Speaker 1: I'm Tamika D.
Speaker 2: Mallory and it shit Boy my sona General.
Speaker 1: We are your host of TMI.
Speaker 2: Tamika and my Son's Information, Truth, Motivation and.
Speaker 3: Inspiration New Energy. Hello everybody, this is a new episode
Speaker 3: of TMI, and it is the summer. It's August, and
Speaker 3: so you know, things have been a little bit different
Speaker 3: in terms of what we've been doing with the show
Speaker 3: during this month. But we will be back to our
Speaker 3: regularly scheduled programming come September after our semi vacation, but
Speaker 3: it's not really a vacation because we still have been
Speaker 3: bringing you all very very important content. Last week, my
Speaker 3: son sat down with a group of brothers many that
Speaker 3: I respect, all of them that I respect, and had
Speaker 3: a really really powerful conversation and I hope that you
Speaker 3: all have an opportunity to listen into that.
Speaker 1: We're back to my Son the General. You're back.
Speaker 3: We're here for another week, and today we're jumping straight
Speaker 3: into an interview with a very very important political and
Speaker 3: civil rights icon.
Speaker 1: We are at the convention.
Speaker 3: We're literally in Chicago at the DNC, and so there's
Speaker 3: so much happening.
Speaker 1: If you could see everything.
Speaker 3: Going on on the other side, of this device, you
Speaker 3: would know how how busy it is. But it was
Speaker 3: very important for us to bring context because one of
Speaker 3: the things that I think we both know, my son,
Speaker 3: is that the Internet is telling us all types of things. Misinformation,
Speaker 3: people uninformed, people don't know history, people really don't understand
Speaker 3: the road that has been traveled to get not only
Speaker 3: to this moment, but the fights that have taken place
Speaker 3: and the struggle that has gone on in our world
Speaker 3: and certain me in America, in Black America for a
Speaker 3: long time. And so we asked this icon to join
Speaker 3: us this morning. And if you don't know who he is,
Speaker 3: please do your research. We are talking with doctor Benjamin Chaevs,
Speaker 3: not just Ben Chavis we so used to calling him.
Speaker 1: Ben Chavs. Is doctor Benjamin Chavs, and he his.
Speaker 3: Current job is the President and CEO of the National
Speaker 3: Newspaper Publishers Association. That's the National Newspaper Publishers Association n NPA.
Speaker 3: But he has you have you are here with us
Speaker 3: so many other things that make you a legend.
Speaker 1: That's your current.
Speaker 3: Work that you are involved in, which is still a
Speaker 3: form of activism, telling our stories to us by us
Speaker 3: in black newspapers all across the country, and I'm sure
Speaker 3: you there. You know it expands beyond that, but you
Speaker 3: are truly a legend in the civil rights movement. We
Speaker 3: just want to welcome you and thank you so much
Speaker 3: for joining us this morning.
Speaker 4: Well, thank you, Tamika, my son. I'm so honored to
Speaker 4: be in your presence. You know, Fredick doesn't said it best.
Speaker 4: Freedom is a conscious drugg say. Each generation I'm so
Speaker 4: proud of has risen to the occasion. And it's not
Speaker 4: just a simple matter of passion. At the time, I
Speaker 4: wish it was that simple. It was really how to
Speaker 4: renew and regenerate our consciousness as a people.
Speaker 5: Who are we in the world, Who are we in America?
Speaker 4: Not only what our past has been, but how does
Speaker 4: our pass inform our presence and our future. That's why
Speaker 4: I'm so honored to be here with you at the
Speaker 4: Democratic National Convention, this pivotal moment in world history.
Speaker 5: You know, you know, soroart the system.
Speaker 4: I want you to know all of my family, my mother,
Speaker 4: my sisters, my grandmother, all akas so I got a
Speaker 4: lot of pink and green in Oxford, North Carolina.
Speaker 3: Oh so your family, your family picked the right sorority
Speaker 3: to be a part of. I just want to make
Speaker 3: sure everybody knows very serious matter. And Vice President Harrison
Speaker 3: also an AKA, so you know we're on the right track.
Speaker 4: Absolutely absolutely. But I'm a native of Oxford, North Carolina.
Speaker 4: I was born in nineteen forty eight, so I grew
Speaker 4: up in the nineteen fifties when everything was racially segregated.
Speaker 4: But you know, even though things were segregated, I learned
Speaker 4: so much about black history, black knowledge, black scholarship, black excellence.
Speaker 4: And you know, I didn't know that much about white
Speaker 4: people because I was separated from you know, I knew
Speaker 4: about your question. I knew about a popeive, but I
Speaker 4: never saw a white student to my sophomore year in college.
Speaker 6: Wow, and what college did you go to?
Speaker 1: That?
Speaker 4: To Ben, the first college was Santa Dustin's College at
Speaker 4: HBCU and Raleigh, North Carolina and.
Speaker 5: Then answer to UNC. I was a chemistry major.
Speaker 4: And when I tried to get into UH in North
Speaker 4: Carolina State, which is the white school or UNC the West,
Speaker 4: they told me they were not accepting black students unless
Speaker 4: I majored in music. That was I said, no, I
Speaker 4: want to major in science and young Robert music, but
Speaker 4: that wasn't my field, and so I was dissuaded, which
Speaker 4: is fine because going to the HBCU the first couple
Speaker 4: of years was the best decision of my life. And
Speaker 4: uh he gave me a grounded So by the time
Speaker 4: I transferred to University of All Carolina to finish my
Speaker 4: chemistry degree, I actually was ahead of the white students.
Speaker 5: They used to say, well, where did you come from?
Speaker 4: Who taught you this organic chemistry and physical chemistry?
Speaker 5: And uh, you know nucle can, I said, some black
Speaker 5: teachers at a black school. That's what talk.
Speaker 4: Because you know, I think sometimes we underestimate not only
Speaker 4: where we get education, but how we get our education.
