change. I ain't taking it. Come back with something else.

And if you don't, I'm going to put your own blast. So what you want to do? Y'all might say I'm wrong. Fine. Show me a better way. Faraj, go ahead. Just real quick. I mean, what you're putting out there is exactly the type of passion and vision that we need. But let's also bring this into the conversation. The fact is, if we are that $1.12 or $1.3 trillion, quote, unquote, buying power,

what's stopping us from taking some, just a fraction of that spending and putting it aside in a space or in a black bank and creating a fund specifically for black efforts, black initiatives, black projects. Oh, hell. Oh, hell. When I did the State of Black America report at the Howard Theater several years ago, the whole thing was about gentrification. And I said to Mark, hell, damn it, let's create a national black fund. Let's go buy up the land in black communities.

I mean, again, I'm sorry. I can't keep bitching about gentrification if we're not going to buy the land in black communities. I mean, again, I'm sorry. I can't keep bitching about gentrification if we not going to buy the land. Greg, go ahead. Yeah, no, no, no. When you mention reconstruction, I think it's critical, again, looking at this year's State of Black America report, when they start talking about, Margaret Sands started talking about homeownership and the wealth gap, they didn't talk about reparations.

I can understand that's a political issue, this kind of thing. But what happened in the 1860s and 70s in this country, that was probably the last chance the United States of America had to really exist for a long time in the future. That was the time. That was the moment when the Confederacy had its back broken to engage in a land transfer to those four million Africans who had been enslaved. There was a promise of that in South Carolina, a gesture toward it in Mississippi. That's where we get the notion of 40 acres and a mule. But the betrayal of that promise by the federal government really led to where we are today. This is not going to be, we're not going to make collective progress as a people. And Faraji is absolutely right. We are now inextricably bound up in this dying economy. And it isn't just dying in the United States. It's dying because, you know, capitalism has a concept called the limits of expansion. This is imperialism. That's why what's happening in Haiti and Cuba, Venezuela is not disconnected to what's happening here. It's about capitalism. And when there was no land transfer, what you did was basically lock the masses of black people in a permanent underclass in this country. And so then, as Faraji says, you have discussions about rights, voting rights, this kind of thing. And Booker Washington, of all people, understood that.

I wouldn't agree with a lot of his positions. But one thing I would agree with him on is, you know, you have to have ownership of land and then to generate wealth. And when you read this, there was a sister who wrote one of the pieces in the state in the state of Black America report talking about the PPP, the Paycheck Protection Program. And after that essay, there was a sister who wrote about the Lilly Foundation. And she said, I work with Tiffany Benjamin. And she said, you know, the Lilly Foundation is transferring twenty five million dollars to help in the Urban League. And we're going to have partnerships. We're going to talk about apprenticeships, and I'm saying, $25 million, y'all spent that on lunch this morning. And I'm saying, the idea is that the reason there won't be a collective

black movement in this country is because class politics in the black community in the United States, no different than class politics and capitalism anywhere, means that those who have benefited from the mass movements in this country, and I'm talking about the black elite now, who get in those corporate suites, will then gesture toward diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives and try to maintain their precarious position. Now, when you commit a form of class suicide or being a traitor, remember Martin Luther King was blocked in many ways by his own alma mater, Morehouse. And then he now he's safely dead. He can now be praised.

But never forget that even the HBCUs, which are mentioned throughout the state of black American report, are employment streams to preserve that kind of precarious class perspective, this class position, rather. So finally, Roland, the reason you can talk like you talk is the reason that the previous generations of black press could talk like they talk, because they were subsidized and supported by black people. So you can go in there and say, I'm not taking your money because everybody watching and everybody who does watch puts in those nickels and dimes and pennies and dollars and $50 subscriptions and become members of Bring the Funk fan club, which means you can walk in the same room, like you just said, Faraj, you're like the Nation of Islam, Mr. Faircutt. Don't nobody run me, so here's what I'm doing. Everybody else is like, bruh, you about to mess up our good thing. Don't you see us in the room?

We represent everybody else. And then when you say, well, why don't you about to mess up our good thing. Don't you see us in the room? We represent everybody else. And then when you say, well, why don't you do something? They say, my presence is doing something. And that's why black people are increasingly not voting. That's why black people are increasingly turning away from this. And that's why if and when you get those subsidies, it's going to be because these capitalists understand if they don't give you some more money, they are going to run the risk of not being able to then try to dictate the terms of what you say. There's a reason why Summer Redlin and Viacom and them bought BET. You can't have these Negroes running how independent.

They may turn around and organize. They are never going to subsidize a revolution. This is the simple fact of the matter. And that's and that's and the reason we're walking through this because this is all about using the platform to teach and to educate. Gregory Nason is political director and the chief spokesperson for Humanity Forward.

And these checks are going out, Gregory, with regards to the child tax credit. And that's a good thing. That important that is an important thing I put all these things sort of come together because we have to understand the history of America the federal government taxpayer dollars was used to frankly build white America and disenfranchised black America. And so this is a part of this economic piece,

but it's not the only piece. So explain really what is going on here. Who's actually going to benefit these 60 million households that are going to be receiving these checks? Yes. And thanks for having me on, Roland. I really appreciate it. The new changes to the child tax credit, it's more of a child benefit now. They've made it, it's expanded, and most importantly, it's fully refundable, which means it's no longer a credit just for folks who have high tax burdens. It will go out to low-income families, families with no income, and it'll go out monthly. That's how families budget.

