Host Erik Fleming interviews historian and filmmaker Gregory S. Cooke about his documentary Invisible Warriors, which tells the story of 600,000 African-American women who worked in factories and government during World War II, and Dedrick Asante-Muhammad of the Joint Center, who discusses racial economic equity and current policy challenges. The episode explores wartime gains, ongoing struggles for civil rights, efforts to preserve Black history, and ways listeners can support the film and related educational initiatives.
00:00:00 --> 00:00:06 Welcome. I'm Erik Fleming, host of A Moment with Erik Fleming, the podcast of our time.
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00:02:00 --> 00:02:05 Hello, welcome to another moment with Erik Fleming. I am your host, Erik Fleming.
00:02:05 --> 00:02:11 So today I have two guests, two gentlemen who coming on the program.
00:02:11 --> 00:02:20 One has done a film that he's been working on for a long, long time and just got released this year.
00:02:21 --> 00:02:30 And another gentleman who has taken over an organization that's been around for over a half century.
00:02:32 --> 00:02:36 And, well, he's been there for a couple years, but he's still relatively new.
00:02:37 --> 00:02:43 And I wanted to highlight him and the work that they are doing on behalf of black folks.
00:02:43 --> 00:02:50 So I hope that you enjoy the show and get something out of that.
00:02:50 --> 00:02:56 But, again, I ask y'all to continue to support this podcast.
00:02:57 --> 00:03:04 As always, we ask for subscriptions or, you know, get more people to listen
00:03:04 --> 00:03:08 or whatever you feel we need to support this podcast.
00:03:08 --> 00:03:17 You can go to www.momenterik.com. That's www.momenterik.com.
00:03:17 --> 00:03:21 And, you know, show their support.
00:03:21 --> 00:03:25 Check out any past episodes, whole nine yards, you know, the routine.
00:03:27 --> 00:03:34 Just greatly appreciate what y'all can do and just appreciate y'all listening.
00:03:35 --> 00:03:38 All right. I don't really have a whole lot to say right now,
00:03:38 --> 00:03:40 but I'll say something later.
00:03:40 --> 00:03:44 So let's go ahead and start this program. And as always, we kick it off with
00:03:44 --> 00:03:47 a moment of news with Grace G. .
00:03:54 --> 00:03:58 Thanks, Erik. Bill and Hillary Clinton testified before the U.S.
00:03:58 --> 00:04:02 House of Representatives Oversight Committee in Chappaqua, New York,
00:04:02 --> 00:04:05 concerning their relationship with sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
00:04:05 --> 00:04:10 In a record-breaking State of the Union address, President Trump touted the
00:04:10 --> 00:04:14 dawn of a golden age and highlighted economic achievements to bolster his standing
00:04:14 --> 00:04:19 ahead of the midterms, despite facing low approval ratings and significant policy setbacks.
00:04:20 --> 00:04:24 President Trump raised import tariffs to a legal maximum of 15 percent,
00:04:24 --> 00:04:29 using a rarely-invoked law after the Supreme Court struck down his previous program.
00:04:30 --> 00:04:35 Law enforcement officers fatally shot an armed 21-year-old man after he breached
00:04:35 --> 00:04:41 a security perimeter at President Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort while the president was away in Washington.
00:04:42 --> 00:04:46 A federal judge struck down a Trump administration policy that allowed for the
00:04:46 --> 00:04:49 rapid deportation of migrants to third-party countries.
00:04:49 --> 00:04:54 Despite community concerns surrounding the discovery of Kyle Basinga's body
00:04:54 --> 00:05:00 hanging from a tree in a Georgia park, local authorities have ruled his death a suicide.
00:05:00 --> 00:05:05 U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon permanently barred the Justice Department
00:05:05 --> 00:05:10 from releasing a report on the dismissed classified documents case against President Trump.
00:05:10 --> 00:05:17 Notorious drug lord El Mencho was killed during a Mexican military raid in Tapalpa,
00:05:17 --> 00:05:20 Jalisco in an intense U.S.-Mexico joint
00:05:20 --> 00:05:26 effort to combat cartel activity Nick Reiner pleaded not guilty to first-degree
00:05:26 --> 00:05:30 murder charges for the fatal December stabbing of his parents filmmaker Rob
00:05:30 --> 00:05:37 Reiner and producer Michelle Reiner in their Los Angeles home A massive blizzard paralyzed the U.S.
00:05:38 --> 00:05:42 Northeast with record-breaking snowfall and high winds, causing thousands of
00:05:42 --> 00:05:46 flight cancellations and leaving over 600 customers without power.
00:05:47 --> 00:05:52 And South Carolina's measles outbreak has reached 979 cases.
00:05:53 --> 00:05:56 I am Grace Gee, and this has been a Moment of News.
00:06:04 --> 00:06:09 All right. Thank you, Grace, for that moment of news. And now it is time for
00:06:09 --> 00:06:11 our guest, Gregory S. Cooke.
00:06:12 --> 00:06:18 Gregory S. Cooke has dedicated his life as an educator and historian to help
00:06:18 --> 00:06:21 relocate African-Americans to the main pages of history.
00:06:22 --> 00:06:26 He directed Invisible Warriors, African-American Women in World War II,
00:06:26 --> 00:06:34 a critically acclaimed documentary about 600 Rosie The Rivoters who triumphed
00:06:34 --> 00:06:39 over systemic barriers to help win the war while securing new employment opportunities
00:06:39 --> 00:06:44 in industry and government for themselves and future generations of Black women.
00:06:44 --> 00:06:50 To support Rosie's legacy, the Basil and Becky Educational Foundation established
00:06:50 --> 00:06:54 April 5th as National Black Women's Labor Day.
00:06:55 --> 00:06:59 Some accomplishments include a President's Lifetime Achievement Award,
00:07:00 --> 00:07:05 Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources, a National World War II Museum
00:07:05 --> 00:07:09 Advisory Board member, Fighting for the Right to Fight.
00:07:10 --> 00:07:15 Inaugural recipient of the Better Angels Levine Ken Burns Fellowship,
00:07:15 --> 00:07:19 and the Congressional Black Caucus Veterans Brain Trust Award.
00:07:19 --> 00:07:25 The Kingdom of the Netherlands was the largest contributor to Invisible Warriors completion.
00:07:26 --> 00:07:31 Gregory has spoken at more than 90 educational, cultural, and corporate venues,
00:07:31 --> 00:07:37 has numerous media appearances, including CBS Saturday Morning and Turner Classic Movies.
00:07:37 --> 00:07:42 His expertise about African-American participation in World War II has been
00:07:42 --> 00:07:45 featured in documentaries, The Women of World War II,
00:07:46 --> 00:07:51 World War II Battles in Color, The Bulge, and My Father's War,
00:07:51 --> 00:07:53 How Pearl Harbor Transformed America.
00:07:53 --> 00:07:58 He is the Associate Director on Chocolate Soldiers from the USA.
00:07:59 --> 00:08:04 Gregory earned his B.A. in English at American International College and an M.A.
00:08:04 --> 00:08:07 In Journalism at The Ohio State University.
00:08:08 --> 00:08:14 Gregory helps former students navigate life and teaches them about the spiritual ways of the force.
00:08:14 --> 00:08:18 Ladies and gentlemen, it is my distinct honor and privilege to have as a guest
00:08:18 --> 00:08:22 on this podcast, Gregory S. Cooke.
00:08:33 --> 00:08:39 All right. Gregory S. Cooke. How you doing, sir? You doing good? I'm doing good.
00:08:40 --> 00:08:45 Everything's good. I'm good. And I want to thank you for having me on your podcast
00:08:45 --> 00:08:50 and giving me the opportunity to spread the word about Invisible Warriors,
00:08:50 --> 00:08:52 African-American women in World War II.
00:08:52 --> 00:08:58 Well, I'm honored to have you on and it was a privilege to be able to see it.
00:08:58 --> 00:09:04 And we're going to get into it a little bit because I love history, man.
00:09:04 --> 00:09:07 I'm a big fan of history and especially ours.
00:09:08 --> 00:09:14 And considering that this is the 100th anniversary of us celebrating Black history,
00:09:15 --> 00:09:18 it's really, really a treat to have you on.
00:09:18 --> 00:09:24 But I usually start off the show with a couple of icebreakers.
00:09:24 --> 00:09:29 So the first icebreaker is what I call a quote. Well, what I call what it is is a quote.
00:09:29 --> 00:09:32 So this is this is the quote I want you to respond to.
00:09:33 --> 00:09:39 The contribution of Black women is one which this nation would be unwise to
00:09:39 --> 00:09:41 forget or evaluate falsely.
00:09:42 --> 00:09:46 Women generally, and African-American women in particular, have played a major
00:09:46 --> 00:09:49 role in the development and construction of this country.
00:09:49 --> 00:09:57 We've been here for 400 years, and about 250 years of that labor and support
00:09:57 --> 00:10:04 and construction was as enslaved, unpaid workers, laborers.
00:10:04 --> 00:10:09 And so it's very important, I think, in this time in particular,
00:10:09 --> 00:10:16 where African-American women get their just due in terms of their contributions.
00:10:16 --> 00:10:24 And this group of women in particular, the 600 Black Rosies who helped win World War II,
00:10:24 --> 00:10:32 is very significant because a lot of people, a lot of change is on their shoulders.
00:10:32 --> 00:10:34 And we're standing on their shoulders.
00:10:34 --> 00:10:40 I think arguably they're the most significant group of Black women post-enslavement
00:10:40 --> 00:10:45 because there were so many of them, 600, that's a lot.
00:10:45 --> 00:10:52 And that they were the ones who opened up, who were the first in mass to open
00:10:52 --> 00:10:58 up doors of opportunity in government offices and factories and shipyards.
00:10:58 --> 00:11:01 And there was this slogan during the war, like, we can do it.
00:11:02 --> 00:11:07 And clearly these women could do it, and they did it, but they proved that they could do it.
00:11:07 --> 00:11:14 And I think to ignore their contributions is, again, cheating all Americans
00:11:14 --> 00:11:18 about what America is, how it got to be the way it is.
00:11:19 --> 00:11:22 And so I would pretty much agree with that statement.
00:11:22 --> 00:11:27 All right. So now the next icebreaker is what we call 20 questions.
00:11:28 --> 00:11:31 So I need you to give me a number between one and 20.
00:11:32 --> 00:11:39 11. All right. Where do you go to check a fact that you see, hear, or read?
00:11:40 --> 00:11:45 It really depends upon context. So, for example, in the work,
00:11:45 --> 00:11:50 in a lot of the work I do, it has, you know, related to World War II.
00:11:51 --> 00:11:56 And so there's a number of sources I can use, like Department of Defense,
00:11:57 --> 00:12:02 sometimes even Wikipedia, because I know I already know some things,
00:12:02 --> 00:12:08 and I know so much about the subject, I can tell whether or not it's accurate.
00:12:08 --> 00:12:16 Library of Congress, a multitude, you know, various texts that I have.
00:12:17 --> 00:12:21 One of the things that I've used over the years, it's called The Deployment
00:12:21 --> 00:12:27 of Negro Troops in World War II, and it's basically a study or a Bible,
00:12:27 --> 00:12:33 so to speak, of African-American participation in World War II.
00:12:33 --> 00:12:39 So those are places I can go. I have a vast library of books and other sources
00:12:39 --> 00:12:44 about the subjects that I've talked about, written about, et cetera.
00:12:44 --> 00:12:50 All right. So your mother was one of the 600 Black women in the World War
00:12:50 --> 00:12:55 II effort that this documentary pays tribute to. Was she the inspiration for the film?
00:12:56 --> 00:13:00 Actually, if I'm going to be honest, no, she wasn't. She didn't become that
00:13:00 --> 00:13:02 inspiration until I was in the film.
00:13:03 --> 00:13:11 My mother transitioned in 2006. I started working on the film in 2009, I believe.
00:13:11 --> 00:13:19 And so I got into it because of some research I was doing and because of some
00:13:19 --> 00:13:22 issues I had working on another documentary.
00:13:22 --> 00:13:28 And so I got into it primarily because some research I was doing in Great Britain.
00:13:31 --> 00:13:37 During World War II, there were like 140 African-American men and women
00:13:37 --> 00:13:43 stationed in Great Britain Most of them prior to D-Day So while I'm doing research on that,
00:13:43 --> 00:13:52 I run across an article about British war workers, the women their version of the Rosies.
00:13:53 --> 00:13:59 And it's been a long time ago, but somehow or another, I ran across a book called Bitter Fruit by Dr.
00:13:59 --> 00:14:02 Maureen Honey, who's also in the documentary.
00:14:02 --> 00:14:08 And she talks about in that book, African-American Rosies, what they did,
00:14:08 --> 00:14:11 their narratives, their letters written into newspapers, et cetera.
00:14:12 --> 00:14:19 And so when I read that, I remembered a story my mother used to tell me.
00:14:19 --> 00:14:23 When I was three or four years old, she was a stay-at-home mom. And.
00:14:24 --> 00:14:28 She used to tell me this story about how when she was 18 years old,
00:14:29 --> 00:14:35 she rode on her suitcase, on her suitcase, from Norfolk, Virginia to Washington, D.C.
00:14:35 --> 00:14:40 To get her very first job as a clerk typist in the U.S. Patent Office.
00:14:40 --> 00:14:47 And that story came to me. The reason I remembered the story was because of her train ride.
00:14:47 --> 00:14:52 You know, I didn't know what a clerk typist was. She never told me she was riding
00:14:52 --> 00:14:56 in a Jim Crow car, going to a deeply segregated and racist Washington,
00:14:57 --> 00:14:59 D.C. It was the train ride.
00:14:59 --> 00:15:02 And so she told me this story.
00:15:02 --> 00:15:07 And so about a year or so after working on this project, I got,
00:15:07 --> 00:15:10 you know, and getting a better understanding of who Rosie is,
00:15:10 --> 00:15:12 where I realized she was a Rosie.
00:15:12 --> 00:15:16 And she didn't know it. like most of the black women I've encountered,
00:15:17 --> 00:15:20 they did not know that they had done something historically significant.
00:15:20 --> 00:15:25 But I remember as a kid when my mother talked about it, how her face would light up.
00:15:26 --> 00:15:30 And I also was able to put some pieces together.
00:15:30 --> 00:15:35 1943 meant she was 18 years old, right in the middle of World War II. And so...
00:15:37 --> 00:15:44 From that point on, she was an inspiration. I wanted to tell her story as much as I could.
00:15:44 --> 00:15:52 I wish I had asked her more about World War II, but that's life.
00:15:52 --> 00:15:57 And I didn't get a chance to or think about it really until I started this project.
00:15:57 --> 00:15:59 And by then, she had already transitioned.
00:16:00 --> 00:16:05 But I'm very proud of the fact that my mother was a Rosie.
00:16:05 --> 00:16:10 And I sometimes wonder how my life would have changed or how different it would
00:16:10 --> 00:16:16 have been had she not made that train ride, because she met my father in Washington,
00:16:16 --> 00:16:18 D.C. during the war, you know.
00:16:18 --> 00:16:25 And so coming from the Jim Crow South, if she did not have the courage to take
00:16:25 --> 00:16:29 that train ride, there's no telling how my life would have been different.
00:16:30 --> 00:16:37 So for most of this journey, and it took me 16 years from the time of my first
00:16:37 --> 00:16:39 interview, which was with Dr.
00:16:40 --> 00:16:44 Dorothy Height, National Council of Negro Women, to three weeks ago when it
00:16:44 --> 00:16:48 went public, so to speak, 16 years.
00:16:49 --> 00:16:53 My mother has become a major inspirational force for me.
00:16:53 --> 00:16:58 And when I do public speaking about this, I always take her picture and show her picture.
00:16:59 --> 00:17:04 Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's cool to find out that your parents did something,
00:17:04 --> 00:17:06 you know, because we just know them as our parents.