Speaker 4: And so I grew up in the movement. I was
Speaker 4: got my NAACP car when I was twelve years old.
Speaker 4: I started working for SELC Doctor my little kingdom. When
Speaker 4: I was fourteen. Put my age up. We're not supposed
Speaker 4: to drive to sixteens. I put my age up. I
Speaker 4: had mobility. I was driving. You know, I grew up fast.
Speaker 4: James Bonder now became very close friends and he used
Speaker 4: to tell me them parting some writing that the pen
Speaker 4: is powerful them to saw it. So I started writing
Speaker 4: for the Black Press when I'm eleven years old in
Speaker 4: the sixth grade, and now, as God would have it,
Speaker 4: for the last eleven years, I've been to president of
Speaker 4: the CEO of Other Black Press of American National Newspaper
Speaker 4: Public and Association. But as to me, could say it
Speaker 4: in the intro, what I do now is informed by
Speaker 4: many decades of other struggle. To me, when you have challenges,
Speaker 4: that's preparation. I once asked Reginald Lewis, who was the
Speaker 4: first black beading. I said, Regel, tell me one word
Speaker 4: out of the English language that led to your financial success,
Speaker 4: and he said, preparation, preparation. We have to prepare ourselves
Speaker 4: to deal with the struggles. We prepare ourselves to learn.
Speaker 4: And then I started working in the African liberation movements
Speaker 4: in Africa.
Speaker 5: I joined the a n C.
Speaker 4: I used to write for the a n C, the
Speaker 4: Afghan Acts and youth publication of the SPARE while I
Speaker 4: was you know, in college and high school. And then
Speaker 4: from nineteen sixty three to nineteen sixty eight I was
Speaker 4: the youth coordinator for SELA Christians Leadership Conference until the
Speaker 4: day that doctor King was killed in nineteen sixty eighty
Speaker 4: and eight. So I've been around the blocks a few times.
Speaker 4: But you know what, my Sogning Tamika, most of them
Speaker 4: sister in the community that they don't know about the
Speaker 4: nap or the mean Man March.
Speaker 5: They know me from the movie Ballet. I was the
Speaker 5: minister in Bellet.
Speaker 2: You know, I just told you that I was about
Speaker 2: I was about to bring that up.
Speaker 6: Just now.
Speaker 5: I go to anyhood and they said, that's the minister Flue.
Speaker 4: But that shows you the importance though not only our
Speaker 4: all tradition, but our our our image, our visual tradition,
Speaker 4: particularly now among millennials and generation disease. Not only what
Speaker 4: we hear or even what we see a hip hop.
Speaker 4: Hip hop is what you feel. It's just not what
Speaker 4: you see, but what you hear is what you feel.
Speaker 4: And so I think our movement has been successful to
Speaker 4: the extent to which we can not only yes, people
Speaker 4: can feel our impression oh pressure, but can people feel
Speaker 4: our liberation and people feel what we need to do to.
Speaker 5: Change our quality of life.
Speaker 4: And that's why I have so much respect for you
Speaker 4: what you're and Tabika do, because you help people feel
Speaker 4: the reality of our struggle for freedom, justice and required andy.
Speaker 5: I'm sorry, I'm gonna give you a short answers to no.
Speaker 2: I just first of all, it is an honor to
Speaker 2: be able to interview you, to be able to know you,
Speaker 2: to be in space with you, to get you know,
Speaker 2: be able to be tutored by just listening to you,
Speaker 2: you know, last night, talking all the times I've been
Speaker 2: in your presence, and just hearing the wisdom that you
Speaker 2: have and knowing how legendary you are.
Speaker 6: And it's a shame.
Speaker 2: That our youth are not only no belly, right, is
Speaker 2: only no belly. But when you listen to the history
Speaker 2: you know that you've you've been through. I just want
Speaker 2: to know, like, what what were some of the things
Speaker 2: that you you picked up working with doctor King?
Speaker 5: Well, I picked up working doctor King.
Speaker 1: Is that.
Speaker 4: You know the eloquence behind the podium, The eloquence on
Speaker 4: the stage of life is informed by what happens off
Speaker 4: the stage. It's informed by what happens before you get
Speaker 4: to the before you get the mic. You know, before
Speaker 4: you can drop the mic. You got a hold of money,
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying. So as we pick up
Speaker 4: the mic of like I'm talking about, as we broadcast
Speaker 4: as like we're doing now as we articulate, as we
Speaker 4: disseminate information, you know, we're informed by our lived experience.
Speaker 4: And so I've been blessed to me and my sign
Speaker 4: to have had lived experiences with doctor King, live experiences
Speaker 4: with Malcolm X, lived experiences with Minister farra Con, lived
Speaker 4: experiences with doctor Doctor Height, lived experiences with Rose the Pause,
Speaker 4: lived experiences, you know, Nelson.
Speaker 5: Mandela, winning Mandela.
Speaker 4: I was with Cuban troops on the ground, and I
Speaker 4: was in the fox over to the troops fighting the
Speaker 4: South African potactic dream in the mid nineteen eighties. Because
Speaker 4: one of the things I found out that you know,
Speaker 4: it's one thing to talk liberation, It's one thing uh
Speaker 4: engage in armstructure. It's another thing to engage in putting
Speaker 4: your life on the front line.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: Look, I spent most of the nineteen seventies in prison
Speaker 4: because I be very honest.
Speaker 5: I was mad.
Speaker 4: I was mad as hell, and they killed Actor King
Speaker 4: in nineteen sixty eight. But I learned the channel of
Speaker 4: my anger into something a modus operandi that could help
Speaker 4: inspire to make sure his dream was not assassinated.
Speaker 6: How long were you incarcerated, Doctor Ben.
