#RolandMartinUnfiltered - TX Dems vs GOP Redistricting, Maxwell DOJ Talk, Oak Bluffs Legacy, Birthright Ruling & Karen Chaos

Episode Date: July 25, 2025

7.24.2025 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: TX Dems vs GOP Redistricting, Maxwell DOJ Talk, Oak Bluffs Legacy, Birthright Ruling & Karen Chaos Texas Democrats are unlikely to have the votes to stop the GOP-led redistricting effort, which is up for debate tomorrow.  Convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell sat down with Trump's DOJ to discuss what she knows about her former boyfriend, Jeffrey Epstein, and his associates.  For over a century, Black families, HBCU alums, artists, and change-makers have spent summers in Oak Bluffs, building a legacy on the shores of Martha's Vineyard. We'll talk with a Black-owned business founder about why some people don't question the high prices of designer collections, but challenge the value of his brand. A federal appeals court rules that Trump's executive order aimed at ending birthright citizenship is unconstitutional. And yes, these Karens are out of control -- we've got more wild footage to show you. #BlackStarNetwork partner: Fanbasehttps://www.startengine.com/offering/fanbase This Reg A+ offering is made available through StartEngine Primary, LLC, member FINRA/SIPC.  This investment is speculative, illiquid, and involves a high degree of risk, including the possible loss of your entire investment. You should read the Offering Circular (https://bit.ly/3VDPKjs (https://bit.ly/3ZQzHl0) related to this offering before investing. Download the Black Star Network app at http://www.blackstarnetwork.com! We're on iOS, AppleTV, Android, AndroidTV, Roku, FireTV, XBox and SamsungTV. The #BlackStarNetwork is a news reporting platform covered under Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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There are many versions of what happened in 1969 when a young Ted Kennedy drove a car into a pond and left a woman behind to drown. Chappaquiddick is a story of a tragic death and how the Kennedy machine took control. Every week we go behind the headlines and beyond the drama of America's royal family. Listen to United States of Kennedy

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Music Festival presented by Capital One is coming back to Las Vegas. Vegas! September 19th and 20th. On your feet! Streaming live only on Hulu. Ladies and gentlemen. Brian Adams and Sheeran. Fade, Chlorilla, Jelly Roll, John Fogerty, Lil Wayne, LL Cool J, Mariah Carey, Maroon 5, Sammy Hagar, Tate McCrae, The Offspring, Tim McGraw.

Tickets are on sale now at AXS.com. Get your tickets today. A x s dot com. Today is Thursday, July 25th 2025 coming up on Roland Martin on the phone to the streaming live on the Black Star Network. Texas Democrats are unlikely to have the votes to stop the GOP-led redistricting effort, which is up for debate tomorrow. We will show you some of what has already been taking place. Convicted sex trafficker, Jelaine Maxwell, sat down with Donald Trump's DOJ to discuss what she knows about her former boyfriend, Jeffrey Epstein, and his associates like Donald Trump.

For more than a century, black families, HBCU alums, artists and changemakers have spent summers in Oak Bluffs building a legacy on the shores of Martha's Vineyard. But guess what y'all? Polo Ralph Lauren, they decided to come out with this new line of clothing to pay homage to Oak Bluffs. But a black-owned business founder of Actually Black, he was like, black people, why y'all pay a whole lot of money for clothes made by white people, but then y'all don't want to pay a black company for some clothes.

Oh yeah, black people, y'all gonna have to buckle up because I got something for y'all. Plus, the federal appeals court ruled that Trump's executive order aimed at ending birthright citizenship is unconstitutional and these Karens are out of control. Is it the heat? Because they're acting like dogs in Heat. We've got some wild footage to show y'all.

Plus, Donald Trump's going after another university president in Virginia, this time the brother at George Mason. We'll tell you about that as well. It's time to bring the funk. A roll of Mark Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Let's go. He's got it. Whatever the piss, he's on it. Whatever it is, he's got the scoop, the fact, the network. Let's rolling. Yeah, yeah. It's Uncle Ro Ro, y'all.

Yeah, yeah. It's rolling, Martin, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Rolling with rolling now. Yeah, yeah. He's funky, he's fresh, he's real, the best, you know. He's rolling Martell now. Martell.

All right folks, Texas Governor Greg Abbott has called a special session. Yeah, not about floods, not about property taxes, but to redraw the Texas congressional districts. Why? Because Donald Trump told him to, because Donald Trump is his daddy. They want to pick up anywhere from four to five seats for the next year midterm because they're scared to death they're going to actually lose the house. Now the reality is Texas has a majority-proof Republican they control it. All right. Bottom

line is they got the votes. Democrats can't do anything about it, but they're gonna do all they can. Now, Abbott is now lying. He claims it's about constitutional concerns. That's literally what he said. Now, state Senator Boris Miles, one of two black state senators in Texas, my alpha brother, he of course spoke about this, and he called it simply congressional redlining.

Last wrap up question. It's been asked multiple times and as my colleague emotionally just said, we still don't know, you still have no idea to why we're doing this with the exception of this letter coming from the DOJ, is that correct? I know the reason, well, the reason we are here today is because the governor put redistricting, congressional redistricting on the call.

On the call. And that's why we're here, correct? Because we got it on the call that came from this letter, resulted from this letter from the DOJ. That's the purpose, that's the reason we are laying out we got it on the call that came from this letter resulted from this letter from the DOJ. That's the purpose that's the reason we are laying out this resolution today. Okay. I think we're saying the same thing. I'm sorry.

I think we're saying the same thing Senator. As a result of this letter from the DOJ. Well I can't I don't I can't speak for the governor and I haven't talked to the governor. Okay. What I do know is that we have a duty to take up all the issues on the call, to consider all those issues. And to do that, if we're going to stick with the tradition of the Senate, then we would need to pass a resolution like this as step one.

Okay. And this is step one. Senator, let me ask you a question. Did you have any idea, were you aware that, on this letter from the DOJ, that there are four congressional districts listed? I have read the letter. Did you, were you aware that one of those districts

is wholly in my district, Senate District 13, the second one is partly majority in my district, Senate District 13. The second one is partly majority in my district and the third has a slight, I have a slight part of that one in Senate District 13. Were you aware of that? I think you mentioned all that when we talked on the phone Saturday. Yeah, I want to know if the body knew. I'm trying to make sure they understand as well. So I want to repeat that. Four, there are four districts that's mentioned here in this DOJ letter.

Three of them are partly or wholly in my district. Senate District 13. Do you think it's coincidental that Senate District 13 for which three of these districts are in, congressional districts in, and that I sit in, do you think it's coincidental that it is the only majority African-American district in the whole state of Texas? Again, I don't have any personal knowledge of any of the facts behind the DOJ letter. All I can tell you is that I have read it and that All I can tell you is that I have read it and that I then read the response by the attorney general's office to that letter and that's really all I know.

And I know and all my colleagues know that you're a thinking man, you're a very intelligent thinking man. And my question is simple, do you just think it's a coincidence that three of these districts that are mentioned on this DOJ letter are in my district, the only African-American majority district in the state of Texas? Again, and I speak in all honesty, I just have zero knowledge of any data, any facts, anything that the DOJ relied upon to draft their letter to the Governor and to the Attorney General? Well, if I could, let me tell you, I don't think it's a coincidence.

Okay? And I just want to put that on you and my colleagues' minds, that I don't think it's a coincidence, and my colleagues, my former Democratic colleagues, don't think it's a coincidence and my colleagues, my former democratic colleagues don't think it's a coincidence. And I can assure you my people back home don't think it's a coincidence. Okay, so you're proceeding forward with redrawing the lines,

but you don't have any of the information and the data to back up what you're saying so now I'm confused are you that stupid I mean you saw Senator Miles say you're intelligent man no they're not. They're doing the bidding of a white supremacist. Y'all, a blind person can see you are specifically targeting the three African-Americans who are in Congress from Texas. Well, the three Democratic African-Americans,

because you're cool with the help of Wesley Hunt. But he don't have many black people in this district. So you're targeting Jasmine Crockett of Dallas, Mark Vesey of Arlington, Texas. You're targeting Al Green, I'm sorry, Four. You're targeting the seat that's vacant where the late Representative Sylvester Turner, the late Congressman Sheila Jackson Lee had that particular seat.

And then you're targeting Sylvia Garcia. Now understand, y'all, Sylvia Garcia is the rep for the neighborhood where I grew up in, Clinton Park in Houston. So this significant black and Latino population in that congressional district. So what justification does Abbott have? He doesn't.

I mean, it's a naked partisan grab. I mean, they're trying to simply grab these seats and they want to shut down black and brown people. Now we all know Trump, he hates Jasmine Crockett because she'd be lighting his ass up. So that's what he wants to do. And so these white nationalists, that's what they're doing. And so if that Republican had any integrity, honor, decency, morals, values, he would have said, this is an indicted partisan attempt. And see, here's my whole deal. Just go ahead and say that. I mean, just go ahead and say what it is. I got more, I don't have any respect

for you. I have a little bit more respect for you. If you just go ahead and just be honest about what the hell you really trying to do. They don't want to see black and Latino representation in Congress. They don't want to see it. Period. They don't want to see it. My panel, Dr. Noah Haynes, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service out of Washington DC, Dr. Greg Carter, Department of Afro-American Studies, Howard University out of DC, and are we being joined? Okay, we'll be joined later by Robert Bertillo, civil rights attorney out of Atlanta. I mean, Greg, this is real clear. I mean, this ain't even a debate.

We know what they're trying to do. And as I keep saying on this show, Democrats need to have the absolute courage to say, OK, do what y'all want to do in Texas. First of all, you're going to get sued. So you're going to get sued. So you're going to get sued. Let's be real clear. They lost the Section 2 case in Louisiana. They lost the Section 2 case in Alabama.

So even with this hard-right Supreme Court, Section 2 hanging by a thread, they've lost that. I don't know what argument they can make where it's not an effort to disenfranchise black and Latino voters, but this is where Democrats in California, Illinois, New York state must respond by saying, okay, y'all redraw the lines. I'm telling you, we brought the white Republican districts out in states we control. That's how you have to respond to these thugs.

Roland, first of all, I will never tire of saying why this is why this network is indispensable to the moment we face in American history, because this is a conversation you won't see anywhere else. You might see some illusion to some of it. What I'm about to say, I think, wouldn't find the air anywhere else. And what you were saying certainly wouldn't. I share your sentiment in my heart. I share your sentiment in my mind, and I'm crystal clear, I think, to the fact that that is the nuclear option for the federal entity called the United States of America.

Not only am I not against it, I personally would love it. Gavin Newsom has begun to gesture that way, but he wants to be president of the United States. If and when that happens, if when California and New York and other states, Maryland, decide we're going to redraw the lines and erase any advantage you might think you have

in the Confederacy, then that clears the way for the dissolution of the United States of America. It renders the federal apparatus greatly weakened, because the next step then becomes, what is our strategy for withholding tax dollars so that these starving recipient, these welfare states like Mississippi and Louisiana, where most of our people live, no longer receive federal money? I mean, you've blown it up. Now, on the other side, I think that's where our brother,

Senator Miles, was going when he challenged the deeply cowardly Senator King there, who was holding his microphone like the toy, the protecting thing to kind of protect his courage, which he has very little. He was laying the ground for exactly the legal challenge that you said. And when he said he has no prior knowledge, first of all, he was lying.

But even if he wasn't, he was prevaricating because what he's basically saying is, I wasn't in the room when they made this scheme up, although I know damn well what they're trying to do. I'm answering very specifically the question you asked. But here's the thing, finally. But I'm sure you saw the political article that came out, I think it was yesterday, maybe the day before,

there's a recent poll that came out of Texas. And when polls, 63% of the people polled in the state of Texas said Republicans are playing politics, that they've called a special session under the guise of dealing with relief from the floods, and they are using it for redistricting. And as a result, 53 percent of the likely voters said in that poll that the legislature

was prioritizing redistricting over flood relief, and 62 percent of the voters said they were less likely to vote for a Republican, which brings me to what you just said at the end there. The only thing left that will prevent the nuclear option to blow up the federal apparatus would be now to do exactly what you said, invade those quote, unquote, red states, the red districts, those gerrymandered districts, and force those people into the crisis of courage that will extract enough of them out of their stupor to add with the organized voters who are always going to vote for the people we want in office and

destroy the redistricted districts, that will be the way to do it. The only other option is do what you said. And once you do that, there's no reverse button on the United States. At that point, it's over, brother, I think. I think. If we expect to find a 90% of the people. Yeah, I mean, I'm just sitting here looking at these idiots. I mean, this is the actual letter that was sent to the governor and the attorney general

from that absolute travesty of an individual who occupy, who has a civil rights division of the Department of Justice. So this is what that idiot says. This letter will serve as a formal notice by the Department of Justice to the state of Texas of serious concerns regarding the legality of four of Texas's congressional districts. As stated below, congressional districts nine, 18, 29, and 33 currently constitute unconstitutional coalition districts and

we urge the state of Texas to rectify these race based considerations from these specific districts. Okay. Now she's trying to now cite Allen versus Mulligan in her reasoning. And this is why this is hilarious to me. Okay. This is hilarious to me. And so, and what they're trying to do is, okay, they're trying to use a case in Galveston County where they eradicated the districts there, okay, that are still going through.

So you will see it says right here, Noah, it is well established that so-called coalition districts run afoul, run afoul, voting rights, first of all, she forgot of, run afoul of the afoul, voting rights, first of all she forgot of, run afoul of the Voting Rights Act, so the 80 doesn't even know how to write. And then it lays out, it is the position of this department

that several Texas congressional districts constitute unconstitutional racial gerrymanders under the logic and reasoning of Pettibway. Specifically, the record indicates that Texas nine and 18 sort Houston voters along strict racial lines to create two coalition seats while creating Texas 29 a majority Hispanic district. Additionally, Texas 33 is another racially based coalition district that resulted from a federal court order years ago, yet

the Texas legislature drew Texas 33 on the same lines in the 2021 redistricting, therefore Texas 33 remains a coalition district. And so please respond. So this is Harmeet Dhillon, the Assistant Attorney General of Civil Rights Division, really a trash individual, okay, who is nothing more than a MAGA white nationalist supporter. Okay. So for everybody who's watching at home and listening, American history is full of wise people. Well, women said something like no 99.99% of war is diarrhea and 1% is gory. Those founding fathers were gossipy AF and they love to cut each other

down. I'm Bob Crawford, host of American History Hotline, the show where you send us your questions about American history and I find the answers, including the nuggets of wisdom our history has to offer. Hamilton pauses and then he says, the greatest man that ever lived was Julius Caesar. And Jefferson writes in his diary,

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into a pond. And left a woman behind to drown. There's a famous headline, I think, in the New York Daily News. It's, Teddy escapes, blonde drowns. And in a strange way, right, that sort of tells you. The story really became about Ted's political future, Ted's political hopes. Will Ted become president?