00:17:07 --> 00:17:10 And then when you really prod them and poke them a little bit,
00:17:10 --> 00:17:13 it's like, oh, you did that or you were involved in that? Oh,
00:17:13 --> 00:17:15 okay. Right. Yeah. Right.
00:17:16 --> 00:17:20 We are very fortunate that many of the women that you highlighted in the film
00:17:20 --> 00:17:23 live long lives to have their story told.
00:17:23 --> 00:17:27 So you said it took you 16 years to put this together.
00:17:27 --> 00:17:32 What were some of what were some of the challenges you faced in the production of this documentary?
00:17:33 --> 00:17:36 I would say primarily one. I didn't have resources.
00:17:37 --> 00:17:45 You know, if someone had, you know, plopped down $175 right in front of
00:17:45 --> 00:17:49 me and said, make this documentary, it would have been done in 2011, right?
00:17:50 --> 00:17:54 But I didn't have the resources. A lot of this came out of my own pocket.
00:17:54 --> 00:18:00 My late mother and her uncle and her brother, my uncle, basically gave me the
00:18:00 --> 00:18:02 seed money to start this.
00:18:03 --> 00:18:09 And meaning that it was money that my mother left me and that's what I used it for, right?
00:18:10 --> 00:18:14 And so I started an educational nonprofit called Basil and Becky Educational
00:18:14 --> 00:18:19 Foundation. Basil was my uncle, Becky, my mother, her, you know, they were siblings.
00:18:19 --> 00:18:24 And so the biggest challenge was funding.
00:18:24 --> 00:18:29 And I'm still in that mode to do some other things with this.
00:18:29 --> 00:18:33 And I think there's been,
00:18:33 --> 00:18:38 I guess disappointment is probably the right word, but not to the point where
00:18:38 --> 00:18:43 it ever got me down, because I'm the type of person, if I start something,
00:18:43 --> 00:18:45 I'm going to do my damnedest to finish it, you know.
00:18:45 --> 00:18:55 But I didn't get a lot of financial support from generally the Black community.
00:18:57 --> 00:19:01 And part of that is on me. This is a brand, something I'd never done before.
00:19:02 --> 00:19:06 Reaching out and asking people for money is not one of my strong suits.
00:19:06 --> 00:19:15 So part of that is on me. But what I also know is Or believe that If I had the
00:19:15 --> 00:19:20 money and the documentary Was finished in 2011 I don't think it was the right
00:19:20 --> 00:19:26 historic moment To get the exposure it has since gotten I believe that.
00:19:27 --> 00:19:33 The documentary came about, came to the public eye post-George Floyd.
00:19:33 --> 00:19:41 And I think George Floyd was this moment of seeing, and all these other things came off of it.
00:19:41 --> 00:19:49 It became this moment of seeing about what America is, what it has been,
00:19:49 --> 00:19:51 who has done what, who has contributed.
00:19:51 --> 00:19:57 And so because there was this heightened sense of awareness, I believe,
00:19:57 --> 00:20:03 in the black community specifically and in the larger American community generally,
00:20:03 --> 00:20:09 I think that was a much better time for it to, you know,
00:20:09 --> 00:20:14 mature and come to fruition than had I had all the money up front and it would
00:20:14 --> 00:20:17 have been done in maybe 2011 or 12.
00:20:17 --> 00:20:22 Yeah. So, you know, things work out the way they're supposed to work out, I believe.
00:20:23 --> 00:20:29 And also, this is the longest journey, specific journey I've taken in my life.
00:20:31 --> 00:20:37 And if you had told me this is going to take 16 years, it's going to be a struggle
00:20:37 --> 00:20:39 financially, blah, blah, blah.
00:20:40 --> 00:20:45 I'm not sure I would have done it, to be honest. You know, I'm not sure I would have.
00:20:45 --> 00:20:50 That's a long time out of anybody's life to work on one project that you still
00:20:50 --> 00:20:54 don't know if it's going to come to fruition.
00:20:54 --> 00:21:01 But I'm a person of deep faith and belief in the divine forces and in myself.
00:21:01 --> 00:21:03 And so I stayed with it.
00:21:05 --> 00:21:13 And so what we have today is a critically acclaimed, illuminating story about 600 black women.
00:21:13 --> 00:21:20 And it's also worth noting that there's so many of us as black people today,
00:21:20 --> 00:21:22 particularly I'm a baby boomer.
00:21:22 --> 00:21:25 So if you're a baby boomer or maybe even a little bit younger,
00:21:25 --> 00:21:28 these women were in your family, right?
00:21:28 --> 00:21:35 I mean, according to the 1940 census, more than 80% of all Black women were
00:21:35 --> 00:21:40 either sharecroppers or domestic servants in the home of whites, right?
00:21:40 --> 00:21:44 Both of my grandmothers were domestics, right?
00:21:44 --> 00:21:49 And that was, for the most part, what was open to a Black woman en masse.
00:21:49 --> 00:21:56 And so there are people who are still with us today who have that legacy in
00:21:56 --> 00:22:01 their families of them being sharecroppers, of them being domestic servants.
00:22:01 --> 00:22:04 And so I think...
00:22:06 --> 00:22:11 Getting this out to the public so that people could see their own story in this
00:22:11 --> 00:22:17 has been a major challenge, but the biggest challenge was creating it.
00:22:18 --> 00:22:22 Getting it out into the public has been a bit easier because people want to
00:22:22 --> 00:22:24 see, okay, what have you done?
00:22:25 --> 00:22:29 And I can show people what I've done. And it hasn't just me.
00:22:29 --> 00:22:32 There are a whole lot of people who helped me, and I want to make that clear.
00:22:32 --> 00:22:36 There's a whole lot of people who helped me, seen and unseen.
00:22:37 --> 00:22:42 And the ancestors were with me on this. I think my mother was with me on this.
00:22:43 --> 00:22:49 You know, so it wasn't just me. I was just the vessel to get this thing done.
00:22:49 --> 00:22:56 But long, long story, long answer to a short question. But the biggest obstacle was resources.
00:22:57 --> 00:23:02 Yeah, yeah. So we're kindred spirits, Brother Cooke, in that.
00:23:02 --> 00:23:06 You know, I believe that there's a time and a season for everything.
00:23:06 --> 00:23:12 And I think you eloquently explained why this documentary is timely now.
00:23:12 --> 00:23:17 And also somebody that's been in politics for a long time. Yeah,
00:23:17 --> 00:23:19 I hate asking people for money.
00:23:19 --> 00:23:21 I just, you know, it's just terrible.
00:23:23 --> 00:23:28 It's a tough thing to do so i definitely feel you on that and you kind of led
00:23:28 --> 00:23:34 into my next question about how was world war ii a game changer for these black
00:23:34 --> 00:23:43 women okay well world war ii was the most significant event in human history um,
00:23:44 --> 00:23:49 There's nothing else that's comparable that comes close. When I talk sometimes
00:23:49 --> 00:23:54 and give a PowerPoint, I have a basketball sitting beside a marble.
00:23:54 --> 00:23:57 I have an image of a basketball sitting beside a marble.
00:23:58 --> 00:24:05 The basketball is World War II. The marble is any other event in human history. Okay.
00:24:05 --> 00:24:12 World War II involved more people doing more things, more money,
00:24:12 --> 00:24:17 more killing, more destruction, more innovation, more human movement, more, more, more.
00:24:18 --> 00:24:23 The numbers related to World War II are astronomical.
00:24:23 --> 00:24:28 In today's money, for example, World War II plus $4 trillion in today's money.
00:24:30 --> 00:24:35 Somewhere between 50 and 73 million people were killed, which was three and
00:24:35 --> 00:24:39 a half, about three and a half percent of the human population. Okay.
00:24:40 --> 00:24:46 So I try to look at things like nothing is ever all good or nothing's ever all bad.
00:24:47 --> 00:24:54 And while the catalyst for World War II was colonialism, white supremacy,
00:24:54 --> 00:24:59 and those kinds of things, right, some good stuff came out of World War II.
00:24:59 --> 00:25:04 It began the process of getting the European colonialists off the necks of black
00:25:04 --> 00:25:07 tropes and colored people around the world.
00:25:08 --> 00:25:12 1.1 million African-Americans served in the U.S. military.
00:25:13 --> 00:25:18 And so that's significant because for the first time in mass,
00:25:19 --> 00:25:22 Black people are getting paid the same thing as whites, right?
00:25:22 --> 00:25:27 So if you're a sergeant in the U.S. Army, all sergeants, you know,
00:25:27 --> 00:25:30 three stripes, all sergeants got the same pay.
00:25:30 --> 00:25:34 Didn't matter whether you're Black, white, whatever, you got the same pay.
00:25:34 --> 00:25:38 If you were a government worker, like my mother, a clerk type,
00:25:38 --> 00:25:44 if you were GS level two or three, whatever it was, everybody got paid.
00:25:45 --> 00:25:51 Everybody who's GS two or three, everybody got the same, paid the same thing. That was huge.
00:25:52 --> 00:25:59 And so World War II was a game changer because it gave black people skills and
00:25:59 --> 00:26:04 confidence that they could use and do, right?
00:26:04 --> 00:26:11 It's not a coincidence that the spearheads of the civil rights movement that
00:26:11 --> 00:26:17 started after the war, many of the men were World War II veterans, okay?
00:26:17 --> 00:26:22 Medgar Evers came ashore in France shortly after D-Day.
00:26:22 --> 00:26:28 Ralph Abernathy, Fred Sheldersworth. They were in the military during World War II, right?
00:26:28 --> 00:26:35 Some of them went overseas and saw, particularly those who went to Great Britain prior to D-Day,
00:26:36 --> 00:26:40 because they saw for the first time in their lives, there were white people
00:26:40 --> 00:26:46 who treated them as Americans, as allies, and as human beings.
00:26:46 --> 00:26:52 And the white Brits were inviting black soldiers, men and women,
00:26:52 --> 00:26:56 into their homes, into their churches. They were dancing with them.
00:26:56 --> 00:27:00 They were interacting with them in pubs. And so it gave.
00:27:01 --> 00:27:06 Hundreds of thousands of black people, men and women, an opportunity to see
00:27:06 --> 00:27:13 all white folks not like the white folks in the USA, and that there were greater possibilities, right?
00:27:13 --> 00:27:17 It also gave them the opportunity to see some of the world and see some of the
00:27:17 --> 00:27:24 oppression in other places that was largely based upon economic and color lines, okay?
00:27:24 --> 00:27:27 So World War II was huge.
00:27:27 --> 00:27:36 It gave black people who were in the military the GI Bill Now there's an asterisk beside that.
00:27:36 --> 00:27:39 Most of the black people who were in the
00:27:39 --> 00:27:46 military Did not get a chance to use the GI Bill The GI Bill was a sweetheart
00:27:46 --> 00:27:52 of a deal So if you were in the military and you got discharged honorably You
00:27:52 --> 00:27:58 were eligible for a cheap mortgage and free education You'd go to a college, trade school.
00:27:58 --> 00:28:01 You could also get cheap loans to start a business, right?
00:28:02 --> 00:28:07 The World War II generation is the most subsidized generation in American history,
00:28:07 --> 00:28:09 okay, those who fought the war.
00:28:09 --> 00:28:13 And that was their gift from the government, from the American people.
00:28:13 --> 00:28:19 However, if you are African American in big northern cities,
00:28:20 --> 00:28:25 more often than not, you could not get a mortgage because you lived in an area
00:28:25 --> 00:28:26 that was redlined by the banks.
00:28:27 --> 00:28:33 And so that basically meant you didn't, that banks didn't lend money within that.
00:28:33 --> 00:28:37 They would take a map of a community, draw a red line around it on a map.
00:28:37 --> 00:28:42 And basically, if you live within that red line, you weren't eligible for a
00:28:42 --> 00:28:47 bank loan because the GI Bill and other government programs were administered
00:28:47 --> 00:28:51 through the private sector like banks. Okay.
00:28:52 --> 00:28:56 But nonetheless, you still got, I don't know what the numbers are.
00:28:56 --> 00:29:01 I've never been able to find the numbers, but I'm confident in saying you got
00:29:01 --> 00:29:07 thousands and thousands of black men and women who did use the GI Bill for college education.
00:29:07 --> 00:29:11 And some did were able to buy houses, but, you know,
00:29:11 --> 00:29:19 we weren't able to use it with the same degree of success as white GIs and, and, you know,
00:29:19 --> 00:29:24 who, who also fought in the war, but it was still a game changer because thousands
00:29:24 --> 00:29:28 upon thousands of black men and women were able to get free educations.
00:29:28 --> 00:29:33 And there's no way they would have been able to do that had there not been a war.
00:29:33 --> 00:29:42 And again, you have these people laying their lives on the line and they come
00:29:42 --> 00:29:44 back and say, you know, we're not going to take this anymore.
00:29:45 --> 00:29:50 It took another 10 years really before Rosa Parks did her thing on the bus that
00:29:50 --> 00:29:52 really jumped kickstart the civil rights movement.
00:29:53 --> 00:29:59 But in so many ways it started during the war. But we kind of look at the Rosa
00:29:59 --> 00:30:04 Parks thing as jump-starting what we now call the Civil Rights Movement.
00:30:04 --> 00:30:08 But the war also was a big game-changer because after the war,
00:30:09 --> 00:30:13 Harry Truman, 1948, desegregated the military.
00:30:14 --> 00:30:16 And that opened up opportunities.
00:30:17 --> 00:30:20 And it was also I don't think it
00:30:20 --> 00:30:23 was mostly altruistic I think you can't hold
00:30:23 --> 00:30:26 yourself up as a beacon of freedom and have like you know
00:30:26 --> 00:30:29 9% of your population in
00:30:29 --> 00:30:35 a caste system in an inescapable caste system you know and the Cold War has
00:30:35 --> 00:30:40 started so you're now fighting the communists and that ideology and you can't
00:30:40 --> 00:30:48 it didn't make sense the optics of it weren't good So Harry Truman desegregated the military in 1948,
00:30:48 --> 00:30:50 and that was a big game changer. So...
00:30:51 --> 00:30:55 But I think for the women, again, it let them know that they could do things.
00:30:55 --> 00:31:00 I mean, the best way to gain self-confidence is by successfully doing.
00:31:01 --> 00:31:06 And you had women building airplanes, helping build ships.
00:31:08 --> 00:31:12 Whatever men were doing, whatever was needed for World War II,
00:31:12 --> 00:31:14 there were women doing it.
00:31:14 --> 00:31:18 And in many cases, there were Black women doing it. There were a handful of
00:31:18 --> 00:31:24 codebreakers, black women, codebreakers in Washington, D.C., right?
00:31:25 --> 00:31:30 They had mathematics backgrounds, and they had degrees, but they started off
00:31:30 --> 00:31:36 doing things like mopping floors until somebody kind of discovered them, I guess, right?
00:31:37 --> 00:31:41 So it was a game-changer for everybody, and we're still getting the reverberations
00:31:41 --> 00:31:47 of World War II. and unfortunately the,
00:31:47 --> 00:31:55 Many of the lessons of World War II have not been learned, and that is why we are where we are today.
00:31:55 --> 00:31:59 And there's a blueprint, and that blueprint is being carried out.
00:32:00 --> 00:32:08 Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, one of the ironies, I lived a long time in Jackson,
00:32:08 --> 00:32:12 Mississippi. I went to school there and lived there for about 30-some years.
