Speaker 1: The feedback from the director at that time was David o'
Speaker 1: yellowell is not Doctor King. Three years went by and
Speaker 1: it was a phone call from Nate.
Speaker 2: Have you heard of this film, Selma.
Speaker 3: I've been asked to audition, and I really think you
Speaker 3: should go up for.
Speaker 4: This the director and he had reached out through someone
Speaker 4: to me and I said, do you know David o' yellowell.
Speaker 4: I can remember him just kind of pausing, because rarely
Speaker 4: will someone be talking about a role and ask him
Speaker 4: if they know someone else, And I said, you really
Speaker 4: should be David.
Speaker 1: When I finally got the meeting, he sent me a
Speaker 1: book called nineteen sixty five, Selma, just research for the audition.
Speaker 1: I'm emotional about it because I've never experienced anything like
Speaker 1: this before.
Speaker 5: Since Hella Loves I'm Andrea Waters King. That was David o'
Speaker 5: yellowell reflecting on a pivotal moment in his journey to
Speaker 5: playing Doctor King, a moment shaped by the unwavering support
Speaker 5: of his best friend Nate Parker. And today, during Black
Speaker 5: History Month, David and Nate's story of brotherhood, faith, and
Speaker 5: breaking barriers takes on even greater meeting. It's about the
Speaker 5: power of standing together in a world that too often divides,
Speaker 5: because legacy isn't just what we accomplish, it's the people
Speaker 5: we lived up along the way. This is My Legacy,
Speaker 5: a podcast hosted by me and my husband, Martin Luther King,
Speaker 5: the oldest son of doctor Martin Luther King Junior and
Speaker 5: Coretta Scott King. Together we're caring forward their iconic legacy
Speaker 5: of equality, peace and justice. Plus we're joined by our
Speaker 5: good friends New York Times bestselling authors Mark and Craig Kilberger.
Speaker 3: Let's begin.
Speaker 6: Welcome to My Legacy Podcast, where we help you create
Speaker 6: a living legacy and live a fulfilled life. One of
Speaker 6: the things that makes this podcast special is that we
Speaker 6: don't just meet extraordinary individuals. We meet the people who
Speaker 6: know them best. These are the ones who shared their
Speaker 6: high There are loads and everything in between, giving us
Speaker 6: deeper insight and understanding into what truly shapes who they
Speaker 6: are and the legacy they want to create. David o' yellow,
Speaker 6: you brought someone remarkable with you here today, Nate Parker.
Speaker 6: Would you do us the honor of introducing him to
Speaker 6: our audience and who he is in your life?
Speaker 1: Yes, Nate is my best friend in the world. We
Speaker 1: met over a decade ago doing a film called Red
Speaker 1: Tales Together, and I found in him a kindred spirit,
Speaker 1: not just as as an actor and an artist, but
Speaker 1: also as an advocate for others, as someone who is
Speaker 1: deeply invested in community. I learnt the phrase we not
Speaker 1: me from him, and that's something he absolutely lives by.
Speaker 1: He has five kids. I have four, so he's one
Speaker 1: of the few people I know.
Speaker 2: Who beats me.
Speaker 1: The way he really beats me is that he has
Speaker 1: five daughters and I have three sons and a daughter.
Speaker 1: And my gosh, the fact that my daughter has on
Speaker 1: my heart. I just don't know how you manage it
Speaker 1: with five daughters. He's just someone I deeply admire, has
Speaker 1: been incredibly impactful in my life, and yeah, as I say,
Speaker 1: one of my favorite people on the planet.
Speaker 6: We want to get to know both of you and
Speaker 6: your relationship, but David, can we take a little bit
Speaker 6: of a step back to get to know you better? Yeah,
Speaker 6: you have a remarkable origin story, and I love the
Speaker 6: fact that, if I'm not mistaken, your last name actually
Speaker 6: means king. Yes, so I love that mister King and
Speaker 6: mister King. But what impact does that have in your
Speaker 6: sense of legacy when you can trace your roots to
Speaker 6: your grandfather, who was a tribal Nigerian king.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the full meaning of a yellow actually means a
Speaker 1: king deserves respect and it's an extraordinary thing to be
Speaker 1: born into a family. Where as you say, that is
Speaker 1: the legacy, in fact, a very touching moment for me,
Speaker 1: where you can take that for granted when it's something
Speaker 1: you've had since you were born. But Nate came to
Speaker 1: the memorial service of my mother when she had passed away,
Speaker 1: and my cousins were there, who are more like uncles.
Speaker 2: They're quite a bit older.
Speaker 1: Than me, and they were talking about the meaning of
Speaker 1: not just our last name, but our.
Speaker 2: Names in general.
Speaker 1: And Nate came up to me afterwards, very very emotional
Speaker 1: and saying, I really was impacted by what we as
Speaker 1: African Americans have lost in terms of our names, the
Speaker 1: fact that our names are not necessarily steeped in the
Speaker 1: history that or the likes of the history to which
Speaker 1: you have our names are rooted in something more painful historically.
Speaker 1: Like I say, I take my name for granted, but
Speaker 1: there is something about the disposition you walk in knowing
Speaker 1: that your grandfather was a king and I lived in
Speaker 1: Nigeria from the age of six to thirteen, and I
Speaker 1: lived in a society, in a culture, in a country
Speaker 1: where I was part of the majority, not the minority,
Speaker 1: and that had an enormous impact on me. When I
Speaker 1: then returned to the UK age thirteen and now living
Speaker 1: in America for the last seventeen years, something that happened
Speaker 1: for me which was a real blessing. Between the age
Speaker 1: of six and thirteen, when I lived in Nigeria, what
Speaker 1: was eroded in me was a minority mentality, and that
Speaker 1: meant that no matter the environment I go in, I
Speaker 1: don't see myself as a minority, regardless of whether that
Speaker 1: is one of the definitions that is attributed to me.
Speaker 1: I walk in in the center of my own life.
Speaker 1: I apply that to the stories I want to tell
Speaker 1: and how I choose to live my life. And so
Speaker 1: that was really formative for me. Only my name where
Speaker 1: I'm from, but having a time of living there and
Speaker 1: then being able to apply that, you know, as I
Speaker 1: move forward in my life.
Speaker 5: Well, it's interesting because I can also see a connection
Speaker 5: with that and with Martin's father because the name and
Speaker 5: taking the power back of your name, because most people
Speaker 5: don't know that Martin Luther King Junior was born Michael
Speaker 5: Michael King, and that his father, his grandfather, was so
Speaker 5: inspired by the German reformer Martin Luther, that well, I
Speaker 5: don't want to tell your story, Honey.
Speaker 4: You're doing a good job.
Speaker 5: Can I keep that on loose?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 7: My grandfather changed his name at about thirty maybe he
Speaker 7: was thirty five and Dad was six or seven. So
Speaker 7: he came back from Germany after an experience and seeing
Speaker 7: the influence of Martin Luther, and he just came back
Speaker 7: to Atlanta said I'm no longer Michael, I'm Martin Luther King,
Speaker 7: a senior, and my son is going to be Martin
Speaker 7: Luther King Jr. So you think about the fact that
Speaker 7: all of that says something about who my grandfather was
Speaker 7: and indirectly impacting who my father became. So Martin Luther
Speaker 7: King Junior saw injustice like all of us did. But
Speaker 7: he saw his father stand up against a system that
Speaker 7: was in just and say we're not going to tolerate that.
