#RolandMartinUnfiltered - Steward Speakers State of Black America Lecture Series in Indianapolis

Episode Date: October 31, 2019

StewardSpeakers State of Black America Lecture Series in Indianapolis Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Never lick your thumb to clean their face. And you'd never let them leave the house looking like less than their best. You say you'd never put a pacifier in your mouth to clean it. Never let them stay up too late. And never let them run wild through the grocery store. So when have one aisle six. And aisle three. So when you say you'd never let them get into a car without you there, no, it can happen. One in four hot car

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I'm Greg Glott. And this is season two of the War on Drugs podcast. Last year, a lot of the problems of the drug war. This year, a lot of the biggest names in music and sports. This kind of star-studded 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 them.

It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You want to support Roll Roland Martin Unfiltered? Be sure to join our Bring the Funk fan club. Every dollar that you give to us supports our daily digital show.

There's only one daily digital show out here that keeps it black and keep it real. As Roland Martin Unfiltered, support the Roland Martin Unfiltered daily digital show by going to RolandMartinUnfiltered.com. Our goal is to get 20,000 of our fans contributing 50 bucks each for the whole year you can make this possible rolandmartinunfiltered.com all that we're doing so that we can uh move our community forward so this evening i am on stage with uh really the power behind Stewart speakers, our board chairwoman, Kimberly Bostick, and she has some remarks at this time. Good evening. This is a beautiful crowd. First of all, I would like to recognize all of our steward speakers, board members that are out here working.

If you guys would just wave your hand. Lori, Tracy, I see you guys in the back. Tamara, thank you so much. Thank you for all that you do. This is our second job, right guys? I'd like to take this time to just say thank you. Thank you to you. Thank you to our sponsors. Thank you for our title sponsor IUPUI who without you this would not be possible. We really appreciate you taking a leadership in our community and choosing to put diversity first in your work.

So thank you, IUPUI. Lilly Endowment, U.S. Customs, I believe you guys have been with us from the beginning, and so thank you for just having the faith to continue to support your community the way that you do. We really appreciate it. But most importantly, thank you for you who continue to come, the audience, those that engage in the conversation. We want to continue the conversation beyond just having an event, but you continue to do the work day after day.

We see you. We thank you. And this is an opportunity. Hopefully you see that this is something that we heard what you said. We listened to your feedback, and today we'll have the opportunity to really hear from some of our leaders that are here in the community. So I hope you appreciate this. This is a special event tonight.

Thank you. Thank you, Kimberly. At this time, we would like to ask James Taylor, Director of Students for the Metropolitan School District of Warren Township, to come to the podium and that Richard Bray would also stand on deck. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Brother Stewart. I have a guest with me today.

Brother Stewart, I don't think you knew that our superintendent was coming. But welcome to the pride of the East Side. Let me say that again. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome to the pride of the East Side. We are so excited to have all of you beautiful people in the house with us. We've waited a long time to re-engage with Stuart

Speakers, the 2020 Town Hall panel discussion on politics, economics, culture, and religion, moderated by my frat brother, Mr. Roland Martin. We have, we were the first school district, I'm going to claim that, Matt, we were one of the

first school districts to partner with steward speakers over 28 years ago. And like I said, we are proud to re-engage and to commit to the services that they bring to our community. So before I turn it over to my superintendent, he knows I make him wait sometimes while I speak,

because I got some things I got to say. I promised my wife I wouldn't do this, but I'm going to take the opportunity. I see some Ben Davis Giants in the house. Ben Davis, make some noise. Ben Davis, young man, make some noise, Ben Davis. All right, y'all don't want to clap. So this is what we do at Warren.

You know us for our athletic prowess, football, basketball, track. But did you know that in 2019 already, within the last three months, we were recognized as the best communities for music education for the fourth consecutive year. We had a science Olympiad national qualifier be selected to attend Cornell University. Did you know we had seven of our elementary and high school robotic qualify for the national finals. Did you know that our Nanoline engineering design teams from our nationally acclaimed Walker Career Center qualified to advance to the nationals also?

In addition to that, our finance academy senior accounting team won the accounting for the futures case competition at Price Waterhouse Coopers. Our theater department performed the competition play, O Freedom, at the Indiana Thespians regional contest and earned awards for the best ensemble and best actors. Thank you. And did you know you're sitting in the exclusive venue for the Asante Children's Theater? And finally, I want to say to everybody, my role as the Director of Student Services is

to make sure that we take care of all of our students and families. And one of our major goals is to decrease the disproportionality of black males being expelled and suspended from schools. We believe that if a kid is not in school, they can't learn. So our goal is to make sure that we keep all of our kids out of the juvenile justice system and Warren Townships, with the leadership of our superintendent, is leading the way. So I'd like to introduce to you now our superintendent, Dr. Tim Hanson. Thank you, James.

I remember the conversation we had to make all this happen, and we are so honored to have you here in Warren Township. When you're in Warren, you're family, so welcome to the family. I do want to recognize one of our board members, Gloria Williams, if you could please stand. She serves on our Warren Township board. As Mr. Taylor said, we are fighting lots of battles, and we are fighting those for our kids. I see a lot of young people here tonight, and that's what we're here to do, is to serve them. So I appreciate the opportunity to be here this evening and learn. This is my

first Steward Speaker Series. It'll be my first of many. But I also welcome you back. I hope that you enjoy this evening here in Warren Township and hope to see you again soon. Thank you for being here. I just want to let y'all know y'all look good. First of all, I want to say thank you all for being here this evening. My name is Richard Bray. I serve as the Community Partnerships Manager at IUPUI in the Office of Community Engagement. This evening, I am truly excited about a community partnership. IUPUI is proud to be in its sixth year as title sponsor for the Stuart Speaker Series.

As you all know for well over three decades this series has brought over 100 leaders, community advocates, and other public figures to Indianapolis, putting global perspectives on local issues and empowering human potential. The Stuart Speaker Series, powered by IUPUI, uniquely creates a platform for dialogue on local issues. But as festive as the occasion is, I'm on the wrong page. Y'all know how it goes. Y'all stick to the script. First of all, we salute your leadership, Brother Matthew Stewart. Let's give Matt a round of applause. Our Chancellor, Master Pedar, was unable to attend tonight because he had a scheduling

conflict. But by our commitment is demonstrated by both financial and vision and leadership that says that this collaboration matters, not only for IUPUI but Central Indiana as a whole. Dr. Paydar consistently reaffirms the university commitment to diversity. It is a value that undergirds the Indianapolis campus. The story of IUPUI is all about opening doors of opportunity for all students. Did you know that IUPUI educates about 90% of our students come right here from the state of Indiana? And I would wager a small bet that every person in this room either has a connection to IUPUI through a friend, a a relative or maybe you even attended yourself. Woo-woo! IUPUI is a part of the fabric of community.

We are focused on student success and graduation. This is especially important for students of color. Right now, the fact is that over a quarter of our student body is comprised of students of color is good, but it's not quite good enough. Chancellor Paydar says the full mission will not be accomplished until IUPUI can become a majority-minority institution, and everything needed to make that happen is being aggressively pursued. Many of you participated with us during our 50th anniversary, celebrating during the last academic year. And we thank each and every one of you who came out to support

us with word, deed, action, and even contribution that celebrated 50 years. But as festive as the occasion was, we are looking forward to even more in the future. IUPUI collaborations are extensive throughout Indianapolis and growing every day. One of particular mention, as I conclude, is the partnership with the historic Madam C.J. Walker that created a $15 million grant from the Lilly Foundation for a renovation project to not only restore the character of this one-of-a-kind edifice,

but to update the technology and secure the structure, assuring that the Walker will continue to thrive into the new millennium. In conclusion, we welcome the distinctive panelists assembled today who will share their intellect, expertise, and energy with those of you forward-thinking enough to come out and engage in this critical conversation. Thank you for advancing thought and possibilities right here in Indianapolis, and I love you today and forevermore, and there ain't nothing you can do about it.

Thank you so much, Richard. We really appreciate your continued support. I want to remind you all, just to remind you, that if you have not already gotten your tickets, please do so as soon as possible. February 26, 2020 marks the next event with Ricky Smiley, followed by Ambassador Susan Rice, which will be on March 2. So if you have not already gotten your tickets, please make sure that you do so and mark your calendar for those dates. At this time, I'd like to introduce, reintroduce Matthew, but I'd like to say something special as he brings up our moderator.

Matthew has been one of the things that the community really needs to be proud of, is that he has been someone that has poured into Stewart speakers. And so I hope that you appreciate the conversations. Thank you. I hope that you appreciate the conversations that come from today. And I would pledge and actually I would ask you to join me as we don't stop here. Don't allow the conversation to stop here, so get your pens out, get your phones, make sure you're ready to take notes, because this is going to be a very powerful discussion, and I hope that you will take this charge and go on to continue to do the work.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Kimberly. Now it's my distinct honor, pleasure to introduce our moderator for this evening, Roland Martin. Martin is best known as the managing editor of TV One Cable Network, where for four years he hosted News 1 Now, the first daily morning show in the history focusing on news and analysis of politics, entertainment, and sports and culture. From an explicitly African-American perspective, Martin has been honored many times for his work, including four times by Ebony Magazine as one of the 150 most influential African-Americans in the United States.