00:32:14 --> 00:32:16 And when i went to jackson i went to
00:32:16 --> 00:32:19 jack excuse me for interrupting i went to jackson state for a minute
00:32:19 --> 00:32:22 okay yeah well that's where i graduated from yeah so
00:32:22 --> 00:32:25 okay walter payton was in my class i'm sorry
00:32:25 --> 00:32:28 all right okay all right
00:32:28 --> 00:32:31 now that was a fact i did not find in the research okay
00:32:31 --> 00:32:34 cool so you understand so there's on
00:32:34 --> 00:32:37 state street north state street there's a
00:32:37 --> 00:32:40 area that has a historical placard that says GI
00:32:40 --> 00:32:43 subdivision so that GI subdivision was
00:32:43 --> 00:32:47 all white and now it's now it's all black so
00:32:47 --> 00:32:50 the the black folks got eventually got
00:32:50 --> 00:32:54 those houses that were set up for for for
00:32:54 --> 00:32:59 GIs but like you said it wasn't initially designated for black folks at that
00:32:59 --> 00:33:04 time the other cool thing is that I don't know if it's the writer or director
00:33:04 --> 00:33:08 in you but it seems like you've got of hold of my notes because your answer
00:33:08 --> 00:33:10 led to yet another question.
00:33:12 --> 00:33:16 Many of us equate the civil rights movement to the late 50s,
00:33:16 --> 00:33:18 like you said, and throughout the 1960s.
00:33:19 --> 00:33:23 However, you document the fact that World War II was really a catalyst for change
00:33:23 --> 00:33:25 in America concerning civil rights.
00:33:25 --> 00:33:29 So since you kind of started on that, you know, and talking about Megger,
00:33:30 --> 00:33:34 kind of elaborate a little more on the significance because one of the things
00:33:34 --> 00:33:38 that caught my attention because I, you know, I knew about the.
00:33:38 --> 00:33:47 The summer of 1919, they called it a red summer where we had all those riots and stuff in the cities.
00:33:47 --> 00:33:51 But 1943 was kind of a significant year in that, too.
00:33:51 --> 00:33:56 Yes, yes. Well, there are a lot of things going on.
00:33:56 --> 00:34:03 So, for example, the Pittsburgh Courier, that was one of the prominent black newspapers of the day,
00:34:03 --> 00:34:09 started a campaign in January 42, a month after Pearl Harbor,
00:34:09 --> 00:34:11 and it was called the Double V Campaign.
00:34:11 --> 00:34:19 And it started because a black man wrote a letter in to the paper.
00:34:19 --> 00:34:26 And basically he said, should I be fighting for, as half American,
00:34:26 --> 00:34:28 should I be fighting for this country?
00:34:28 --> 00:34:35 He raised these questions. And clearly he's attacking discrimination, racial violence, etc.
00:34:35 --> 00:34:42 Jim Crow, right? And so he raises these questions. And is this a country worth fighting for?
00:34:42 --> 00:34:48 And after the war is over, he raises the question, will I get my just due as
00:34:48 --> 00:34:49 having been a participant?
00:34:49 --> 00:34:54 And so as a result of that, the Pittsburgh Couriers started what was called
00:34:54 --> 00:35:01 the Double V Campaign. It was very popular and successful in the black community across the country.
00:35:01 --> 00:35:08 The double V stood for victory over Nazism and fascism abroad and victory over
00:35:08 --> 00:35:13 racism and Jim Crow at home because black people were fighting two wars on two
00:35:13 --> 00:35:16 fronts, as we have always done.
00:35:16 --> 00:35:25 And so that's clearly civil rights pushing back against the status quo of black folks here in the U.S.
00:35:26 --> 00:35:31 You had other incidents of rebellions, Fort Devens, Massachusetts,
00:35:32 --> 00:35:36 you know, and I think of all this as civil rights is pushing back black women
00:35:36 --> 00:35:38 who were WACs, Women's Army Corps.
00:35:38 --> 00:35:43 They were stationed there and they were being assigned menial duties,
00:35:44 --> 00:35:50 you know, sweeping, mopping, tending to the bunks and what have you of white women.
00:35:51 --> 00:35:56 And they rebelled. Some of them refused to do that. They were court-martialed
00:35:56 --> 00:36:00 and dealt with very harshly, okay?
00:36:00 --> 00:36:04 So you get this pushback from Black people throughout the war.
00:36:05 --> 00:36:09 And then you also have a pushback from whites.
00:36:10 --> 00:36:14 Historically, whenever there's this perception in America of Black folks taking
00:36:14 --> 00:36:20 one step forward, there's this concerted effort to push us back, too, or three.
00:36:20 --> 00:36:29 And you mentioned 1943. 1943 may have been the most racially violent year of the 20th century.
00:36:29 --> 00:36:37 And I don't count, I don't consider the incidences of the 1960s and early 70s
00:36:37 --> 00:36:40 as riots. I see them as urban rebellions.
00:36:41 --> 00:36:47 During World War II, there were riots by white people, overwhelmingly white males,
00:36:48 --> 00:36:51 because, you know, males are the ones who do this kind of stuff generally,
00:36:51 --> 00:36:56 pushing back against what they perceived as black progress.
00:36:57 --> 00:37:03 The most notable example was in Detroit, June 1943.
00:37:03 --> 00:37:10 Now, keep in mind, the black population in Detroit increased by 50 during World War II, right?
00:37:10 --> 00:37:16 They came primarily from the South, you know, to get jobs in aircraft factories,
00:37:16 --> 00:37:20 other types of jobs, tank factories, et cetera.
00:37:20 --> 00:37:25 But that also put pressure on housing, education.
00:37:25 --> 00:37:32 And so white folks who were already in Detroit pushed back against that. So in June of 43...
00:37:34 --> 00:37:40 There was a large scale, and I will call it a riot, by whites against local blacks.
00:37:40 --> 00:37:45 There were 22 black people killed in Detroit during the time that that happened.
00:37:46 --> 00:37:49 Franklin Roosevelt, President Franklin Roosevelt, had to call in the U.S.
00:37:49 --> 00:37:52 Army to maintain law and order.
00:37:53 --> 00:37:57 Okay. You also, and so that was the climate throughout the war.
00:37:57 --> 00:38:02 There was a major strike and racial strife in Philadelphia, where I'm from.
00:38:03 --> 00:38:07 PTC, which was the Philadelphia Transportation Company, now SEPTA,
00:38:08 --> 00:38:13 in August of 44, hired the first black motorman to run the trolleys.
00:38:13 --> 00:38:19 The all-white union went on strike and tied up the city.
00:38:19 --> 00:38:26 Now, during the war, Philadelphia had the largest, most diverse industrial war base in the country.
00:38:26 --> 00:38:31 And so these folks went on strike, tied up the city because there was no public
00:38:31 --> 00:38:34 transportation. people had problems getting to work.
00:38:34 --> 00:38:39 So again, Roosevelt called in the military and the commanding general basically
00:38:39 --> 00:38:44 said, y'all got two days to come back to work or you're going to find yourself overseas.
00:38:44 --> 00:38:48 Guess what happened? The strike. But those are just two examples.
00:38:48 --> 00:38:51 There were issues in Harlem.
00:38:51 --> 00:38:56 There was an issue in Baltimore where black women, sorry, white women at Western
00:38:56 --> 00:38:59 electric. They made electronic components.
00:38:59 --> 00:39:05 They went on strike because they didn't want to share toilet facilities with Black women.
00:39:05 --> 00:39:09 And there were fireworks all over Baltimore anyway during the war.
00:39:09 --> 00:39:14 Again, FDR sent the military into Baltimore to maintain law and order. So.
00:39:15 --> 00:39:23 So I think, you know, the war was significant in terms of the civil rights movement.
00:39:23 --> 00:39:28 It fueled it. It got people to thinking after the war, like, we contributed.
00:39:29 --> 00:39:33 We lost our lives. We shed our blood. We helped win battles.
00:39:33 --> 00:39:37 We helped build what FDR called the arsenal of democracy.
00:39:37 --> 00:39:40 It's time. And we're not going to the back of the bus.
00:39:40 --> 00:39:43 We're not going to be content in the back of the bus anymore.
00:39:43 --> 00:39:50 I also want to point out Rosa Parks wasn't rosy, okay, down in Alabama.
00:39:51 --> 00:39:57 Yeah. So I think, you know, the Civil Rights Movement had a lot of steam and energy.
00:39:58 --> 00:40:02 A. Philip Randolph, okay, 1941. A.
00:40:02 --> 00:40:06 Philip Randolph called the first march on Washington. It was supposed to be
00:40:06 --> 00:40:08 for June, I think, of 1941.
00:40:09 --> 00:40:15 He called for 100 Negroes to come to Washington to protest against hiring
00:40:15 --> 00:40:20 practices in the federal government because FDR was one of the few people who
00:40:20 --> 00:40:23 knew U.S. was going to get involved in the war.
00:40:23 --> 00:40:28 And so he had started kind of ramping up for that before Pearl Harbor as much
00:40:28 --> 00:40:30 as he could, as much as Congress will allow him.
00:40:30 --> 00:40:36 And so A. Philip Randolph, who's president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.
00:40:37 --> 00:40:43 Called a strike, he called for black folks to come to Washington, and FDR blinked.
00:40:43 --> 00:40:51 And as a result of that, he signed Executive Order 8802, which banned discriminatory
00:40:51 --> 00:40:53 hiring practice in defense industries.
00:40:54 --> 00:40:58 And so it was the march that never was.
00:40:59 --> 00:41:05 But that was huge in terms of like helping lay the foundation or another brick,
00:41:05 --> 00:41:09 if you will, in the civil rights movement that really took off,
00:41:09 --> 00:41:11 you know, post-World War II.
00:41:13 --> 00:41:18 Yeah. Many of us were enlightened by the story of the 6888 last year,
00:41:18 --> 00:41:20 but many of the other stories that
00:41:20 --> 00:41:24 you brought forward have either been forgotten or not properly retold.
00:41:25 --> 00:41:30 Why do you think that is and what can be done to make sure that these stories are always remembered?
00:41:30 --> 00:41:39 I think that is because if your agenda is to oppress and subjugate people,
00:41:39 --> 00:41:47 why would you tell them or do anything or educate them in any way that could be possibly uplifting?
00:41:48 --> 00:41:55 We have a 400-year history and record here of our relationship to the country.
00:41:56 --> 00:42:00 And the overwhelming amount of evidence says that.
00:42:02 --> 00:42:06 We have been second-class citizens. We've been denied the rights of what it
00:42:06 --> 00:42:08 meant to be an American, et cetera.
00:42:08 --> 00:42:18 So to me, it makes perfect sense that the people who oppress you have no reason
00:42:18 --> 00:42:22 to do anything to uplift you, to tell you about your history,
00:42:22 --> 00:42:26 to tell you what you're capable of doing.
00:42:27 --> 00:42:31 That would be counter to what their primary motivation narrative is.
00:42:32 --> 00:42:39 So it makes sense to me now in terms of what we can do about that i think ultimately.
00:42:40 --> 00:42:47 It's on us as as african-american people it's on us and ultimately it always
00:42:47 --> 00:42:53 means putting your money where your mouth is in so many other ways because everything
00:42:53 --> 00:42:57 costs money someone has to do it and everyone has to eat.
00:42:57 --> 00:43:03 And I'm trying to keep this as basic as possible. You know, you have to invest
00:43:03 --> 00:43:08 in your future. You have to invest in the future of your children.
00:43:08 --> 00:43:13 We're in Black History Month. When I grew up, it was called Negro History Week.
00:43:14 --> 00:43:20 And the only two Black people I ever, I was ever taught about in school was Booker D.
00:43:20 --> 00:43:28 Washington and George Washington Carver. And we would hear the same tired book reports every year.
00:43:29 --> 00:43:33 And so I grew up believing up
00:43:33 --> 00:43:39 until I got to a certain age that that's who we were. That's all I knew.
00:43:39 --> 00:43:46 Maybe, I'm not sure I taught for years, but maybe today all people know is Martin
00:43:46 --> 00:43:51 Luther King in place of Booker T and George Washington Carver.
00:43:51 --> 00:43:54 And then in my view is he, Dr.
00:43:54 --> 00:44:00 King is not given an accurate narrative about who he was or maybe how he evolved.
00:44:01 --> 00:44:05 Cause when he died, he had moved beyond. I have a dream when he was killed.
00:44:05 --> 00:44:11 I should say he wasn't at, I have a dream in 68. He had evolved.
00:44:13 --> 00:44:17 So what can be done about it? There are things like the work you do.
00:44:18 --> 00:44:23 There are millions of platforms. There are all kinds of platforms now to get
00:44:23 --> 00:44:25 our message out, to teach.
00:44:26 --> 00:44:35 And sadly, there's an alarming number of articles being produced talking about
00:44:35 --> 00:44:40 how young people, I guess it's Gen Z, do not read.
00:44:41 --> 00:44:46 They don't read. I've seen articles, and I'm going somewhere with this.
00:44:46 --> 00:44:51 I've seen articles that say many students at elite universities,
00:44:51 --> 00:44:57 and I interpret that to mean parenthetically white, at Ivy League schools,
00:44:57 --> 00:44:59 have never read a complete book.
00:44:59 --> 00:45:04 And they get to college and their professor wants them to read a complete book.
00:45:04 --> 00:45:05 And they've never done it.
00:45:05 --> 00:45:13 And they find it very difficult to do. And my belief is that we're going to have to educate them,
00:45:13 --> 00:45:18 younger people, through audiovisual materials, like what you're doing,
00:45:19 --> 00:45:22 like what other people are doing, like Invisible Warriors.
00:45:22 --> 00:45:27 Invisible Warriors, for the last four years, this will be the fifth year,
00:45:27 --> 00:45:33 is part of the curriculum at 12 Corner Middle School, which is part of Brighton
00:45:33 --> 00:45:36 Central School District in Rochester, New York.
00:45:36 --> 00:45:40 Overwhelmingly white, but they've been showing the documentary.
00:45:40 --> 00:45:43 I've spoken a couple of times. They've been gathering data on it,
00:45:44 --> 00:45:45 et cetera, et cetera, for me.
00:45:45 --> 00:45:50 It should be this and all other kinds of things should be in school districts,
00:45:51 --> 00:45:57 school systems, but we are in a period of, um, of going backward.
00:45:58 --> 00:46:03 And I have doubts and I've had doubts most of my life.
00:46:03 --> 00:46:12 If we are, we collectively, as African-American people, are on the right path in terms of equality.
00:46:13 --> 00:46:21 Because if you can, if in one year, you can kind of, in so many ways,
00:46:21 --> 00:46:28 push Black folks back to Woodrow Wilson, you know, who, what does that tell you?
00:46:29 --> 00:46:35 And the historic record says every time we move forward, there's this tremendous pushback.
00:46:36 --> 00:46:40 I jokingly tell people this is Barack Obama's fault. You know,
00:46:41 --> 00:46:45 if there was no Barack, I believe if there was no Barack Obama,
00:46:45 --> 00:46:48 we wouldn't have the situation we have now.
00:46:49 --> 00:46:54 Right. And those two men are 180 degrees apart from each other, you know.
00:46:54 --> 00:47:03 So it's up to us to educate and do what we can do and reward people,
00:47:03 --> 00:47:05 you know, through scholarships,
00:47:06 --> 00:47:15 through academic support who might want to major in American history or African-American studies.
00:47:15 --> 00:47:25 Or do things in the community that are not just in February but are year-round because I think.
00:47:26 --> 00:47:30 I don't believe there is a thing called Black history. I mean,
00:47:30 --> 00:47:34 I honor it and respect it, but there's American history, right?
00:47:35 --> 00:47:39 That's really what it is. We are Americans.
00:47:40 --> 00:47:46 We've been here from day one. We are responsible for the wealth of this country.
00:47:47 --> 00:47:55 There's American history. And so I think we need to do things to push harder,
00:47:56 --> 00:48:01 make our elected officials responsible and responsive to our needs because they
00:48:01 --> 00:48:04 show up in the church every four years or whatever it is.
00:48:05 --> 00:48:07 And then it is what it is.