Speaker 7: And so it prepared Dad for in existence to constantly
Speaker 7: challenge a system to become right. The system we all
Speaker 7: knew was wrong. But what do you do about it?
Speaker 7: You can choose an I want expecific example going into
Speaker 7: a department store in the front door where everyone would
Speaker 7: come to buy shoes, and Dad took his sons in,
Speaker 7: and the clerks had looked, Reverend King, if you could
Speaker 7: come in the back, we'll be happy to serve you.
Speaker 7: My grandfather grabbed his sons and he said, if we
Speaker 7: cannot buy shoes and come in and be treated with
Speaker 7: dignity and respect, we will not shop here. And I'm
Speaker 7: going to tell my three thousand members not to come here.
Speaker 7: So Dad, seeing this at a young age was one
Speaker 7: of the many examples that he saw that helped him
Speaker 7: ultimately become a change maker.
Speaker 5: And you have to understand too, even more so like
Speaker 5: the power of the Black Church. So you were the
Speaker 5: minister of one of the largest congregations. You're not going
Speaker 5: to refer to me this way anymore. This is who
Speaker 5: I am, and all of you all must refer to
Speaker 5: me now as Martin Luther. And not only that, you
Speaker 5: know my son is now. Can you imagine going back
Speaker 5: to school and telling his teachers I'm no longer Myael.
Speaker 5: You know, you know I'm Martin Luther. You know just
Speaker 5: that power. And I'm also curious what type of is
Speaker 5: there are any childhood experiences from both of you all
Speaker 5: that have really impacted legacy and how you view legacy
Speaker 5: and what you all are sharing with your kids and
Speaker 5: how you've moved.
Speaker 3: Forward with that.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, I would say the thing that has
Speaker 1: been said here just now that really comes home to
Speaker 1: me is you cannot be what you cannot see. And
Speaker 1: you know, for your grandfather to decide that I recognize
Speaker 1: my position in this community, and I am going to
Speaker 1: redefine how I am seen based on the legacy of
Speaker 1: someone else who is more in line with the legacy
Speaker 1: I want to have, and then that goes on to
Speaker 1: be the legacy of your dad and then you and
Speaker 1: then we all know what that has meant for the world.
Speaker 1: Tied to Martin Luther, the original who was the inspiration
Speaker 1: for the change of the name, I think that in
Speaker 1: and of itself really demonstrates not only the power of
Speaker 1: a name, but the power of intention. A lot has
Speaker 1: been done to try and break people by changing the
Speaker 1: definition of who they are, whether it be their name
Speaker 1: or racial epithets that are used, or just ways of
Speaker 1: recalibrating how they should see themselves and the people who
Speaker 1: do that know that there is power in doing that,
Speaker 1: power in denigrating a people, whether it be how they
Speaker 1: are referred to as a group or their names in particular.
Speaker 1: And so to see your grandfather do that and for
Speaker 1: it to go on to have such incredible impact, just
Speaker 1: that change from Michael to Martin, there's not much difference
Speaker 1: when you look at those names, but the origin of
Speaker 1: the name, the reason for changing the name, and then
Speaker 1: the legacy of the name. It goes to your spirit,
Speaker 1: It goes to your mindset, and it gives you a
Speaker 1: fuel and an engine that you towards wanting to ascend
Speaker 1: to the power of that name. So that's why I
Speaker 1: talk about you cannot be what you cannot see once
Speaker 1: you've seen it, once you have been able to redefine
Speaker 1: the nature of what it is you are here to do.
Speaker 1: And what also I was so inspired by is your
Speaker 1: grandfather talking about you will not have access to my
Speaker 1: three thousand strong congregation if you do not choose to
Speaker 1: refer to us or treat us in a rightful way.
Speaker 2: That's power.
Speaker 1: So it's a recognition of who you are and the
Speaker 1: power you actually have, and the combination of those two
Speaker 1: things are incredibly impactful. And so to your question about
Speaker 1: a childhood memory, you know, I go back to living
Speaker 1: in a country for a time where every opportunity on
Speaker 1: offer was mine for the taking, and how different that
Speaker 1: is than when you then are living in a country where,
Speaker 1: by definition, by example, in reality, and by perception, that
Speaker 1: is not necessarily the case. And I call it the
Speaker 1: Sydney Poitier syndrome. There is a reason why he had
Speaker 1: the kind of outsized success here in America that even
Speaker 1: today we as black actors, are trying to get to.
Speaker 1: It's because he grew up in an environment as a
Speaker 1: child that didn't have the same pressures as it pertains
Speaker 1: to the redefinition of him. He grew up in the Bahamas.
Speaker 1: He grew up in a place where he was part
Speaker 1: of the majority, and so he also didn't have that
Speaker 1: minority mentality. So by the time he came to America
Speaker 1: and people were constantly trying to deny him opportunities, he
Speaker 1: sort of had an attitude of I don't understand why
Speaker 1: you do that. I'm going to continue to walk in
Speaker 1: my truth. And that truth. You know, there's a saying
Speaker 1: people treat your home the way you treat it he
Speaker 1: treated himself the way he expected other people to treat him,
Speaker 1: and that meant that doors opened for him differently, I think,
Speaker 1: And so that childhood he had, I think helped him
Speaker 1: move through the world in a certain way. Mine certainly
Speaker 1: did as well.
Speaker 6: Stay with us as David and Nate share more of
Speaker 6: this powerful journey and inspiring friendship. We're back with David
Speaker 6: oh Yelo and his best friend Nate Parker on the
Speaker 6: My Legacy podcast.
Speaker 1: And so much of my friendship with Nate has been
Speaker 1: really looking at who we are as men, as black men,
Speaker 1: considering the platform we've been afforded. Not unlike your grandfather
Speaker 1: with that three thousand congregation, we have an audience who
Speaker 1: are invested.
Speaker 2: In the things we may.
Speaker 1: You know, I fought seven years to get the privilege
Speaker 1: to pay your play your father. I watched Nate fight
Speaker 1: so hard to get the story of Nat Turner told.
Speaker 1: And one of the extraordinary things that happen is I
Speaker 1: desperately wanted him to be in Selma, and I remember
Speaker 1: calling him up, and I think it was the part
Speaker 1: of John Lewis that I was actually quite keen for
Speaker 1: him to play. And he said, David, I've made a
Speaker 1: vow to myself that I'm not going to be on
Speaker 1: another set unless it is to make Birth of a Nation.
Speaker 1: And even though we were best friends and I was
Speaker 1: reaching out to him to say, look, come have a
Speaker 1: good old time making this film with me, I deeply
Speaker 1: admired his conviction to be like, no, this is one
Speaker 1: of the things I've been put here on the planet
Speaker 1: to do. And he stuck with it, and that was
Speaker 1: I can't remember the years long. I know is many
Speaker 1: years a long journey for that to come to fruition,
Speaker 1: but that conviction is just so inspiring to me.
Speaker 8: Thank you tell us about that. And I know you're
Speaker 8: asked about legacy and what that means to you in
Speaker 8: terms of your childhood, but that was an incredible story.
Speaker 8: How do you feel about hearing that and how do
Speaker 8: you share that with our audience?
Speaker 4: Well, I'll try to speak speak to all of it.