He has won more than 30 awards for journalistic excellence and he is two-time winner of the NCAA Image Award and my fraternity brother of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, Rowan Martin. How we doing? All right, glad to be here, glad to see all of you here, glad to be back. Of course, I moderated this last year and was a previous keynote speaker, and so always good to be back here in Indianapolis. I have to correct Matthew for one thing. I'm a four-time NAACP Image Award winner.

Just saying. Don't short a brother. My image awards. Glad to be here for our conversation. We're going to do some changes here. They got seats. I don't sit down, so I'm moving this. And I'll move this here. Also, we are live streaming this on the roller Martin unfiltered platform. Last year when I was here, I talked about we were launching this in the last year. Thanks to so many of you we did 100.7 million views 345 million minutes watched and added 240,000 subscribers to our YouTube channel. And so it has been absolutely great, and it's been really interesting. Black folks come up to me saying, man, it'd be nice if you'd go on MSNBC or CNN.

I'm like, no, I own my shit. And that quote itself, you're going to hear it again, will be really the cru quest of our conversation tonight. So let's bring our panel. First off is Dr. George Frazier. He is the chairman and CEO of FrazierNet, Inc., a company he founded 32 years ago to lead a global networking economic development movement for people of African descent. Spent 20 years in a leadership position with Procter & Gamble, United Way, and Ford Motor Company before starting his own business in 1987. You came out too early, George. I don't know why you ain't listen.

He's been named one of the best speakers in America, and five of his speeches have been selected for global distribution by the prestigious Bible Speeches of the Day magazine. Give it up for Dr. joy Frazier but the new Mohammed is a highly requested motivational speaker minister author and entrepreneur he serves as minister of the state of the art facility in Indianapolis that houses mosque number 74 and Muhammad University of Islam in addition to hitting the educational economic center in Indianapolis but the movie travels to 50 plus cities a year in the U.S. and abroad representing the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan. He is always involved in the community fighting for justice, counseling, and mobilizing our

people for self-reliance. Put your hands together for Brother Nuri Muhammad. All right. Adrienne Slash is a human resource professional at Community Health Network and is a community resource for the community with a monthly column in the Indianapolis Business Journal's forefront magazine. She comes from a family of community servants and considers it an honor to serve others. She is president of the Exchange at the Indianapolis Urban League, vice chair of the Indiana Civil Rights Commission, board member of the Indianapolis Urban League, Visit Indy, and the Jewish Community Center.

Also a member of the newly formed Marion County Judicial Selection Committee, Adrienne L. Slash. Lauren Simmons made history when at 23 years old she became the youngest female full-time female equity trader working on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange. She's just the second African-American woman on the trading floor in the financial institution's 226-year history. Her story has been featured on ABC, CNBC, CNN, and Fox, to name a few. The Living Fearless Girl, Simmons has visited several countries sharing her story. The brand has been recognized by Hollywood as AGC Studio. We're doing a film based on her life where she will be the executive producer.

The film will star Kiersey Clemons, who will portray Simmons in the movie. Put your hands together for Lauren Simmons. Last but certainly not least, and he is not related to Lauren, but uh Joseph Ward Simmons, better known by the name Ron, Reverend Ron, or some say DJ Run. Somebody might. All on you, Lon. You screwed it up. The thing was working for you, walked out here. He's an entrepreneur, music icon, spiritual leader with cultural influence spanning more than three decades, one of the founding members of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame group Run DMC, where he is widely credited for ushering rap music into mainstream culture. His immense talent and conviction transformed a young man from Hollis, Queens, into an icon

while transitioning into a spiritual thought leader as a practicing minister known as Reverend Run. Of course, many of you have seen his television show as well he relays powerful messages of family and faith through stories of perseverance innovation and success and you know he got to be a bad brother since he has the same birthday as me put your hands together for Reverend Ron I heard you. All right. Just so y'all know as well, let's see, right now it's 7.52 at 8.08. Game six of the World Series starts.

My Houston Astros will be beating the Nationals tonight. That's why I wore the blue and orange African outfit. And just in case y'all think I was joking, that's why I got my Astros socks on. That's how we represent. So if any Nationals fans, y'all might as well go ahead. Y'all Nationals fans, it done beat y'all three straight games. Just took y'all's spirit. Y'all just depressed.

Went to the airport today. They were all hyped last week when they beat us the first two games. They were talking mad trash. They had rosary beads out when I went to the airport this morning. All right, so when we had this conversation last year, what typically happens is we cover a broad array of topics. We talk about politics, we talk about culture, religion, you heard all before, but I'm going to narrow this down to focus on economics. Those other issues will still be a part of this, but I want to keep the attention focused on economics. 51 years ago, 52 years ago, when Dr. King wrote his book, Chaos of Where Do We Go From Here?

He talked about a lot of that book, economics. That book should be owned by every single person in this room. It is, out of all the books he's written, the most definitive work that speaks to where we should, what we should have been doing in the previous 52 years and where we are now. I'm going to put this out to the panel. Anyone can jump in. We don't have those sprinkler head conversations. Feel free to jump in, share your thoughts whatsoever. If you get too long winded and you see me step in this way, that means I'm trying

to get you to be quiet. But we want to have a really robust conversation. And I'll start this way. Whenever we talk about issues in black America, our natural inclination is to deal with money way down the line. We talk about, if you ask black folks what are the top five issues, I guarantee you, and look at the studies, criminal justice reform will be number one. They'll say mass incarceration. they'll say police brutality, they'll say education, then they might get to money when in every other community economics

precedes everything else. How do we get black folks to understand that if you do not deal with the money, you cannot confront the other stuff? Is your mic on? All right. You got it? You got it? All right. Cool. Awesome. All right, you got it? Am I on? You got it? All right, cool. So I think to just begin to kind of kick us off and to make it somewhat plain,

we don't understand money and we don't understand what we should be owning versus what we're renting. We also don't do a great job at teaching financial literacy. And because of that, we end up in a position where we think we're doing well, but we don't actually understand net worth and we don't actually understand where ours is. Is it on? All right, can we have all mics on? All right, thank you.

Can you hear me? Yeah, you're on. So, A, first, yes, I am black. In case you're not aware. I always say that. That's actually the beauty of our culture and race, right? We come in all shapes, sizes, skin tones, hair textures, lots of options. No need to stray.

They missed their shot right there. They missed their shot. So I want to say the next thing and still be loved. Part of the responsibility, and I think you hit the nail on the head, around financial literacy and economic education in the context of our community, part of the responsibility for that not happening is with the black church.

I'm just going to throw a bomb out here. And hopefully, I will not blow up with the bomb. But part of it is with the black church. If you understand, there are 2,300 verses in the Bible that relate to money, wealth, and possessions. Jesus spoke 31,442 words quoted in the Bible. 15% of those words spoken by Jesus was related to money, wealth, and possessions. Eleven of Jesus' 49 parables, the greatest stories ever told, are related to money, wealth, and possessions. It is all up in the Bible. My favorite quote out of the Bible is Proverbs 13.22. A good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children. That's in the Bible.

We are the most morally grounded, spiritually rooted people on the planet. We are God's first people. We are outside of our own spiritual teachings. Front page USA Today, about a year ago, on African American baby boomers and their money. I hope you saw this.

Fortunately, the headline on this article was below the fold. And I'll give you the closing of the article. African Americans will be the first generation of Africans in America to raise another generation of Africans in America that will not do better than them. So in the 400-year history of our people in this country, we are the only generation to raise another generation that will be worse off. We need our behinds kicked. Our ancestors must be rolling core training initiative out of our faith-based community. That is the most respected, the most trusted, the most loved, the most participated institution in the context of our culture. It must begin there and there's plenty of stuff

in the Bible to work with. Come on. You can comment on that, but I'm going to push back on that and I want you to weigh in on that because first and foremost, the responsibility of the church is to save souls. We cannot let households off the hook when it comes to teaching money. We cannot let parents off the hook who don't have conversations with their children about debt, who don't have conversations with their kids about savings. I think we often use the church as the focus of everything when in fact it really speaks to, I think, what is also cultural and also historical in coming out of slavery. The Freedmen's Bank was set up. The Freedmen's Bank was instituted for the purpose of teaching, providing financial

literacy to African Americans. Lincoln was killed two months after the Freedman's bank was established. If you saw Skip Gates documentary on reconstruction, you had modern day dollars of 1.3 billion dollars worth of money from freed slaves that was essentially abused and stolen and unlike the bailout that money was not paid back and so black folks have saved and have invested but if you also look at our history when we've economically gone up we've gotten pulled back part of the stat you talked about was because the home foreclosure crisis and we lost 53 of all wealth as a result of that and so if you look at our history it's stark pullback stark pullback increased pullback not sustained economic activity you wanted to jump in go ahead well i i and i have

another verse that you might want to add to your list ecclescclesiastes 1019. A feast is made for laughter, and wine maketh one merry, but money answereth all things. Amen. Amen. We, brothers and sisters, we brought in $1.3 trillion last year. Out of 262 nations on earth, that makes the black man and woman of America the eighth richest nation on the planet. We brought in $700 billion dollars more than Mexico, five hundred billion dollars more than Spain. Yes, Spain has a two hundred and eight thousand square mile landmass and they're maintaining an independent nation for for 46 million

people. Mexico has a hundred and thirty million people and seven hundred and sixty one thousand six600 square miles of land and they're maintaining their sales with less than what we have. Our problem is not that we don't have the dollars, we just don't have the sense to go with the dollars. That's our problem. We blame the white man for 95% of our problems just but still spend 97% of our money with them. We become the leaders in unnecessary spending. What is unnecessary spending? It's buying stuff you don't need with money that you don't have from people that you don't like to impress people

that you don't even know. So we have to, we have to really go, our brains have been hardwired to connect happiness to spending. We have to disconnect happiness in the brain from spending and connect it to investing and saving. And if we do that, whether it's and connect investing and spending the happiness or investing and saving the happiness instead of spending we're going to see ourselves back on top again a rich nation like we're supposed to be providing good services and products for ourselves amen um i'll just come in as the rapper and just say money is the key to end all your woes your ups your downs your highs and your lows. You tell me last time that love bought your clothes. It's like that and that's the way it is.

