WEBVTT - Money & Wealth w/ Don Peebles 0:00:00.240 --> 0:00:03.480 Welcome the Money in Wealth with John Hobriyant, a production 0:00:03.680 --> 0:00:15.920 of the Black Effect Podcast Network and iHeartRadio. Hey, Hey, 0:00:15.960 --> 0:00:19.720 this is John Hobbrant and this is Money and Wealth Podcast. 0:00:20.200 --> 0:00:25.240 This is the first podcast episode host US Presidential Election 0:00:25.360 --> 0:00:29.240 twenty twenty four. I'm with my brother Don Peoples, who 0:00:30.040 --> 0:00:33.800 is a legend in real estate and in business. You're 0:00:33.840 --> 0:00:36.680 going to get to know him and his story and 0:00:36.760 --> 0:00:39.000 what he has to tell you. But this we had 0:00:39.040 --> 0:00:42.760 to reschedule this for a number of reasons tied to 0:00:43.120 --> 0:00:46.839 our mutual schedule. But in many ways this is now 0:00:46.920 --> 0:00:51.440 perfect timing and it ties into this moment. So let 0:00:51.479 --> 0:00:54.760 me see I can set this up properly. When doctor 0:00:54.840 --> 0:00:59.000 King was assassinated in nineteen sixty eight, before that happened, 0:00:59.000 --> 0:01:02.760 he said, I'm here the soul of America from the 0:01:02.760 --> 0:01:06.560 triple evils of war, racism, and poverty. He didn't say 0:01:06.560 --> 0:01:10.040 I'm here to say black people. Even though his work 0:01:10.200 --> 0:01:13.840 helped a lot of black people. He was there for everybody, 0:01:14.600 --> 0:01:18.880 and that last movement of the Poor People's Campaign had 0:01:18.920 --> 0:01:23.319 pivoted also to include poor whites, which were then and 0:01:23.400 --> 0:01:28.200 now the largest population of poverty in America. And he 0:01:28.240 --> 0:01:31.880 was assassinated on the eve of the launch of that movement, 0:01:31.920 --> 0:01:36.800 but he had pivoted to economics. Ambassador Andrew Young, my 0:01:36.959 --> 0:01:40.720 mentor my role model in many ways, the guy who 0:01:40.760 --> 0:01:42.480 sort of helped raise me in my adult life, our 0:01:42.520 --> 0:01:46.880 global spokesman in Operation Hope, who was on the balcony, 0:01:46.880 --> 0:01:48.920 who helped to turn Atlanta, by the way to the 0:01:48.920 --> 0:01:51.720 only international city in the South and the tenth biggest 0:01:51.720 --> 0:01:55.120 economy in the US almost five hundred billion dollars in GDP. 0:01:56.160 --> 0:01:59.520 He was there when Doctor King was assassinated and he 0:01:59.560 --> 0:02:02.640 was the only remember his team to take that mandate 0:02:02.680 --> 0:02:07.840 from Doctor King and pivoted into political realm to structure 0:02:07.920 --> 0:02:11.280 power versus their protests for it, and then to turn 0:02:11.360 --> 0:02:14.400 that into an economy, which was the city of Atlanta, 0:02:14.400 --> 0:02:19.280 as I just mentioned, almost a five hundred billion dollar economy. 0:02:19.800 --> 0:02:24.000 And don pivoting to you what Ambassie Young told me 0:02:25.160 --> 0:02:28.600 a couple Actually wasn't a couple of years ago. I'd 0:02:28.639 --> 0:02:34.040 say actually was about eight years ago, twenty sixteen. As 0:02:34.040 --> 0:02:36.840 we had gotten the Freedman's Bank renamed on the White 0:02:36.880 --> 0:02:39.800 House campus from the Treasury Annex building in honor former 0:02:39.840 --> 0:02:42.160 slaves who've been at charter the Bank to teach free 0:02:42.160 --> 0:02:46.080 slaves about money financial literacy, eighteen seventy five, Abraham Lincoln, 0:02:46.080 --> 0:02:48.880 Frederick Douglass. He said, John, you need to stay focus 0:02:48.919 --> 0:02:51.959 on your work. I never said this publicly now to today. 