Menace, Movement & Momentum Featuring Kate Powell, Gloria J. Browne-Marshall and Dr. Ashleigh Brown-Grier

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Welcome. I'm Erik Fleming, host of A Moment with Erik Fleming, the podcast of our time.

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I want to personally thank you for listening to the podcast.

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If you like what you're hearing, then I need you to do a few things.

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Your subscription allows an independent podcaster like me the freedom to speak

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truth to power, and to expand and improve the show.

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Second, leave a five-star review for the podcast on the streaming service you

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listen to it. That will help the podcast tremendously.

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Third, go to the website, momenterik.com. There you can subscribe to the podcast,

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make this moment a movement.

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Thanks in advance for supporting the podcast of our time. I hope you enjoy this episode as well.

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The following program is hosted by the NBG Podcast Network.

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Hello and welcome to another moment with Erik Fleming. I am your host, Erik Fleming.

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And today we've got another jam-packed episode. And I'm just here to let y'all

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know that until the election, we're probably going to be jam-packed all the way through.

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But this episode, I have three women who are hell raisers in their own right.

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As far as just, you know,

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the causes that they're committed to, we're going to be talking about protesting

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and advocacy and HBCUs and all that good stuff.

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So we just, I want you to sit back and enjoy this episode because these three

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dynamic women are the epitome of why March is Women's History Month.

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And I hope you enjoy the conversations as much as I did having them.

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And so, yeah, I would love to hear what you have to say about that.

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And also, if you want to subscribe to the podcast, all that stuff,

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you can go to www.momenterik.com and do all that stuff.

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If you want to catch up on some past episodes with dynamic guests that we've

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had on the show, feel free to do that as well.

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But yeah, I think you're going to enjoy this episode.

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And I hope that you have been enjoying all the episodes leading up to that.

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So without any further ado, let's kick this program off.

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And as always, we kick it off with a moment of news with Grace G.

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Thanks, Erik. The FBI is investigating a shooting at Old Dominion University,

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where a previously convicted terrorist killed one person and injured two U.S.

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Army personnel before being neutralized by a group of ROTC students.

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Security personnel shot and killed a suspect who crashed a truck into a Detroit-area

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synagogue's preschool wing, preventing any casualties among the 140 students.

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Trump-backed candidate Clay Fuller, and moderate Democrat Sean Harris will advance

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to an April 7 runoff for Marjorie Taylor Greene's vacated House seat after neither

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secured a majority in the Georgia special election.

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Mississippi's primary results set up a Senate showdown between incumbent Cindy

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Hyde-Smith and Scott Cologne,

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while Congressman Benny Thompson easily fended off a primary challenge to secure

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the Democratic nomination for his long-held House seat.

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President Trump has threatened to withhold his signature from all future legislation

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until Congress passes the Save America Act, which would mandate proof of citizenship

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for voter registration.

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New Mexico authorities have launched a search of Jeffrey Epstein's former ranch

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following DOJ documents alleging that two victims may be buried on the secluded property.

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Alabama Governor Kay Ivey commuted the death sentence of Charles Sonny Burton

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to life without parole, just days before his scheduled execution.

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A federal appeals court blocked the Trump administration from ending temporary

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protected status for 350,000 Haitians.

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Jeremy Carl withdrew his nomination for a senior State Department role following

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bipartisan criticism of his past comments about the Holocaust and his promotion

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of the Great Replacement Theory.

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A federal judge invalidated Carrie Lake's previous management decisions at the U.S.

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Agency for Global Media, ruling that her appointment as acting CEO was illegal

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under federal vacancy laws.

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And South Carolina's measles outbreak has reached 993 cases.

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I am Grace G., and this has been a Moment of News.

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All right. Thank you, Grace, for that moment of news.

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And now it is time for my guest, Kate Powell.

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Kate Powell is an administrative juggernaut who fundraisers and runs nonprofits for a living.

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In her spare time, she likes to bother our legislators and public administrators

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into maybe doing their jobs.

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She advises people to learn the dark arts of advocacy and become an absolute menace.

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Ladies and gentlemen, it is my distinct honor and privilege to have as a guest

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of this podcast, Kate Powell.

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All right. Kate Powell, how are you doing?

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I am pretty good. Just, you know, contemplating the imminent demise of our republic.

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No, I'm just kidding. I'm actually, most days I'm pretty hopeful.

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Today I'm in a pretty decent mood. The weather is warm and I am having a lot

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of fun hassling some people who are trying to do illegal things in our democracy

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as usual. So it's a good day. Yeah.

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So we're going to get into your skill set for hassling as we get into this interview.

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I've been following you on social media.

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And, you know, there's a number of people that I follow as far as content creators.

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And, you know, all of you have a unique style.

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But I really like you because you have described yourself as a menace.

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And we'll get into that in some detail. But I thought that was a pretty interesting

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moniker to stick on yourself.

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So I'm honored to have you to come on.

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Oh, thank you. Yes, ma'am. So the very first thing I do is I do a couple of

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icebreakers. And the first icebreaker is a quote that I want you to respond to.

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And the quote is, we have the most beautiful thing, but we're going to have

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to fight to keep it and make it fulfill its own promises.

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What does that quote mean to you? Oh, my God. I couldn't encapsulate,

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I think, where we are any better than that.

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I, when I look at the history of our country, I can say pretty definitively

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that I don't think it's really ever fulfilled its promises.

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But I also think that it's so striking that in the entirety of the history there

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have always been people for whom the promises are not being delivered and yet

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are are fighting for it and believe in it and hope in it and so I just that

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that's you know on days when I wake up and I'm,

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tired I'm sick of it I'm over it you know another country is looking really

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good right now I draw inspiration from stories of people who were even in darker times than this,

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relatively speaking, and yet they felt that this thing was so beautiful,

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or at least its promises were so beautiful, and that it was their duty,

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their calling to fight for it.

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And so that quote, I think, is not only awesome, but also is the most perfect

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rallying and crying because it's uttered by people for whom, again,

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the promises of the United States have never been delivered.

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It's never been, you know, opportunity and justice for all.

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You know, we say that and we want it. And I think we've had some really great moments.

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But then, of course, we've also had moments where it was very clear that that was not true.

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But we keep marching. That is the soul of this country is that,

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like, we're going to keep pressing towards it.

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Yeah. All right. Now, the second icebreaker is what I call 20 questions.

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So I need you to give me a number between 1 and 20. A 6.

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All right. What do you think was the worst or best thing the previous administration did?

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Worst or best, so I can go either or. Yes.

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Okay. Ooh, okay, this is a tough one.

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I think the worst thing they did Was not make Harris the heir apparent from the get-go,

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That waffling between Well, no one really It wasn't even definitive if Biden

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was going to run again, right?

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And I firmly believe he did not need to run again ever I voted for him in 2024

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But I, you know Because obviously the other option was what we're doing right now.

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But i i will i really cannot find any justification for not even having a plan

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right from the get-go and then when he did try to run and then when it was clear

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that was not going to work,

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on top of a part and parcel of this being the worst is how to me they really threw kamala harris,

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onto the altar of their own mistakes.

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And I really, I hated that for her. I hated it for her just as a person,

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but I also hated it for her as a Black woman.

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I was like, this is unacceptable to treat her this way, to make her the sacrificial

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lamb, because y'all couldn't figure it out.

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And, you know, when you look at the campaign that she was able to do in 107 days, I think,

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It's a miracle she didn't lose by more. I really don't understand the vitriol

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that's been directed at her for losing.

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She was set up to lose and yet still came within striking distance of Trump.

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So I understand policy-wise that the Biden administration did advance a lot,

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though, of course, we're seeing most of it being unraveled right now.

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And there's a lot more policy-wise that I wish they would have done.

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But I usually get fixated on the part where there was no plan.

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There was no plan for what comes next.

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And Kamala Harris ended up being the collateral damage in that.

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And I think that's pretty unforgivable.

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So, I love that phrase, the alter of their own mistakes.

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That's the first time I've heard it said like that. And that's pretty powerful.

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Powerful enough for me to ask this question. Do you think that that taints the

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legacy of his presidency, the way that he ended it?

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Oh, yes. I don't think it's, I don't think it needs to be like,

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You know, in all or nothing, I try to avoid all or nothing. My psychologist

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would be so proud right now for me saying that.

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I do try to avoid being so black and white.

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But I do think that, you know, again, we have a history of, you know,

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using certain groups of people, black women would be one of them,

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as easy collateral damage.

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You know, like, well, we can we can sacrifice that.

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And I just from the moment they put her forward, I was hopeful she would win

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and also knew what this was.

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Because the Democratic Party could just blame her.

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Right. If if they didn't if they didn't win.

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And they still kind of continue to do that, even though I think the post-op

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was pretty clear about what happened.

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And I think that, and I know the DNC is kind of scrambling around right now

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from other similar issues as they look into 2028.

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If they want to move past all of this, if they want this to not be their legacy,

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whether it's like Biden's legacy or just the legacy of the Democratic Party

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in Trump too, they're going to have to reckon with this.

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They're going to have to be able to just like face it and say out loud what

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they did, because what they did was heinous.

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So you read 107 Days, I take it.

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I have not read it yet. Oh, you have to read it.

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I know I do. I've seen lots of excerpts and some of her interviews and whatnot.

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And it's on my list of, there's a long list of books that I need to read.

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But I've, and then I've also talked to some people who have read it,

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who I respect their opinions very much. And when I've told them my thesis of

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her being the sacrificial lamb on the altar of their mistakes,

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they're like, yeah, basically.

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I'm like, okay. Yeah. Like, I

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mean, I'm glad. Again, it was like I was watching it in real time. And...

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You know, I, I really, yes, you're right though. I need to get on that quickly.

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Yeah. If you, if, you know, in this day and age, just, just get the, uh, just get the audio.

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That's what I did. I got the audio cause she actually narrates it so that to

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me that, that, that brings it more to life. Yeah. It's her story.

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Yeah. So that's cool. Do you think she should try

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it again in 28 or should she just say you know what it's been

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fun i'ma i'ma enjoy this

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public private life okay so

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i would love for her to do it again i

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i would i would if she

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were to announce a 2028 run i would do literally anything that i could do to

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support that campaign i don't know that doesn't mean anything probably to her

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but because i'm you know it's not it's not like i'm a mega influencer or who

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can really move the needle that much, but I would literally throw everything I could behind it.

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I would also completely understand if she was like, I'm out, I'm so done.

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But I really think if we're,

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you know, back to my point earlier about reckoning with what the Democratic

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Party did in 2024 and not really being able to move forward until they go back and deal with that,

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that to me is probably one of the most definitive ways that they could do it is if they would just,

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put her up as the nominee in the appropriate amount of time which is going to

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be soon-ish it needs to happen in like you know the end of this year really

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you know like that's about the time when they really need to start being like

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this is this is our you know this is our horse and.

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But, yeah, I really, in my, like, the world of fantasy that I sometimes live

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in of, like, what does justice look like? I think that that's what it could

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look like is Kamala Harris, 2028.

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Oh, yeah, no, but I was just going to say, but I also understand she's like, forget this crap.

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I wouldn't blame her whatsoever. But, you know, the reason why I push that because

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that's on brand for you because that seems like a menace move.

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That seems like a move where it's like, yeah, I'm going to show you.

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Exactly. That's what I wanted to do. I'd be like, oh, you thought.

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And I just, I truly, I would. I would be so proud to be under such a president, truly.

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Anyway, I could go on about that forever.

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So how did you first get interested in politics?

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Because this is going to be, I want people to kind of understand your background.

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So I've divided up your background question into three parts.

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So the first one is, how did you get interested in politics?

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Well, I've always been fairly interested and pretty civically engaged.

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You know, I'm one of those who, if I have an issue, I'll go to the city council

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meeting. I'll go to the school board meeting. Not all the time,

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but, you know, enough to, and not just to complain.

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I will go to thank them for doing the right things. I will, you know,

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I do believe in, you know, holistic engagement. You know, if you only show up

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to yell and scream when there's a major headline.

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I'm not saying that that's not powerful and that it doesn't need to be done.

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I am saying that if you want access to your electeds and you want them to take

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your word, you know, weigh your

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words more, being more consistent and data driven and as fair as possible.

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Like I try to be, even though sometimes I am just trolling the people that I'm

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calling. But, you know, but I also do try to call with facts and logic and whatnot.

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And that that is so that's the thing that I've always kind of done.

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Once Trump won in 2024, it became clear to me that this was going to be an existential fight, and,

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And that's when I turned up the volume on my consumption of what was happening.

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You know, as I said, I was very, very supportive of Kamala Harris's race.

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I was like, oh, my gosh, like, I might actually tune into the Democratic Party

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if we can clinch this. And then I was like totally frustrated,

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obviously, as we just described.

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But then I was like, regardless of how I feel about the Democratic Party right

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now, this is this is a war.

00:19:36.344 --> 00:19:42.364
Pretty much exactly as I predicted, the most vulnerable, transgender people,

00:19:43.424 --> 00:19:49.004
the Latin community, immigrants, whatever, insert whatever here,

00:19:49.264 --> 00:19:50.684
are the ones being crushed.

00:19:50.884 --> 00:19:53.824
Black women are facing the highest unemployment.

00:19:54.084 --> 00:19:57.084
Their unemployment rate is completely disparate with everyone else's,

00:19:57.124 --> 00:20:00.844
which we were actually beginning to close that gap. And now it's like tenfold

00:20:00.844 --> 00:20:02.044
worse than it was before.

00:20:02.344 --> 00:20:04.524
So it's truly awful.

00:20:04.924 --> 00:20:12.024
And so that's what started me getting into the nitty gritty of federal politics in particular.

00:20:12.424 --> 00:20:14.304
And because my background is in,

00:20:14.424 --> 00:20:18.264
I have an MPA, a Master of Public Administration. I also run a nonprofit.

00:20:18.624 --> 00:20:24.704
So I'm used to how committees work and boards work and the process by which

00:20:24.704 --> 00:20:26.984
legislation and budgets run through.

00:20:27.224 --> 00:20:29.924
Now, obviously there were there was still a ton I had

00:20:29.924 --> 00:20:33.004
to learn like about what the parliamentarian does

00:20:33.004 --> 00:20:35.844
and like I'll get into all of these things so I really

00:20:35.844 --> 00:20:39.084
started covering the big beautiful bill and that's what kind of

00:20:39.084 --> 00:20:41.744
started the traction online was and that was I was doing it

00:20:41.744 --> 00:20:45.224
for me because I was like what the hell is this reconciliation process and as

00:20:45.224 --> 00:20:50.344
I was unpacking it in lifetime people started following along because I think

00:20:50.344 --> 00:20:54.364
that was also an interest because some creators would grab like certain major

00:20:54.364 --> 00:20:58.124
headlines about it but I was covering like every single step of like every single

00:20:58.124 --> 00:21:01.264
part of the Big Beautiful Bill, which was obviously massive thousands of pages.

00:21:02.535 --> 00:21:04.815
So that that's kind of the trajectory.

00:21:04.835 --> 00:21:09.015
It's like I always understood the process, like on a macro sense.

00:21:09.255 --> 00:21:14.095
And I've got a lot of work experience that gives me a lot of insight into how those processes work.

00:21:14.435 --> 00:21:19.375
So and, you know, insight into like call this subcommittee about this particular thing.

00:21:20.135 --> 00:21:25.975
And and then I just had to throw some gasoline on fire for this for 2025,

00:21:25.975 --> 00:21:29.675
because once it became clear that it was going to be worse than I even thought

00:21:29.675 --> 00:21:33.615
that it would be, I just couldn't sit around and do nothing.

00:21:34.415 --> 00:21:38.935
So that's how you elevated to menace status. That's how you decided,

00:21:39.335 --> 00:21:43.775
okay, why do you describe yourself as a menace?

00:21:44.971 --> 00:21:49.211
I think it was one of the calls that I made during the Big Beautiful Builder

00:21:49.211 --> 00:21:53.211
was there was a big committee vote that was going to happen the day, the next day.

00:21:53.791 --> 00:21:58.951
I sat down to do a marathon of calls, calling every single member of this Energy

00:21:58.951 --> 00:22:02.791
and Commerce Committee in the House to tell them what their Medicaid enrollment

00:22:02.791 --> 00:22:05.351
rate was in their districts, which was data that I had.

00:22:05.431 --> 00:22:09.371
I had, so I pulled up the congressional health dashboard, gave me the Medicaid

00:22:09.371 --> 00:22:10.571
enrollment rate for every district.

00:22:10.571 --> 00:22:13.631
I called every single member on that committee and was like,

00:22:13.711 --> 00:22:19.271
in case you forgot, your enrollment rate's 44% in your district or 18% or 25%.

00:22:19.271 --> 00:22:22.631
And it's this many points over the national average and all this kind of thing.

00:22:23.051 --> 00:22:27.131
And I started the video saying, watch me be a menace.

00:22:29.491 --> 00:22:33.871
And it just like, I think just it, it stuck with me.

00:22:34.131 --> 00:22:36.831
It stuck with a lot. A lot of people were like, oh my gosh, like,

00:22:37.051 --> 00:22:38.351
you know, way to be a menace.

00:22:38.351 --> 00:22:46.731
And I think that part of, you know, part of what everybody is so frustrated

00:22:46.731 --> 00:22:50.271
about when it comes to our Democratic Party, for instance,

00:22:50.591 --> 00:22:54.891
is that lack of fight that they were seeing, especially in the beginning of 2025.

00:22:54.891 --> 00:23:02.451
I think it's getting better, but that it was like, why are you not like doing

00:23:02.451 --> 00:23:05.931
more? And so that menacing kind of just, I think, became like...

00:23:07.054 --> 00:23:10.514
Well, I'm no one, right? I'm not in Congress. I can do absolutely nothing,

00:23:10.514 --> 00:23:17.034
but I can waste a bunch of y'all's time and kind of take away all of your plausible deniability as well.

00:23:17.394 --> 00:23:20.834
It's not like you didn't know because at least one person was telling you.

00:23:21.614 --> 00:23:26.434
And ever since, you know, and since I started that whole like menace campaign,

00:23:26.654 --> 00:23:28.454
I've gotten a lot of messages from people.

00:23:28.594 --> 00:23:32.554
They're all very, very sweet saying like, you know, I now call my elected state

00:23:32.554 --> 00:23:35.894
league and I menace them to hell about my particular issue.

00:23:36.234 --> 00:23:42.614
And that, I think, is so—it's the only thing that's going to get us through

00:23:42.614 --> 00:23:45.674
this is keeping our electeds on notice.

00:23:46.234 --> 00:23:50.994
And I think that's what the whole, you know, go be a menace or have fun— now

00:23:50.994 --> 00:23:55.094
I end every video or all of my congressional videos with, like, have fun being a menace.

00:23:56.094 --> 00:24:00.994
And just—I think my final point on that is that people are generally trying

00:24:00.994 --> 00:24:03.434
to— we're trying to live in a society, right? We want to be friendly to each

00:24:03.434 --> 00:24:04.694
other. We want to be kind to each other.

00:24:04.954 --> 00:24:08.314
We don't want to live in, like, fisty cuffs with our, you know,

00:24:08.414 --> 00:24:11.854
our friends and neighbors and family and even our life officials on a regular basis.

00:24:12.654 --> 00:24:20.654
But to kind of take away the idea that it's wrong to raise your voice in opposition

00:24:20.654 --> 00:24:23.034
to things that are obviously wrong, right?

00:24:23.034 --> 00:24:29.214
It's maybe you need to be a little less polite with people when we're talking

00:24:29.214 --> 00:24:32.954
about food or, you know, human rights.

00:24:33.534 --> 00:24:38.854
I don't really feel the need to, you know, couch it in, you know,

00:24:38.934 --> 00:24:41.294
oh, if you could get to this, that would be fantastic.

00:24:41.514 --> 00:24:43.654
It's like, no, I actually expect you to do your job.

00:24:43.954 --> 00:24:46.254
There's a constitution over there that you swore to uphold.

00:24:47.394 --> 00:24:51.274
So anyway, hopefully that all made sense. It's a lot of different things.

00:24:52.074 --> 00:24:56.274
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Now, you know, I was an elected official,

00:24:56.274 --> 00:24:59.734
so I had my Kate Powell's in my district.

00:24:59.954 --> 00:25:04.294
I had some people that, you know, one of them actually ran against me when I

00:25:04.294 --> 00:25:05.574
first ran for the position.

00:25:06.622 --> 00:25:10.782
And, and she was, you know, Eric, I need you to do this. Eric,

00:25:10.942 --> 00:25:14.042
I need you to do that. Yes, ma'am. I'll look into it and all that kind of stuff.

00:25:15.182 --> 00:25:17.862
But it, you know, and of course we didn't have the internet when,

00:25:18.022 --> 00:25:22.462
you know, it wasn't as prominent when I was elected, but.

00:25:23.002 --> 00:25:25.902
You know, it was starting to come in there.

00:25:26.102 --> 00:25:30.442
So it was starting to get the email starting to get the, you know,

00:25:30.522 --> 00:25:32.262
on the blog pages was the big thing.

00:25:32.582 --> 00:25:36.062
Right. Yeah. And so folks would all of a sudden leave stuff on,

00:25:36.142 --> 00:25:37.622
you know, say something about me on a blog.

00:25:37.762 --> 00:25:40.702
Somebody say, hey, man, they dogging you out on this blog right here.

00:25:40.822 --> 00:25:43.742
It's like, all right, let me go in and see what they're talking about, you know.

00:25:44.862 --> 00:25:49.982
But that's really what this process was set up to be.

00:25:51.242 --> 00:25:54.342
And it has evolved with technology, of course.

00:25:54.562 --> 00:25:59.282
But, you know, that I just, you know, it's just a natural thing.

00:25:59.282 --> 00:26:08.482
One of the coolest things I had was when I just got out of college and a mentor

00:26:08.482 --> 00:26:15.782
of me and my friends was hired to be a A for U.S. Senator.

00:26:17.742 --> 00:26:21.742
And in the U.S. House of Representatives, U.S.

00:26:22.222 --> 00:26:30.282
Senate, each member gets like directories where you could call the actual people directly.

00:26:30.482 --> 00:26:34.062
There's a direct number for the Department of Defense, for example, or something like that.

00:26:34.362 --> 00:26:38.002
And so the Senate, they would print the same amount of books.

00:26:38.002 --> 00:26:43.702
So the senators will always have extra books because it wasn't 435 of them.

00:26:44.122 --> 00:26:48.742
So he just, it was like we went to visit the office one day and he said,

00:26:48.882 --> 00:26:51.202
hey, would y'all like this book?

00:26:52.066 --> 00:26:55.966
And he showed us, we were both looking like, oh, hell yeah. You know what I'm saying?

00:26:56.406 --> 00:26:59.566
So it was like, you know, for a little- I was killed for that hook.

00:26:59.966 --> 00:27:05.506
Yeah. And so it's like, I just, you know, once, you know, they updated it,

00:27:05.606 --> 00:27:08.186
I think they updated like every two years. It was like, hey man,

00:27:08.266 --> 00:27:09.906
they got the new updates. You know what I'm saying?

00:27:10.866 --> 00:27:14.246
And, and it doesn't really matter who the person is.

00:27:14.366 --> 00:27:19.186
Once you have those numbers, I mean, it is just, just little things in life

00:27:19.186 --> 00:27:22.826
that has been able to do, you know. And then when I got elected,

00:27:23.406 --> 00:27:26.966
I was like, bam, especially when Katrina hit.

00:27:27.266 --> 00:27:31.566
It was like I was able to call, and they thought I was a congressperson.

00:27:31.566 --> 00:27:34.006
I was bugging them so much.

00:27:34.106 --> 00:27:38.326
So I guess I was a menace in that sense.

00:27:38.586 --> 00:27:43.806
But I just think that that's beautiful what you do. The...

00:27:44.990 --> 00:27:50.510
Last thing I guess about on this is when did you decide to do this as a,

00:27:50.630 --> 00:27:53.730
be a content creator? Was that the intention or?

00:27:54.130 --> 00:27:58.050
No. You just wanted to post this stuff. How did this come about?