What I meant by that, I was a young 18-year-old guy in my attic and God dropped that in my spirit. It sounded a little crazy, but black people have so much love in their heart that sometimes they forget to have the money in their pocket. We're very compassionate. We're very loving people. But tell me the last time that love bought you clothes. They will always try to pull us out and make us go into the compassionate side of ourselves. They'll even try to negotiate deals with you and put Jesus in the middle of it. They'll do anything they can to get you to get your eye off the money. So I'll just leave you with that quote, that money is the key to end all your woes.

And you have to dissect that from there. That's what I want to put in there. Thank you, Reverend Ron. Ron, go ahead. Yeah, I would definitely say that we are, we last year spent $103 trillion. We can move markets. We are the consumers, and they are the merchants. And because of that, we are never going to get ahead if we keep consuming.

And from a woman on Wall Street, it's disappointing. Brother Ron, let me go to this real quick. A simple formula that all of us can do when we take home. Wall Street, it's disappointing. Let me... A simple formula that all of us can do when we take home, to take home the day, to help us keep our dollars in our community. Because in the Asian community and the Jewish community, a dollar remains in their hands 28 to 30 days

before it leaves. Among the Hispanics, it lasts for 14 days. But in our community, our dollar only stays in our community 3 to six hours. Wow. I don't know if y'all, three to, that means that if a negro got a direct deposit on Friday morning, before we got off of work, the enemy already had our money back again. Wow.

The principle I want to put in the atmosphere is this. Shop with your brother before you shop with another. Shop with your brother before you shop with another. Find whatever good product or service that you want. Find a black business in the immediate environment that you live in that can supply that. Be willing to drive a little bit farther and pay a little bit more, but shop with your brother before you shop with another. And if you can't find one in your local area, go online and find you a black business that you can support, that we can keep our dollars in our hands because the longer the dollar stays, we are able to exchange it. I give you the dollar when you need it, you give it to them when

they need it, and it comes back to me when I need it, and we're able to do a lot with a little. That's mathematics. Understand that point. The only issue is that when it relates to that issue in terms of what it circulates, that has often been talked about. I have yet to see the actual data that proves it. And that's one of the issues that, trust me, we've been looking for it. But to your point, it also speaks to who's owning businesses and yes, how are we also patronizing businesses. I'm going to throw this question out to our audience

and I'm going to see what folks have to say about this here. If I had to ask you what was, what is the greatest legacy of Dr. King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, what would you say it is? Anybody, just shout it out.

That they were not just a financial gang. You sure that's the greatest legacy? I think that that's the reason why it out. That they were not concerned with financial gain. You sure that's the greatest legacy? I think that that's the reason why it works. Okay, what else? You're wrong, but that's a nice try. Anybody? Nonviolence? What else? Voting rights. Voting rights? No.

We're only working for poor people. Voting rights? No. We're going to work with poor people. No. The greatest, the greatest legacy of Dr. King was Operation Breadbasket. Reverend Leon Sullivan had the idea of Operation Breadbasket with Dr. King. Dr. King said, come present to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Dr. King said, we're going to adopt Operation Breadbasket. And then they did so, put Reverend Jackson in charge of Operation Breadbasket. And what happened to Operation Breadbasket? This was about economics. Martin Depp was one of the ministers who was involved in it. This is an unbelievable, phenomenal book. If you want to understand the

greatest legacy Dr. King left us was Operation Breadbasket. What they did was they used the wherewithal of black people, used the black church, used mobilization to go to companies and say, if you are doing business in our community

there must be reciprocity. If you do not fund, if you do not provide us jobs, senior level jobs, put money in black banks, and also utilize black businesses, we will institute boycotts against you until you do so. Go look at his speech that he gave in 1967 to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in August of 67 called Where Do We Go From Here? He talked about the boycotts against sealed test milk that took place in Cleveland. That's right. If you want to talk about that, what he did was it was so powerful that the grocery stores

that carry sealed test milk, they made them remove their milk from the shelves, and the guy who owned the largest grocery store in all of Ohio said, sealed test, unless you work with them, I will take your products off all of my shelves. The reason you had massive number of black millionaires is because Operation Breadbasket forced the companies to put their products on the stores in Chicago and other places. The last five years of Dr. King's life was about money. That's right. Because Dr. King said himself, you cannot confront what's happening in black America if we do not control the economics. And what too many of us have done, and no disrespect, y'all did exactly what black people have done.

We named everything else but economic independence. George if you go back and look at his speech on March in Washington's the March in Washington speech August 28 1963 that was a radical economic speech that was not just about rights the marchers called the March on Washington for jobs and freedom listen to the April 3rd 1968 speech at at Mason Temple. In that speech, he talked about economic reciprocity. He said, boycott Coca-Cola, boycott sealed tests, boycott the baking company. He even said in the speech, put money in black banks. He laid out an economic agenda.

The problem is too many of us have not heard or read that 43 minutes 16 seconds speech too many of us have gotten caught up in the whole part of the up into the mountaintop and we know what he said about what you should do before you go to the mountain top that's right good teaching and I want to give you a little bit of pushback on your pushback on mine. So, again, I want to say these things and still be loved. To be black and beautiful in this world means nothing unless you're black and powerful. We cannot be black and proud and niggers too.

White folks are planning for three generations and we're planning for Saturday night economics must become the new black power economics must become the new black power the institute of policy studies in April of 2017 laid it all out in a 200-page study. And it said, and I've been talking about this for two years because nobody else read the damn report, it's now popular, it's a popular phrase extracted from that report, but it was written two years

ago. And the phrase is, is by 2053 if nothing changes among African Americans we will have zero median wealth we will have no wealth white households will have about 250 247 000 worth of wealth we will have zero wealth in words, we will have worked our way into a second slavery. We have got, I mean, we really have to think about it. We've got about 33 years to get our acts together. Now, let me break some news to you in case no one has told you. I'm going to tell you. So now you won't be able to leave here and say no one told you. I'm going to tell you, so now you won't be able to leave here and say no one told you. I'm going to tell you. White people will not be saving black people. White people are not even thinking about black people.

Do you know who white people are thinking about? White people. They're thinking about their husbands, their wives, their schools, their businesses, their neighborhoods. They're not thinking about you. Asians ain't thinking about us. They're thinking about Asians. In fact, Asians have solved their own unemployment problem opening small Asian restaurants in

black neighborhoods. In fact, if you go into an Asian restaurant and there are four brothers waiting on you, leave. That is not a real Asian restaurant. Because Asians don't employ black people. They employ Asian people. Right? So the goal here, brothers and sisters, is to win here, not to look like we're winning.

I would rather carry a plastic bag with $5,000 in it than to carry a $5,000 Louis Vuitton bag with $100 in it. I would rather carry a plastic bag with $5,000 in it than to carry a $5,000 Louis Vuitton bag with $100 in it. But your ass ain't winning. All right? Louis is winning. You ain't winning.

And we have, that's a mindset. Right? That's a mindset. And people say our children are our future. That is wrong. The children are not our future. The children are our present. And if we don't give our children what they need in the present, we will have no future.

Not exactly. All right? So we have to fix that. Now, one minor pushback on what you said. In case no one has told you, there are only 15 million Jews in the entire world. Only 15 million of them. trillion dollars of global wealth, they control the highest percentage of global wealth. There are 1.6 billion black people on earth. We control less than one-tenth of one percent of the 400 trillion of global wealth. Now, where do Jews get all this from? Because they're some of the most oppressed people on the planet. They've been kicked out of every country they've ever been in.