Speaker 4: I think we underestimate as a people programming language. I
Speaker 4: have a you know, a computer technology background before I
Speaker 4: became an artist. A lot of people don't know that
Speaker 4: about me, but I remember having a professor and he said,
Speaker 4: you know, a program will only do what it's coded
Speaker 4: to do, no matter what you tell it to do,
Speaker 4: it will only do what the code says. So if
Speaker 4: a program didn't work and we came to it's not working,
Speaker 4: so we'll check the code. But it's right. Well, if
Speaker 4: it's right, then it will perform. It will execute, and
Speaker 4: if it doesn't, there's something in the code. So we
Speaker 4: think about our behavior as a people, specifically people who
Speaker 4: are of the legacy, legacy of the enslaved in this
Speaker 4: country so much, and this speaks to being brought up.
Speaker 4: I was in Norfolk, Virginia, so so much of what
Speaker 4: I desired to do with my life, what I wanted
Speaker 4: to do, what how I deemed success as a man,
Speaker 4: as a black man, as a as someone who was
Speaker 4: you know, a part of my family name. Very little
Speaker 4: of it, as I look now at forty five years old,
Speaker 4: was healthy. You know where I come from. Your goal
Speaker 4: is to get the money, no matter what, just don't
Speaker 4: be poor. Escape, you know. So when you have an
Speaker 4: entire community and their goals are set on escaping rather
Speaker 4: than renovating or changing or improving, then problems will follow.
Speaker 4: We're speaking from from you know, degradation, speaking from what
Speaker 4: we've been told about ourselves. But it's a we're speaking
Speaker 4: from teachers who tell us. I remember teacher sitting me
Speaker 4: down saying you're gifted. You can get out of here,
Speaker 4: literally looking in my eyes, telling me I could escape
Speaker 4: from those around me if I just kept working hard enough.
Speaker 4: And so all of a sudden, you look around identifying
Speaker 4: your peers as problems, as people you do not want
Speaker 4: to be around. So then when you escape, you celebrate
Speaker 4: yourself as someone who escaped, and then you speak to
Speaker 4: the fact that you've escaped. We hear it in all
Speaker 4: the conversations I got out. I made it out. In
Speaker 4: northern Virginia, there is no pro team, so there was
Speaker 4: no aspiration to be a football player. There's no aspiration
Speaker 4: to be a basketball player. You will either be in
Speaker 4: the military and be in the naval shipyard, or you
Speaker 4: will sell drugs, or you will in some other way
Speaker 4: fall by the wayside or be in service forever. And
Speaker 4: so my upbringing was not so different than many that
Speaker 4: come from the South. So and I say that as
Speaker 4: a contrast to being able to walk in the room
Speaker 4: and say this is my room, we would walk into
Speaker 4: the room and say, if only I can get away
Speaker 4: from them, I may be able to shine in a
Speaker 4: way that I could have a success where I could
Speaker 4: have a position in this country that programming language without
Speaker 4: being able to go to Germany in getting a new
Speaker 4: line of code or somewhere else. You're kind of destined
Speaker 4: to be to live at the ceiling that has been
Speaker 4: designed for you. And it wasn't till even though I
Speaker 4: went to college that I learned about that Turner, which
Speaker 4: is why it became my obsession. Any room I came
Speaker 4: into and they say, well, who's your hero before they
Speaker 4: could finish, I'd say that Turner one, because I was
Speaker 4: so inspired by the sacrifice, because I think that is
Speaker 4: a theme that I'm sure we'll touch on. But also
Speaker 4: I was so enraged by the fact that in all
Speaker 4: of my schooling in Norfolk, Virginia, thirty five miles from
Speaker 4: Southampton County, I never heard of the man only in whispers,
Speaker 4: in ways that it was clipped before it could make
Speaker 4: it all the way out of the mouth of the
Speaker 4: person who's saying it. And that is problematic. So when
Speaker 4: I left and learned, my goal was not to escape anymore,
Speaker 4: but to come back with that story to remind people
Speaker 4: that there was another side to that. There was someone
Speaker 4: that said we will not tolerate this behavior. We were
Speaker 4: put here by the God that we're looking up to,
Speaker 4: who created the heavens and earth, that has a purpose
Speaker 4: for us. That is not to be your mule, that
Speaker 4: is not to be your animal. And so that became
Speaker 4: my mission, which is why I switched very quickly away
Speaker 4: from a computer. I didn't want to be an engineer.
Speaker 4: I ended up being an actor because I said, you know,
Speaker 4: I always asked. I asked David this, and I asked friends,
Speaker 4: you know who has had more impact on medicine, Ben
Speaker 4: Carson or you know a guy from Er.
Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
Speaker 4: The reality is more people went to medical school from
Speaker 4: Mere than Ben Carson. Ben Carson is a genius. The
Speaker 4: power of storytelling is so evident. But the storytelling is
Speaker 4: just programming. We're teaching people how to be. If you
Speaker 4: don't see it, you can't be it. So, you know,
Speaker 4: to answer your question. Growing up in Virginia, the programming
Speaker 4: language was very clear on what I would be able
Speaker 4: to achieve. But it took me leaving. You know, college
Speaker 4: was my Germany to get what I needed to do come
Speaker 4: back and to change the people that were around me
Speaker 4: and to change my mindset on the art of the possible.
Speaker 4: When it came to came to people who look like
Speaker 4: me now for natur for telling that story, I had
Speaker 4: to make a decision, you know, Paul Robison said, the
Speaker 4: artists much must decide whether he will fight for freedom
Speaker 4: of bondage. I've made my decision, and it was so
Speaker 4: inspiring to me that I said I need to. There's
Speaker 4: there's only far, so far.
Speaker 2: You can go.
Speaker 4: Holding out in your hand what someone else has made
Speaker 4: for you before you drop that and decide who you're
Speaker 4: going to be. And I said, I've made my choice.
Speaker 4: And so when he called me, I don't know. I
Speaker 4: don't know if I have enough time in this podcast
Speaker 4: to explain to you all what this man means to
Speaker 4: me as a brother and friend.
Speaker 5: I love love stories, and I love love stories in
Speaker 5: all different formats, and I think it's so powerful and
Speaker 5: wonderful for us to present a love story of black men.
Speaker 5: I think that.
Speaker 2: Is in any ways awkward.
Speaker 4: Yes, So you know, when he asked me, I always
Speaker 4: tell I told this. I said, there's nothing you'll ask
Speaker 4: me to do that I won't do, So be careful if.
Speaker 2: You tell me to show up.
Speaker 4: Something's happened and we need to you know whatever, we
Speaker 4: need to build a wall to cover the I'm showing up.
Speaker 4: He means that much to me as a brother and friend.
Speaker 2: So when he says, hey.
Speaker 4: We're gonna go and do this, We're going or we're
Speaker 4: gonna do it, I'm showing up because from a spiritual standpoint,
Speaker 4: you know, I laid my life down for this man,
Speaker 4: and I know he'd do it for me. So when
Speaker 4: he called and asked me, you gave me the opportunity
Speaker 4: to say, would you come and be in this film?
Speaker 4: It was a I've never had to tell this brother, No,
Speaker 4: it's my brother, I said, you know as much. I
Speaker 4: remember where I was. You were in costume me and
Speaker 4: you were right next to Sharon. I remember like it
Speaker 4: was yesterday. I was in New York City, I was
Speaker 4: in I think that I was in downtown. I forget
Speaker 4: the name of the hotel, and I remember my heart
Speaker 4: hurting because I had to stand on my you know,
Speaker 4: to my best friend. I said that, I told myself, brother,
Speaker 4: the next skin I live in will be that turner.