That's how they should be getting their help. So what we see here in this policy is it's the biggest shift toward closing the widening income gap since the Great Society programs. And more importantly, it's the first investment that we've made in America's future in a long time. And when I'm talking about American children, children all the way up the income ladder, starting at zero all the way up to $150,000 are getting that full benefit. It's $300 a month per child under six, $250 a month per child under 18. It's going right to their parents. It's going to help them with food, school supplies, whatever, daycare, helping their

parents get back to work. So it's really whatever those families need. It's trusting families to know best what they need for their children. Those first payments go out today. We're really excited about it, and we're hoping this program can continue beyond the end of the year. What's the economic cutoff? So it starts cutting off a joint income of $150,000 for families,

and it's kind of an off-ramp there. And then it goes all the way up, the lower version of the credit, all the way up into $400,000., all the way up into four hundred thousand. So the vast, vast majority of the American public is getting the full benefit. Well, I get a kick out of those people who. Oh, my goodness. One hundred fifty thousand. I saw some person complaining like one hundred thousand dollars.

That means not actually they were whining that four hundred thousand dollars. The Biden tax cut plan to my you know, that that's that that means nothing. You're living in New York and then I had Manhattan. I had to remind this for the median income in Manhattan is seventy eight thousand dollars, not four hundred thousand. I'm like, so there are a lot of people who are not living there. And so and put that in perspective, because there's somebody and there are people who are out there who they go, well, that's just unfair because me and my spouse, we may combine more than one hundred fifty thousand. What's the median family income in America? Well, I don't have that set off the top of my head, but again, it doesn't it doesn't exceed 75. So the median family income in America, which is a median income for a family of four, is actually half of what this cutoff is for the child tax credit. Yeah, 98% of families qualify for the full benefit.

And it's something that I see. You said 98%. Yep, 98%. And for 90% of families, it's getting deposited right into their bank accounts. They don't have to do anything. The other 8%, we're fighting to make sure that they are on file with the IRS. Go to ChildTaxCredit.gov if you're watching. Tell your friends.

Go to ChildTaxCredit.gov. Make sure you're on file. If you've got the stimulus checks, if you were on file, if you filed in the past two years, 2019 or 2020, you're getting that full benefit. But check with your friends. Make sure they're on file as well. Folks who have had low income, they might not be on file, and then they're not going to get this benefit, at least not immediately. Okay, so first of all, okay, start with it. Explain that. When you say low income people, okay, start with it. Explain that when you say low-income

people who are not on file. What does that mean? Explain that. So the biggest change in the child tax credit is every child gets it now. It's not a tax credit anymore. It's a benefit. If you're American children, you get this benefit unless you're in the, you know, the stratosphere of wealth. So folks who've had no income, who aren't working, maybe they're working under the table, and they haven't filed taxes. You know, you file taxes every year. If they didn't file in 2019 or 2020, the IRS doesn't know that they're raising children. They don't know that they have those dependents, and they're not going to get those benefits, at least not immediately. So that's why folks need to go to the IRS website, childtaxcredit.gov, and make sure it's a simple form you fill out that so we can get those last folks who aren't on file

with the IRS that they can get on file and get that benefit. So again, so for the people out there who are watching and listening, to see if they qualify for this, to make sure they're on record, you say go to irs.gov? Yep, slash childtaxcredit or childtaxcredit.gov. Childtaxcredit.gov. Okay, we'll tell everybody to go to childtaxcredit.gov, and then you can put your name and your information.

So let me go, let's see if this comes up so and what you do is you put in your information um do do give me one second i imagine you filed taxes roland so i don't know if it'll work for you um but uh it's a simple form of course i can tell you i ain't qualified i can. All right. So here's the website, y'all. ChildTaxCredit.gov. And it actually takes you to the, okay. So here you go right here. So this is the website. It actually is the White House page it goes to. And then if you scroll down, it tells you, and so you can see right here, non-filer sign up. Non-filer sign up. So if you click non-filer sign up, it has all of the information. So you see download step by step guide, IRS non-filer sign up tool.

And so let's just say IRS. Boom. It takes you there as well. Child test credit, non-filer sign up tool. OK. OK. In Spanish, I understand they're adding seven more languages pretty soon. All right, then. Well, we certainly appreciate it. Thank you so very much for joining us. Give us that information. Thanks for having me on, Roland. I appreciate it. All right, folks.

We got to go to a break. We come back. We're going to talk with Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley. Also, we're going to show you what took place today when the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, Joyce Beatty, was arrested along with several other black women for protesting in the Senate Hart Office building, demanding action for the For the People Act. All of that next to Roland Martin Unfiltered. Oh, by the way, if you were one of the people who got scammed by those fraudulent Cash App accounts,

send me an email to Roland at RolandMartinUnfiltered.com so I can forethrow to the Cash App people. And like we did the last couple of days, everybody who gives during the show, you give to us via Cash App, PayPal, Venmo, or Zillow, I'm going to give you a personal shout-out. Not just those who give you $50. Everybody. It doesn't matter the amount. So support us, please, at Cash App. Dollar sign RM Unfiltered paypal is r martin unfiltered venmo is rm unfiltered we have

the graphic please uh and then of course zale is rolling at rolling as martin.com rolling at rolling martin unfiltered.com those are the four ways that you contribute trust me your dollars make it possible for us to do what we do and And as Greg Carr said, be independent as hell. I ain't got no billionaires, millionaires cutting checks. Oprah ain't sent me nothing. Entertainers ain't sent me nothing. It's all good. We do what we do.