All right? They get it from the synagogue. Have you ever been to a synagogue? Have you ever sat in a synagogue on Saturday and listened to what they talk about on Saturday, every Saturday for about a thousand years? They talk about money. That's what they talk about in the synagogue. And then they teach their congregants to talk about money at home right at home it begins where we get our moral grounding and our spiritual rooting and it begins but hearing it from the most respected and the most revered men in our culture and those are our pastors and

our preachers and our teachers. Now women are now occupying that position. So yes, it must, I believe, begin in the church. The church influences us to speak to it and to teach it and to model it in the home to our children. And that's how it works. We are God's first people. Do you understand that? We are God's first people.

He made us thirst. We've been in this country for 400 years, and we own the fewest number of homes per capita of any cultural group in this country. We own the fewest number of businesses of any cultural group in this country, and we've been here 400 years. Now, we know that there's institutional and systemic reasons for it, but that was then, and this is now. Well, let me, I'll give you, I will give you pushback. No, no, no, no, no, I'll show you.

If I wanna have a conversation about Islam, I'm calling Brother Nuri. If I wanna have a conversation about Wall Street, I'm gonna call Lauren. If I wanna talk about networking, I'm gonna call you. If I wanna talk about healthcare, I'm gonna call Lauren. I want to talk about networking. I'm gonna call you if I want to talk about health care I'm gonna call you if I want to talk about the whole issue of rap and music. I'm gonna call you Thank you what they're doing in the synagogues. They're having business leaders lead conversations I have moderated numerous sessions when we are discussing economics

Ain't no business people on the stage there are civil rights people there are preachers but there's nobody with pna responsibility so you can't talk about business unless you have business people on stage we have it reversed we have political leaders activists leading economic conversations, and they ain't never met a payroll. So what has to happen is, and trust me, I said this to Ron Busby with

the U.S. Black Chambers, Inc. I said, Ron, you should never allow there to be a discussion about economics, and y'all not on stage. Lauren, that is the issue that I'm trying to get us to understand. We have brilliant black minds who are in business. That's who we must be hearing from, not from people who ain't never started a business, and if they did, it still is in business. Hold on, hold on. Lauren, speak to that. Look that way. I'm'm gonna walk around the whole stage look out there we need

business people talking about business, we have the wrong people leading us in a wrong direction. Not business people. Business people, right? Business people. Matter of fact, no, you can be a business person, you still know what the hell you're talking about. I'm cool with that. Because there are

a whole bunch of black folks in our history who had a second and third grade education, but they were millionaires because they understand business. There's some folks who can pronounce business and can't run nothing. Lauren, go ahead. Well, what our history in America has shown us, I think of Weeksville. Is anybody familiar with Weeksville? Weeksville.

Let us know. New York, that had its first millionaires. And they were all congregated together, and they built their own banks, built their own housings, did their own educational system, and they taught it all. Weeksville was around for 127 years. And then people got money and realized, I'm going to go across the water. I'm going to go into Manhattan and put my money there. And slowly but surely, by the early 1900s, Weeksville had disintegrated. Now, I just did a piece on Hulu for Black History Month this year with Michael K. Williams, myself, and three other individuals, and we went out to Weeksville, and I had never heard of it.

But the fact that in 2019, now that I've heard of it and I've gone around and this has been on television, et cetera, people have not heard of it, I've gone around and this has been on television and etc People have not heard of it We are making the same mistakes over and over because we're not looking back in our history We have done it and we have successfully done it and the mistakes that they made should not be the same mistakes that we are making today period Adrian Adrian when Nuri talked about rewiring I have been talking for

years and we actually had this discussion on my show I've been saying that absolutely there has to be a reprogramming of black America and the reprogramming has to hit so many different facets

because to his point about self-esteem, we derive self-esteem by, yes, what I'm wearing, how I look, how I'm flossing. I think about when I was working at WVON Radio, a couple of my colleagues were CNN that came to set up my radio studio for some Skype stuff for CNN.com, two white colleagues, and the cab was slow, so I said, I'll take you out to the airport. So we walk outside, and the guy goes, he said, oh, man, that's your car? I said, yeah.

He said, man, I would have thought you had a BMW or a Mercedes. It was a four-door Toyota Corolla. I said, this is going to get your ass to the airport on time. I told him, I said said 32 miles to the gallon I said does all I need to do and it's paid for I said and if I go to a five-star event black tie I will drive this sucker up to any hotel hand the keys to the ballet because I don't get down with none of y'all thing and he was he was he was like blown away by that but I needed him to understand my value ain't in the car hell I wash my car once a year I don't care what it look like on the outside it's running I don't care what y'all think and when I say don't care I don't care what y'all think. And when I say don't care, I don't give a damn what not now person in this room thinks about what I drive.

Because y'all ain't paid for nothing. And we really have to have a completely, a rewiring, a reprogramming and it has to, I mean, talking about adults, kids, because that to me, allowing that to continue contributes to us being broke, contributes to us not understanding economics and saying your

value is not in what you wear, what you drive, it's really what you can do here. Speak to that again, how that has to be a focus of so many of us so i think that the one thing that we really get lost on is the fact that um everyone sees you they take all your pictures we've got social media it's blinding people we're showing people things um aspirationally instead of being realistic about life. So I think that we have to get ourselves to a place where if you are doing well financially and you understand systems, everyone has to teach other people.

And we can't just create a wonderful, bougie, black wealth space. We have to be willing to peel back the books, show people how it works, teach everyone, build up trust inside of our communities so that we are doing it. And it's not just one section of people who invited their friends to talk, but everybody that's asking their questions. And we have to do the to let some people do well and watch folks who have bad practices inside of our families, inside of our friendship circles, and inside of our little groupings that we're not showing how to do stuff. For me, it's self-esteem. I got frat brothers who have private planes. And I'm like, way to go. But I'm not sitting here going, oh I'm like, bro, way to go.

But I'm not sitting here going, oh, my God, I don't have one. I will get my behind on United, American, Delta, Southwest. Ain't no way in hell I'm flying Spirit. But the point is, my self-esteem, Reverend, is not tied into, oh, my God, I wish I had that. I'm proud of what they've gotten, but my self-esteem is if I'm in first class or coach, I'm good because guess what? It ain't the bus. And if I got hit the bus, I'll take the bus. So much of this is self-esteem where we're trying to run with folks and it's hurting us economically long term.

Yeah, well, at the end of the day, when I first decided to put this collar on, imagine going from the Drake of my time, run from Run DMC, to putting this collar on my neck. That wasn't a popular decision to most people until they saw me with the family. I believe that I was the one that made the shift to get rappers to start getting married and to walk into the self-esteem is in the home. And what you should be bringing to the people is showing images of a loving father in the home so we can get the fathers back into the home and get the people to come together. So for me, making a decision to go from Run to Reverend Run seemed very crazy to everyone that was around me. Because when I started to do it, at that point, gangster rap was the biggest thing. And people thought I was crazy.

I'd come onto the red carpets and they'd say, oh, is this your Halloween outfit? I went through much ridicule until Run's house hit MTV. And when that happened, I saw the shift. I remember being with Jay-Z one day and he was doing a charity event for us at Madison Square Garden. And he saw me just sitting back with my Reverend collar on and my suit. And at that time he still had on his, you know, baggy jeans and stuff. And he said, I see what you're doing, but now you see LL Cool J married, Jay-Z married, Kanye married, and all these different people because God took me and put me in front of the masses and he made sure it wasn't on a church channel. He said, let me take the run that brought us to this rap music and put him on MTV where they have the Jersey Shores and all the crazy stuff.

And the craziest thing is 1515 Broadway nobody believed this could happen they had a guy with a collar sitting there promoting a channel a white channel at that and showing them that black people are family people that we do love being family so our self-esteem should be more centered in family than in things and that's what I bring to this situation. What I think, what you were saying, Brother Roland and Reverend Ron, is you're calling it self-esteem, but really there's a difference between self-esteem and self-worth. Amen.

What you all are representing from the inside out is not self-esteem and self-worth. Self-esteem is what you think about yourself based on how other people see you. Amen. But self-worth is what you think about yourself based off of what God said about you and what you think when you look in your own mirror. Amen. So because you all are operating from the inside out, not from the outside in, it's not a self-esteem thing. You're not looking for exterior validation.

You're looking for interior validation based off of what God already said about you and what you see when you look in your own mirror second dr king was not assassinated because he was a sleeping dreamer he was assassinated because he became a wide-awake revolutionary when he went from this listen to this when he graduated from civil rights to silver rights. Come on and preach. And he began talking about the redistribution of the pain and punishing our enemies and rewarding our friends, withholding our dollar from those that did not treat us fairly. That is whenever they knew they had to get rid of him because he was shifting the paradigm that would guarantee black people would have real power in the wilderness of North America. See, I need to stay right there because Coretta Scott King actually said that.