0:02:52.480 --> 0:02:54.200 You need to stay focus on your work because if 0:02:54.200 --> 0:02:59.560 ever we lose political power, if ever we lose the 0:02:59.639 --> 0:03:01.440 rights that we hold, dear, and he said, I can't 0:03:01.480 --> 0:03:05.680 imagine this happening, but if the only real power, potentially 0:03:05.760 --> 0:03:10.280 is economic power, if ever we lose political power, social power, 0:03:10.880 --> 0:03:17.120 even religious power, we'll only have economic power the lever 0:03:17.200 --> 0:03:19.280 of economics to pull back on. You have got to 0:03:19.320 --> 0:03:22.800 not diminish your work or get distracted from it, because 0:03:22.840 --> 0:03:26.640 we need an economic infrastructure for the underserved of this country. 0:03:27.639 --> 0:03:30.520 And it dawns on me that this is where we are. 0:03:31.280 --> 0:03:34.240 That the only true freedom is I believe and Chris 0:03:34.240 --> 0:03:35.640 Gorman a key back is the one who gave me 0:03:35.680 --> 0:03:39.560 this quote. Is potentially financial and economic freedom because once 0:03:39.600 --> 0:03:41.920 you have it, unless you screw it up, no one 0:03:41.920 --> 0:03:43.440 can take it from you. And it is and we 0:03:43.480 --> 0:03:46.440 live in an economic democracy. This country is I keep 0:03:46.480 --> 0:03:52.200 saying a center slightly right, center slightly right. It's an 0:03:52.200 --> 0:03:56.080 economic democracy. It's a inclusive I like to believe it's 0:03:56.200 --> 0:03:59.040 inclusive capitalism because you and I came from nothing and 0:03:59.080 --> 0:04:02.960 made ourselves to significant some things in America. I don't 0:04:03.000 --> 0:04:06.600 know another country in the world where our stories would 0:04:06.600 --> 0:04:10.880 have proliferated at the level that they have. We might 0:04:10.920 --> 0:04:13.840 have worked for somebody, but you and I work for ourselves. 0:04:14.360 --> 0:04:17.640 So I'm now turning to you because before we got 0:04:17.680 --> 0:04:20.080 on camera, we got we had a very powerful and 0:04:20.120 --> 0:04:24.480 important conversation, some of which I want you to recount here. 0:04:25.120 --> 0:04:31.520 But what do you say to doctor King's vision that 0:04:31.560 --> 0:04:33.599 he was pivoting toward the economic agenda? And what do 0:04:33.680 --> 0:04:38.919 you say to Ambassador Andrew Young's criminition that at the 0:04:39.000 --> 0:04:40.960 end of the day, one of the few things you 0:04:41.000 --> 0:04:44.120 can rely on that you have some control over, it's 0:04:44.160 --> 0:04:51.120 economic empowerment. And where are we with regard to that agenda? 0:04:52.400 --> 0:04:54.000 And then I want to get, of course, into your 0:04:54.080 --> 0:04:56.360 story and how you have built what you have built, 0:04:56.400 --> 0:04:58.960 by the way, with those of you don't know. Don 0:04:58.960 --> 0:05:03.000 Pebles runs people I call the People's Corporation, but it's 0:05:03.120 --> 0:05:06.880 several entities within his company that's a billion dollars plus 0:05:06.920 --> 0:05:08.280 in real estate development. 0:05:09.000 --> 0:05:13.640 Don Peeples well great, So you don't know. It's for 0:05:13.640 --> 0:05:17.359 those listening to this. I I did not mention that 0:05:18.040 --> 0:05:21.160 Don Peoples is a brother. He's black, He's not black 0:05:21.200 --> 0:05:23.720 for a living. He's a great developer who happens to 0:05:23.760 --> 0:05:25.680 be black. He's a great leader who happens to be black. 0:05:25.760 --> 0:05:28.320 But he's proud out of his heritage, and so am I. 0:05:28.640 --> 0:05:30.320 He's after America, okay, Don. 0:05:30.200 --> 0:05:33.479 People absolutely And in fact, I grew up during the 0:05:33.520 --> 0:05:37.560 civil rights movement. I was born in nineteen sixty in Washington, 0:05:37.640 --> 0:05:41.599 d c. Seat of our government, where many of the 0:05:41.680 --> 0:05:45.920 major protests and demonstrations and the fight in the halls 0:05:45.920 --> 0:05:49.200 of our government took place. I remember when doctor King 0:05:49.320 --> 0:05:54.680 was assassinated. I was watching television about the assassination. But 0:05:54.760 --> 0:05:57.720 and then the riots that followed were in my community. 