00:48:08 --> 00:48:13 Yeah. Yeah. I feel on that. On the reading part, I remember growing up,
00:48:13 --> 00:48:17 you know, there was a saying that if you wanted to keep a secret from a black
00:48:17 --> 00:48:18 person, you put it in a book.
00:48:19 --> 00:48:22 So I was like, oh, I don't want anybody keeping any secrets from me.
00:48:22 --> 00:48:25 So that's why I used to be a voracious reader when I was younger.
00:48:25 --> 00:48:28 So I definitely understand the concern about that.
00:48:29 --> 00:48:33 So let's close this out. I've got a couple more questions. Sure.
00:48:33 --> 00:48:38 Talk to the listeners about the work of the Basil and Becky Educational Foundation
00:48:38 --> 00:48:40 and why you started that organization.
00:48:40 --> 00:48:46 Now, you gave a background of the origin of the name and the resources that
00:48:46 --> 00:48:50 helped you start it, but what was the motivation for you to do this work,
00:48:50 --> 00:48:52 and what exactly does the foundation do?
00:48:52 --> 00:48:59 Okay. The original motivation was to help get funding for the documentary so
00:48:59 --> 00:49:04 people could donate to Basil and Becky Educational Foundation.
00:49:04 --> 00:49:09 They could donate and get a tax write-off for donating.
00:49:09 --> 00:49:14 And Basil and Becky Educational Foundation is fundamentally like a co-producer of the documentary.
00:49:14 --> 00:49:17 So that's what it originally was for.
00:49:18 --> 00:49:22 But I got bigger ideas as we went along.
00:49:22 --> 00:49:29 And I felt that it could be a good vehicle, it could be a good educational vehicle
00:49:29 --> 00:49:33 to spread the word not only about the Roses but about our history generally.
00:49:34 --> 00:49:38 And so one of the things that Basel & Becky Educational Foundation sponsors
00:49:38 --> 00:49:42 and supports is now called National Black Women's Labor Day,
00:49:42 --> 00:49:47 which we founded, we have our third anniversary coming up on April 6th.
00:49:47 --> 00:49:50 It's normally April 5th, but this year the 5th is on Easter Sunday,
00:49:50 --> 00:49:53 so we decided to push things back a day.
00:49:53 --> 00:49:58 But the Basil and Becky Educational Foundation and National Black Women's Labor Day,
00:49:59 --> 00:50:04 we set it up as a holiday so that Black people and especially Black women could
00:50:04 --> 00:50:11 get attention and kudos for their 403 years of contribution, labor,
00:50:12 --> 00:50:15 innovation, patriotism, and support of this country.
00:50:15 --> 00:50:20 And so we're in the fundraising mode. But what we want to do through Basel and
00:50:20 --> 00:50:27 Becky over the next three years is to raise $600 so that we can screen.
00:50:28 --> 00:50:34 Invisible Warriors, African-American women in World War II, to places like community
00:50:34 --> 00:50:40 organizations, underprivileged, underfunded community organizations, museums.
00:50:41 --> 00:50:46 Institutions, cultural institutions of that nature who do not have the funds
00:50:46 --> 00:50:51 to pay me to screen and speak, etc.
00:50:51 --> 00:50:57 Ultimately, I'd like to, in a way, give it away, but I'm still paying people.
00:50:57 --> 00:50:59 You know, I still owe people.
00:50:59 --> 00:51:04 And so I'm not in a position to do that. But I do. It's gotten rave reviews.
00:51:05 --> 00:51:09 I've screened and talked about it. More than 90 institutions.
00:51:09 --> 00:51:14 The Dutch government is that was the leading contributor to the documentary.
00:51:14 --> 00:51:22 And I recently met with the Dutch ambassador in Washington in November, and we talked about it.
00:51:22 --> 00:51:28 I gave her a DVD, and the branding image is hanging in the Dutch embassy in
00:51:28 --> 00:51:32 Washington. So that's what we're doing. And I need support.
00:51:32 --> 00:51:41 We've asked everybody to donate at least $6, symbolic of the 600 black women.
00:51:41 --> 00:51:47 And you got to know that, you know, we, all of us as black people,
00:51:48 --> 00:51:51 but especially black women are standing on their shoulders.
00:51:51 --> 00:51:58 And look at these women went from the fields and kitchens to factories and government
00:51:58 --> 00:52:01 offices to vice president of the United States.
00:52:02 --> 00:52:06 In a relatively short period of time, 80 years is not a long time,
00:52:07 --> 00:52:11 is not really a long time in a historical sense. Right.
00:52:11 --> 00:52:17 And I need the support to do that. And I think when so what we're trying to
00:52:17 --> 00:52:21 do, what we're working on for National Black Women's Labor Day this year is
00:52:21 --> 00:52:22 to get a couple of museums.
00:52:23 --> 00:52:30 Involved with us to have national screens. We are having a national screening on April 6th.
00:52:31 --> 00:52:35 The details are being put together, but it will be $26.
00:52:35 --> 00:52:41 And this is all part of helping us get Invisible Warriors out to the public,
00:52:42 --> 00:52:47 out to these organizations and nonprofits who just don't have the resources.
00:52:48 --> 00:52:55 Yeah. All right. So I need you to finish this sentence. I have hope because.
00:52:57 --> 00:53:03 I have hope because there are laws in the universe, and I believe there's a
00:53:03 --> 00:53:09 divine force that plays out.
00:53:10 --> 00:53:15 And that what we put out must come back.
00:53:16 --> 00:53:22 It has, you know, that applies in what we call physics, the law of attraction.
00:53:22 --> 00:53:28 And I believe this is divine force that's been walking with me on this all my life, actually.
00:53:28 --> 00:53:34 All my life in protecting me and giving me the strength and the courage to keep
00:53:34 --> 00:53:37 going forward when it was just me.
00:53:37 --> 00:53:43 And I have hope that that force is on my side,
00:53:44 --> 00:53:53 it's on our side of people of African descent, and that when you do what we humans call evil,
00:53:54 --> 00:53:58 you are eventually the victims of your evil.
00:53:58 --> 00:54:07 And when you do what we humans call good, you eventually are the beneficiaries of your goodness.
00:54:07 --> 00:54:15 You just have to have the faith so that you're patient enough to let the energy
00:54:15 --> 00:54:18 of the universe play itself out.
00:54:18 --> 00:54:22 It is in play now. It is obvious to me.
00:54:22 --> 00:54:25 And that's why I have hope. Yeah.
00:54:26 --> 00:54:29 Well, Gregory S. Cooke, I really appreciate this.
00:54:29 --> 00:54:33 If people want to get in touch with you, if people want to donate to the foundation,
00:54:33 --> 00:54:40 people want to get a screening of the movie Invisible Warriors, how can they do all that?
00:54:41 --> 00:54:43 The quickest way is to go to the website.
00:54:44 --> 00:54:52 B-B-E-E-F dot org. That's Bravo, Bravo, Echo, Echo, Foxtrot.
00:54:52 --> 00:54:56 Two B's, two E's, one F dot O-R-G.
00:54:56 --> 00:55:00 And you'll see pages and links. You can see the trailer.
00:55:00 --> 00:55:04 You can see people who are already involved, what we've done in the past,
00:55:04 --> 00:55:08 what we want to do, what we're doing now, where we want to go with all this.
00:55:08 --> 00:55:12 Yeah. Yeah. Well, Brother Cooke, I greatly appreciate the time.
00:55:12 --> 00:55:19 I appreciate you coming on the podcast, and I greatly appreciate you putting this documentary out.
00:55:19 --> 00:55:21 It's very powerful.
00:55:22 --> 00:55:27 And ladies and gentlemen, it's not that long, but it's worth watching.
00:55:27 --> 00:55:32 And again, thank you so much for doing this and coming on this podcast.
00:55:32 --> 00:55:36 Thank you, and I really appreciate it. Thank you to your listeners.
00:55:36 --> 00:55:40 Thank you to you for having me on and giving me the opportunity to spread the
00:55:40 --> 00:55:43 word about our history and culture. and my mom.
00:55:43 --> 00:55:50 And I would encourage everybody to ask questions about a lot of people have
00:55:50 --> 00:55:52 Rosies in their families and don't know it.
00:55:53 --> 00:55:58 And you can start that conversation by asking what did mom, grandma,
00:55:59 --> 00:56:01 great-grandmom do during World War II?
00:56:01 --> 00:56:05 And often the answer will surprise you. Yeah.
00:56:06 --> 00:56:09 All right, guys. On that note, we're going to catch y'all on the.
00:56:29 --> 00:56:34 All right, and we are back. And so now it is time for my next guest.
00:56:35 --> 00:56:37 Dedrick Asante Muhammad.
00:56:37 --> 00:56:43 Dedrick Asante Muhammad is the president of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.
00:56:43 --> 00:56:49 For the past 20 years, Asante Muhammad has dedicated his career to understanding
00:56:49 --> 00:56:52 and tackling racial and economic inequities. equities.
00:56:52 --> 00:56:58 Asante Mohammed joins the Joint Center from the Racial Economic Equity and Research
00:56:58 --> 00:57:04 at the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, where he was vice president.
00:57:05 --> 00:57:10 During Asante Mohammed's tenure at NCRC, he oversaw Fair Lending,
00:57:10 --> 00:57:15 Fair Housing, the Women's Business Center of D.C., National Training Academy,
00:57:16 --> 00:57:21 the Housing Counseling Network, and started the Racial Economic Equity Department.
00:57:21 --> 00:57:28 As Chief of Membership Policy and Equity at NCRC, Asante Muhammad oversaw membership
00:57:28 --> 00:57:30 organizing research and policy.
00:57:31 --> 00:57:37 Asante Mohammed has worked at many of the nation's top national nonprofit advocacy organizations.
00:57:38 --> 00:57:43 Before joining NCRC, Asante Mohammed served as director, senior fellow,
00:57:43 --> 00:57:47 and founder of the Racial Wealth Divide Initiative for Prosperity Now.
00:57:48 --> 00:57:52 For this role, he worked as the senior director for economic programs at the
00:57:52 --> 00:57:58 NAACP, an associate fellow for the Institute for Policy Studies,
00:57:58 --> 00:58:05 was a racial wealth divide coordinator for United for a Fair Economy and served
00:58:05 --> 00:58:09 as Reverend Al Sharpton's National Action Network National Field Director.
00:58:10 --> 00:58:15 While at United for a Fair Economy, Asante Mohammed co-founded the State of
00:58:15 --> 00:58:20 the Dream Report, an annual publication honoring the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
00:58:21 --> 00:58:25 That examines the state of racial and economic inequality in the United States.
00:58:26 --> 00:58:31 Asante Mohammed has continued to be a co-author, providing analysis in publications,
00:58:31 --> 00:58:38 including The Road to Zero Wealth and Ten Solutions to bridge the racial wealth divide.
00:58:38 --> 00:58:43 Over the years, Asante Mohammed has also become a thought leader in diversity,
00:58:43 --> 00:58:48 inclusion, and procurement as reflected in the Opportunity and Diversity series
00:58:48 --> 00:58:55 and the racial and ethnic representation and investment framework for the banking industry.
00:58:55 --> 00:58:59 Previous to his work at National Armed Profits, Asante Mohammed worked in higher
00:58:59 --> 00:59:04 education at Williams College, Oberlin College, and Morgan State University.
00:59:04 --> 00:59:10 He also helped coordinate a college program at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women.
00:59:10 --> 00:59:15 Asante Muhammad has served and serves on various advisory committees and boards,
00:59:15 --> 00:59:20 including the Racial Equity Subcommittee of the Joe Biden Economic Policy Committee,
00:59:21 --> 00:59:26 Better Markets, the Advancing Black Strategist Initiative, and the Council of
00:59:26 --> 00:59:28 U.S. Financial Health Network.
00:59:29 --> 00:59:32 Asante Mohammed has been featured in outlets including The Hill,
00:59:32 --> 00:59:35 Market Watch, Yahoo News, Bloomberg, CNN,
00:59:36 --> 00:59:41 MSNBC, Time, The New York Times, C-SPAN, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution,
00:59:42 --> 00:59:46 The Atlantic, The Griot, Black Enterprise, and Inside Philanthropy.
00:59:46 --> 00:59:51 An avid writer and researcher, more of Asante Mohammed's work can be found in
00:59:51 --> 00:59:56 Medium, HuffPost, and the Racial Wealth Divides Initiatives blog.
00:59:56 --> 01:00:00 Asante Mohammed has a bachelor's degree in political science and government
01:00:00 --> 01:00:07 from Williams College and a master's degree in systematic theology from Union Theological Seminary.
01:00:08 --> 01:00:12 Ladies and gentlemen, it is my distinct honor and privilege to have as a guest
01:00:12 --> 01:00:17 on this podcast, Dedrick Asante Mohammed.
01:00:28 --> 01:00:33 All right. Dedrick Asante Mohammed. How you doing, sir? You doing good?
01:00:34 --> 01:00:39 Oh, yeah. I'm doing well at this end of the 100th anniversary of Black History
01:00:39 --> 01:00:41 Month or Black History Celebration. Yeah.
01:00:42 --> 01:00:47 We've been kept pretty busy over this last couple months of 2026.
01:00:48 --> 01:00:49 Yeah, well, that's all of us.
01:00:51 --> 01:00:56 You're a little more high profile than me. So they say you're catching the bullets.
01:00:57 --> 01:01:01 I might be catching some of the strays, but you're on the front line.
01:01:01 --> 01:01:06 So I greatly appreciate you taking the time to come on a podcast and talk about
01:01:06 --> 01:01:07 the work that you're doing.
01:01:08 --> 01:01:13 So I start off my interviews with a couple of icebreakers.
01:01:14 --> 01:01:18 So the first icebreaker is a quote I want you to respond to.
01:01:18 --> 01:01:23 The quote is, when machines and computers, profit motives, and property rights
01:01:23 --> 01:01:28 are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism,
01:01:29 --> 01:01:33 extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.
01:01:34 --> 01:01:35 What does that quote mean to you?
01:01:36 --> 01:01:39 It means a lot. I love the quote. Pretty sure it's from Where Do We Go From
01:01:39 --> 01:01:43 Here, Chaos or Community, Dr. King, or is it from a separate speech?
01:01:43 --> 01:01:46 Well, I know it's from Dr. King. I couldn't. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
01:01:48 --> 01:01:53 At least it connects well with that book and was definitely during that time period of 67, 68.
01:01:54 --> 01:02:00 And we might've even used that quote maybe in the State of the Dream 2026 from
01:02:00 --> 01:02:02 regression to signs of black recession.
01:02:02 --> 01:02:06 And I think it does a great job of highlighting where we are today.
01:02:06 --> 01:02:10 I mean, I think that is some of the fascinating pieces of, you know, Dr.
01:02:10 --> 01:02:14 King's work and many of the greats work is how relevant it is to a current day.
01:02:15 --> 01:02:18 And, you know, as we look at current day and we're talking, constantly talking
01:02:18 --> 01:02:24 about, you know, great advancements in technology and the possibility of,
01:02:25 --> 01:02:27 you know, mass abundance and these types of things.
01:02:27 --> 01:02:35 At the same time, where also the country is engaged in mass military adventures, attacks,
01:02:36 --> 01:02:42 engagements all across the world, while at the same time, it seems like Americans
01:02:42 --> 01:02:46 are feeling, you know, Americans being some of the wealthiest people in the
01:02:46 --> 01:02:48 world, are feeling economically,
01:02:49 --> 01:02:53 greatly economically insecure in the midst of all this technological advancement
01:02:53 --> 01:02:58 and in the midst of all of these military escapades that are supposed to be
01:02:58 --> 01:03:00 for the country's protection.