Byron Allen gave an interview where she said, they killed my Martin when he was talking about the money. And again, I threw that out to us because I go back to how I started this we in our celebrating of our leaders we have helped promote what they want us to promote about dr. King the reason I keep telling if y'all read the book on breadbasket there's a story death has in the book where SCLC could not meet a payroll mm-hmm he asked Reverend Jackson and method let me put a pin in that right here it's a whole bunch of us who diss

and dismiss Jesse Lewis Jackson but the number of black millionaires created because of bread basket was because of his leadership we celebrate essence festival and say 450,000 black people go through Essence Fest,

the largest festival of its kind in the country. When they had Black Expo, the precursor to your Expo here, it started in Chicago, 700,000 attended over five days. It was almost double the size of Essence. That was his creation. And I say that because as he just turned 78, he's battling Parkinson's disease. Don't let him be in your presence and you not say thank you. And that needs to be said. Depp writes a story in his book. He says that King goes to Jackson and said,

we need to meet payroll, so one of the banks who we helped them put money in, let's go to Independence Bank, they can give us a loan. Reverend said, let's stop by Al Boutte's house. First, he was vice president. King said, no, we really need to go talk about the loan. He said, Doc, let's swing by the house. They go by the house. It's a group of black businessmen in the room. After all the niceties, these black businessmen hand him an envelope with $55,000 in it. Dr. King starts to cry. Black business people paid the payroll, not labor unions not the democratic party of black business leaders the story is important because if it wasn't for bread basket they wouldn't have been able to make

the money to be able to fund the movement back so what this also goes to is if we begin to promote black economics then we're funding our own politicians. We're funding our own civil rights organizations. We're funding our own black media because now we're not having other folk fund our groups and our groups can't speak up on behalf

of us if we're not funding them. Which is why black fraternities and sororities actually have more power if they use it because they're self-funded. That's right. This is the truth. So from your perspective and how you have been working with folks, let's talk about, again, the value of being able to self-fund.

That's changed music in a huge way, Reverend. Yes, it did. And then come to George. People, artists these days, it's easier than it was when I came up. I had to depend on getting a record company. But with social media and what's going on right now, all you have to do is wake up in the morning. We were talking about this. Is my mic on?

Can we get more volume, please? All you have to do is wake up, do your little artist thing, and you can upload it yourself. You can actually stream it for 50, 60 bucks and make every single title and Apple Music and every single streaming service. So self-funding is much easier now than it was then. People put out their mixtapes and then you go to them with your hat on your head instead of your hat in your hand and this way the whole thing is shifted that the artist today can make their own money and control their own destiny and Our kids come up to me all the time. How can I make it? How can I make it? Well, all you have to do is get your little camera or make your little

record and put it up and that takes care of it. So it's much easier today than it was for me to create your own path. Write this book down. It's called The Book of Luke, My Fight for Truth, Justice, and Liberty City. The Book of Luke, My Fight for Truth, Justice, and Liberty City. No, it's not the Bible. It's by Luther Campbell. That's George. I have read lots of books. One of the most powerful books because what Luther Campbell talks about in his book is that when he invited rappers down to New York in the 80s, he was counting cash after one of the concerts.

And he was counting about $30,000. And these guys from New York said, man, what are you doing? He said, oh, I sell my own merchandise. They had signed licensing deals. Somebody paid them $2,500 for the licensing rights, and they were making all the money. He's like, I just made $30,000 just off this one show. He said that with Jay-Z and Diddy and 50 Cent, they are the 2.0 version of what he was doing. They saw that and the deals they're now done with vitamin water, Ciroc, all those sort of deals.

They have become multimillionaires because they saw what guys like what he was doing. He was doing. And again, but it's understanding the economics and how black folks can fund it's the idea of self funding and you're not actually begging somebody else and giving away in essence our our natural resources where somebody else gets a wealth that's yeah and I want to address that from a sort of a different angle this that's a powerful thought. We were doing that. Civil rights was a double-edged sword. And before civil rights, not civil rights, but yes, civil rights and bury us, allow us to shop with them, allow us to bank with them, allow us to save with them. We did all that stuff on our own. We self-funded all of that. We built some of the great black Wall Streets, so much so that white folks were jealous and burned them down. So we understand how to do that, but we have fallen into a couple of really very badass habits. We have some very badass habits that we have to come to grips with.

Number one badass habit we have. Black people are addicted to instant gratification versus delayed gratification. We buy what we want first, not what we need. Now, we understand why we want to look like all of that. We understand that we have been an oppressed people for 400 years. And we are trying to make a statement that I am somebody. And so we go for the Nikes and the Louis and all of that stuff to say, look, I'm as good as you. So that's instant gratification. We have got to move towards delayed gratification. We have got to move towards delayed gratification. What people sitting up here on this stage are excellent examples of delayed gratification over time.

They've paid the price. They've taken the risk. They've taken the bumps and turns and bruises and the obstacles that was in their way and they ultimately are sitting on this stage they have deferred more to delayed gratification than to instant gratification very bad habit second bad happen this is huge AC Nielsen came out with a major study last year I hope you read it on the television viewing habits by cultural. Black people watch 40%'m going to give you some foot back. Get the hours. We watch 72 hours of television a week.

Black people watch 72. That's 10 hours of television a day. That's 72 hours of television a week. The equivalent of two weeks of work. That's 10 hours of television, more than ten hours of television a day. Any Negro that watches ten hours of television a day needs their black ass kicked. Now let me tell you why. There's a deeper reason. There's a deeper reason when you are consuming ten hours of television.

You are subject to 1140 commercials. Do you know what they call stuff that they put on television? They call it programming. That means you are being programmed to be a consumption machine. That's why we are the consumption class.

They are the merchant class. They make stuff. We buy stuff. They program us through 10 hours of consumption of television, 1140 commercials a week. You have no choice. You have been programmed to consume. Hold up, George. You got to add one more.

Can I add one more? It's what we're watching. Here's why. There are eight black networks that target African Americans. That's right.

TV One. I was there for 13 of his first 14 years. His sister network, Cleo TV. BET. BET Her, their second network, Aspire, Own, Revoke, Bounce. Those are the eight. That's 1,344 hours of content a week. Not a single hour dedicated to news.

That's right. That's right. So, what you're getting, you're getting sitcoms, dramas, reality shows, award shows. Now, there's nothing wrong with certain entertainment or reality shows. Based upon what kind of show it is. Reverend Ron's show was totally different. That's right. You didn't have sisters throwing wine into each other's face, acting the fool, cussing each other out, and calling themselves housewives and most of them not married. So it's not just

how often we're watching, it's what we're also watching, which means, Lauren, we're not being fed the right information. So we have food deserts, but we also have news and information deserts. So this content is not being fed to black people on a regular basis. To your point, George, we're being fed as consumers. And that's also the problem because if you flip it with white America, they're being fed news and information as opposed to entertainment being dominant. And then it fulfills itself because we say, well, but that's a black network. Yes, but the cycle is being repeated.

And that's the problem. So, Lauren, you talk about that, what we're being fed. What do you advise folks watching who are here and who are watching this live stream what should they be feeding themselves feeding their children feeding their family when it comes to economic

self-reliance but also understanding economics and money well I was trying to google that's what I was doing on my phone how many percentage of African Americans that turn on CNBC. Didn't even come up, so. Oh, no, no, I can help you with that. When I had News 1 now, I beat CNBC in the number of black people who watch.

Ain't that many of us watching CNBC? We know we ain't watching Fox Business. Bloomberg is very low in the numbers. The reality is the numbers are not high at all. My number one question everyone asks me, how do I get into trading? How do I buy

a stock? You turn on Bloomberg, you turn on CNBC, you watch at least two hours a day. All the answers that I can give you are all provided on the TV. So what you're watching and you're consuming is what you're going to be doing. And if you're watching, like you said, Housewives, that's what you're going to get. If you want to learn, there is a wealth of knowledge out there.

Even if you don't have on those networks and those TVs, there's Google. You can learn. Everything can be self-taught. It's 2019. If you can have your phone glued to your hand at all times which people do 65 of the day you can google and you can access knowledge that you really truly need adrian we had news one now deborah owens was america's book coach she would come on the show we would do these financial seconds and it was amazing when the show would

be over she would have 100 or 200 emails from black people who were saying, okay, tell me about this and about that. I'm saying that because unless you have the vehicle that is providing the information from our perspective in a way for us to receive it. Oh, we'll receive it. The problem is that we don't have enough vehicles providing information. We're actually laughing ourselves to death through radio and through television. So I see that you're bringing up a great point. So we only have so many places that we trust. Here locally in the city of Indianapolis, if we want to hear what's going on in the community, we know from 1 to 3 o'clock you can go to 13 to end the light or the new FM version. They have to then make sure that they're programming everything that we want to learn here.

Oh, 1 to 3. From 1 to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday. That's two hours. Right. So you have to make sure that you are near a radio live streaming online or maybe watching on Facebook if the person who is doing the show live is live streaming. And those of us who cover from time to time, we figure out the best way to do it. What's happened with the other 22?

That's the music. And they have some community affairs shows that kind of pop in and out. But so your show leaves TV, right? You were on a channel that we trusted. You are a source that we believe. You are a source that we trust. We only wanted to hear black-slanded stories from you. The same way that here locally we only want to hear black-slanded stories from our Radio 1 networks. If we do not have people that we trust giving us news we can use, we can't guarantee that we trust any of it. Therefore, why should we even start trying to answer his questions or start learning the information that the Lord is giving us?