00:27:58.570 --> 00:28:04.410
Oh my gosh. Yeah, it did not come about because I was aiming to be a content creator.

00:28:04.970 --> 00:28:12.070
I was devastated. March, 2025, I was completely devastated by what I was seeing.

00:28:12.070 --> 00:28:14.810
So something that I talk about fairly often on my channel is

00:28:14.810 --> 00:28:18.070
that I'm half Japanese and I had family who was interned in

00:28:18.070 --> 00:28:21.130
1942 to 1944 or

00:28:21.130 --> 00:28:24.110
45 or so under order 9066 under FDR

00:28:24.110 --> 00:28:27.270
and the the

00:28:27.270 --> 00:28:30.330
moment those men got shipped off to Sukkot even though Judge Bosberg

00:28:30.330 --> 00:28:34.030
had told them to turn the planes around I was I

00:28:34.030 --> 00:28:36.710
just I hated everything like I felt like I

00:28:36.710 --> 00:28:39.550
was just screaming into the void you know like how in the

00:28:39.550 --> 00:28:42.830
you know world are we doing this again how how

00:28:42.830 --> 00:28:46.090
how how why why why and and

00:28:46.090 --> 00:28:48.970
seeing detention centers go up and like all this kind of thing I was like absolutely

00:28:48.970 --> 00:28:55.030
not absolutely not like we cannot be doing this and so I'm but I'm also like

00:28:55.030 --> 00:28:59.790
a very type a organized person and so I was like okay we fight back with the

00:28:59.790 --> 00:29:04.230
bureaucracy we fight back with with the knowledge. We understand like where the buttons are pushed.

00:29:04.730 --> 00:29:09.910
And so I started making videos mostly as kind of maybe just a way to reach out

00:29:09.910 --> 00:29:11.670
into the world and feel less alone about it.

00:29:11.750 --> 00:29:15.150
But I wasn't thinking it was like going to go anywhere, really.

00:29:15.830 --> 00:29:22.070
So I made one, though. The first one that ever popped off was calling Marjorie

00:29:22.070 --> 00:29:26.650
Taylor Greene's office because she's on the House Oversight committee and asking,

00:29:26.970 --> 00:29:33.470
where is the line item of the money that's going to El Salvador for that?

00:29:33.610 --> 00:29:38.010
We're supposedly sending these millions to El Salvador for these men that we

00:29:38.010 --> 00:29:40.390
just kidnapped and sent over there.

00:29:41.452 --> 00:29:46.192
Which line item in the budget approves this, you know, is approved for this action.

00:29:46.492 --> 00:29:52.112
I want to see it. Give me the line in our federal budget that we are allowed

00:29:52.112 --> 00:29:57.292
to send $14 million, $6 million, you know, the number changed every day, but to Naive Bukele.

00:29:58.492 --> 00:30:02.092
And everybody was like, you know, of course, every office I called about that

00:30:02.092 --> 00:30:03.152
was like shocked by that question.

00:30:03.232 --> 00:30:06.992
Like, what do you mean? I'm like, I want to know which line item was approved

00:30:06.992 --> 00:30:08.852
by Congress, you know, for this thing.

00:30:08.852 --> 00:30:11.612
And when the one that I did

00:30:11.612 --> 00:30:14.612
to mtg's office that was like went mini viral

00:30:14.612 --> 00:30:17.752
you know and people were like that's a great question why

00:30:17.752 --> 00:30:22.292
aren't we asking that question and that was sort of the beginning of under understanding

00:30:22.292 --> 00:30:29.312
that people were hungry for ways that they could just be as like menacing and

00:30:29.312 --> 00:30:33.412
awful and annoying to this administration as possible and it's like okay if

00:30:33.412 --> 00:30:35.712
you're if you're going to, you know, be on this BS,

00:30:36.112 --> 00:30:40.292
then I'm at least going to hassle you to death about the BS, right?

00:30:40.452 --> 00:30:45.532
Like, you know, I don't recall you being able to do that with my tax dollars.

00:30:46.192 --> 00:30:49.192
And so that kind of popped off a little bit.

00:30:49.432 --> 00:30:54.612
And then as I started covering like the big, beautiful bill moving through Congress

00:30:54.612 --> 00:30:56.792
and whatnot, it just started developing from there.

00:30:56.972 --> 00:30:59.872
And I realized that, again, people were just hungry for like,

00:30:59.992 --> 00:31:03.952
what is the process, you know, and how are they violating the process?

00:31:04.752 --> 00:31:09.132
And if nothing else, I'm like, well, at least I'm documenting how they're violating the process.

00:31:09.252 --> 00:31:11.792
So when we get to the part where we're out of this administration and we can

00:31:11.792 --> 00:31:15.952
start doing like tribunals or whatever, whatever we need to do to get to fix

00:31:15.952 --> 00:31:18.232
this, here's my channel.

00:31:18.552 --> 00:31:24.232
Feel free to use it for whatever evidentiary purposes you want to use it for, as goofy as that sounds.

00:31:24.392 --> 00:31:28.312
But, you know, I've called inspector generals. I've called, you know everybody

00:31:28.312 --> 00:31:32.632
and I've I've had some doomers in my comments who are like you know they don't

00:31:32.632 --> 00:31:36.172
care they're breaking the law anyway and whatever and my thing is like I'm not

00:31:36.172 --> 00:31:38.712
doing it for now I'm doing it for 2029.

00:31:39.715 --> 00:31:44.035
There's a new president and a new congress and a

00:31:44.035 --> 00:31:46.915
new attorney general right like when there's i want

00:31:46.915 --> 00:31:49.715
the record to show i want i want the record to be there i want

00:31:49.715 --> 00:31:52.475
there to be the trail of all the

00:31:52.475 --> 00:31:55.215
things and so that when we have you know my fantasy is

00:31:55.215 --> 00:31:58.055
that tish james out of new york will be the next u.s attorney

00:31:58.055 --> 00:32:01.275
general can be like here you go have a

00:32:01.275 --> 00:32:04.795
great time prosecuting everybody me

00:32:04.795 --> 00:32:07.495
so whoever kamala if you hear

00:32:07.495 --> 00:32:11.635
me like and you become president in 2028 i that's

00:32:11.635 --> 00:32:14.515
that's my suggestion for you all anyway but

00:32:14.515 --> 00:32:18.435
yeah that that it was totally an accident and now it's like it's just ballooned

00:32:18.435 --> 00:32:22.355
into this thing i still work a full-time job that i love very much and so i'm

00:32:22.355 --> 00:32:31.395
balancing both sort of but yeah that's that's the story yeah so how does humor

00:32:31.395 --> 00:32:34.475
help convey a political message?

00:32:35.095 --> 00:32:40.755
I, you know, it's funny. Sometimes I'm just raging, but humor,

00:32:40.955 --> 00:32:42.635
I think, it's very disarming.

00:32:43.175 --> 00:32:49.975
It gets behind people's automatic knee-jerk responses. And also so few,

00:32:50.315 --> 00:32:54.555
I think more politicians are getting better at this, but so few politicians are humorous.

00:32:54.715 --> 00:32:59.015
And so people do not expect to hear political messages through humor.

00:32:59.155 --> 00:33:02.335
But I mean, if you look at the history of any political anything,

00:33:02.335 --> 00:33:04.195
the most effective messaging was.

00:33:05.075 --> 00:33:10.215
Funny you know it was or it was sarcastic right you know i do a lot of sarcasm

00:33:10.215 --> 00:33:13.755
there's a lot of like i'm trying to understand um i have a call that's popping

00:33:13.755 --> 00:33:17.115
off right now where i was i'm talking to the mailing company who'd sent out

00:33:17.115 --> 00:33:19.615
all this propaganda about our redistricting vote.

00:33:20.295 --> 00:33:23.255
And i was being sarcastic and like oh it's like i'm

00:33:23.255 --> 00:33:28.235
trying to understand why this happened and why you didn't do your job and what

00:33:28.235 --> 00:33:30.935
you're gonna do to rectify this don't actually think that they're that interested

00:33:30.935 --> 00:33:36.035
in rectifying it but it was funny made me laugh you know and And it's also it's

00:33:36.035 --> 00:33:40.595
a great way to deal with fear as well for for someone who is getting into advocacy

00:33:40.595 --> 00:33:41.915
and activism and whatnot.

00:33:42.315 --> 00:33:46.635
That ability to laugh at yourself, that ability to laugh at the other person.

00:33:47.095 --> 00:33:50.235
Amanda Nelson with Amanda's Mile Takes, she's a good friend now.

00:33:50.415 --> 00:33:55.135
And she, I think, is the queen of using humor on these people of just like laughing

00:33:55.135 --> 00:33:57.855
in their faces of like, oh, my gosh, you look ridiculous.

00:33:58.415 --> 00:34:02.375
So when someone is like terrified of

00:34:02.375 --> 00:34:04.955
calling their representative or things are going to

00:34:04.955 --> 00:34:08.015
be on a list somewhere using that humor of like

00:34:08.015 --> 00:34:11.195
but they're actually incredibly incompetent and stupid so if you think they're

00:34:11.195 --> 00:34:15.795
going to be able to even find your address in the you know in this in this time

00:34:15.795 --> 00:34:20.635
and and come get you um when they have they can't even keep a lawyer you know

00:34:20.635 --> 00:34:25.575
in in office long enough to sue the people that they are trying to sue you know

00:34:25.575 --> 00:34:27.755
like let's just let's just have some perspective.

00:34:28.035 --> 00:34:30.935
So it's good for perspective taking. It's good for reducing fear.

00:34:31.495 --> 00:34:35.595
And it's also just good for staying power. Like, this is exhausting.

00:34:36.135 --> 00:34:39.375
Like, every day I wake up and I have to remind myself, like,

00:34:39.495 --> 00:34:44.055
we're doing the right things. This is the right thing to do. Get up and do it. So.

00:34:44.675 --> 00:34:49.275
Yeah, I watched that video when you were going against it.

00:34:49.755 --> 00:34:55.815
So for the listeners, There's literally a mailer going out to the people of

00:34:55.815 --> 00:35:02.955
Virginia dealing with this referendum about redistricting that invokes the Ku Klux Klan in some way.

00:35:03.795 --> 00:35:06.835
And so Kate called the people...

00:35:07.740 --> 00:35:11.360
Who actually sent the mailer out, the company that distributed.

00:35:11.780 --> 00:35:16.920
If you have not seen that video, you need to watch it because it's just,

00:35:17.200 --> 00:35:22.360
you know, but as an example of what you do and the fact that you handled it

00:35:22.360 --> 00:35:24.460
in a humorous way, you know,

00:35:24.680 --> 00:35:31.520
as the Brits would say, in a witty or clever way that, that makes it like you're

00:35:31.520 --> 00:35:33.900
mad, but then you're like, good for you.

00:35:34.100 --> 00:35:36.580
You know what I'm saying? It's like, let me call these people.

00:35:36.740 --> 00:35:41.300
You know what I'm saying? I mean, that's, I think the way that you do things,

00:35:42.100 --> 00:35:44.500
you know, it brings people in.

00:35:44.640 --> 00:35:48.700
If you were, because there was this black woman on Twitter, I forget her name

00:35:48.700 --> 00:35:54.940
now, but when she first started, it was just like, she was making good points,

00:35:55.060 --> 00:35:57.020
but she was just angry all the time.

00:35:57.180 --> 00:35:59.980
And so she had some followers, but then I don't know if somebody,

00:36:00.160 --> 00:36:06.180
or she cracked a joke about something. She just started going in and just like, these stupid people.

00:36:06.320 --> 00:36:10.520
And all of a sudden, her stuff started taking off. And so she picked up on that.

00:36:10.640 --> 00:36:16.580
And so now she's created this angry persona that you can laugh at as opposed

00:36:16.580 --> 00:36:18.220
to just being mad, mad, mad.

00:36:20.080 --> 00:36:26.720
And now it's entertaining and people pay attention to her. But I just believe that you have to be...

00:36:27.995 --> 00:36:33.275
You know, humorous to a degree. I'm not, you know, I'm, I'm socially funny.

00:36:33.815 --> 00:36:37.115
Like I'm with my friends and all that stuff. But when I do this,

00:36:37.655 --> 00:36:42.055
you know, I might crack a joke or something, but I'm, I'm not that kind of person.

00:36:42.255 --> 00:36:46.175
But if I get on there, I'm going to say what I got to say, but I really admire

00:36:46.175 --> 00:36:51.295
you and others that can invoke humor into these discussions.

00:36:51.835 --> 00:36:55.675
And to be fair, there are, there are videos of me calling and like literally

00:36:55.675 --> 00:37:00.275
just screaming, like there there have been a few where i i just kind of melt

00:37:00.275 --> 00:37:02.895
down i you know i think that,

00:37:03.455 --> 00:37:09.295
feeling is good it's sometimes it sucks it's painful what what's going on is painful.

00:37:10.275 --> 00:37:17.515
And but i do think that the the best way through that is through it not trying

00:37:17.515 --> 00:37:22.315
to sidestep it not try to be so stoic all the time you know yeah i've got the

00:37:22.315 --> 00:37:24.875
data i've got the numbers but sometimes I'm just like,

00:37:25.455 --> 00:37:27.435
you know what you're doing.

00:37:27.955 --> 00:37:31.775
And I'm going to make it clear to you that you know what you're doing and that

00:37:31.775 --> 00:37:35.575
you're hurting people. You are hurting people right now and on purpose.

00:37:36.055 --> 00:37:39.655
And there's one call where I was calling the Speaker Johnson's office and I

00:37:39.655 --> 00:37:46.015
was not stoic and I was not funny. I just had a complete meltdown on the person

00:37:46.015 --> 00:37:48.635
because they were trying to tell me Speaker Johnson was doing his best.

00:37:48.815 --> 00:37:50.915
And I was like, he is doing his best.

00:37:51.195 --> 00:37:57.955
And I was just I was shaking mad and also this the the woman on the other end

00:37:57.955 --> 00:38:01.155
of the phone I really wanted to call her a little girl not out of like her being

00:38:01.155 --> 00:38:03.335
childish or anything but she sounded so young,

00:38:03.875 --> 00:38:09.615
and I have very little confidence in that office as far as like how a young

00:38:09.615 --> 00:38:15.175
woman would be able to survive in it and I was just like nah honey if if you

00:38:15.175 --> 00:38:18.635
were my little sister right now I'd be like get out, run.

00:38:19.015 --> 00:38:22.135
So some of it was also just me being like.

00:38:23.431 --> 00:38:26.811
Someone needs to tell you the truth, right? Like, if you're in this bubble,

00:38:27.031 --> 00:38:27.911
if you're in this whatever,

00:38:28.251 --> 00:38:32.731
if you're, like, the daughter of some donor or whatever, and you don't ever

00:38:32.731 --> 00:38:35.951
hear anything different, you know, who's gonna, I'm gonna tell you now,

00:38:36.231 --> 00:38:40.271
you know, this man is evil, and you need to, like,

00:38:40.851 --> 00:38:44.971
I think I said something to her, like, and you need to really examine why you're even there.

00:38:45.831 --> 00:38:48.831
And, you know, a lot of people liked it.

00:38:48.931 --> 00:38:51.971
Some people criticized it. Some people were, like, you sound unhinged and

00:38:51.971 --> 00:38:54.751
i was like yeah i i was

00:38:54.751 --> 00:38:58.111
unhinged i i was unhinged but i think

00:38:58.111 --> 00:39:01.051
i also still remained clear throughout of

00:39:01.051 --> 00:39:04.551
like what i was unhinged about in this particular case it was about a hearing

00:39:04.551 --> 00:39:06.611
they were holding a hearing in the middle of the night for the big beautiful

00:39:06.611 --> 00:39:09.251
bill because they were still trying to skulk around and pretend like you know

00:39:09.251 --> 00:39:16.151
they weren't doing exactly what they were doing and and i i i did i did apologize

00:39:16.151 --> 00:39:19.391
to her at the end i could tell she was like on the verge of tears.

00:39:19.671 --> 00:39:26.271
And I was like, I'm, you know, I'm not mad at you, but you have to think about

00:39:26.271 --> 00:39:28.251
what you're doing right now with this man.

00:39:28.891 --> 00:39:32.851
And that is a policy that I do try to emphasize to everybody is like generally,

00:39:33.471 --> 00:39:37.071
unless they're like this call you were just describing with the mailing company

00:39:37.071 --> 00:39:38.571
where they're calling me crazy and whatnot.

00:39:38.791 --> 00:39:42.371
Generally, though, I try to be very, especially to the interns in the congressional offices,

00:39:42.371 --> 00:39:45.271
try to be super kind because, you know,

00:39:45.271 --> 00:39:48.291
they're they're not the problem like they're not like me

00:39:48.291 --> 00:39:50.951
screaming at the you know

00:39:50.951 --> 00:39:54.491
woefully underpaid if not completely unpaid intern for

00:39:54.491 --> 00:40:01.191
speaker johnson is not generally the way that i want to do things but you know

00:40:01.191 --> 00:40:04.671
but sometimes also like i said there's there's rage and they also need to hear

00:40:04.671 --> 00:40:08.791
the rage well just look at it as an intervention right because it's like somebody

00:40:08.791 --> 00:40:12.531
you know you you know they might have been like true believers and then you

00:40:12.531 --> 00:40:13.651
get this call that's like,

00:40:14.271 --> 00:40:17.011
this changes everything that I've ever thought in life.

00:40:17.131 --> 00:40:20.971
You know what I'm saying? You might, you might get, you might save a life actually politically.

00:40:21.831 --> 00:40:24.511
Let's, let's, let's take a detour real quick.

00:40:25.321 --> 00:40:29.261
Your background is in consulting, running, and fundraising for nonprofits.

00:40:29.781 --> 00:40:34.261
How much of a struggle has it been for community-based nonprofits to operate

00:40:34.261 --> 00:40:39.141
and raise funds during this Trump decade? Yeah, it's been awful.

00:40:41.461 --> 00:40:45.101
The constant trope since Reagan, of course, has been like less,

00:40:45.181 --> 00:40:48.341
less, less. There's so much waste. There's all, you know, waste,

00:40:48.461 --> 00:40:49.261
fraud, and abuse, right?

00:40:50.801 --> 00:40:55.341
And to this, I would say two things. One is, especially when it comes to like

00:40:55.341 --> 00:40:58.741
private nonprofits operating in the community, the vast majority are having

00:40:58.741 --> 00:41:01.921
to do what they're doing because the government refuses to have robust resources

00:41:01.921 --> 00:41:04.241
like health care and food. Period.

00:41:05.061 --> 00:41:10.061
So if you don't like having a bunch of organizations running around trying to

00:41:10.061 --> 00:41:13.821
fill this need, then fill the need with the tax dollars, which we have more

00:41:13.821 --> 00:41:18.041
than enough of if we would actually tax people fairly, as in billionaires.

00:41:20.041 --> 00:41:24.481
Second the notion that you

00:41:24.481 --> 00:41:29.141
know a public either a public agency or a non-profit is just running around

00:41:29.141 --> 00:41:35.161
trying to perpetuate fraud like that that's the majority of of the reality is

00:41:35.161 --> 00:41:41.781
so woefully false it is very frustrating to listen to that from either party

00:41:41.781 --> 00:41:43.541
because both parties will engage in that rhetoric.

00:41:45.301 --> 00:41:49.361
And I just, it makes me want to rip my hair out because to my first point,

00:41:49.561 --> 00:41:53.381
we're doing the services that you refuse to do at the government level,

00:41:53.821 --> 00:41:57.621
mostly federal, some state, some local, though I feel like the further down

00:41:57.621 --> 00:42:00.241
you get, the better you get at being able to pinpoint need.

00:42:02.024 --> 00:42:06.764
But it's just it's just not it's I can tell you from personal experience,

00:42:06.764 --> 00:42:12.404
it is working with a shoestring to do the best you can and know and still realizing

00:42:12.404 --> 00:42:14.764
that you still aren't serving everybody that you want to serve.

00:42:14.964 --> 00:42:18.304
You're still not reaching everybody who needs what you have or what you could provide.

00:42:18.804 --> 00:42:24.684
So I really am tired of public servants or even people who are working in nonprofits

00:42:24.684 --> 00:42:31.324
that are providing a public service being denigrated as like lazy and fraudsters and wasteful.

00:42:32.044 --> 00:42:37.404
It's the reality for the vast majority is so far beyond that.

00:42:37.564 --> 00:42:41.644
And if like if I'm wasteful running a half million dollar nonprofit,

00:42:41.644 --> 00:42:47.284
you know, that employs people and, you know, does does all these great services or whatnot,

00:42:47.564 --> 00:42:52.604
then what is Elon Musk, who is like getting billions of dollars to literally

00:42:52.604 --> 00:42:55.724
explode the money in the sky for fun?

00:42:56.650 --> 00:43:00.510
What is that? Like, someone please explain to me how this is different,

00:43:00.550 --> 00:43:05.870
you know, or like how that is, that's progress and economic development or whatever,

00:43:06.030 --> 00:43:07.510
though it has created no jobs.

00:43:07.850 --> 00:43:10.770
It's technology that usually goes nowhere.

00:43:11.410 --> 00:43:17.250
But me providing direct services to human beings or to animals or whatever,

00:43:17.590 --> 00:43:21.010
the environment, so that we can have air to breathe and water to drink or whatever.

00:43:21.350 --> 00:43:27.150
That's wasteful. So it's been awful since way before Trump.

00:43:27.370 --> 00:43:29.650
Like most things, Trump has put it on steroids.

00:43:30.410 --> 00:43:36.330
And I really, but I also, you know, refuse to let the Democratic Party slip

00:43:36.330 --> 00:43:42.110
out of accountability for this because that neoliberal era was cemented by Clinton.

00:43:42.570 --> 00:43:46.910
You know, like as far as like, oh, this is a bipartisan thing, right?

00:43:47.030 --> 00:43:50.570
This economic theory, the free markets and, you know, job creators,

00:43:50.570 --> 00:43:54.830
as in, you know, we can't tax the rich, all of those things that has really

00:43:54.830 --> 00:43:58.090
created a situation where, again, you have organizations just trying to fill

00:43:58.090 --> 00:44:00.230
basic needs because the government refuses to do so.

00:44:00.430 --> 00:44:04.090
And then they never have enough money to do it. And then we slash budgets even

00:44:04.090 --> 00:44:07.870
more so that all that block granting that comes down from the federal side is

00:44:07.870 --> 00:44:09.930
less and less and less every single year.

00:44:10.450 --> 00:44:13.010
And yeah, it's over it.

00:44:13.550 --> 00:44:18.230
We need a different direction. And it needs to come from the Democratic Party in a major, major way.

00:44:18.390 --> 00:44:24.750
I despise FDR as a person and for a lot of things, but his labor secretary,

00:44:24.850 --> 00:44:26.690
Francis Perkins, was the New Deal mastermind.

00:44:26.850 --> 00:44:30.290
And that right there is the energy that we need from the Democratic Party.

00:44:30.330 --> 00:44:32.150
And we need it like we need it right now.

00:44:32.290 --> 00:44:36.110
We need it this year into 20, you know, into campaigning for 2028.

00:44:36.270 --> 00:44:38.350
That has to be the attitude.

00:44:40.502 --> 00:44:47.982
Talk about Tidewater Arts Outreach. Yeah. So we're now Arts Connect Virginia.

00:44:49.142 --> 00:44:56.122
And yeah, we're literally changing our name like right now. And but just I'm

00:44:56.122 --> 00:44:57.422
going to do my disclaimer from the beginning.

00:44:57.702 --> 00:45:01.322
The views of Kate Powell, Kate for the People, are not the views of Virginia

00:45:01.322 --> 00:45:03.202
when she is running it at that.

00:45:03.202 --> 00:45:10.562
But our organization is, you know, what we do is use creative arts interventions

00:45:10.562 --> 00:45:14.742
to combat loneliness for primarily older, but also other isolated adults,

00:45:14.882 --> 00:45:16.862
like adults who are experiencing a disability,

00:45:17.322 --> 00:45:18.942
chronic health challenge, or,

00:45:19.082 --> 00:45:23.922
you know, have more scarce socioeconomic resources, that kind of thing.