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And we played this video of a news conference in a control room. Find that video when Jasmine Crockett was speaking in a news conference. I think we played it late last week or on Monday. So for people at home, let me try to understand something. Texas is 61% minority. So the population in Texas is 61% of the total population in Texas is Latino, Black, Asian American, Native American. White people in Texas constitute 39% of the state. The reason in the last two census,

Texas has received additional congressional districts, it's because of the population coming into Texas. Y'all do realize that more than 80, almost 90% of the population growth in Texas has been because of minority, people of color. But what the white nationalists in the Texas, in the legislature, what they did, they said, oh, we're gonna create white districts, white Republican districts. Now, here's what's real funny on this whole thing, Noah.

And Beto O'Rourke has actually mentioned this whole thing. Beto has actually said, oh, y'all wanna play with fire? Go right ahead because y'all could be endangering some of your own people. Because the reality is, if you start taking blocks of black voters out of 18, Sheila Jackson Lee District, Sylvester Turner, that's the district of 18, she was the Jackson Lee district, Sylvester Turner, that's the district of Craig Washington,

of Mickey Leland, of Barbara Jordan. You start trying to move them some other place, oh, it's gonna be some Republicans in trouble because of voting blocks. So that's the game they're also playing. And Republicans are even saying, Nola, I don't know if we wanna do this because we might be jeopardizing ourselves. They're also playing and Republicans are even saying Nola. I don't know if we want to do this because

We might be jeopardizing ourselves and what her meat is actually saying to the Republican white legislature Y'all drew these lines Republicans have controlled the legislature in Texas for 25 years now Democrats had no authority over this here. So They they about to, it's about to be FAFO if they ain't careful, Nola. Yeah, this entire situation, Greg, I'm still processing what you just said because it was so powerful.

What you said, what you want in your heart, but then the reality of what would happen. I'm still kind of really processing that. That was really deep. But, you know, so, I look at this two ways. So the very kind of—you know, the marching orders that Trump goes out, and then he sends his minions out, and then they do what King Trump tells them to do.

And then they go out into the world, and they say things like, oh, I really don't know, and they do all the gaslighting. And, you know, dims will have these very passionate arguments. I know that they're filibustering. You know, they're doing all these things. They're walking through the policies. They have all these elegant arguments. But, you know, that doesn't matter when they've all agreed and signed a

pact, you know, figuratively or realistically. You know, clearly, they don't care about consequences. They really only care about fulfilling the wishes of one individual. And the thing for me, which is so interesting, to your point, Roland, about they about to FAFO, is why they still listen to Trump math. A part of this argument was, so many Republicans are scared to push back because MAGA or white-voting Republicans will, won't vote for them, and they won't be back in office. However, this own, this action that they are taking could also shoot them in the foot or the feet, right? So I'm just very, I'm very kind of like trying to figure out why such the extreme loyalty, why hold onto the Trump math, when we have seen numerous times that MAGA doesn't necessarily

guarantee a win in many instances? And then, specifically, when we're talking about a minority majority in Texas, this move doesn't add up to me. So I'm just trying to figure it out. You have a better understanding of congressional districts and the math and all these things. I need you to help me understand the math, because the math is not mapping. Well, but here's the deal. So, right,

this is a Texas Tribune article right here, a nonprofit interview. It says, Texas Republicans, including Governor Abbott, were reluctant to redraw the state's congressional maps then Trump got involved. Okay? So, they're so stupid. And they're such weak, impotent wusses, punk asses, that Abbott did not have the intestinal fortitude

or the cojones to tell Trump, hey, I'm the governor. We ain't doing this dumb shit. This is stupid. Look at this here. The majority of Texas's GOP congressional delegation was also aware of the idea with many members concerned that Republican map drawers could miscalculate and spread their voters too thin, thus putting their jobs in jeopardy

while trying to flip Democratic seats. Six people involved in internal delegation discussions told the Texas Tribune. Look at this here. Trump called him, get it done, cause that's what he wants to do. And the rally, Greg, is they don't know how to tell the thug no.

But this is where I need our people to understand, and we make this point all the time, that we help them when we don't show up. We, and everybody listening, there are more eligible black voters in the state of Texas than any state in America. More than Mississippi, more than Maryland, more any place in America. But we help the Republicans when we don't show up. Now, some of y'all, and I saw this story,

New York Times had this big story about how the Obama coalition is fracturing and all these different reasons, and it was like, oh, black people in Milwaukee are saying, this is what we haven't gotten from the Democrats. Okay, and a lot of you simple Simons out there, ah, there you go, you never say anything critical about Democrats, lie.

This is very simple and fundamental. This is extremely simple. If I'm comparing the two, and that is who supports civil rights and who doesn't, who attacks DEI, who doesn't, who bundles contracts that freezes out black people, who doesn't. I mean, I could play this game all day long. Who bundles contracts that freezes out black people? Who does it? I mean, I could play this game all day long.

I can literally sit here and walk through and make an argument as to if a generic Democrat is in office, a generic Republican, which one is more than likely going to side with issues that black people care about is likely gonna be the Democrat. Now, you judge every person based upon what their agenda is, but the point that people have to understand here, black people, is when we bitch and moan, tweet, post on Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, fan base, every social media platform, spills, spoutable, threads.

We complain about stuff. We complain about the brother being beaten by the sheriffs in Jacksonville. I would love to see the black turnout stats in the sheriff's race in Duval County. I don't care if he black, he black MAGA. See, the issue we're facing here, Greg, is that we are being willing participants in our own demise by sitting elections out and allowing them to be in power.

That's right. That's right. In fact, Roland, you said the major thing. That is the most important thing. Your home state in many ways, certainly in the area of voting rights, other areas as well, but when it comes to constitutional law in the United States of America and voting rights, Texas. Texas is the, in many ways, and Al Green said that a couple of weeks ago when he, when he, we came on the show, Texas is the kind of bellwether

and also the kind of forecaster of what's about to happen to the rest of the country. Yep. It's interesting in that letter that you read from that the Department of Justice's strategy is based on Milligan. Because Allen v. Milligan is the Alabama case. As you talked about, when you had Shumari figures on before that, before the election, when he came to the studio election

night. I mean, after election night, if you have been elected. That is the case, of course, as you reminded us, in Alabama, mirrored in some ways in Louisiana, where they used Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and applied what they called Farnburt v. Gingles three-pronged test to establish whether or not you assess after redistricting whether the plaintiffs got to prove that a minority group is sufficiently large and geographically compact to constitute a majority district in a reasonably configured way. Number two, the plaintiffs must show that the minority group is politically cohesive.

And number three, the plaintiffs must show that, under the totality of the circumstances, the political process is equally open to minority voters. Now, if they put that in that letter, and they did, you read it to us, then Roland, then Nolan, the question is, how do you define minority? In the state of Texas, you just told us, Roland, the minority is the whites. Now, what they are doing is previewing in Texas

what they are trying to fight in the country. They are about to be the minority. This is the genius of having to study Texas in particular. And your knowledge of Texas politics to the intimate level is just gonna grow more valuable moment by moment as we turn our eyes to Texas to understand that what's going on there is a preview of what they're gonna do everywhere else.

Now, two other things very quickly. The first is Donald Trump is like Bibi Netanyahu. He will do anything not to stay in, not to be in shape. So, he is only after anything that will preserve him. So, of course they're nervous in Texas. Of course Abbott is nervous. Of course that Senator King fumbling with that microphone as Brother Miles put that fire on his ass very explicitly is, it's very nervous. Why? Because they know there's only so much cracking and packing you can do before them people in your district. And finally, coming back around to where you started a second ago, Roman,

the determining factor will be the majority people in Texas who are not white. And here's the problem. And you framed it beautifully, brother. There's a book I'm reading called Meme Wars Now, which talks about how disinformation, if Reese wears she can walk us through a chapter and verse, how disinformation and memes and all this social media stuff is designed to do one thing in this country politically and one thing only, that is to confuse the people

who should now understand that demographically, they are not only on the verge of political power, they can destroy white supremacy. Certainly white nationalism in Texas. Our big fight now is to organize and run over these people like to see. Sure, crack the district if you want. Watch this. All of us going to vote, which means whether any of you vote doesn't matter. And enough of y'all are pissed off.

You got children dying from floods. You've got nobody handling this. Enough of them going to vote with us to destroy more districts than them hillbillies can ever gerrymander their way into controlling. Those are the factors that work. But you said the factor, when we vote, we win. The thing here, Nola, that,

and while we keep hitting this, it's now about to expand it. Young voters, when Beto O'Rourke lost to Greg Abbott for the governor's race 75% of voters 30 and under did not vote So the problem in Texas is not that Texas is a hard right red state It is an unorganized state. It's not been organized, it's not been mobilized. When Beto O'Rourke ran, he visited, he hit,

here's what people gotta understand, there are 254 counties in Texas. Democratic Party only has county parties in 81 of the 254. So you've got more than the majority of the counties in Texas that has no democratic presence. So, and I'm gonna take y'all back to 2012. This was the night Obama got reelected.

I'm waiting to go on CNN, Chris, then Congressman Chris Van Hollen, standing right next to me, because he's going on before I am. And now he's Senator Chris Van Hollen. And I say to him, man, if y'all actually would invest in Georgia and Texas, they could be purple. No, no, not going to happen.

And I was like, excuse me? I said, Representative Ben Holland, there are 2.2 million eligible, but unregistered Latinos in Texas. I said, you got 800,000 black people who are unregistered in Georgia? No, not gonna do it. I said, and that's why y'all gonna keep losing those states.

See, I need people to understand the map. When I say understand the map, I need people to understand. This y'all is, if you need 270 electoral college votes to win. Now, let me also help everybody who's watching so you understand what we're talking about here. The electoral map, the number of electoral votes in Texas

is the number of congressional districts in Texas. So you've got 40. And everybody listen to what I'm saying. Republicans cannot win the White House without Texas because it has 40. California has 54. When you look at the map, you look at the map, Florida has 30. So Florida is 30, Texas is 40, California is 54. Y'all, the reason Democrats can bank cause they can bank on this right here being blue. Boom, right here.

They said that can be blue. Republicans bank on Texas being red and Florida used to be purple. Florida is now red. They know you look at all this so you see. So all of a sudden, if Georgia is blue, oh crap, look at the numbers. You see what happened when Ohio became red,

when Michigan became red, was constant. I can't hear Greg, Greg is talking, so make sure your mic is on. No, I said, I said North Carolina too, so you saw Roy Cooper getting ready. Right, so that's right. I'm gonna get that as well. You take Virginia, okay.

Yonkin won Virginia, but the reality is Virginia is blue. Folk, you look at this here. Why are these Western states so important? Arizona is 11 electoral college votes. Nevada is six. That's 17. So I'm just walking you out votes. Nevada is six. That's 17. So I'm just walking you off through like this is class. Okay.

So look at the numbers here. Nevada is six. Arizona is 11. Georgia is 16. That means that Nevada and Arizona constitute one more electoral college vote than Georgia, 1716. Now let's go to the Midwest. Why must Democrats stop being so focused on Midwest?

I'll tell you why. Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Ohio constitute, you see it right there, 32 electoral college votes. But because of population shifts, those three states are losing population. Illinois is a blue state. Here's the problem with Illinois. Illinois is losing population. So the problem nationally that Democrats are going to have is that Florida is going to get more people from population. American history is full of wise people.

Well women said something like, you know, 99.99% of war is diarrhea and 1% is glory. Those founding fathers were gossipy AF and they loved to cut each other down. I'm Bob Crawford, host of American History Hotline, the show where you send us your questions about American history and I find the answers, including the nuggets of wisdom our history has to offer. Hamilton pauses and then he says, the greatest man that ever lived was Julius Caesar. And Jefferson writes in his diary, this proves that Hamilton is for a dictator based on corruption. My favorite line was what Neil Armstrong said. It would have been harder to fake it than to do it.

Listen to American history hotline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So what happened at Chappaquiddick? Well, it really depends on who you talk to. There are many versions of what happened in 1969 when a young Ted Kennedy drove a car into a pond. And left a woman behind to drown. There's a famous headline, I think, in the New York Daily News. It's, Teddy escapes, Blonde drowns. And in a strange way, right, that sort of tells you.

The story really became about Ted's political future, Ted's political hopes. Will Ted become president? Chappaquiddick is a story of a tragic death and how the Kennedy machine took control. And he's not the only Kennedy to survive a scandal. The Kennedys have lived through disgrace, affairs, violence, you name it. So is there a curse?

Every week we go behind the headlines and beyond the drama of America's royal family. Listen to United States of Kennedy on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. podcast. John Fogarty, Lil Wayne, LL Cool J, Mariah Carey, Maroon 5, Sammy Hagar, Tate McCrae, The Offspring, Tim McGraw. Tickets are on sale now at AXS.com. Get your tickets today, AXS.com. When your car is making a strange noise, no matter what it is, you can't just pretend it's not happening.

That's an interesting sound. It's like your mental health. If you're struggling and feeling overwhelmed, it's important to do something about it. It can be as simple as talking to someone or just taking a deep calming breath to ground yourself because once you start to address the problem, you can go so much further. The Huntsman Mental Health Institute and the Ad Council have resources available for you at loveyourmindtoday.org. North Carolina is going to get more people. Georgia is going to get more and they're actually

moving to Alabama, Mississippi but also Texas. So the next census, I mean people listen to me very clearly right now, the next United States census, the next United States census, it is projected that blue states are going to lose 12 electoral college votes. California, Illinois, New York State, Michigan. We'll see what happens with Wisconsin and what happens with Wisconsin. That's 12 which means that you're gonna have to replace the 12. Look this is not just about who controls the house. This is about how do you also control the power on the state level and so so, Nola, what I have been saying

to big money Democrats or progressives or independents, whatever you wanna call them, that if they were smart, and a lot of them are, they have to be serious, they have to simply do what the black folks in Georgia did. Statists Abrams, Warnock, and others, the New Georgia Voter Project.