We can't do it because we need to get things from sources that we trust and believe that aren't going to, pardon my French here, screw us over. Which is why, Brother Nuri, we have to, we have to think differently about new technology. You mentioned the phone. There used to be a thing called the digital divide that still exists. What happened was black

folks actually had mobile devices and not computers at home. When the economy changed to mobile devices, black folks were prime positioned. Because we said, I can't pay two bills. It's either a home phone or a cell phone. So we had, we owe black people,

according to the same Nielsen report on black consumer, we over-index on PDAs smartphones as well as pads we over index we over index on social media but the new rate the point is not to be over index on social media or on those devices it's what we're doing on the devices that's right we're playing games and reading entertainment on the very device that has the information that you're talking about, you're talking about, you're talking about, you're talking about. And we're walking around clueless saying who's going to teach us when it is sitting in their very hand. Well, this this role in your own point.

I wanted to put a statement in the atmosphere that renegotiates our attention from the television. Leaders are readers. The slave masters, leaders are readers. The slave masters, whenever, after they got finished recooking the public school system and made sure that they cut us out of all our images, out of all of the curriculum, they have a saying now, the best place to hide something from niggas is to put it in a book. So if you want to get the best stuff, you're not going to get it on television.

You're going to get it out of a book. And you'll find that when you open up a book, a book opened in your hand looks like a bird and its wings spread out. At least it looks like the birds that you used to draw when you couldn't draw the good art. But y'all know what you're talking about. And you've heard of something called the bird's eye view Have you noticed that wealthy people live in the penthouse suite And it's never downstairs by the gift shop It's always on the top floor The mayor's office here in the city is on the 25th floor

The top floor, right? You go to a hotel, you want the presidential suite You're not down on the first level, you're city the top floor right you go to a hotel you want the presidential suite you're not down on the first level you're on the top it's something about having that bird's eye view being up in the air and books will take you up in the air like a penthouse suite like the top floor of a city county building and when you're higher up everything that looks big to others looks small to you when you're high up, you can see farther than everybody else can see. And when things look smaller

than to everybody else, it becomes easier for you to approach and fix. Leaders are readers. Turn off the television and pick up a book. But here's the... I go back to when you talked about self-esteem, self-worth, and I want Reverend Ron to start here first, then I'm going to come to George.

It's also understanding vision. Yes. So you talked about News 1 Now. December 2007, Alfred Liggins calls me to his office to tell me they're canceling News 1 Now. I don't flinch. not a punch in the gut. While he is talking, while he is giving me the reasons why they're canceling the show, I'm already planning. In fact, I was planning three years before. No, I actually started planning what I'm doing right

now the day we started the show. Because I always focus on the next thing when one thing has already started. I anticipate it ending. But the thing that was a trip that Reverend Ron was at, black people, when are you going to be back on television?

I own this. Right. Ownership. They will go, yeah, yeah, man, but, man, but we need you on CNN. So you want me to go back to what I did six years ago, actually started doing 12 years ago, haven't done in six years, and you want me to go back into a system that I don't control, why I don't determine the topics, why I don't own a system that I don't control why don't determine the topics why don't own the content I don't determine who the guests are but you want just to hear my voice amen I said you do understand by launching my own digital platform I own it I control it

I determine the topics I determine the guests and I determine when and where we do the show at any time. And his brother is looking at me like I'm strange. And he's thinking I'm literally crazy. And I'm trying to get him to understand is that when I made CNN money, they told me, oh, well, you were on the rate and spiked. But I got paid a small amount of what they were generating on advertising. Amen. The deals that I now cut, I talk to the advertiser directly. There is no middle person.

You the middle person. And I'm walking this cat through, and he's just looking at me like I'm crazy. And I'm trying to get him to understand the difference between operating in somebody else's system and over here having freedom and flexibility to control all aspects of it. So again, tonight, if I was still working for CNN, they would not live stream this. They control what you do. But because that device I paid $12,000 for, I own it. I can stream it my damn self. And so I'm trying to get us to understand that. Speak from your perspective of we're talking in the car.

Yes, reality. When you made decisions and your business partners were saying, run, just shut up and sign the sheet of paper, but you had a different vision. Yeah, well, for me, I saw an open door. Reality television now isn't what it was when I was doing it. Reality television for me was a way to control my reality because it was truly reality. You don't know what you're looking at today. You're looking at something today. You don't know if it's scripted even though they call it reality for me I was able to take reality television and give the reality to my people

that I wanted them to see and the good thing about that was I was talking people like D.O. Hughley would come to me and say man here I am I am creating these, um, this television show. And they try to write the script and they change my jokes and trains what I'm trying to get done. And I see what you're doing, which I was blessed that God set me up to be able to give the reality to the people that I wanted them to see. And they couldn't stop me at MTV because I was giving my reality. My reality is that I'm a reverend. Well, is that going to work? Yes. My people want to see this. My reality is I want to sit in a tub if I want to and give words of wisdom from my Blackberry and give it out to my people. And they couldn't stop me from doing what I wanted to do because it was, they called it, I called reality television. And from what you were talking about

is years ago when, um, they were renegotiating my contract and I was putting out the record King of Rock and we were talking about me not stopping my flow. And everybody around me was like, Harry, let's hold things up. Let's stop things and try to negotiate a bigger contract. And I sat in the middle of a floor, and I bust out in tears. I said, I'm not moving until y'all hurry up and sign this contract, which seemed dumb to everybody in the room, but they was only going to get an extra $100,000, get an extra $20,000, or whatever that might have been. But for me, I said, if I keep this momentum going,

I can control what I'm doing, and in the long run, I'll make more money on the road than trying to fight this little record company who thinks they know what they're doing. And I ended up in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and all these great decorations that have come to me through making my decision to say, let's keep it going. Let them keep those pennies. And now I'm not in a deal, what they call a 360 deal, where they keep all my money if I hit the stage, run DMC, we don't perform often, but what we do is the type of money that make your head spin because I'm not stuck in a deal where they take all my money when I get on the stage. The kids these days are stuck in deals that they not only get their

money taken from making the music, they get the money taken from them when they're on stage. So by me keeping the momentum going and signing the contract and that contract being over now I control my own masters I control whatever I'm going to say out of my mouth is in my hands and that's what we were talking about I'm hit you with this guy want you to answer this because again it's it's it's seeing it different and it's just calm sometimes i think it's about calming yourself and allowing the vision to go up there's a brother who was the voice of the lion king yes this one came to him and said amen two million dollars he was like jason weaver right that's what his name was. We was like, damn, I ain't never seen two million. Right. And his mama said,

Mm-hmm, that's what they offered. Now, if they're going to offer you two million, I wonder how much they're going to get paid. And so he didn't take the two million. Mama was thinking. Mama slowed down and said, Hold up. Wait. thinking mama slow down and say it hold up wait so they took fewer dollars but he is probably made 20 million mmm and will get paid his entire life and his estate will get paid because of the deal they cut.

Delayed gratification. So let's, George, I want you to unpack that. I want you to unpack, because I also, I pulled up Bobby Bonilla, the baseball player. Bobby had a contract. They wanted to pay him this annuity, and he said, no, I don't want to take his wife. Now his ex-wife said, fool, take the deal. Bobby ain't played in a decade, but gets paid $1.9 million every year on a certain day. And we'll get that money for like another 20 years. It's the greatest deal ever in sports because his wife said, fool, read the fine print.

I want you to speak to how we talk about economics, how we need to take a breath to see the vision beyond just the dollars that are right in front of us. Sure. Sure. Very quickly. Let me give you a piece of advice. I'm an elder, 75 years old, so listen up. Black don't crack. Right.

Listen up. Even light black don't crack. Hey, I learned it. Let's say beige don't age. That's a good line. I made a decision, a very important decision, and I want you to make the same decision. No longer debate Negroes that Harriet Tubman would have shot. Bless them and release them.

Number two. This is something we teach at the Power Networking Conference. We'll be in our 19th year next year. Forbes called our conference one of the top five conferences in America, not to be missed, because we simply spend 96 hours unpacking and giving you specific direction, thoughts, creativity, and ideas around the four pillars for the intergenerational transfer of wealth. This is Proverbs 13.22.

A good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children. Dr. Fraser, what are the four pillars for the intergenerational transfer of wealth? You just addressed the first one. Proper management of accumulated wealth. So we can stop reading about athletes or entertainers that earn $100 million in their career, and within five years of retirement, they're either broke or in bankruptcy.

That is improper management of accumulated wealth. There are 35,000 black millionaires in this country. There are 2.2 million black households worth $400,000 or more. The question is, are they properly managing that wealth? And the answer is hell to the no. Or we would not be having this conversation. So proper management of accumulated wealth. You make widgets.

You make lots of money making widgets. Making widgets, that's what you know about. Find some brother or sister that knows about how to put your money to work harder for you than you did for it. You don't know about that. But there are people that do. That's one. Number two. What is the second?