And we're going to keep doing it. And we ain't got to ask anybody's permission to do it. I'll be right back. I believe that people our age have lost the ability to focus the discipline on the art of organizing. The challenges, there's so many of them and they're complex. And we need to be moving to address them. But I'm able to say, watch out, Tiffany. I know this road. that is so freaking dope

George Floyd's death hopefully put another nail in the coffin of racism. You talk about awakening America, it led to a historic summer of protests. I hope our younger generation don't ever forget that nonviolence is soul force. Right? Hey, I'm Donnie Simpson. What's up? I'm Lance Gross, and you're watching Roland Martin Unfiltered.

All right, folks. Glad to have you back on the show. Massachusetts Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, one of the new members of Congress. She has been very vocal about a variety of issues, whether we talk about voting, whether we're talking about economics, you name it. She's been doing it. And so we always glad to have her on the show she's also talking about a new issue that is important and a new bill that she's actually pushing out Congresswoman Presley how you doing how you doing Roland it's wonderful to be with you it's always great to have you on the show we're always of course glad

to have you here so let's talk about this tenant bill. Explain to people exactly what the Tenant Empowerment Act would do. What is it? Sure. Well, it's a matter of housing justice. You know, everyone, Roland, deserves to have more than just shelter, but to have a home and to have a safe and stable home. But as you all know, too many people are living in substandard, unsafe housing.

We have neighbors who lack access to sufficient water, to clean water, to reliable heat, roofs that are leaking, black folks and brown folks disproportionately exposed to health hazards like mold, allergens, lead, rodent infestation. I've even been in some HUD units with a raw sewage backup. This is an outrage. It is an indignity. And it's demoralizing to be living someplace that's falling down all around you. So I serve on the Financial Services Committee, and under the leadership and with the partnership of Chairwoman Waters, she and I, along with Representative Tlaib,

we've introduced this Tenant Empowerment Act to do just that, to empower tenants, to give tenants more tools, to hold HUD and housing providers accountable for poor housing conditions. And so, and for the folks who don't realize, you know, they think, oh, that government housing, government housing. No. So, for instance, Donald Trump's dad, how did he become a billionaire? Government housing. That's right. These are private developers who are not taking care of their business. That's right.

And this is a matter of the public health. We know that safe housing determines life trajectory and health outcomes. It's also about social and economic mobility. And simply because people can't afford more doesn't mean that they don't deserve better. And, you know, I grew up in an organizing household. May my mother rest in peace and power. She was a tenant rights organizer under the Urban League of Chicago. And I know that many tenants have feared a retribution or experienced threat of or being evicted for organizing. So our Tenant Empowerment Act, it expands tenants' rights to organize, to demand the dignity that comes with safe and sanitary housing.

And then this is important just in terms of how it works. If a property violates basic housing standards, Roland, tenants can trigger HUD inspections. And then they can hold their rent in escrow. And they can deduct from their rent the cost of repairs that they make themselves. And then tenants would also have more power to negotiate or to fight negligent landlords in court. So this is a matter of housing justice. That's why we've introduced this Tenant Empowerment Act. But, you know, housing is a human right. So throughout the pandemic, I've been fighting to cancel rented mortgages. I recently led a letter with my colleagues lobbying the Biden administration to extend the eviction moratorium, which they have until the end of July, but we're

pushing for it to go beyond that. And then, of course, one of the reasons I ran for Congress was to fight for an expanded definition of infrastructure to include housing. So when it comes to housing justice, it's a matter of both and. We have to be fighting at every level. Well, all of that is critically important, and we certainly appreciate you. What do you want our folks who are watching and listening to do? Well, you know, I speak to your member and encourage them to be a co-sponsor of the Tenant Empowerment Act, you know, because what we need to do is get legislation like this reported out of committee and to the floor for a vote. But in the meantime, I just know that I'll continue to fight for canceling rent and mortgage for an extended eviction moratorium and for massive investments in housing because housing is infrastructure. We need to invest in it like it is. All right. Thomas, we appreciate it. Thanks

a lot. All right. Thank you. Recy, the point that she makes there, I think, is a real critical one. And again, this is one of the things I talk about connected dots, how people really have no understanding about housing in this country. This assumption that, oh, that's government housing, government built it, they control it, they run it. No, there are people there are people who are making a lot of money who are who are handling public housing developments. Absolutely. I mean, real estate is the way that wealth is built for a lot of people in this country, particularly for white people and investors and vultures, investor vultures. I mean, Jared Kushner is a slumlord in Baltimore, which is a predominantly Black area. And so this is really important. I think it's also important to note that we have a Secretary Marsha Fudge, who is light years different from Secretary Ben Carson, and who is absolutely, you know, who understands

that housing is infrastructure, understands housing justice and things of that nature. But, you know, to Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley's point, this is about collective bargaining and things of that nature, which she could not just unilaterally decide to do with her executive, with Marsha Fudge's, Secretary Fudge's executive power. And so I think this is another one of those things where we have to realize that it collectively benefits our society when people have housing justice, when people are not living in substandard conditions. Even if you're not a person who's in government housing or HUD housing, maybe you're a property owner. This helps your home values. Maybe you just have families. You don't want your families growing, I mean, living in substandard conditions. You don't want kids living in houses with lead pipes and going to school with substandard conditions. And so this is one of those things that it's a no-brainer. There's no benefit to taxpayers for landlords to be slumlords. And as a matter of fact, one of the things that Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley points out is that it's very expensive.