00:45:24.102 --> 00:45:28.102
Loneliness, according to the Surgeon General under Biden, this is one of a great

00:45:28.102 --> 00:45:33.962
policy platform, is loneliness is extraordinarily deadly. It's more deadly than chronic smoking.

00:45:34.322 --> 00:45:36.742
It increases mortality by like.

00:45:37.664 --> 00:45:42.964
34% or something. So especially for people who are experiencing like other comorbidities,

00:45:43.124 --> 00:45:45.304
like if you're experiencing a chronic health condition, for instance,

00:45:45.444 --> 00:45:47.984
and you are also lonely, your mortality shoots up.

00:45:48.184 --> 00:45:51.484
And I think we've always known that as people, like anecdotally,

00:45:51.584 --> 00:45:55.644
we kind of know like, hey, if we're feeling like crap and we have no one to

00:45:55.644 --> 00:45:57.764
turn to, we're going to die sooner.

00:45:58.404 --> 00:46:00.404
And so it's a public health crisis.

00:46:01.104 --> 00:46:05.484
And it has been since before the pandemic, it obviously got completely and totally

00:46:05.484 --> 00:46:06.824
exacerbated in the pandemic.

00:46:07.124 --> 00:46:11.484
Post-pandemic, it's worse for people with comorbidities.

00:46:11.704 --> 00:46:16.024
So older adults who have chronic health challenges, chronic mental health challenges,

00:46:16.024 --> 00:46:20.124
or who are underemployed or unemployed, you know, lack mobility,

00:46:20.264 --> 00:46:23.604
transportation, that kind of thing, they are experiencing more isolation than

00:46:23.604 --> 00:46:24.604
they were before the pandemic.

00:46:25.504 --> 00:46:29.444
Where arts comes in is that the science is very, very clear that arts interventions,

00:46:29.704 --> 00:46:32.084
especially group arts interventions, which is what we specialize in,

00:46:32.304 --> 00:46:34.584
is very good at combating loneliness.

00:46:35.184 --> 00:46:39.644
So social connectedness shoots way up when people are participating in visual

00:46:39.644 --> 00:46:42.064
arts classes or music performances or that kind of thing.

00:46:42.264 --> 00:46:45.824
So it's, yeah, I love my work. It has nothing to do with politics,

00:46:46.084 --> 00:46:49.184
which is awesome right now, especially.

00:46:49.684 --> 00:46:52.564
And it's a dream job. I I love it so much.

00:46:52.804 --> 00:47:00.744
And yeah, I am very excited to keep growing that model because it's very evidence-based

00:47:00.744 --> 00:47:03.944
as people, anyone who knows me, whether through social media or in real life

00:47:03.944 --> 00:47:05.724
or whatever, they know that I love the data.

00:47:06.044 --> 00:47:10.104
So it's very evidence-based, but it's also just, it's very joyful. It feels good.

00:47:10.324 --> 00:47:15.784
It's like, it's an intervention that's like, oh, I'm like having fun with this, right?

00:47:16.224 --> 00:47:22.164
We've got the social workers, God bless them, in like foster care and housing and whatever.

00:47:22.364 --> 00:47:27.684
That can be such a slog. And like I said, God bless them because we need them and all of that.

00:47:27.804 --> 00:47:34.364
But I love what I do because it gives us the ability to make change while also...

00:47:35.693 --> 00:47:42.073
Advancing, like, just the ability to feel joy and upliftment,

00:47:42.073 --> 00:47:46.393
that's not a word, but I'm going to make it up now, in everyday life. So, that's great.

00:47:46.833 --> 00:47:51.633
Yeah, that's great. That's cool. All right. So, we're going to close it out,

00:47:51.753 --> 00:47:54.613
but I want you to do a couple of things.

00:47:54.853 --> 00:48:01.473
What issues or what issue or issues do you want the listeners to be a menace about right now?

00:48:02.313 --> 00:48:05.453
Voting. Voting access for anyone.

00:48:05.693 --> 00:48:11.073
I was talking to someone the other day and I said, if we cannot flip at least

00:48:11.073 --> 00:48:13.313
one chamber of commerce in the 2026

00:48:13.313 --> 00:48:19.113
midterms, then this damage will be generational versus just like years.

00:48:19.393 --> 00:48:20.933
Right. We know it's going to

00:48:20.933 --> 00:48:24.753
take a long time to repair what has been broken, not just this past year.

00:48:24.753 --> 00:48:29.173
Again, we've been on a trajectory towards Trumpism for a while as a country,

00:48:29.173 --> 00:48:36.033
but we're looking at the difference between I never get to see real repair of

00:48:36.033 --> 00:48:41.473
this in my lifetime versus being able to make some significant repair,

00:48:41.753 --> 00:48:45.473
especially into 2028 and then certainly with a new administration.

00:48:46.313 --> 00:48:52.073
If we have to do two more years of a trifecta, like, I can't,

00:48:52.113 --> 00:48:54.513
I just, I can't, I can't even accept that as a reality right now.

00:48:54.573 --> 00:48:57.973
So I'm doing everything in my power, advancing, you know, I'm interviewing midterm

00:48:57.973 --> 00:48:58.893
candidates, I'm pushing it.

00:48:58.993 --> 00:49:01.333
But one thing that I'm really pushing right now is voting access.

00:49:01.793 --> 00:49:05.293
So we need to be pushing against any rumblings of the SAVE Act.

00:49:05.453 --> 00:49:08.233
As far-fetched as I think it is that the Senate would break the filibuster and

00:49:08.233 --> 00:49:12.853
actually pass it, we need to keep telling them, call your senator every day

00:49:12.853 --> 00:49:16.373
and be like, I know what the filibuster is, and no, you will not get rid of it.

00:49:16.793 --> 00:49:20.053
Call John Thune, the Senate Majority Leader, who would be in charge of such

00:49:20.053 --> 00:49:23.173
an effort, and remind him that you know what the filibuster is and that you

00:49:23.173 --> 00:49:24.473
have no desire for him to get rid of it.

00:49:25.809 --> 00:49:29.289
Then also make plans to vote not only for yourself, but for your neighbors.

00:49:29.569 --> 00:49:33.349
Who needs a ride to the polls or who needs an absentee ballot needs help getting

00:49:33.349 --> 00:49:35.709
that? Who needs to get registered?

00:49:36.209 --> 00:49:40.509
Have you checked your registration recently to make sure that it wasn't purged for some reason?

00:49:41.009 --> 00:49:44.349
These are the things that we need to be doing. We need to make 2026 the year

00:49:44.349 --> 00:49:48.569
of electoral participation, like in just all kinds of things.

00:49:48.749 --> 00:49:51.109
I really I want people to laser focus on that.

00:49:51.449 --> 00:49:55.729
So and that's why I'm like tearing things up about like redistricting and like

00:49:55.729 --> 00:50:01.109
all this kind of stuff is anything that is going to lessen anyone's voting voice

00:50:01.109 --> 00:50:03.809
is extraordinarily dangerous right now.

00:50:03.989 --> 00:50:08.509
It is it is the most dangerous part because the Republicans cannot win on policy.

00:50:09.089 --> 00:50:13.289
Obviously, like look outside. They cannot win. They are they have the worst,

00:50:13.469 --> 00:50:18.089
worst approvals ever, ever, period.

00:50:19.229 --> 00:50:23.349
So that's what we need to do, though, is now that they know that they're cornered,

00:50:23.549 --> 00:50:26.089
it's an animal cornered, right?

00:50:26.189 --> 00:50:29.109
And an animal cornered is very dangerous, which is why you're seeing what you're

00:50:29.109 --> 00:50:32.949
seeing as far as electoral suppression, redistricting, and all that kind of

00:50:32.949 --> 00:50:35.109
thing. And in Virginia, vote yes in the redistricting amendment.

00:50:35.269 --> 00:50:38.469
My God, please, please, please, please, please, please do that.

00:50:39.429 --> 00:50:44.129
It's a temporary measure. It snaps back after 2030. It's not like Texas. This ain't Texas.

00:50:44.969 --> 00:50:49.549
Please vote. All right, finish this sentence. I have hope because.

00:50:52.089 --> 00:50:58.669
Let's go full circle. I have hope because we have been here before in different

00:50:58.669 --> 00:51:03.369
ways, in different degrees, and certainly people of color have been here before.

00:51:05.809 --> 00:51:10.329
They give me hope, whether they're living or not, every single time.

00:51:10.649 --> 00:51:15.629
I am so inspired, particularly by black women all the time for how they show

00:51:15.629 --> 00:51:21.549
up and show out and you just saw it with jasmine crockett's race right like.

00:51:23.198 --> 00:51:26.418
They don't care if everyone's telling them it's a losing battle.

00:51:26.578 --> 00:51:28.858
They're like, maybe it is. And this is the right thing to do.

00:51:29.378 --> 00:51:33.478
I don't care, you know, if my odds are long.

00:51:34.218 --> 00:51:42.078
And because they show up with this energy, they accomplish far more than,

00:51:42.078 --> 00:51:44.658
you know, than anyone thought.

00:51:44.998 --> 00:51:49.578
And yes, I wish it was a victory every single time. I wish it was like every

00:51:49.578 --> 00:51:54.038
single time someone that that the effort was proportional to the outcome every single time. Right.

00:51:54.438 --> 00:51:58.518
Because if it was if that were the case, you know, if it was really about effort,

00:51:58.598 --> 00:52:01.158
not about nepotism, not about oligarchy, not about all those other things,

00:52:01.578 --> 00:52:05.118
then we would obviously have dramatically different results and a dramatically

00:52:05.118 --> 00:52:07.438
different government. But it's not, unfortunately.

00:52:07.758 --> 00:52:10.598
We have those forces rising against us.

00:52:10.718 --> 00:52:16.318
And yet, I have hope because we have seen that in the long run,

00:52:16.418 --> 00:52:18.718
in the long game, those efforts pay off.

00:52:18.918 --> 00:52:21.398
Meanwhile, the people who cut corners, who destroyed things,

00:52:21.658 --> 00:52:26.278
who went for the cheapest, fastest, easiest win, you know, the big,

00:52:26.318 --> 00:52:30.278
beautiful bill or whatever, they end up losing in the end, ultimately.

00:52:30.918 --> 00:52:37.398
And so I will remain steadfast in that even, again, as I stare down the barrel

00:52:37.398 --> 00:52:41.718
of the midterms like, oh, my God, I don't know if I can handle it if we can't

00:52:41.718 --> 00:52:43.778
have at least one victory there.

00:52:44.678 --> 00:52:48.238
Well, Kate Powell, I greatly appreciate you taking this time.

00:52:48.398 --> 00:52:53.278
If people want to reach out to you, if people want to find out more about your nonprofit work.

00:52:54.409 --> 00:52:57.189
Can they do that yeah so obviously i'm all over social

00:52:57.189 --> 00:53:00.009
media so feel free to dm me i i am actually pretty

00:53:00.009 --> 00:53:02.829
good at checking my dms even even the requests even the

00:53:02.829 --> 00:53:05.909
hidden requests like sometimes the way like instagram and

00:53:05.909 --> 00:53:10.969
whatever filters things is is a little annoying but i will i will find you i've

00:53:10.969 --> 00:53:14.729
gotten messages on substack or whatever and i'll redirect you into whatever

00:53:14.729 --> 00:53:18.309
communication channel i need to in order for us to continue the conversation

00:53:18.309 --> 00:53:21.609
but i'm very open i've had i've had people reach out and say hey can we have

00:53:21.609 --> 00:53:24.049
a private conversation about whatever i'm always happy to chat.

00:53:25.049 --> 00:53:27.309
Because that's where I think the groundwork actually happens.

00:53:27.509 --> 00:53:29.449
I don't want to be one of those perpetually online people.

00:53:30.689 --> 00:53:35.549
That sounds counterintuitive since I am creating content and an influencer,

00:53:35.709 --> 00:53:38.909
even though I hate that word, and all this kind of thing.

00:53:39.009 --> 00:53:44.209
But the way I try to avoid falling into the trap of just being an online presence

00:53:44.209 --> 00:53:47.829
is connecting with people in quote-unquote real life, even if it's a virtual

00:53:47.829 --> 00:53:51.609
meeting like how you and I are talking right now. It helps me touch grads.

00:53:52.069 --> 00:53:55.689
You know, like, this is the real world. This is a real person with a real issue.

00:53:55.969 --> 00:54:00.209
And they're asking me about, you know, how do I talk to my friends about this?

00:54:00.269 --> 00:54:01.629
Or how do I, you know, whatever.

00:54:01.889 --> 00:54:05.269
I love to talk to people. So, yeah, DM me, and I'm happy.

00:54:05.409 --> 00:54:08.469
Again, if I need to redirect you into a different communication channel,

00:54:08.649 --> 00:54:11.129
I will. But yeah, I'm pretty accessible.

00:54:12.069 --> 00:54:16.809
Well, thank you for coming on, and thank you for what you're doing.

00:54:17.029 --> 00:54:22.089
I greatly appreciate it. Uh, it's, you know, I tell people all the time.

00:54:23.324 --> 00:54:28.624
Know, I'm really honored to have this format where I can talk to people that

00:54:28.624 --> 00:54:30.204
are really, really doing good things.

00:54:30.384 --> 00:54:33.624
And I think you're one of the people that are really, really doing something

00:54:33.624 --> 00:54:42.244
amazing by encouraging people to get engaged and showing them how to do it and doing it in a very,

00:54:42.404 --> 00:54:46.224
very serious but lighthearted way at the same time.

00:54:46.384 --> 00:54:48.624
I just like your style.

00:54:48.804 --> 00:54:53.624
I like the way that you do things. And you have an open invitation to come back.

00:54:54.124 --> 00:54:57.424
Anybody that's been on the show before has an open invitation.

00:54:57.564 --> 00:55:00.544
So if there's something that's pressing and you say, Eric, I need to talk about

00:55:00.544 --> 00:55:03.344
it, just feel free to come back and we'll make that happen.

00:55:03.524 --> 00:55:07.964
But again, I just thank you for being you and thank you again for coming on.

00:55:08.364 --> 00:55:12.704
Oh, thank you so much, Erik. And thank you for your own service in the public sector.

00:55:13.104 --> 00:55:16.464
And I always try to say that to public servants, whether past or present,

00:55:16.584 --> 00:55:18.064
like thank you for your service because it is one.

00:55:18.484 --> 00:55:22.404
And thank you for the platform today I really appreciate being seen and heard,

00:55:22.904 --> 00:55:25.224
Alright guys, we're going to catch you all on the other side.

00:55:44.552 --> 00:55:50.152
All right, and we are back. And so now it is time for my next guest, Gloria Browne-Marshall.

00:55:50.512 --> 00:55:57.572
Gloria Browne-Marshall is professor of constitutional law at CUNY's John Jay

00:55:57.572 --> 00:56:02.392
College, an award-winning writer, a playwright, and a legal commentator.

00:56:02.572 --> 00:56:08.072
She has litigated cases for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the Southern Poverty

00:56:08.072 --> 00:56:10.732
Law Center, and Community Legal Services.

00:56:11.012 --> 00:56:15.512
Her previous works include She Took Justice, The Black Woman,

00:56:15.712 --> 00:56:18.752
Law and Power, and The Voting Rights War.

00:56:18.992 --> 00:56:23.632
A frequent commentator on CNN, NPR, MSNBC,

00:56:24.492 --> 00:56:29.592
Browne-Marshall has received numerous accolades, including the 2024 American

00:56:29.592 --> 00:56:36.512
Bar Association Civil Gavel Award and an Emmy Award as the writer and host of Your Democracy,

00:56:36.852 --> 00:56:39.512
an animated series about the U.S. Constitution.

00:56:39.832 --> 00:56:44.632
Her new book, which we will discuss during the interview, is called A Protest

00:56:44.632 --> 00:56:46.912
History of the United States.

00:56:47.532 --> 00:56:51.792
Ladies and gentlemen, it is my distinct honor and privilege to have as a guest

00:56:51.792 --> 00:56:55.632
on this podcast, Gloria Browne-Marshall.

00:57:07.049 --> 00:57:12.209
All right. The Honorable Gloria Browne-Marshall. How are you doing, sister? You doing good?

00:57:12.989 --> 00:57:17.949
I'm doing very well. Feeling blessed today. Well, I'm blessed to have you to come on.

00:57:18.209 --> 00:57:22.549
You have been one of the warriors out there.

00:57:22.709 --> 00:57:26.469
And then you're doing something that I love is that you're trying to teach other

00:57:26.469 --> 00:57:28.629
warriors over at the college.

00:57:29.369 --> 00:57:32.789
I admire anybody that wants to teach.

00:57:34.069 --> 00:57:41.109
It's just, I think it's so underrated, but it is so essential that we mentor

00:57:41.109 --> 00:57:44.409
our young people to carry the

00:57:44.409 --> 00:57:48.089
mantle and to do stuff, whether it's in an academic setting or otherwise.

00:57:48.569 --> 00:57:51.849
I just think it's important. So I commend you just for that.

00:57:52.069 --> 00:57:56.549
But I also commend you for this book, A Protest History of the United States.

00:57:57.884 --> 00:58:02.524
I think that's something that that needed to be in this day and age.

00:58:02.684 --> 00:58:06.644
I think it's really, really apropos that somebody kind of put that out there.

00:58:07.324 --> 00:58:09.364
And so I want to thank you for that.

00:58:10.484 --> 00:58:14.804
So let's go ahead and get started. As always, I kind of do a couple of icebreakers

00:58:14.804 --> 00:58:16.544
to get the conversation going.

00:58:17.084 --> 00:58:20.504
So the first icebreaker, I want you to respond to this quote.

00:58:21.324 --> 00:58:26.744
From its conception, the United States of America has had a split personality.

00:58:26.744 --> 00:58:31.564
This nation sees liberty through the jaundiced eyes of capitalism,

00:58:32.004 --> 00:58:37.084
speaking of freedom with one breath and crushing civil liberties with the next.

00:58:37.324 --> 00:58:40.924
Give me your thoughts on that quote. That's great writing.

00:58:41.624 --> 00:58:43.144
That's my first thought.

00:58:44.864 --> 00:58:51.944
Brilliant ideas. But it's because the United States was formed from two different

00:58:51.944 --> 00:58:58.924
philosophies. and we don't know which one is going to be at the wheel at any given time.

00:58:59.124 --> 00:59:03.224
Right now, we're looking at the capitalist mindset of the country.

00:59:03.424 --> 00:59:08.084
So I look at it, if you take our full name, the United States of America,

00:59:08.304 --> 00:59:10.964
and you think of the United States as the capitalist side,

00:59:11.344 --> 00:59:17.924
the empire building side, and then you look at America as the Statue of Liberty

00:59:17.924 --> 00:59:24.184
representative to symbolically give us your tempest toss, longing to breathe free.

00:59:24.424 --> 00:59:28.984
So we have those two very different philosophies in one country.

00:59:29.064 --> 00:59:32.164
And we never know what we're dealing with at any given time,

00:59:32.304 --> 00:59:33.684
but it's been that way since the beginning.

00:59:33.944 --> 00:59:36.184
I always like to say I don't want to hurt people's feelings,

00:59:36.204 --> 00:59:38.864
but we did not begin our country with the pilgrims.

00:59:39.673 --> 00:59:43.233
Repeat, our country does not begin with the pilgrims.

00:59:43.373 --> 00:59:49.693
The country begins in 1607 in Virginia in what was the Jamestown settlement.

00:59:49.933 --> 00:59:53.113
King James, the same King James version of the Bible, King James,

00:59:53.233 --> 00:59:59.173
gave a business charter to English businessmen to have a colony created in the

00:59:59.173 --> 01:00:00.973
New World, which is North America.

01:00:01.233 --> 01:00:03.873
That colony began in 1607.

01:00:04.153 --> 01:00:08.353
So when we start thinking about where the country began. It was from that business

01:00:08.353 --> 01:00:12.833
prospect that we were going to have this product come out of the colony that

01:00:12.833 --> 01:00:17.053
would make the king and the monarchy rich, which in that product became tobacco.

01:00:17.613 --> 01:00:22.533
But we also had people in those same ships coming to the new world who wanted

01:00:22.533 --> 01:00:26.253
to get out of the caste system that was set up in Europe.

01:00:26.293 --> 01:00:29.613
And they wanted to have a different life and they were willing to risk their

01:00:29.613 --> 01:00:34.273
lives because sailing by ship was very risky to go to this new world and start

01:00:34.273 --> 01:00:38.513
new, to have freedom, to have liberty and begin a new, fresh life.

01:00:38.633 --> 01:00:43.853
So we have those two same ideals in the same ship that starts the country.

01:00:44.073 --> 01:00:50.873
And that's 1607. By 1619, we have the introduction of Africans into this whole paradigm.

01:00:51.413 --> 01:00:53.573
Then at the same time, the land

01:00:53.573 --> 01:00:58.053
they arrived on was the Powhatan Native Americans, the indigenous people.

01:00:58.293 --> 01:01:02.053
The Angolans, who were the Africans, had their own civilization,

01:01:02.393 --> 01:01:08.793
own religion, own government, everything, when they were kidnapped and brought to this new world.

01:01:09.013 --> 01:01:13.633
And the Powhatan Indians, indigenous, had their own government,

01:01:13.773 --> 01:01:15.933
their own culture, their own religion, their own art.

01:01:16.133 --> 01:01:23.993
So you have all these cultures in one place. So even our diversity began as early as the 1600s.

01:01:24.153 --> 01:01:30.493
The Plymouth Rock Mayflower episode, that was 1620. That was after the Africans

01:01:30.493 --> 01:01:31.913
had already arrived in Virginia.

01:01:32.013 --> 01:01:36.053
So we were here before the Mayflower landed. So when you think about.

01:01:37.000 --> 01:01:41.060
The country is so confused and the mentality is so conflicted,

01:01:41.360 --> 01:01:45.380
the dual personality, are we about liberty, the people in the bottom of the

01:01:45.380 --> 01:01:48.000
ship, or are we about money, the people in the top of the ship?

01:01:48.340 --> 01:01:51.760
And this is the way it is right now. It's been the way the whole time.

01:01:51.900 --> 01:01:55.720
And that gives rise to protest because the people in the bottom of the ship

01:01:55.720 --> 01:01:58.980
see the rights of the others and say, why can't we have that?

01:01:59.160 --> 01:02:03.620
Why are we being treated this way? We don't want to work the hours you want

01:02:03.620 --> 01:02:08.600
us to work, to live only where you want us to live, to be undereducated. We want things too.

01:02:09.200 --> 01:02:15.820
And so that protest is now what has created basically the idea of the country,

01:02:15.820 --> 01:02:18.700
that most of the rights we have came by protest.

01:02:18.880 --> 01:02:23.100
And even we're in the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence,

01:02:23.260 --> 01:02:25.160
and that's the protest document.

01:02:25.340 --> 01:02:27.700
So this nation will be 250 years old.

01:02:27.960 --> 01:02:32.160
Please note, 250 years old, because we begin the nation with the Declaration

01:02:32.160 --> 01:02:36.080
of Independence, even though we begin the history of the nation back in 1607.

01:02:36.620 --> 01:02:41.020
Right. And those Angolans, as you aptly pointed out in the book,

01:02:41.120 --> 01:02:44.060
were actually stolen because they were Portuguese.

01:02:44.680 --> 01:02:50.200
They were slaves of the Portuguese. And then the British, I guess,

01:02:50.420 --> 01:02:54.300
pirated the Portuguese ship and took it over and sent it to Virginia.

01:02:54.580 --> 01:02:57.540
So yeah, I get that.

01:02:58.260 --> 01:03:02.600
But that doesn't make as good a story as the pilgrim's landing and then having

01:03:02.600 --> 01:03:03.900
this feast called Thanksgiving.

01:03:04.260 --> 01:03:09.100
So we have so many myths that this country is, people don't even know the founding

01:03:09.100 --> 01:03:11.820
of their own country because there's so many lies,

01:03:12.140 --> 01:03:16.620
myths, and untruths that have been clouding the beginning because people don't

01:03:16.620 --> 01:03:19.900
want to say it was a business deal that started the country.

01:03:20.000 --> 01:03:22.600
But see, the pilgrims had the cool hats.