You have to literally, they have to go into a room and say, we're going to allocate $100 million, and we're going to move a thousand people into Texas. And we're going to fund them over the next four years. And we have to flip three to five hundred thousand votes in the state. The voters are there. They have to do the exact same thing next door in Louisiana. So now all of a sudden, you don't need 100 million Louisiana, much smaller state.

But what you are now doing is you now are attacking what the Republican strength has been and that is a lack of organized, mobilized voters. And Reverend Barber talked about the 90 million who sit out. That's how you win. You're not going to win trying to convince suburban white women to not vote like their husbands. And listen, here's the thing, the momentum is there. The momentum is definitely there, especially in the South. I talk to people all the time who say the same thing.

We are here, we're tired of being ignored, and frankly, we're tired of feeling of South, I talk to people all the time who say the same thing. We are here. We're tired of being ignored. And, frankly, we're tired of feeling like we're not elite enough for the Democratic Party. Those are the complaints I hear over and over and over again. And Stacey Abrams, the work that they did down there in Georgia, Senator Warnock, the work that they did, that is a blueprint for what can happen.

And if the Democrats do not show up in this moment, if they do not capitalize on the momentum, if they do not understand the deep hurt, the deep pain, I would even argue, you know, I have said this time and time again, I'm not that interested in Trump's 30-something, 30-plus. There's a whole lot that's going on there with them. That's deep programming. That's deep conditioning. There's a lot that's going on there. But what I will say, for the folks who were looking for something different, who weren't necessarily MAGA and who voted for Trump just because they were they thought it would be something different from what was happening they might be amenable those folks who live in the south to make a choice to vote for democrats because they are hurting they are suffering and they also feel betrayed but i absolutely agree

100 the way that the party has thought for far too long that the South is lost, that it is a foregone conclusion, that is not correct. You have people who, it's the same argument that the Republicans made the last cycle and a cycle before that, especially the cycle before that, that people just want to be seen. Now, I don't know if that was just a favorable talking point, but I can tell you from my own experiences, from just talking to people all over the country, they want to be seen.

And they want to be engaged with. And I'll just say one last thing. When I was canvassing in North Carolina, I saw it for myself. When you would knock on the door and just simply just spend time with the person. And I mean beyond just knocking on the door and just simply just spend time with the person. And I mean beyond just knocking on the door and giving them some information really, really quickly and going on to the next door. I mean spending time talking about policies, talking about local

races, not just knocking on doors five minutes before an election. It can be done. The party just needs to have the appetite to do it because to your point, we will lose, we will lose valuable seats that we need, right? And where will you make those up? I don't know at what point the party decided that the South wasn't like us. You know, I don't know when that was party decided that the South wasn't like us. You know, I don't know when that was exactly decided. I mean, I know that it was, you know,

a series of things that happened, but that thinking needs to be reversed and it needs to be reversed now because people are genuinely, genuinely hurting. They are genuinely scared, not knowing what's going to happen. And states where there are military bases, states where there are DOD presidents, there are people who not only have you taken their funding for lunch away, Head Start and all that, and thinking that maybe the military might be an option with this secretary of defense,

with this president, people are also rethinking that option. So you have to go there and give these people options and spend time with them. The South is not lost. So let me show people this here. And again, and I need Robert Patilio joins us right now, and I'm taking the amount Patil Jones right now and I'm taking the amount of time I am on this because I need everybody watching and

listening to understand say what we're literally talking about right now is the future of the country. So this is the Texas County map I told you there are 254 counties so I'm gonna going to zoom this in. Okay. So the most populous county in Texas is right here. Harris. You see it right here. Okay. So you go Harris, you go up, Dallas County, you see Tarrant County right next to it. Tarrant County is the last major county in Texas that Republicans can control. Because if we go to the Hill Country, and we go where Austin is, okay, right there,

Travis, that's a blue county, okay? Travis is blue, Dallas County is blue, Harris County is blue, these are your major counties. And you got Bayer County, which is where San Antonio is. But look at that county that's right next to Harris. That's called Fort Bend, all right? Lot of black folks, and say, I need people listening because I think we make a mistake.

A story came out talking about Atlanta, no longer the Mecca, no, no, no, no, no. People understand. Black people are not just talking about Atlanta, no longer than Becca. No, no, no, no, no. People don't understand. Black people are not just living in Atlanta, they're living in metro Atlanta. Black people have changed the counties around Fulton County. You got to need to pay attention. I need everybody listening to what I'm saying, okay?

So, black people are changing Fort Bend County, okay? Harris County, you got Fort Bend right next to it. All right, now here, this was a New York Times story, and this New York Times story was done, this was October 23rd, 2022. Now you gotta know, I don't forget nothing. I want y'all to see this here. In Fort Bend County, Texas, things are changing.

Mosque and Hindu temples draw thousands, farmland is giving way to suburbs and some Republicans feel their county is becoming more like majority minority Houston. See, I had an anchor who wouldn't have me on the show because the white producers didn't like the title of my book, White Fear, and I sent this anchor this story, and I said, that's weird, the New York Times and NPR and Axial's all literally did stories on my book thesis, but your people don't like my title. Okay, so here's

what happened when you look at this here. I want y'all to understand, this is the headline. There, America is vanishing. Like Trump, they insist they were cheated. The white majority is fading. The economy is changing, and there's a pervasive sense of loss in districts where Republicans fought the outcome of the 2020 election. Now let me go through this story right here. Okay? Now, this story right here. Okay, now look at this here.

Troy Nils of Texas voted last year to reject Donald J. Trump's electoral defeat. Okay, that's one of those MAGA Republicans. Y'all, he's from Fort Bend County. So you start going through the story. Look at this right here, boom, second paragraph. The county in recent years has become one of the nation's most diverse,

where the former white majority has fallen to just 30% of the population. You go through this story. Hmm, look at this here. Don Demel said his parents raised him to be colorblind, but the reason for the discontent was clear. Other white people in Fort Bend, quote, did not like certain people coming here. It's race. They are old school. Hmm. Look

at this here. A shrinking white share of the population is a hallmark of the congressional districts held by the House Republicans who voted to challenge Mr. Trump's defeat. Hmm. Shows how white fear of losing status shaped the movement to keep him in power. But they didn't like my book, which is called White Fear. Look at this here, the portion of white residents dropped about 35% more over the last three decades in those districts. Huh, you keep reading this story. You keep seeing this story.

Uh oh, things changed, but I'm gonna show y'all something in this story, and again, stuff just sort of sticks out in my mind when I see these stories. The 12 Republican-held district that swung to minority white, almost all California and Texas, 10 were represented by objectors. Keep going.

Lawmakers who objected were also represented among the 70 Republican-held district with the lowest percentage of college graduates. Let's keep going. Look at this here. Start looking at numbers, okay? Numbers, now in this same story, it talks about the percentage in Texas.

It talks about, oh, how things change. It talks about the people moving in. There was a quote from somebody in this story who literally said, well damn, we don't wanna become like Harris County. What they're saying is we do not want to be black and brown. That's what this story is saying, okay? Look at this right here.

The same distrust drove feelings about the last election. He said, democratic elites in the big cities. They love saying the big cities, but guess what? Blue counties, 71%... First of all, no, I'm sorry. Blue counties in America provide 71% of the GDP to America. So they love shitting on blue cities,

but they love blue money. Republicans hate black people in Jackson, Mississippi, but guess what? Jackson, Mississippi funds the state of Mississippi. So the point I'm trying to walk through Robert here, y'all experienced this in Georgia. Georgia was controlled for the longest by rural white conservatives.

And it wasn't until rural blacks were organized when they changed the law to automatic voter registration, it was like 20% of the state wasn't registered, automatic registration, it dropped to 2%. Then you begin to see, wasn't just Fulton County, you begin to see black folks flexing power in the surrounding counties, but it had to be, Georgia had to change because it was a mix of city and rule.

So the blueprint for Texas, for Louisiana, had to change because it was a mix of city and rule. So the blueprint for Texas, for Louisiana, for other places, is that you have to recognize you can't just talk to black people in big cities. You must organize and mobilize it in rural cities, rural towns, but also most important, Robert, that is we have to go to black people. Listen, Obama won North Carolina by 14,100 votes because black people in those rural towns, they actually voted. We have

to get our people to understand the moment we set out a single election, we're literally writing our own obituary. You're absolutely correct. And a big thing that I think people have to realize is that the thing that changed in Georgia is that we started campaigning on local issues in local areas. You can't run the same campaign in Brunswick, Georgia, that you're going to run in the Bronx or Brooklyn or Georgetown in Washington, D.C. You can't be down in Lowndes County talking about San Francisco talking points. And what we end up with in national campaigns is this silencing of voices that are outside

the orthodoxy of what the consultant class tells us we're supposed to be talking about. So in the last election cycle, we were down in Georgia talking to young black men, just kind of hanging out, trying to motivate them to vote. But there was nothing in the National Party platform that they felt talked directly to them. And, of course, you can dig down into things and find points of that which we did, but they wanted to hear up front, loud and outside what they cared about. And that's what motivated them. Look at what Trump did on the other side of the aisle. He was able to pull in people who

have never been conservative a day in their life, because he spoke the language they wanted to hear. He addressed the issues that they cared about. So for the party orthodoxy, I think that they're going to have to have a soul-searching moment, where they leave the big cities, they leave the cocktail parties, they leave the Ivy League institutions, and they go talk to the actual people that they want to vote for them. And then they put policies in place that will affect them and will motivate them. And then, magically, those people turn out and vote for you once they actually believe in what you're saying.

It's not some sort of mountain that we have to climb. This is the type of grassroots advocacy that we have been doing in the black community since the 1950s and 1960s. We have been able to address these local issues. We have been able to deal with these issues in communities that may not agree with every part of the greater agenda and convince them that we're fighting towards a greater good. But then, lastly, when Democrats are in power, do what President Trump is doing right now for his base. He is going chapter and

verse everything he said he was going to do for them. He's just doing it. There's not excuses. There's not questions. There's not, oh, we have to wait two or three more election cycles. Politics aren't right. So, when Democrats are back in power, if you want young black men voting, address the issues they tell you they want addressed. If you want rural black America voting, address the issues they tell you they want addressed. If you want rural black America voting, address the issues that they want you to address. Don't start forcing what you think the issues need to be on them, address their issues, and they will turn out.

If you build it, they will come. So let me say this, and I know I'm gonna move on. Again, it was not my intention to do a whole hour on this, but it just happened. This is the piece that again, I need black people to really understand. And remember y'all when I did the breakdown, when I said, I'm sick and handy,

people talk about they tired. Greg, this is the thing that folk gotta get. that folk gotta get. If you step back and actually study black communities, the reality is that there was a group of black people who were really responsible for mobilizing and organizing black communities. In many ways, the structure was the black church, it was the NAACP, and it was other black organizations.

When Black Lives Matter began to really rise up, I remember having a lot of conversations with folks who were complaining about the organizations and the churches. And folks were saying, no, we're moving towards decentralized leadership. They were talking about all these different things. And I said to them, all that sounds great, but somebody got to make a decision. So here's where we are, and this is not talked a lot about in black communities.

It's not talked about. That generation is becoming ancestors. generation is becoming ancestors. So the problem is you had an infrastructure that was 365 that to Robert's point, Greg, they worked the city council election, the school board election, the county commissioners election, the DA's race, judicial races, state rep, state senate, gubernatorial, house, US senate, president. And what is happening is a younger generation has said, oh, we don't need to do that stuff because we've got social media.

But here's the problem. American history is full of wise people. Well, women said something like, you know, 99.99% of war is diarrhea and 1% is gory. Those founding fathers were gossipy AF and they love to cut each other down. I'm Bob Crawford, host of American History Hotline, the show where you send us your questions about American history and I find the answers, including the nuggets of wisdom our history has to offer. Hamilton pauses and then he says, the greatest man that ever lived was Julius Caesar.

And Jefferson writes in his diary, this proves that Hamilton is for a dictator based on corruption. My favorite line was what Neil Armstrong said, it would have been harder to fake it than to do it. Listen to American history hotline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So what happened at Chappaquiddick? Well, it really depends on who you talk to. There are many versions of what happened in 1969

when a young Ted Kennedy drove a car into a pond. And left a woman behind to drown. There's a famous headline, I think, in the New York Daily News. It's, Teddy escapes, blonde drowns. And in a strange way, right, that sort of tells you. The story really became about Ted's political future, Ted's political hopes. Will Ted become president? Chappaquiddick is a story of a tragic death and how the Kennedy machine took control.

And he's not the only Kennedy to survive a scandal. The Kennedys have lived through disgrace, affairs, violence, you name it. So is there a curse? Every week we go behind the headlines and beyond the drama of America's royal family. Listen to United States of Kennedy on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Our iHeartRadio Music Festival, presented by Capital One, is coming back to Las Vegas. September 19th and 20th.

On your feet! Streaming live only on Hulu. Ladies and gentlemen. Brian Adams and Sharon. Fade, Chlorilla, Jelly Roll, John Fogarty, Lil Wayne, LL Cool J, Mariah Carey, Maroon 5, Sammy Hagar, Tate McCragg, The Offspring, Tim McGraw. Tickets are on sale now Offspring, Tim McGraw. Tickets are on sale now at AXS.com. Get your tickets today. AXS.com.

And here's Heather with the weather. Well, it's beautiful out there, sunny and 75, almost a little chilly in the shade. Now let's get a read on the inside of your car. almost a little chilly in the shade. Now let's get a read on the inside of your car. It is hot. You've only been parked a short time and it's already 99 degrees in there. Let's not leave children in the back seat

while running errands. It only takes a few minutes for their body temperatures to rise and that could be fatal. Cars get hot fast and can be deadly. Never leave a child in a car. A message from Nitzea and the ad council You don't control the algorithm

Exactly so when you are having town halls community meetings precinct blocks Precinct captains going door to door doing those things, you are literally touching your people. You don't know if you're talking to a real black person or a bot on social media. And so when we talk about, because in the last five elections we've seen they dropping black turnout.

So what I need all of us to understand is, and again, I'm using my parents as an example. My dad turned 78 in April. My mom turned 78 in November. They worked the polls, they worked elections, they ran phone banks. They did all that stuff when they were in their late 20s and 30s.