0:05:57.800 --> 0:06:00.960 My mother had to drive me through a commercial quarriter 0:06:01.279 --> 0:06:04.839 near our home and have me duck down so that 0:06:04.920 --> 0:06:07.919 I wouldn't be hit as a little boy. And but 0:06:08.160 --> 0:06:13.479 and then, you know, I remember Robert Kennedy's assassination as well. 0:06:14.040 --> 0:06:18.520 I remember, uh how you know, and and and Malcolm 0:06:18.640 --> 0:06:22.400 X's focus. But I remember that, you know, there was 0:06:22.440 --> 0:06:25.560 a time of struggle in the country for us to 0:06:25.720 --> 0:06:30.479 have equal access to just basic civil rights, and how 0:06:30.520 --> 0:06:34.159 we had to fight for those and now our fight 0:06:34.520 --> 0:06:38.240 continues to be for economic opportunity. And doctor King understood it. 0:06:38.279 --> 0:06:40.760 I remember his quote. It was what good does it 0:06:40.920 --> 0:06:43.480 serve for the Negro to have a seat at the 0:06:43.560 --> 0:06:47.240 lunch counter when they can't afford to buy a hamburger? 0:06:47.839 --> 0:06:49.360 And so that was all. 0:06:49.200 --> 0:06:53.599 The relevance here about economic empowerment. And so he started 0:06:53.640 --> 0:06:59.040 to poor People's March and and and ultimately that's poor 0:06:59.200 --> 0:07:03.760 People's initial and so forth to reset the table economically 0:07:03.880 --> 0:07:07.360 in the country, because our democracy is a capitalism capitalistic 0:07:07.400 --> 0:07:13.200 democracy was that economic opportunity must lead the way. He 0:07:14.520 --> 0:07:19.840 set the pathway for Andrew Young and then uh Mayor 0:07:20.000 --> 0:07:25.960 Jackson before him, and uh and what happened, yes, and 0:07:25.960 --> 0:07:31.680 and and and and initially through Hartsville now Hartsville Jackson Airport. 0:07:32.680 --> 0:07:36.200 Where as mayor he had a vision for Atlanta to 0:07:36.240 --> 0:07:41.000 be a global city and having an international airport and 0:07:41.120 --> 0:07:44.040 got a lot of support throughout the state for that, 0:07:44.160 --> 0:07:46.920 but then people didn't realize what he had. Part of 0:07:46.920 --> 0:07:49.400 his plan was to make it an economic engine, and 0:07:49.440 --> 0:07:52.800 he had to fight to make it. To protect the 0:07:52.880 --> 0:07:57.520 opportunity for minority business contracting. He required thirty five percent 0:07:57.720 --> 0:08:02.480 to be for minority contract for black contractors, and ultimately 0:08:03.280 --> 0:08:06.240 he fought won that and that started the pathway of 0:08:06.280 --> 0:08:09.880 creating significant black wealth in Atlanta, and it made Atlanta 0:08:10.200 --> 0:08:15.400 the mecca for black economic empowerment. But others followed him 0:08:15.480 --> 0:08:20.480 and followed Ambassador Young Marion Barry in Washington, d C. 0:08:20.880 --> 0:08:29.120 Harold Washington in Chicago, bar in New Orleans, Tom Bradley 0:08:29.120 --> 0:08:34.000 in LA. So, as you so, that civil rights generation 0:08:34.640 --> 0:08:41.680 knocked down these barriers economically for businesses like mine or 0:08:42.040 --> 0:08:44.240 Bob Johnson at b E T, which would not have 0:08:44.280 --> 0:08:47.160 been possible if it wasn't for him getting the cable 0:08:47.200 --> 0:08:53.600 television franchise for Washington, DC. So the political power in 0:08:53.840 --> 0:08:58.280 the nineteen seventies and eighties was used to help generate 0:08:58.400 --> 0:09:01.880 economic powerman, And that's how. 0:09:01.760 --> 0:09:02.480 I got started. 0:09:03.200 --> 0:09:06.800 Without that and without that mindset, it would have never happened. 