There are tens of billions of dollars in repairs that are backlogged from these housing units that are being basically subsidized by the government. And so it's in our best interest, if for not a moral purpose, if that's not compelling enough for you, for taxpayers' best interest to have people who are actually getting this money, the investors and the landlords, to do the right thing by their tenants. This is something that, Faraji, that I've covered housing my whole career. When I was a county government reporter for the Austin American States, being a city hall reporter for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, this was a part of my portfolio.

And there's nothing worse than people who are making tons of money off government housing, government contracts, and then screwing over the tenants? No, there's nothing worse. I mean, having a safe home is not a privilege. It should be a human right. This is a human right. And one of the big questions that I would have for Madam Representative Presley is the fact of how do we make sure that even though there needs to be an Empowerment Act for tenants, how do we make sure that this piece of legislation doesn't encourage generational public housing and generational rentership to the point where people are becoming so comfortable with their situation where they feel like they don't have any other options. They never get to purchase a home.

They never get to own some property for themselves. And so, you know, I mean, in Baltimore, we see talk about it. I mean, we've got Jared Kushner here in Baltimore City, but there are so many landlords that have used housing and have weaponized, I mean, this human right. They have weaponized it with outlandish costs, with putting tenants in these outlandish deals where they, oh, if you sign up here, you have to pay so much money, two or three times the rate. I've had many conversations on my show about this. It's breaking the backs of low-income communities. And it's unfortunate that, Dr. Carr, you talk about this a lot.

This is the outgrowth of capitalism. This is what capitalism looks like when you're dealing with human rights and money at the same time. Greg, what this does is it really exposes the shameless, despicable conditions that we see in housing. And so many people are treated as throwaway.

Oh, look, you're on government housing. You should simply be satisfied. Not realizing, I remember when I was covering dispersed housing, there were a number of homes that individuals were using Section 8 vouchers, which they were paying for homes that were going to another homeowner actually owned it. And so people should be living in safe conditions. Absolutely. If you don't own, you rent.

And we are seeing a transformation in this society. Airbnb, for example, here in DMV, all over the country, really. People are going to extract wealth from other people. And this country has trained us to focus on the people who are at the disadvantage and not, as we just heard, what we just heard, you know, Recy laid it out and then Faraji came right in and doubled it. You know, that's not knows Jared Kushner and his daddy are slumlords. Fred Trump was a slumlord. So you don't look at the people living in, though.

You look at these ten-horn, gold-toileted thieves who are extracting public wealth because the Section 8 subsidies come from us. We pay taxes and the wealth gets transferred to these thieves. So when you see Ayanna Pressley, you know, and it's a beautiful thing. Let's understand, electoral politics is not the solution, but it is a tool. Understand, when she evokes her ancestor mother, Sandra Pressley, who came out of Cincinnati, then to Chicago, then to Boston, she spent her whole life organizing for tenants. Her daddy did the same.

That's how her father and mother met, in Cincinnati, in the streets, organizing. Their daughter now, second generation, because the people in Boston had the good sense to send her to Congress, can now, on that side, the policymaking side, and she talked about this in terms of advocating for this legislation. She said what has happened to people has been what she calls policy violence. She can now do something about it. That's why you vote. And when you get in there, she's saying, like Raji said, you're not going to pay your money to this slumlord. You're going to put it in escrow. We're also going to make it easier for you to organize. See, that's what capitalism is afraid of is organized. When people organize, you can break the back of this. The last thing I'll say

is this. That's the same policy thrust. And when you had the brother on a minute ago, talk about that child tax credit. You know, when Ajwa walked me over to Cedric Richman, and I'm so glad that she did because I'm sitting there listening to him talk. And know, when Ajwa walked me over to Cedric Richman, and I'm so glad that she did because I'm sitting there listening to him talk. And again, y'all, this is why you support Roland Martin and Filter, because Cedric Richman has been on these airways. Liana Presley was on these airways. And then we're going to hear from Joyce Beatty. When Cedric Richman came on, he said what he said to me that day, which is when this child tax policy thing drops, people will understand this is guaranteed income for children. Somebody going to be able to buy the baby formula.

Somebody's going to pay for daycare and employ another person, probably a black or brown woman at a better wage to take care of their children. This is what happens when you get together and put policymakers in there that can do that. Now, these Republicans, none of them voted for that, but they all going to take credit for it in their hillbilly places where them $300 checks went into people's accounts yesterday, too. And you have got to break their damn backs, because that $3.5 trillion budget outline that came out today, that Bernie Sanders probably won't

double that. So you got to press it. But he's the chair of the Budget Committee. They got three point five trillion dollars tied up. Y'all need to go sit and break Joe Manchin's back. I'm talking to white people now. Y'all got to go to West Virginia and Arizona. You've been saying this over and over again, Roland, break their backs, because this is the kind of real world change that you can have when you put policymakers in place to take the money away from these damn thieves and return it to the people who need it most. This is a lesson in politics today. Folks, today on Capitol Hill, a group of Black women and their allies went to the Senate Hart building to protest and draw attention to Congress not

passing the For the People Act. This is video here. Pull the audio up, please. This is video here of them chanting in the space there. Now, what happened was we were pushed back. We were pushed back a distance away. A lot of Capitol Hill police officers who were there who kept extending the line, telling us that we would be arrested. We were inside of the circle. You see them putting the putting the the twist bands on Congressman Joyce Beatty there of Ohio. She is chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus. We also have, of course, Melanie Campbell with Black Women's Roundtable, Tamika Mallory with Untell Freedom, also Linda Sarsour with Untell Freedom. So they were, the Methodist Church is right across from the U.S. Supreme Court.