Speaker 4: I will never work again, and if it's the last
Speaker 4: movie I do, I will know that I've done the
Speaker 4: thing that God has called me here to do, and
Speaker 4: he never questioned it again. He was like, okay, and
Speaker 4: you know, we pray a lot. And you know, I
Speaker 4: think the core of our you know, our love story
Speaker 4: as brothers is our faith. It's not our careers, and
Speaker 4: it's not even first our people, you know, because I
Speaker 4: think that the faith element has just been lost in
Speaker 4: many ways. We pray a lot together. I think that
Speaker 4: that has been the thing, the common thread through how
Speaker 4: we see the world as brothers, how we see our
Speaker 4: purpose as artists, how we see ourselves as fathers to
Speaker 4: our children, how we see ourselves as entertainers in public spaces.
Speaker 4: It all goes back down to, you know, what have
Speaker 4: we been called to do? And will we be obedient
Speaker 4: to that thing.
Speaker 1: But the thing that also made it easier for me
Speaker 1: to accept the know from Nate is that, you know,
Speaker 1: in two thousand and seven, not long after I had
Speaker 1: moved to the States, the script for Selma hit the
Speaker 1: doormat and I was in a time of praying and
Speaker 1: fasting at the time, and I very clearly heard the
Speaker 1: Lord tell me you are going to play doctor King
Speaker 1: in this film. I wrote it in my prayer diary
Speaker 1: on that day because it was such a bizarre notion.
Speaker 1: I had not played anything akin to this before. I
Speaker 1: was a British actor newly moved to the States, in
Speaker 1: an apartment in Studio City in La This was a
Speaker 1: crazy notion, but I do know the voice of God
Speaker 1: and I ended up auditioning at that time for the film.
Speaker 1: The feedback from the director at that time was David
Speaker 1: o'yellowo is not Doctor King. That was the feedback I gotten.
Speaker 1: I thought, oh, maybe I didn't hear God as I
Speaker 1: thought I did, so I let that slide. Three years
Speaker 1: went by and it was a phone call from Nate.
Speaker 1: He called me up and said, have you heard of
Speaker 1: this film?
Speaker 2: Selma? Uh, They're they're auditioning.
Speaker 3: Uh guy, guys for you know.
Speaker 1: I've been asked to audition and and he he, I said,
Speaker 1: I really think you should go up for this.
Speaker 2: I was like, I know that film, and.
Speaker 1: I don't even know if I said to you on
Speaker 1: the phone that God told me I was gonna.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna, I'm gonna. I'm gonna jump in and tell
Speaker 4: a part of the story as well. So and I'd
Speaker 4: love for you, David after to kind of come behind
Speaker 4: with kind of the crisis we're dealing with in our
Speaker 4: industry when it comes to there can only be one
Speaker 4: because we've really bonded on this idea that what is
Speaker 4: for us is for us, you know. So I was
Speaker 4: talking to the den who had the control of the
Speaker 4: rights the director, and he had reached out through someone
Speaker 4: to me, and so we were in this back and
Speaker 4: forth about like the early stages of you know, the
Speaker 4: story and how this person.
Speaker 2: Wanted to tell the story.
Speaker 4: But I remembered that, you know, in our conversation had
Speaker 4: it come up, and I said, do you know David
Speaker 4: or Yellowell? And I can remember him just kind of
Speaker 4: pausing because rarely will someone be talking about a role
Speaker 4: and ask him if they know someone else.
Speaker 2: But it was just on my.
Speaker 4: Spere, do you know David Dover yellow He's an extraordinary brother.
Speaker 2: You should meet him.
Speaker 4: And so I've reached out to David and I said, hey,
Speaker 4: you know, we talked about doctor King and you were like, yeah,
Speaker 4: it was just this weird and I said, they're you know,
Speaker 4: they're having it and it wasn't wide auditions. It wasn't
Speaker 4: like they're seeing everyone, and so David needs to get
Speaker 4: in line. It was very, very selective auditions and for
Speaker 4: what I'd understand, it only been like a couple of people.
Speaker 4: And I said, you really should meet David and called
Speaker 4: David and connected them. Wow, and I guess you can
Speaker 4: speak on the story, not me that.
Speaker 2: But when you.
Speaker 1: When I finally got the meeting, he sent me a
Speaker 1: book called nineteen sixty five Selma and it's just you know,
Speaker 1: just research for for the audition. I'm emotional about it
Speaker 1: because I've never experienced anything like this before or since.
Speaker 1: When you are from a community that is rooted in scarcity.
Speaker 1: Nate talked about programming. You are programmed to self survive,
Speaker 1: to hold on to your piece of the pie, to
Speaker 1: crabs in a barrel, the whole situation.
Speaker 2: So for him to reach.
Speaker 1: Out to me in that way at that time was
Speaker 1: truly profound and exemplary for me. And to cut a
Speaker 1: very long story short, I obviously went on to get
Speaker 1: the role, but I will never forget the fact that
Speaker 1: something that I felt the Lord Ha told me I
Speaker 1: would do came back around through a friend saying, Wow,
Speaker 1: you must go up for this, and him recommending me
Speaker 1: like this is a brilliant actor. You know, anyone who
Speaker 1: sees him as an turner in Birth of a Nation.
Speaker 1: I remember him inviting me to a screening of the film.
Speaker 1: I saw the film, and I had to go and
Speaker 1: see it again the very next day because I couldn't
Speaker 1: quite understand not only the profundity of what I had
Speaker 1: just seen, but how he had pulled it off. He
Speaker 1: had written it, he had produced it, he had directed it,
Speaker 1: and he was starring in it. And the performance in
Speaker 1: and of itself was that extraordinary, let alone all these
Speaker 1: other hats he was wearing doing it. So this isn't
Speaker 1: like a guy who's like, oh, I don't think I
Speaker 1: could play doctor again.
Speaker 2: You you know, this is not that.
Speaker 3: This is just someone who that's his heart.
Speaker 1: And that's why I go back to what I said
Speaker 1: earlier about we not me, And so you know, that
Speaker 1: was just such a profound moment that led on to
Speaker 1: what has been the profound moments in my career thus far.
Speaker 1: So when I called him and said, do you want
Speaker 1: to come be part of anyone? I have to go
Speaker 1: do this thing, I understood what that is because someone
Speaker 1: was that for me and I wanted to support him
Speaker 1: in that.
Speaker 2: I felt some kind of way for a second, but.
Speaker 1: But you know, considering what he had already done for me.
Speaker 2: I knew the spirit from which.
Speaker 1: He was operating in and that that of you know,
Speaker 1: and that has been I think. I think great relationships,
Speaker 1: great love stories, have these these cornerstone moments, and then
Speaker 1: that was just a massive cornerstone moment for us.
Speaker 6: You're listening to My Legacy, Stay tuned as we dive
Speaker 6: even deeper with David and Nadan too this inspiring journey
Speaker 6: and friendship. We're back with David oh Yello and his
Speaker 6: best friend Nate Parker on the My Legacy podcast.
Speaker 7: In line of the fact that you've known David for
Speaker 7: over a decade, certainly as a friend and a creative partner,
Speaker 7: how do you see his upbringing influencing him.
Speaker 4: David very much recognizes he is a part of a
Speaker 4: tapestry or a blanket that only exists as a sum
Speaker 4: of its parts. If you've ever if anyone has ever
Speaker 4: had the opportunity to see David in the presence of
Speaker 4: his mother or in the presence of his father, they
Speaker 4: will know exactly the type of stuff he's made of.