So you're talking about 50 years of community activism that has to be replaced. And that is a major reason why our communities, not, Robert is right, Nola's right, not just democratic policies, but our communities are not organized and mobilized because the infrastructure, the people leading it, are passing away and retiring, and they're not being replaced by the next

generation. It's true, Ro. It's absolutely true. And it can be reversed. You know, brothers, I knew you were going to evoke your parents, who you went and poll worked with and watched them poll work as a child, as a young man. Texas, man, I keep coming back to Texas. You know, the tale of two doctors, both of whom went to Meharry. Lawrence Nixon, you all know the Supreme Court case, the voting rights

case out of Texas, Nixon v. Herndon. And the brother, Dr. Lonnie Smith. Lonnie Smith, the Smith versus Albright case, right there out of Houston. I tell you, brother, listen, if y'all ever in Houston, you gotta go by the Gregory School, the old Gregory School, which is a museum. They have a beautiful exhibit, which walks people through exactly what you just been saying.

Both these brothers, NAACP, in the case of Dr. Smith, you know, he went to Prairie View, I think Nixon went to Wiley College. But at any rate, both of them, and then they both went to Meharry for medical school, both doctors, one dentist, and they were organizers on the ground doing that work. And this is at a period, the NAACP and black folk in Texas have been at war with the white boys in the Texas Democratic Party for 20 years. Yes. It took 20 years.

That was in the courts. But when you organize, you can break their backs. And I come forward to 2025. How can we reverse this? Not just the HBCUs right now at Howard. All the young people are up in arms because there's been an increase in tuition. People talking about they don't have money,

all this going on. But guess what? It isn't just on Howard University or any of all of our HBCUs. How about all the historically black high schools and elementary schools and middle schools? And for that matter, all the community organizations that could organize and educate our young people

to reconnect, not to the broad tradition, as you say, but to the very local tradition, as you say, but to the very local tradition. Finally, Robert, brother, I thought about you this afternoon when the news came down that Glorilla's family called and said, it's like broken our house. And then people from Forsyte County, the policemen out there, found weed and arrested Glorilla. And the whole point is this. You walk in the streets in Georgia. We're walking the streets anywhere we are. In the D in the DC suburbs, you can walk across the street and go to the dispensary and show your ID and get whatever you want, weed, gummies, in Georgia, they got Gorilla locked up because she in Foresight County and I'm looking on social media and young people say what the hell is she doing in Foresight

County? That ain't the point. Them young brothers you hanging out with Robert, before you get into a philosophical debate and talking about voting rights and the concept, you say, man, don't y'all want to decriminalize weed? Don't you want me to walk in this, but yeah, well, you need to get your ass out there and raise to the vote. You can turn Texas blue tomorrow if you listen to those young people and talk to them.

And I'm wondering if, finally, the arrest of Glorilla today might have more of an effect on what happens in Georgia in the electoral cycle if we're smart enough to meet the people when they are than any other thing I can think of immediately to get those young voters. But I thought about you, man, because I said Robert would know how to make use of this. And on that point, Glorilla, if you are listening,

I am available for hire. Feel free to reach out to the Petroleum Group LLC for your marijuana-related arrest needs. Please make checks and money orders are payable to roll it. But Dr. Karch, to your point, imagine if, in the last election, before that, that Joe Biden had just decriminalized marijuana, which he had the power to do. You win the 2024 election. So, that's what I mean when I say you got to show and prove, show and deliver. Give the people what they want when they want it

because they want it all the time. It's not magic. It's not witchcraft. If you give people what they want, they vote for you. Trump understands that politics is transactional by its very nature. And Dr. Carr, one of my co-workers, Kennedy Shelton, is one of your students, and she wanted me to mention to you that part of the reason that you are so real as a professor is that you give these young people life lessons they can use forever. And politicians need to understand, you're not just trying to win the next election, you're trying to win the hearts and minds of a generation. We're going to have a generation of MAGAs. We need a generation of activists. I gotta go to a break, but folks,

the next conversation is gonna be really unsettling for a whole lot of black people. And when we come back, we gonna talk about why do black people bitch and moan to a black-owned business about the cost of a shirt, pants, or pair of shoes. But they will willingly spend two, three, four, five times as much money on something made by white people, and no money ever comes back to the black community. Yes, some of y'all gonna have a real problem with my conversation next.

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s martin dot com rolling at rolling mark unfiltered dot com. We'll be right back. This week on the other side of change. Doron Mamdani, the New York City mayoral race and this progressive wave that has sent such a shockwave through all of New York City and really the rest of the country. Jamal Bowman is going to help us understand what this mayoral election means and how we make sure that it translates across the nation.

Can you imagine national Democrats, like, identifying themselves as having flavor or riz or swag? Like, absolutely not, right? So hopefully the city does what it can in November to help resurrect this dying party and honestly just resurrect our democracy. Only on the other side of change on the Black Star Network. On the next A Balanced Life with me, Dr. Jackie. We're talking about leveling up, or to put it another way, living your very best life.

How to take a bold step forward that'll rock your world. Leveling up is different for everybody. You know, I think we fall into this trap, which often gets us stuck because we're looking at someone else's level of journey, what level of means to them. For some, it might be a business venture. For some, it might be a relationship situation, For some, it might be a relationship situation.

But it's different for everybody. It's all a part of a balanced life. That's next on Black Star Network. Hello, I'm Marissa Mitchell, a news anchor at Fox 5, DC. Hey, what's up? It's Sami Roman, and you are watching Roland Martin Unfiltered. It's been frozen out. Facing an extinction level of benefit. We don't fight this fight right now.

You're not going to have black on you. Okay, this segment is called Where's Our Money? And normally in this segment, we're talking about where's our money when it comes to businesses, advertising agencies, things along those lines. And the base of this is, so the Cincinnati Black Agenda, when they had a boycott in Cincinnati, I spoke there years ago, and they gave me this shirt. So on the back it says Cincinnati Black Agenda.

So this was, I mean, at least 10 years ago and they gave me this shirt so on the back it says Cincinnati Black Agenda so then this was I mean at least 10 years ago and it says where's our money okay so we're always demanding that so with so when I challenge y'all on saying Costco y'all support DEI but how many black-owned products are actually carried in Costco old black folks got in they feelings. Oh man, we can't be boycotting Costco. I didn't even mention boycott. I literally just said, can we ask the question and answer it, how many black owned companies have products carried in Costco?

Now, check this out. We as black people, we are the most brand conscious people than anybody else. Lord, we love awesome brands. We love us Nike. We love, we love talking about, we see in these commercials Versace, Polo, Ralph Lauren. I mean, we can name all of them. So the other day

Ralph Lauren rolls out this big announcement that they are celebrating black folks going to Martha's Vineyard, Oak Bluffs, to Inkwell, and they came out with a line of clothing that celebrates this. Now we know about that history, that one of the the brother who was the designer at Ralph Lauren, he's a Morehouse graduate, and people are like, oh yeah, look at that. They're celebrating our culture. And they came out with a line of clothing, Morehouse, Spellman, vintage clothing from back in the day, stop right there. So you see it, stop, no, stop, stop,

now go down, go, I wish I wanted to be with the tennis rackets. So people are like, oh, look at that. I mean, back in the day, how we used to dress up and they got the Morehouse logo and the Spellman logo. So now they got this new clothing line. And oh my God, it's exciting. It's absolutely exciting. They're limited edition.

Designed in collaboration with graduates of Morehouse, Spellman. Is Morehouse and Spellman getting a check from this? I'm just curious, just curious. See, it's no different than when Macy's was showcasing these colorful outfits of pink and green and blue and gold and red and white and blue and white. And I was like, the D9 groups getting any checks from that? But we just buying clothes from Macy's,

because the sister who was over that unit is a D9 member. And see, y'all see what I'm talking about. So check this out. Ralph Lauren ain't cheap. Ralph Lauren charging a whole lot for that. And y'all know, we'll sit here and we'll spend $300,000, $400,000, $500,000, $600,000, $800,000. You take Martha's Vineyard.

Martha's Vineyard used to be a place where a handful of black folks went, been going there for decades, summer vacation, families growing up. Martha's Vineyard now has turned into the black Disney world. It's so many Negro events at Martha's Vineyard and first let me be clear, y'all ain't gonna never see me cause I ain't trying to see nobody I know when I go on vacation.

I ain't trying to have no list. We ain't doing house, I've been invited by so many people, it ain't trying to have no list. We ain't doing house. I've been invited by so many people, it ain't happen. So stop asking me. But the reason I'm wearing this shirt wears our money is that's literally what black owned companies are saying. For just my next guess, Lenny Smith, CEO founder of Actively Black.

So he posted a video today and I saw it and I said, But just my next guest, Lenny Spence, CEO, founder of Actively Black. So he posted a video today. And I saw it and I said, yo, get him on the show. I ran into him at the airport in Houston a couple months ago. And this is what he said. He said, he said, they announced a partnership with black farmers Where they would source the cotton or I need y'all listen to me. They were gonna source the cotton from black farmers

for their products Which would mean actively black black on black farmers all throughout the supply chain, black people getting paid. And they got hundreds to thousands of emails and social media. Why does this shirt cost $60? Why does it cost this? But we ain't even gonna ask twice. Well, in fact, we ain't even gonna ask Ralph Lauren how much is that sweater.

We gonna say, ring it up. Lenny Jones is right now. Bruh, when I saw the video, I said, because I think back I'm going to get you sucker, Chris Rock. How much for all the ribs? Isaac Hayes gives them nothing. Can I get one? We walk into black stores.

Hey, partner, how much is this here? We ain't never asked Walmart that. Walmart say, it's a scanner right there, put that QR code underneath it, whatever that number shows, that much that sure it is. But we want the hookup, we want the lower price, but then we turn around and complain about lack of our black businesses. So I felt you 100% when you dropped that video, bro.

I appreciate it. I appreciate it. I mean, it's something that, I wasn't just speaking for myself. I wasn't just speaking for Actively Black. I was speaking for so many black business owners that deal with this constantly, where it seems as though our people don't value us

the way that we value other people's goods. And it's problematic. You know what I mean? It's like, I talked about the Ralph Lauren collection and gave props to those HBCU alum that are over there that created that collection. The collection is beautiful. I don't have no problem with them or the collection. But to your point, they have a shirt that's $128.

So I was just really confused as to how we get so much pushback and criticism for our shirt that's $60, asking why it costs so much. And when you look at the data, when you look at the data, Mackenzie released a report last year that showed that Black America spends $30 billion annually on apparel and shoes. That's every year we're spending $30 billion. And it was showing that the trend is actually growing. So by 2032, I think it's going to double. And it made me think we don't have a single black owned apparel brand that's worth a billion dollars, but we collectively are spending $30 billion a year on apparel. And we've taken the stance with Actively Black from the beginning that we were not asking

for a seat at the table, we're building our own table. But we need our people to collectively build that table with us. You know what I mean? And when I think about what we've done from day one in the community, we launched on Black Friday 2020. On Giving Tuesday, we were donating. So less than a week of our brand being in existence, we were already donating back into the Black community. Come on. Come on. And so, you know, if we're circulating our dollars back into the black community,

then buying from us is really supporting us. You know what I mean? When we spend this money with everybody else, it don't come back to us. Even when they give the... Hold on, I want you, I want you, I wanna put a pause there, cause I need people to really understand

what we're talking about. Yep. What you're talking about is, cause again, I like being real specific, you're talking about black graphic designers, black printing company, black transportation company, black caterer.

When I talk about set done by black folks. Initial lighting system, black. Green screen, black. Control room, black. I can go through the whole deal. So that means you're supporting a black owned company that's in turn supporting black owned companies, that's in turn employing black people,

that's feeding black families. Black families. That's providing families to go, see, that's actually what it does. So when the sister, so when the sister who was the makeup artist at TV One comes to me when the show got canceled, Roland got a thank you, she's like, why?

She said, well, because working on your show allowed me to buy my first house. That's the sister who later does the makeup for Supreme Court Justice Kataji Brown Jackson. So when Kataji Brown Jackson was in Vogue, she was made up by Sharon. And so people saw that, well, man, who did her makeup called Sharon?

So she's now gotten deals, but that was all because she got hired on my show. That's the whole point. And so what you're saying, what I'm'm saying is is Ralph Lauren giving back that quickly? Are they who are they hiring? See we love we celebrate one or two black people. Oh, man They design us a Ralph Lauren. Yeah, but is Ralph Lauren nothing is Ralph, but is Ralph Lauren Reinvesting in black communities like Actively Black. Right, right.

And I'll say this, I said it in the video, Ralph Lauren committed to $2 million to 12 HBCUs over a span of five years. It's on their website right now, you can go see it. And I said, now when you do the math, both $2 million divided by 12 schools is $166,000. And then when you divide that over a five year period, it's $33,000 per school, per year, right?

That's, that's a light bill for one Ralph Lawrence store. You know what I mean? I call it 33,000. Wow. I gave him $7 billion a year. That's what their annual revenue is. It's $7 billion. So in reality, if you calculate the prices

that they're selling that apparel at, when Black people went and bought that first HBCU collection that they released, that's the money that they just gave back to y'all at $33,000 per school. That's really what that was. They're not actually, there's no sacrifice. There's nothing coming out of what they profit

to actually give back to our communities. And that's the point that I was trying to make is actively black in 2023, we did $5 million in revenue and we donated $500,000. That's 10% of our entire revenue. So if you compare it to Ralph Lauren, Ralph Lauren does 7 billion, they give away 700 million. That same 10%. And if you look at the law and Ralph Lauren does 7 billion, they give away 700 million.

That same 10%. See. That's what the equivalent would be, 700 million. Boom. But they're giving away 2 million over the span of five years. Last year, I think we did 3.8 million last year, and I gave away 250,000. Two black organizations and that's who don't understand. Now see, now check this out.

Y'all go to my iPad. So this is Dapper Dan. Dapper Dan, well known in Harlem, how he was redesigning stuff and without permission. So Louis, Gucci, so what happened? how he was redesigning stuff and without permission. So Louie, Gucci, so what happened? Dapper Dan does a deal with Gucci. Oh, it's celebrated.

But guess what Dapper Dan said, Landon, he gave an interview, he said, I had to do the deal with Gucci because my own people were never going to pay the price for my products if it didn't have Gucci on it. If it just had Dapper Dan, they wouldn't do it. And so that's what your video is saying. We as black people, we talk about the black tax,

the black tax that black businesses have to confront when we as black people, we apply the same black tax to our own businesses. Yep. Yep. And that lack of, you know, I gave the analogy that we're comparing black owned businesses, the things that you constantly hear is whether it's the quality, the customer service, all those different things, right, that you're comparing to these multi billion dollar brands, right?