01:03:22.820 --> 01:03:25.360
That's why everybody liked the pilgrims. They had the cool black hat.

01:03:26.040 --> 01:03:30.220
All right, so the next icebreaker is what we call 20 questions.

01:03:30.740 --> 01:03:34.160
So I need you to give me a number between one and 20.

01:03:35.541 --> 01:03:43.881
Okay. What is one thing you hope the current administration will do or not do during their term?

01:03:44.541 --> 01:03:55.321
Well, one thing I hope they will do is implode and go down in smoke under impeachments

01:03:55.321 --> 01:04:01.161
and criminal prosecutions that are quite successful that wind them in prison.

01:04:04.461 --> 01:04:08.281
Okay is there anything you don't want to do or is it you just gonna leave it at that,

01:04:09.161 --> 01:04:12.221
well there's you know what i don't want them to do is continue

01:04:12.221 --> 01:04:15.181
the authoritarian dictatorship of violence and

01:04:15.181 --> 01:04:18.401
bloodshed that has wreaked of

01:04:18.401 --> 01:04:21.361
such rotten corruption up to this point

01:04:21.361 --> 01:04:24.521
that has undermined even the

01:04:24.521 --> 01:04:27.901
possibility of this being a

01:04:27.901 --> 01:04:35.661
better country and stop setting us back on a track of villainous deceit and

01:04:35.661 --> 01:04:44.701
lies and the sense that white male wealth is the only driving force in this

01:04:44.701 --> 01:04:47.801
country and that they see the errors of their ways.

01:04:48.001 --> 01:04:51.841
So I don't want them to continue to do what they are doing at this point.

01:04:52.361 --> 01:04:58.881
And since that's impossible in my mindset, only God knows for sure, then I would say prison.

01:04:59.361 --> 01:05:03.241
Please let them go to prison. Let it happen before the end of this term.

01:05:03.801 --> 01:05:08.321
Yes, ma'am. What motivated you to write this book at this time?

01:05:09.417 --> 01:05:16.797
I actually started the book 10 years ago because that was even before George Floyd.

01:05:16.977 --> 01:05:19.317
People were telling me that protests didn't matter.

01:05:19.737 --> 01:05:23.477
And it made me feel as though they were saying the people didn't matter.

01:05:23.837 --> 01:05:27.197
The community organizers didn't matter. The activists didn't matter.

01:05:27.417 --> 01:05:31.597
And that people thought, well, protest was fine during the Civil Rights Movement,

01:05:31.677 --> 01:05:34.357
but it doesn't work in the 21st century since we have social media.

01:05:34.597 --> 01:05:38.897
And I was trying to get them to see that social media is by itself not protest.

01:05:38.897 --> 01:05:43.497
It can be used in ways for protests, but it by itself is not protest.

01:05:43.777 --> 01:05:47.697
And so I also wanted young people to understand, and anybody,

01:05:47.917 --> 01:05:51.317
but especially young people to understand the history of this country.

01:05:51.617 --> 01:05:56.537
And those young people and the others who understand wouldn't also include people

01:05:56.537 --> 01:05:58.137
immigrating into the country.

01:05:58.597 --> 01:06:03.717
Because I think they haven't found their foothold in this notion of protest yet.

01:06:03.717 --> 01:06:09.557
There are too many people who came to this country based on what was built by

01:06:09.557 --> 01:06:13.977
African-Americans and other activists who gave their lives and livelihoods,

01:06:14.017 --> 01:06:18.177
and they are now presented with these opportunities that were made for them.

01:06:18.357 --> 01:06:21.117
Santa Claus did not give Black people these rights.

01:06:21.557 --> 01:06:25.477
Therefore, Santa Claus didn't give the rights to the Africans who are here,

01:06:25.597 --> 01:06:29.377
to the people from the Caribbean who are here, to the young people growing up

01:06:29.377 --> 01:06:35.337
with rights who are here of any background. Well, people had to fight, die for it, and now.

01:06:36.442 --> 01:06:40.082
Call them freedom freeloaders. If you think that you're just supposed to,

01:06:40.082 --> 01:06:45.682
you know, suck dry the benefits and live your life, then it has to be understood.

01:06:45.682 --> 01:06:51.622
We have too many people who don't know they have a responsibility to give to the protest fight.

01:06:52.142 --> 01:06:55.482
So, you know, I just, I'm just concerned about that.

01:06:56.062 --> 01:07:01.102
So what, what lit the fire in you personally? When did you decide that you were

01:07:01.102 --> 01:07:02.982
going to be an activist yourself?

01:07:03.602 --> 01:07:05.802
I didn't plan on being an activist.

01:07:06.462 --> 01:07:10.402
My parents probably didn't plan on it either when they bused me to the white

01:07:10.402 --> 01:07:14.222
school across town, but that's what resulted from it.

01:07:14.562 --> 01:07:17.962
And so I learned speech and debate.

01:07:18.322 --> 01:07:22.482
I learned how to interact with people.

01:07:22.862 --> 01:07:27.762
I mean, it was devastating and traumatizing, but I like to make lemonade when

01:07:27.762 --> 01:07:29.162
I have lemons given to me.

01:07:29.342 --> 01:07:33.902
And the lemonade that I made was to be able to take what I had learned about

01:07:33.902 --> 01:07:39.762
the cultures that I was now thrust upon and, or what thrust upon me and,

01:07:39.762 --> 01:07:42.162
and figure out how do I navigate this?

01:07:42.302 --> 01:07:47.902
And so I saw that there were so many misconceptions about the African-American community.

01:07:48.382 --> 01:07:53.602
And the more I saw the misconceptions, the more I wanted to speak up about it. And so I did.

01:07:54.002 --> 01:07:58.202
And I was, I wanted to be a writer initially. That's what I wanted to do out

01:07:58.202 --> 01:08:00.702
of high school. That's what I wanted to do as a little kid was to be a writer.

01:08:01.842 --> 01:08:04.662
I went to a predominantly white institution.

01:08:05.997 --> 01:08:10.377
And that wasn't a place where people actually supported my dreams of being a writer.

01:08:11.437 --> 01:08:15.797
Back then you had essays that you sent in by mail, yes, before the computer.

01:08:16.197 --> 01:08:21.397
And my essays were thrown away by my white mailman that I didn't realize that

01:08:21.397 --> 01:08:26.417
until that year when it was time for me to go and I hadn't heard anything from the schools.

01:08:26.617 --> 01:08:30.297
And those were the applications to go to writing programs. But I'd also thought,

01:08:30.457 --> 01:08:31.897
well, I'm thinking about law school too.

01:08:32.157 --> 01:08:35.617
And so the one application I had was a law school application that actually

01:08:35.617 --> 01:08:38.977
didn't get thrown away because it was mailed out two weeks later.

01:08:39.197 --> 01:08:43.577
And so I ended up going to law school and I was so bored and so disenchanted

01:08:43.577 --> 01:08:46.097
with law that I wanted to quit.

01:08:47.146 --> 01:08:53.326
And until I took union organizing class, and that was my labor law class.

01:08:53.326 --> 01:08:58.166
I took a gender and justice studies class. I took a civil rights class and then

01:08:58.166 --> 01:08:59.146
constitutional law class.

01:08:59.226 --> 01:09:03.266
And I was like, my mind was just like, wow, to this day, I get excited even

01:09:03.266 --> 01:09:08.726
talking about it. It's like, oh, okay, then law can be a tool for liberation.

01:09:09.566 --> 01:09:15.706
Let me see how this works. Let me see how they bent the power that was this

01:09:15.706 --> 01:09:21.406
weapon of oppression to use law to be a tool of liberation. And from there,

01:09:21.566 --> 01:09:24.106
I was like, yes, let me talk about this.

01:09:24.266 --> 01:09:28.346
Let me write about this. Let me explain it. And I began as a playwright.

01:09:28.486 --> 01:09:30.686
Let me put it in the theater that I did.

01:09:30.846 --> 01:09:37.006
Let me make this something known to people because we're the most litigious nation in the world.

01:09:37.106 --> 01:09:41.766
We have more lawyers, more court cases than any other nation in the world.

01:09:41.966 --> 01:09:45.426
We have this constitution. We export around the world. Nobody reads it.

01:09:45.606 --> 01:09:48.706
Just like I said, it's the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence,

01:09:48.706 --> 01:09:51.206
but nobody reads the Declaration of Independence.

01:09:51.326 --> 01:09:56.586
If they read it, they would see it really doesn't have the story in it that people think it does.

01:09:56.966 --> 01:10:02.026
So I'd like to speak truth to power and that power is in the hands of the community

01:10:02.026 --> 01:10:08.286
of regular people who can do amazing things and history has shown they have.

01:10:08.406 --> 01:10:10.706
And that's why I like to write these books. This is my seventh book.

01:10:10.986 --> 01:10:14.526
I like to write these books so that they can sit down at their own pace.

01:10:14.586 --> 01:10:17.646
And I write it in a way that anybody can read it.

01:10:18.474 --> 01:10:21.514
Not written in a way, in language that people can't understand.

01:10:21.794 --> 01:10:24.594
And I like to pride myself on having my books be accessible.

01:10:24.814 --> 01:10:30.454
So when I have all these things, I was like, okay, let me go and tell the world.

01:10:30.774 --> 01:10:34.474
And so that's what I've been doing. And that's my form of activism.

01:10:34.834 --> 01:10:40.054
It could be academic activism as a professor. I'm a full professor at my college, at John Jay College.

01:10:40.334 --> 01:10:44.194
So I don't have to write anything. I didn't have to write anything for almost

01:10:44.194 --> 01:10:48.334
the last 10 years or so, but I write because I'm a writer and I want people

01:10:48.334 --> 01:10:50.254
to explore the gifts they have.

01:10:50.394 --> 01:10:55.574
And one of my gifts is to actually be the kind of person who doesn't mind speaking

01:10:55.574 --> 01:11:02.054
up in a thoughtful way for myself, but more so for the people around me and

01:11:02.054 --> 01:11:04.394
especially people of African descent. Yeah.

01:11:05.354 --> 01:11:12.374
So one of the cool things about your book is that it shows that protests can take many forms.

01:11:12.514 --> 01:11:15.734
So my next couple of questions are based off of that premise.

01:11:17.430 --> 01:11:22.410
You say to people that say a No Kings rally is not really a protest?

01:11:23.490 --> 01:11:30.910
I am concerned because one of the good things about a No Kings rally,

01:11:31.150 --> 01:11:35.290
if you have enough people and it's spread out in enough places,

01:11:35.290 --> 01:11:42.050
it is indeed sending a message to this authoritarian administration and its

01:11:42.050 --> 01:11:49.070
binyon among the governors and other people in politics and in corporate America,

01:11:49.070 --> 01:11:52.470
that there are disgruntled people, enough disgruntled people,

01:11:52.550 --> 01:11:53.330
they should pay attention.

01:11:53.710 --> 01:11:56.110
But a protest is supposed to disrupt.

01:11:56.710 --> 01:12:02.870
And so when we have these No Kings rallies, it does bring the troops together in a way.

01:12:03.030 --> 01:12:07.590
It does help us to see our common interests and get the spirit together for

01:12:07.590 --> 01:12:09.890
the protests. That's what rallies did.

01:12:10.330 --> 01:12:15.150
Rallies would be a meeting before the protests so that everyone's on the same page.

01:12:15.230 --> 01:12:18.890
We have an understanding of what our commonality is, what our arguments are,

01:12:19.030 --> 01:12:20.530
why we're upset in the first place.

01:12:20.890 --> 01:12:24.330
And then you go to the protests. And the protests doesn't need to be violent

01:12:24.330 --> 01:12:26.070
to disrupt. That has to be very clear.

01:12:26.410 --> 01:12:29.470
It does not need to be violent to disrupt.

01:12:29.770 --> 01:12:33.770
That's why the sit-ins were so important, because the sit-ins were non-violent,

01:12:33.830 --> 01:12:36.090
but they disrupted business as usual.

01:12:36.350 --> 01:12:39.550
And that's the disruption that needs to take place. And unfortunately,

01:12:40.090 --> 01:12:44.050
the No Kings rallies, many of them, especially this time last year,

01:12:44.310 --> 01:12:48.710
were held in parks, were held on Sunday in front of, you know.

01:12:49.703 --> 01:12:53.363
Offices and in front of government buildings that were closed.

01:12:53.603 --> 01:12:58.823
And so it didn't disrupt anything, but it did send a message of displeasure.

01:12:59.243 --> 01:13:03.403
And our First Amendment gives us the freedom of speech right,

01:13:03.583 --> 01:13:06.683
of course, we know, the freedom of assembly coming together.

01:13:06.683 --> 01:13:11.003
But the last line gives us the right to petition the government for a redress

01:13:11.003 --> 01:13:13.603
of grievances. And people don't make it to that last line.

01:13:13.823 --> 01:13:19.563
That last line means the right to petition is to ask for a redress to fix grievances or complaints.

01:13:20.123 --> 01:13:24.263
So even in a union, you file agreements. It's a complaint. And so we have a

01:13:24.263 --> 01:13:29.323
right to tell the government what we don't like and demand that they fix it.

01:13:29.783 --> 01:13:34.943
But how do we do that if we don't send a message that's strong enough and get

01:13:34.943 --> 01:13:37.863
them to understand we mean business?

01:13:38.143 --> 01:13:44.003
And sometimes the no-king's rallies are not getting the government to see that

01:13:44.003 --> 01:13:46.523
we mean business, and disruption does that.

01:13:47.103 --> 01:13:54.263
And as I said, disruption can take, not buying from certain corporations would be a disruption.

01:13:54.883 --> 01:13:58.323
When police officers don't have their contract that they want,

01:13:58.483 --> 01:14:02.863
they figure out ways to disrupt the mayor's office and to get the attention

01:14:02.863 --> 01:14:06.963
of the mayor and other people on the city council and others who are involved.

01:14:07.063 --> 01:14:13.343
So we know how to disrupt without violence. And I think that's If the No Kings

01:14:13.343 --> 01:14:19.323
rallies would then think about as a part of their rally, the strategy of disruption,

01:14:19.623 --> 01:14:22.243
then they would become the protest that we need them to be.

01:14:22.703 --> 01:14:27.663
Okay. So how can owning a casino be considered a protest?

01:14:28.643 --> 01:14:34.823
Because what I thought of with the child Native Americans in Mississippi was

01:14:34.823 --> 01:14:39.463
that they were wholly dependent on the government. Right.

01:14:39.765 --> 01:14:45.025
They were living in ways that where there was almost 50% unemployment.

01:14:45.765 --> 01:14:49.825
You had very high alcoholism and other types of drug addiction.

01:14:50.245 --> 01:14:55.105
And many of, not just there, but in many of the places of the indigenous,

01:14:55.465 --> 01:15:00.745
not all the reserve land, but many of those places, for them to have their own

01:15:00.745 --> 01:15:04.405
independence is one, to have financial dignity,

01:15:04.765 --> 01:15:09.725
to have choice of how they want to live, the ability to run their own government

01:15:09.725 --> 01:15:17.065
with a financial basis for that government, but also to protect their language and their culture,

01:15:17.465 --> 01:15:21.085
their traditions, and not be dependent on others to do that.

01:15:21.765 --> 01:15:26.565
Forced assimilation had taken so much from them, but their protest was to maintain

01:15:26.565 --> 01:15:30.125
their cultures and their language and their religions and traditions,

01:15:30.125 --> 01:15:37.025
and the ability to have their own source of income, to not go the way of the enticement,

01:15:37.265 --> 01:15:41.705
give us your land and we'll put a toxic waste dump on it, but to actually say,

01:15:41.985 --> 01:15:47.145
no, we're going to create our own form of income and we're going to have our own autonomy.

01:15:47.465 --> 01:15:52.405
And for one to have autonomy is a protest against the government that would

01:15:52.405 --> 01:15:54.565
want one to be dependent on them.

01:15:54.785 --> 01:15:59.005
So when I use the word protest, it's beyond the protest in the streets.

01:15:59.205 --> 01:16:03.785
That's more power to you for the protest in the streets, and protest is powerful in that way.

01:16:03.945 --> 01:16:08.505
But there are many ways in which we can protest, and one way is to have your

01:16:08.505 --> 01:16:13.845
autonomy, to have your own culture be respected by yourself,

01:16:14.105 --> 01:16:16.925
and to maintain it over time, and they did that.

01:16:17.245 --> 01:16:19.965
Yeah, the Choctaws are very interesting.

01:16:20.645 --> 01:16:24.965
They tried the assimilation piece because they had this big factory there.

01:16:25.956 --> 01:16:31.016
And they got a contract with General Motors. And so that was kind of helping a little bit.

01:16:31.136 --> 01:16:34.096
But like you said, it still wasn't addressing the major problem.

01:16:34.416 --> 01:16:36.576
And so when they were able to

01:16:36.576 --> 01:16:40.676
get to casinos, it just changed the whole trajectory of their lifestyle.

01:16:40.756 --> 01:16:48.836
And like you said, it gave them the financial independence to continue their

01:16:48.836 --> 01:16:49.876
cultural independence.

01:16:50.336 --> 01:16:57.876
Right. And they were unique in that they are the only nation that has a lifetime,

01:16:58.076 --> 01:17:02.276
a perpetuity arrangement.

01:17:02.676 --> 01:17:06.656
All the other ones are like 50 years, 100 years or whatever.

01:17:06.856 --> 01:17:12.296
As long as there is a Choctaw breathing, they can have those casinos and stuff.

01:17:12.396 --> 01:17:14.856
And they're the only people that had that set up.

01:17:15.316 --> 01:17:18.336
And because they tried to change it when I was in the legislature,

01:17:18.336 --> 01:17:21.676
I was like, are you crazy? Oh, no, we're not doing that to them.

01:17:22.636 --> 01:17:29.596
No. So, yeah, that but I wanted to highlight that because you did such an excellent

01:17:29.596 --> 01:17:30.856
job in doing that in the book.

01:17:31.276 --> 01:17:36.836
What was the important lesson of Bacon's rebellion as it pertains to protests?

01:17:38.037 --> 01:17:43.337
Rebellion was in 1676. That Virginia colony that I said where we started our

01:17:43.337 --> 01:17:51.977
history had these major clashes between class and there was forced religious practices.

01:17:52.417 --> 01:17:57.177
But you have these indentured servants who are considered white slaves because

01:17:57.177 --> 01:18:03.717
they're basically working for free to pay off the cost of taking the ship from the old world,

01:18:03.877 --> 01:18:09.257
England or wherever they came from in part of Western Europe into the colony.

01:18:09.477 --> 01:18:14.057
And so once they paid that off, then they could start their own farms.

01:18:14.217 --> 01:18:16.057
And tobacco was the crop.

01:18:16.357 --> 01:18:23.117
So the Africans were then brought now in greater numbers, the 20 and odd Africans

01:18:23.117 --> 01:18:27.637
that were recorded in August of 1619, then grew to hundreds.

01:18:27.917 --> 01:18:32.877
And so the Africans, as well as the indentured servants, had something in common.

01:18:33.117 --> 01:18:37.077
They are both groups were being oppressed, and the former indentured servants,

01:18:37.217 --> 01:18:42.077
the poor whites, were being oppressed, and so they rose up together against

01:18:42.077 --> 01:18:44.377
the elite English that were in the colony.

01:18:44.697 --> 01:18:49.117
And they almost won, except Bacon got sick and died.

01:18:49.785 --> 01:18:55.445
And then once Bacon died and they were actually, they put down the uprising,

01:18:55.745 --> 01:19:01.205
the mixture of the Africans and the poor whites together was so powerful and

01:19:01.205 --> 01:19:02.505
so frightened the elite.

01:19:02.725 --> 01:19:07.445
They determined they would never allow those two groups to come together like that again.

01:19:07.445 --> 01:19:12.845
And so they figured out how to give the white indigenous servants just a little

01:19:12.845 --> 01:19:18.965
bit more based on pigment, something indelible, so that there would always be this conflict.

01:19:19.265 --> 01:19:22.525
Divide and conquer, because Europeans use divide and conquer,

01:19:22.625 --> 01:19:28.365
have been using it for thousands of years successfully, and only unity beats divide and conquer.

01:19:28.365 --> 01:19:31.465
And so they figured out a way to divide the

01:19:31.465 --> 01:19:35.625
interests of the poor whites and the Africans so that they would then be in

01:19:35.625 --> 01:19:39.085
conflict and the whites would think they were better than the Africans and always

01:19:39.085 --> 01:19:45.745
try to some kind of way oppress the African to make the white indentured servant

01:19:45.745 --> 01:19:49.745
or the former indentured servant or poor white feel a little better about their situation,

01:19:49.925 --> 01:19:52.165
even though they've never reached the level of the elites.

01:19:52.165 --> 01:19:56.785
But they could be used and that anger could be used as a tool by the elites

01:19:56.785 --> 01:19:59.405
to get the poor whites to be against the Africans.

01:19:59.565 --> 01:20:06.205
That was from 1676 and it's been in play ever since because there's too many people.

01:20:06.385 --> 01:20:10.925
Jesse Jackson figured out a way to speak to poor whites and try to bring them

01:20:10.925 --> 01:20:13.045
together during his presidential campaign.

01:20:13.185 --> 01:20:18.085
But very few people actually see the work of divide and conquer from Baker's

01:20:18.085 --> 01:20:20.365
rebellion that's still in play right now.

01:20:20.365 --> 01:20:26.945
And to understand how do you address that issue so that we understand that we're

01:20:26.945 --> 01:20:32.345
being played against each other in order to keep that power from rising up against the elite.

01:20:32.545 --> 01:20:35.985
The elite are pressing both groups and all the other groups of color as well.

01:20:36.545 --> 01:20:40.625
Yeah. And Fred Hampton was doing that same kind of work in Chicago when he died.

01:20:40.765 --> 01:20:45.545
He was unifying the poor whites and the Latinos and all that stuff.

01:20:45.765 --> 01:20:48.565
So, like you said, there's power in numbers.

01:20:49.461 --> 01:20:53.901
Andrew Dellers once said that the limits of tyrants prescribed by the endurance

01:20:53.901 --> 01:20:56.241
of those whom they oppress.

01:20:56.501 --> 01:20:58.901
Are those words still applicable today?

01:21:00.120 --> 01:21:06.420
Certainly some people only want better hours on the plantation and a softer pillow in the prison.

01:21:07.620 --> 01:21:12.160
They don't want real freedom. They don't want real liberty or they think it

01:21:12.160 --> 01:21:15.440
has to be this way and it can't be any better.

01:21:15.900 --> 01:21:20.680
There's always going to be someone in the group who says, I know I'm not supposed

01:21:20.680 --> 01:21:23.720
to have more, but something inside of me wants more.

01:21:24.240 --> 01:21:29.920
So you have all of these people from that person who doesn't ever want change

01:21:29.920 --> 01:21:32.640
to the people who demand change right now.

01:21:32.860 --> 01:21:34.860
We'll all be in the same communities.

01:21:35.180 --> 01:21:41.280
And so I think that when you consider how much for, in particular,

01:21:41.400 --> 01:21:44.840
African-Americans and other people of color have been oppressed in this country,

01:21:44.840 --> 01:21:48.220
I ask the question almost every day, why do I stay here?

01:21:48.340 --> 01:21:51.080
Why am I still, where is my America?

01:21:51.360 --> 01:21:55.760
Because I travel a great deal outside the country, because sometimes I just

01:21:55.760 --> 01:21:56.920
can't take the hypocrisy.

01:21:57.360 --> 01:22:03.340
And I, you know, it's almost as though you have to, you're in an abusive relationship

01:22:03.340 --> 01:22:07.820
in this nation and you've learned how to deal with the abuse.

01:22:08.300 --> 01:22:14.160
And I think some of the benefits, of course, for those who can get the pretty

01:22:14.160 --> 01:22:18.440
house and the nice car and you have a job and you have those days that you're not beaten.

01:22:18.680 --> 01:22:22.960
And then other days, you know, horrific things happen like right now.

01:22:22.960 --> 01:22:25.840
And you wonder why do we live here?