Speaker 4: The integrity, the love, the care, the compassion. He is,
Speaker 4: in my opinion, the definition of a man from what
Speaker 4: from every example for better and words that I've had
Speaker 4: as a measuring stick growing up in this skin. So
Speaker 4: I think his upbringing, I would say, is less about
Speaker 4: the lessons learned in this way, but more about his
Speaker 4: understanding of how he fits within the clay of the Yellow,
Speaker 4: a yellow old clan. And that is something I have
Speaker 4: really taken into my family.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: I want my family to know how I see us
Speaker 4: from a thirty thousand foot view, how I see us
Speaker 4: thirty thousand years from now, and how I feel about
Speaker 4: us being the origin story of the world as black
Speaker 4: people all those years ago. I don't think we have
Speaker 4: the luxury to walk through life with each one teach
Speaker 4: one perspective.
Speaker 2: We just don't.
Speaker 4: We matter in different ways as your father continues to matter.
Speaker 4: On what would have been his one hundredth birthday, I'm
Speaker 4: not sure we're celebrating him just because he was bold
Speaker 4: enough to do the things that he did. I think
Speaker 4: we're celebrating him because he was obedient enough to challenge
Speaker 4: constructs that are forever changed. And I see that in David,
Speaker 4: and it's only ironic because he played the man who
Speaker 4: lived it in a different way. But who else but
Speaker 4: David as someone who lives that even separate in his
Speaker 4: own legacy. So I think it's something that is inspiring.
Speaker 4: And I, you know, I often call myself as me
Speaker 4: as little brother, he calls me. You know, we don't
Speaker 4: say that often because we don't really allude to hierarchy.
Speaker 4: But the reality is he's a little older, a little wiser,
Speaker 4: and I call him about things that are sometimes even smaller.
Speaker 4: You know, I'm changing the living room.
Speaker 2: What should I.
Speaker 4: Because I respect his process. He is someone who consults
Speaker 4: God before he consults his ego, you know, And I
Speaker 4: don't say I say that to say it's God then
Speaker 4: everything else. That's how he shows up as a father,
Speaker 4: That's how he shows up as a friend, That's how
Speaker 4: he shows up as a colleague. You can best believe
Speaker 4: what you get from this man is going to be
Speaker 4: rooted in prayer rather than in some type of selfish direction.
Speaker 4: And you can't say that about everyone. And I know
Speaker 4: it's hard for him. He's probably squirming as I continue,
Speaker 4: but I think it needs to be said. You know,
Speaker 4: as we talk about what does it take for a
Speaker 4: man to be able to publicly say I love this man,
Speaker 4: I give my life for him, and it not be
Speaker 4: a diety, not be God or not be I think
Speaker 4: it's seeing in that person qualities that you hope your
Speaker 4: children's children have, and so, you know, I think that's
Speaker 4: the that's the highest quality of a compliment I can
Speaker 4: give to a person. And I don't know if I've
Speaker 4: said this, you know, in this type of setting, I'm
Speaker 4: very private, you know, as David will tell you. But
Speaker 4: when he says will you please show up? I say, brother,
Speaker 4: I'm here.
Speaker 2: So this time this is something else, like another movie after.
Speaker 5: I'm very curious. What was the most intimidating part of
Speaker 5: taking on the role of Martin Luther King Jr.
Speaker 2: How long do you have?
Speaker 1: I mean, the estimation in which he is held by
Speaker 1: so many was the thing that was so intimidating. And
Speaker 1: because at the end of the day, I don't care
Speaker 1: who you are. I don't think anyone in their right
Speaker 1: mind feels worthy.
Speaker 2: Of playing doctor King.
Speaker 1: All I knew is that I had to do as
Speaker 1: much work as humanly possible, and my prayer was that
Speaker 1: God and your Father would flow through me in a
Speaker 1: way that I couldn't control. So the most difficult thing
Speaker 1: about playing your Father was trusting that that would happen,
Speaker 1: because when he was giving those speeches, anyone who has
Speaker 1: eyes to see will know he is moving in an
Speaker 1: anointing that is otherworldly.
Speaker 2: It is not just.
Speaker 1: Intellectual or cerebral. He is speaking into time immemorial. The
Speaker 1: speeches are timeless, the spirit from which he's talking is timeless.
Speaker 1: I literally was at lunch with someone yesterday who was
Speaker 1: talking about listening to a speech of your father's, and
Speaker 1: he started crying. And there is a profundity to those words.
Speaker 1: That means it's not about acting, it's about being an
Speaker 1: instrument of service. So this wasn't like an acting exercise.
Speaker 1: It was like a channeling thing, and you were.
Speaker 8: In character for like three months. If I'm not mistaken
Speaker 8: it or maybe you can help explain that to our audience, like,
Speaker 8: how did you channel that for such a long period
Speaker 8: of time.
Speaker 1: Well, there were practical reasons and there were spiritual reasons
Speaker 1: for that. The practical reasons is that we're shooting in Atlanta,
Speaker 1: which is where he is from. I'm giving speeches to
Speaker 1: people who had marched with him, who had heard his sermons,
Speaker 1: who knew him personally.
Speaker 3: If I walked in with this accent saying Hello, I'm David.
Speaker 2: I'm going to be playing Doctor King.
Speaker 1: I mean, like instantaneously, the confidence levels of everyone around us,
Speaker 1: it goes way down. So I felt I had to
Speaker 1: stay not only in the accent, but in the sort
Speaker 1: of hemisphere of him for the shoot.
Speaker 2: But like, this thing I'm.
Speaker 1: Talking about was very real for me, Like when I
Speaker 1: watched the film. Now we're literally about to celebrate the
Speaker 1: tenth anniversary of the film, and I've seen the film
Speaker 1: of you know, MLK Day. The film comes on and
Speaker 1: I watch it, and I don't recognize myself because I
Speaker 1: I can see that something was was was being channeled
Speaker 1: through me. That is is not something I'm walking in
Speaker 1: right now. But you know, it was tricky from my wife.
Speaker 1: She you know, we were we moved house at the time,
Speaker 1: and I remember once her calling me about which color
Speaker 1: curtains we should have, and.
Speaker 2: What did Doctor King say.
Speaker 1: Doctor King is on the phone talking about whether they
Speaker 1: should be gray or brown, and she was like, okay,
Speaker 1: just stop, stop, stop.
Speaker 2: I cannot be talking curtains with Doctor King.
Speaker 1: We're gonna We're gonna pick this up after the shoots,
Speaker 1: you know. But but it was it was the price
Speaker 1: of playing that role. And I was fortunate enough to
Speaker 1: be in Lincoln that Daniel d Lewis played Abraham Lincoln.
Speaker 1: And I was fortunate enough to be in the film
Speaker 1: Asking of Scotland, where Forrest Whitzaker played idiot I mean,
Speaker 1: and I watched those two gentlemen pay the price for
Speaker 1: playing those kind of roles. And it's not just an act.
Speaker 1: You got to stay in it. And I got my
Speaker 1: lesson of how to do this by watching them, through prayer,
Speaker 1: through just being in Atlanta, being in that hemisphere. It
Speaker 1: was a truly profound experience. And I know I will
Speaker 1: not get to do anything like that ever.
Speaker 2: Again.