And it's a situation where how can a black brand scale to the point where they have the resources to now hire a full customer service team where they can improve the quality of their product, where they can do all of those things? Damn, man. Why it takes so long for your stuff to come? Well, there's a reason why you can order at 11 o'clock at night and that product for them is going to ship at seven o'clock the next morning because you have an entire infrastructure behind that to service those orders when,

as opposed to what you, I mean, like that's, right. So you trying to compare, you trying to compare me to them. And as you point, they do 7 million, you do 5 million and you like, yo, why y'all are the same? And not only that, not only that, but the inventory, in order to have ready-made inventory that can ship out immediately, that means a company has to front that

and buy that inventory ahead of time. And now, and now because of tariffs, now because of tariffs, your cost has now gone up. I was talking to a sister and and she she has a lot different products for she's a lot different products she said Roland FedEx wanted me to give them the full $80,000 check before they would even deliver the product. Before they even deliver it.

Because of the tariffs. Yep. Yep. And so when you think about sometimes the time that it may take for a black business, especially in the apparel game, it's like the risk and the cash flow that it would take to order all of this inventory ahead of time. You've got to guess, how much do I need in each size? How much do I need in each color?

So what we do to try to, for a solution is we put it up for pre-order, to let everybody who wants to order, order what you want in the size that you want. Now, if it's pre-order, that means that product doesn't start getting made until after we collect the orders. Boom. Then you have the issues of, well, what's taking so long? Why is it taking so long? I get mine from Nike or I get mine from whoever really fast. And it's like, okay, do you not understand that we do not have the capital resources to invest and take that risk of buying a million dollars worth of inventory up front to sit there and be ready to ship to you immediately. You know what I mean?

And you know, another thing that I've tried to educate our audience on is black business owners receive less than 1% of all venture capital investment. I want to make sure people understand. Hold up, hold up. Black businesses receive less than 1% of all venture capital, but venture capital is based upon the pension funds of public workers, and a significant number of them are black. Correct. Correct. So, whereas our white counterparts are able to go

start a business with an investment of multiple million dollars and they can go to friends and family and there's several stories of founders who have been able to gather up a couple of million dollars from friends and family to start their businesses. What I'm trying to get our people to understand is these brands that you're comparing us to are the skyscrapers that you can already see.

They are the shiny buildings that you can already see. They are the shiny buildings that you can already see. But when you see how a skyscraper is built, when they first start constructing a skyscraper, they dig 160 feet down in the ground. And that's where they start building the foundation from. And it takes a while before you even break ground. And then it takes a while before that thing is finished. And then you can see the shiny building that comes with that. What happens is most black-owned brands is we're building from under the ground. We're building from below zero. And we don't get the grace and the support for us to last long enough to even break the surface. You know what I mean? And so that's what we're

asking for. And so I'm not asking you to accept subpar service or subpar product. I'm not asking you for that. We're asking for the grace to understand that we need that time to grow into what has become of these other brands. Nike's 55 years old. Ralph Lauren, I'm sure is at what, 75 years old. These are brands that have been around for decades. Now if you go back to the time when those brands were started, do you think that there were any black entrepreneurs that were getting the business loans

that they were getting? I've read Shoe Dog at least five times. That's the memoir by Phil Knight about the beginnings of Nike. Phil Knight was able to get eight different bank loans to bankroll the start of Nike because they were not profitable and he needed another loan to last and another loan to last. How many black business owners do you think would be able to acquire that type of capital to last for years without being profitable, but you're still supported so you can grow to then become Nike? You know what I'm saying? So what we're saying is we need that grace while we're in these building stages

that maybe it don't look pretty all the time. There's growing pains that we got to go through. So what we're saying is we need that grace while we're in these building stages that maybe it don't look pretty all the time. There's growing pains that we got to go through. But if you don't stick with us during this time, we can't ever get to being what these other brands have become. And when you think about the buying power, the collective buying power of the black community, we don't have to wait for reparations for this to happen. We're already spending the money. So why not spend it with brands that are actually for us

and by us and are circulating those dollars back into our community? That's all we asking. Here's a perfect example. You can tell I've worn these shoes. So we featured rock, I'm gonna go to our panelists too with questions next. We featured rock deep global on this show.

And I have worn these black and gold shoes. They make all around the country. Man, Folk Stop, man. Man, those are fire. I mean, I've gotten more compliments on these shoes than any pair of black and gold Nikes I have. Here's the problem. Rock Deep Global don't have the capital.

The problem is, I talked to the brother. He said, man, in the athletic shoe game, you gotta have so many skews. You gotta have so many colors. You gotta have so many sizes. And guess what? I just sat here and I pulled up, I was Googling something and boom,

somebody drops a video, it's rock deep global. Are they stealing from customers? And so it happens all the time. And so what happens is a black owned company like yours, you now gotta deal with the folk. Are you stealing? Man, what's taking so long? All this other stuff along those lines.

And yet we will sit here and tear our black owned business down. It's different if someone is offering a customer service critique. But what we're seeing, what we're seeing and what happens is, when we're talking about how we will actively spend crazy amounts of money with white companies.

And man, we good. But to your point, we'll go, man, I ain't spending $60 on that shirt. Man, I've got some Nike shirts. I'm going through Dick's Sporting Goods. And I'm like, that shirt's $72? Right, right. And those pants are $84?

And on top of that rolling, the other thing that people need to understand is the economies of scale, right? So because Nike is doing, I think Nike does 50 billion in revenue, so the amount of product that they move, everybody can understand you get a discount for bulk buying, right? When they're getting their product from their manufacturing, they're getting it at low prices. So they're actually overcharging us based on what they're actually able to get their

product for. For Black-owned brands, we're not moving that type of volume. So that means it actually costs us more to make the same product. You know what I mean? And so our profit margins are much, much thinner. So when we're pricing at what we're pricing it at, it's because in order for us to provide a quality product, in order for us to pay black people a livable wage, in order for us to then give back to our community and make a profit, how do you expect us to be able to do that if we don't price our product at a place where we can make that profit?

Because here's the issue we're facing with Actively Black. The brand has been growing at such a fast rate that we have been behind in keeping up with demand. If we charged what we really should charge for our product, we would have more profit margin that we could reinvest into ordering more inventory so we can meet that demand. But if we have to be slim on our margins, where's that buffer that we can then go buy more inventory to meet the demand? We're having to recycle our profits right back into inventory. You know what I'm saying?

And so, you know, some of it is education, some of it is our audience needs to understand what happens in the supply chain, what it costs to actually do the business. And there's a lot of them that don't know, but even if you don't, my message is, is that we should value ourselves more than what anybody else is doing. And when you think about even some of those high-end luxury brands,

a study just came out not too long ago, it said 75% of luxury spending is being made by middle-class and low class on a social economic scale. 75%. So that means we spending the money with everybody else. We're just not spending it with us. And when you actually peel back them layers, half of that Italian leather is actually coming

from Africa. You see something that's made in Paris, made in France. Guess what? France don't have no gold mines. That gold comes from Africa. You see something that's made in Paris, made in France. Guess what? France don't have no gold mines. That gold comes from Africa. If you could see Greg Carr right now, he about to explode through the screen. The gold come from Africa,

the diamonds coming from Africa, the leather's coming from Africa. So what you're overpaying for, thinking that this is aspirational to be like somebody else, is actually coming from you. Right. It's actually coming from us. They steal the culture, repackage it, and sell it back to us, and we're willing to pay a premium to feel better about ourselves because we're wearing

somebody else's stuff. You don't know the whole time you are the sauce and the seasoning that they're selling. This is on the Actively Black website. I'm going to go to my panelists next. It says right here, 100% organic, black grown cotton, premium cotton made in America, sustainable from the seed to the stitch, dirt to the shirt. You see right here. And again, premium cotton made from cotton grown by black farmers. Folk, that means they are supporting black farmers.

We keep talking about losing black lands, support our black farmers when they get any federal money. So when you buy actually black product, you are sitting here also supporting the black farmers. Let's go to our panelists. Let's go to, I'll start with you, Nola. This is, I've really been wanting to talk about this since the news dropped about the Oak Bluffs,

Ralph Lauren line for a lot of reasons. And thank you so much for everything that you said and all the love and attention that you put into your clothes. I think is very special. I think it's definitely needed and I definitely understand all the growing pains. I understand supply chain problems, you know, all the things. American history is full of wise people.

Well women said something like, you know, 99.99% of war is diarrhea and 1% is glory. Those founding fathers were gossipy AF and they loved to cut each other down. I'm Bob Crawford, host of American History Hotline, the show where you send us your questions about American history and I find the answers, including the nuggets of wisdom our history has to offer. Hamilton pauses and then he says, the greatest man that ever lived was Julius Caesar. And Jefferson writes in his diary, this proves that Hamilton is for a dictator based on corruption. My favorite line was what Neil Armstrong said, it would have been harder to fake it than

to do it. Listen to American History Hotline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So what happened at Chappaquiddick? Well, it really depends on who you talk to. There are many versions of what happened in 1969 when a young Ted Kennedy drove a car into a pond. And left a woman behind to drown.

There's a famous headline, I think, in the New York Daily News. It's, Teddy escapes, Lon drowns. And in a strange way, right, that sort of tells you. The story really became about Ted's political future, Ted's political hopes. Will Ted become president? Chappaquiddick is a story of a tragic death and how the Kennedy machine took control. And he's not the only Kennedy to survive a scandal. The Kennedys have lived through disgrace, affairs, violence, you name it.

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Thanks. My two points are, and there's a question in there, you know, unfortunately, I think about this the way that I think about our current situation in politics. The folks who you want to educate, the folks who are buying the high end, they're not paying attention to the narrative and the story and the details because they're more interested in the status. They could care less about the care and attention that's going into the clothes making, you

know, or that the dollars are going back into the Black community. Unfortunately, this is where we are. We are in this very strange impasse right now, I argue with integration. Because a lot of what we're arguing for is really infrastructure for very Black-lived lives, very insular and segregated lives, which is the world in which I grew up in, in New Orleans. I think that's one part of it.

Then another part of it is, going back to the status issue, I remember I thought I was doing something when I was in grad school in Boston, and I bought a North Face jacket. Very quickly when I got there, I was like grad school in Boston and I bought a North Face jacket. And very quickly when I got there, I was like, you know, they were like, oh, okay, you must be cold with that little jacket on. I'm like, you know, I didn't know,

I didn't know about a brand called Canada Goose. You know, I didn't know about the thousand dollar weather coat, you know what I mean? And so again, it goes back to this whole thing about status, about how does the world perceive you? Do they perceive you one way in a North face? And do they perceive you another way in the Canada goose? Right?

So while it is some of these things that you all listed, we have to figure out how to take that status away, you know, from people who feel like that piece of clothing make them feel special. Yeah. Here it is, cotton, here it is. Cotton, here it is. Cotton is cotton. I mean, I understand your point, but no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Hold on. Hold on. No, seriously. Here's my whole point. You say we got to figure out how to take the status away. We first we what we have to train our people on is very simple. That, that shoe, that shirt, that pair of pants, that jacket, that tie, has nothing to do with your personal worth. That's what it's saying.

It's, but it's here. What has happened is, we have been such a subjugated people that our deal is, well, if I ain't got nothing, I'm clean. And so, oh man, you wearing that Versace. I don't own a shit in my house. I ain't never ever in my life bought a damn thing that's Gucci, Louis, Versace,

ain't none of them brands because my worth is here and not some shit that's gonna, I won't throw away in a couple of years. It's literally psychological. That's so Roland, that's what I wanted to touch on. I wanted to touch on that. We gotta reprogram black America. Got to deprogram and then reprogram for sure.

And that's part of what my mission for Actively Black is, right? People think we building an apparel brand. We're not really building an apparel brand. I keep telling people the clothes are just a uniform for the movement. And what I mean by that is like our tagline for Actively Black is there's greatness in our DNA, right? And that's been the tagline from day one.

And the reason why is because I believe the centuries of oppression, the centuries of being told that we're less than, not as smart as all those things, subconsciously that has seeped into the subconscious of some of our people where we actually believe that. Even if we don't admit it, some of us actually believe that. So the aspirational marketing that often happens with some of these brands leads us to believe that, man, if I can afford that Gucci, if I can afford that Louis, if I can wear that, that makes me somebody now, right?

And what I'm trying to deprogram and reprogram our people to understand is like, the greatness in our DNA is actually the only thing that the oppressors have not been able to extract from us, right? They've been able to steal our bodies. They've been able to steal our gold, our diamonds, they've been able to steal our freedom. They can't take the greatness that actually lives inside of us.

And so if I can actually get us to change how we view ourselves, then it'll change how we view these other things. I also said, you know, people think I'm trying to change what's in your closet. No, I'm trying to change what's in your mind. Because if you start understanding that we are the prize, if you start understanding that everything that becomes cool to Black culture

becomes cool to the rest of the world, then you understand that we are the blueprint. So you're chasing somebody else's status symbol, thinking that it's elevating you, when the truth is they're just stealing the sauce from what you already have naturally. So I'm trying to get us to see, you know, to me, when you think about luxury,

think about the fact that trillions of dollars, you could put it in chat GPT, you could look at the studies, trillions of dollars were generated off the cotton industry, right? Think about how much wealth we generated. And it wasn't just the labor. One of the reasons they took black bodies from Africa to bring over for this cotton was because of our genius when it came to agriculture and being able to grow agriculture on barren land. That's one of the reasons why we were brought over to do this. The American economy was built off of cotton, the entire American economy. It wasn't just the South. So when you think about the value that we have brought into the world,

why don't we see ourselves as that value? You know what I'm saying? That's... So it is psychological. So to answer your question, you know, I think we have to get ourselves to the point where it's like, oh, you wearing something black-owned? Oh, that's... that's aspirational. You know what I'm saying? Like, that's what it is.

That's the thing that we should be... And when you see the AV logo, it moves you as powerful as when you see the swoosh. Yes. 1,000%. 1,000%. And let's be clear here. All of those brands... I'll say this. I'm not anti anybody else, I'm just for us more than anybody else. But all of those brands, Louis Vuitton, much love to Pharrell.