01:03:00 --> 01:03:04 So I think, again, highlights that where we were in 67,
01:03:04 --> 01:03:11 68 is not that far removed, maybe in many ways continued along the same deeper
01:03:11 --> 01:03:16 and the same detrimental path that Dr. King identified about 60 years ago.
01:03:17 --> 01:03:22 Yeah. All right. So now the second icebreaker is what I call 20 questions.
01:03:23 --> 01:03:27 So I need you to give me a number between one and 20.
01:03:27 --> 01:03:33 Seven. All right. What do you consider the best way to stay informed about politics,
01:03:34 --> 01:03:36 current events, health, et cetera? Hmm.
01:03:37 --> 01:03:46 So I try to do a mix of oftentimes I do podcasts and I try to have a mix of
01:03:46 --> 01:03:49 sources, you know, some that are focused, you know, on the African-American
01:03:49 --> 01:03:52 condition, a little international,
01:03:52 --> 01:03:58 some progressive, some some more conservative, as well as I always try to get,
01:03:58 --> 01:04:04 you know, a dope make sure I get a decent dose of the mainstream institutional news.
01:04:04 --> 01:04:08 News, a New York Times, or ABC News 30-minute piece to get an understanding
01:04:08 --> 01:04:14 of what kind of the national establishment is saying and what most people are consuming.
01:04:14 --> 01:04:19 So try to get a mix of sources. I do appreciate podcasts because unlike YouTube
01:04:19 --> 01:04:23 or other social media, that social media pushes things to you.
01:04:23 --> 01:04:27 While your podcast, you can really determine what you are looking at.
01:04:27 --> 01:04:31 And so I feel podcast is an important part of my diet.
01:04:31 --> 01:04:37 I don't do as much newspaper, newsletter reading to get general information
01:04:37 --> 01:04:41 because I'm so engaged in particular research projects.
01:04:41 --> 01:04:45 That's where I've kind of focused my reading analysis. For the others,
01:04:45 --> 01:04:49 I try to do more audio to get an understanding of what's being talked about.
01:04:49 --> 01:04:52 And then if I want to dive into something, we'll focus in on the readings of the reports.
01:04:53 --> 01:04:59 Yeah. All right. So explain to the listeners what the Joint Center is and how
01:04:59 --> 01:05:01 you were drawn in to lead this organization.
01:05:02 --> 01:05:08 Sure. Well, the Joint Center was founded in 1970. It was at that time called
01:05:08 --> 01:05:10 the Joint Center for Political Studies.
01:05:10 --> 01:05:16 And it was the Joint Center because it was a joint project between Howard University
01:05:16 --> 01:05:20 and another D.C.-based organization.
01:05:20 --> 01:05:24 Nonprofit that was focusing on urban policy analysis.
01:05:25 --> 01:05:32 And there was a recognition that Black elected officials were increasing,
01:05:32 --> 01:05:38 a lot stemming from the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and that now as Blacks were
01:05:38 --> 01:05:40 being more enfranchised, particularly in the South, there was more opportunities
01:05:40 --> 01:05:42 for congressional representation,
01:05:43 --> 01:05:51 other representation, and that many of these new elected leaders were more from community activism,
01:05:51 --> 01:05:56 advocacy, and didn't know the ins and outs or the mechanisms of,
01:05:56 --> 01:05:58 particularly if you're talking about congressional, D.C.
01:05:58 --> 01:06:02 And institutional policy. And so Joint Center was, interestingly enough,
01:06:02 --> 01:06:09 founded to help create a pathway, educate, and provide institutional support
01:06:09 --> 01:06:12 to newly elected black officials coming into power.
01:06:13 --> 01:06:16 And part of what we did is we had convenings. We also, you know,
01:06:16 --> 01:06:20 we recognized Congressional Black Caucus, I believe, emerged about a year after
01:06:20 --> 01:06:23 we did, that then would help do some of that work.
01:06:23 --> 01:06:25 The National Association of Black Mayors, I believe,
01:06:25 --> 01:06:29 came out of some conversations that the Joint Center had helped.
01:06:30 --> 01:06:34 And so there started being more associations dedicated in particular to Black
01:06:34 --> 01:06:38 state legislators, mayors, congressional officials that could support them.
01:06:38 --> 01:06:43 And over time, Joint Center started moving more toward the policy analysis that
01:06:43 --> 01:06:45 one would think of as a think tank.
01:06:45 --> 01:06:49 We're called Joint Center Political Economic Studies, America's Black Think Tank.
01:06:49 --> 01:06:53 And we, as I just mentioned, We shifted our name to Joint Center for Political
01:06:53 --> 01:06:59 and Economic Studies in right around 1990, recognizing the importance of doing
01:06:59 --> 01:07:01 more economic policy analysis.
01:07:01 --> 01:07:05 So that's very brief history of the Joint Center.
01:07:05 --> 01:07:12 What has attracted me, I have done like a mixture of work engagements.
01:07:12 --> 01:07:16 I've done everything from working at a maximum security prison for women,
01:07:16 --> 01:07:21 coordinating a college program to working at multicultural centers at elite
01:07:21 --> 01:07:27 universities to working at the NAACP, working for Reverend Al Sharpton.
01:07:27 --> 01:07:31 So I've seen a lot of different and working at some other think tanks based in D.C.
01:07:31 --> 01:07:36 And advocacy organizations, seeing kind of the infrastructure of advocacy and
01:07:36 --> 01:07:41 analysis around racial inequality and saw that there was generally a whole of
01:07:41 --> 01:07:45 strong, ongoing black research policy analysis.
01:07:46 --> 01:07:50 Oftentimes you'd have civil rights groups or advocacy groups who were trying
01:07:50 --> 01:07:53 to be membership organizations, support some community work,
01:07:53 --> 01:07:56 do national advocacy, and then also try to do research.
01:07:57 --> 01:08:00 And it was just kind of too many things within an organization and recognized
01:08:00 --> 01:08:06 how important it could be or how important it continues to be to have a, you know,
01:08:07 --> 01:08:11 a black think tank that provides research and policy analysis that then advocacy
01:08:11 --> 01:08:14 groups and even community groups could utilize and build off of.
01:08:14 --> 01:08:18 And so, you know, seeing that, seeing the opportunity for to become president
01:08:18 --> 01:08:22 of Joint Center in my past experience, I was excited to apply and was lucky
01:08:22 --> 01:08:27 enough to, you know, get the position and now coming up on two years at the Joint Center.
01:08:28 --> 01:08:35 Yeah. Yeah, that's cool. I know that you had worked with the National Action Network.
01:08:35 --> 01:08:41 And I think when I was in the legislature, Eddie Williams was the president
01:08:41 --> 01:08:43 or director at that time.
01:08:44 --> 01:08:47 Yeah, Eddie Williams was the longest running president of Joint Center.
01:08:47 --> 01:08:53 Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I've known about it for a long time, but I don't know if
01:08:53 --> 01:08:58 the community really knows, which it should. And so that's why I'm really,
01:08:58 --> 01:09:00 really honored that you came on.
01:09:01 --> 01:09:05 Since this is Black History Month, let's start with a statement made in the
01:09:05 --> 01:09:07 state of the Dream Report 2026.
01:09:08 --> 01:09:12 The erasure of Black history is not just an attack on the past.
01:09:12 --> 01:09:16 It is a threat to the integrity and potential of our shared future.
01:09:16 --> 01:09:18 Expound on that statement.
01:09:18 --> 01:09:25 Yeah, well, I first want to note that the Deletions of Black Heroes and History
01:09:25 --> 01:09:30 section of the report, State of the Dream 2026, comes from a previous report
01:09:30 --> 01:09:33 done by Onyx Impact. That's the name of the organization.
01:09:33 --> 01:09:37 And their report was called the Blackout Report. And we just shared a small section.
01:09:38 --> 01:09:41 I just thought, you know, we hadn't done analysis so much on the deletion of
01:09:41 --> 01:09:45 Black Heroes and History. We thought that was an important component to be in this paper.
01:09:46 --> 01:09:48 So you know and the and that part of
01:09:48 --> 01:09:51 the paper highlights some of the attempts to remove from historical
01:09:51 --> 01:09:55 narrative the reality of racial discrimination but
01:09:55 --> 01:09:58 i also want to highlight that in state of the dream 2026 we
01:09:58 --> 01:10:03 also focus on the ending of collecting data that provides evidence of ongoing
01:10:03 --> 01:10:08 racial inequality and you know just a night or two ago just a few nights ago
01:10:08 --> 01:10:12 the trump administration and the state of the union has been celebrating its
01:10:12 --> 01:10:16 attempt to end diversity equity and inclusion.
01:10:16 --> 01:10:19 And I thought it was interesting how specific he was in the government,
01:10:19 --> 01:10:21 military, and the private sector.
01:10:22 --> 01:10:25 Right. He, you know, stated, you know, the country would no longer be woke,
01:10:26 --> 01:10:31 which I found, you know, you know, sometimes the president speaks this kind of in bluster.
01:10:31 --> 01:10:35 You don't know what to make of it. But I think he was being focused in his words
01:10:35 --> 01:10:39 at that moment and that, you know, there was talk about and I think was overhyped.
01:10:39 --> 01:10:45 But there was some truth to this, that there was a an awakening or another awakening
01:10:45 --> 01:10:50 after George Floyd of the reality of racial inequality in the United States.
01:10:50 --> 01:10:53 And I think the Trump administration, through its, you know,
01:10:53 --> 01:10:58 through its attacks on talking about anything black historically or doing contemporary
01:10:58 --> 01:11:04 analysis about how black people are doing today or any type of programs that
01:11:04 --> 01:11:05 would assist bridging inequality,
01:11:05 --> 01:11:10 that the Trump administration is happy to make the country go back to sleep
01:11:10 --> 01:11:15 and ignore the reality of racial inequality, unless we're talking about racial
01:11:15 --> 01:11:17 inequality as it relates to white people.
01:11:17 --> 01:11:21 That seems to be one space where he he doesn't mind talking about racial inequality.
01:11:21 --> 01:11:28 So I think, you know, this the quote you put forward of the racial black history
01:11:28 --> 01:11:29 is not just attack on the present.
01:11:29 --> 01:11:32 It's a threat to the integrity potential of our shared future.
01:11:32 --> 01:11:33 I think we're seeing that full
01:11:33 --> 01:11:37 stop in what is happening in policy and in political conversation today.
01:11:38 --> 01:11:42 Yeah, yeah. And you're right. He did. He did highlight that.
01:11:43 --> 01:11:49 And, you know, and the disturbing thing was the people in his own party were
01:11:49 --> 01:11:55 clapping on that moment. And, you know, it's just kind of like they ask questions.
01:11:55 --> 01:11:59 Now, the Joint Center is nonpartisan. Let me say that for the audience. Sure.
01:12:00 --> 01:12:03 But I'm partisan as hell.
01:12:03 --> 01:12:08 And so, you know, you know, for me, when people ask me why black people keep
01:12:08 --> 01:12:10 voting Democratic, I said.
01:12:11 --> 01:12:16 Is, you know, exhibit A, right? So, you know, and just, and we just keep going,
01:12:16 --> 01:12:19 but let me not digress into that. Oh, yeah.
01:12:19 --> 01:12:22 And let me just add one more thing too, because I think it's important for people
01:12:22 --> 01:12:26 to understand that, you know, whether you call it diversity,
01:12:26 --> 01:12:30 equity, and inclusion in the past affirmative action programs,
01:12:30 --> 01:12:33 in the past anti-discrimination programs,
01:12:34 --> 01:12:39 the way this country has worked is oftentimes federal government for as slow
01:12:39 --> 01:12:44 and painful as progress might have been in lessening discrimination against black people,
01:12:44 --> 01:12:48 federal government would be a lead in terms of employment, particularly for
01:12:48 --> 01:12:54 professional workers and in the military of some type of desegregation, right?
01:12:54 --> 01:12:58 It was, again, slow and painful within government, but they're usually ahead of the private sector.
01:12:58 --> 01:13:02 And so I do think, you know, Trump celebrating the attack, you know,
01:13:02 --> 01:13:07 that we're ending DEI, which I think it means inroads for black people into
01:13:07 --> 01:13:12 military, into the government and the private sector shows that, you know.
01:13:12 --> 01:13:18 Someone, either a speechwriter or himself is aware that in order to push back
01:13:18 --> 01:13:23 on some of the progress that has been made, it needs to be led by the government
01:13:23 --> 01:13:25 and then trickled down into the private sector.
01:13:25 --> 01:13:27 And this is something he seems to be celebrating.
01:13:27 --> 01:13:30 You know, I would say to have a bipartisan critique on this,
01:13:30 --> 01:13:36 what I will note is that, and I think which makes the attack on DEI,
01:13:36 --> 01:13:40 you know, so ridiculous in so many ways, is that oftentimes it was not even
01:13:40 --> 01:13:42 as it wasn't even that successful,
01:13:43 --> 01:13:47 meaning that, you know, there was still so much inequality in particularly things
01:13:47 --> 01:13:49 like government contracts,
01:13:49 --> 01:13:53 procurement, these types of things that, you know, it's not like blacks were
01:13:53 --> 01:13:57 being overly represented in government procurement contracts,
01:13:58 --> 01:13:58 right? We were still getting.
01:13:59 --> 01:14:03 I'm blanking on the number. It might have been something like 2% of government
01:14:03 --> 01:14:06 contracts that were 13%, 14% of the population.
01:14:06 --> 01:14:11 And even that was too much for this administration to stand by and watch and
01:14:11 --> 01:14:14 are trying to end programs that helped move us to 2%.
01:14:14 --> 01:14:18 So I think it's something to be of great concern and something to watch to see
01:14:18 --> 01:14:23 how this affects African-American economy over the next few years. Yeah.
01:14:23 --> 01:14:30 All right. In 2015, the Joint Center supported the Coretta Scott King Mid-Decade
01:14:30 --> 01:14:32 Redistricting Prohibition Act.
01:14:32 --> 01:14:37 In light of the flurry of mid-decade redistricting efforts that has been initiated
01:14:37 --> 01:14:41 since 2025, has the organization changed its position?
01:14:41 --> 01:14:46 The organization has not, you know, I mean, I've only again been president for
01:14:46 --> 01:14:50 the last two years, but I don't think we've really come back to that important
01:14:50 --> 01:14:55 piece of proposed legislation that has kind of been proposed every two years or something.
01:14:55 --> 01:14:59 The credit Scott King mid-decade redistricting prohibition acts.
01:14:59 --> 01:15:03 I do think and again, like, you know, the official answer is we need to do a
01:15:03 --> 01:15:07 further analysis on this and see what our contemporary policy will be.
01:15:07 --> 01:15:12 But I will just note overall, I think there are good reasons to limit redistricting
01:15:12 --> 01:15:18 to every 10 years with census data so it doesn't become such a political football.
01:15:18 --> 01:15:23 But we'll note that that piece of legislation hasn't been enacted.
01:15:23 --> 01:15:30 And so I also can't hold parties or individuals responsible for following a
01:15:30 --> 01:15:35 proposed piece of legislation. You know, the rules of the game now are that you can.
01:15:35 --> 01:15:39 And I see, you know, both parties are trying to take advantage of that for themselves.
01:15:40 --> 01:15:43 So, you know, understand that as well. But overall, I will say,
01:15:43 --> 01:15:45 you know, I think that can make sense.
01:15:45 --> 01:15:48 But I think it's something, you know, we have to look at and see if this is
01:15:48 --> 01:15:52 something we want to continue support or if we think there's some reason to
01:15:52 --> 01:15:55 change that overall, that historic stance we've had.
01:15:56 --> 01:16:00 Yeah. I just I just think it's fascinating to get somebody, like I said,
01:16:00 --> 01:16:06 has been in the legislative process that Sheila Jackson Lee had the foresight to initiate it,
01:16:06 --> 01:16:11 foresight to initiate that 10 years before we ended up seeing what would happen
01:16:11 --> 01:16:13 if you didn't have it. No, no.