Real estate. What's the first thing God gave Adam? Real estate. What's the first thing God gave Isaac? Real estate. Real estate. Real estate. Real estate. What's the first thing God gave Adam? Real estate. What's the first thing God gave Isaac? Real estate, real estate, real estate. We've been in this country 400 years. We are America, a God's first people, I should say. And we own the fewest number of homes per capita of any cultural group in this country. Real estate, real estate is the second pillar. What is the third pillar? Business development, entrepreneurship. Now,

we don't need all Negroes being in business. In fact, we know some Negroes that should not be within 100 yards of owning a business. We've met them. We call them bidnit people. And we're trying to put the bidnit people out of business, okay? Because they're messing it up for those of us that are trying to do business. Now, there are about 3,000 new businesses started every single day in this country. 89% of those businesses are started by black women. Black women. Read the new census report. 89% of new businesses are started by black women. Our black women are now outperforming our men. We have more black women in the high professional arts and law school, medical school, dental school,

accountancy. So black men have to man up. One of the things we need to do is to think more entrepreneurially to create working jobs for our people because ultimately by the end of the century we must be the number one employer of our own people. And the final one is proper insurance. New York Times came out with

an article about six months ago on black people and their cell phones. And here's what it said. It said that more black people have insurance on their cell phones than on their lives or the lives of their children by a factor of 10. So we value our cell phones more than we value our lives. 60% of all wealth is transferred through tactical and strategic placement of proper insurance. Those are the four pillars for the intergenerational transfer of wealth.

And when we talk about those businesses, when you talk about those black businesses, and yes, people clap when you talk about black women starting a business that's faster than anybody else. But here's the problem. There are 2.6 million black-owned businesses in America. 2.5 million have one employee. Two,

of the 2.6 million black-owned businesses, they do an average revenue of $54,000. Seven years ago, when we had 1.9 million black-owned businesses, 1.8 million had one employee. When we had 1.9 million black owned businesses they were doing the average

revenue of 110,000 so we've added 700,000 new black owned businesses but they're doing half of the revenue so what I tell people is I don't want more black owned businesses I want more black owned businesses with capacity

I want us to have more black owned businesses that have more than one employee. And again, to the point I was making earlier, the people don't understand how you change it. Roland Martin Unfiltered has only been in operation for 13 months. Last year, we did $700,000 in revenue. I'm in the category of the $100,000. I have 14 employees.

And so when people say, oh, my goodness, why did you do this? Because why do I have to work for them or them when I can actually work for myself and have freedom and flexibility. And so, again, it's getting us to understand to build capacity, which leads me into this next one. This is hard for us to deal with, and that is we've got to stop hating ourselves, Adrian. I have spoken at more than 20 or so black chambers of commerce and mergers and acquisitions has never been on the agenda I say guys we're not gonna be

like John A's Johnson on the business for 65 years and become leading in the sector no you must merge and acquire but we have black folks who would rep in Dallas Texas but I ran the Dallas Weekly there were seven black newspapers there were not enough black people there's only seven black for seven black newspapers hilarious there were two black newspaper two newspapers Dallas Times Herald Morning News that's how they're around the business why am I saying that? Because black folks have got to merge to grow bigger. Rupert Murdoch sold

his entertainment assets to Disney for $70 billion. I can tell you personally, in launching my show, I have gone to every black media company to talk about collaborating and not a single one of

them has said yes. Wow. And I am doing something none of them are doing. Now that's fine, y'all want to collaborate, that's cool with me, but the fact that with my profile, what I've created, black media companies don't see the value of collaborating, that to me is also a failure of us when it comes to building economic power. Yeah, so... Amen. We as a community have to be out of our own way.

And I think that wholeheartedly we've done a really good job at getting in our way, taking up our spaces and refusing to let other people in. And the only way that we get out of our own way is we start to build trust with one another that it's okay for us to collaborate, it's okay for us to work together. And we can remove ego and pride of ownership so that our entire community can move forward. Lauren. Specifically to Gen Zers or even the young kids who are coming up K-12,

giving them the exposure, they just don't know. What you don't know, if you think the only thing you want to achieve is being famous, what is famous? Do you want to go into entertainment? Is that what you're saying? And do you realize that people that aren't on the screen or aren't these athletes, the people that are actually in these power decision-making, money-powerful roles are people that are not anywhere on the camera? You have more power behind the scenes than you do in front of. The loudest person in the room oftentimes really is the weakest. I also think about people like Suzanne Shank. I just actually had a call with

her earlier today. Does anybody know who Suzanne Shank is? Suzanne Shank is a black woman on Wall Street and her company generates $1 trillion a year. She is the billionaire woman on Wall Street and not one of you

people in this room have heard. Suzanne Shank. Spell her last name. Spell her last name. S-H-A-N-K. She's best friends with Melody Hobson, which I'm sure you guys have heard. She is a phenomenal lady and her story, very similar

to mine, came from Savannah, Georgia, went to school, went to Georgia Tech, ended up going to Wharton, et cetera, et cetera. But she has made a name of herself on Wall Street. And she is looking to hire minorities. And not just because you're a minority, but because she feels it's a social responsibility to give back to the community, empower, and uplift. But the biggest problem she has, people aren't applying for her company.

She can't do all the work on her own. She's on Wall Street, so her candidates are not looking like minorities, and she can't go out across the entire country. So we have to instill and expose children K-12 and what that is going to look like when they get to college and even after college. Brother Nury is also not all about, people-12, and what that is going to look like when they get to college and even after college. Brother Murray, it's also not all about, people might assume,

oh, do-it-yourself, bootstraps. We also have to deal with institutions. If you actually ask where is the greatest collection of black wealth, it actually exists among black public workers in terms of pension funds. Wow. Of the $1 trillion federal pension fund program, black folks only manage $100 million of that. Wow.

BlackRock wrote the rules to benefit themselves. They control about 60% of that $1 trillion. When I went to the Treasury Department in 2010 under Obama, I sat in a meeting in one of the lunchrooms, and two brothers, and they said that minority firms outperformed white firms on the management of TARP funds. First thing I said was,

does that mean minority folks get more money to manage? They went quiet. We, and this is, if you are a public worker, stand up. Okay, public worker meant you work for the city, the county, the state, the federal government. If you are a public worker, stand up.

If you are a retired public worker or current public worker or former public worker, teacher, firefighter, y'all just figured out y'all public. Okay, you have worked for a government. No, no, no, stay standing. I'm trying to show you something. Okay, last one. If you've worked for a teacher, firefighter, for the city, the county, whatever, stand up. Now look around this room. You've just proven what I said. There are more people who work in the public sector than the folks sitting down. Every single one of you in the public who work in the public

sector, you have a pension fund. You should be asking your pension manager, how many black law firms are you using? How many black accounting firms are you using? How many black money managers are you using? You must be putting pressure on the state pension funds because the state pension funds, Lauren will tell you, are the biggest investors on Wall Street. The same in federal. So black people are, we're sitting on wealth and not demanding black reciprocity in the management of your pension money. That, Brother Nuri, is something that we have to deal with, and there are people who have been trying to break those walls down,

and they understand, to George's point, they know who controls the money, has the power, and we've been asleep at the wheel. Speak to that, and then I'm going to bring up the board chair for a comment, and then we'll have final comments from our panel. Go. Well, the fact that currency is what money is called, coming from the same root word that current comes from, and current means power, money is a source of power. So anytime that we get

involved in economics that connect to an institution, we're trying to ask them to give us some power. And we'll find that you can go to the bank that you bank with, they'll give you an $80,000 loan for Escalade, a $250,000 loan for a plastic house, a $150,000 loan for education that won't work, but you go ask that same bank for a $10,000 small business loan to see what they tell you. Wow. Why they give you ten thousand for a small business loan when they'll

give you a quarter of a million for a house that ain't worth nothing a car that's going to be worth nothing after you drive off the lot and education hasn't proven to work it's because they know that that business is warfare and whenever you get involved in a collection of currency, you actually have power. So I agree with you. Those that have your funds or pension funds with them, make them. A. Philip Randolph said he met with Franklin Delano Roosevelt and after he stated the black plight and all that was there, look what Franklin Delano Roosevelt said to him as the president. He said, yeah, I agree with everything that you all have presented before me and then he backed up and said and said now make me do it

i'm telling you this they're not going to do nothing for us unless we force them to do something for us and the threat of a march in washington in the 30s caused FDR to sign that executive order because he did not want 200,000 black folks coming to D.C. The threat of it made him sign it. So our unity is more powerful than a nuclear bomb. If we come together and demand, and listen to this, not only don't come together to demand that the Vietnamese treat us right in the nail shop and that the Koreans treat us right at the beauty shop.

Now come together and open up a black old nail shop right next to they behind and open up La Crecia's beauty shop right next to them and let's shop with our sister and brother before we shop with another. We spend too much time trying to rebuild and repair this broken system and not enough energy working together to replace it with something that we can call our own i got a statement right here before i go to the final statements from each panelist go right ahead mike's not on you got it?

Girl, we ain't waiting. Give me my phone. So first of all, thank you guys so much. I want to make sure that we do a couple of housekeeping things. One, we've got book signings. Roland Martin and Dr. Frazier have books that they'll be signing after the show. So make sure that you stop by. No, I ain't bringing my books.

I'm going to watch the game. Go ahead. If y'all want my book, you can go to RolandSMartin.com. I'll sign them. But I've got to watch the Astros. They up 2-1. They sent some books. Oh, they sent some books?