01:22:26.040 --> 01:22:31.380
Why are we suffering under these illusions of liberty when this is a capitalist

01:22:31.380 --> 01:22:35.660
nation that only cares about the money that we can put into the pockets of corporations?

01:22:35.940 --> 01:22:39.860
And we're just the middleman between making the money and putting it in the

01:22:39.860 --> 01:22:46.020
hands of those who are then using it to make themselves even richer and oppress us even more.

01:22:46.180 --> 01:22:51.040
So it's really a conflicted mindset. And you wonder if it's like this in all

01:22:51.040 --> 01:22:54.120
countries. Do Most people believe they're oppressed in their nation,

01:22:54.300 --> 01:22:56.920
but they have good days in the midst of the oppression.

01:22:57.240 --> 01:23:02.340
I think the reason why this country becomes such an unholy.

01:23:03.352 --> 01:23:09.892
Liberation of liberty is because it sets itself out as the shining light on the hill of democracy.

01:23:10.192 --> 01:23:13.452
And if the promises had not been made, as Martin Luther King said,

01:23:13.632 --> 01:23:18.752
be true to what you said on paper. If the Declaration of Independence, if the U.S.

01:23:18.852 --> 01:23:24.212
Constitution, if these constant promises had not been made of liberty and justice for all,

01:23:24.452 --> 01:23:32.952
then perhaps people wouldn't feel the need to be disillusioned by the disappointment

01:23:32.952 --> 01:23:35.972
of failing to adhere to those promises.

01:23:36.312 --> 01:23:41.012
But the other people have just decided there's enough for me to get as a benefit

01:23:41.012 --> 01:23:43.832
that I don't need to have real freedom and real liberty.

01:23:43.972 --> 01:23:46.052
They don't really need to live up to the promises.

01:23:46.352 --> 01:23:50.572
So they'll take what they can get. And you have all that in one country,

01:23:50.772 --> 01:23:53.952
in one community, in one neighborhood, sometimes in one family.

01:23:54.452 --> 01:23:57.232
Yeah. So, you know, I'm glad you made me

01:23:57.232 --> 01:24:00.572
feel like i'm smart because i have said the same thing about this

01:24:00.572 --> 01:24:03.432
being a bad relationship it's like you

01:24:03.432 --> 01:24:06.572
treat me bad while i'm here but then you don't want me to leave right

01:24:06.572 --> 01:24:10.892
because it's like you know we've gone through all these struggles and then when

01:24:10.892 --> 01:24:14.512
marcus garvey was like look i'm gonna ship all of us out of here it's like no

01:24:14.512 --> 01:24:17.952
we're gonna put you in jail you can't take all the black folks out i said that's

01:24:17.952 --> 01:24:23.792
a bad relationship right so i'm i'm glad to hear somebody smarter than me use

01:24:23.792 --> 01:24:25.212
that same kind of analogy.

01:24:26.212 --> 01:24:29.432
You know, it's just, it's really amazing.

01:24:32.072 --> 01:24:36.612
How the dynamics of all that. I was just, I just had a guest on and we were

01:24:36.612 --> 01:24:38.852
talking about the Double V campaign,

01:24:39.572 --> 01:24:44.072
during World War II, where it's like we were fighting for victory in Europe

01:24:44.072 --> 01:24:47.932
and then fighting for victory here as far as black people and stuff.

01:24:48.072 --> 01:24:52.452
So that's always been the dichotomy we've had to deal with.

01:24:53.521 --> 01:24:58.321
Speaking about that, many of us in the Black community feel that the civil rights

01:24:58.321 --> 01:25:01.721
movement is the matrix of American protest.

01:25:02.101 --> 01:25:04.181
Is that an accurate assessment?

01:25:05.481 --> 01:25:11.921
I think it is very accurate from the standpoint that the labor movement was

01:25:11.921 --> 01:25:14.681
actually the initial movement of protest.

01:25:14.941 --> 01:25:20.461
And when labor unions were formed, it was a protest against working conditions, the working hours.

01:25:20.461 --> 01:25:25.981
People work an eight-hour workday because the labor protests demanded an eight-hour

01:25:25.981 --> 01:25:31.401
workday to live up to the law that was passed in the 1800s, to actually have an eight-hour workday.

01:25:31.581 --> 01:25:36.561
That took until the 1900s of protesting for almost 100 years before we actually

01:25:36.561 --> 01:25:40.061
got the eight-hour workday that we take for granted or the 40-hour work week.

01:25:40.061 --> 01:25:43.081
So when the people like A.

01:25:43.181 --> 01:25:47.721
Philip Randolph, who learned through the labor movement, the skills,

01:25:47.941 --> 01:25:54.881
the structure of protest, and we had people who came from the background of the wars,

01:25:55.341 --> 01:26:00.361
World War I and World War II, they learned the structure of the military.

01:26:00.361 --> 01:26:09.301
That all came together with Marcus Garvey, you know, and the improvement philosophy.

01:26:09.901 --> 01:26:13.121
The Negro improvement philosophy to create the civil rights movement,

01:26:13.461 --> 01:26:16.721
adding in there Mahatma Gandhi and what they learned from his protest.

01:26:16.721 --> 01:26:22.201
So it was a matrix or the nexus of so many different elements of movement that

01:26:22.201 --> 01:26:26.821
came together that were used during the Civil Rights Movement to make it a blending

01:26:26.821 --> 01:26:30.301
of different philosophies, tactics, strategies,

01:26:30.841 --> 01:26:34.141
alliances, and creativity to create that movement.

01:26:34.141 --> 01:26:40.201
So it became the anchor of what would be the type of movement needed,

01:26:40.481 --> 01:26:44.461
especially the nonviolent as well as the violent aspects of the Civil Rights

01:26:44.461 --> 01:26:45.801
Movement because you had both there.

01:26:47.031 --> 01:26:53.151
Yeah. What do you what do you see as the role of media when it comes to protests?

01:26:53.251 --> 01:26:58.931
Now, you know, we're talking about the civil rights movement and any Marcus Garvey.

01:26:59.171 --> 01:27:02.991
You know, a lot of people don't know that his newspaper, The Negro World,

01:27:03.131 --> 01:27:07.411
was literally the largest circulation newspaper in America during this time.

01:27:07.851 --> 01:27:13.311
And so the black press has always played a role in telling the story and and

01:27:13.311 --> 01:27:15.011
highlighting what was going on.

01:27:15.791 --> 01:27:21.511
But I guess the question is the overall media, what can they do when it comes

01:27:21.511 --> 01:27:25.311
to protests to help carry, address an issue?

01:27:25.951 --> 01:27:29.771
Well, first, I actually used to write for the black press.

01:27:32.191 --> 01:27:36.131
And so I felt that was important. And some of my research,

01:27:36.151 --> 01:27:39.991
I go to the black press because you can't get the real story from the white

01:27:39.991 --> 01:27:45.171
press from 50 or 80 or 100 years ago of what was being said in the white press

01:27:45.171 --> 01:27:47.791
about things that were happening regarding lynching, race, etc.

01:27:48.391 --> 01:27:53.991
But I think that the media today is more conservative than it used to be.

01:27:53.991 --> 01:27:57.991
The media has always had a conservative nature to it, but it had a curiosity.

01:27:58.211 --> 01:28:03.511
The media today has an intent to just show one side of the story.

01:28:03.751 --> 01:28:06.531
And that means that they're not going to show.

01:28:07.458 --> 01:28:12.278
Protests that are going on. Martin Luther King was masterful at learning how

01:28:12.278 --> 01:28:16.018
to get the attention of the media, the mainstream media, I should say.

01:28:16.238 --> 01:28:19.638
I hope the Black press, even though it's very difficult to do,

01:28:19.838 --> 01:28:23.858
will continue to have reporters that go out to report the news and not just

01:28:23.858 --> 01:28:29.698
write about what's already happened, because it takes a lot of money to do that.

01:28:29.878 --> 01:28:31.538
And a lot of the Black press doesn't

01:28:31.538 --> 01:28:35.298
have the money because people don't support it the way they used to.

01:28:35.498 --> 01:28:40.818
But I think the mainstream media, whether or not it's the commercialized media

01:28:40.818 --> 01:28:45.918
like the Washington Post or New York Times or any other type of large media,

01:28:46.018 --> 01:28:48.838
Los Angeles Times, or the local papers.

01:28:49.038 --> 01:28:54.878
So many local papers are going under and so much media people are getting from Instagram and TikTok.

01:28:55.238 --> 01:28:58.918
So they think that's media, but you have to ask, who's writing this?

01:28:59.058 --> 01:29:02.718
What's their background? What's their interest in saying what they're saying?

01:29:03.678 --> 01:29:07.758
Are these the facts or is this something they're just writing about because

01:29:07.758 --> 01:29:09.638
they have a point of view on it.

01:29:09.778 --> 01:29:13.158
So I think we've gotten to a point where media is so diffused,

01:29:13.278 --> 01:29:19.578
it's difficult to find places that can cover protests the way protests need

01:29:19.578 --> 01:29:21.018
to be covered on a regular basis.

01:29:21.258 --> 01:29:25.638
They covered protests in the civil rights era because it was so extraordinary.

01:29:25.958 --> 01:29:28.698
It would make the news, but they didn't cover every protest.

01:29:28.898 --> 01:29:30.678
And I'll give this one last example.

01:29:31.118 --> 01:29:36.398
Over 1,200 people die at the hands of police each year. We don't hear anything

01:29:36.398 --> 01:29:39.958
about probably 1,120 of those people.

01:29:40.398 --> 01:29:45.978
Why? Because the media is not covering them, is not making the news the way it should,

01:29:45.978 --> 01:29:52.198
because the media and many aspects of it either don't care or their editors

01:29:52.198 --> 01:29:57.178
are not allowing them to cover these racial issues the way they should. So I think...

01:29:58.005 --> 01:30:03.225
Unfortunately, if it bleeds, it leaves, continues to be the way protest is covered.

01:30:03.325 --> 01:30:05.465
And that's quite unfortunate. Okay.

01:30:06.265 --> 01:30:11.105
What would you, you know, we, we are very impatient.

01:30:11.525 --> 01:30:16.925
And so a lot of times we collectively, and so a lot of times we'll get out here

01:30:16.925 --> 01:30:20.745
and we'll fight for stuff, whether it's George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery,

01:30:21.505 --> 01:30:22.565
Sandra Bland, whatever.

01:30:22.565 --> 01:30:29.265
And then we don't see the results we want right away or the election doesn't

01:30:29.265 --> 01:30:32.865
go the way we want and we'll get disheartened or discouraged.

01:30:32.885 --> 01:30:39.305
What do you say to people to try to keep them from being discouraged if they

01:30:39.305 --> 01:30:41.205
don't get the results they want right away?

01:30:41.705 --> 01:30:50.105
That we are fighting against princes and principalities that can be moved,

01:30:50.305 --> 01:30:53.605
but rarely get moved all at once.

01:30:53.845 --> 01:30:56.125
And that's the way it has been.

01:30:56.605 --> 01:31:03.345
Protest works, but I like to use this acronym, STRG, strategy,

01:31:03.925 --> 01:31:11.045
tenacity, time, allowances, alliances, resources, and creativity.

01:31:11.545 --> 01:31:16.965
Strategy, tenacity, time, alliances, resources, and creativity stark.

01:31:17.645 --> 01:31:24.645
If you think about the tenacity and time that it took for people to gain the right to vote.

01:31:25.490 --> 01:31:30.090
Brown versus Board of Education was 1954. The Montgomery bus boycott was 1955.

01:31:30.730 --> 01:31:33.470
The Voting Rights Act was 1965.

01:31:34.230 --> 01:31:37.610
And yes, we're in the 21st century, we want things to go faster.

01:31:37.990 --> 01:31:41.130
And things, oppression happens faster, as we just saw.

01:31:41.670 --> 01:31:46.730
And protests can happen faster, but it's still going to go slower than the oppression

01:31:46.730 --> 01:31:50.070
did, especially since it takes time for people to get on board.

01:31:50.330 --> 01:31:54.510
So many people want the protests to have quick results as they sit back and

01:31:54.510 --> 01:31:56.330
watch, like it's a reality television show.

01:31:56.590 --> 01:32:00.410
So if they're not going to get involved and yet they want to see these results

01:32:00.410 --> 01:32:04.650
happen right away, then we have a conflict in goals.

01:32:05.050 --> 01:32:09.350
The goal is to have somebody else do the work. And that's where I'm concerned.

01:32:09.350 --> 01:32:13.570
And I go back to the people who either immigrated into the country,

01:32:13.790 --> 01:32:18.450
have been here, but don't know what their role should be, or don't feel that they should play role.

01:32:18.590 --> 01:32:21.370
And I've had plenty of people say, I just want to live my life.

01:32:21.490 --> 01:32:25.110
I shouldn't have to be involved in this. And I'm sure Fannie Lou Hamer felt the same way.

01:32:25.490 --> 01:32:28.690
Martin Luther King could have just lived his life. He had a very nice life before

01:32:28.690 --> 01:32:30.830
he got involved with the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

01:32:30.970 --> 01:32:33.930
He didn't have to do that. And many ministers did not get involved.

01:32:34.130 --> 01:32:40.250
So you do have those people standing on the side of the road wondering why protest is taking so long.

01:32:40.410 --> 01:32:44.790
They're doing nothing to help, but they wonder why protest is taking so long

01:32:44.790 --> 01:32:49.210
or is it effective at all? They want the benefit, freedom freeloaders,

01:32:49.390 --> 01:32:51.750
of the protest, or they're sincere.

01:32:51.930 --> 01:32:55.010
They want to do something, but they don't know how to do it,

01:32:55.290 --> 01:32:59.090
where to do it. And there's a role for everybody in protest.

01:32:59.190 --> 01:33:02.370
If you think about, ask yourself the question, what can I do?

01:33:02.550 --> 01:33:06.950
But if we don't do something, it's going to take even longer for protests to

01:33:06.950 --> 01:33:09.710
be effective because it's going to be fits and starts.

01:33:09.850 --> 01:33:13.690
And I'm concerned right now because we have a lot of Black women.

01:33:13.690 --> 01:33:18.450
And yes, black women, I'm wondering how long we plan on sitting this out.

01:33:19.368 --> 01:33:24.648
We've got to figure out where and when we enter, and it doesn't have to be entering in the streets.

01:33:24.888 --> 01:33:27.388
It could be entering strategically. Remember, start.

01:33:27.728 --> 01:33:32.328
Strategy, tenacity, time, alliances, resources, and creativity.

01:33:32.688 --> 01:33:36.308
We have to figure out when and where we're going to enter, how we're going to

01:33:36.308 --> 01:33:38.388
do this in the most safe way that we can.

01:33:38.668 --> 01:33:43.348
Protest has always had dangerous aspects to it, but we can expect things to

01:33:43.348 --> 01:33:46.788
happen quickly. protest on Friday and see the change on Monday.

01:33:46.948 --> 01:33:50.208
That didn't happen even during the civil rights movement, women's movement,

01:33:50.408 --> 01:33:52.628
labor movement, anti-Vietnam war movement.

01:33:52.868 --> 01:33:56.768
Movements take time. They move, but they take time and they're moving.

01:33:56.968 --> 01:34:02.148
And they take even more time if people spend their efforts complaining and watching

01:34:02.148 --> 01:34:04.308
as opposed to doing and participating.

01:34:05.208 --> 01:34:10.568
All right. I want you to finish this sentence. I have hope because.

01:34:12.446 --> 01:34:17.426
I have hope because I know God does not live at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

01:34:18.486 --> 01:34:24.186
And I have hope because my ancestors, one of whom I write about,

01:34:24.326 --> 01:34:27.686
well, many, but especially I start my book out, a protest history in the United States,

01:34:28.166 --> 01:34:34.326
starts out with my great-great-grandmother, Eliza, who was enslaved in 1827

01:34:34.326 --> 01:34:37.026
and rose up against her slave masters.

01:34:37.026 --> 01:34:42.786
I have hope because her granddaughter, Maddie, went to college in 1907 and wrote

01:34:42.786 --> 01:34:44.026
about grandmother Eliza.

01:34:44.986 --> 01:34:47.766
And that essay she wrote was published in the school newspaper,

01:34:47.906 --> 01:34:54.626
her college newspaper, and was found later by a professor who then researched

01:34:54.626 --> 01:34:56.746
it and wrote a scholarly paper about it.

01:34:56.746 --> 01:35:02.226
I have hope because I had cousins who went to Spelman in 1920.

01:35:02.606 --> 01:35:07.946
1919 was the time of the red summer where there were so many race riots and

01:35:07.946 --> 01:35:11.886
white folks just rising up, lynching and burning down Black businesses.

01:35:12.166 --> 01:35:16.566
I have hope because they traveled from Kansas to go to Spelman.

01:35:16.706 --> 01:35:22.926
I have hope because so many people invested in me not knowing my name so that

01:35:22.926 --> 01:35:24.726
I would have the freedoms I have today.

01:35:25.850 --> 01:35:29.870
I have hope because I have breath in my body to do something,

01:35:30.150 --> 01:35:33.750
to use the talents that I've been given by God to do something.

01:35:33.970 --> 01:35:37.570
And as long as I can do something, I have hope for a better day.

01:35:37.710 --> 01:35:44.810
And I have hope because there's always a possibility for change if you keep

01:35:44.810 --> 01:35:46.730
pushing and keep trying.

01:35:47.110 --> 01:35:52.930
And I am an example of my own life of somebody, there was no crystal stair rising up to meet me.

01:35:53.430 --> 01:35:57.310
So I have had to do a lot of hard work and navigate a lot of things.

01:35:57.490 --> 01:36:01.570
There are very few things that haven't happened to me that people think,

01:36:01.650 --> 01:36:03.850
oh, you didn't have a Black life. I had a very Black life.

01:36:04.790 --> 01:36:10.890
And my Black life keeps lifing. But my thing is I have hope because I know that

01:36:10.890 --> 01:36:14.950
if I can wake up tomorrow and do a little bit more,

01:36:15.310 --> 01:36:20.970
I can rely on other people to do a little bit more, that we can push forward.

01:36:21.170 --> 01:36:22.630
We didn't get this far in this country.

01:36:22.930 --> 01:36:27.510
By giving up. We really didn't. And that's why I said people who immigrated

01:36:27.510 --> 01:36:29.010
here don't know the struggle.

01:36:29.490 --> 01:36:34.170
You don't have what you have by Black people giving up and white folks being

01:36:34.170 --> 01:36:35.590
Santa Claus and giving it to us.

01:36:35.910 --> 01:36:42.970
And so I believe that, as Jesse said, I'm going to keep hope alive and keep

01:36:42.970 --> 01:36:47.910
pushing because what else are you going to do? Sit down and be rolled over? I don't think so.

01:36:48.630 --> 01:36:54.890
Well, Gloria Browne-Marshall, I, you know, if the classes at John Jay College

01:36:54.890 --> 01:37:00.090
are like this interview, boy, boy, boy, you should have like an overflow as far as registration.

01:37:00.330 --> 01:37:02.970
You should have folks lining the door trying to get in that class.

01:37:03.450 --> 01:37:08.950
I am so glad that you are out here doing this, and I'm really glad that you

01:37:08.950 --> 01:37:13.790
took the time to come on the podcast and writing the book, A Protest History of the United States.

01:37:14.210 --> 01:37:18.150
If people want to get in touch with you, get copies of the book,

01:37:18.330 --> 01:37:20.130
all that, tell people how they can do that.

01:37:21.277 --> 01:37:25.237
They can get copies on the book online, most of the places that people know.

01:37:25.397 --> 01:37:29.977
But I'm asking people to also go to your local bookstore and not just order

01:37:29.977 --> 01:37:33.237
your book from your local bookstore. Ask them to put it on the shelf.

01:37:33.677 --> 01:37:39.317
Ask them. It's just out in paperback now. And so hardback as well as paperback.

01:37:39.677 --> 01:37:45.557
I'm also on a 25, now going into 27 state book tour.

01:37:45.797 --> 01:37:49.717
So I have been touring with this book for some time and doing wonderful podcasts

01:37:49.717 --> 01:37:53.677
like your show. Also, I have a website and I'm on Instagram.

01:37:54.017 --> 01:38:01.897
And the website is browne-marshall23.com. Browne-marshall23.com.

01:38:02.157 --> 01:38:05.437
And I'm on Instagram as well as on Facebook.

01:38:05.757 --> 01:38:09.737
So if you want to get in touch with me, that's how you can get in touch with me.

01:38:10.097 --> 01:38:14.477
Well, a couple of things real quick. One, I need your permission to borrow that

01:38:14.477 --> 01:38:18.117
line. What did you say? There's some people that just want better hours on the

01:38:18.117 --> 01:38:21.297
plantation and a softer pillow in the prison.

01:38:21.457 --> 01:38:24.637
I said, yeah, I'm going to have to ask, can I use that down the road?

01:38:25.857 --> 01:38:31.177
And then the other thing is, is that there's a rule that I have is that I have an open invitation.

01:38:31.497 --> 01:38:35.717
Anybody that wants to come, that's been on the show that wants to come back

01:38:35.717 --> 01:38:39.597
on, they have an open invitation. So I hope that you please take advantage of that.

01:38:39.917 --> 01:38:43.557
Maybe when you write your next book or whatever, but I would love to have you

01:38:43.557 --> 01:38:47.277
come back on. But again, I want to thank you for doing this,

01:38:47.317 --> 01:38:53.437
and I wish you much continued success in the academic year and as you continue

01:38:53.437 --> 01:38:54.897
to go forth as an activist.

01:38:56.098 --> 01:38:57.298
Thank you. I would like to come

01:38:57.298 --> 01:39:01.158
back at some point and talk about Martyrs Day, which would be July 5th.

01:39:01.258 --> 01:39:04.658
And I think this holiday to lift up protesters,

01:39:05.078 --> 01:39:09.738
activists, community organizers who have passed on and recognize their work

01:39:09.738 --> 01:39:12.318
and whether or not, like George Floyd, their lives were taken,

01:39:12.518 --> 01:39:18.658
but that led to activism that may change or people who have been activists all their lives.

01:39:18.658 --> 01:39:24.258
And I just want Martyrs Day, July 5th, which is the date that Frederick Douglass gave his speech,

01:39:24.598 --> 01:39:28.418
What to the Slave is the Fourth of July, that people around the country would

01:39:28.418 --> 01:39:32.938
have their own form of Martyrs Day to spend time to lift up the protester in

01:39:32.938 --> 01:39:37.498
their community who has passed on any era from Christmas addict all the way up.

01:39:37.678 --> 01:39:42.718
You know, but just like to say their name, because we deserve to know that protest

01:39:42.718 --> 01:39:46.578
is what made this Constitution what it is.

01:39:46.578 --> 01:39:54.278
The words on paper were just that words, but protests protested that into a reality of our lives.

01:39:54.798 --> 01:39:59.418
All right. Well, let's let's work on that. And again, I want to just thank you

01:39:59.418 --> 01:40:00.958
for for doing what you do.

01:40:01.198 --> 01:40:03.818
All right, guys, we're going to catch you all on the other side.

01:40:22.169 --> 01:40:29.989
All right, and we are back. And so now it is time for my next guest, Dr. Ashleigh Brown-Grier.

01:40:30.349 --> 01:40:36.149
Dr. Ashleigh Brown-Grier is a higher education expert specializing in internationalization

01:40:36.149 --> 01:40:41.569
at historically black colleges and universities, better known as HBCUs.

01:40:41.969 --> 01:40:47.369
She holds a PhD in higher education leadership and policy studies from Howard

01:40:47.369 --> 01:40:54.069
University, where she studied international student experiences at HBCUs during COVID-19.

01:40:55.029 --> 01:41:00.009
As founder of International HBCU Exchange, Inc., Dr.

01:41:00.169 --> 01:41:03.609
Brown-Grier secured a $200,000 U.S.

01:41:03.689 --> 01:41:09.049
Embassy grant to strengthen research collaborations between U.S.

01:41:09.189 --> 01:41:12.989
HBCUs and South Africa's historically Black universities.