Speaker 4: Six and a half years, but I had a thirty
Speaker 4: four year sentence. I spent most of the nineteen seventies
Speaker 4: in prison. The women to ten case, that's a whole
Speaker 4: I could talk to you about the whole program that
Speaker 4: they just on the Wilmington tent alone.
Speaker 5: I'm so proud of the young people and women.
Speaker 4: In all Carolina who stood up to racial white supremacy
Speaker 4: in the school system.
Speaker 5: And because they stood up.
Speaker 4: Eight high school student leaders, sixteen seventeen, eighteen year olds, myself,
Speaker 4: I was only twenty three years old and a white
Speaker 4: anti poverty work a woman who was also a Hurrunners.
Speaker 5: With ten of us were sent us to two hundred
Speaker 5: and eighteen years in prison, and I had to launch
Speaker 5: sentence thirty four thirty four years. And so the analogy
Speaker 5: is when I heard that Donald Trump had thirty four convictions,
Speaker 5: thirty four felons, I said, with damn, I wonder how
Speaker 5: much time, how he's gonna get it, you know. And
Speaker 5: of course we got that time because we bought white supremacy.
Speaker 5: But one of the things I learned from doctor King
Speaker 5: that is so big.
Speaker 3: I really don't I don't want you to brush past that,
Speaker 3: because that's real.
Speaker 1: That is so so significant.
Speaker 3: Not that you were, which you know, we don't have
Speaker 3: any judgment on this show around what people may have
Speaker 3: done and how they you know, what road they traveled,
Speaker 3: But you weren't scamming and killing or any of that.
Speaker 3: Your path to being incarcerated was because of your involvement
Speaker 3: in the civil rights movement.
Speaker 5: Yes, absolutely, and I think that to Meka.
Speaker 4: I'm always indebted to my mentors. I had great mentors,
Speaker 4: claud Mchison who founded the Conservational Quality you know, Margaine
Speaker 4: the Kingdom founded the Silicary's Leadership Conference.
Speaker 5: I used to drive, I told the car.
Speaker 4: Yes, I used to drive his father, Cleave Sellers and
Speaker 4: Stoker Cormack around when they were in Snick because back
Speaker 4: in the day, you just want any one black odersas
Speaker 4: you in every black if it was black, I'm in.
Speaker 5: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: That sounds like my parents and my life. How I
Speaker 3: grew up in Harlem. We went to the Nation of Islam.
Speaker 3: We went to National Action Network, we went to the
Speaker 3: Black Church, we went to the street corners, we went
Speaker 3: to anything that had to do with black empowerment. At
Speaker 3: the slave Theater, my parents were there.
Speaker 4: So it was one thing I guess I should point
Speaker 4: out anthropologically and geneologically, I was really blessed to me
Speaker 4: and my son to be born in a family. The
Speaker 4: land we live on in Oxton, North Carolina has been
Speaker 4: in my family for over two hundred years. My great
Speaker 4: great great great grandfather was the Reverend John Chambers. He
Speaker 4: was the first brother to Bill Dana as a president
Speaker 4: in minister. But what significant is he was a freedom fighter.
Speaker 4: He was an educator. Now this was before the Nat.
Speaker 4: Turner Insurrection. My grandfather was born in seventeen sixty seven,
Speaker 4: fought in the Revolutionary War, came an ordained minister, the educated.
Speaker 4: But in the early nine eighteen thirty then Turner Insurrection happened.
Speaker 4: The State of Virginia, the State of North Carolina, the
Speaker 4: State of South Carolina, the State of Georgia, State of Alabama,
Speaker 4: and State and Missis passed the law making it a
Speaker 4: fella and to teach black side to read and write
Speaker 4: a felon. So my great great grandfather was an educator.
Speaker 4: So he set up an underground school in Grandma County,
Speaker 4: my home county, Native County, his county, and so he
Speaker 4: taught white students by day and black students secretly by night,
Speaker 4: but they caught up with him. My grandfather was beating
Speaker 4: the death. Back in the day there were no cars.
Speaker 4: Every head of horse and bugget and they beat him
Speaker 4: to death, hid his body, cut the head off of
Speaker 4: his horses, and took the head of his horse to
Speaker 4: his wife. And we never found his grave. They didn't
Speaker 4: want us to honor him in a funeral. So I
Speaker 4: grew up with that kind of history in my family.
Speaker 4: I come from a generation, yes, of educators menisince I'm
Speaker 4: in all they menister myself. But the underlying common donative
Speaker 4: common denominated for the males and females in my family
Speaker 4: were freedom fighters.
Speaker 5: So I had no choice, man, you know. And I
Speaker 5: was in the fourth grade strip uh uh.
Speaker 4: Going back to the first grade, I knew what racism
Speaker 4: was and and and I knew that something that we
Speaker 4: should not have been tolerated. So I was one of
Speaker 4: the impatient. Yeah, I was impatient in my family. And
Speaker 4: that's why by the time I was twelve thirteen, fourteen,
Speaker 4: I thought I was grown. I'm ready to get it on,
Speaker 4: but get it on from the wisdom of the past.
Speaker 4: And like I said, I had great mentors. And that's
Speaker 4: when I try to be now to our brothers and
Speaker 4: sisters today as a mentor, not just as a leader,
Speaker 4: but as a mentor, because none of us will be
Speaker 4: here forever. But while we are blessed to be here,
Speaker 4: let's pass something on. Let's let's pass something wrong, so
Speaker 4: the next generation won't have to go through the same
Speaker 4: things that we go through.