He's a genius, he's a creative genius, and before him, Virgil, same thing. So I'm not saying his skill set does not deserve the job as being the head designer at Louis Vuitton, but let's not kid ourselves into thinking that they didn't also hire him because they thought that was an avenue to continue selling to the culture. Let's keep it real. Nike has an entire department that all they're doing is trying to figure out

what's cool to these black kids, what's cool to these black kids, so we can continue to market to everybody once we find out what's cool to the culture. They have departments in these corporations that focus on trying to figure out what are the new trends in the black community? And then let's take that and repackage it

and sell it to the world. We are the blueprint. And I'm just trying to get us to see that. You know what I'm saying? Like we can build our own Louis Vuitton. That's the only thing that I would say to Pharrell, to Virgil, rest in peace, to any of them. It was the one thing I was so disappointed in

with Kanye West before he became what he became was, bro, you don't need none of them. You don't need their power. You didn't need to be this. You don't need anything. We got this. You know what I'm saying? And who's gonna be the one to stand up and say,

I'm gonna do this for us with us, for us. And if it's gotta be me, then I'll take that role. Robert. Robert, you're on mute. Robert you're on mute. Robert you're still on mute. I know this ain't no gun. This was a gun, you know how to use it. It's my fault. It's my fault. What I think, the things I think we have to realize

in our community is part of the reason we don't have some of the nice things we would like to have is because we don't make paying for those things. We talk about the lack of black lawyers. I've been in business for a couple decades. Trying to get our community to pay us the same price that they pay other communities, nigh impossible. And the same because we want to give we want to give black people a black tax We tax black people, but we don't tax white people

And that's the point that was gonna make that the same people that they son get in trouble You give them a nice discount to get them out of jail They're going through a divorce and you help them them through that. You help them through their child support issue they got to go through. Then, finally, they get into a car accident with a truck, and the case is worth $250,000. And they can't get to a white lawyer fast enough. They still owe you money. And they will bust their neck and fall down the stairs just to get to someone else to give them more money, because they will believe the commercial on the radio that tells them they will get more money with somebody else.

Can you talk a little bit about this almost post-traumatic slave issue that we have in our community, where our folks still think that someone else's ice water is always gonna be colder, and because of that, they are always going to charge us a penalty, as Roland said, but be willing to pay a premium to get the same or lesser product from somebody who doesn't look like them.

Roland, you want to take that first? You want me to take it? No, you go ahead. You go ahead. Because I'm going to start cussing. You go ahead. I'm gonna start cussing. You go ahead. Yeah, I think it's just that inferiority complex that we have subconsciously accepted. You know what I mean? I come from a world of basketball. I used to be a basketball player.

I started with the Sacramento Kings in 2009 before a career ending injury ended my basketball career. You see a lot of athletes who will trust a white financial advisor over a black financial advisor because they believe that they know more or they can help them more. You know what I mean? It happens across the board. And yeah, I think unfortunately it's a psychological thing that our people have just not been able

to conquer. And I think that's one of the last barriers to actually getting us to get past all these things that have held us back. It's how we see ourselves. It's how we see ourselves. It's like we see ourselves as It's how we see ourselves. It's like we see ourselves as ops. We see ourselves as competition. We see ourselves as somebody to compete against

when the oppressor is the real enemy. It's like our focus is on the wrong things. And so, I don't know, that's one of the reasons why I started Actively Black. It wasn't just, the world doesn't need another apparel brand. This was more so something that I was hoping would change the minds of our people.

And, you know, we're giving a lot of attention to those who don't understand. I also want to give props to the tribe, to the supporters, to those who have allowed Actively Black to be one of the fastest growing at leisure brands in America, because they understand what they're supporting. And when I see those comments and I get that reaction,

when they're like, man, my chest, I poke my chest out a little more when I'm wearing my Actively Black. When I see somebody else wearing Actively Black and we give each other that head nod, acknowledging each other that we part of the tribe, like, that made me feel good. That's what we're trying to spread.

That's what we're trying to build. That's what we're trying to build. And so I think it's just gonna continue to take more of us building this way and changing the minds of our people. Percent, Greg. Rolling. Thank you, brother. Thank you.

Thank you. Brother Lenny, I am one of your informal brand ambassadors, brother. Thank you. Thank you. Brother Lenny, I am one of your informal brand ambassadors, brother. Every time a bag like this show up at my house, can you see that, brother? Can you see that? I can't. I can't. I can't see it. But I'm in the back. Is that bag black and gold? Yes, it is. No question. Listen, man, long before I knew that you and my sister, Gussie, and brother, LaRandy were down. This is the Houston. I've been supporting you, brother.

That hat you got. I got the X joint when you did the launch. I got the Wakanda joint when you did that. I got four of your bags. I love these bags. Include this joint. It's my everyday bag right here. Damn, Greg. Damn, Greg got books and bags. This is one of my favorites. Come on. Greg got books and bags. This is the new bag bag right here. Damn, Greg got books and bags. Come on. This is my favorite bag join right here. Oh, I ain't finished, because I have a question.

This is my everyday. I bring this little sporty join, the leather black join. I wear this one, too, because I don't want to wear them out. Your bags, first of all, high quality. I'm about 30 years past the body to be able to model the stuff. Like, you got them mouths on the website. Y'all wear them. He got the mouse on the website, y'all wherever, you got some mouse on the website. I sat on the shore of Galveston Bay on Juneteenth,

the day of the drop, ordered the cotton made hoodie, ordered the black logo hoodie you got on, ordered the t-shirt, and I'm happy to say they haven't come yet because I know you got swamped. If they show up before I leave for Egypt next week, I'm taking them to the Nile Valley. But this is where I want to go with this. I don't wear the American flag, brother.

I do not. But on the same day I ordered the Actively Black Cotton Drop on Juneteenth, I had the Juneteenth hoodie on in a hotel before I went over to order to Bay. And I went down to the Trump parade on July 4th with this joint on, especially because you partner

with your brother who made the flag, Boston Ben, and got the Juneteenth on. I was on that. I'm coming to the question, brother. But before I do, I saw one of my students at Howard with this hoodie on, with my man Cecil Williams out of South Carolina. When I see this here, I said,

I knew this brother's a partnership. Now, you got the Cecil Williams. If y'all don't know who Cecil Williams is, look him up. Shout out of South Carolina. When I said I knew this brother's a partnership. Now you got the Cecil. If y'all don't know who Cecil Williams is, look him up. Shout out to my girl, Kat Adams, who's on faculty at Claflin, who took me to meet Mr. Williams last year. But here's the thing, brother, and I say this with all due respect, you didn't say this, but I'm going to say it. I got colleagues at Morehouse and Spelman. I refuse to, I wear HBCU stuff all the time. I be damned, you won't catch me dead and nothing Ralph Duran has. And at Howard, I got former students who work at Jordan Brand and Nike who tried to get me involved with promotional when Nike, when Jordan and them, God bless Michael

Jordan, God bless him. But it's so much Jordan stuff on Howard. And I told them kids, they are not buying, they're selling. They're going to use your swag. And when they sell, kids, they are not buying, they're selling. They're going to use your swag. And when they sell, they gave us these bags for free, Dr. Carr. And then, no, that's the advertising. That stuff's going to be on the website, just like they did with Morales and Spellman when they first dropped this stuff.

But here's where I'm going with it, brother. Here's where I'm going with it. When I read in the New York Times a year ago, just about a year ago, that you had partnered with the Nigerians, brother, to do the Nigerian Olympic team. And when you rock this joint right here, what I want to hear from you. And I'm saying this.

I want the origin story behind how you got the Nigerians to let you outfit the Nigerian Olympic team, because my partner, who is an investor, by the way, she part of your tribe, some of my best friends in the world who are Nigerians, including one of my very dear friends who is in Killeen, Texas, who is Nigerian, got her sons to track suits. My partner got the track suit. How did you hook up with the Nigerians?

Because you are a true Pan-Africanist, and I want all you people talking about descendants of slaves. I want y'all to understand, this is how we win. How did you get the Nigerians on the Olympic contact, brother? And just let you know, talking about descendants of slaves. I want you all to understand, this is how we win. How did you get the Nigerians on the Olympic kind of track, brother? And just let you know, I'm your brand ambassador, brother. I'm constantly rocking for you, brother. Actively Black of Downwell.

I really appreciate you being part of the tribe. I really, really, from the bottom of my heart, Actively Black cannot exist without people like you, with your consistent and constant support. So thank you so much for the support. But when it comes to Nigeria, so I'm from Houston, Texas, born and raised. I played college basketball at the University of Houston. And when I was there, there's a track athlete named Sean Adigan.

American history is full of wise people. Well women said something like, you know, 99.99% of war is diarrhea and 1% is gory. Those founding fathers were gossipy AF and they love to cut each other down. I'm Bob Crawford, host of American History Hotline, the show where you send us your questions about American history, and I find the answers, including the nuggets of wisdom

our history has to offer. Hamilton pauses and then he says, the greatest man that ever lived was Julius Caesar. And Jefferson writes in his diary, this proves that Hamilton is for a dictator based on corruption. My favorite line was what Neil Armstrong said, it would have been harder to fake it than to do it. Listen to American history hotline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So what happened at Chappaquiddick? Well, it really depends on who you talk to. There are many versions of what happened in 1969 when a young Ted Kennedy drove a car into a pond.

And left a woman behind to drown. There's a famous headline, I think, in the New York Daily News. It's, Teddy escapes, blonde drowns. And in a strange way, right, that sort of tells you. The story really became about Ted's political future, Ted's political hopes. Will Ted become president?

Chappaquiddick is a story of a tragic death and how the Kennedy machine took control. And he's not the only Kennedy to survive a scandal. The Kennedys have lived through disgrace, affairs, violence, you name it. So is there a curse? Every week, we go behind the headlines and beyond the drama of America's royal family.

Listen to United States of Kennedy on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Our iHeartRadio Music Festival, presented by Capital One, is coming back to Las Vegas. Vegas! September 19th and 20th.

On your feet! Streaming live only on Hulu. Ladies and gentlemen. Brian Adams, Ed Sheeran, Fade, Chlorilla, Jelly Roll, John Fogerty, Lil Wayne, LL Cool J, Mariah Carey, Maroon 5, Sammy Hagar, Tate McCray, The Offspring, Tim McGraw. Tickets are on sale now at AXS.com.

Get your tickets today, AXS.com. In sitcoms, when someone has a problem, they just blurt it out and move on. Well, I lost my job and my parakeet is missing. How was your day? But the real world is different. Managing life's challenges can be overwhelming. So what do we do? We get support.

The Huntsman Mental Health Institute and the Ad Council have mental health resources available for you at loveyourmindtoday.org. That's loveyourmindtoday.org. See how much further you can go when you take care of your mental health. Hold on, what high school you want to? Hattawa High School, mostly Texas. Boy gone.

He got to get a Jack Yates line. He got to get a Jack Yates line. My head coach was Greg Wise. Greg Wise is the head coach over at Jack Yates. So shout out the co-founder of Actively Black, the black woman behind Actively Black, Bianca Winslow. Her father is Ricky Winslow, who's a Jack Yates legend. So, all right. Okay, you get a reprieve. Go ahead.

All right, all right. Appreciate it. And so, Chaon Adigan, she ran track at the University of Houston while I was playing basketball. She is black history herself. She's the only African to compete in both the summer and winter Olympic games. But heading into the last Olympic Games,

Team Nigeria didn't have a brand sponsor. What's her name? What's her name? Sheon Adigan, it's spelled like Sean or S-E-U-N. I know her, I know her. Yeah, yeah. I know her, go ahead. And so we became friends while we were at the University of Houston.

So fast forward, she knew what we were doing with Actively Black. And she asked if Actively Black could outfit Team Nigeria. They were looking for a brand, a brand deal. And I said yes, even though I had no idea what I was doing, because what's bigger than the Olympics, right? But also because it gave us an opportunity to show that what I'm building with Actively Black is not just for Black America. To me, what I'm trying to do is unite the diaspora.

Because when you see this logo, it's obviously Pan-African inspired. But when you look at the green that represents the natural wealth, the natural resources, the natural talent that we have as a people, when you look at the red that represents the natural wealth, the natural resources, the natural talent that we have as a people. When you look at the red that represents the blood, the DNA that runs through all of us, and you lean those together, that's where the elevation comes. So that's what this logo actually means. And our common enemy, the colonizers, have done a masterful job of dividing us in so many different ways

that we can't even see it enough to know that, man, if we actually unite, we outnumber them. We have more wealth than them. We have more power than them. So now we are divided in you Black American, you Jamaican, you Nigerian, you Brazilian. And we don't understand, we're not the global minority at all, you know what I'm saying?

And if we can ever find a way to unite all of us, then that's where our true power lies. So we outfitted Team Nigeria. And to be honest with you, man, it's one of the most proudest moments of my life because we went out to Paris for the Summer Olympics and I got to see, you know, I've got this picture that I'm gonna get blown up and framed.

We got to see athletes competing on the global stage and it was one athlete wearing Nike and another athlete wearing Puma and then an athlete wearing actively black on the global stage. It don't get no bigger than the Olympics and a black-owned brand that was three years old at the time was there, you know what I mean?

And yeah, that's a special moment for me. All right, Nola part two. Nola, go ahead. Oh, oh, I get to ask a question? Oh, hold on. The boys could ask a question. I can move along. So you wasting time right now.

Well, thank you, sir. Don't take my generosity. Girl,. You better go ask your question. Oh Lord, Lanny don't have my daddy. Text me if I leave no alone girl. Come on, but ask your question Lanny think oh my god Come on you gotta leave in four minutes. Come on. Lanny, my question is, please forgive his rudeness. My question, my question is, how do you, how do you think about the kind of, how do you

think about like, everybody is, everything is a vibe is what I'm trying to get at. Everything is a vibe, everything is, you know, energy, everything is a vibe. And as we were having this conversation about trying to kind of reprogram people to understand what we do, what we produce is beautiful. And it is the standard.

What is your approach when you think about marketing, when you think about social media, like what sorts of things does your team think about? Like, what's your approach there? Yeah, I think authenticity is the foundation that we built this brand on. So anything we do has to be real. It has to be authentic.

You know, even going back to the Nigeria question, we had half of those uniforms and outfits. We found a factory in Lagos, Nigeria to make that because I wanted that money to go to our people and for it to be authentic when they stepped on that global stage to wear it. So I think even everything that we do has to, it originates with authenticity. So when I think about social media, the content that we create, even,

me posting that video today, I was like, you know what, it may be some people that's upset with this, but I don't know any other way to be than my authentic self. And I think that's what people feel with the brand. And so when the marketing with the camp, yep. They'll get over it. And so I think the thing with Actively Black that has been, if there is any special sauce that I can share, it's, you know, we think about Nike,

we think about Adidas, we think about any of those brands. They want you to be a walking billboard for their brand and to promote their brand. The thing that has allowed Actively Black to be successful is our tribe doesn't see themse... They don't see themselves as the billboard for us. They see Actively Black as the billboard for them.