They that's where they held a number of speeches there before they walked over to the Hart Building. If you go to Roland Martin on film, you see Barbara Arnwein for Transcendental Justice Coalition right there. If you go to if you go to Roland Martin on film to go to our YouTube channel, youtube.com forward slash Roland S. Martin. You will actually see the whole event. You also saw Clayola, who was there. You see right there Court Masters Berry. Now you see them walking Melanie Campbell, walking her out. They don't allow protests in the Hart Building. There were a number of staffers who were looking over the railing at what took place. Now, they only allowed 30 people to accompany Congresswoman Joyce Beatty as we walked into the Hart Building there.

And these sisters said they're going to be there every single week to make the issue. This is Congresswoman Joyce Beatty before the protest inside of the Hart Building talking to our cameras at Roland Martin and Filchery. You going to be here? Today we're sending a strong message. We have black leaders from across the country, black leaders who marched with John Lewis, black leaders who have taught us the meaning and the value of Black Lives Matter in their way. When you put us together, you get black women leaders and allies, brothers joining us. This is not about one generation.

It's about all generations. And today we are represented by all generations. And that's why today is important. Look at where we stand. We stand in the United States Senate. Places that we couldn't work, we couldn't even clean at one time. But today, black women say we are not waiting. Black women says that we're demanding our right to vote. And it starts today.

Yes, that's right. If you guys step back, they can make their shot at the members of the walking down. Of former D.C. Mayor Marion Barry. She talked to us as we left the Hart Building as well. All the bills, 13, 14, 15, the amendment, 1964, 65. And we're back here again? Are you kidding me? I'm madder than I've ever been. Death or vote.

You're going to have to vote. And I'm telling everybody, if the black people stop voting, everybody loses. It's not a black battle. It's a democracy battle. All the Democrats need to be out here. All the people of color and all the people of righteousness need to be out here. It's not a black battle. It's a moral battle. It's a moral law. They're trying to take everything from us. If we don't

vote, we die. If we don't vote, Jim Crow. If we don't vote, separate bathrooms. If we don't vote, slavery. They're saying, why get arrested? What's the whole point? It's fruitless. What do you tell them? No, it's not fruitless. Any time that black folks have stood up, right, whenever we work together, when we stand for what is right, it makes a difference. We have to recognize we have to resist. When people are coming at our community, when people are trying to deny us our right, when

people are trying to deny us our humanity, it is up to us to take a stand. That we literally have to do something. You can't let people attack your community and there's no response. So we are here. We will be here every single week that we've got to be here because we're not going to go back. That our people have fought too long. They're folks who have died. That where I'm from in Selma, Alabama on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where our people literally gave their lives, right, and were beat, and we have blood still on the bridge because we stood for the right to vote. This place literally does not have the right to undermine our democracy. This place does not have the right to undermine our humanity.

We're standing here not because we believe in a system. We believe in us, and we believe in our own agency, and we believe that in our agency, we have the right to make a decision. Any decision being made about me and my family, I have to be a part of that decision-making process. And so anybody that's watching this, every day there are decisions that are being made in this place that are impacting our children, that are impacting our families, that are impacting our community, And you have a responsibility to stand for. You have a responsibility to stand for what it is that you believe in. So, no, this isn't a matter of what is right or what should you do or does it matter or not. Anytime I've operated in the fullness of my power because God gave me that, not the U.S. Constitution.

It is God that says that I have agency, that gave me that, because my life matters, and all the people in my community, our lives matter. And if we believe that, we have to stand on it. We have to act on it. And so that's why we're here at the Senate, and we'll continue to go to the Senate, and we'll go to the White House, and we'll go to the Congress, and we'll go to the streets. We're going to go wherever it's going to take for us to go, because we ain't going back. And there's no excuse for anybody. So all those pillow watchers that think they have rights, all those couch warmers that think they're doing something, all those people that want to wax philosophical about whether or not black women ought to be here, right here, right now. We have a word for them.

It's time for you to get up and join us. And it's not just a black thing. It is for every one of us. This democracy, I thought on one day it was about one group of people. Now I have an understanding that there's a group of people in power here that will perish. They will give up on democracy to keep power. Now, anybody that understands that, that's what time it really is. So it is not about a partisan thing. It is not about a black thing. And it's not just about my interests interest this is about some of us have

bled into this and all of a sudden when we get the right to have some majority ruling it's going to be a new day I think not we have come to Washington I traveled here from Georgia I'm sitting inC. to say not on my watch. No, but they're doing this not because we lose a family. We are winning. We are changing the political landscape in this country. We are changing what it looks like. And so that is literally why this fight is about. This fight is because people are stepping up. This fight is because people came out and voted last election. Deborah. Yes. So we are glad that people are here. despite this because people came out and voted last election. Deborah? Yes, step on in.

So we are glad that people are here, but we're going to keep coming out. We came from Georgia, and we're bringing back buses. We will continue to come out. We helped to get the vote in Georgia, to help to get two new senators, and to help to flip the state, and we will not be deterred. So we came up from Georgia, and we came to D.C., and we're going to keep coming. We're going to keep coming, and we're going to keep coming. We're going to keep coming and we're going to keep coming. We're going to keep voting.