Speaker 3: You know, well, doctor Ben, before you go, before you
Speaker 3: go forward on that because one of the reasons why
Speaker 3: we wanted to talk with you today. As we sat
Speaker 3: together last night in a very private meeting. You know,
Speaker 3: I was thinking a lot about and my son and
Speaker 3: I have been talking about the history of this whole
Speaker 3: idea of the Convention. Right, we know this is not
Speaker 3: the first time in Convention history that there has been
Speaker 3: major tension around different social issues. And the meeting that
Speaker 3: we were at last night, we were specifically dealing with
Speaker 3: the issue of black and Palestinian liberation and how our
Speaker 3: struggles are intertwined. And it made me think so much
Speaker 3: about nineteen sixty eight and the climate for which that
Speaker 3: particular convention took place. And I know you have so
Speaker 3: much that you can share with us about that, and
Speaker 3: so just you know, want to give you, you know, an
Speaker 3: opportunity to talk about nineteen sixty eight, Who were the operators?
Speaker 1: What was give us the tea on what was going down.
Speaker 4: I was a young youth delegate from no Colina, my
Speaker 4: home state, nineteen sixty eight. And keep in mind, the
Speaker 4: nineteen six convention happened in the wake of doctor King's assassination.
Speaker 4: It happened in the wake of Robert Kennedy's assessments. And
Speaker 4: then you had Richard Nixon running for president with Spiro Agnue,
Speaker 4: the former governor of Maryland, who were running on a
Speaker 4: law and order campaign, and so lor and O. It
Speaker 4: wasn't just with the Republicans. The Democrats were also Mayor Dale,
Speaker 4: who was a Democratic mayor, but he sik the police
Speaker 4: on the protest, brutally beating people down as they tried
Speaker 4: to exercise their First Amendment right. I was inside the
Speaker 4: convention center and I was telling somebody last night to me,
Speaker 4: what a change time brings.
Speaker 5: From sixty eight to two thousand.
Speaker 4: And four, we couldn't even we had to fight even
Speaker 4: to get be able to sit down in a convention
Speaker 4: in nineteen They didn't want black people to be delicates.
Speaker 4: They didn't want black people to be pages. They didn't
Speaker 4: want black people to have a media station. They don't
Speaker 4: want They were trying to exclude black folks in nineteen sixty.
Speaker 4: In fact, Julian Bond Fanner Lou Hayman had to go
Speaker 4: to court just to.
Speaker 5: Get the right to sit down in the convention. So
Speaker 5: now we run in the convention. Black women are running
Speaker 5: the convention. You know what I'm saying. And a lot
Speaker 5: of times to.
Speaker 4: Me, I'm glad you asked that question because we live
Speaker 4: in the present and sometimes the president evil overwhelms us
Speaker 4: or underwhelms us. Well, we we think that what's happening
Speaker 4: today is suspended in today's reality.
Speaker 5: But this is a long evolutionary struggle, you know, even
Speaker 5: in the DNC.
Speaker 4: And let me just point something out, Uh, the Democrats
Speaker 4: were the original white supremacists. And my home state of
Speaker 4: North Carolina, the Democrats were the original white supremacists who
Speaker 4: attacked women.
Speaker 5: To North Carolina.
Speaker 4: Because blacks have formed a fusion with the Republicans, look
Speaker 4: out the script this flip. The Republican Party was once
Speaker 4: a part of Lincoln. Now it's the part of the
Speaker 4: white supremacis. Now it's the party of of of far
Speaker 4: white Uh racism and the semitism you just named it.
Speaker 6: When was the switch again, sir? Because there's always.
Speaker 5: Late late eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 2: Okay, late always this thing that the Republicans is actually
Speaker 2: the party for black people, and this and that that
Speaker 2: you don't know no history.
Speaker 5: You got to know that history. The script was flip flipped,
Speaker 5: you know.
Speaker 4: Uh, Jessin Hams used to be a Democrat.
Speaker 5: He became a Republican with the Destocrats. And UH.
Speaker 4: These are the people who fought when Sturgod Marshingtam got
Speaker 4: the Brown decision in nineteen twenty four, uh saying that
Speaker 4: uh surrogate schools was unconstitutional. You had all these people
Speaker 4: who wanted to assassinate till Good Marshall, you know, because
Speaker 4: of that litigation, because they didn't want black and white
Speaker 4: kids they ever go to school together. Because we may
Speaker 4: find out something, and that is there's no such thing
Speaker 4: as white superiority.
Speaker 5: There's no such thing in UH.
Speaker 4: While it lives in ideology of white supremacy, it's a
Speaker 4: fake ideology. It has no substance, It has no anser
Speaker 4: boula other than the brutal.
Speaker 5: Translantic slavery that they engage us, and.
Speaker 4: I want to plug a book that's coming out in
Speaker 4: September to make I gotta get through my son, Uh
Speaker 4: Sayty Brown, one of our writers, and the Innate we
Speaker 4: just published.
Speaker 5: You know, it's coming out in September.
Speaker 4: And the translanda slave trade because translanda Satarde didn't just
Speaker 4: started in sixteen nineteen, It started in fifteen hundreds. The
Speaker 4: translation staty was going on a one hundred years before they
Speaker 4: brought the first slave to the Virginia shore. And this brutality,
Speaker 4: this inhumanity, Uh you know. So to me, going back
Speaker 4: to Tamika's question, I'm honored just to witness what's.
Speaker 5: Going on here four.
Speaker 4: But that also means we have the responsibilities that what
Speaker 4: are those struggles, what are those alliances we should have? Well,
Speaker 4: what can we learn? What do we know about the
Speaker 4: Middle East? What do we know about nineteen forty eight?
Speaker 4: What do we know about the United Nations? What do
Speaker 4: we know about World War two? My father was a
Speaker 4: better than World War One? Do we know the sacrifice
Speaker 4: that Black troops made going to the front line in
Speaker 4: France fighting for democracy and then they get wounded and
Speaker 4: they can't even come back home on the ship they
Speaker 4: came back home on the ship the German prisons. German
Speaker 4: prisons were treated better than black soldiers. Sup fought the Germans.