01:41:12.989 --> 01:41:18.909
A two-time Fulbright Scholar and alumni ambassador, she served as an English

01:41:18.909 --> 01:41:23.389
teaching assistant in Malaysia and conducted research in South Africa,

01:41:23.549 --> 01:41:26.069
apartheid era inequities in higher education.

01:41:26.969 --> 01:41:34.009
Dr. Brown-Grier's scholarship focuses on internationalization strategies at HBCUs and HBUs.

01:41:34.009 --> 01:41:38.469
A graduate of Talladega College, Morgan State University, the University of

01:41:38.469 --> 01:41:43.969
Pennsylvania, and Howard University, she is committed to expanding global learning

01:41:43.969 --> 01:41:48.469
pathways and fostering academic partnerships in higher education.

01:41:48.689 --> 01:41:53.209
Ladies and gentlemen, it is my distinct honor and privilege to have as a guest

01:41:53.209 --> 01:41:57.209
on this podcast, Dr. Ashleigh Brown-Grier.

01:42:08.103 --> 01:42:13.483
All right. Dr. Ashleigh Brown-Grier. How you doing, sister? You doing good?

01:42:14.383 --> 01:42:20.803
I'm doing good. I'm doing good. Keeping well. Well, I'm glad and I'm glad that

01:42:20.803 --> 01:42:24.943
you were able to do this because you deal with something that's near and dear

01:42:24.943 --> 01:42:27.743
to my heart. And we'll get into that in the discussion.

01:42:28.403 --> 01:42:32.963
But I want to start off the interview with what I call a couple of icebreakers.

01:42:33.623 --> 01:42:37.263
So the first icebreaker is a quote I want you to respond to.

01:42:37.623 --> 01:42:45.543
And the quote is, HBCUs were born out of necessity, built at a time when Black

01:42:45.543 --> 01:42:49.243
students were barred from attending most universities in America.

01:42:49.863 --> 01:42:54.563
They became sanctuaries of excellence, identity, and community.

01:42:55.523 --> 01:42:56.523
What does that quote mean to you?

01:42:57.763 --> 01:43:03.123
Um, it means to me, it means a lot.

01:43:03.323 --> 01:43:11.163
I will say I've been on my historical journey here lately and I understand the

01:43:11.163 --> 01:43:15.103
importance of Black people having their own spaces.

01:43:15.403 --> 01:43:20.623
I was brought up to think that segregation was a bad thing, but now I recognize

01:43:20.623 --> 01:43:30.203
how HBCUs and Black institutions as a whole were spaces where we were able to just be and thrive.

01:43:30.683 --> 01:43:35.423
And so it wasn't necessary. It was born out of, you know,

01:43:35.523 --> 01:43:42.583
a colonialist mindset, but how we've changed and evolved and really have challenged

01:43:42.583 --> 01:43:46.363
a lot of the narratives that were originally, you know.

01:43:47.803 --> 01:43:53.163
Within the system that created us, you know, it's very, they're very important institutions.

01:43:53.383 --> 01:43:55.443
So yes, yeah, that means a lot.

01:43:56.683 --> 01:44:01.263
All right. So now the second icebreaker is what I call 20 questions.

01:44:02.023 --> 01:44:05.603
So I need you to give me a number between one and 20.

01:44:06.303 --> 01:44:11.503
Okay. We'll go with my favorite number, three. All right. How should we balance

01:44:11.503 --> 01:44:14.103
rights, freedoms, and responsibilities?

01:44:15.203 --> 01:44:20.223
How should we balance rights, freedoms, and responsibilities?

01:44:23.384 --> 01:44:27.604
Ooh, that's a tricky one. How should we balance those?

01:44:28.044 --> 01:44:31.304
Well, I think, and I know I'm gonna get a little intellectual here,

01:44:31.464 --> 01:44:34.804
but I'm currently, I'm working on a conceptual framework.

01:44:35.004 --> 01:44:40.544
It's called the Architecture of Institutional Containment. And it looks at how

01:44:40.544 --> 01:44:46.584
colonialism was established as a system and how there are two systems,

01:44:46.884 --> 01:44:52.924
even though we're no longer racially segregated society, those two systems still exist.

01:44:53.164 --> 01:44:57.664
And so the framework highlights that. I don't give an answer. I have one in my head.

01:44:58.284 --> 01:45:02.464
But it looks at how do you balance those things?

01:45:02.704 --> 01:45:07.264
Because within the system itself, it was built, it's still maintaining.

01:45:07.564 --> 01:45:11.704
And then we get things, no shade to DEI or other policies.

01:45:11.804 --> 01:45:16.724
But those policies are kind of like pecans on the top of a cake that can be removed.

01:45:17.724 --> 01:45:20.884
So if isn't if they were built into the cake it would

01:45:20.884 --> 01:45:23.944
be a little harder to just go through and remove so

01:45:23.944 --> 01:45:29.084
the question is you know well I guess not the question my answer would be we

01:45:29.084 --> 01:45:32.724
have to kind of rebuild but who wants to put in all of that work to rebuild

01:45:32.724 --> 01:45:41.524
it well I think we might have to I think we we don't have a choice you know.

01:45:42.856 --> 01:45:52.176
I remember when Minister Farrakhan gave a speech about Reagan and he got up

01:45:52.176 --> 01:45:56.956
there and he said that he was happy that Ronald Reagan was elected.

01:45:57.116 --> 01:46:02.116
And, of course, even the most faithful FOIs were kind of looking at him like,

01:46:02.396 --> 01:46:03.736
where are you going with this?

01:46:03.856 --> 01:46:09.336
And he said, because now you understand the work that you have to do.

01:46:10.056 --> 01:46:15.136
He said, everybody's been placating us and kind of giving us a little of this, a little of that.

01:46:15.256 --> 01:46:18.076
This man is telling you, I ain't giving you nothing.

01:46:18.796 --> 01:46:22.196
So now the challenge of my brothers and sisters is what are you going to do

01:46:22.196 --> 01:46:26.576
when somebody tells you they're not going to give you any help at all? Mm hmm.

01:46:27.076 --> 01:46:33.856
And so, you know, when I look at where we are now, and especially with the topic

01:46:33.856 --> 01:46:38.896
we're going to cover, I just, you know, it's a it's it's bad.

01:46:39.676 --> 01:46:43.716
As somebody like me, that's been in a political system, that's actually had

01:46:43.716 --> 01:46:48.456
a position of responsibility to watch how things are going on.

01:46:48.636 --> 01:46:53.016
But to go with your answer, I think we got to put in some work.

01:46:53.036 --> 01:46:58.196
We got to do some rebuild it. So we may not want to do it, but it's kind of

01:46:58.196 --> 01:47:00.016
like we're going to have to, you know what I'm saying?

01:47:01.396 --> 01:47:07.596
Agreed. All right. So let's get into the conversation. Why are HBCUs so special?

01:47:08.156 --> 01:47:13.836
Oh, that's such a hard question. No, I think HBCUs are so special.

01:47:15.116 --> 01:47:19.476
I guess I'll give a little background for who I am and where I come from.

01:47:19.476 --> 01:47:25.096
So Mobile, Alabama, middle-class family, and the majority of the people that

01:47:25.096 --> 01:47:29.476
I was around, even in church and in my neighborhood, they actually graduated from HBCU.

01:47:29.596 --> 01:47:33.356
So I was already born into it. And so...

01:47:35.196 --> 01:47:40.716
HBCUs are special because they serve the students or they provide an opportunity

01:47:40.716 --> 01:47:45.496
for education for students who may not have thought that college was for them.

01:47:45.556 --> 01:47:46.456
I was one of those students.

01:47:46.636 --> 01:47:49.116
I did not. I wanted to go to the military. Thank God.

01:47:49.916 --> 01:47:52.816
I was 17 and my mother wouldn't sign for me to go.

01:47:53.316 --> 01:47:57.756
So she shipped me off to Talladega. And so I met some of my closest friends

01:47:57.756 --> 01:48:00.576
and some of the most amazing people.

01:48:00.576 --> 01:48:06.496
And from that, you know, we have gone on to do some amazing things and to really

01:48:06.496 --> 01:48:08.696
contribute to society as a whole.

01:48:09.296 --> 01:48:14.076
And we are part of the higher education system. People try to look at us separately

01:48:14.076 --> 01:48:19.896
as separate institutions, but we're all contributing to the higher ed system

01:48:19.896 --> 01:48:22.476
research wise, you know, within these last few years.

01:48:22.636 --> 01:48:27.436
Well, since we've been producing PhDs, so they are special for that.

01:48:27.436 --> 01:48:32.776
A place of celebration, a place of learning how to become leaders.

01:48:34.176 --> 01:48:40.856
And even when you make mistakes, a lot of times the faculty and the staff will guide you.

01:48:40.976 --> 01:48:44.636
They don't, you know, they might be a little hard, but they will be there to

01:48:44.636 --> 01:48:46.836
support you well past graduation.

01:48:46.936 --> 01:48:50.596
So yes, that's why I think they are special places.

01:48:50.956 --> 01:48:58.396
Well, you know, I looked at it as like, now you were Miss Talladega, Yes.

01:48:58.956 --> 01:49:02.716
Yes. I was I was student body president at Jackson State.

01:49:02.896 --> 01:49:09.096
So it's like those are moments where like if we had gone to PWIs,

01:49:09.296 --> 01:49:13.676
would we have had that opportunity to to to have those moments? Right.

01:49:14.496 --> 01:49:20.736
I tell you, my two favorite memories revolve around black college football, right?

01:49:20.856 --> 01:49:29.696
So the first time I ever went to a Jackson State game and to see 50,000 black folks.

01:49:30.767 --> 01:49:34.387
Us attending a football game growing up in Chicago, that was like,

01:49:35.147 --> 01:49:40.127
oh, wow, I know we played football, but I didn't know we went to the games.

01:49:40.327 --> 01:49:43.567
You know, the way that the way the black church is structured in Chicago,

01:49:43.827 --> 01:49:47.627
it's like you don't get out till 1230 and the game starts at 12.

01:49:47.627 --> 01:49:49.347
So none of us were going to the stadium.

01:49:49.747 --> 01:49:53.667
It was like, you know, we were going straight to the television to see what was happening.

01:49:53.927 --> 01:49:58.927
And plus it was cold. So we were like, you know, so that to have that experience.

01:49:58.927 --> 01:50:04.487
And then my dad coming to the Circle City Classic, you know,

01:50:04.567 --> 01:50:10.787
taking him to that and for him to finally see my alma mater play in that and

01:50:10.787 --> 01:50:13.727
and just, you know, just the experience.

01:50:13.727 --> 01:50:17.407
He got to see what I had to experience for four years, you know,

01:50:17.487 --> 01:50:18.727
the sonic boom and all this stuff.

01:50:19.027 --> 01:50:25.287
So just that connection with him because he went to a PWI, he went to Southern Illinois.

01:50:25.987 --> 01:50:30.887
And so it was just like to see how he responded to that. Right.

01:50:31.487 --> 01:50:35.047
Those are those those are the kind of moments that you can't really get.

01:50:35.407 --> 01:50:38.987
You know, I'm saying I don't know what PWIs you were accepted at.

01:50:39.127 --> 01:50:42.107
I got accepted at Princeton. I got accepted to Kansas.

01:50:42.567 --> 01:50:46.667
Kansas wanted me to go into the Air Force. They wanted me to be Air Force ROTC.

01:50:47.007 --> 01:50:49.507
When Ronald Reagan was president, that wouldn't happen. Right.

01:50:50.670 --> 01:50:54.950
But, you know, so, I mean, it's just for those of us who have gone through that,

01:50:55.510 --> 01:51:00.530
there's this moment that there's some unique things that you probably wouldn't

01:51:00.530 --> 01:51:05.610
have experienced at a PWI that you experienced at a black college.

01:51:05.730 --> 01:51:07.290
But like Alcorn, for example.

01:51:07.850 --> 01:51:12.150
Right. And it's still an interview with you, but I got to tell the story.

01:51:12.350 --> 01:51:17.690
So like Alcorn, you knew every Friday they were going to serve pork chops.

01:51:17.910 --> 01:51:22.290
You knew that. So it's like whenever you were going to visit your boys at Alcorn,

01:51:22.390 --> 01:51:25.670
you try to get there just in time so you can sneak into the cafeteria,

01:51:25.830 --> 01:51:28.950
get you that pork chop dinner, and then hang out with your boy.

01:51:29.150 --> 01:51:33.390
I mean, that's a unique thing.

01:51:33.550 --> 01:51:38.250
When I would visit my friends that went to PWIs, especially the ones that went

01:51:38.250 --> 01:51:45.510
to Northwestern in Chicago, well, Evanston, it was like they had the cafeterias in the dorms.

01:51:46.610 --> 01:51:48.910
But all the black people sat at one table.

01:51:50.320 --> 01:51:54.460
It's like it didn't matter if you was an Alpha or Kappa, a.k.a. Delta.

01:51:55.000 --> 01:51:57.680
All y'all were sitting there. They all had their regalia on,

01:51:57.860 --> 01:52:01.220
but they were all sitting at the same table. You know what I'm saying?

01:52:01.640 --> 01:52:03.780
And I was just kind of like, what are y'all doing?

01:52:04.260 --> 01:52:06.940
It just kind of blew me away. All right.

01:52:07.280 --> 01:52:15.000
But I just wanted to convey that to people because it's such a unique experience.

01:52:15.160 --> 01:52:15.860
It's a nurturing experience.

01:52:17.020 --> 01:52:20.760
And I appreciate you giving the very intellectual academic answer,

01:52:20.940 --> 01:52:22.720
but I had to throw that out there too.

01:52:23.640 --> 01:52:27.580
Because as the songs, it's a feeling, you know what I'm saying?

01:52:28.120 --> 01:52:32.480
So that leads me to my next question. What do you say to those critics who say

01:52:32.480 --> 01:52:36.900
that in a modern American society, there's no need for HBCUs?

01:52:37.540 --> 01:52:41.860
That's a great question because when I was Miss Talladega at the NBC, what is it?

01:52:41.940 --> 01:52:48.060
The national, oh my goodness, I can't remember the name of the competition,

01:52:48.060 --> 01:52:52.220
but this was a question for the queens to answer.

01:52:52.800 --> 01:52:56.020
In a modern society, I think HBCUs are still needed.

01:52:56.560 --> 01:53:01.780
When I look at my background, higher ed and international education,

01:53:02.620 --> 01:53:07.400
across the board, people have been doing a lot of research on HBCUs.

01:53:07.460 --> 01:53:14.000
I'm not going to negate that, But there's still so much that has not been researched

01:53:14.000 --> 01:53:18.840
when we look at these institutions, especially when we're looking at the internationalization

01:53:18.840 --> 01:53:21.200
from an education standpoint at HBCUs.

01:53:21.860 --> 01:53:25.740
And so they are necessary because those stories do need to be told.

01:53:27.229 --> 01:53:30.529
I did graduate from the University of Pennsylvania as well.

01:53:31.049 --> 01:53:35.109
Like you were saying earlier, I did find myself sitting with the majority Black

01:53:35.109 --> 01:53:38.929
classmates. There were 50 of us and about 10 Black folks.

01:53:39.069 --> 01:53:44.189
And so several of us ended up taking an MSI class. And from that,

01:53:44.229 --> 01:53:47.449
I found the gap with HBCUs and international students.

01:53:47.629 --> 01:53:53.109
And so that information is still relevant. And it's information that our institutions

01:53:53.109 --> 01:53:56.469
can use to innovate and become better.

01:53:57.289 --> 01:54:03.889
Again, when we're looking at the current climate of a workforce-focused society,

01:54:04.129 --> 01:54:07.029
they no longer want us to go to college, and that's for a reason.

01:54:07.209 --> 01:54:12.509
And so while our predominantly white institutions are getting rid of funding

01:54:12.509 --> 01:54:16.949
and scholarships for minority students, HBCUs are stepping up to the plate.

01:54:17.049 --> 01:54:19.129
Well, I won't say stepping up to the plate because we've been there.

01:54:19.229 --> 01:54:20.249
We've been doing this work.

01:54:20.309 --> 01:54:25.529
And so they are already prepared to take these students in.

01:54:25.669 --> 01:54:29.529
Now, the numbers, you know, may be a little challenge for them,

01:54:29.709 --> 01:54:36.549
but they are prepared to do that work to ensure that we still have a Black educated society.

01:54:36.829 --> 01:54:44.109
So, you're basically saying that the HBCUs now are more of a safety net than,

01:54:45.069 --> 01:54:48.049
well, because it was a necessity because they wouldn't let us in.

01:54:48.469 --> 01:54:51.409
And then now that it looks like.

01:54:52.715 --> 01:54:57.095
They're they're trying to limit, although numbers are showing that that's not

01:54:57.095 --> 01:55:00.035
necessarily the case. There was somebody that just came on.

01:55:00.455 --> 01:55:04.375
I saw somewhere where they were saying that the number of black students at

01:55:04.375 --> 01:55:08.015
one of the schools that got sued at once was at Harvard or North Carolina.

01:55:08.175 --> 01:55:13.235
It was one of them that the black enrollment has actually increased and the

01:55:13.235 --> 01:55:18.435
Asians who had sued the Asian population has decreased at that particular school,

01:55:18.675 --> 01:55:21.395
even after they won the lawsuit in the Supreme Court.

01:55:21.395 --> 01:55:24.715
So, you know, but like you said, they are cutting the money,

01:55:24.755 --> 01:55:27.675
but I guess that's why I was asking,

01:55:27.995 --> 01:55:33.535
are we considered more of a safety net now for the kids that would have had

01:55:33.535 --> 01:55:38.875
a chance, but because of the pressure, you know, about DEI and all that stuff

01:55:38.875 --> 01:55:41.855
that they're, they're, they're choosing the black schools again.

01:55:43.100 --> 01:55:47.680
Well, I can't speak for them. But as far as safety net, I don't know.

01:55:47.860 --> 01:55:53.220
That's a great question. But I would say I think this generation of students

01:55:53.220 --> 01:55:59.000
are more comfortable and open about who they are and what they want to learn.

01:55:59.000 --> 01:56:06.880
And so black institutions are, you know, maybe what's bringing them,

01:56:07.140 --> 01:56:13.040
you know, encouraging them to apply because the application numbers have gone up for those students.

01:56:13.040 --> 01:56:17.360
So, you know, before they were saying, well, HBCUs don't offer scholarships,

01:56:17.580 --> 01:56:18.580
they don't have a lot of money.

01:56:18.700 --> 01:56:21.120
And now, you know, they're coming.

01:56:21.400 --> 01:56:28.120
So is it more so I want to be ingrained and educated at a space that's for me

01:56:28.120 --> 01:56:31.980
and also safe, a safe space?

01:56:32.560 --> 01:56:34.040
Yeah. Okay.

01:56:34.620 --> 01:56:38.660
So what are some of the main challenges facing HBCU?

01:56:44.020 --> 01:56:47.360
Oh, some of our main challenges.

01:56:48.260 --> 01:56:54.420
I would say funding has always been a challenge, especially for our private

01:56:54.420 --> 01:57:01.160
institutions, and especially with the cutting of research dollars from the federal government.

01:57:01.160 --> 01:57:07.080
And so a larger need for private funders and alumni donations,

01:57:07.440 --> 01:57:13.280
but also keeping in mind that a lot of our alum have been impacted by the job cuts.

01:57:13.820 --> 01:57:18.300
So we can't really pull a lot if our people don't have it.

01:57:18.980 --> 01:57:24.320
I'll also say our board and governance, our board and governance.

01:57:24.320 --> 01:57:33.800
I know within the past few years, our HBCUs have had a lot of turnover with

01:57:33.800 --> 01:57:37.440
presidents or just empty seats, trying to find presidents.

01:57:39.059 --> 01:57:44.579
A lot of issues that we put on the president to get him out of the seat that

01:57:44.579 --> 01:57:48.159
are actually issues within the board as a whole.

01:57:48.379 --> 01:57:51.099
And I'm not just talking about one particular institution.

01:57:51.599 --> 01:57:57.519
I'm just looking at multiple institutions that have had issues with the board.

01:57:58.839 --> 01:58:01.359
And then that's two.

01:58:02.960 --> 01:58:07.220
And I guess accreditation, which goes back a lot of times for HBCUs,

01:58:07.420 --> 01:58:12.060
it goes back to funding, not necessarily that the education isn't worthy,

01:58:12.060 --> 01:58:17.420
but a lot of times we don't have the endowments that larger,

01:58:17.580 --> 01:58:22.040
predominantly white institutions have, and that often affects us with accreditation.

01:58:22.580 --> 01:58:27.660
Yeah. And, you know, I've had this conversation before with other people,

01:58:27.700 --> 01:58:30.100
and I think I've had it on the podcast with somebody,

01:58:30.320 --> 01:58:34.740
but, you know, one of the things I have to remind people is that historically

01:58:34.740 --> 01:58:39.880
we were behind the eight ball because of our missions.

01:58:40.440 --> 01:58:45.340
A lot of our historically black colleges were either land grant schools or what

01:58:45.340 --> 01:58:49.360
they called normal schools, where either they were teaching agriculture,

01:58:49.700 --> 01:58:53.460
but they were teaching education, right?

01:58:53.860 --> 01:58:59.600
And, you know, it was like for the ag folks, you know, when they created Social

01:58:59.600 --> 01:59:04.760
Security, as the previous guest mentioned, you know, they didn't put agriculture

01:59:04.760 --> 01:59:08.400
in there because black folks were doing kind of work. Right.

01:59:08.680 --> 01:59:12.080
So they couldn't build up wealth that way.

01:59:12.300 --> 01:59:18.000
And then and then you had, you know, teachers never get paid what they deserve.

01:59:18.580 --> 01:59:22.240
So you can't build an endowment. uh

01:59:22.240 --> 01:59:25.120
you know and that was something i was always sensitive with

01:59:25.120 --> 01:59:28.080
because like rice college for example

01:59:28.080 --> 01:59:34.380
and i pick on rice all the time because rice is like one of my classmates well

01:59:34.380 --> 01:59:37.620
he was a year behind me at jackson state but his son played baseball at rice

01:59:37.620 --> 01:59:44.460
and you know because they lived in houston and so rice has about half of the

01:59:44.460 --> 01:59:46.280
student population at jackson state,

01:59:47.680 --> 01:59:52.780
you know and but they sitting on like a billion dollars in endowments.

01:59:53.976 --> 01:59:57.056
Because, you know, it was started as a private school and, you know,

01:59:57.136 --> 01:59:58.656
the inheritance, all that kind of stuff.

01:59:58.856 --> 02:00:03.536
And they were able to build on that. So that's why a school with 3,000-something

02:00:03.536 --> 02:00:08.076
students can play Division I football, can participate on all these different

02:00:08.076 --> 02:00:12.016
things, can offer these scholarships, send kids abroad, all this kind of stuff.

02:00:12.376 --> 02:00:17.876
Whereas Jackson State started off as a private school and eventually became public.

02:00:17.876 --> 02:00:22.716
But it was like the mission was, well, we're putting people in these positions.

02:00:22.716 --> 02:00:26.116
We had to sue to get a school of engineering you

02:00:26.116 --> 02:00:29.476
know i'm saying so they weren't if if

02:00:29.476 --> 02:00:32.716
they weren't athletes or lawyers they weren't

02:00:32.716 --> 02:00:38.256
really making the kind of money to donate back to the school right so you know

02:00:38.256 --> 02:00:42.996
i think that puts us behind the eight ball as far as endowments and then just

02:00:42.996 --> 02:00:50.296
trying to get the alumni to do stuff on their own even though now we have more opportunities,

02:00:50.876 --> 02:00:55.676
it just, we still haven't made that equation because we wait till we're old

02:00:55.676 --> 02:00:57.456
to get involved in the Alumni Association.

02:00:57.716 --> 02:01:01.876
We wait till we start getting some gray hairs or in my case, losing hair and stuff.

02:01:02.036 --> 02:01:06.076
And then all of a sudden you want to, oh yeah, well, I want to get back to my school.

02:01:06.256 --> 02:01:08.536
You know what I'm saying? It's like, I want to find God. I want to get back

02:01:08.536 --> 02:01:12.076
to my school. I want to, you know, you know, all this kind of stuff you try

02:01:12.076 --> 02:01:15.016
to catch up with before you take your next journey.