Speaker 7: What was the greatest piece of advice that anyone might
Speaker 7: have given you that you felt this is the most
Speaker 7: appropriate piece of advice that I embraced so that I
Speaker 7: could personify what I was attempting to do.
Speaker 1: The thing that It wasn't a piece of advice. It
Speaker 1: was a piece of footage I saw, and I only
Speaker 1: saw it once. So much of the footage of your
Speaker 1: father is him giving speeches or being interviewed by the press.
Speaker 1: The camera is on, and so therefore to a certain extent,
Speaker 1: he is on. There was one piece of footage I
Speaker 1: only saw it once and I could never find it again.
Speaker 1: It was him in a corridor. The camera is coming
Speaker 1: towards him, and he stood there on his own, and
Speaker 1: he doesn't know the camera is on yet, the camera
Speaker 1: is moving towards him, and his demeanor was so different
Speaker 1: from what I saw in speeches and press interviews. He
Speaker 1: was entirely human. And I know that sounds like an
Speaker 1: odd thing to say, but he just seemed like a
Speaker 1: human being as opposed to an icon or a hero
Speaker 1: or all of those things that we have transposed onto
Speaker 1: him or that he stepped into when he was giving
Speaker 1: speeches or talking to the press or meeting people, whether
Speaker 1: it be the sanitary workers or whatever it was. And
Speaker 1: I saw a man who he hit. His head was down,
Speaker 1: he was being thoughtful, he was sort of swaying a
Speaker 1: little bit. The camera was moving towards him, and then
Speaker 1: suddenly a light came on in order for him to
Speaker 1: be more visible, and I saw him click into something
Speaker 1: in order to present something to the camera. And we
Speaker 1: all do that, We all do that, And in that moment,
Speaker 1: I got what I needed to be able to show
Speaker 1: the man behind the iconography, the man who was reluctant
Speaker 1: at times to lead the man who when I spoke
Speaker 1: to several people, the fact that you and your siblings
Speaker 1: and your mother's lives were at threat every single day
Speaker 1: of his service, those thirteen years of his service, meant
Speaker 1: that when he was away from you, guys, your lives
Speaker 1: were under threat, and he, as a father, had to
Speaker 1: carry that. So when the camera isn't on, that's what
Speaker 1: he's thinking about. The price on the ones I love
Speaker 1: the most is incredibly high. And so it wasn't a
Speaker 1: piece of advice. It was that piece of footage because
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, if I just was
Speaker 1: good at the speeches or good at what people had
Speaker 1: already seen, that's not revelatory.
Speaker 2: Of who he was.
Speaker 1: You have to be seeing something of the human being.
Speaker 1: Otherwise go watch a documentary. And so that was a
Speaker 1: real gift to me. And it was literally a few
Speaker 1: seconds of footage I only saw once and never again.
Speaker 5: And I think that's the price, which we don't talk
Speaker 5: about that often. That not only for Martin and his
Speaker 5: siblings and his mother, but even when I even think
Speaker 5: about to our daughter, right because our daughter is the
Speaker 5: only grandchild of Martin Luther King Junior and Coreta Scott King,
Speaker 5: and you know we grew up, you know, well when
Speaker 5: we grew up and there wasn't grandparents Day. You know,
Speaker 5: now when our children grow, you know's grandparents Day at
Speaker 5: school and all day you know, all the grandparents come
Speaker 5: out if you're you know, and the fact that her
Speaker 5: grandfather was never there, so even she understands the price
Speaker 5: that was paid. You know, she there is when we
Speaker 5: go to the King Memorial, there's this nook and when
Speaker 5: she was really little, she would always want to climb
Speaker 5: and sit on this nook. And I thought it was, oh,
Speaker 5: that's just a cute picture, but she said, she's like,
Speaker 5: this is the closest that I ever have to sit
Speaker 5: in my grandfather's lap. And it was at that moment,
Speaker 5: you know, at eight, that I realized that even for her,
Speaker 5: that there was that you know, that there was an
Speaker 5: aching and that you know, the price that was paid
Speaker 5: that even through generations, we still feel. And I'm really
Speaker 5: curious though, because when you're playing someone like Martin Luther
Speaker 5: King Jr. There are you know, there's you know, recordings
Speaker 5: and footage and video and speeches. You didn't have that
Speaker 5: with Nat Turner, So how did you conjure up without
Speaker 5: any of that embody in such a significant and powerful way.
Speaker 4: It's a really great question. And you asked the question
Speaker 4: a little while ago that we didn't get to about faith.
Speaker 4: And it's not lost on me or you that we
Speaker 4: both has happened to play men who are preachers. Nat Turner,
Speaker 4: in my opinion, with someone who was seeking to hold
Speaker 4: not just those around him accountable who were responsible for
Speaker 4: his circumstance, but God to his word that was written.
Speaker 4: And so I approached it from the standpoint of, you know,
Speaker 4: if God's word is true, if we have been positioned
Speaker 4: here as those who are the image of God, then
Speaker 4: how are we being treated as chattel? You know some
Speaker 4: of the things in the film that people don't recognize
Speaker 4: as often as you know, Not Turner prayed for signs
Speaker 4: and saw signs. You know on record he prayed said,
Speaker 4: you know, if I am to stand against this, I
Speaker 4: mean we were able to get the couple things happened
Speaker 4: from that film. We were able to get the Bible
Speaker 4: that he held in his hand, he kept in his
Speaker 4: pocket as he fought put in the Smithsonian. We were
Speaker 4: able to get his only remains, his skull, which was
Speaker 4: sawed at the top with the inscription of the people
Speaker 4: who cut his head off because they wanted to examine
Speaker 4: his brain for the disease that made him rebel. It
Speaker 4: was sitting on a professor's bookshelf at a college that
Speaker 4: I'm not going to name, and we were able to
Speaker 4: work with National Geographic get that back, get it to
Speaker 4: the family, and they were able to lay his remains
Speaker 4: to rest. So the approach, as you said, I didn't
Speaker 4: have anything other than you know where he marked in
Speaker 4: the Bible in Revelation, you know, cutting the head from
Speaker 4: the serpent. You know, like, at some point, if God
Speaker 4: is who he says he is, and we are who
Speaker 4: we say we are, we need to move without fear.
Speaker 4: And that is the thing when we talk about the
Speaker 4: legacy of doctor King, even in the space as we're
Speaker 4: talking about that human moment, thinking about his family, he
Speaker 4: did it anyway. And that's the thing that I still
Speaker 4: grapple with. To walk into sure death, sure pain, to
Speaker 4: leave your grandchildren without a grandfather, to know that that
Speaker 4: will be your demise, and to do it anyway is
Speaker 4: something that all of us don't.
Speaker 2: Have in us.
Speaker 4: I'm an actor, you know, I have five daughters. I'm
Speaker 4: not sure I'm walking out the door down there to
Speaker 4: the left. I know walking out there will separate me
Speaker 4: from my family while at the same time liberating people
Speaker 4: that I won't be here to see liberated. Call me selfish,
Speaker 4: but these men were really courageous. So I tried to
Speaker 4: take the approach of what the sacrifice in the name
Speaker 4: of God was rather than the kind of the details
Speaker 4: of Innitia that I did not know. And I think
Speaker 4: that is the thing that guided me, and that was
Speaker 4: the thing that made it very difficult, you know, on
Speaker 4: the days in between action and cut was the stakes.