Speaker 4: I mean all this stuff, and so I used to
Speaker 4: ask my fastid dad, what's going on? He said, sons,
Speaker 4: one day you will understand and appreciate the sacrifices that
Speaker 4: we made. We know that racism, but we fought for
Speaker 4: America because Spope for the one day America the Chine
Speaker 4: And yes, America is changing, but still ain't changing fast enough,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 5: And that's our role.
Speaker 4: Each generation has to push that envelope, push those questions,
Speaker 4: and push that reality.
Speaker 5: But at the same time, I am concerned about our
Speaker 5: state of consciousness as a people.
Speaker 4: You know, I was involved in the Black Power when
Speaker 4: Look when I was a kid, if you call somebody
Speaker 4: black that was a cuss work, people will cut you out.
Speaker 4: They think we were so ashamed of our blackness. Would
Speaker 4: sure a claim of our call were so ashamed of
Speaker 4: I have we show a shame of our nose, our
Speaker 4: lips because let me just cher with you. When I
Speaker 4: was in the first grade, even though there was a
Speaker 4: black elementary school because of segregation, the white school system
Speaker 4: told us what books we had to read. So I
Speaker 4: learned how to read out of a book called Sambo.
Speaker 4: And Sambo was a of a disfigured little African brother
Speaker 4: who only ate pancakes with dripping served you all jip
Speaker 4: down for you know. It was like they made him
Speaker 4: like somebody, Well, I don't want to be like sample,
Speaker 4: but but but but planting it in the seats of
Speaker 4: black students in the first space.
Speaker 5: Well, I don't want to be black. I want to
Speaker 5: be white.
Speaker 4: That's why when the butther steed with black dogs and
Speaker 4: white dogs, a lot of black children true white dogs,
Speaker 4: because that's how they've been miseducated.
Speaker 5: You know, college wasn't headed right, the miseducation of the
Speaker 5: Negro you know.
Speaker 4: And so one of the fights we have in twenty
Speaker 4: twenty four it's about education, it's about uh, it's about curriculum,
Speaker 4: it's about consciousness.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you went there.
Speaker 3: I'm glad you a part of Project twenty twenty five,
Speaker 3: which is the conservative Republican platform that we know Donald
Speaker 3: Trump endorses. While he says he does not, we know
Speaker 3: why he's denying it. But Project twenty twenty five we
Speaker 3: know has some very very dangerous components. One of the
Speaker 3: things in it, however, has attracted a number of people
Speaker 3: that I know, doctor Benn, Black folks who have said
Speaker 3: closing the Department of Education. They believe that that may
Speaker 3: be sensible, right. I don't think that Project twenty twenty
Speaker 3: five is doing it for the reasons that Black folks
Speaker 3: want something to happen Project twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: They want to change how.
Speaker 3: Children are educated to ensure that we are less conscious.
Speaker 3: As you said, that their own children learn less about
Speaker 3: our movements and our struggle, and they would like to deposit.
Speaker 1: Into us and our people and.
Speaker 3: Our children whatever it is that they want, that serves
Speaker 3: only the purpose of white supremacy.
Speaker 1: That's what we know.
Speaker 3: However, there are people who have children right now in
Speaker 3: public schools across this country that have and obviously Department
Speaker 3: of Education is supposed to be the governing body, and
Speaker 3: people do not feel good about how their children are
Speaker 3: being educated. They feel their kids are being left behind.
Speaker 3: They don't feel that when they approach the Department or
Speaker 3: you know, or administration, that there's anything really being done
Speaker 3: to deal with the disparities in education for our youth.
Speaker 3: And so what would you say to someone who's looking
Speaker 3: at that and saying, well, maybe for that particular.
Speaker 1: Reason, Project twenty twenty five.
Speaker 5: Is good, well, thank you.
Speaker 4: Project twenty twenty five is the latest rendition from the
Speaker 4: Herrigge Foundation of the institutionalized white supremacy institutionalization. And I
Speaker 4: think when I listened to you, to me, you know
Speaker 4: what came to mind, the Will of Lynch letter. Project
Speaker 4: twenty five is an expansion of the Will of Lynch
Speaker 4: uh uh letter that told the white supremacists how to
Speaker 4: keep black people divided, how to keep us at each
Speaker 4: other's strokes.
Speaker 5: How to miseducate us.
Speaker 4: And so I think that keep in mind, education is
Speaker 4: really not controlled by the federal Education is controlled by
Speaker 4: these local school boards by just let the state. While
Speaker 4: the Department Education may pass a policy, but who implements
Speaker 4: the policy. You know, a lot of states have gotten funds,
Speaker 4: and because you have these reactions and governments, they don't
Speaker 4: even distribute the funds.
Speaker 5: And a lot of h spc us should be getting funded.
Speaker 4: And and that's why what Biden herds have done so
Speaker 4: significant by putting billions and dollars back into hpcus. But
Speaker 4: think about all the years well we didn't get that
Speaker 4: front you know and so, and then people try to equate,
Speaker 4: you know, Harbored with Howard, though more house with Stamford.
Speaker 5: But the resources were dramatically under under source.
Speaker 4: So I think there's brother and sisters who are concerned
Speaker 4: about education. Yeah, that's right, But what is the solution
Speaker 4: to the education problem. I think education first, that's is
Speaker 4: started in the home. We give our children off to
Speaker 4: teachers we don't know. We give our children off to
Speaker 4: curriculums we have now investigated.
Speaker 5: We go to PTA meetings. Who shows up at the
Speaker 5: PTA meetings? Who shows up at the school board meetings?
Speaker 4: Who shows up at the city council, Who shows up
Speaker 4: at the county commission meetings?
Speaker 5: You know? Who just rupts the state legislature. I'm so
Speaker 5: glad that one of my.
Speaker 4: Mentors, the name is Golden French City and State Field
Speaker 4: Center s LC, we got some.
Speaker 5: Man with the state legislature in North Carolina.