01:16:13 --> 01:16:16 And I think that's really important to, you know, raise up her name.
01:16:17 --> 01:16:19 And, you know, that's something I'm glad you're bringing up,
01:16:20 --> 01:16:24 something Joint Center should also note is not just the legislation,
01:16:24 --> 01:16:28 do analysis legislation that has been passed, but the legislation that is proposed
01:16:28 --> 01:16:31 and has yet to be enacted, how important that was.
01:16:31 --> 01:16:36 Again, it was, you know, proposals by former Congressman Conyers for years,
01:16:36 --> 01:16:40 for decades before you had an MLK holiday and these types of things.
01:16:41 --> 01:16:45 And so oftentimes, particularly, we have a hard time rallying the country around,
01:16:45 --> 01:16:49 you know, pro-Black progressive legislation.
01:16:49 --> 01:16:53 It's oftentimes even more important to look at what's not being passed to help
01:16:53 --> 01:16:57 understand, you know, where we are and where we need to go. Yeah.
01:16:57 --> 01:17:01 Well, speaking about things that have passed, how has the one big,
01:17:01 --> 01:17:06 beautiful bill of 2025 impacted black communities?
01:17:06 --> 01:17:12 Yeah, well, and let me first note that, you know, I think the impact for such
01:17:12 --> 01:17:16 a huge bill, I think the impact is going to be felt more over time, right?
01:17:17 --> 01:17:20 Again, you know, many of the things don't come into full effect until,
01:17:20 --> 01:17:23 you know, over a few years, these types of things. But, you know,
01:17:23 --> 01:17:28 we did start a tax and wealth program last year recognizing how important tax
01:17:28 --> 01:17:29 policy conversation debate.
01:17:29 --> 01:17:33 And now we see the bill is going to be in the future of black America.
01:17:33 --> 01:17:37 And again, I think, you know, taxes do go with wealth, right?
01:17:37 --> 01:17:42 Because taxes are the mechanism that the country uses to develop its own national
01:17:42 --> 01:17:48 wealth and also does much in figuring out how we're going to subsidize,
01:17:48 --> 01:17:52 assist and support the wealth of individual Americans and corporations.
01:17:52 --> 01:17:58 And, you know, a concern we've had is that it does seem to be following a regressive
01:17:58 --> 01:18:01 turn that the country has been taking, honestly,
01:18:01 --> 01:18:07 for 40 or something years of cutting taxes for the wealthiest of Americans and corporations,
01:18:08 --> 01:18:12 leaving bigger holes in government support and investments for middle class
01:18:12 --> 01:18:16 and lower class Americans, lower income Americans.
01:18:16 --> 01:18:19 So, you know, I think that, you know, there's so much it was,
01:18:19 --> 01:18:24 and you can argue about the beauty, but it was one big bill and there were many things.
01:18:26 --> 01:18:30 There are many things in it that, you know, so it's hard to kind of break out everything.
01:18:30 --> 01:18:34 But I think overall, particularly the tax component, you know,
01:18:34 --> 01:18:40 there's been cheering by some on the right side that they want to shrink government
01:18:40 --> 01:18:43 to the size that they can drown in a bathroom basement.
01:18:43 --> 01:18:49 And seeing the kind of cutting of income, which is really what cutting taxes
01:18:49 --> 01:18:52 is, particularly for the wealthiest of Americans and corporations,
01:18:52 --> 01:18:56 as well as a massive cut in government positions.
01:18:56 --> 01:19:00 I'm concerned that is part of that program.
01:19:01 --> 01:19:09 Yeah. So you brought up taxes. What is the benefit of publishing tax data by race and ethnicity?
01:19:09 --> 01:19:17 Well, the benefit is you can have an understanding of the racial implications of taxes.
01:19:17 --> 01:19:25 You can understand what people do is say, since there's no data, it's race neutral.
01:19:25 --> 01:19:27 But no data doesn't mean it's race neutral.
01:19:27 --> 01:19:30 It just means you're ignorant of how it is affecting different communities.
01:19:30 --> 01:19:35 And so I think it is important to get a better understanding of when we are
01:19:35 --> 01:19:40 cutting taxes for the wealthiest 1% of Americans or even...
01:19:41 --> 01:19:44 1% of African-Americans getting that? You know, more likely than not,
01:19:44 --> 01:19:49 no, probably, you know, 0.2% or something like that of African-Americans are,
01:19:49 --> 01:19:50 you know, are getting that.
01:19:50 --> 01:19:54 Or when you're having some type of tax cut for business, how does that affect,
01:19:55 --> 01:19:57 you know, African-American owned businesses, these types of things.
01:19:57 --> 01:20:00 So there are ways that you can, you know,
01:20:00 --> 01:20:04 make some estimates even without outright published tax data,
01:20:04 --> 01:20:08 but why not just make it simple and just get clear demographic breakdown so
01:20:08 --> 01:20:13 we can understand how tax policy is affecting all America. Yeah.
01:20:13 --> 01:20:20 Are the Trump accounts legit? And if they are, how can they be beneficial to Black families?
01:20:20 --> 01:20:23 I guess they put Nicki Minaj out there to be the face of it.
01:20:23 --> 01:20:28 I assume that's what's going on. So yeah, kind of talk about the Trump account.
01:20:28 --> 01:20:32 Yeah, the Trump accounts, I mean, you know, I will start off,
01:20:32 --> 01:20:36 I will try to have a somewhat positive framing and then get into the critique.
01:20:37 --> 01:20:39 But, you know, actually, I'm going to get a little bit into the thing that's
01:20:39 --> 01:20:44 an interesting history that there was a recognition that income poverty was
01:20:44 --> 01:20:47 a huge problem for Americans, right?
01:20:47 --> 01:20:53 I think in the 30s or so, the majority of elderly people were in income poverty, right?
01:20:53 --> 01:20:56 And this kind of helped push this idea of Social Security, right? Right.
01:20:57 --> 01:21:00 So you have some type of income supplementation for older people.
01:21:00 --> 01:21:03 And that really helped rise senior people out of poverty.
01:21:04 --> 01:21:09 There was, I think, by 1960, about 51 percent of black Americans were living in poverty.
01:21:09 --> 01:21:15 Right. A massive poverty rate. And this is a part of the kind of war on poverty
01:21:15 --> 01:21:20 that would come out in the 60s, maybe kind of drip into the 70s.
01:21:20 --> 01:21:26 And recognition of having social welfare programs that previously had excluded Blacks.
01:21:26 --> 01:21:30 And so even the social welfare programs that did exist weren't going into Black
01:21:30 --> 01:21:33 communities, but then saying, well, okay, now they are going to Black communities.
01:21:33 --> 01:21:37 And it was then right after that, that people started attacking social welfare
01:21:37 --> 01:21:41 as, you know, a know-nothing, as something that government shouldn't be spending
01:21:41 --> 01:21:43 its money on as soon as it started reaching our communities.
01:21:43 --> 01:21:49 So, you know, there is, you know, that history of...
01:21:50 --> 01:21:55 Of, of assets and wealth. And then there was a recognition that, okay, that's great.
01:21:55 --> 01:21:59 We've done some things to help deal with income poverty, but we haven't dealt
01:21:59 --> 01:22:00 with asset or wealth poverty.
01:22:01 --> 01:22:04 There were writings in the eighties and nineties, I think a book called the
01:22:04 --> 01:22:09 asset poor that noticed that you can give some supplementation to people with
01:22:09 --> 01:22:12 some type of income. So they can have enough money to eat.
01:22:12 --> 01:22:16 They might have some money for rent, but they won't really have economic security
01:22:16 --> 01:22:20 until you give them some type of assets and wealth that they can build their
01:22:20 --> 01:22:22 life on and take advantage of opportunities.
01:22:22 --> 01:22:26 And there are ideas of things like individual development accounts.
01:22:26 --> 01:22:30 Derek Hamilton, Sandy Darity did this thing called baby bonds.
01:22:30 --> 01:22:35 This idea that Americans should not just get Social Security at the end of life,
01:22:35 --> 01:22:37 but have some type of asset or wealth
01:22:37 --> 01:22:42 when they begin their life that then is building up over time so that when they're
01:22:42 --> 01:22:46 a young adult, they actually have some money that they could use to help start
01:22:46 --> 01:22:50 a business, own a home, put further into investments or retirement,
01:22:50 --> 01:22:52 right? So there's this long history of that.
01:22:53 --> 01:22:56 Trump grabs this idea. He likes to name things after himself.
01:22:56 --> 01:22:58 So he calls them the Trump accounts.
01:22:58 --> 01:23:02 And he is saying for a few years, and actually I'm forgetting the exact numbers.
01:23:02 --> 01:23:09 I don't know if it's $1, $2, that children born will get this amount of money right away.
01:23:10 --> 01:23:13 And then, well, sorry, I would say right away. I mean, we'll be into an account,
01:23:14 --> 01:23:17 right? You know, you can't get access to it until the kids are adults.
01:23:17 --> 01:23:23 And then that families and maybe businesses can add additional money to this
01:23:23 --> 01:23:27 account that then could build up into some type of funding.
01:23:27 --> 01:23:32 And it was It's part of actually, again, I'll really put Sandy Darity and Derek
01:23:32 --> 01:23:35 Hamilton, two black economists who have been really pushing this measure.
01:23:36 --> 01:23:39 And we've seen progress in different states across the country.
01:23:39 --> 01:23:44 Connecticut, Washington, D.C. were doing some aspect, some idea of baby bonds.
01:23:44 --> 01:23:50 The concern about with Trump is that the Trump accounts is that these are much
01:23:50 --> 01:23:53 smaller levels of, you know, of account.
01:23:53 --> 01:23:58 It only lasts for a few years, and it's something that probably most likely
01:23:58 --> 01:24:02 higher-income people will get to take the most advantage of because they will
01:24:02 --> 01:24:08 have the extra money to add into these accounts and really build up. Baby bonds.
01:24:08 --> 01:24:12 We're designed to really help those in asset poverty, those with low wealth.
01:24:13 --> 01:24:16 So oftentimes it was a higher amount of money that would initially go in.
01:24:16 --> 01:24:21 It might, you know, those of high income might get a little less in their baby
01:24:21 --> 01:24:25 bonds and would, you know, be something that helps advance wealth mobility instead
01:24:25 --> 01:24:28 of might as in the Trump temporary.
01:24:29 --> 01:24:31 Because again, it only lasts a few years. We'll have to see how it goes.
01:24:31 --> 01:24:37 We'll have to see if it continues. That'll probably reinforce concentrated wealth that we have today.
01:24:37 --> 01:24:42 But my hope, you know, my most optimistic projection is that we can say,
01:24:42 --> 01:24:47 OK, well, this investment in children through baby bonds or through some type
01:24:47 --> 01:24:49 of investment is now a bipartisan thing.
01:24:49 --> 01:24:53 And how can we make these Trump accounts something that's more long term and
01:24:53 --> 01:24:57 something that helps address the asset poverty so many Americans are in instead
01:24:57 --> 01:25:02 of giving wealthy Americans a new way to save for their children who are already doing quite well?
01:25:02 --> 01:25:07 Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm going to keep hope alive, as Reverend Jackson would say
01:25:07 --> 01:25:08 on that one. Yeah. And see how that goes.
01:25:09 --> 01:25:12 All right. Do you support the Road to Housing Act?
01:25:13 --> 01:25:18 And is there anything in that legislation which limits big investors like BlackRock
01:25:18 --> 01:25:20 and Main Street from buying residential housing?
01:25:21 --> 01:25:25 Yeah, from my understanding, there isn't anything in the Road Housing Act that
01:25:25 --> 01:25:29 prevents big investors like, you know, like private equity, BlackRock,
01:25:29 --> 01:25:31 what have you, from buying residential housing.
01:25:32 --> 01:25:36 I believe Trump has said something about doing an executive order outside of
01:25:36 --> 01:25:38 the Road to Housing Act that could do that.
01:25:38 --> 01:25:41 But those are, to my knowledge, two separate things. I will say,
01:25:42 --> 01:25:45 you know, again, I need to do more research and analysis on the Road to Housing Act.
01:25:45 --> 01:25:51 But I am skeptical that it is dealing with the magnitude of the problem that
01:25:51 --> 01:25:53 African-Americans face as relates to homeownership, right?
01:25:54 --> 01:25:55 African-Americans have around
01:25:55 --> 01:26:02 43% homeownership and white Americans have around 73% homeownership.
01:26:02 --> 01:26:05 And I've used to work with the National Community Reinvestment Coalition and
01:26:05 --> 01:26:09 their researcher, Jason Richardson, put out something that noted that,
01:26:09 --> 01:26:13 you know, kind of black, white inequality and homeownership has maintained for the last hundred years.
01:26:14 --> 01:26:18 Right. And we did another piece at NCRC noting that we'd have to double the
01:26:18 --> 01:26:24 amounts of new black homeowners every year for 20 years just to get African-Americans
01:26:24 --> 01:26:26 to a 60 percent homeownership rate,
01:26:26 --> 01:26:29 not even to the 73 percent that whites have.
01:26:29 --> 01:26:33 And so my concern about the bill, it does some mechanisms that they think will
01:26:33 --> 01:26:37 make building housing a little bit more cheaper or help the housing industry build homes.
01:26:37 --> 01:26:43 But, you know, my past analysis has been it's going to require a much more targeted
01:26:43 --> 01:26:50 and focused program to address the challenges of making African-Americans majority homeowners.
01:26:50 --> 01:26:56 That's so important because for most, let's say, low to mid-wealth Americans.
01:26:56 --> 01:26:58 Home ownership is your primary source of wealth.
01:26:58 --> 01:27:00 You know, I know for me, you know,
01:27:00 --> 01:27:03 that made my balance sheet look a lot better when I paid off my home.
01:27:04 --> 01:27:08 Didn't have that. And now I had, you know, an asset of several hundred thousand
01:27:08 --> 01:27:11 dollars on my positive ledger versus when I was paying it.
01:27:12 --> 01:27:15 It was a mortgage. It was a debt on my negative ledger.
01:27:16 --> 01:27:22 Yeah. Yeah. From what I was able to glean from the bill, it didn't it looks
01:27:22 --> 01:27:28 more like it's going to take away a lot of the regulations and maybe streamline,
01:27:28 --> 01:27:34 you know, the process or encourage streamlining the process to get houses built.
01:27:35 --> 01:27:40 And where they can build them, but it doesn't address, I think,
01:27:40 --> 01:27:44 you know, and I don't know who got to the speechwriter or to President Trump
01:27:44 --> 01:27:50 to say what he said at the State of the Union, but it is something that needs to be addressed.
01:27:50 --> 01:27:55 I just had a personal experience when I was going through some physical therapy
01:27:55 --> 01:28:02 that the nurse that was dealing with me was trying to get a house, and she kept,
01:28:03 --> 01:28:05 you know, every time she thought she was about to close on it,
01:28:05 --> 01:28:10 all of a sudden she got outbid or whatever the case was and she didn't understand that.
01:28:10 --> 01:28:15 And then, you know, and me just being nosy, that's what was happening.
01:28:15 --> 01:28:19 It was like groups like Main Street were coming in and buying these residential
01:28:19 --> 01:28:23 homes here in Georgia and turning them into rental properties.
01:28:23 --> 01:28:28 And it's, you know, so that, you know, it doesn't, it might help there.
01:28:28 --> 01:28:33 Bottom line or whatever, but it doesn't help the situation that we're in.
01:28:33 --> 01:28:38 So again, I can go into a whole sermon about that, but I'm not going to go. Yeah.
01:28:38 --> 01:28:42 I think it's important to note that that is, you know, that issue is separate
01:28:42 --> 01:28:44 from the Road to Housing Act.