Speaker 4: You know, I don't know if you want to speak
Speaker 4: to that, but there's the fear that you're all constantly
Speaker 4: beating back. If I do this wrong, then that is
Speaker 4: the thing that is studied forever.
Speaker 1: And also just the recognition. The thing I came away
Speaker 1: from playing your father was object indisputable recognition that I.
Speaker 2: I am not made of what he was made of. Yeh.
Speaker 1: To Nate's point, know that I have four kids like
Speaker 1: he did, and I just in fact, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to say I don't know. I know I am not
Speaker 1: made of the same stuff. That would mean that for
Speaker 1: over a decade I would knowingly, intentionally, willfully, obediently step
Speaker 1: into circumstances that would jeopardize their safety every single day.
Speaker 1: I couldn't do it, and so that's why what he
Speaker 1: did was so incredibly heroic. And the thing that I
Speaker 1: found so moving was that it wasn't of his choosing.
Speaker 1: He didn't run towards this. He had those dark knights
Speaker 1: of the soul of why me. I don't want to
Speaker 1: do this anymore. I don't feel up to this. I
Speaker 1: don't want to do this. I am tired of this.
Speaker 1: And that's stuff that people don't know, maybe don't even
Speaker 1: want to know, because we want our heroes to be perfect.
Speaker 2: And he was, of course.
Speaker 1: A human being who would have you caught him on
Speaker 1: the right day, he would say, No, I don't want
Speaker 1: to much. I don't want to give that press conference.
Speaker 1: I don't want to give that speech. I just want
Speaker 1: to be back with my family, or I just want
Speaker 1: to rest. I've been on the road for twenty nine
Speaker 1: days of this month so far, and I've given speeches.
Speaker 1: I've given of myself for twenty nine days straight with
Speaker 1: no rest, and I just heard that the next place
Speaker 1: I'm going to give a speech, there's a real chance
Speaker 1: that I'm going to be assassinated. And I'm talking about
Speaker 1: real circumstances. I'm not making that up. This is my
Speaker 1: research that all that stuff out. So there is a
Speaker 1: sort of you know, these men we've been afforded the
Speaker 1: opportunity to play. I think that the reason why Nate
Speaker 1: fought as hard as he did to get the story told,
Speaker 1: the reason why I just I felt called to every
Speaker 1: single day I had to do something to move the
Speaker 1: needle towards that film being made, because it was unacceptable
Speaker 1: to me that the only American not African American, the
Speaker 1: only American to have a day named after them in
Speaker 1: the twentieth century, had not yet had a film made
Speaker 1: about them. Remember what I said earlier, when I first
Speaker 1: read the script of Some in two thousand and seven,
Speaker 1: Lyndon Johnson was the protagonist, Doctor King was a supporting character,
Speaker 1: you know, And that film went through in the seven
Speaker 1: years before we got it made. When I first read it,
Speaker 1: it was a white male director, then another white male director,
Speaker 1: then an African American male director, then an African American
Speaker 1: male director. Then it was Ava Duverna who came along,
Speaker 1: and finally truly recalibrated it to what it always needed
Speaker 1: to be, which was not only the man and the movement,
Speaker 1: but the women who also supported that want something done. Exactly,
Speaker 1: the first black woman exactly on script. I read your
Speaker 1: mother was featured in three phone calls, none of which
Speaker 1: had Doctor King and your mother in the same room
Speaker 1: at the same time.
Speaker 2: By the time it.
Speaker 1: Was in Ava DuVernay's hands, you not only had a
Speaker 1: role that was worthy of a Carmen a Jogo who
Speaker 1: played your mother, but roles that were worthy of Oprah Winfrey,
Speaker 1: Nissi Nash, Tessa Thompson, Lorraine Toussaint, you know the the
Speaker 1: And that's to do with perspective.
Speaker 2: And that's the power of what we do.
Speaker 1: We can bring a perspective that is flies in the
Speaker 1: face of the marginalization that has created the circumstances that
Speaker 1: caused challenge for the heroes that we are trying to platform.
Speaker 1: And even in those seven years of me trying to
Speaker 1: get that film made alongside the folks that Plan b
Speaker 1: and Pathay, there was resistance to it being told in
Speaker 1: the right way. The reason why it took five directors
Speaker 1: over those seven years, all of who to a certain
Speaker 1: degree failed to get it made is because of the
Speaker 1: notion black doesn't travel. The white audience don't want to
Speaker 1: be made to feel guilty. Black people don't want to
Speaker 1: feel black pain. All of these narratives that meant that
Speaker 1: the truth, yet again wouldn't be told was what we
Speaker 1: had to fight against. Let alone get to the set
Speaker 1: and actually play the role to the degree whereby you
Speaker 1: feel like, oh, gosh, I actually did my job. So
Speaker 1: you know, these resistances are not imagined what your father
Speaker 1: was pushing up against to a way lesser degree, we
Speaker 1: have those resistances in getting these movies made.
Speaker 6: Grab a refill in your coffee or tea because you
Speaker 6: won't want to miss the rest of this conversation. We'll
Speaker 6: be right back. You're listening to my Legacy podcast. Thanks
Speaker 6: for sharing your time with us.
Speaker 5: Now, the two of you have launched a new platform,
Speaker 5: MANSA Correct Yes, to continue to uplift the voices of
Speaker 5: black and brown storytellers and stories. Can you just tell
Speaker 5: us a little bit about about that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm gonna give it to David as he You know,
Speaker 4: I think it's a great transition from you talking about,
Speaker 4: you know, the growth and transition of the script into
Speaker 4: the hands of the very capable and amazing Avid de
Speaker 4: Verney and why that's important to what we're doing with MANSA.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean we faced challenges not just on those
Speaker 1: films we made, but the work we've done generally. I mean,
Speaker 1: we met doing Red Tails together. And George Lucas had
Speaker 1: an obsession about telling the story of the Tuskegee Airmen.
Speaker 1: He actually said their airplane battles were the inspiration of
Speaker 1: what you see in Star Wars.
Speaker 3: And he was.
Speaker 1: Obsessed with with, you know, World War two and planes, And.
Speaker 5: I just have to say, can we also say that
Speaker 5: that was done too with they did not have the
Speaker 5: best equipment, Oh yeah, you know, like they were not
Speaker 5: invested in no, you know, and then they took all
Speaker 5: of that, yeah, and then became the best of the
Speaker 5: best and most of the war and won the war.
Speaker 5: Came back to more discrimination, but you know, and then
Speaker 5: you know, forty years later, you know, Star Wars was
Speaker 5: patterned after the battles of the time era.
Speaker 1: Their dogfights literally inspired George Lucas in terms of what you.
Speaker 2: See in Star Wars.
Speaker 1: He's and that's verbatim from his mouth to our ears.
Speaker 1: But as you say, they were marginalized, and that time
Speaker 1: in which they were sidelined and benched, they continued to
Speaker 1: forge their prowess in terms of what they did, and
Speaker 1: out of desperation because of how many planes were being
Speaker 1: hemorrhaged by the US forces. Out of desperation, they deployed
Speaker 1: the Tusky Geemen and the Redtails, and they had a
Speaker 1: better record than any squadron that came before them. But
Speaker 1: that story, George Lucas, couldn't get made for thirty years.