Speaker 4: So while they were in session, we got transferred truck
Speaker 4: row of chickens and we backed it up and turned
Speaker 4: the chickens to loose in the state legislature as a
Speaker 4: protest to what the state legislature has done. So I
Speaker 4: learned something about positive action. Around education. The reason why
Speaker 4: the Womington tam went to jail cause of education. I'm
Speaker 4: so proud of young people will put their lives on
Speaker 4: the line to fight for education. Some of you know
Speaker 4: here in the here in the city of Chicago, at
Speaker 4: the United Centers, there's a statue of the greatest one
Speaker 4: of the greatest basketball players, you know. And I think
Speaker 4: that we need to realize that what we've been through
Speaker 4: in the education process. Yes we have demands, yes we
Speaker 4: have grievances, but the solution to our agreements is is
Speaker 4: not Qarject twenty twenty five.
Speaker 5: You know, the solution to our agreements is not.
Speaker 4: Accommodating from the Herridge Foundation, which I'm view is it
Speaker 4: me and month of million dollar enterprise that puts out
Speaker 4: uh fake information and then passes that out uh. You know,
Speaker 4: I think that they there's a debate about scholarship. There
Speaker 4: is a debate about what truth is. There's a debate
Speaker 4: about where you find it, and then once you find
Speaker 4: the truth, how you disseminate their truth amidst this atmosphere
Speaker 4: of all the misinformation and this information. You know, look
Speaker 4: what happened in two twenty sixteen when Trump and press
Speaker 4: got elected. He shouldn't have won that election. But there
Speaker 4: was so many Russian interference. They leaven today fake accounts.
Speaker 4: I get so many that when I go on social media,
Speaker 4: I said, this ain't really no black person, you know,
Speaker 4: you know, and then I saw it was a sad commentary. Recently,
Speaker 4: I saw a brother in Georgia wearing a T shirt
Speaker 4: Niggas for Trump, and he was proud of it. He
Speaker 4: was proud to call himself a nigga. He wasqulling himself
Speaker 4: to call himself Trump. This self destruction. Malcolm talked about, uh,
Speaker 4: you know, self hatred. He talked about not loving oneself.
Speaker 4: But you get love for oneself person in your heart,
Speaker 4: You get love of self in your church, in your community.
Speaker 4: Then you take that self love to the schools and
Speaker 4: demand that Uh, not only our students learn the truth
Speaker 4: about our history, but my students also need to learn
Speaker 4: the truth because they've been missed miss educate.
Speaker 2: Also, yeah, I wanted to ask you about the gang
Speaker 2: conference you did, because I do a lot of work
Speaker 2: with with at risk youth in the community, gang members.
Speaker 2: So this black Murder campaign that we created, you know,
Speaker 2: it's around just trying to gear and just connect our
Speaker 2: youth and stop the self hate and stop the violence
Speaker 2: in the community.
Speaker 5: Can you give me? Yeah. In nineteen ninety three, I
Speaker 5: was so proud.
Speaker 4: I just become the young director of the NWSP and
Speaker 4: we held the first Gang Something. Actually, the first Gang
Speaker 4: Some was planned before I went to the NAC, planned
Speaker 4: by the United to Christ Commisieration, Justice and other grassroots groups.
Speaker 4: As you know in early now as there was a
Speaker 4: war going on between East and West gangs. You know, uh,
Speaker 4: it really has nothing, not so much to do with territory,
Speaker 4: asked us much to do with how we defined or
Speaker 4: misdefine who the enemy was. And we decided we need
Speaker 4: to put a stop to this. So we said, well,
Speaker 4: well we're gonna have the first Gang Something. We said
Speaker 4: we're gonna do it in the middle of the United States.
Speaker 4: So the brothers from the East coast had to go
Speaker 4: to the middle of the brothers from the West clubs
Speaker 4: comming in. So we chose Kansas City, Kansas City, Missouri,
Speaker 4: and hundreds of bloods, crypts gangst the site, all kinds
Speaker 4: of brothers and sisters. Uh, well, it was mainly brothers.
Speaker 4: There were a few sisters main and brothers. All the
Speaker 4: what they call shop, callers in the streets came and uh.
Speaker 4: I remember the end was if he asked me, we're
Speaker 4: still gonna have this gang something, I said, absolutely, we're
Speaker 4: gonna have it, and uh, we're now on it and
Speaker 4: estabfish the truth, which was important. But more importantly, we
Speaker 4: found out that we don't have to allow.
Speaker 5: Other people to define who we are.
Speaker 4: And we decided to train change the name from games
Speaker 4: to street organizations. We decided to change the name. You
Speaker 4: can still be the blood and chriss, but whether you're
Speaker 4: doing to serve the community, you know, what is our
Speaker 4: service to our liberation? What is our service uh to
Speaker 4: uh uh to combat and police brutality. You know, it's
Speaker 4: one thing for us to get upset when white folks
Speaker 4: goruglize us, but we don't get upset when we googlize
Speaker 4: each other.
Speaker 5: There's something wrong with that script and we wanted to
Speaker 5: change it. And I'm gonna want to give.
Speaker 4: You good news that once we got people around the table,
Speaker 4: my son, people found out they had.
Speaker 5: Common interest rather than contrary interests. Rather than contradictory interests,
Speaker 5: we have commons.
Speaker 4: You know, when we'll stopped by the police, the police
Speaker 4: ain't gonna ask you were your blood or crypto against
Speaker 4: the sycle. You know, they don't care what, but it
Speaker 4: is your blackness, it is your it is what we've
Speaker 4: been through, is the people that determines our faith.
Speaker 5: And so that was very successful.
Speaker 4: And after the Kansas City summer, we had regional summers
Speaker 4: around uh the country.
Speaker 5: Uh. And then of course you know when the uh
Speaker 5: Rodney King thing, have you know?
Speaker 4: Uh? A year or so later, uh, we went out
Speaker 4: to l A. I stayed in Nickoson Gardens, Jordan Downs.