We're going to keep coming because this is how democracy works. This is what democracy looks like. When black women come out and stand on the front line, that's when things change. And we changed this last election and we're going to change the next election. So our message to our congressional representatives is if you don't represent us, someone else will because we will vote. Ariel Singleton, tell us about the black youth. Black youth get out at numbers. We've proven that we come out at record numbers. There used to be a divide just amongst us and our ancestors and our people that were in front of us saying that we sit down and

we're too lazy. One thing that they did is they stood behind us this election season, showing us what we had to do, standing behind us, giving us the education, saying our vote matters, letting us know that we have to take it seriously because during the pandemic, we saw too much that they are falling. And so we had to realize that at some point we have to hold ourselves accountable too. And the thing is, is when we hold ourselves accountable, when you say that the children are the future and the youth are the future and the youth come out and show you that they care about their future and you decide to strip them away because it worked too well for you that you want to keep them quiet and shut them up and shift them like their babies it's not fair today is not the day

that we're going to accept this we're not going to accept it tomorrow either so we have to keep coming back and keep coming back and keep coming back like miss scott said we're going to have to keep coming back and keep coming back and keep coming back. Like Ms. Scott said, we're going to have to do that. We have something on the table called For the People. For the People. I'm not just talking about one set of people or people behind these doors, people that have money in their pockets. I'm talking about the people, all people. So until all people included, LGBTQIA+, women, black women, black men, black youth, kids, indigenous individuals, black and brown, students, until that happens, we will not stop.

And even when it happens, we won't stop because we're going to hold you accountable because you need to maintain it. So coming from Georgia, all of us that organize in Georgia stand on the shoulders of Dr. Lowry, of course, Dr. King, but Reverend James Orange was the organizer that taught us how to do what we needed to do. And we have today his very own Jemita Orange to put it down and connect all of those dots from then till now. And Jemida, you've got to drop it for this moment. All I want everybody to understand, being the daughter of the late Reverend James Orange, who stood in a jail cell about to die for this right, is that we came this long way. He and my mother, Mrs. Cleopas Orange, they fought for this right.

They thought we had it. And now we're fighting for it again. It is a tad bit overwhelming that I'm still fighting this fight that they thought they had won. But that's okay because we are going to take it all the way. And that means we're coming to a street near you. We're not going down lightly. And so be prepared, because the legacy of all of the civil rights, all of the human rights, all of the labor rights activists, we're coming together as a collective to demand that we have the proper right to vote.

Thank you. I think the thing there, Racy, is what these sisters are saying is that while you have a legislative battle going on, the pressure of groups like that has to also happen. It's amazing to me when people have no understanding of history without realizing that different groups serve different purposes. Thurgood Marshall in LDF, they were in the courts. You had SCLC and SNCC and CORE in the streets. You had the Urban League dealing with corporate America. You had National Council of Negro Women who were organizing the sisters. Everybody had roles here, and so all of it still matters. It does, and

I just have to give my hat to these women i mean they took us church on every every single thing that they said was just power just power and dynamic and here's the thing i i love latasha brown said you know i don't do this because i have faith in them i do it because i have faith in us if you're one of those people that maybe you don't have faith in democracy, which is understandable, if you don't have faith in politicians, maybe you're one of those people who's indifferent one way or another. I don't know how you can look at the conviction and just the passion and authority of these women and say that what they're doing doesn't matter, say that your own vote doesn't matter. So if for no other reason, you don't have to have faith in Joe Biden or even Kamala Harris or any particular politician,

but you have to have faith in us. We have to have a seat at the table. We have to be there to push on our priorities. And the bottom line is, if you look at what's happening with these protests, if you look at what's happening in Texas, which I think we're going to talk about, the laser-like precision, the conviction with which Republicans are using to try to suppress and revoke our right to vote is showing the importance of it existing in the first place. And so we cannot let that go in vain. We cannot let these women who are traveling across states to fight for our rights while

I was at home chilling today with my daughter and my family. I wasn't out there getting arrested. So they're out there on the front lines for people like us so that we can be on our keyboards or we can be on Skype or whatever and having this conversation in the comforts of our own homes. So out of respect for them, we have to show that respect. And so I, again, just give my hat to these women. I stand in solidarity with you. Like I said, I'm at home standing in solidarity, but I stand in solidarity with you because we have to understand

the importance of what they're doing. The last thing I will say is there are people that are chaos agents. The no reparations, no vote, no black agenda, no vote. That's chaos agents. And then you have people who are agitators. And what these women are doing is they're agitating a system where people need to be shaken and they need to understand what's at stake for us. And their audience isn't just the people in those halls. The audience is us watching, shaking us out of our complacency and shaking us out of our petty politics of, well, I'm not going to vote if I don't get this. And if I don't get that, you don't have to approve. You don't have to be satisfied with

what's going on, but you cannot relinquish your right to vote because they don't want you to. And it's for a reason. So exercise that power, if not for you, for them, for your community, always exercise that power. Faraji. Yeah, I mean, I'm with Rishi on this one. I'm so inspired by these sisters and to see grandmothers out there. I mean, when you see grandmothers out there

getting arrested, you know, I mean, when you see grandmothers out there getting arrested, you know, I mean, that just speaks to my question is, where are the men? Now, I'm not, I'm just asking Brother Roland, so you can say they were there or they weren't there, but if you got that many generations of Black women

that are making that type of stand, then Black men, we don't have to be all up in their their space but we can be as a a like a wall of fire around them there were there were so i'll say this here there were uh if you you saw the video it was that we show with core the inside reverend tony lee was there there. So here's what happened. They first were at the Methodist Church across from the Supreme Court. They had a whole bunch of different speakers.