0:09:07.080 --> 0:09:10.560 So I grew up in d C. My mother and 0:09:10.600 --> 0:09:13.040 I My mother parents got divorced when I was five. 0:09:13.160 --> 0:09:17.920 My mother and I moved to Detroit five, okay, and then. 0:09:17.920 --> 0:09:20.360 Nineteen and so in nineteen sixty eight, when I was eight, 0:09:20.440 --> 0:09:23.520 my mother and I moved to Detroit for her to 0:09:23.520 --> 0:09:29.760 start a new life, and and she her sister was 0:09:29.800 --> 0:09:33.280 living in Detroit because her husband was doing his internship 0:09:33.280 --> 0:09:36.800 in residency and medicine. So my mother was a secretary 0:09:37.320 --> 0:09:40.839 at the Urban League and on Capitol Hill in d C. 0:09:41.080 --> 0:09:43.559 So she went to night school, got a real estate license, 0:09:44.040 --> 0:09:46.720 and she started working in real estate in Detroit and 0:09:46.760 --> 0:09:48.400 then within a couple of years had her own real 0:09:48.520 --> 0:09:49.600 estate brokerage business. 0:09:49.800 --> 0:09:53.520 And that was an environment of black entrepreneurship was Detroit. 0:09:53.559 --> 0:09:56.280 And I remember my best friend who's still one of 0:09:56.360 --> 0:09:57.480 my best friends in life. 0:09:58.720 --> 0:09:58.960 You know. 0:09:59.440 --> 0:10:02.400 I met him when I think I was ten, and 0:10:02.440 --> 0:10:07.079 we were best buddies. His father, Barry Gordy. My friend 0:10:07.160 --> 0:10:11.600 Kerry Gordy. So Barry founded Motown and was running Motown, 0:10:11.640 --> 0:10:14.240 which was in Detroit at the time. And I remember 0:10:14.440 --> 0:10:18.520 the fact that there was a black man running, founded 0:10:18.600 --> 0:10:22.000 and ran Motown was very inspirational to me. And it 0:10:22.120 --> 0:10:25.280 showed me early on that there was no limitation. So anyway, 0:10:25.320 --> 0:10:27.440 I went back to Washington, d C. My mother thought 0:10:27.440 --> 0:10:30.440 I should get involved in politics, told me I needed 0:10:30.440 --> 0:10:33.000 to the city. In nineteen seventy four, when we had 0:10:33.040 --> 0:10:35.080 moved back with getting the right to elect its own 0:10:35.080 --> 0:10:38.520 government and for the first time because before it was 0:10:38.559 --> 0:10:41.199 all appointed by the President of the United States, including 0:10:41.240 --> 0:10:44.640 the mayor. So she wanted, yeah, so to think about 0:10:44.679 --> 0:10:49.160 DC didn't have any rights to vote. The citizens of 0:10:49.200 --> 0:10:53.120 seven hundred thousand residents could not vote for anybody. Wow, 0:10:53.840 --> 0:10:57.880 And so they in seventy four they got the right 0:10:58.200 --> 0:11:01.640 to elect their own government. And so there was a 0:11:01.640 --> 0:11:04.600 big deal there. And so my mother told me that 0:11:04.679 --> 0:11:07.800 I needed to go and volunteer and work for one 0:11:07.840 --> 0:11:09.559 of the candidates who was running for chairman of the 0:11:09.600 --> 0:11:13.000 city council, her former boss at the Washington DC Urban 0:11:13.080 --> 0:11:16.520 League God named Sterling Tucker, and then I could pick 0:11:16.600 --> 0:11:18.760 somebody else. And I was upset with her that she 0:11:18.840 --> 0:11:21.319 was taking up my summer for this, and so I 0:11:22.280 --> 0:11:26.080 did some research and I picked the most radical candidates, 0:11:26.679 --> 0:11:30.480 and it was Marion Barry, who was the city council 0:11:30.679 --> 0:11:33.040 and he was he was a part of the civil 0:11:33.160 --> 0:11:33.640 rights movement. 0:11:33.640 --> 0:11:34.120 He was co. 0:11:34.120 --> 0:11:39.000 Founder of the Student Non Violent Coordinating Committee SNICK and 0:11:40.200 --> 0:11:42.960 was very active in the civil rights movement and then 0:11:43.440 --> 0:11:47.280 also the fight for economic inclusion. So fourteen years old, 0:11:47.320 --> 0:11:51.560 I volunteered for his campaign he won Sterling Tucker one. 0:11:52.240 --> 0:11:54.600 They were since it was a new government Barry, they 0:11:54.679 --> 0:11:57.240 drew straws for terms, whether it was two or four years. 0:11:57.240 --> 0:12:00.000 He got a short straw, so he ran two years later. 