Speaker 4: I stayed in the projects and a lot of the
Speaker 4: end of us you own doctor staying at the Bannavinc
Speaker 4: Hotel downtown. Law that said, no, I'm staying with the struggle.
Speaker 4: Is it's something going down in l A. I'm going
Speaker 4: down with some rise up. I'm rising up with it.
Speaker 4: And I was so proud of the young people in
Speaker 4: South Central because we had that truth.
Speaker 5: Look.
Speaker 4: I saw bloods and clips protecting mamas and daughters. I
Speaker 4: saw working together. Well, your color was red, Well, your
Speaker 4: color was blue. I remember one of the foundings of
Speaker 4: the crypts, Who's gonna give me his uh A car?
Speaker 4: I said, no, man, I can't drive your car because
Speaker 4: people may think that I'm identifying with one group of another.
Speaker 4: I said, I'll walk, you know, give me, give me,
Speaker 4: give me some bullo to walk through these communities. And
Speaker 4: one of the things to me, could you would be
Speaker 4: proud today? You know who the shot calls are today
Speaker 4: in the community running them projects run in South central
Speaker 4: you know. And because a lot of the buller's in
Speaker 4: the joint, a lot of in the cemetery. So black
Speaker 4: women has risen to the occasion to take over the
Speaker 4: quality of life and those what we call projects. Of course,
Speaker 4: the Chicago they they they dismantled and destroyed all the projects,
Speaker 4: made people flee the city. And that's why the city
Speaker 4: always looks at the demographics have changed.
Speaker 5: Same thing in DC.
Speaker 4: Chocolate City used to be a black city is no
Speaker 4: longer because you're being pushed out because of gentrification.
Speaker 5: But you know, I just think that I want.
Speaker 4: To make sure that whatever I say today on the program,
Speaker 4: that I give some hopes of inspiration.
Speaker 5: I don't want to.
Speaker 3: See this would be your final words, So please give
Speaker 3: us some inspiration.
Speaker 4: Well, thank you first of all, looking at you and
Speaker 4: my song, I get reinspired because I see the future
Speaker 4: in you too.
Speaker 5: I see the future in the colleagues that you organized
Speaker 5: and the colleagues that you mobilize.
Speaker 4: And I remember when we start had the anniversaries of
Speaker 4: the Man Man March, you start showing up because you're
Speaker 4: an organizer, you know, putting stuff together.
Speaker 5: I'm so proud of you.
Speaker 4: And I know a lot of people came down on
Speaker 4: you because of your association with UH, that grassroots mobilization.
Speaker 5: But you know what, it made you stronger. And I'm
Speaker 5: gonna say this.
Speaker 4: I don't want people to think that I said, go
Speaker 4: look for some adversity that make you stronger.
Speaker 5: No, that's not what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: I'm saying that the state of affairs of our people,
Speaker 4: we have to either let those affairs break us or
Speaker 4: make us stronger. You know we yes, we're resilient. Where
Speaker 4: resilians come from standing up resisians that I've come from osmosis. Well,
Speaker 4: you know we we have we have to lift ourselves up.
Speaker 4: Ain't nobody gonna come lift us up. We have to
Speaker 4: lift ourselves up. We have to hold our hands up
Speaker 4: with dignity, with purpose, with intergity and love. You know,
Speaker 4: I want to close on this point. This is the
Speaker 4: year of a black woman, Lord have us. I'm so
Speaker 4: proud of black women. You know, they not on took
Speaker 4: over this DNC convention. Guess whom taking all the grassroots
Speaker 4: organizations in our community? Sisters, sister readers, sister me. I mean,
Speaker 4: I'm so glad, you know, uh, you know, if we
Speaker 4: had to do another Belly movie, it'll be about these
Speaker 4: systems soldiers taking over.
Speaker 2: I just want to ask question, and I feel the
Speaker 2: same way that you feel about our women taking over.
Speaker 2: But what do you say to the brothers who are
Speaker 2: feeling threatened by that? Right? Because it's such a pushback,
Speaker 2: you know, I celebrate our black women.
Speaker 5: Be a very good and at very good question.
Speaker 2: I'm going to vote for Kamala Harris because it's a
Speaker 2: black woman. I want to see her win. And there's
Speaker 2: so many black men right now who are threatened by that.
Speaker 5: So what do you say, Well, I'm close out with
Speaker 5: his answer.
Speaker 4: As a black man, I should not and cannot be
Speaker 4: intimidated by the rise of black women, because then black
Speaker 4: women arise.
Speaker 5: Guess who I see riots.
Speaker 4: I see my mama raps, I see my grandmother rise,
Speaker 4: and you.
Speaker 5: Know, I see Queen arising. I see the.
Speaker 4: Warriors warriors sisters. See, that's what I'm saying. But it's
Speaker 4: so important that we learn our history. All the warriors
Speaker 4: were not brothers. Yes, the brothers the warriors, but sisters
Speaker 4: the warriors too.
Speaker 5: No.
Speaker 4: Yes, we had kings, but also had queens, you know.
Speaker 4: And so I think that this dynamic sarticklarly now by
Speaker 4: some well some brothers intimidated by the rise of black women,
Speaker 4: and they're.
Speaker 5: Using it as an excuse not to vote for Karma Harris.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna tell brothers, study our history, study of our consciousces.
Speaker 4: We should, in fact, we should all be inspired as
Speaker 4: black men by the rise of black women. Because when
Speaker 4: black women rise, the whole family rights, when black men rise,
Speaker 4: the whole family rights. We can't afford this conflict between
Speaker 4: black men and black women. What we need to do
Speaker 4: is embrace one another, embrace the success of one another.
Speaker 4: And if one of us fall, whether they're a sister
Speaker 4: or brother, let's pick that brother or that sister up.
Speaker 4: Let's march together, let's fight together. And if we march
Speaker 4: together and together, my son, we will win together.