They see Actively Black as a brand that represents who they are. They not represent Actively Black. The tribe not representing the brand. The brand represents the tribe. And so when you can create something that people see themselves in, you can create something where people feel represented, they feel seen, they feel heard, they feel loved. That creates lifetime customers, but it also creates this community that we're building. And so that's the mentality I take into anything that we do with the brand is remaining authentic to who we are in the mission and the purpose.

And the point that I think people need to understand is that literally what Lanny just described, that's what makes people stand outside of a foot locker overnight to get the new pair of Jordans. I mean, this is not hard. I did an interview today with the Forrest Black and I kept saying it. I said, from the moment our black skin touched these shores

in 1619, we were the show, they were the business. And that's the reality. They want us to be the show. They want us to be the trendsetter. We literally sit, black girl creates a dance on TikTok, white girl recreates it, white girl gets paid. We are the standard. So it's like, I mean, we can take this singing, dancing.

I mean, we can go down the line over and over and over again, but we have to get our folk to understand this reality in terms of where we are. And, you know, I had a couple of years ago, the brother would see a collective. His brother is building a luxury brand. And he's like, yo, I got celebrities who want me to send them free stuff.

He's like, yo, I can't do that. Jim Jones goes into a, I forgot what the hell it was. One of them- It was a Louis Vuitton. A Louis Vuitton store and they ignored him for two hours. So then he went somewhere else and then came back talking about, yo, I dropped 30,000 worth of, all right.

That's not a flag. I literally, I literally, but I literally saw, I forgot his name. Who was, who was, I don't give a damn about them people. Who was Dayton Angela Simmons? They just broke up and posted like all these bags and it's Chanel and it's all is here. And the point L landed said earlier,

imagine what would happen when a black celebrity post on social shower in their woman with products, with luxury products from a black brand. The fan base is going to say, what's that? Black people took an orthopedic construction company as shoe, a Timbaland and turned that shit into a multi-billion. Yo, you couldn't, if you wore a pair of templates to school in 1979, your ass would get lit. But when hip hop dropped in 19 at all, it took the same ass construction shoe.

What nobody wearing them damn yellow tan ass thick sole. Y'all, we shift the culture. Shift the culture. But I keep saying, we are excellent at making other people rich, but want black people to starve. Well, Beyonce really gave Telfar a bump. Yeah.

But what I want us to do, I want us to make it to what Landra said, where it's an everyday thing. It's a conscious decision. It's a conscious decision to what bag you're seen with, what shoe you're seen with. I'm telling you, I wear, Nagast has sent me shoes, we had them on the show, Showcation,

I've worn their black shoes. People are like, man, what shoe is that? The Rock Deep Global. I'm like, listen, I don't even wear it. When we go anywhere, Roadmark, Unfiltered, I got those black and gold Rock Deep Global. And I was sad when I hit the brother. He said, man, listen, he said, we ran out of money.

He said, people don't understand how I always compete. And that's the thing people understand. When you're in the apparel business, you are competing against global behemoths. Yes. Yes. And they can buy 30,000 units, and if they only sell 5,000 of them, ain't no thing, discount that sucker, because they already know it was made cheap.

A black-owned retail y'all can cannot buy 30,000 pieces of something of one item. So we just have to understand what's at play here. And so that's why I wanted to do this segment. I'm telling the moment I saw the video I was like, yo book that shit. Because by Ralph Lauren calling it this limited edition, I'm telling y'all right now,

Negroes gonna buy that sucker out. We gonna be running around flexing our. The season is starting, gonna be here. Yeah, and I'm just, I mean that's. I will be butt-necked before I wear By any of them. I'm just telling you right now brother. You clothe me you saw it Roman is right Let me just ask one more question right? Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, you did a partnership Here's the Malcolm X joint, right? Could you say a word?

Uncle Max June, right? Could you say a word about your partnerships? Because I know you're... And not smart, you're growing. Man, I'm thinking about all these historically black high schools. I wasn't kidding about having the Jackie A shirts or Paul Lawrence Dunbar shirt here in DC. I'm thinking about all these HBCUs.

When you did Cecil Williams and I saw one of my students walk into class with the Williams hoodie on, I got mad because I stalked your website and I hadn't seen it yet, so I needed the 40. I know this place. But Claflin, South Carolina State, I was happy at the same time to see them with it. But could you say something about the intentionality of your partnerships, whether it be the brother Ben Haith

who did the Juneteenth flag or the Big Five Center? Yes, sir, please. Man, the partnerships have been incredible, but they're to your point, they're very intentional. So the very first partnership we did actually up on my wall, John Carlos and Tommy Smith, 1968 Olympics, you know, they stood at the podium with their fist raised. And I was inspired by a story that I read about Rosa Parks facing eviction. And I was inspired by a story that I read about Rosa Parks facing eviction. And it was actually a white man, I think he's the founder of

Little Caesar's Pizza that actually ended up paying her living expenses and her rent until she passed. And it pissed me off. It pissed me off that somebody who did what she did, you know, as part of the civil rights movement, that she would be elderly and all the people who made money off the civil rights movement, she was facing eviction. That really, really bothered my spirit. And so I started to look to see, are there any other figures like that that are still living that I could possibly help out?

And so contacted John Carlos and I was like, man, if you would give us permission to use your likeness to create a collection, we will make sure that there is a revenue share for any of that product that sold so I can pay you, so that I can help you financially. And he agreed to do it. And that was the first partnership that we did.

And it was just, it was special and it was powerful. He's become somebody who's been on my wall almost my entire life to now somebody who's like, who's a friend of mine, you know, and living piece of black history. So it kind of started there. And then, man, I got a shout out, Damon John, founder of FUBU,

because oftentimes we hear about, you know, black people, we don't look out for each other and we don't help each other out and all that kind of stuff, man. I had a meeting with Damon John who wanted to do a FUBU Actively Black collab and he showed up wearing an actively black hoodie and I just had to, I had to compose myself because growing up, man, when I saw FUBU, when I saw these four black men as the faces of the brand that they started, that was everything to me. To be honest with you,

that's the last time I ever bought Polo anything. When Fubu came out, Polo was dead to me. It was Fubu over everything. And so we were in the meeting and he asked me what else I was working on. And I said, man, I was really inspired about a movie, Black Panther, that really kind of was my part of my inspiration for starting Actively Black. I showed him the sketches of what I

thought a Black Panther Actively Black collab would look like and this man Damon John in the middle of the meeting he called the head of licensing for Marvel and Disney and he said y'all need to see what I just saw. And, um, damn. Take your time, brother. High quality. That's why I rock this hat. That's why I rock it. I hate getting the most of about the story, man, but, um... Tell us. Come on, brother. Come on, tell it.

Man, he picked up the phone and made that phone call, and two days later, I was in a meeting pitching the head of Marvel at Disney. Man, I'm sorry, y'all. Sorry. No, go ahead. Take your time. I own this shit. Don't worry about it.

And they fast-tracked it and approved it. And for Wakanda Forever, the sequel, we had the official apparel partnership for Wakanda Forever, the sequel, we had the official apparel partnership for Wakanda Forever, and that was, like, the first thing that really kind of put our brand on the map. And then Lani Ali, Muhammad Ali's wife, found out about us because of that partnership, so she called, and she was like,

I want y'all to do something for my late husband, Muhammad Ali. That's how we got the Muhammad Ali deal. And then it just kind of became a snowball after that. That's how we got the Muhammad Ali deal. And then it just kind of became a snowball after that. You know, we've done, we've got partnerships with Bob Marley estate, the Tupac estate. You know, we, it's just, I've got some that I can't announce yet

cause they coming out, but it's just, it's been a snowball effect. But I will say that all of those partnerships, there's a meaning and a message to all of them. Malcolm X estate, Martin Luther King estate. We have collaborations with all of them. And we tell a story through the through those collaborations. And it's something I'm very proud of. I'm honestly very humbled by it because these are all people that

I grew up learning about. You know, Huey P. Newton, the Black Panther Party, Fred Hampton Jr. We got a collection coming with him to honor his father, Fred Hampton. These are things that I just sometimes I got to pinch myself because it's hard to think that these pillars in the Black culture, the Black history are people that we're able to do these collections for. So yeah. American history is full of wise people. Well women said something like, you know, 99.99% of war is diarrhea and 1% is glory.

Those founding fathers were gossipy AF and they love to cut each other down. I'm Bob Crawford, host of American History Hotline, the show where you send us your questions about American history and I find the answers, including the nuggets of wisdom our history has to offer. Hamilton pauses and then he says, the greatest man that ever lived was Julius Caesar. And Jefferson writes in his diary, this proves that Hamilton is for a dictator based on corruption. My favorite line was what Neil Armstrong said, it would have been harder to fake it than

to do it. Listen to American history hotline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So what happened at Chappaquiddick? Well, it really depends on who you talk to. There are many versions of what happened in 1969 when a young Ted Kennedy drove a car into a pond. And left a woman behind to drown. There's a famous headline, I think, in the New York Daily News.

It's, Teddy escapes, blonde drowns. And in a famous headline I think in the New York Daily News it's Teddy escapes, Lon drowns and in a strange way right that sort of tells you the story really became about Ted's political future, Ted's political hopes. Will Ted become president? Chappaquiddick is a story of a tragic death and how the Kennedy machine took control. And he's not the only Kennedy to survive a scandal. The Kennedys have lived through disgrace, affairs, violence, you name it. So is there a curse? Every week we go behind the headlines

and beyond the drama of America's royal family. Listen to United States of Kennedy on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Our iHeartRadio music festival presented by Capital One is coming back to Las Vegas September 19th and 20th streaming live only on Hulu. Ladies and gentlemen, Brian Adams and Sheeran, Fade, Chlorilla, Jelly Roll, John Fogarty, Lil Wayne, LL Cool J, Mariah Carey, Maroon 5, Sammy Hagar, Tate McCrae, The Offspring, Tim McGraw.

Tickets are on sale now at AXS.com. Get your tickets today, AXS.com. Don't let biased algorithms or degree screens or exclusive professional networks, or stereotypes. Don't let anything keep you from discovering the half of the workforce who are stars. Workers skill through alternative routes rather than a bachelor's degree. It's time to tear the paper ceiling and see the stars beyond it. Find out how you can make stars part of your talent strategy at tearthepaperceiling.org, brought to you by Opportunity at Work and the Ad Council. Thank you for asking that question about our partnerships. It's been it's been special for

us. All right then. Thank you. Last question I have you talked early about funding whatever. Where are we are y'all on that? Are y'all talking to other investors? Are you looking at doing a crowd fund? Go right. Absolutely. Absolutely. So we opened up our first round at the end of 2024 through WeFunder. It's a crowdfunding platform that actually allows people to invest and get equity in your brand. So one of my big picture visions for this was that Actively Black is black owned,

not just because I'm black, but because the actual tribe owns the brand. And so we hit the maximum that the actual tribe owns the brand. And so, um, we hit the... we hit the maximum that we could hit at the time. Um, we're going through our financial audit, uh, to be in, uh, good standing with the SEC so we can open it back up. So we will be opening back up that WeFunder

in six weeks, seven weeks. So, September, it will be back open. And we are inviting the tribe to invest in Actively Black. You can own a piece of what we are building. Um, and this is something that I want to remain Black-owned. We're not looking... we're not looking to sell this to nobody else. Um, so, in the vein of those partnerships that we've had, we've also turned down partnerships.

We had a partnership with Pelotar that was on the table, and I felt like they disrespected the culture. I feel like they disrespected our partnership by wanting to water down the branding. They felt like we were too boldly black and they wanted to water that down. So we pulled out of the deal, you know what I mean? So there's no amount of money that's gonna move us

from where we stand and our integrity on what we're building. So, yeah, y'all get ready. The Tribe, get ready. In September, we will be opening back up the WeFunded to invest in Actively Black. All right, then. Well, we'll be looking for that. Lander, we certainly appreciate it. Thank you so very much for joining us.

Thank you for having me. All right, folks. So, again, what my intention was is to only do two stores, but that's how those things happen. The bottom line is when we look at what's, you can go pull up Greg and Robert. The thing here is that when we talk about this, the point you made earlier, Greg, no, pull up Greg and Robert,

please. The thing for me, the point you made earlier, Greg, no, Greg and Robert please, the thing for me, the thing for me right here is that, and this is why we, why this show matters and I keep trying to explain to people, there is not a single network in America that would have devoted that much time to Texas redistricting, it ain't gonna be the only time, but also a black owned product. I ain't gonna name no names, but I've seen numerous black, prominent black accounts

post and see, we ain't doing it. I'm not gonna run it, cause they ain't getting that free. I've seen numerous prominent black social media accounts post that Ralph Lauren video. Yes sir. Not even realizing they're giving them free advertisers Ralph Lauren Does not I need everybody listening what I'm about to say right now Ralph Lauren does not have to spend a

single dollar Advertising its collection because advertising its collection because black folk have given them millions of dollars of free publicity by running the video showing the clothes all sort of stuff we did it for context sake but you see when't spend all that time on it. And see, Robert, that's the thing that we don't get. We are literally giving it away for free. Robert? Robert, Robert's frozen.

All right, I'm gonna go to Greg. Greg, Robert frozen. All right, I'm gonna great great. Go ahead. You know me rolling out. There you go. There you go. I can't Emma. I don't think they had me. Yeah. Um, listen, brother, I can't, you know, not not again. Tonight was special. It really was. Both those stories put it exactly where it needs to be. We are in a country now, the United States, that's about to be fundamentally renegotiated, whether we want it to be or not. The desperation of this Trump administration is just the tip of the spear of the larger desperation. When you wrote in White Fear about the nature of White Fear, you named what we are seeing right now.