01:28:44 --> 01:28:49 Right. And that is something that, you know, individual, individual buyers,
01:28:49 --> 01:28:52 particularly trying to buy a first home or buy an affordable home should not
01:28:52 --> 01:28:58 be competing with, you know, multi-billion dollar private equity organizations.
01:28:59 --> 01:29:05 It's making an expensive housing market that much more out of reach for most
01:29:05 --> 01:29:07 Americans and particularly most Black Americans.
01:29:08 --> 01:29:12 Right. All right. Monica Mitchell said in the conclusion of the State of the
01:29:12 --> 01:29:20 Dream 2026 report, regression is not destiny, but neither is progress automatic.
01:29:20 --> 01:29:25 Based on that statement, what is the charge for the Black community in 2026.
01:29:26 --> 01:29:32 Yeah, I mean, the charge for the Black community in 2026 isn't that different
01:29:32 --> 01:29:37 from the charge we've had throughout our journey, our centuries-old journey
01:29:37 --> 01:29:40 here in the United States, is how,
01:29:40 --> 01:29:43 you know, can we make a better future for our children,
01:29:43 --> 01:29:49 you know, endure the deep racial inequality that still exists in our country
01:29:49 --> 01:29:55 while at the same time trying to have, you know, a positive life, right?
01:29:55 --> 01:29:58 And so, you know, and I think one of the key things is, you know,
01:29:58 --> 01:30:01 the idea that progress doesn't just come.
01:30:01 --> 01:30:04 You know, there are some people who just think that every year things just get
01:30:04 --> 01:30:08 better, right? And no, sometimes things do get better. Sometimes things get worse.
01:30:09 --> 01:30:13 We did a report with Algernon Austin from the Center for Economic Policy Research
01:30:13 --> 01:30:18 a couple years ago highlighting the best black economy in generations and why it isn't enough, right?
01:30:18 --> 01:30:22 Where Black wealth had gone up to a record level of around $50,
01:30:23 --> 01:30:25 or actually $45, and I think
01:30:25 --> 01:30:30 medium Black household income was around $53, $55 at that time.
01:30:31 --> 01:30:35 So, yes, that is good. We're no longer 50 percent in poverty.
01:30:35 --> 01:30:40 But even with the progress we've made since the 60s to that time period,
01:30:40 --> 01:30:45 it was going to take us another 500 years just to get to income equality with whites.
01:30:45 --> 01:30:50 And it would take another 800 years to get to wealth equality with whites.
01:30:50 --> 01:30:54 So to me, you know, that level of slow progress is no progress.
01:30:54 --> 01:30:57 And so we really have to look for, and I think that's an important thing.
01:30:58 --> 01:31:02 You know, Trump has administered a lot of changes once, you know,
01:31:02 --> 01:31:03 maybe even the next Congress.
01:31:03 --> 01:31:07 There's going to be a push to have some changes to deal with his changes.
01:31:07 --> 01:31:11 I think the important thing that African-Americans particularly focus around
01:31:11 --> 01:31:15 policy analysis, our call can't be to go back to the way it was,
01:31:15 --> 01:31:19 but to go back, but to go forward and do things even better.
01:31:19 --> 01:31:24 Because even, you know, under, you know, whatever, President Obama or if you're
01:31:24 --> 01:31:28 a fan of President Biden or whoever you're a fan of, blacks were not on the
01:31:28 --> 01:31:30 path to economic equity,
01:31:31 --> 01:31:36 economic equality and even economic stability or getting out of asset poverty.
01:31:36 --> 01:31:39 And so whatever future changes we need to have, we need to make sure that at
01:31:39 --> 01:31:43 least we're standing up for ourselves, advocating for things that could push
01:31:43 --> 01:31:45 us and the country in that direction.
01:31:46 --> 01:31:53 So my last question is, finish this sentence. I have hope because.
01:31:54 --> 01:31:57 I have hope because I have faith.
01:31:58 --> 01:32:01 And I think, you know, I used to work for Reverend Sharpton and he would kind
01:32:01 --> 01:32:05 of go back and forth around discussing the difference between hope and faith,
01:32:05 --> 01:32:08 you know, with his mentor, Jesse Jackson, saying keep hope alive,
01:32:08 --> 01:32:12 which is essential and important, particularly for those who are going through,
01:32:13 --> 01:32:15 you know, so much at different times to have some type of hope.
01:32:15 --> 01:32:20 But I think after a while, you realize it's not just flickers of hope here and
01:32:20 --> 01:32:22 there about what could possibly change,
01:32:22 --> 01:32:27 but having an overall faith that, you know, your ongoing work and your ongoing
01:32:27 --> 01:32:31 work really can help lead to a better life for yourself and for your community.
01:32:31 --> 01:32:36 And I think, you know, so many of us have faith, whether it's religious traditions
01:32:36 --> 01:32:40 or even secular ideologies. We've kind of had to develop faith to kind of keep
01:32:40 --> 01:32:43 going. I think, you know, I think that'd be interesting reflection.
01:32:43 --> 01:32:46 People should do more in the 250th anniversary of the country.
01:32:47 --> 01:32:53 What type of faith and hopes were needed throughout a 250 year history of ongoing,
01:32:53 --> 01:33:00 you know, white supremacy as it relates to political, socio-economic power.
01:33:00 --> 01:33:07 Yeah. All right. So if people want to get more information about the Joint Center
01:33:07 --> 01:33:10 or reach out to you, how can they do that?
01:33:10 --> 01:33:14 Sure. You can go to our, you can Google Joint Center for Political Economic Studies.
01:33:15 --> 01:33:20 You can go to jointcenter.org. We have a Facebook page. We have an X account.
01:33:20 --> 01:33:22 We're in LinkedIn. We have Instagram.
01:33:23 --> 01:33:26 We have several, we have newsletters that come out every week.
01:33:26 --> 01:33:29 Some focused on economics generally.
01:33:29 --> 01:33:32 Some focus on technology. Some focus on government diversity.
01:33:33 --> 01:33:36 So you could join our newsletter as well, newsletters as well,
01:33:36 --> 01:33:38 as well as sign up to our social media.
01:33:39 --> 01:33:44 Well, Dedrick Asante Muhammad, I greatly appreciate you taking on the mantle
01:33:44 --> 01:33:51 of this important institution in the Black community that's been around now almost 60 years.
01:33:51 --> 01:33:56 And, you know, and I just appreciate the work that you and the Joint Center are doing.
01:33:56 --> 01:34:01 And I'm really, really humbled and honored that you came on the podcast. Thank you so much.
01:34:01 --> 01:34:05 No, no, I appreciate the podcast. I appreciate, you know, your,
01:34:05 --> 01:34:09 you know, history and your ability to kind of, you know, bring up the important
01:34:09 --> 01:34:13 questions that should be discussed, yeah, around these issues. So thank you.
01:34:13 --> 01:34:15 All right, guys, we're going to catch out on the other side.
01:34:27 --> 01:34:33 All right. And we are back. So I want to thank Gregory S.
01:34:33 --> 01:34:41 Cooke and Dedrick Asante Mohammed for coming on the program. Brother Cooke.
01:34:42 --> 01:34:46 You know, please watch Invisible Warriors.
01:34:47 --> 01:34:53 As you heard in the interview, this was almost two decades worth of work that
01:34:53 --> 01:34:55 Brother Cooke put into it.
01:34:55 --> 01:35:01 And, you know, the dedication and the commitment shines through.
01:35:01 --> 01:35:06 And even though it's a very, very short documentary, it's very, very informative.
01:35:07 --> 01:35:14 And I think it will encourage you to do some more research. Most importantly,
01:35:14 --> 01:35:19 talk to the folks that you're close to. Talk to your family.
01:35:19 --> 01:35:23 Listen to the stories that they tell.
01:35:23 --> 01:35:31 You know, one of the things that I regret, somebody that is now approaching
01:35:31 --> 01:35:32 the golden years of their life,
01:35:33 --> 01:35:40 is that I didn't really record a lot of the stories that I heard and a lot of
01:35:40 --> 01:35:46 the experiences that my elders were talking about.
01:35:46 --> 01:35:49 And I didn't really probe them enough.
01:35:50 --> 01:35:54 You know, I was very fortunate that they shared some things voluntarily,
01:35:55 --> 01:35:57 but I wish I had documented them.
01:35:57 --> 01:36:06 Not necessarily to do a book or a movie or anything, but just to keep them.
01:36:06 --> 01:36:13 So hopefully some years down the road, people will look at this podcast in that way.
01:36:14 --> 01:36:19 And that's why I called it the podcast of our time, because I wanted to chronicle the people,
01:36:20 --> 01:36:26 especially black folks but just people in general that are navigating this time
01:36:26 --> 01:36:33 that we are in and we started this during President Trump's first administration.
01:36:34 --> 01:36:38 And it's really really critical now to see how people have been.
01:36:40 --> 01:36:46 Trying to do the right thing and trying to build a better America in spite of him, right?
01:36:46 --> 01:36:53 And so I hope that this will be a tool down the road that people can get some
01:36:53 --> 01:36:58 inspiration, some ideas, and some encouragement from, right?
01:36:59 --> 01:37:06 And then to Brother Dedrick Asante Muhammad, I really, really was honored to have him.
01:37:07 --> 01:37:12 Come on and to have somebody that's a leader of an organization.
01:37:13 --> 01:37:19 Been very fortunate to have some leaders of organizations out here on the podcast.
01:37:20 --> 01:37:24 And, you know, the Joint Center is one of those things. You know,
01:37:24 --> 01:37:27 me being a political junkie, I knew a lot about it.
01:37:27 --> 01:37:34 But a lot of people in the community don't know that there's been this group that's been dedicated,
01:37:34 --> 01:37:38 to help elected officials and others
01:37:38 --> 01:37:47 in the community fight for things and articulate things for our benefit.
01:37:47 --> 01:37:52 So I want to thank him for stepping up in that role.
01:37:52 --> 01:37:59 I thank the Joint Center for the work that they're doing, and hopefully things go right.
01:38:01 --> 01:38:04 There'll be some things coming down the road. We'll see.
01:38:04 --> 01:38:09 You know, there's no promises on that, but this won't be the last time Brother
01:38:09 --> 01:38:12 Asante Muhammad will be on the podcast. I promise you that.
01:38:15 --> 01:38:24 So I want to say something that those people who really, really know me know this is true.
01:38:25 --> 01:38:31 There's only one thing I like more than politics, and that's sports.
01:38:31 --> 01:38:35 Now, I never was much of an athlete.
01:38:36 --> 01:38:38 I mean, I held my own in baseball.
01:38:40 --> 01:38:44 I did okay with football and, you know, basketball.
01:38:44 --> 01:38:48 It's like if my black card was depending on my basketball skills,
01:38:48 --> 01:38:49 I probably would have lost that.
01:38:50 --> 01:38:57 But I enjoy sports. I enjoy athletics. I ran track, you know,
01:38:57 --> 01:39:04 and, you know, I just admire, and now my big thing is golf, right?
01:39:05 --> 01:39:09 Sounds like something somebody old would say, but it's just amazing to me to
01:39:09 --> 01:39:11 watch the people that do it for a living.
01:39:13 --> 01:39:19 How easy they make it look, and how incredible they do things.
01:39:19 --> 01:39:27 To watch somebody like a Patrick Mahomes or a Caleb Williams or a Josh Allen
01:39:27 --> 01:39:32 throw a football the way to watch a Usain Bolt, Sha'Carri Richardson run a sprint,
01:39:33 --> 01:39:37 to watch Serena Williams or Tiger Woods do their thing.
01:39:37 --> 01:39:42 You know it's and of course Michael Jordan,
01:39:43 --> 01:39:51 Peyton you know all those greats you know in baseball just the guys like Aaron
01:39:51 --> 01:39:54 Judge and Shohei that can just hit the ball the country mile or,
01:39:55 --> 01:39:59 Nolan Ryan that can throw it 100 miles an hour with control or Greg Maddox who
01:39:59 --> 01:40:04 doesn't have to throw it 100 yards and still strike people out you know,
01:40:05 --> 01:40:11 guys like Tony Gwynn that I always managed to put the bat on the ball, right?
01:40:12 --> 01:40:18 And then to watch the soccer players and the hockey players, right?
01:40:18 --> 01:40:27 Because in hockey, you have to be able to skate, skate pretty fast, be in control,
01:40:28 --> 01:40:34 and then use the stick as an extension of your hand and your arm to guide a
01:40:34 --> 01:40:37 puck where you wanted to go, whether it's to a teammate or to shoot a goal.
01:40:39 --> 01:40:47 And the only main thing is you can't cross the line of your opponent before the puck gets there.
01:40:48 --> 01:40:54 And, you know, it's just, so you can't have a breakaway cherry pick like you
01:40:54 --> 01:40:56 do in basketball, right?
01:40:57 --> 01:40:59 It's an amazing sport to watch.
01:41:01 --> 01:41:09 And, you know, I watched the women's team for the United States just totally dominate the planet.
01:41:10 --> 01:41:17 I think they allowed one goal in the whole tournament. I think they shut everybody
01:41:17 --> 01:41:19 out but Canada in the last game.
01:41:21 --> 01:41:27 And then to see the American team, the men's American team, do something that
01:41:27 --> 01:41:31 hadn't been done since 1980 and win a gold medal.
01:41:33 --> 01:41:41 It was fun to watch. And you could see their determination.
01:41:41 --> 01:41:46 You could see their teamwork. You could see how on both squads,
01:41:46 --> 01:41:51 how confident they were, confident, I should say, in what they were doing.
01:41:54 --> 01:42:01 And, you know, just as somebody, you know, as an American, you feel proud about that, right?
01:42:02 --> 01:42:09 And so let me just say up front, I am very, very pleased and happy that they
01:42:09 --> 01:42:11 were able to accomplish that.
01:42:11 --> 01:42:16 And just all of the Olympic athletes, figure skaters and the bobsledders and
01:42:16 --> 01:42:20 the skiers and the biathlon, biathletes.
01:42:21 --> 01:42:27 And, you know, it's just amazing to watch human beings do those kind of things,
01:42:27 --> 01:42:30 to be able to ski and then shoot something on target.
01:42:31 --> 01:42:38 Wow. Or to turn the slopes into a place where you can be creative.
01:42:39 --> 01:42:45 You know, I can barely handle a skateboard, let alone a snowboard.
01:42:46 --> 01:42:49 And I've tried to ski. You know, I've tried it.
01:42:50 --> 01:42:53 No way I would be doing that professionally. Right.
01:42:53 --> 01:43:00 So I commend all of our athletes for, you know, the effort that they put into
01:43:00 --> 01:43:05 it. And even if they didn't win, you know, they made the team.
01:43:06 --> 01:43:09 They got to experience the competition. They got to go.
01:43:11 --> 01:43:18 And, you know, and they did us proud. And that should never be taken away from them.
01:43:21 --> 01:43:27 However, there's always an intersection between sports and politics.
01:43:27 --> 01:43:31 It's unfortunate, but...
01:43:32 --> 01:43:37 It's almost like war, and that was the one thing the documentary,
01:43:37 --> 01:43:38 Invisible Warriors, reminded me of.
01:43:39 --> 01:43:44 You know, in America, we go through a lot of stuff individually.
01:43:44 --> 01:43:51 We have individual challenges, and then if you're black, you have societal challenges.
01:43:52 --> 01:43:58 And I'm not saying that no other group has it, but I do want you,
01:43:58 --> 01:44:04 if you haven't figured out before, My perspective comes from the fact that I'm a black man.
01:44:06 --> 01:44:13 So I can't talk about the Latino experience. I can't talk about the Asian American experience.
01:44:13 --> 01:44:15 I can talk about what it's like to be black.
01:44:16 --> 01:44:20 And if you've listened to the podcast before, you know I've always talked about
01:44:20 --> 01:44:25 the dichotomy of being a black person in America.