If you go to our YouTube channel, you'll see that whole program. But then there were the group who said they're going to walk over. Most of the people who spoke, which included most of the men, did not go over. So this group, they went over there. You see, roll the video, you see it in the white shirt, that's Reverend Tony Lee on the far right side. So most of the people who actually

spoke in the program did not go over. This was designed to get arrested. But to your point, yes, that has to be the case. It should be the case, which was one of the points that I made earlier when I was talking about Mark, yes, that has to be the case. It should be the case, which was one of the points that I made earlier when I was talking about Mark, again, how we utilize our infrastructure, which is bothersome for me. I remember when Loretta Lynch was being her, when her confirmation was being

held up, and black women were going to Capitol Hill. They were marching. Melanie's group, Black Women's Roundtable, the Deltas. And I was like, where in the hell are the men? Where in the hell are the alphas? Where are the kappas? Where are the omegas? Where are the sigmas? Where are the iotas? Where are the hundred black men? Where are the masons? I'm sorry, where are the boule? Where's Sigma Pi Phi? Where y'all at? And what happened then was Jeff Johnson, Jamal Bryant and I got on the phone and we said, well, we didn't want to go ahead and do it. So we put the call out. 200 brothers showed up and we went to Capitol Hill and we went inside. Man, it was more security waiting on us than on January 6th. And it was.

And we went to the late Senator Thad Cochran's office to challenge him, and we didn't leave his office. But to your point, you're absolutely right. Too many of our black male organizations, they sit their asses at home and not saying, this is real simple to me. Alphas should have said, I need 25 alphas at today's event. 25 Kappas, 25 Omegas, 25 Sigmas, 25 Iotas. That's 125. 2,500 black men. That's 150. 25

Masons. That's 175. 25 Sigma Pi Phi. That's 200. Boom. That's all we're talking about. But we're not seeing that and that's why we're seeing black women step out there and say, fine, we got it. So I'm bad with you on that one. Well, and that's the big thing. And also with that, with black women have, I mean, the belief system of black women in the principles of democracy, the principles of justice, the principles of doing right by people.

I mean, it's ingrained in the black woman to be that way. Regardless of, and I would say in spite of all of the challenges that black women face today. And that's unmatched in any part of the globe. And so at this point, how can we not say, you know what, we're going to make sure that our systems are protected, but at the same time, we're going to join the cause? Because I'm like you, Reese. It's so easy for us to stand behind our keyboards or our phones and make comments,

and you're not making an effort to even step foot out there. I mean, you're just not even joining. You're not even picking up a damn sign. You're not even, I mean, you're not hashtagging nothing. You're just, man, I wouldn't do that, blah, blah, blah. And there is that Negro mentality, that slave mentality that still exists even in 2021 that has to be challenged each and every day, each and every hour, each and every minute, because why? The crisis of our condition in this country has called for us to say,

I'm not satisfied enough with the law. Well, Greg, that's why we got too many brothers who like this dumbass Dre Smith on YouTube. Black men, many of us know better than to buy into a system controlled by white oppression. We're not sold on this political structure, sorry. And he's one of them sitting his ass at home people the sister from Georgia was talking about. This sorry, this sorry, ignorant fool, Dre Smith, all he does is run his mouth on YouTube,

ain't organized nothing, ain't done nothing, ain't launched nothing. All he doing is run his mouth on YouTube, ain't organized nothing, ain't done nothing, ain't launched nothing. All he doing is run his damn mouth. Well, you know, if the brother has children in his household under 17 years old, let's say he has three children there. He probably got a $900 today or $750, which I'm sure he's going to return. And if he doesn't make enough to pay taxes, he got the money anyway. That was that expansion your brother was talking about. So I would encourage him and everyone else who thinks it doesn't matter to return that money immediately. It's, you know, my money, I pay taxes and I don't have any children,

so give me my money back. All right, so now that has been said. Today was political theater. And I'm not saying that as a criticism. I'm saying it because political theater is important. No one's lives were lost. As you said, there were more people arrested today, I suspect, than the 14 that were arrested on January 6th in the Hillbilly riot of the day. And I wish more brothers had been there. And I saw Reverend Lee, I saw Tony Lee out there. And Audra was out there. I know y'all ran into each other again. And there were a lot of Deltas out there. I suspect some of the organizing was done by Delta Sigma Theta. And, you know,

they have a rapid response kind of gene, I think. That having been said, I don't expect anything out of the Black upper class. Anything that we get from the black upper class, I think, is is is a bonus, quite frankly. And that's sad to say, because this isn't the civil rights or long black freedom struggle era. The end of legal segregation has seen the class fractures in our community become perhaps unbridgeable. People have gotten comfortable. And the last thing is that I love the way that James Orange's daughter said, and I think this is the key thing to know, we'll be in a community near you. In other words, they've been on buses and they've been in the communities and you see people organizing on the ground. I mean, Cliff didn't get arrested today.

That don't mean he's not committed. But what she's saying is, don't worry, because remember her daddy, James Orange, they put him in jail in 1965 in February in Alabama. And that is one of the things that triggered the Selma to Montgomery march, because there was a rumor that these crackers were going to go in and lynch him. And so they met up at a church to organize. And then after the meeting broke up, there was a brother named Jimmy Lee Jackson, who a cop ran up on. And Jimmy Lee Jackson, protecting his mother, was murdered that night. That is who that last sister who spoke was. That was her daddy, ran with them cats. He was Dr. King's lieutenant. He was standing down there in the parking lot the day Dr. King was killed in Memphis. James Orange's daughter is, again, like Ayanna Pressley, this thing is generational. And if you don't want to get down,

you still going to cash that check you get because somebody fought a struggle. You still, you'll sit at your house and say, it don't make a difference, but you still going to reap the benefits. And if you Negroes don't want to, no problem. We'll be in a community near you and we're going to keep fighting. And then, you know, maybe your children will honor you by reversing your apathy and taking the fight in the next lap. But it's cool. You go on and do what you're going to do. We're going to keep fighting. Yeah, I love I love I love the folks who run their mouth. Well, yeah, they damn sure going to cast that check. Risa, go ahead. I just want to say one more thing, too, because, you know, I think we all are inspireable.