How we react to it was the second hour. It's got to be self-determination, and it can't stop at the shores of the United States of America. Brother, I can't even express to you what this does for my soul because there are moments when, and this is for everybody listening, when you feel and see the thing that's in your spirit, you recognize that that's the road we have to be on. I wasn't kidding when I saw them drop the thing in Atlanta at the AUC with more outs and swim. I called some of my friends, one of faculty, some of them who were in the marketing campaign

and said, what are y'all doing? They said, well, you know, we want to support this and it's important for us, no problem. And as I said, when Jordan came to Howard and Nike came to Howard, everybody went and they called me and said, do you want to be? No, you won't catch me dead in any of that. And when they gave out all that free stuff

and those young people gave more free advertising to Jordan, brand and Nike than you can imagine, I said, are we that dense? And I'm talking about some well-intentioned people in both those spaces who wanted to do something for black people. And then as you say, when this thing dropped, this Martha's Vineyard thing, I'll be butt-necking.

I promise you, before I wear a stitch of that. But when, this comes back to the Black Star Network, brother, this brother, Lanny Smith, and what he's doing with that small number of employees that he has that is now growing, the connection with the Nigerians, that expression of pan-Africanism, reaching elders like Cece Williams and John Carlos, and that's actually how my sister, Gussie,

she was working with John Carlos to help put that together. That's how I first found out about Lanny Smith. And then my point, but my point is coming to this. In our heart, we know, we know, but when we don't think we can win, we start making deals. You haven't made a deal, Ro. You didn't step out on faith, although faith was present. You stepped out on knowledge and the certainty

that when we do what you did, we will win. Lanny stepped out on that same thing. It wasn't just faith, it was education, and it was knowledge and certainty that we will win. And what happens when that happens? I promise you, brother, next year, five years from now, 30 years from now, 40 years from now, as this thing is renegotiated, crumbles, and is remade in different places, you're going to look

like a prophet. Lenny going to look like a prophet because the thing that we can do, that we have done before, we're going to do it again. Listen, every time he drops something, you know, I'm an educator, so I ain't got that kind of money, but I promise you right now, I'm gonna get it. And when you have that signal, it's like the nod in the airport that you get. It's like the acknowledgement on the bus

or walking down the street when we see each other and we do that head nod, that's what that's the equivalence of. Our victory is certain, brother. We just gotta stay on this path. And thank you, thank you for the Black Star Network because we wouldn't be having this conversation anywhere else, and this what's going to free us. So here's what I need people to understand first of all Robert Signal is frozen so we appreciate Robert being on the show. Here's

what I need everybody to understand. We could have made the segment all about Ralph Lauren and Polo all about Ralph Lauren and Polo, and Oak Bluffs and Martha's Vineyard and get caught up all in that. But no, focus on the black-owned brand. There's a reason we have shopblackstarnetwork.com. Give me a shot of that. There's a real, y'all, these are all black-owned products that are sitting to my right.

We use toilet paper, we use tissue, We use barbecue sauce. We use relish We use cocktail mixes we do popcorn. We do we buy apparel. You got it. Yeah, we we do all of that That's why they shop black star network calm Y'all hear me say this all the time I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you.

I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you.

I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you.

I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you. No. In our marketplace segment, we actually had this black-owned drapes company. And I said, hey, we're going to have a green screen in our next studio. They said we can make that for you. Done. I didn't put that out for bid. I said done. It's intentionality.

And this is what our people have to understand. We can't keep complaining about the condition that we are in. Listen to what I'm saying. We can't complain about the condition that we are in if we're unwilling to have a counter that then removes the condition. YouTube literally told me, y'all, I'm not making this up. YouTube literally told me black news will not work. They were funding all sorts of different things. In fact, when George Floyd was murdered, YouTube put out an announcement that they were going to spend $100 million

worth of content for black content creators. And we saw that, and my frat brother and I, Todd Brown, co-founder of Urban Edge Network, we immediately called. I had done this project for them, and I sent an email to the chief revenue officer. And he put me in contact with the person. We were on the phone. And the woman who was on the phone said they didn't have a plan yet.

They literally had no plan. Like no plan. They were still working through it. Here's the story right here. This was in Variety right here. YouTube creates $100 million fund for black creators and artists and so sets fundraisers special host about Common and Kiki Palmer. I said, y'all, this thing went all over.

So we called, you know, they said, oh, we don't have a plan yet. Well, then a woman tells us she worked at other places, and they had all these budgets, and she didn't have one. So you know what ended up happening? She actually, it was her idea, 50 million of the 100 million went to her department. And the other 50 million went to content creators. So one of the things that they did,

they did these big old specials. I mean, I participated in one of them, these big old specials. And I was like, they probably spent three to probably three, five, six million dollars on this thing. And it did maybe a million views. And I said to them, I said, do you know what you could have done? You could have taken the same five million

and literally given half a million dollars to 10 black content creators and you would have generated more views than you did with that whole deal. You would have funded 10 and I walked through the whole thing and they were like, shit, you're right. But that wasn't the intention. So we do this to be intentional so you

are aware of what's going on. And I could easily, we could have talked about Trump, some other bullshit, talked about Jeff Epstein, talked about all sorts of other. I'll save it for Monday, these crazy ass Karens. But what I need our people to understand is that if we did not have this conversation with Actively Black Today,

you were not going to see it on ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, Fox News, any of these networks, you're not gonna see it on any of these. And in fact, you're gonna have black people and they got nothing against Abby Phillip or who will clip some crazy shit that Scott Jennings said on her show and put it on. See, it's the same thing. Y'all, it's the same thing.

It's the same cycle. We will clip something on CNN, but not clip Roller Martin Unfiltered. We will be seen wearing a Louis, but we're not gonna carry a black luxury product. I'm telling y'all. Can I just say? I do this for a living.

When I wear something black-owned, man, what's that? What's that? Got them so-and-so, go to their website. Imagine if your top 100 black celebrities did that. You would change the economic climate of black-owned businesses overnight. Greg, go ahead.

Absolutely. No, I didn't wanna to interrupt you, brother. Because I know you won't say this, but I want to say this to you and to everybody with you listening. Not only will they do that, what you'll see now with Actively Black, as a result of what you've done tonight, you will see other black content creators who now become

aware of Actively Black, who watch your show, platform Actively Black, and not mention you, go on. Yeah, and it's like- Which is okay, but I'm just saying, they're not gonna, but they're not gonna connect to, yeah. I'm just saying that because I want you to hear that. Yeah, and I just want people to understand that you can literally, everything we're talking about,

we can literally, everything we're talking about, we can literally change the paradigm. We can literally change it. I am not saying that black people alone, because here's what we know. When we create stuff, they also buy it. They buy it too, because when they see us wearing it, they want to wear it. So this is actually black is not for blacks only.

It's not. We can change the game. I just want us to understand power is in our hands. But we cannot complain about what we're not getting when we won't even support our own. And that was the whole point. The first story, you can't complain about what you don't get politically if you don't vote.

And you can't complain about why we don't have a billion dollar black retail apparel business when you're giving your money to Ralph Lauren and Nike and you're ignoring Activity Black and other black companies. It's as simple as that. Greg, thanks a bunch. Wanna thank Robert and Nola for also being on today's show. Folks, this is why this show was created.

I said, when I turned TV one down, I turned $330,000 down, it was a three-year contract per year. And I said no, because they could not tell me what I was going to be doing. Yes, I turned that down June 2018, and I turned it down again in August of 2018. The contract was up.

My contract was up August 31st. They told me the night before Rita Franklin's funeral when I was there, that hey, they were not gonna do a deal. I said, no problem. I knew they were not going to also talk about my contribution, so I had already written a 2,500 word story

breaking down what I did. We launched Rolling Mark Under Filtered on September 4th, 2018, with 157,000 YouTube subscribers. If I look right now, we are sitting at 1,835,059. We're approaching 2 million. This was about, and I also launched it because Tom Giorno was retiring in December 2019.

And I said, we've got to have a strong black media on media presence for the 2020 presidential election. And that was the case. And it was on 2024. What we're seeing right now, the absolute efforts to defund Black America economically, civil rights, legal, everything, you have many folks in Black-owned media who are silent.

They're talking about hair and beauty and makeup, and the latest Housewives show, the latest whatever the hell. We are not going to be able to build a thriving black America if we're so fixated on entertainment and sports and we don't cover anything else. So when I asked you to support the show, and I'm very clear, I said it. We're not sending hats and t-shirts and bumper stickers and coffee and mugs, stuff like that, cuz all this stuff cost money I'm gonna reinvest it right back into the show

Because we need to be able to have the platforms to build and grow I heart so yeah, I remember the 13 year old kid Noah. I offered a show on the spot the DNC His dad asked what the crazy amount of money that I'm like, I can't pay that. Well, they announced yesterday they're doing a deal with iHeartRadio. Okay, that's fine. That's fine. It was a part in iHeartRadio and the podcasting network

that Angela Rye owns with Charlamagne. You know what? That's fine. That's fine. Because we've got to have multiple products out here. But understand, I'm still looking for a Gen Z. I'm still looking for Gen Alpha. Because we're not going to allow others to dictate how we move in the future.

We have an opportunity to control our destiny, but you cannot control your destiny if you cannot control your community's economics and if you cannot control your communication mediums. Here we don't ask permission to talk about black people. We center black people. We don't ask someone how long can we talk about black people. There's no asking of permission. And the only people or the only entity that can cancel this show is God. Colbert got canceled.

Other shows, Joy Reid got canceled because bosses made those decisions. There is only one boss here. That's the difference between being an employee and being an owner. Support Rollerbar unfiltered the Black Star Network. You want to join our Brendan Funk fan club. Our goal is real simple, get 20,000 of our fans contributing

on average 50 bucks each a year. Can't do that, we totally understand. Appreciate anything that you can give, you can give more, it's great as well. Those 20,000 folks that they give 50 bucks a year raises a million dollars, which goes to offset our expenses here great as well. Those 20,000 folks that they give 50 bucks a year raises a million dollars, which goes to offset our expenses here, which are $195,000 a month.

You wanna give you a cash app, use the Stripe QR code. Cash app change all of the rules, so therefore we don't have those accounts because they changed the rules. So use the Stripe QR code, you can use that QR code for credit cards as well. All y'all are watching on YouTube, hit the like button. Hit the like button y'all,

because that impacts the algorithm. Check some money order, make it payable to Roland Martin Unfiltered, mail to P.O. Box 57196, Washington D.C. 2003-710196, PayPal R. Martin Unfiltered, Venmo RM Unfiltered, Zail, Roland at RolandSMartin.com, Roland at RolandMartinUnfiltered.com, download the Black Sun

Network app Apple phone Android phone Apple TV Android TV Roku Amazon Fire TV Xbox one Samsung Smart TV of course. Be sure to get my book White Fear how the brownie of America is making white folks lose their minds available at bookstores nationwide get the audio version I read on audible when

you buy the book and download the money comes right back into the show, folks. Support Get Our Swag, our hats and t-shirts and mugs and all that good stuff. Go to shopblackstarnetwork.com. Don't blame me, I voted for the black woman. Matter of fact, let me do this here. My girl Alexis Herman with NABJ.

Alexis sent me a, Alexis Jancy, she sent me a photo today. Hold on one second, oops, oops, I'm sending to the wrong one. Let me see if I can get it to my iPad right here. All right, so here's a photo right here of Alexis wearing her Don't Blame Me. I voted for the black woman shirt, so Alexis, I appreciate that. I told

y'all if y'all do this, tag me in social media and I appreciate it. And let me shut up my man Steve McKeever. Steve McKeever is, Steve is in, hold on let me find the photo. So my man Steve sent me this. Let me find the photo. So my man Steve sent me this. I don't know who this guy is, but I appreciate him rocking our shirt. Remember I was at the NBA All-Star game, people were like, yo, I gotta get one of those shirts. Well, actually that was happening, y'all.

And so let's see here. Did it actually go through? Let me see here. My man was, so check this out. This is, I don't know who this white guy is, but he was somewhere and my man Steve McKeever sent me a text message. He said, man, look, look who this dude is wearing your shirt.

And so I was like pretty cool. I think I found, let's see here. Let's see, I think, yeah, so this was a photo of Steve sent me. So I appreciate Steve sending that to me. Uh, and then matter of fact, again, y'all, I don't know where the hell they were, but my man was sitting here proudly when don't blame me. I voted for the black woman shirt. Uh, here's a video, uh, that Steve sent me as well. Let me pull this video up. And so my man was sitting here enjoying himself and the music rocking one of our shirts. And so I appreciate

Steve sending me the video. And so y'all never know who you're going to see somewhere rocking. Roland Martin unfiltered. Don't blame me. I voted for the black woman shirt And so yeah, I appreciate that folks get us up at shop blacks. I networked calm All right, and don't forget if y'all want to also Get the other black home products go to shop black start network calm Don't forget also if you want you want to download the app fan base if you want to support them invest in them Go to start enginecom forward slash fan base. Tomorrow folks, we're going to be doing a soundcast

with a legal analyst, Candace Kelly. She did the podcast with Malcolm and Jamal Warner. Well, from seven to nine PM Eastern tomorrow, they're going to be doing a tribute. Malcolm left the mic on. And so that's going to be seven to nine. We're going to be soundcasting that right here on Roland Martin Unfiltered and the Black Star Network as well. I

will be live in the first hour. I'll be live in Las Vegas. Beyoncé has her last two shows of her Cowboy Carter tour in Vegas tomorrow and Saturday. So I'll be hanging out with Bey tomorrow in H-Town, my Houston homegirl and so we'll figure out which cowboy have them gonna rock. Folks, that's it. I'll see y'all from Vegas tomorrow, right here, Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network. Join I Heart Radio and Sarah Spain

in celebrating the one year anniversary of I Heart Women's Sports. With powerful interviews and insider analysis, our shows have connected fans with the heart of women's sports. In just one year, the network has launched 15 shows and built a community united by passion. Podcasts that amplify the voices of women in sports. Thank you for supporting iHeart Women's Sports and our founding sponsors, Elf Beauty, Capital One, and Novartis. Just open the free iHeart app and search iHeart Women's

Sports to listen now. I'm Bob Crawford, host of American History Hotline, a different type of podcast. You, the listener, ask the questions. Did George Washington really cut down a cherry tree? Were JFK and Marilyn Monroe having an affair? And I find the answers. I'm so glad you asked me this question. This is such a ridiculous story.

You can listen to American History Hotline on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So what happened at Chappaquiddick? Well, it really depends on who you talk to. There are many versions of what happened in 1969 when a young Ted Kennedy drove a car into a pond. And left a woman behind to drown.

Chappaquiddick is a story of a tragic death and how the Kennedy machine took control. Every week, we go behind the headlines and beyond the drama of America's royal family. Listen to United States of Kennedy on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. This is an iHeart Podcast.