Speaker 1: This is the guy who instigated, initiated, created the greatest
Speaker 1: film franchise in the history of cinema. You'd think if
Speaker 1: there was anyone who's going to be able to tell
Speaker 1: that story, it would be him. He couldn't get a
Speaker 1: single studio to do it. He paid fifty million dollars
Speaker 1: of his own money to make that film because no
Speaker 1: studio would make it. And he said very explicitly to us,
Speaker 1: no one was gonna make it with a group of black,
Speaker 1: unknown actors, which it had to be because the Tuskegee
Speaker 1: airmen were in their twenties. There were young men, so
Speaker 1: it can't be as amazing as they are. It couldn't
Speaker 1: be Morgan Freeman and Denzel and you know all the
Speaker 1: people who have had time to establish a name for themselves,
Speaker 1: so it had to be this group of young actors,
Speaker 1: and so he had to pay the money himself. So
Speaker 1: I say that all to say that that's the context
Speaker 1: in which Nate and I met someone like George Lucas
Speaker 1: advocating for us, giving us a platform to tell this
Speaker 1: kind of story. And even when the film was made,
Speaker 1: he still couldn't get a studio to distribute it. So
Speaker 1: he had to go to the studio that did distribute
Speaker 1: it essentially use their mechanism to do.
Speaker 3: Him a favor to distribute the movie.
Speaker 1: Now, the amount of people who come up to me
Speaker 1: about that film since it came out and to say
Speaker 1: it's their favorite film, or it was the first time
Speaker 1: they knew about the Tuskegee m and all of that stuff.
Speaker 1: So cut to over a decade later, we are by
Speaker 1: products of that man's advocacy for us, and so we
Speaker 1: have seen that it can. The thing that we don't
Speaker 1: have is pipes. We make great product we make great projects,
Speaker 1: but what we have never had is the means to
Speaker 1: disseminate it. The thing that was genius about your father
Speaker 1: with selma Is. He knew that it wasn't just about
Speaker 1: a march, it wasn't just about a speech.
Speaker 2: It was about the cameras.
Speaker 1: The cameras need to be there to capture the truth
Speaker 1: of what was happening. And on the night where John
Speaker 1: Lewis was being beaten over the head in Selma, a
Speaker 1: live broadcast was disrupted and all of America saw what
Speaker 1: looked like, as they termed it, a war zone in
Speaker 1: a foreign country, and then all of a sudden they
Speaker 1: found out that was here in America, and it changed
Speaker 1: the narrative. What we have never had is the means
Speaker 1: to direct the eyeballs to the things that we create,
Speaker 1: and so MANSA is a byproduct of a technical revolution,
Speaker 1: which is that we didn't have to build a brick
Speaker 1: and mortar studio. We raised enough money to be able
Speaker 1: to create a digital one. That means we now have
Speaker 1: over half a million subscribers to our platform, which is
Speaker 1: going to grow, which is going to become global, and
Speaker 1: we now have a place for margined groups whose work
Speaker 1: is traditionally undervalued, to meet the audience in a way
Speaker 1: that isn't being funneled through the eyeballs of people who
Speaker 1: traditionally deem that work and those people to be lesser than.
Speaker 4: Is often said content is king, But what we've learned
Speaker 4: is distribution is king and kingmaker. You can make anything
Speaker 4: you want to make, but if you have to then
Speaker 4: go and take it to the very people who told
Speaker 4: you you were not good enough. It is not good enough,
Speaker 4: the story is not important enough. The chances are it
Speaker 4: is not going to find the audience it was intended for.
Speaker 4: So in building this platform. Mons and Mons is an
Speaker 4: advertising supported streaming platform that brings the best of black
Speaker 4: culture to a global audience. So we recognize if we're writers.
Speaker 4: David is a writer, director, producer, actor, catering person if
Speaker 4: he has to be whatever is necessary to get it done.
Speaker 2: But once that thing is made.
Speaker 4: He made an extraordinary film called The Waterman and was
Speaker 4: in a situation and where and I've seen the film.
Speaker 4: If you haven't seen it, please see the film. I
Speaker 4: mean it was the critics loved it. It was called SPIELBERGI
Speaker 4: and all of a sudden it was well, there are
Speaker 4: all these reasons why it might not be able to
Speaker 4: find an audience until you see the data. And it
Speaker 4: was one of the most distributed watched films globally, yet
Speaker 4: we had no control over getting this cup to the
Speaker 4: people that want to drink from it. So in building manset,
Speaker 4: it's about saying, in the same way that there is
Speaker 4: a two B, in the same way that there's a Pluto,
Speaker 4: in the same way that there's a Netflix, we need
Speaker 4: to control the pipes that control the content we create.
Speaker 4: When I say we, I mean anyone that understands the
Speaker 4: importance of black culture because black culture drives world culture,
Speaker 4: and being able to control how that gets to the
Speaker 4: hearts and the minds of the people it needs to impact.
Speaker 4: So if someone wanted to make a documentary about your
Speaker 4: life or your relationship or your granddaughter, because I'm still
Speaker 4: seeing her in that nook, that's important to my daughters
Speaker 4: to know the importance that she saw. I want to
Speaker 4: be close to my grandfather, though I'll never get to me.
Speaker 4: If my eight year old could hear that I know her,
Speaker 4: I know her heart, she'd be impacted by it. We
Speaker 4: could say okay, or a podcast where we can say
Speaker 4: we can get this podcast or the hearts and minds
Speaker 4: of the people that need to see it without having
Speaker 4: to beg Anyone that is opposed the idea of us
Speaker 4: reaching the people that are for us. We don't have
Speaker 4: to ask permission. We can take it directly to their eyeballs.
Speaker 4: So that was what mons us about. It's a streaming platform.
Speaker 4: You can download it now on iOS, Roku wherever. But
Speaker 4: the future is about access to the people who are
Speaker 4: looking for you, and so all of the content creators,
Speaker 4: all the people because sometimes that the new social justice leaders,
Speaker 4: a lot of them are content creators, you know, a
Speaker 4: lot of them didn't come up in the church, and
Speaker 4: they have different ways of interacting with millions of people
Speaker 4: who follow them. So to give them a platform where
Speaker 4: they can have a constant flow distributing their ideas in
Speaker 4: ways that enhance the lives of us, our children, and
Speaker 4: our children's children is the focus of our platform and
Speaker 4: why we created it.
Speaker 5: And we're just getting started with David o'yelowo and Nate Parker.
Speaker 5: Their story was too powerful and too important for this
Speaker 5: moment to fit into a single episode. Next week we
Speaker 5: go even deeper into the kind of friendship that's tested
Speaker 5: in life's darkest moments when the world turns its back.
Speaker 5: Who stands by you when everything is on the line,
Speaker 5: Who fights for you.
Speaker 1: When he talks about us having prayed together, We have snotty, dribbling, screaming,
Speaker 1: wailing prayed together over this stuff because it was hard.
Speaker 5: Trust me, you don't want to miss part two next week.
Speaker 5: Thank you for joining us. We are so grateful to
Speaker 5: have you as part of this journey. If you enjoyed
Speaker 5: today's conversation, subscribe and share the podcast with friends, family,
Speaker 5: and loved ones, and follow us on social media at
Speaker 5: my Legacy Movement. You can also sipp ksribe to our
Speaker 5: YouTube channel at my Legacy Movement. Produced by Legacy Plus
Speaker 5: Studio in partnership with iHeartRadio creator and executive producer Suzanne
Speaker 5: Hayward co executive producer Lisa Lyle. My Legacy podcast is
Speaker 5: available on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 5: Until next time, may you find connection and inspiration to
Speaker 5: live your most fulfilled life.