0:12:00.320 --> 0:12:03.160 I was more active in his campaign and got to 0:12:03.200 --> 0:12:05.160 know him a little bit better. I was one of 0:12:05.200 --> 0:12:09.880 the you know, advanced people for him. And then when 0:12:09.880 --> 0:12:11.800 I was on my way to college and I spent 0:12:11.840 --> 0:12:13.880 my last two years, my mother was big on politics, 0:12:13.880 --> 0:12:16.280 so she had me become a page, one of her 0:12:16.480 --> 0:12:18.760 you know, she used her relationships on Capitol Hill. 0:12:19.080 --> 0:12:20.040 I got appointed a. 0:12:19.960 --> 0:12:22.680 Page, spent my last two years of high school going 0:12:22.720 --> 0:12:24.480 to school at the top floor of the Library of 0:12:24.520 --> 0:12:27.120 Congress from six am to ten thirty, and then walking 0:12:27.120 --> 0:12:29.960 across the street and working in the US Capitol. 0:12:30.800 --> 0:12:32.160 So I was a page on the. 0:12:32.080 --> 0:12:35.000 Floor of the House of Representatives under Tip O'Neil, the 0:12:35.080 --> 0:12:38.040 speaker at the time, and then I worked in the 0:12:38.080 --> 0:12:43.000 offices of Charlie Rangel, Ron Dillams and John Conyers. I 0:12:43.000 --> 0:12:46.600 got a good sense of politics. So Barry and Sterling 0:12:46.640 --> 0:12:50.840 Tucker run for a mayor to unseat the first elected mayor. 0:12:50.920 --> 0:12:55.480 So three way race and Barry runs. I'd go off 0:12:55.520 --> 0:13:00.280 to college and the primary he wins, and and then 0:13:00.320 --> 0:13:04.560 I'm in college at Rutgers going into studying pre med. 0:13:04.880 --> 0:13:06.920 And then after that, after my first year, I quit, 0:13:07.040 --> 0:13:08.720 went back to DC and started working. 0:13:09.160 --> 0:13:12.679 You start you study pre man Why my uncle. 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:15.240 I was very close to him. He was a role 0:13:15.320 --> 0:13:18.600 model and he was a doctor, and he was telling 0:13:18.640 --> 0:13:20.199 me not to go into medicine. But I wanted to 0:13:20.240 --> 0:13:21.959 go into medicine because I wanted to look my mother 0:13:21.960 --> 0:13:23.239 and I struggled financially. 0:13:23.640 --> 0:13:25.960 I wanted to have what. 0:13:25.880 --> 0:13:28.520 Would be a stable income stream. I really wasn't driven 0:13:28.520 --> 0:13:30.840 to try to be alter rich. I was driven to 0:13:30.920 --> 0:13:33.600 have a nice, stable lifestyle. Be it to take care 0:13:33.600 --> 0:13:37.400 of myself, take care of my family, and that be good, 0:13:37.440 --> 0:13:40.160 and then maybe an invest in real estate over time 0:13:40.200 --> 0:13:44.400 and make some money doing that. But after my first year, 0:13:44.440 --> 0:13:47.320 I decided that it wasn't for me, and I decided 0:13:47.360 --> 0:13:49.880 to go back to DC and start working in the 0:13:49.880 --> 0:13:52.520 real estate business. And I became a sales agent. But 0:13:52.640 --> 0:13:57.240 interest rates were twenty plus percent. It was nineteen seventy nine, 0:13:57.720 --> 0:13:58.439 so I. 0:13:58.400 --> 0:14:01.320 Could sell whod on. People need to hear that they 0:14:01.400 --> 0:14:03.560 slow that down. First of all, in bach or young 0:14:03.559 --> 0:14:06.280 and you have something in common. Don you have a 0:14:06.320 --> 0:14:08.880 lot in common? But one thing. His father was a 0:14:08.920 --> 0:14:12.680 dentist and had a nice middle class lifestyle, wanted his 0:14:12.720 --> 0:14:15.960 sons to be dentists, and his brother became a dentist. 