I would assume most of us are inspired. I don't know, Dr. Carr, you said it wasn't a criticism. But what I will say is, what I will say is this really, to me, drives home the fact that there is not a black woman U.S. senator right now with Vice President Kamala Harris' ascension to the White House that left no Black woman Senators. We have a chance to rectify that in 2020. You have, 2022, you have Val Demings, Stan Congressman Val Demings in Florida. You have Justice Sherry Beasley in North Carolina, and perhaps other people might join in and decide to run for the Senate. And so don't just look at Black women putting their bodies on the line. I know that nobody got killed, Dr. Carr, but in the sense of they're still putting themselves out there and putting themselves in some measurable harm's way, right? And taking

up some inconveniences, at a minimum, they're being inconvenienced. But the bottom line is they're traveling and they're putting themselves out there. Don't just thank Black women for doing the work. Don't just look at Black women of the mules of democracy, of the ones who do the labor and the heavy lifting, reward Black women. And it's not a reward for them, it's a reward for our society, but recognize Black women in all of the facets

that we bring to the table as leaders, as the conscience of this country, the conscience of the Congress, which Congresswoman Joyce Beatty is a CDC chair, that's the conscience of this country, the conscience of the Congress, which Congresswoman Joyce Beatty is a CDC chair. That's the conscience of the Congress. Remember these Black women. Remember these skills. Remember this conviction.

As Faraji pointed out, this moral authority when it's time to elect Black women, when it's time to fundraise and donate to Black women, when it's time to pick Black women to be your boss or to be your peer and your coworker. Remember Black women in every facet when it counts. Don't just thank Black women, remember Black women, elevate Black women, amplify, vote for them, elect,

fundraise and appreciate Black women. Cause that's what appreciation is. It's actually seeing them outside of just doing the work. it's seeing them in the roles that we belong in which is all across our society all right then folks uh it is i'm uh this is day three of the ed buck trial the white democratic donor uh who was accused of administering a fatal dose of drugs to two black men in 2017 2018 so far the far, the jury has heard from Buck's next-door neighbor, the mother of a victim, his building apartment manager, and a senior forensic scientist. During the first day of testimony, the three victims described Buck as a predator who had

a fetish for drugging black men and watching them suffer. One of Buck's neighbors claims the white Democratic donor said he was a social worker to provide why so many black men were coming to his apartment. Letitia Nixon, the mother of Jamel Moore, the first of the black men to die in Ed Buck's West Hollywood apartment, also took the stand. According to Jasmine Koenig, who's been covering this case from the beginning, she describes how the defense attempted to make Ms. Nixon out to be a homophobic mother who thought her son had AIDS. The defense contends the black men Buck solicited were there on their own wheel. By the way, there are two black attorneys, including Christopher Darden, that Ed Buck hired to represent him in this particular case.

Also, folks, an update on Haiti. The wife of President Jovenel Moise speaks out for the first time since his assassination. Martine Moise posted these tweets. Thank you to everyone who is helping me pray for my return to life because all the time you hospitalize your life from God and doctors. Martine Moise, I still don't believe that my husband has gone like this before my eyes without saying a last word to me. The pain will never pass. She also tweeted, thank you for the team of guardian angels who helped me through this terrible time. With your gentle touch, kindness, and care, I was able to hold on.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. Of course, Moise is recovering from gunshot wounds in her arms and thigh. That as they continue to investigate who killed him. The Pentagon confirms some of the former Colombian servicemen arrested in connection with his assassination received U.S. military training. One also was a DEA informant. This newly released information has many critics questioning who was involved in the murder plot and what went into its planning. Colombian authorities also say 13 out of 15 Colombian suspects previously served in their military. They also say it is common for security personnel across Latin America to receive U.S. education and training as well. And so we're going to continue to watch what is happening there in Haiti.

All right, folks, that is it for us. Thank you so much, Greg, Recy, and Faraj. You've been on today's panel. Thanks a bunch. Great spirit of conversation had by all. Folks, if y'all want to support the work that we do, we were there today. I can't speak for other black media. We were there live streaming the entire event,

bringing to you. If you want to see the whole, all the various speeches, as well as the protest, go to our YouTube channel, youtube.com forward slash Roland S. Martin to check that out. Your dollars make it possible for us to be able to hire crews and be able to do those things. And so again, every dollar you give goes to support what we do. Let me do some shout-outs here because y'all were giving during the show. Let me shout-out Darren Mason, Larnell Farmer, also Enrique Goodwin, Jacqueline Crowder, Daryl Jones, Anira Muhammad, Carrie Morant, Tamika Trotter, Melody Thomas, Jacqueline Thomas, Carl Daly. Also, let's see here. Let me keep going because this was early in the show.

Let's see here. I'm scrolling down because they were all coming up. Carl Fordyce, I appreciate you as well. So thanks to all the folks who gave during today's show. Again, you make it possible for us to do what we do. You can support us via Cash App, dollar sign RM Unfiltered. We were successful in reaching Cash App, and we shut down those fraudulent accounts, and those names have been blocked so no one else can open them again.

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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 podcast or wherever you get your podcast.

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