Speaker 2: And you said it all, doctor Ben, We appreciaiate you,
Speaker 2: we love you, thank you for everything. You're young and
Speaker 2: you continue to do and I'm just great gracious to
Speaker 2: be able to have you as one of the individuals
Speaker 2: that I could reach out to.
Speaker 5: Please, thank you, God bless you. Okay, thank you for this.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I love you so much.
Speaker 2: By shout out to doctor ben Chaves. As you know,
Speaker 2: we are in the DNC and Tamika had to go
Speaker 2: to a panel, so shout out to her for this
Speaker 2: amazing discussion. When you listen to brothers like doctor ben Chaevis,
Speaker 2: who has so much deep history, and you listen to
Speaker 2: what he's accomplished and the errors he would like, it's
Speaker 2: a it's a shame that they want to do away
Speaker 2: with history like that. They don't want to notify you
Speaker 2: and educate you about brothers like doctor ben Chavers.
Speaker 6: When you when you.
Speaker 2: Listen to this is what this is a person that
Speaker 2: they would call a DEI high right, they would talk
Speaker 2: about identity policy. But when you listen to this man,
Speaker 2: he is probably one of the most intelligent people in
Speaker 2: the world. He told you how he went to an
Speaker 2: HBCU and then when he transferred to North Carolina.
Speaker 6: He was ahead of the game. Right, So they might
Speaker 6: they try to make you.
Speaker 2: Seem like the education in HBCUs isn't equal, equal, or
Speaker 2: superior to you know, education in other schools. But that's
Speaker 2: obviously not the truth, because when you look at our
Speaker 2: brilliant Black people who've.
Speaker 6: Done so much throughout history, who who.
Speaker 2: Have acclimated and ascended in every area of life, you
Speaker 2: know a lot of them come from HBCUs. So now
Speaker 2: they try to weaponize this DEI tag and this identity politics.
Speaker 2: I tell people all the times I have no problem
Speaker 2: with identity politics. I'm with everybody black. I want to
Speaker 2: see black people get equity, I want to see them
Speaker 2: get justice. I want to see us get to the
Speaker 2: level that we deserve to be at because we've been
Speaker 2: denied those things. So me wanting to see positive things
Speaker 2: for my people does not mean that I want to
Speaker 2: see negative for anybody else. I just want to see
Speaker 2: my people reach the level that everybody else's people. And
Speaker 2: there's nothing wrong with that. And people will try to
Speaker 2: make you think it's something wrong with that. As I'm
Speaker 2: at this DNC convention, surrounded by black excellence, as I
Speaker 2: watched the DNC conference last night and seeing black excellence
Speaker 2: and seeing leaders that I know came from grassroots organizations,
Speaker 2: people that I know is on the ground with me,
Speaker 2: be in positions of power to be able to change
Speaker 2: and make laws and policy. As I see a black
Speaker 2: woman running for president and ahead in the polls, I am,
Speaker 2: I am motivated. I am motivated because I feel like
Speaker 2: things to happen, and I feel like there's things happening.
Speaker 2: Anybody who's not motivated by that as a black person,
Speaker 2: I don't know what to tell you. I don't know
Speaker 2: what your motivation is, but I know I'm motivated. I
Speaker 2: know our kids look into a room like that. They
Speaker 2: know what they can be when you hear someone like
Speaker 2: doctor Chavis and understand what he the way he paved,
Speaker 2: he talked about how his grandfather lost his life. He
Speaker 2: lost his life to teach right so that he can
Speaker 2: be where he is today right. And every generation is
Speaker 2: responsible for his own liberation. So now it's time for
Speaker 2: us to be responsible for our liberation. So I'm gonna
Speaker 2: do everything I possibly can to contribute to that. I'm
Speaker 2: gonna stand ten toes down. I'm not gonna be distracted
Speaker 2: by haters, by bots, by whoever you try to send
Speaker 2: to determ me. I'm gonna speak truth to power every time,
Speaker 2: because when you tell the truth, you don't gotta think
Speaker 2: about it. You can sleep good at night every night
Speaker 2: when you tell the truth every night. I'm gonna sleep
Speaker 2: good at night because I know I tell the truth,
Speaker 2: and I stand firm on truth and everything that I say,
Speaker 2: I believe in my heart.
Speaker 6: There's nothing that can sway me from.
Speaker 2: My beliefs unless you could tell me something that is
Speaker 2: that that conflicts that's right, unless you can tell me
Speaker 2: a truth that conflicts my truth, that tells me that
Speaker 2: the truth.
Speaker 6: That I have is wrong.
Speaker 2: I'm staying firm and I'm ten toes down on that,
Speaker 2: and with that brings me to another end. It brings
Speaker 2: me to the end of another episode of TMI. Shout
Speaker 2: out to Tamika Hope, she's having a dope panel. Shout
Speaker 2: out to doctor ben Chevis. Shout out to all of
Speaker 2: the fans. We appreciate y'all. We're gonna try to give
Speaker 2: you more content from the DNC. I'm gonna go out
Speaker 2: and see who else I can meet, who else I
Speaker 2: can interview, so that y'all can get some of this knowledge,
Speaker 2: because this black knowledge that they're trying to not put
Speaker 2: in these books is out here, and we got historians
Speaker 2: like doctor Ben Chavis, and there's so many others out here.
Speaker 2: So hopefully I'll run into some and we get some
Speaker 2: of these interviews and get you some of this information.
Speaker 2: But a twilding, I appreciate you. I'm not gonna always
Speaker 2: be right, Tamika D. Mallori is not gonna always be wrong,
Speaker 2: but we will both always and I mean always be
Speaker 2: authentic until next time.
Speaker 1: That so that, so that, so.
Speaker 6: Check out the video version.
Speaker 3: Of TMO every single Wednesday on Iwoman dot TV.
Speaker 6: That's how we