0:14:16.520 --> 0:14:18.520 But in Bassie Young, after studying it for a bit, 0:14:18.600 --> 0:14:20.760 it was like, no, that's your dream, that's not mine. 0:14:20.800 --> 0:14:22.720 I don't want to be a dentist. I respect your dad, 0:14:22.760 --> 0:14:24.560 thank you. I want to be a pastor and I 0:14:24.600 --> 0:14:26.880 want to preacher it. And then when he when he 0:14:26.880 --> 0:14:29.400 told us Dad he was going to follow doctor king Is, 0:14:29.480 --> 0:14:32.960 Dad like literally rolled his eyes and like, you, what 0:14:33.280 --> 0:14:34.840 have I done with What have I done with my 0:14:35.360 --> 0:14:39.240 with sacrifices my life. Of course, the rest is history 0:14:39.600 --> 0:14:42.720 of all that Ambassador Young did with his life, which 0:14:42.880 --> 0:14:45.200 is the legacy, really living a legacy of this family. 0:14:45.240 --> 0:14:49.160 You could have been a doctor because you saw somebody 0:14:49.240 --> 0:14:52.560 who was a role model, who you admired, your uncle, 0:14:53.320 --> 0:14:55.560 and that was enough for you. You model what you see. 0:14:55.600 --> 0:14:57.920 We had talked about, we talked earlier about the power 0:14:57.960 --> 0:15:00.680 of words and the power of we see and what 0:15:00.720 --> 0:15:02.920 we feel and what we hear in our lives and 0:15:02.960 --> 0:15:07.000 how that influences us positively and negatively. Your uncle influenced 0:15:07.000 --> 0:15:09.600 you so much you went to pre medt the school 0:15:10.120 --> 0:15:12.680 to maybe frame your whole life, and luckily you had 0:15:12.680 --> 0:15:17.120 a strong constitution. Your mother also, what's her name, god 0:15:17.120 --> 0:15:23.600 gressn Yvonne Willoughby Pool, Yvonne Willoughby Pool. Let's say her 0:15:23.680 --> 0:15:27.080 name and let it live in history, because without her 0:15:27.160 --> 0:15:28.920 you wouldn't be you. I say my mother's name on 0:15:29.040 --> 0:15:32.360 Nita Smith because she reminds me of your story, the 0:15:32.520 --> 0:15:36.160 same story. Divorced five years at age five, want to 0:15:36.160 --> 0:15:37.280 go do her own things. We want to go live 0:15:37.320 --> 0:15:39.800 with my auntie, not really my auntie, girl her girlfriend 0:15:40.200 --> 0:15:42.880 to save to build her to buy her his home. 0:15:43.160 --> 0:15:48.640 Now on your story, your mother interceded several times, including 0:15:48.640 --> 0:15:51.720 getting you a page position. Is that right? Yeah? I 0:15:51.720 --> 0:15:56.960 mean she's a bold, audacious, strong willed woman. It sounds like, 0:15:57.080 --> 0:15:57.520 is that right? 0:15:58.160 --> 0:15:58.360 Yes? 0:15:58.440 --> 0:15:58.800 She was. 0:15:58.880 --> 0:16:01.760 Or she was very big on exposing me to what 0:16:01.840 --> 0:16:06.960 the world had to offer, and so she really worked 0:16:07.120 --> 0:16:10.760 very hard to let me know what was out there. 0:16:12.000 --> 0:16:15.520 And so every chance she could get to introduce me 0:16:15.680 --> 0:16:19.520 to someone else. And she was working in DC. She 0:16:19.680 --> 0:16:23.000 met a real estate developer who was pretty successful and 0:16:23.080 --> 0:16:25.480 asked if he would meet with me for lunch one day, 0:16:26.040 --> 0:16:28.040 and he did, and I got a chance to meet 0:16:28.120 --> 0:16:31.640 was a very successful developer over lunch when I was 0:16:31.720 --> 0:16:32.960 maybe sixteen. 0:16:33.720 --> 0:16:37.520 Wow, how did your mother know? First of all, she's 0:16:37.560 --> 0:16:38.240 still with us. 0:16:38.640 --> 0:16:41.080 No, she passed away about twelve years ago. 0:16:41.440 --> 0:16:44.240 Okay, my mother passed away a year. They've both been promoted. 0:16:44.240 --> 0:16:50.280 Hopefully they're cooking gumbo together in heaven. But she certainly 0:16:50.400 --> 0:16:53.280 left a great legacy with you. So how did she 0:16:53.440 --> 0:16:59.400 know don to that relationship? Capital and exposure was so important. 0:16:59.440 --> 0:17:01.880 Was there something on in her life and the way 0:17:01.920 --> 0:17:04.160 she grew up and made his obvious. 0:17:04.480 --> 0:17:07.159 Yeah, it's an interesting story actually, because she learned it 0:17:07.160 --> 0:17:12.680 from her father. My grandfather, and he was from North Carolina, 0:17:13.240 --> 0:17:15.399 moved he and his brothers moved up to d C. 0:17:16.400 --> 0:17:20.240 First New York and then d C for better opportunities. 