Yes. All right, I'm going to sign them in 10 minutes, and I'm going to watch the game. Go ahead. Can I make a special offer to... Hold on, George. That's going to be your final comment. Okay. Let her finish.

Okay. Fair enough. So a few more housekeepings. You know that evaluations are very important. You see from tonight that this is due to your response, so make sure that you fill out your evaluation. If you've not already signed up for your road trip, our road trip to New York is already online at stewardspeakers.org. Stewardspeakers.org. Please go online and sign up for the road trip.

We just came back from New Orleans, and it was an amazing trip. If you missed it, you don't want to miss the next one. Also, if you have students that would be interested, sponsor a student. We're just talking about how we make sure K through 12 that the students have opportunities to see. Sometimes you don't know. If you don't see it, you can't believe it. So make sure they have an opportunity to go and see that historical trick. Next year, we will, or excuse me, the next season, we will be doing electronic tickets.

Electronic tickets. So you will have to be purchasing your tickets online. We want to make sure that you have all of your information. You'll go online to purchase your tickets. That's important because I know a lot of you are waiting for your paper tickets to be mailed. I don't know where Ms. Cordelia is, but it's going to be electronic. We're not going to mail it this time, so make sure you guys let her know. February 26th and March 2nd.

February 26th and March 2nd are the next two events. Ricky Smiley on February 26th and Ambassador Susan Rice on March the 2nd. Don't forget to get your tickets. We're going to turn it right over to Roland for our last remarks from our speakers before we go. I'm going to start first with final comment. Adrian. Yes, you.

Yes, you. So I think that the best that I can share with you is that our community only works when we all participate. And when we all participate, it should be everybody's goal to unify and to work collectively as a unit, which means we've got a lot of work to do. But the work started, and it's important for everyone to show up the next time we invite. Brother Nury?

Thank you, Sam. I would say this, that one of the things that we need to do in our community is change our language when we address one another. Let's go back to that old time when we called each other brothers and sisters. Because if I'm your brother and you're my sister, my son is your nephew and your daughter is my niece that means every problem that we face becomes a family problem when we see each other as brothers and sisters and I each of our children as nieces and nephews we go back to that ancient African axiom that made us produce the pyramid builders and those that built

the Nile Valley civilization Timbuktu and the city of Atlantis. It takes a village to raise a child. When we go back to that type of organization where we called each other brothers and sisters, then we began to build a real community instead of a colony. Today's subject was my vision, my power. Remember this. Vision is the mind's ability to leave the present in your body and take a tour of your future,

collect notes of what your future looks like, come back to your body in the present and use those notes to inspire you to become what you set out to become. And if you take the knowledge and let it be the power, you and I will be able to achieve everything that we wanted to achieve.

And we can do it together like never seen and never done before. That's what I would say. Lauren. I was just going to say that all different groups have figured out the secret formula, and it's not. We work better together than we do apart. Let's have exposure. Let's have knowledge. Let's come together than we do apart. Let's have exposure. Let's have knowledge. Let's come together and really mean that.

I'm so tired of getting on so many stages and repeating the same messages. I really mean it. We are our biggest roadblocks. So we have got to stop. We have got to stop with the victim mentalities and all the reasons why we can't. We can and we need to do it starting now. George. To my sisters, I just want to say to you from my heart and very simply,

if you can't build with them, don't chill with them. It ain't supposed to be free. Remember that. Number two to all of our brothers and sisters. Our charge is very simple. Don't make it complicated. It's simple. Our charge is we must learn, earn, and return. We have a lot of us learning, a lot of us earning, but not enough of us are returning. And therein lies the problem. White folks ain't saving us. We will be saving us. Wherever black people will go into the 21st century, it will be because black people will take them there. Now, we will have allies, but fundamentally, God helps those who help themselves. Finally, a moment of shameless self-promotion. Yes, I am selling a book, but the book is free. My signature is $30.

We put on a conference every year called the Power Network Conference. We're in our 19th year. Forbes magazine called this one of the top five conferences in America not to be missed. Not one of the top five black conferences. One of the top five of all the conferences put on in this country not to be missed. We cover only two things for 96 hours. Boyce Watkins will be with us next year, Daymond John was with us this year, etc., etc. It's bad to the bone. We only cover two things, business and money. And we unpack the four pillars for the intergenerational transfer of wealth so that you will leave there on Sunday and start

doing the things we instruct you and train you how to do on Monday. The conference is not inexpensive. An adult registration is $1,500. We sell out every year. A student registration is $800. We encourage that all conferences should be conferencing with young people, especially millennials and Gen, what is it, I'm going to give them a deal. Yeah. I'm going to give them a deal. Now, hold on, I'm going to give them a deal. If you actually start your own business, even if it's the Inc. or LLC, it's a tax write-off, your conference. That's a deal. That's right. That's exactly right. So it's a $2,400 package for a young person and an adult.

I want to take, I want to reduce that to $499. So what is that? That's a $2,000, $1,900 discount. For people in the room. Right, right. For people in the room. No, no, just for people in the room. Not the live stream. Not the live stream.

Thank you. I'm trying to help you out. I love you. I love you. Thank you for saying that. I forgot you were live streaming it. No, it's not for you. It's only for the people in the room.

Now, it's only good until I leave here after I finish selling my 20 books. Okay? I'm out of here. So it's $4.99 for a, with Roland and myself and Reverend D. No, Rev. Run. Reverend Run. Rev. Run. Not Reverend D. Reverend Run.

That's Run DMC. Right. I got it all. All right. And I live in Cleveland with a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame one. All right. My man. So that is $4.99.

We got it. And that's out in the books of being sold. Reverend. I just go in with a rhyme. Preach on a Sunday, rap on a Monday. Y'all do what runs say to get better one day. Just because Reverend rocks a collar don't mean I can't make a dollar. Y'all holler.

Let me let me let me first say this before I get my closing argument. I need you to put your hands together for the Stewart brothers. As well as their staff, their board, the leadership

because there are a lot of people who will say, man, that's just a bunch of talk. But the reality is, without information, you get the phrase, information is power. Without the information, you have no place to start. And so these forms are critically important. The reason last year when I moderated, we streamed it last year. The reason we wanted to stream it this year, because we wanted to move it out of the room, because there's somebody in another city, they don't have a Stewart Brothers. They don't have black folks

who care enough about their people to be able to share this kind of information. So that's why that's important. So again, I appreciate it. It's my third time here, and I appreciate the invitation, and thank you so very much. And I'm going to close it this way. If you want to understand

America, all you have to do is go to the White House. No, no, no, no. Not that fool who's in it. But if you want to understand America, if you stand in front of the White House and if you look to the right, you will see the White House. But you need to look to the right, you will see the White House. But you need to look to the left, and there's only one federal agency that shares a lawn with the White House. They are so close that you could walk a hundred steps out of the side door, and then you'll be in the east wing of the White House.

They could play flag football, kickball on the lawn because there's only one agency. That's the Department of Treasury. Every federal agency has come out of the Department of Treasury. Why? That's where the money is. That's why there's a revolving door between Goldman Sachs and the Treasury Department. That's why BlackRock, all of those folks who are on Wall Street, they go there. In fact, the Treasury Department, from a visual standpoint, to be perfectly honest, is more ornate and looks even more grand than the White House.

Because the money folk made sure their building looked good. Why am I saying that? Because I started this conversation off with, if we are going to achieve freedom, black folks, we cannot start every conversation with social justice. I'm not denigrating social justice, but you cannot say black lives matter if you also don't add black dollars matter. That's right. We, they have no problem with us fighting police brutality. They got a problem with us fighting for the money. And when we start fighting for the money and when we use the power of the public workers to demand black folks are managing pension funds and we use our

power until the ad agencies that if we're watching 70 plus hours damn it y'all got to make sure that black firms and black media companies are getting the ad dollars if we use our power to flex our economic muscle like operation breadbasket did like reverend jackson has done like that the king did then america will be scared to death of us and why is this important this is my last point we are 24 years away from america becoming a nation that's majority people of color which means that if we continue the current trend educationally and economically black people in the United States will be looked the same as black people in South Africa, where we will combine with Latinos and Asians be the majority, but we will be dragging from the back economically.

Whites own 9% of whites in South Africa. They own 72% of the land. We need to understand white folks have played the money game. If you want to change America, show me the money. And when you start talking money, folk look at you differently. I want our activists fighting for our social rights. But I need our money people fighting for economic rights. And Frederick Douglass said, power concedes nothing without a demand and you

must agitate, agitate, agitate. And I'm saying, show me the damn money. Amen. Roland? One last comment. If you had the opportunity to take a photograph of one of our speakers, your photograph is in the lobby on a table.

So make sure you pick it up. We're not able to mail it to you afterwards. We're giving it to you at no additional cost. We need you to pick it up off the table when you leave. All right? Thank you very much, and we appreciate you coming out. Good night. Hey, fam, I want you to like, share, and subscribe to our YouTube channel, Appreciate you coming out. Good night. that you give to us supports our daily digital show. There's only one daily digital show out here that keeps it black and keep it real.

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