02:01:15.616 --> 02:01:21.816
And, you know, I think we got to instill in our, in our young alumni.

02:01:22.496 --> 02:01:26.996
You know, why you're at the peak, why you're at your top of,

02:01:27.456 --> 02:01:31.956
you know, whatever your peak, as far as your career or whatever's going on to

02:01:31.956 --> 02:01:36.816
get more involved that way and try to build that endowment and all that.

02:01:36.956 --> 02:01:41.336
But as you can tell, this is the issue I'm very passionate about. So I apologize.

02:01:41.796 --> 02:01:45.856
I'm doing a lot of talking, but no apologies necessary.

02:01:46.156 --> 02:01:52.376
But you addressed in your challenges the next question, which is what is the

02:01:52.376 --> 02:01:56.116
cost of leadership instability at HBCUs?

02:01:57.370 --> 02:02:07.710
I think, in my opinion, I think the cost is potential donors because it's almost like a creditor, right?

02:02:08.190 --> 02:02:13.410
I'm less likely to invest in you if you keep changing leadership.

02:02:13.850 --> 02:02:18.630
I trusted this person to make this donation, to see this program through.

02:02:18.950 --> 02:02:22.630
They're out of there. I'm pulling my money. That sets us back.

02:02:22.630 --> 02:02:30.730
I think even the relationship with alumni, you know, I love Talladega College

02:02:30.730 --> 02:02:34.950
as my, that's the institution I'm going to always take care of.

02:02:36.170 --> 02:02:44.570
You know, they've gone through about three presidents over the last maybe six years, right?

02:02:45.307 --> 02:02:51.807
And with each, you know, with one of the last ones, not the interim,

02:02:52.007 --> 02:02:56.527
but the previous president, there were a lot of promises. There was a lot of talk.

02:02:57.347 --> 02:03:00.907
It didn't come to fruition. And then there was a lot of spending,

02:03:01.187 --> 02:03:05.167
which, again, I won't just put on the president, but that was also a board issue.

02:03:05.327 --> 02:03:08.607
And so, and the board is leadership.

02:03:08.927 --> 02:03:14.947
So that caused a fraction within alumni. that also caused us some financial

02:03:14.947 --> 02:03:17.607
troubles, which led us having to sell murals.

02:03:18.147 --> 02:03:22.287
So, and alumni are back to feeling like, oh, I want to donate,

02:03:22.507 --> 02:03:27.047
but we want to make sure, you know, the money is going to be used properly.

02:03:27.687 --> 02:03:32.087
So it's really a financial piece is also, again, going back to SACS.

02:03:32.207 --> 02:03:34.627
How can you go into SACS without a leader?

02:03:35.567 --> 02:03:39.347
You know, even if it's an interim president, how do you go in there without

02:03:39.347 --> 02:03:44.287
a long-term plan or without a leader is problematic.

02:03:45.027 --> 02:03:52.347
And then again, with each president that changes when it's unstable, strategies change.

02:03:52.527 --> 02:03:56.847
So you're making a strategic plan, a five-year strategic plan,

02:03:56.967 --> 02:03:58.307
and you might not be there next year.

02:03:58.467 --> 02:04:02.627
So nothing is getting, I won't say nothing is getting done.

02:04:02.987 --> 02:04:08.627
Things are getting done, but long-term plans and processes aren't happening.

02:04:08.867 --> 02:04:11.587
So explain to the listeners what SACS is.

02:04:12.791 --> 02:04:17.391
So SACS, and I know that's such a, I think they've joined with another accreditation

02:04:17.391 --> 02:04:25.131
organization, but SACS is the Southern Association for Colleges and Universities.

02:04:25.351 --> 02:04:27.231
They're an accreditation agency.

02:04:27.971 --> 02:04:35.191
And so they just make sure institutions are maintaining protocols and financial,

02:04:35.531 --> 02:04:39.471
great financial standing and meeting requirements.

02:04:40.131 --> 02:04:47.331
And so when those things are not met, for example, financial finances aren't

02:04:47.331 --> 02:04:52.191
met, then institutions are in jeopardy of losing accreditation.

02:04:52.491 --> 02:05:00.291
So one institution is on warning for sex because of their financial unrestricted

02:05:00.291 --> 02:05:04.911
funds isn't where it needs to be documentation, yada, yada, yada.

02:05:04.911 --> 02:05:10.991
So they give institutions a chance to fix the challenges or fix the issues after

02:05:10.991 --> 02:05:15.411
so many years that they're unable to meet that, then an institution can lose accreditation.

02:05:15.591 --> 02:05:19.931
So just making sure that the institutions are running and meeting the standards

02:05:19.931 --> 02:05:22.951
of that particular accreditation. Yeah.

02:05:23.531 --> 02:05:32.131
And I can relate, you know, because we've had at Jackson State over the last

02:05:32.131 --> 02:05:34.411
decade, I think we're on our third president.

02:05:35.411 --> 02:05:40.051
And, you know, our situation, see, Talladega is a private school.

02:05:40.471 --> 02:05:46.311
Our situation is we have to answer to a college board. And so we have to answer

02:05:46.311 --> 02:05:50.711
the same college board that Ole Miss and Mississippi State is under.

02:05:51.351 --> 02:05:54.871
And, you know, so, of course, those schools will get whatever they want.

02:05:55.971 --> 02:06:00.951
And if the alumni says, you know, we want this person to be the chancellor or

02:06:00.951 --> 02:06:05.531
the president or whatever, they're going to cater to that. Whereas, like...

02:06:06.030 --> 02:06:09.730
Jackson State, it's like, well, you know, you take what we will give you.

02:06:11.090 --> 02:06:17.610
But that leads to the instability because if you bring in somebody,

02:06:17.990 --> 02:06:23.090
even if they're an alumnus, if you bring in somebody that's not in tune with the alumni,

02:06:23.550 --> 02:06:28.550
right, then, you know, you're going to run into friction.

02:06:29.150 --> 02:06:32.650
And a lot of times, if it's not the alumni, it's the faculty senate.

02:06:33.330 --> 02:06:37.650
And so, you know, And just the constant turnover.

02:06:37.890 --> 02:06:42.770
And I'm based in Atlanta, so it's like the whole situation with Morris Brown.

02:06:42.950 --> 02:06:48.030
It's like one morning I wake up, and the guy who literally slept on the campus

02:06:48.030 --> 02:06:53.370
to rebuild it, I'm reading, he's been fired. It's like, are you serious right now?

02:06:53.710 --> 02:06:56.370
It's like you wouldn't even have a board if it wasn't for this guy.

02:06:56.570 --> 02:06:58.630
And it's like, you got to go.

02:06:58.810 --> 02:07:04.450
And I think like 48 hours later, they had to change the heart, and he's still there.

02:07:05.430 --> 02:07:10.510
But that but just that it's like that that leads to like, well,

02:07:10.570 --> 02:07:12.030
do these people really have to act together?

02:07:12.190 --> 02:07:14.350
Why would they even think about firing this guy?

02:07:14.610 --> 02:07:19.750
And, you know, and like you said, it impacts outside donors because,

02:07:20.050 --> 02:07:25.410
you know, it's like like you said, because we don't have and we've been dealing

02:07:25.410 --> 02:07:30.470
with this issue on the podcast for the last three episodes about building black

02:07:30.470 --> 02:07:33.450
wealth and reducing the racial wealth gap in America.

02:07:34.070 --> 02:07:39.530
When you got 15 cents to a white man's dollar, you ain't got the capital to

02:07:39.530 --> 02:07:43.110
invest in your community and your institutions the way that you should.

02:07:43.490 --> 02:07:45.930
And so, or you want to.

02:07:46.390 --> 02:07:50.930
So we have to get other people. We have to get some of our light-skinned cousins,

02:07:51.070 --> 02:07:56.050
as I refer to them, to put in, you know, and invest in our education.

02:07:57.270 --> 02:08:01.370
And if they're looking at it as a corporate structure, they're like going...

02:08:02.591 --> 02:08:07.531
We need to ask some questions. Why would you fire this guy for 48 hours and then bring it back?

02:08:07.811 --> 02:08:12.211
What was that all about? So, you know, why are you changing leadership every

02:08:12.211 --> 02:08:13.571
two years? You know what I'm saying?

02:08:14.031 --> 02:08:16.791
What's going on with that? So I agree with you.

02:08:16.871 --> 02:08:22.451
I think that's that is the biggest challenge we have is that we've got to run

02:08:22.451 --> 02:08:27.511
these institutions and have some stability in these institutions so that,

02:08:27.631 --> 02:08:33.051
you know, Because the eventual victims of that will be the students.

02:08:33.631 --> 02:08:35.831
The students, yep. And go ahead.

02:08:36.611 --> 02:08:42.911
To that point, with the Morris Brown situation, it didn't make sense to me either.

02:08:42.911 --> 02:08:46.231
And I was like, you're getting ready to go into sex without a president?

02:08:46.771 --> 02:08:51.351
I mean, it's not making sense. I don't care what the issue is, unless it's like...

02:08:52.789 --> 02:08:56.989
Know, horrible. I mean, but we have a current president who has all of these

02:08:56.989 --> 02:08:58.989
things. It can't be that bad.

02:08:59.849 --> 02:09:05.329
But when you look at that situation and how it hit the news,

02:09:05.529 --> 02:09:10.489
it hit news channels that aren't the usual for HBCU.

02:09:10.609 --> 02:09:15.269
I said, that tells you right there, he has donors and influence,

02:09:15.809 --> 02:09:18.169
and these people are behind him.

02:09:18.309 --> 02:09:23.129
The students were behind, the alumni were behind him. It was not worth it.

02:09:23.549 --> 02:09:26.549
And I think a lot of times, again, I don't know these situations because I'm

02:09:26.549 --> 02:09:29.569
not in the room, but sometimes it seems personal.

02:09:29.929 --> 02:09:35.789
And for me, I've learned to keep the personal out of it. And these are the facts.

02:09:36.069 --> 02:09:39.829
And I guess that's the beauty of being a researcher, right? I'm looking at the facts.

02:09:40.309 --> 02:09:45.189
I'm going to tell you the facts and I'm learning, you know, how to,

02:09:45.609 --> 02:09:47.829
my social media, I just say it. Right.

02:09:48.129 --> 02:09:54.209
But when I'm in collaboration and working with people, I am able to people say I'm funny.

02:09:54.289 --> 02:09:58.149
So I said in a funny way, I mean it, but I but it is the truth.

02:09:58.349 --> 02:10:01.509
And so we have to put the personal aside.

02:10:01.789 --> 02:10:05.509
And and what what what do the students need?

02:10:05.709 --> 02:10:10.809
What do because when I think about Morris Brown, it was a few years ago when

02:10:10.809 --> 02:10:13.309
he came in and he said we need faculty.

02:10:13.909 --> 02:10:17.029
We we will take online faculty we cannot

02:10:17.029 --> 02:10:20.069
pay you and I

02:10:20.069 --> 02:10:25.589
applied me and several of my friends applied I didn't get the job but that takes

02:10:25.589 --> 02:10:30.769
a special person and special people to say hey we will get people who have PhDs

02:10:30.769 --> 02:10:36.269
in the process of getting a PhD apply for a free position to teach these students

02:10:36.269 --> 02:10:37.569
because we know they need it.

02:10:38.880 --> 02:10:44.580
Yeah. Yeah. I just, like I said, I didn't understand it, but I'm glad that's

02:10:44.580 --> 02:10:47.600
been settled, at least for a point.

02:10:47.920 --> 02:10:54.440
And we'll go on. But then, and I guess I kind of gave my answer to my next question

02:10:54.440 --> 02:11:01.300
to you, what should be the understanding of the state college boards as it relates to public HBCUs?

02:11:01.300 --> 02:11:06.180
Because my personal journey with dealing with college boards,

02:11:06.320 --> 02:11:10.840
of course, as a student, we would protest when they were talking about merging

02:11:10.840 --> 02:11:13.060
us with Ole Miss or somewhere like that.

02:11:13.540 --> 02:11:17.160
And then when I got to be a state legislator, one of the perks of being a state

02:11:17.160 --> 02:11:20.260
legislator in Mississippi is that you can show up to a college board meeting

02:11:20.260 --> 02:11:24.780
and they will kick everybody out the room, including the college presidents.

02:11:24.780 --> 02:11:28.640
And you single-handedly, you don't have to be the chair of education,

02:11:28.740 --> 02:11:32.040
none of that. Just a member can just talk to the college board.

02:11:32.340 --> 02:11:36.160
So I took advantage of that a couple of times to talk about Jackson State,

02:11:36.280 --> 02:11:37.860
because one was dealing with the lawsuit.

02:11:38.380 --> 02:11:45.460
The heirs case that took almost 30 years to solve and then settle and then dealing

02:11:45.460 --> 02:11:48.320
with a presidential change at that point.

02:11:48.820 --> 02:11:54.500
And, you know, I got to sit, you know, they put together a committee for me

02:11:54.500 --> 02:12:02.340
to, you know, me and others to, you know, sit on as alumni to try to choose a president.

02:12:02.800 --> 02:12:06.040
That's when Dr. Mason came for the time he was there.

02:12:06.040 --> 02:12:15.800
So I just, from my viewpoint, I think that college boards, being political institutions,

02:12:16.080 --> 02:12:19.480
since they're part of the government, even though we don't vote for them.

02:12:21.065 --> 02:12:25.045
It's like they should pay attention to their constituents.

02:12:25.045 --> 02:12:29.305
Even if you don't view the alumni as some special constituent,

02:12:29.405 --> 02:12:32.245
especially if you're dealing with a school, you should pay attention to us because

02:12:32.245 --> 02:12:36.245
we elected the governor that picked you.

02:12:36.685 --> 02:12:42.765
So you might want to pay attention. We pay the taxes that allows you to sit in this boardroom.

02:12:43.125 --> 02:12:46.445
So we, I think you should listen to us, but yeah,

02:12:47.190 --> 02:12:51.030
you smarter than me. Go ahead and tell me what you think. Well,

02:12:51.210 --> 02:12:54.750
I think, oh, let me see. I had it in my head. Let me see.

02:12:55.530 --> 02:12:59.730
When we're looking at, and I don't see how people miss this,

02:13:00.170 --> 02:13:05.070
the economic contribution of HBCUs to the states.

02:13:05.550 --> 02:13:09.190
I know it's not as much as what a predominantly white institution would bring

02:13:09.190 --> 02:13:15.470
in, but it's contributing jobs. The students are coming. They're putting money into your economy.

02:13:16.570 --> 02:13:22.830
They're filling jobs that, you know, what, like your part-time job,

02:13:22.950 --> 02:13:25.130
they are contributing. They're paying taxes.

02:13:25.410 --> 02:13:31.330
And so even if one closes, and I think one good example is Concordia University

02:13:31.330 --> 02:13:33.450
in Selma, Alabama. They had two HBCUs.

02:13:34.690 --> 02:13:42.050
Selma, yes, it's a, I think a very high, I want to say like 98% unemployment,

02:13:42.530 --> 02:13:47.770
low income, and just the impact on Concordia in that city.

02:13:48.190 --> 02:13:53.230
You had two colleges, I'm going to say elementary, middle, and high school.

02:13:53.670 --> 02:13:56.470
That one college college, that took students out of your city.

02:13:56.630 --> 02:14:00.450
Even if it was 200 students, those students were contributing.

02:14:00.770 --> 02:14:07.870
It took the jobs and decreased the amount of money that was coming in.

02:14:08.190 --> 02:14:13.270
And the state, it is Alabama, didn't seem flustered, you know,

02:14:13.390 --> 02:14:16.330
even with the closing of Birmingham Southern, which isn't an HBCU.

02:14:16.570 --> 02:14:20.210
You're losing jobs and money and people coming to the state.

02:14:20.350 --> 02:14:23.870
So that, you know, we have to look at the benefits.

02:14:24.030 --> 02:14:25.950
We can't afford to lose them, right?

02:14:26.150 --> 02:14:31.650
But to your point, you have to listen to your constituents because you have

02:14:31.650 --> 02:14:34.750
a ton of alumni who live in that state who want to see that institution.

02:14:35.530 --> 02:14:38.050
There are just the...

02:14:39.672 --> 02:14:43.952
Corporations who are like, I graduated here. I want my child to graduate from

02:14:43.952 --> 02:14:46.692
here. We have to keep it open. We have to keep producing.

02:14:47.012 --> 02:14:50.032
And you said something earlier about the merging of institutions.

02:14:50.272 --> 02:14:56.432
And sometimes that's what they want, because I can take this, I can merge this school.

02:14:56.852 --> 02:15:00.352
People will say, oh, this is still a part of Jackson State's history,

02:15:00.352 --> 02:15:01.812
and we'll still get these.

02:15:01.932 --> 02:15:06.632
So for them, yeah, we want to take over, change the demographics,

02:15:06.632 --> 02:15:14.172
but still, you know, know get some of the same folks in so I don't know if I

02:15:14.172 --> 02:15:16.652
truly answered that question but I think,

02:15:17.292 --> 02:15:22.772
a lot should be considered with the with the college boards and accreditation

02:15:22.772 --> 02:15:29.012
yeah yeah I'm sorry cool it's like you know and I'm glad you know Concordia

02:15:29.012 --> 02:15:31.972
because I grew up Lutheran I grew up in the Lutheran church.

02:15:32.272 --> 02:15:37.432
And so all the Black preachers that were, you know,

02:15:37.732 --> 02:15:45.592
there's a book called From Roses to Thorns that talk about the legacy of the

02:15:45.592 --> 02:15:48.892
Black preachers that came out of Concordia,

02:15:49.052 --> 02:15:53.932
Selma, and how they reshaped the Lutheran church, especially in the Missouri Senate.

02:15:54.772 --> 02:15:59.372
And, you know, one of my, you know, my pastor was one of those graduates and

02:15:59.372 --> 02:16:02.872
he married the sister of another graduate.

02:16:03.132 --> 02:16:07.872
Right. So they had that connection and they all ended up in Chicago and other

02:16:07.872 --> 02:16:11.252
big cities and reformed the Lutheran church.

02:16:11.392 --> 02:16:14.332
Whereas like, if you went to our church, you thought you were going to a black

02:16:14.332 --> 02:16:15.652
Baptist church. You know what I'm saying?

02:16:16.772 --> 02:16:19.292
We had a gospel choir and everything, you know what I'm saying?

02:16:20.312 --> 02:16:24.372
So, you know, just, just those kind of legacy impacts.

02:16:25.032 --> 02:16:30.592
It just, you know, anyway, let's get into some of the stuff that you're doing with your research.

02:16:30.732 --> 02:16:33.592
What is the International HBCU Exchange?

02:16:35.586 --> 02:16:40.346
So it's a nonprofit that I decided during my dissertation process.

02:16:40.566 --> 02:16:45.346
I didn't have enough to do during COVID and dissertation, but I knew from my

02:16:45.346 --> 02:16:51.326
experience of being a Fulbrighter in Malaysia, the gap of HBCU students participating

02:16:51.326 --> 02:16:54.466
in federally funded international exchange programs.

02:16:54.726 --> 02:16:58.906
So when I was in Malaysia, there were a hundred of us, only two of us came from

02:16:58.906 --> 02:17:06.606
an HBCU. And I was like, with this program, it pays for us to travel abroad, to teach.

02:17:06.746 --> 02:17:11.766
It gives us, and I'm like, this seems ideal for people who look like me who

02:17:11.766 --> 02:17:13.246
wouldn't be able to travel otherwise.

02:17:13.506 --> 02:17:20.686
I was wrong. I was wrong. And what I learned was that these programs were actually

02:17:20.686 --> 02:17:25.566
used to bring through the next generations of students.

02:17:26.800 --> 02:17:33.960
Diplomats and government leaders. And so when I found out about the other programs,

02:17:34.100 --> 02:17:37.120
so there's Fulbright, Boring, Gilman, Critical Language Scholarships.

02:17:37.280 --> 02:17:40.640
Those are the ones that I really focus on in Fulbright, I think.

02:17:40.900 --> 02:17:47.100
Yeah, I don't know if I missed that one. Anyway, and so I talked with the folks

02:17:47.100 --> 02:17:49.720
at the Institute of International Education and they were like,

02:17:49.780 --> 02:17:52.300
hey, we tried to reach out to HBCUs.

02:17:52.460 --> 02:17:57.600
It's really hard. And I was like, yeah, you have to understand not just the

02:17:57.600 --> 02:18:02.300
culture, but you also have to understand the challenges, and you also have to

02:18:02.300 --> 02:18:05.460
understand how to engage the students.

02:18:05.700 --> 02:18:09.720
And so with that, and this started out as just an initiative,

02:18:09.720 --> 02:18:13.300
and we reached out to several HBCUs.

02:18:13.420 --> 02:18:18.160
We eventually opened it up to all, and there are a lot of, we didn't just focus on the students.

02:18:18.160 --> 02:18:24.320
We also focused on fellowship advisors and faculty who wanted to provide the

02:18:24.320 --> 02:18:26.340
information about these opportunities,

02:18:26.340 --> 02:18:32.040
but also with the fellowship advisors providing workshops so that they can tell

02:18:32.040 --> 02:18:37.480
these students how to navigate the application process, because there are unspoken

02:18:37.480 --> 02:18:40.200
rules that have to be, yeah,

02:18:40.400 --> 02:18:45.700
unspoken components of the application that have to be present for students to be successful.

02:18:45.980 --> 02:18:49.380
So that's how we came about. And then.

02:18:49.660 --> 02:18:52.820
Sorry, this is so long-winded, but in 2024,

02:18:52.820 --> 02:19:00.220
we received a federal grant to increase research collaborations and partnerships

02:19:00.220 --> 02:19:06.180
between historically Black colleges and universities here and historically Black universities,

02:19:06.520 --> 02:19:11.160
or what are now known as historically disadvantaged universities, in South Africa.

02:19:11.160 --> 02:19:16.580
And unfortunately, it was terminated, but a lot of similarities between those sets of institutions.

02:19:16.920 --> 02:19:20.860
But yes, making sure we have access to these opportunities.

02:19:21.240 --> 02:19:26.500
Well, you know, and that was one of the reasons why I was intrigued and drawn

02:19:26.500 --> 02:19:28.260
to have you on because, you know,

02:19:28.780 --> 02:19:32.200
Some people were just satisfied. Oh, yeah. Well, I got a Fulbright scholarship,

02:19:32.220 --> 02:19:36.800
you know, and as you got two of them, I never you're the first person I met

02:19:36.800 --> 02:19:38.360
that got two Fulbright scholarships.

02:19:38.640 --> 02:19:43.480
So I already know you're a bad sister, but let's get into the South Africa thing.

02:19:43.680 --> 02:19:50.100
What did your research about the HBUs or the HDUs, I guess, now they're designated

02:19:50.100 --> 02:19:55.840
in South Africa, teach you about the HBCUs in the United States? Yeah.

02:19:56.642 --> 02:20:03.582
So I knew that there were similarities with the Jim Crow and apartheid.

02:20:03.662 --> 02:20:08.482
And so I originally went over there to study how apartheid era inequities were

02:20:08.482 --> 02:20:14.162
exacerbated during COVID because I could see the parallel between the HBCUs

02:20:14.162 --> 02:20:15.422
here in the States and COVID.

02:20:15.422 --> 02:20:22.942
What I actually ended up finding out through my research, and I love to read in history,

02:20:23.262 --> 02:20:30.202
was the similarities between missionaries and their role in establishing Black

02:20:30.202 --> 02:20:33.702
education in both the United States and South Africa.

02:20:33.702 --> 02:20:37.402
And that is kind of where my institution, I mean,

02:20:37.542 --> 02:20:42.842
my architecture of institutional containment for racialized education came from,

02:20:42.882 --> 02:20:49.402
because we look at them separately, but both the education systems and Black

02:20:49.402 --> 02:20:53.402
education systems in South Africa and the U.S., how they were set up,

02:20:53.562 --> 02:20:57.922
are continuing to function like that in today's society.

02:20:58.702 --> 02:21:03.802
So when we're looking at the board and governance, almost identical.