0:17:20.680 --> 0:17:23.199 He got a job as a dorman at the Warboro 0:17:23.280 --> 0:17:25.919 Park Hotel and he worked. 0:17:25.640 --> 0:17:27.600 As a dorman for forty one years. 0:17:28.600 --> 0:17:31.800 But he d C was, you know, the government town, 0:17:31.880 --> 0:17:36.439 so he got to know many of the members of 0:17:36.520 --> 0:17:41.840 Congress and political people and so and then he would 0:17:41.880 --> 0:17:45.600 take My grandparents had five daughters. My mother was a 0:17:45.640 --> 0:17:49.520 middle one and my grandmother died with my mother was 0:17:49.560 --> 0:17:51.800 a teenager. My so my grandfather really took care of 0:17:51.840 --> 0:17:54.960 his daughters. Worked around o'clock, but he would bring them 0:17:55.000 --> 0:18:01.000 to the hotel on Sundays for you know, a you know, 0:18:01.240 --> 0:18:05.080 like a brunch, so they could dress up in a 0:18:05.119 --> 0:18:08.040 little dress addresses and then go and sit down and 0:18:08.200 --> 0:18:11.680 the segregated area of the hotel, but sit down and 0:18:11.040 --> 0:18:14.640 and see something different. But so he was all about 0:18:14.680 --> 0:18:19.040 exposing them. But also when you know, one of the 0:18:19.760 --> 0:18:23.560 my father, for example, when he needed a job, you know, 0:18:23.600 --> 0:18:24.480 he was my. 0:18:24.520 --> 0:18:26.399 Parents got married. 0:18:26.720 --> 0:18:29.560 He was an he was a car mechanic, and so 0:18:29.680 --> 0:18:33.000 to make more money he needed a job. My grandfather 0:18:34.119 --> 0:18:37.080 asked the congressman to do him a favor and help 0:18:37.160 --> 0:18:39.200 him get a job, which he did, got a job 0:18:39.240 --> 0:18:43.520 in the federal government. My my another one of his 0:18:44.040 --> 0:18:47.480 daughter's husbands was going to law school. Needed a job 0:18:48.440 --> 0:18:51.760 that could work you know at night and make money. 0:18:52.280 --> 0:18:55.760 Got him a government job as an elevator operator. And 0:18:55.760 --> 0:19:02.159 and so so he used his relationships to help his family. Yes, 0:19:02.600 --> 0:19:04.840 and that was as a dormant to be able to 0:19:04.880 --> 0:19:06.840 do that. So it was all about exposure. So my 0:19:06.880 --> 0:19:11.680 mother taught me because what she did is she generally 0:19:12.000 --> 0:19:15.879 you know, she was a relationship builder. So it was 0:19:15.920 --> 0:19:19.640 never kind of about something for her. It was how 0:19:19.680 --> 0:19:24.080 could she offer some value or help somebody else and 0:19:24.119 --> 0:19:27.240 then build up a relationship and one day if she 0:19:27.359 --> 0:19:31.280 needed help with me or something, she could yes. And 0:19:32.440 --> 0:19:38.560 so I learned the value of relationships myself, and that, 0:19:38.920 --> 0:19:41.919 you know, like I learned her. It was more valuable 0:19:41.920 --> 0:19:45.240 for me to build learn politics and build a relationship 0:19:45.440 --> 0:19:48.359 with Barry than it was to earn some money. So 0:19:48.440 --> 0:19:52.320 I was doing it on a volunteer basis. So but 0:19:52.400 --> 0:19:55.160 I benefit, I wouldn't be here today, but it wasn't 0:19:55.200 --> 0:19:55.600 for Barry. 0:19:56.640 --> 0:20:00.960 Be no chance. Really, yeah, I think, and. 0:20:00.920 --> 0:20:05.360 I think I'm a capable person, But I mean, so Barry. 0:20:05.440 --> 0:20:10.800 I go back to d C. Barry is mayor and 0:20:11.040 --> 0:20:16.159 everybody and so he's he's mayor and he is in 0:20:16.200 --> 0:20:20.520 his first term, and I'm working as a real estate agent. 0:20:20.600 --> 0:20:22.159 And then I ended up going to work for my 0:20:22.240 --> 0:20:25.440 mother as an appraiser because she had a conselling business, 0:20:25.880 --> 0:20:29.840 and uh, and then I worked as a subcontractor for 0:20:29.880 --> 0:20:33.040 another company. My aspirations were to have my own appraisal business. 