01:44:25 --> 01:44:32 Whereas there's no other country I would rather have grown up in than the United
01:44:32 --> 01:44:39 States of America there's no place else on the planet that has as much constitutional freedom,
01:44:39 --> 01:44:41 spiritual freedom,
01:44:42 --> 01:44:50 creative freedom in the world there's some countries that might do two out of three but not all of it,
01:44:51 --> 01:44:59 and you know and As people, they live their lives, they live it in the country
01:44:59 --> 01:45:02 they live in, and they enjoy that.
01:45:02 --> 01:45:06 But there's something totally unique about being an American.
01:45:07 --> 01:45:13 And I was watching something where somebody was trying to say that their spouse
01:45:13 --> 01:45:19 was more American, even though he's from another country, than most Americans and stuff.
01:45:19 --> 01:45:24 And it's like, there's no way you can be more American than a citizen in the
01:45:24 --> 01:45:27 United States or somebody that was born here. Let me put it that way.
01:45:28 --> 01:45:30 You can adapt to it.
01:45:31 --> 01:45:36 But there's something about being unique, and I would argue,
01:45:36 --> 01:45:45 based on our history, and we, you know, as far as ending the celebration of Black History Month,
01:45:46 --> 01:45:53 then being a black person in the United States, the journey that we as a people
01:45:53 --> 01:45:59 have gone through to get where we are now and still seek better, right? Right?
01:46:00 --> 01:46:03 There's nothing more American than that.
01:46:04 --> 01:46:08 There's an old saying in the United States, you talk about pull yourself up
01:46:08 --> 01:46:10 by your own bootstraps. Right?
01:46:11 --> 01:46:14 Well, we as a people didn't even have boots.
01:46:15 --> 01:46:17 Then we learned how to make the boots.
01:46:18 --> 01:46:21 Then people denied us access to boots.
01:46:22 --> 01:46:27 And then when we got the access back, all of these people that pulled themselves
01:46:27 --> 01:46:34 up, whether it was with assistance or on their own, the success stories are incredible.
01:46:35 --> 01:46:42 And people can argue it if they want to, and that's fine, that's their prerogative,
01:46:42 --> 01:46:45 but our story is really, really unique.
01:46:48 --> 01:46:52 So if you want to get into a debate about who is more American,
01:46:52 --> 01:46:59 who represents the ideals of the nation more than anybody else,
01:47:00 --> 01:47:05 then every time you look at a black person, you should salute them.
01:47:06 --> 01:47:09 If you want to go there. I'm just saying.
01:47:09 --> 01:47:13 But that's not the gist of what I wanted to talk about. I wanted to talk about
01:47:13 --> 01:47:20 the juxtaposition between sports and politics because there was a moment when
01:47:20 --> 01:47:28 here was a team who was celebrating something that hadn't been done again since 1980. A U.S.
01:47:29 --> 01:47:32 Hockey team, male hockey team, won the gold medal.
01:47:33 --> 01:47:37 And, you know, we've been close. since then, right?
01:47:37 --> 01:47:41 I'm an old Blackhawks fan, so I remember Patrick Kane doing his best.
01:47:42 --> 01:47:45 I think he got two silver medals out the deal, right?
01:47:46 --> 01:47:50 But not getting that, not being on the top of that platform,
01:47:50 --> 01:47:51 not being a gold medal winner.
01:47:52 --> 01:47:54 First time we've done it since 1980.
01:47:55 --> 01:48:03 And almost as instantly as they had pulled that off, a person who was given
01:48:03 --> 01:48:08 the responsibility to lead the nation they represent messed it up for all of them.
01:48:09 --> 01:48:18 And to me, again, if you had to just have microcosm examples of why I do not like this president,
01:48:19 --> 01:48:25 this one is very, very salient and on point.
01:48:26 --> 01:48:31 And instead of just saying, congratulations, guys, what a heck of an achievement.
01:48:32 --> 01:48:36 Look forward to seeing you when you come back home. It just left it at that.
01:48:37 --> 01:48:40 Didn't even have to make the formal invite for the State of the Union or anything.
01:48:41 --> 01:48:47 Just congrats. And then they would have embraced that and enjoyed that for the
01:48:47 --> 01:48:48 rest of their lives. That's all you had to say.
01:48:48 --> 01:48:52 That's all the previous presidents have said for teams that have won a Super
01:48:52 --> 01:48:56 Bowl or a World Series or even a human being that walked on the moon.
01:48:56 --> 01:48:59 Right? And for those of y'all who are out there on the internet,
01:49:00 --> 01:49:03 yes, I'm one of those people that actually believe we did that.
01:49:05 --> 01:49:09 The majority of my generation thinks that actually happened.
01:49:11 --> 01:49:17 Black, white, whoever, whatever. For those young cats that want to create all
01:49:17 --> 01:49:21 this stuff, because you've got all this technology for special effects and all that, that's nice.
01:49:21 --> 01:49:26 It's great. Like, this is America. You can live in that fantasy if you want to.
01:49:26 --> 01:49:29 But the reality is, we did that.
01:49:30 --> 01:49:35 And so when the president called the astronauts when they did that, it's a big moment.
01:49:38 --> 01:49:44 So, you know, but only this president could mess that moment up.
01:49:46 --> 01:49:54 Because he made it about him. And because he makes it about him and he puts
01:49:54 --> 01:49:58 people in an awkward position to try to respect him and humor him,
01:49:58 --> 01:50:00 he gets all of us in trouble.
01:50:00 --> 01:50:03 Right? In one way, shape, or the other.
01:50:05 --> 01:50:11 The athletes before they even competed were kind of looked at a certain way.
01:50:11 --> 01:50:14 When the vice president showed up at the opening ceremonies,
01:50:14 --> 01:50:23 he got booed by the planet because of this particular person, our president, right?
01:50:24 --> 01:50:30 Supreme Court said, Mr. President, what you did with those tariffs is wrong. Can't do that.
01:50:32 --> 01:50:36 He say, like Franklin Roosevelt, all right, find another way to do it,
01:50:36 --> 01:50:39 or we just scrap it all together.
01:50:40 --> 01:50:43 You know, Roosevelt even went as far as saying, well, maybe I'll expand the court.
01:50:43 --> 01:50:48 But he went to Congress to see if he'd get that passed. He didn't just say, I'm going to do it.
01:50:49 --> 01:50:52 But not only did this president say, I'm going to do what I want to do,
01:50:52 --> 01:50:57 but then he trashed the very people that, you know, three of them,
01:50:58 --> 01:51:01 two of the three he appointed, and he trashed them.
01:51:02 --> 01:51:06 Because they didn't do what he wanted to do, right?
01:51:07 --> 01:51:12 And he takes his phone call to these folks, and he calls them,
01:51:12 --> 01:51:18 and he says, well, I guess I got to invite the women. Because he didn't call the women when they won.
01:51:18 --> 01:51:21 I guess Kash Patel couldn't get in the ladies' locker room.
01:51:23 --> 01:51:29 But he didn't invite them to come to the State Union. And then he said,
01:51:29 --> 01:51:33 well, I guess I'll have to invite him or else I'll be impeached, right?
01:51:35 --> 01:51:37 And maybe if he hadn't been impeached
01:51:37 --> 01:51:42 before, maybe people might not have taken it a certain way, maybe.
01:51:42 --> 01:51:47 But the reality is, he doesn't have any empathy.
01:51:48 --> 01:51:55 He's not in the moment because it's always about him. the lady who was over
01:51:55 --> 01:52:02 player development who basically helped pick the team on the women's side had at least one son,
01:52:04 --> 01:52:09 on the men's side, just put her in the most awkward position of all time.
01:52:09 --> 01:52:13 Well, they stuck a microphone in her face. How do you feel about that?
01:52:14 --> 01:52:18 When you don't care about other people, this is the result.
01:52:19 --> 01:52:25 And so now, you know, and then you had the skier, which I think I mentioned
01:52:25 --> 01:52:27 last podcast, who won a gold medal.
01:52:28 --> 01:52:32 Well, how do you feel? He said, well, I'm kind of feeling some kind of way because
01:52:32 --> 01:52:37 I'm proud to represent my nation, but I'm not happy about what's going on in my country right now.
01:52:37 --> 01:52:40 And you proceeded to call him, Mr. President, a loser.
01:52:41 --> 01:52:45 But see, it's not about you. It's about us.
01:52:46 --> 01:52:50 It's not I-A, it's U-S-A, right?
01:52:50 --> 01:52:58 So, you know, I have always admired those people who have used their platforms
01:52:58 --> 01:53:05 to take a risk and speak up for something they believe in, even if I don't agree with it.
01:53:06 --> 01:53:08 It is what it is, you know.
01:53:10 --> 01:53:14 Now, that puts you in a position where if we have debates, we're not on the
01:53:14 --> 01:53:17 same side, then that's where it'll go.
01:53:17 --> 01:53:20 If we're on the same side, they're to defend you.
01:53:22 --> 01:53:29 But it doesn't diminish the fact that I feel as though that you know that you're
01:53:29 --> 01:53:32 taking a risk by taking a position.
01:53:34 --> 01:53:38 So I commend people to do that, especially to black athletes.
01:53:40 --> 01:53:47 You know, it took this one particular commentator who I don't really know how her mind works.
01:53:47 --> 01:53:55 But I know that she's been through some bullshit in her career to be where she is now.
01:53:56 --> 01:54:03 And she told an athlete who took a stand to shut up and dribble. Right.
01:54:04 --> 01:54:11 I think now we're in a moment where the athletes need to come back and say, shut up and lead.
01:54:12 --> 01:54:15 Shut up and lead. I think that's where we are.
01:54:16 --> 01:54:23 I think citizens, regardless of their athletic ability, have a right to feel
01:54:23 --> 01:54:26 the way they need to feel about this nation.
01:54:26 --> 01:54:31 Whether they are representing a particular team, a particular city,
01:54:31 --> 01:54:36 or a nation. they have that right. They earn that right.
01:54:37 --> 01:54:44 And so, well, let's go even further. They were endowed with that right.
01:54:46 --> 01:54:51 So, you know, for somebody to tell them, well, just stop doing it.
01:54:52 --> 01:54:59 Stop exercising your right because of what you do for a living or for your enjoyment.
01:55:00 --> 01:55:08 That's crazy. You know, I just think that we've got more important issues to
01:55:08 --> 01:55:15 deal with in this nation than worried about how somebody feels.
01:55:16 --> 01:55:21 And if they're expressing an opinion, they're expressing an opinion based off
01:55:21 --> 01:55:26 of the experiences they've had and what they want to see their country achieve,
01:55:27 --> 01:55:30 the country that they represent, right?
01:55:30 --> 01:55:34 And it goes back to the people that fought in wars.
01:55:35 --> 01:55:40 You got black folks out here fighting for a country, fighting against fascism,
01:55:41 --> 01:55:48 fighting against empires. and then they come back home and experience that in the city they live in.
01:55:48 --> 01:55:55 Just imagine you win a gold medal and you go to a restaurant in your hometown,
01:55:56 --> 01:56:00 and they say, well, we don't serve Negroes here.
01:56:01 --> 01:56:08 Or imagine you show up to vote in your military uniform and you get beat up
01:56:08 --> 01:56:12 or even worse, you get lynched, right?
01:56:13 --> 01:56:22 How is that supposed to make you feel? Why wouldn't you have some kind of dichotomy
01:56:22 --> 01:56:26 in your mind about this nation?
01:56:27 --> 01:56:34 So when people say what they need to say, maybe we should listen because we
01:56:34 --> 01:56:40 don't want anybody representing the United States, whether it's on a battlefield or on an Olympic field.
01:56:42 --> 01:56:47 Some kind of way about the nation they're representing. Because they've been
01:56:47 --> 01:56:52 trained and because they believe in something, they do what they're supposed
01:56:52 --> 01:56:55 to do. But that feeling is there.
01:56:55 --> 01:57:01 And if we really had true American leadership, we would do something about that feeling.
01:57:01 --> 01:57:04 We would respond to that feeling.
01:57:04 --> 01:57:09 We would do everything possible to make those people feel better and prouder
01:57:09 --> 01:57:11 of who they are and who they represent.
01:57:13 --> 01:57:20 Trying to figure out ways to muzzle them or embarrass them or make them feel less than a citizen.
01:57:20 --> 01:57:25 We wouldn't keep putting them in awkward situations, right?
01:57:26 --> 01:57:32 But that's why I've been calling for and praying for true leadership.
01:57:33 --> 01:57:38 If we can get to that point, and I don't know if we'll do it in my lifetime.
01:57:39 --> 01:57:42 But if we can get to that point, then the work that I'm doing,
01:57:43 --> 01:57:48 the work that all these people I've been interviewing have been doing will not be in vain.
01:57:49 --> 01:57:52 Even the people that don't accept the invites to be on the podcast.
01:57:53 --> 01:58:00 Just know that if I've reached out to you, that means that I think you're doing something amazing.
01:58:01 --> 01:58:07 And whatever venue you continue to use, because obviously I noticed you,
01:58:07 --> 01:58:09 so there was some venue you were using.
01:58:10 --> 01:58:12 Just keep doing what you're doing.
01:58:13 --> 01:58:17 Keep putting that shoulder to the grindstone, right?
01:58:17 --> 01:58:22 Just keep helping people. Just keep helping this nation become better.
01:58:23 --> 01:58:30 Keep becoming, keep being examples of American leadership because we're not
01:58:30 --> 01:58:37 getting it from the person that was elected to be our national leader, but it's out there.
01:58:39 --> 01:58:43 So, you know, that's what I wanted to get off my chest, man.
01:58:43 --> 01:58:50 I just, I think it's a shame that these guys did all that work and achieved
01:58:50 --> 01:58:51 what they wanted to achieve.
01:58:52 --> 01:58:58 And one insensitive person, really two, messed that up, scarred at.
01:58:58 --> 01:59:03 There's people now saying, oh, well, you know, they're misogynistic and this
01:59:03 --> 01:59:05 is what men do and da, da, da, da. It's like, look.
01:59:07 --> 01:59:11 Win the Nobel Prize for philosophy if there is such a thing.
01:59:12 --> 01:59:15 They didn't cure cancer. They won a hockey game.
01:59:16 --> 01:59:18 They won a gold medal for their sport.
01:59:19 --> 01:59:24 Celebrate that achievement and don't, whatever they are individually or whatever,
01:59:25 --> 01:59:26 they got to deal with that.
01:59:27 --> 01:59:31 But as far as the team and the accomplishment that should be celebrated,
01:59:31 --> 01:59:38 we shouldn't let somebody mess that up for them and that person should have
01:59:38 --> 01:59:41 been more of a leader not to mess it up for.
01:59:42 --> 01:59:46 So when people ask me, why do you not support this guy?
01:59:47 --> 01:59:52 I just gave you another reason. And again, like I said last time,
01:59:52 --> 01:59:57 if you want to defend that guy, want to defend that mindset,
01:59:57 --> 01:59:58 then I'm here to fight you.
01:59:59 --> 02:00:04 And I'm trying to recruit as many people as I can to do it, to join me in that fight.
02:00:05 --> 02:00:14 Because for the remainder of my days, I would like to see America start living up to its creed.
02:00:14 --> 02:00:23 I'd like to see a place that no matter if you're wearing a USA Olympic uniform
02:00:23 --> 02:00:29 or United States military uniform or a police uniform or a firefighter's uniform
02:00:29 --> 02:00:33 or doctors or nurses, scrubs, whatever you do.
02:00:34 --> 02:00:38 And want you to be proud of who you are, proud of the country that you're in,
02:00:39 --> 02:00:43 and continue each and every day to make it better.
02:00:44 --> 02:00:48 That's all I got. Thank you all for listening. Till next time.