02:21:04.322 --> 02:21:10.082
When in the 50s for HBCUs, when a lot of the students were protesting for black

02:21:10.082 --> 02:21:15.182
leadership, the white leadership left up out of there, left it in disarray.

02:21:15.342 --> 02:21:20.162
A lot of people had not been trained to take over those positions.

02:21:20.562 --> 02:21:25.582
Even going back to how they were set up, we were set up to get a specific type

02:21:25.582 --> 02:21:27.642
of education. You mentioned agriculture.

02:21:27.922 --> 02:21:33.542
You mentioned education preachers and domestic work.

02:21:34.402 --> 02:21:38.862
And all of those types of jobs pushed us into a specific type of work.

02:21:40.582 --> 02:21:44.602
Place. So we were never meant to compete.

02:21:44.882 --> 02:21:50.662
And it's literally documented. We were not meant to compete with white schools.

02:21:50.922 --> 02:21:56.782
That is why you're white. White schools were set up in both countries to be knowledge producers.

02:21:57.442 --> 02:22:04.362
Their endowment is not just coming from donations, but patents, research.

02:22:04.802 --> 02:22:12.022
So even when I went to South Africa, I made sure that I did my Fulbright IRB

02:22:12.022 --> 02:22:18.262
through Howard University because I knew that I'm going over here. That can help them.

02:22:18.562 --> 02:22:22.982
Did it make that big of a difference? Probably not, but it shows we have international researchers.

02:22:23.482 --> 02:22:28.742
So we are still behind when it comes to knowledge production,

02:22:28.742 --> 02:22:33.822
but now we have Howard University, the only one to have a research one institution,

02:22:33.822 --> 02:22:37.382
and there are about 17 others that are researched two.

02:22:37.602 --> 02:22:39.702
Mind you, we weren't supposed to be doing that.

02:22:40.422 --> 02:22:44.882
And we see that similarly in South Africa. They are doing a lot of research

02:22:44.882 --> 02:22:49.002
production, but in comparison to the historically white universities,

02:22:49.182 --> 02:22:51.642
that's how it's labeled there, they are behind.

02:22:51.802 --> 02:22:56.342
Still educating first-generation, lower income students.

02:22:56.742 --> 02:23:05.562
And so that is where the historically Black institution exchange part of IHBCUX

02:23:05.562 --> 02:23:10.502
came from, because I'm like, we have similar challenges.

02:23:10.782 --> 02:23:16.922
We'll be producing educators, STEM, how can we work together to really enhance our research?

02:23:17.702 --> 02:23:21.862
Yeah, and shout out to Dr. Hope over at Howard.

02:23:22.382 --> 02:23:27.402
She's been on the show and highlighted the work she's been doing with the Ralph Bunch Center there.

02:23:29.132 --> 02:23:33.632
I just think I just think it's important for us to realize that we're not in

02:23:33.632 --> 02:23:36.552
a bubble when it comes to oppression.

02:23:37.192 --> 02:23:42.892
You know, it's like, you know, I hear people all the time saying that African-American

02:23:42.892 --> 02:23:46.292
experience is unique and it is to an extent.

02:23:46.332 --> 02:23:51.112
But when you look at what, you know, South Africa, I mean, in my lifetime,

02:23:51.252 --> 02:23:58.272
in our lifetime, we saw the apartheid or Jim Crow, however you want to label it, end.

02:23:59.652 --> 02:24:05.732
And they're a relatively new Black nation as opposed to whatever.

02:24:06.012 --> 02:24:08.712
And I just think about, you know, like Haiti.

02:24:09.452 --> 02:24:14.872
If South Africa was blessed compared to Haiti because international attention

02:24:14.872 --> 02:24:18.932
was given to South Africa, the minute that the ANC took over,

02:24:19.112 --> 02:24:22.172
they were recognized as a country, whereas Haiti was not.

02:24:22.352 --> 02:24:27.952
And all the chaos that's happening now, you can go all the way back to 1804.

02:24:27.952 --> 02:24:38.272
So anyway, I've done a lot of talking for an interview, but I respect you a lot.

02:24:38.672 --> 02:24:43.972
And even though we're just now meeting, just the fact that you're trying to

02:24:43.972 --> 02:24:48.692
make that connection and the fact that you're a cheerleader for the HBCUs here

02:24:48.692 --> 02:24:52.652
puts you in a very, very high regard with me, Dr.

02:24:52.872 --> 02:24:57.092
Ashleigh Brown-Grier. So I'm again, I'm really, really honored to have you on.

02:24:57.232 --> 02:25:00.592
I do want you to finish this sentence before you go.

02:25:02.260 --> 02:25:12.520
I have hope because. I have hope because black people and the institutions that we build and maintain,

02:25:12.520 --> 02:25:18.740
we are resilient and we pull through every time.

02:25:19.600 --> 02:25:22.060
Boom. Drop the mic and the story. That's great.

02:25:23.620 --> 02:25:28.020
So if people want to get in touch with you, Dr. Brown-Grier, how can how can they do that?

02:25:28.920 --> 02:25:33.100
I assume that the International HBCU Exchange is a nonprofit,

02:25:33.100 --> 02:25:36.500
so if you want to donate to that, how can they do that?

02:25:37.280 --> 02:25:40.860
Yes. So we are on GoFundMe.

02:25:41.040 --> 02:25:46.940
We're working on getting our website back up and running. So it is ihbcux.org.

02:25:47.020 --> 02:25:51.380
Give me about a week. And then you can follow us on social media,

02:25:51.560 --> 02:25:54.240
ihbcux.org, on Instagram,

02:25:55.020 --> 02:26:03.960
Facebook, and International HBCU Exchange, X-C-H-A-N-G-E, on LinkedIn.

02:26:04.680 --> 02:26:08.780
All right. Well, Dr. Brown-Grier, again, thank you for doing this.

02:26:08.920 --> 02:26:10.760
I greatly appreciate it.

02:26:10.980 --> 02:26:14.840
I apologize for talking a lot.

02:26:14.920 --> 02:26:19.000
But like I said, this is an issue that's very, very passionate for me.

02:26:19.000 --> 02:26:23.860
If it wasn't for Jackson State, I wouldn't be in the position I am now to,

02:26:23.860 --> 02:26:29.400
you know, look back and some of the achievements I've been able to achieve,

02:26:29.420 --> 02:26:32.020
it wouldn't have been possible without Jackson State.

02:26:32.180 --> 02:26:34.460
And I'm sure you feel the same way about Talladega.

02:26:35.000 --> 02:26:38.460
And even though you said the University of Penn, you attended there,

02:26:38.540 --> 02:26:41.980
that's the only PWI you attended because you went to Morgan State and Howard.

02:26:42.700 --> 02:26:49.680
Yes. So you've been true to the cause, you know, as far as attending HBCUs and supporting them.

02:26:49.860 --> 02:26:54.480
So thank you for doing what you're doing and thank you for coming on the podcast.

02:26:55.440 --> 02:26:59.260
Absolutely. Thank you. I enjoyed the conversation. All right,

02:26:59.360 --> 02:27:00.520
guys. We're going to catch you all.

02:27:12.783 --> 02:27:18.963
All right, so we are back. So I just want to thank Kate Powell,

02:27:20.643 --> 02:27:23.243
Gloria Browne-Marshall, and Dr.

02:27:23.443 --> 02:27:27.443
Ashleigh Brown-Grier for coming on the podcast.

02:27:29.363 --> 02:27:38.223
You know, when you are in the presence of powerful people, there are two things that happen.

02:27:38.223 --> 02:27:44.883
One, you are somewhat humbled, but two, you are inspired, right?

02:27:45.203 --> 02:27:50.883
And so all three of these ladies fall in that category of being very powerful,

02:27:51.223 --> 02:27:53.943
very passionate about what they do.

02:27:54.463 --> 02:27:58.723
And I just hope that you got something out of that.

02:27:59.003 --> 02:28:03.723
I hope that you get Ms. Browne-Marshall's book, A Protest History of the United States.

02:28:03.723 --> 02:28:15.523
I hope that you follow Kate's lead and be a menace and hold your elected officials accountable.

02:28:16.123 --> 02:28:23.743
And I hope from Dr. Brown-Grier that you understood why it's important for us

02:28:23.743 --> 02:28:27.723
to support the HBCUs here in America.

02:28:27.883 --> 02:28:33.523
Even if you didn't attend, those institutions play a vital role.

02:28:33.523 --> 02:28:40.083
And it's because of people like Kate and because of people like Sister Browne-Marshall.

02:28:41.718 --> 02:28:48.578
So those institutions would have had a tougher time, you know,

02:28:48.618 --> 02:28:49.898
along with people like Dr.

02:28:50.018 --> 02:28:55.298
Brown-Grier, who are cheerleaders and advocates for HBCUs directly.

02:28:56.438 --> 02:29:02.438
You know, the fact that people had to fight and people had to agitate to make

02:29:02.438 --> 02:29:06.378
sure those institutions, the ones that have survived,

02:29:07.618 --> 02:29:12.338
you know, still were able to thrive, still were able to get the recognition

02:29:12.338 --> 02:29:17.618
and the funding that they needed and they still need today.

02:29:18.178 --> 02:29:20.278
So all that kind of ties in.

02:29:21.278 --> 02:29:25.698
And that's why, you know, it was like trying to come up with a title.

02:29:26.218 --> 02:29:31.158
I came up with menace, movement, momentum, right?

02:29:32.038 --> 02:29:40.518
Because you got to have that fierceness and you got to build a movement with that fierceness.

02:29:40.518 --> 02:29:46.318
And then you've got to carry that momentum forward to keep attaining the progress

02:29:46.318 --> 02:29:50.858
that we deserve and that we should continue to strive to attain.

02:29:51.598 --> 02:29:55.698
So I thank all three of those ladies for taking the time out to come on.

02:29:57.018 --> 02:30:00.878
And I hope that you all enjoyed the interviews.

02:30:01.658 --> 02:30:05.738
I know I always say I'm not going to take up too much time and,

02:30:05.938 --> 02:30:09.278
you know, in my commentary and all that stuff.

02:30:10.518 --> 02:30:14.438
You know, but I just try to say what I need to say and get it off my chest.

02:30:14.858 --> 02:30:19.298
And I appreciate those of you all who stayed throughout the podcast to listen to that,

02:30:19.538 --> 02:30:24.038
because this is really the essence of why I even started this podcast,

02:30:24.038 --> 02:30:30.238
was to get things off of my chest to articulate some frustrations.

02:30:30.238 --> 02:30:33.478
And hopefully a lot of y'all can relate to that.

02:30:33.618 --> 02:30:36.058
Hopefully what I say is.

02:30:37.450 --> 02:30:41.230
It resonates with what you were thinking. I mean, you were glad somebody said

02:30:41.230 --> 02:30:44.390
it, even if you didn't get a chance to, right?

02:30:45.750 --> 02:30:55.410
But all I can really say this episode is just be laser focused in whatever you're

02:30:55.410 --> 02:31:01.230
doing and whatever you seek to do to help move this nation forward.

02:31:01.670 --> 02:31:07.210
Because right now, whether it's deliberate or they can't help themselves,

02:31:07.450 --> 02:31:12.510
we are in a state of chaos and confusion.

02:31:13.190 --> 02:31:16.390
And this is not the first time I have used those terms.

02:31:17.550 --> 02:31:24.070
But, you know, it was one, I don't know if I wrote it or I've said it before or whatever.

02:31:25.410 --> 02:31:36.290
But there's a passage in the Iliad, I believe, where Odysseus talks about this being an age of heroes.

02:31:36.290 --> 02:31:44.150
And I have made the contention for years now that we are not in that age, right?

02:31:44.310 --> 02:31:50.190
Now maybe when Homer wrote that, that was kind of the sense of civilization.

02:31:51.830 --> 02:31:57.990
Or that was kind of the portrayal of the era that Homer was trying to depict in that story.

02:31:59.270 --> 02:32:08.190
But we are not in that age now. If anything, we are in an age of chaos,

02:32:08.530 --> 02:32:11.630
confusion, and even cowardice, right?

02:32:12.110 --> 02:32:16.510
And cowardice shows its form in many, many ways.

02:32:16.510 --> 02:32:22.310
It shows its form in trying to drive your truck through a synagogue or showing

02:32:22.310 --> 02:32:28.690
up on a college campus shooting people or not standing up,

02:32:30.349 --> 02:32:36.169
administration that you know is wrong, right? Not being able to say no to your boss.

02:32:36.969 --> 02:32:41.489
And we got to get out of that cowardice. We got to get out of that fear.

02:32:41.649 --> 02:32:46.849
We got to get out of this mental malaise that we're in.

02:32:48.809 --> 02:32:55.869
And for those of you who are not elected, I understand that may not be a priority

02:32:55.869 --> 02:32:59.649
for you when it pertains to politics.

02:33:00.429 --> 02:33:03.969
But see, politics interacts with everything we do in life.

02:33:04.529 --> 02:33:09.349
And so if you have a mental malaise in going to your job, or you have a mental

02:33:09.349 --> 02:33:14.789
malaise in dealing with your children, or if you have a mental malaise in pursuing

02:33:14.789 --> 02:33:19.509
your personal dreams, you can't compartmentalize that.

02:33:19.969 --> 02:33:25.209
It carries over in everything that you do, especially in things that you don't

02:33:25.209 --> 02:33:32.429
prioritize, like who is your mayor or city council person or state rep or state senator,

02:33:33.189 --> 02:33:37.329
county commissioner, or even your congressman, your senator, your president.

02:33:38.910 --> 02:33:42.890
Average American politics is not the foremost thing in their mind,

02:33:43.230 --> 02:33:45.790
yet it impacts everything that they do.

02:33:46.290 --> 02:33:52.810
Everything. The car you drive, if you have a car, right?

02:33:53.470 --> 02:33:56.450
Government has their hands all in that car.

02:33:56.850 --> 02:34:01.430
Government has a hand in the highway or the street that you drive the car on.

02:34:01.650 --> 02:34:07.910
Government has its hands on whether you stop at that intersection or not, right?

02:34:09.370 --> 02:34:16.090
Just basic stuff. If you don't have a car, government provides transportation for you.

02:34:17.710 --> 02:34:22.590
Government regulates that Uber or Lyft that you summon.

02:34:23.490 --> 02:34:26.830
We're just talking about the transportation piece. We ain't got into food.

02:34:27.390 --> 02:34:31.510
We haven't got into the schools. We haven't got into the house or the apartment

02:34:31.510 --> 02:34:37.950
that you live in or the fact that you can't afford a house or an apartment to live in, right?

02:34:38.790 --> 02:34:44.490
Politics plays a major part in everything, every aspect of your life,

02:34:44.730 --> 02:34:46.410
even when you go to the...

02:34:47.990 --> 02:34:50.930
So, but people don't look at politics that way.

02:34:51.010 --> 02:34:56.490
They just look at it as, okay, that's what's predominantly on the news.

02:34:57.010 --> 02:35:00.550
The president and the Congress don't get along. The governor and the state legislature

02:35:00.550 --> 02:35:03.550
doesn't get along. The mayor and the city council doesn't get along. Okay.

02:35:04.490 --> 02:35:09.450
You power through that. but you need to pay attention to what they're arguing about.

02:35:12.040 --> 02:35:15.320
As sure as the sun comes up, as sure as the air that you breathe,

02:35:15.780 --> 02:35:17.780
it's going to have an impact on you.

02:35:18.560 --> 02:35:25.140
And if not directly, indirectly, if not immediately, in the future.

02:35:25.720 --> 02:35:27.020
But it's going to have an impact.

02:35:28.080 --> 02:35:31.040
So you need to pay attention. You need to pay attention to the people that are

02:35:31.040 --> 02:35:37.340
asking you to vote for them to be in these positions, regardless of how trivial

02:35:37.340 --> 02:35:40.280
you think that position is to your life.

02:35:41.160 --> 02:35:44.780
You can say, well, I'm never going to get arrested. I'm not going to commit

02:35:44.780 --> 02:35:46.240
a crime, but you still need to

02:35:46.240 --> 02:35:51.040
pay attention to who your sheriff and your district attorney are, right?

02:35:51.760 --> 02:36:00.900
So I'd say all that to say that if you are in a funk, if you are in a sad state of affairs mentally,

02:36:01.460 --> 02:36:06.260
that's going to impact your decisions as far as politics go,

02:36:06.300 --> 02:36:09.880
because politics It's not a priority in your life.

02:36:10.560 --> 02:36:16.480
So whatever is putting you in this bad situation is just going to carry over to that.

02:36:18.312 --> 02:36:22.832
And sometimes those decisions, whether you decide to vote or not,

02:36:23.272 --> 02:36:26.232
has incredible consequences.

02:36:26.932 --> 02:36:34.172
And whatever your mindset was in 2024, even if you voted for the candidate that

02:36:34.172 --> 02:36:36.132
you felt was going to do the right thing,

02:36:36.712 --> 02:36:44.632
the results have brought about this era of chaos, confusion, and cowardice.

02:36:46.372 --> 02:36:58.312
And all I can say is that all I can ask you, I should say, to do is be more focused on that.

02:36:59.192 --> 02:37:05.772
Most of y'all who are listening to this show are not the people I'm really trying to reach,

02:37:06.432 --> 02:37:12.472
but for those who might be listening for the first time or you've kind of been

02:37:12.472 --> 02:37:15.472
monitoring and what I'm doing or whatever the case may be.

02:37:15.532 --> 02:37:18.012
You don't necessarily agree with my positions.

02:37:19.732 --> 02:37:28.592
Take heed. And I just want you to just look at what is going on and make a decision

02:37:28.592 --> 02:37:30.212
how you can make that better.

02:37:31.032 --> 02:37:36.572
If you realize that the only thing you think you can do is just vote for somebody different, do that.

02:37:37.252 --> 02:37:42.152
But I want you to be more engaged this go-around.

02:37:43.232 --> 02:37:46.492
And if you know people, if you're listening to the show and you know people,

02:37:46.592 --> 02:37:49.652
because a lot of times people are not really engaged and not listening to a

02:37:49.652 --> 02:37:52.612
show like this, it's time to evangelize.

02:37:53.352 --> 02:38:00.092
It's time to spread the good news that you can make a difference if you participate in the process.

02:38:02.037 --> 02:38:08.537
If there's anything that Ms. Powell tried to convey, it's that you have to get involved.

02:38:09.417 --> 02:38:14.957
You have to. You don't have to accept things, right?

02:38:15.297 --> 02:38:20.857
I guess it was St. Francis of Assisi that asked God's guidance to accept the

02:38:20.857 --> 02:38:22.157
things that I cannot change.

02:38:22.417 --> 02:38:30.017
And then Angela Davis countered that and said, I seek to change the things I cannot accept.

02:38:30.917 --> 02:38:34.537
So it's time for us to embrace that ladder.

02:38:35.537 --> 02:38:40.297
Because I don't believe the majority of the people that live in the boundaries

02:38:40.297 --> 02:38:44.237
of the United States of America are really cool with what's going on.

02:38:44.717 --> 02:38:47.357
Some of y'all might brush it off as a joke.

02:38:49.517 --> 02:38:54.457
Just part of your daily entertainment. Until it hits home.

02:38:54.997 --> 02:38:59.697
Until you're the family that gets the knock on the door and says that your loved

02:38:59.697 --> 02:39:05.357
one didn't make it in this particular battle or this particular war.

02:39:07.196 --> 02:39:14.876
Or if someone you care about gets arrested, or if you are involved in something

02:39:14.876 --> 02:39:20.776
that jeopardizes your health, then everybody's engaged, right?

02:39:21.816 --> 02:39:26.176
And human beings have been very good at reacting to things.

02:39:26.176 --> 02:39:34.696
The challenge is getting us to a point to have vision and courage enough to

02:39:34.696 --> 02:39:37.596
deal with things before they happen.

02:39:38.136 --> 02:39:45.896
Deal with the probabilities. We have the capacity to do it because we make computers that do it, right?

02:39:46.196 --> 02:39:49.616
We program computers to do all this stuff.

02:39:50.316 --> 02:39:57.516
So if we could create something to do it, that means we have the capacity within us to do it.

02:39:58.116 --> 02:40:00.136
That's my argument. I'm sticking to that.

02:40:01.036 --> 02:40:08.236
We can foreshadow things, we can detect patterns, and we can stop things before

02:40:08.236 --> 02:40:10.776
they manifest into something devastating.

02:40:11.496 --> 02:40:16.436
But in order to do that, we have to care. See, we'll catch our child when we

02:40:16.436 --> 02:40:20.956
think that they're falling, because we care and love them enough that we don't

02:40:20.956 --> 02:40:25.656
want them to get hurt, right? We react to that.

02:40:26.376 --> 02:40:32.756
Some of us react like that to our pets because we care. We don't want them to get hurt.

02:40:34.670 --> 02:40:40.150
Something really, really big. I want you to care about the government that you are under.

02:40:40.590 --> 02:40:45.810
I want you to care about the institutions of government.

02:40:46.410 --> 02:40:51.890
You should not want them to fail. You should not want them to be damaged.

02:40:52.270 --> 02:40:53.990
You should not want it to be broken.

02:40:55.090 --> 02:41:00.530
So please, please focus.

02:41:01.410 --> 02:41:10.070
I'm pleading with you because all of this that we're dealing with right now, we don't deserve that.

02:41:10.450 --> 02:41:15.210
We deserve way better than that. We are much smarter than that.

02:41:15.930 --> 02:41:20.430
We don't have to settle for the lowest common denominator.

02:41:21.250 --> 02:41:25.590
The United States of America is supposed to be an example of excellence.

02:41:25.590 --> 02:41:34.950
As I've stated before, we are the only nation that has people from every country

02:41:34.950 --> 02:41:41.010
in the world represented within these boundaries. The only one.

02:41:42.090 --> 02:41:46.090
Therefore, we have an example to set.

02:41:48.110 --> 02:41:54.910
Better time to set that example than in the 250th year that we waged a protest

02:41:54.910 --> 02:42:01.430
against tyranny, that we waged a protest against authoritarianism, right?

02:42:02.170 --> 02:42:06.170
And yeah, you know, some people are like, well, you know, Frederick Douglass

02:42:06.170 --> 02:42:15.370
said, this is, you know, it's like slaves fought for American independence.

02:42:16.330 --> 02:42:23.630
Slaves fought in the Civil War. Black people fought for this nation.

02:42:24.130 --> 02:42:30.890
The very first person to die for American independence was a black man.

02:42:31.650 --> 02:42:39.650
So forgive me if I embrace the nation that I was born in and I challenge to

02:42:39.650 --> 02:42:44.290
do better each and every day despite this moment of chaos,

02:42:44.790 --> 02:42:47.350
confusion, and cowardice.

02:42:48.010 --> 02:42:53.510
I know we have the potential. I know we have the ability. But it's got to be

02:42:53.510 --> 02:42:54.830
a buy-in from everybody.

02:42:55.650 --> 02:42:59.670
And just like the preacher knows every Sunday, he's not going to convert everybody

02:42:59.670 --> 02:43:03.130
that he gives a sermon to every Sunday.

02:43:03.830 --> 02:43:07.770
But he shows up on that pulpit, or she shows up in the pulpit.

02:43:09.210 --> 02:43:12.250
And delivers the good news. right?

02:43:13.050 --> 02:43:18.150
Or they show up, the imam shows up at the mosque or the rabbi shows up at the synagogue.

02:43:20.250 --> 02:43:23.550
It's all about the challenge.

02:43:24.510 --> 02:43:30.990
If you accept a call, you accept a challenge to make the society that you are

02:43:30.990 --> 02:43:34.110
in better than what it was the day before.

02:43:35.190 --> 02:43:39.190
So please, ladies and gentlemen, would you do that for a little old me?

02:43:39.410 --> 02:43:43.070
I ask you a lot. I ask you to subscribe to the party. I ask you to listen to

02:43:43.070 --> 02:43:44.530
the party. I ask you to do comments on it.

02:43:45.410 --> 02:43:51.890
Please, please, please get engaged. We need you. We need you.

02:43:52.690 --> 02:43:57.010
All right. That's all I got. Thank y'all for listening. Until next time.