0:20:33.320 --> 0:20:36.720 Barry's running for reelection. I'm twenty two years old and 0:20:36.760 --> 0:20:38.800 I understood politics, So I said, okay, I'm going to 0:20:38.840 --> 0:20:42.440 help him. I lived in War three, which was a 0:20:42.640 --> 0:20:45.520 had a big white population, and he had struggled over 0:20:45.520 --> 0:20:48.359 at War three. So I did a Meet the Mayor 0:20:48.400 --> 0:20:50.840 event with several of the community leaders and so we 0:20:50.920 --> 0:20:53.440 had this large gathering of residents and then I also 0:20:53.480 --> 0:20:56.040 did a fundraiser for him. He was running against Patricia 0:20:56.119 --> 0:20:59.439 Roberts Harris, who had served in President Carter's administration as 0:20:59.480 --> 0:21:02.160 Secretary put in hg W. So everybody thought Barry would 0:21:02.200 --> 0:21:06.120 lose and and I thought he would win. And so 0:21:06.600 --> 0:21:09.760 I did a fundraiser for him to get two days 0:21:09.760 --> 0:21:12.680 after the primary. I scheduled it for because he could 0:21:12.720 --> 0:21:14.920 You could you could deficit spend in DC. You could 0:21:14.960 --> 0:21:19.800 run up a campaign debt and so and so I 0:21:19.840 --> 0:21:22.320 have sent out an invitation to everybody who had given 0:21:22.359 --> 0:21:26.000 Harris more than one thousand dollars and then other supporters, 0:21:26.000 --> 0:21:27.040 and I got a little host. 0:21:26.880 --> 0:21:30.160 Committee together more you know, mature, more experienced. 0:21:29.760 --> 0:21:33.000 People than me, and uh and and we did this 0:21:33.080 --> 0:21:36.119 event at the Capitol Hilton and d C on sixteenth 0:21:36.160 --> 0:21:40.320 and K and you know, we were kind of struggling 0:21:40.320 --> 0:21:42.159 a little bit to you know, but you know, and 0:21:42.200 --> 0:21:43.920 at one point they were the campaign was going to 0:21:44.000 --> 0:21:45.960 cancel it, but I got them to stick it out. 0:21:46.440 --> 0:21:49.760 So Barry wins. He beats her by four to one, 0:21:50.080 --> 0:21:50.600 crushes her. 0:21:50.680 --> 0:21:50.880 Wow. 0:21:51.359 --> 0:21:51.840 Wow. 0:21:52.000 --> 0:21:56.760 So two days later we have our event. It's so 0:21:57.000 --> 0:22:01.200 big that they were bringing in extra table because all 0:22:01.280 --> 0:22:04.320 the people who had given her Harris money were trying 0:22:04.359 --> 0:22:08.159 to redeem themselves with him. Made raised a huge amount 0:22:08.160 --> 0:22:11.560 of money and I got the chance to introduce him, 0:22:12.200 --> 0:22:15.280 and that showed him that I was no longer the 0:22:15.320 --> 0:22:18.560 little teenage guy that he had had, you know, working 0:22:18.600 --> 0:22:21.720 as his advanced person as a volunteer, but I was 0:22:21.760 --> 0:22:25.760 now somebody that could be helpful to him. Within a 0:22:25.840 --> 0:22:30.199 matter of months, one of the camp, one of the 0:22:30.240 --> 0:22:33.200 campaign team members called me. And what happened is many 0:22:33.200 --> 0:22:35.440 of the people in the campaign transitioned to work in 0:22:35.480 --> 0:22:37.359 the government. So one of them called me and offered 0:22:37.400 --> 0:22:40.920 me a position on as president of the Real Estate Commission. 0:22:42.080 --> 0:22:46.360 And ultimately I spoke to a person at the head 0:22:46.359 --> 0:22:50.320 of boards and commissions and she said that that wasn't 0:22:50.320 --> 0:22:53.120 the right position. I wasn't qualified for that position because 0:22:53.160 --> 0:22:54.560 you had to be a broker, and I was only 0:22:54.600 --> 0:22:57.800 a sales agent, but a proper assessment of pillboard would 0:22:57.800 --> 0:23:00.600 be good for me. But they had just filled all 0:23:00.600 --> 0:23:03.680 the slots and the appointees are on the Mayor's desk, 0:23:04.320 --> 0:23:06.840