Speaker 1: That's how we are. What's that family? I'm your girl
Speaker 1: to make a d. Mallory and it's your boy my
Speaker 1: son in general, and we're your whole sweep politicians, the
Speaker 1: place where the and politics meet. What's going on my mind?
Speaker 1: How you doing today? I am blesseding, Holly favorite, I
Speaker 1: am ambitious. I'm a young black man in America. We're
Speaker 1: not really young, but I'm you know, I'm onna comes.
Speaker 1: I'm not being old but not being young. I'm right
Speaker 1: in the middle there, and I'm feeling good. Man. How
Speaker 1: are you feeling to that? You're pretty young? You're pretty young.
Speaker 1: You know you're you're almost fifty is still young? Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: I just push your push hun there. That is good
Speaker 1: to you. Listen, man, I'm good to me. You know
Speaker 1: what I'm doing wrong, crack, don't care what it is.
Speaker 1: It's black dot crap. Man. They still think I'm sick.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you that forty and now forty one is
Speaker 1: definitely good to me, So I know that if this
Speaker 1: feels good. They say forty, you grow up in your thirties.
Speaker 1: You're growing up. Forty you grown, But fifty you don't
Speaker 1: give no more. You just say whatever. You want to say,
Speaker 1: and that's it. People don't like it. Oh well so,
Speaker 1: but I always been like that, So it ain't gonna
Speaker 1: be much different for me. Maybe you never know, it
Speaker 1: might be a little different just atle bit. If I
Speaker 1: get any more unhinged than not giving the funding saying
Speaker 1: what the funk I want to say, it ain't gonna
Speaker 1: work out too good. Well, we got some friends that
Speaker 1: definitely say what they want to say, and they are
Speaker 1: and I think they're a little different. But I think
Speaker 1: about Core Masks, Barry and Hazel Dukes. Those are two women.
Speaker 1: That's that's a whole nother level of that. That's the
Speaker 1: whole level level. Don't give a fuck us. They don't
Speaker 1: give a funk about your feelings, grown grown women, grown women.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's that's adult, grown women. And we've got
Speaker 1: they're talking exactly what they feel. It ain't no filter
Speaker 1: and none of that. Yeah. Yeah, man, So the world
Speaker 1: is still the world. There's still so much happening in
Speaker 1: the world. I was looking online, um earlier this week
Speaker 1: and watching like how many different cases are happening around
Speaker 1: the country with like people, um, you know, being killed,
Speaker 1: people tagging us. Did you hear about this. Did you
Speaker 1: hear about that? Though. I just feel like I'm constantly
Speaker 1: my head just spends around in this society because it's
Speaker 1: just so much happening at once. It is, it really is, man,
Speaker 1: you know, like you said, the cases, the violence pandemic,
Speaker 1: that this is just so much. Man, you just need
Speaker 1: to take time to breathe. Like the last couple of days,
Speaker 1: I've been just taking time to just think, you know,
Speaker 1: just the exhale and just think, because you gotta take
Speaker 1: it in. Man. It's like being in the information error.
Speaker 1: Information is coming so fast and it's just overloads man.
Speaker 1: So I know. And and this is me as an
Speaker 1: adult man who is pretty much seasoned and those things,
Speaker 1: so I know how much this is affecting these young
Speaker 1: kids that they don't even know, you know, they don't
Speaker 1: have the wisdom and experience that somebody that's older has.
Speaker 1: So man, I'm just I'm praying for our babies. Man,
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to do whatever we can. We just
Speaker 1: gotta make it a little better for them and a
Speaker 1: little easier for them, making it better for the little kids.
Speaker 1: And you know, speaking of that, uh, one one good
Speaker 1: thing that did happen just a few days ago. Um
Speaker 1: is that in the Jamarion Robinson case in Atlanta where
Speaker 1: he was shot by police officers seventies six times. Man,
Speaker 1: I mean between Gerald Griggs, the head of the n
Speaker 1: double a CP and also an attorney in Atlanta, Queen
Speaker 1: your NaSTA, how uh Kimberly Latrice Jones. These are folks
Speaker 1: that have been working on this case and standing with
Speaker 1: Ja Marion's family for oh for five years. This happened
Speaker 1: five years ago. He was shot seventy six times, and
Speaker 1: finally there has been an indictment of two officers. Um.
Speaker 1: And you know, just seeing uh miss Maria Robinson, Jamarrion's mother,
Speaker 1: just watching her exhale to say that she fought the
Speaker 1: good fight and never gave up on behalf of her son.
Speaker 1: It was so powerful, so powerful. And I tell you,
Speaker 1: people don't realize how having those leaders that are named
Speaker 1: to be there every step and away with you like
Speaker 1: there's nothing that I know. Families that look at me
Speaker 1: and say, yo, we don't know how we would have
Speaker 1: done it if people didn't continue to show up and
Speaker 1: to be there, And it's just it's a powerful, powerful
Speaker 1: moment for the movement to see that after five years
Speaker 1: there's act really an indictment, because by now most of
Speaker 1: the time we've received the news that there won't be
Speaker 1: an indictment. Yeah, and shout out to Jamario's mother. I
Speaker 1: met her a couple of years ago. Man, She is
Speaker 1: beautiful woman, you know. You know, as much as we
Speaker 1: we feel jaded and the system has failed most of
Speaker 1: the times, I have to say that we are slowly
Speaker 1: starting to see a shift an acknowledgement. At least there's
Speaker 1: an acknowledgement that people are being killed. You know, before
Speaker 1: there wasn't even acknowledgement, you know, so slowly. We still
Speaker 1: got to get Brianna to We still need justice for
Speaker 1: Brianna Taylor, man, and we still need justice for so
Speaker 1: many different other people, so many different I can't even name.
Speaker 1: But you know, just in this case, we just got
Speaker 1: to be able to say, you know, we fought a
Speaker 1: good fight and we actually got some good news at
Speaker 1: this point. So shut out everyone. And I said her
Speaker 1: her name wrong, it's actually Monteria, yes, so just correct that.
Speaker 1: But yeah, shout out to everybody here and to your point,
Speaker 1: and indictment is a slither, a slither that's in the
Speaker 1: direction of justice to actually have to get convictions, then
Speaker 1: you gotta get them sent to prison, and that's a
Speaker 1: lot of work. So the folks who've been on the ground,
Speaker 1: this gives them the energy where the real fight begins.
Speaker 1: And that brings me to my thought of the day.
Speaker 1: I try my best to use these moments to think
Speaker 1: of things that are also on the minds of those
Speaker 1: people who are listening. Right. So, you know, while yes,
Speaker 1: we have a show that covers a lot of political topics,
Speaker 1: a lot of community projects, social justice issues, but we
Speaker 1: also are humans. And that's what Street Politicians was always about,
Speaker 1: being able to cover culture and politics at one time.
Speaker 1: And so last night I was having a night's conversation
Speaker 1: with our sister, do Wanna Tom's and who is UM
Speaker 1: in Atlanta? I mean, excuse me, lives in Birmingham, Alabama.
Speaker 1: She Um is an incredible organizer, She's an incredible businesswoman.
Speaker 1: She is UM just like so so many things, all things, dope,
Speaker 1: you don't know do Wanna Thompson please, she's been on
Speaker 1: our show, folks, researchers. She's a political consultant. UM, very
Speaker 1: successful black woman. UM. And there were other black women
Speaker 1: at the table. We were all just talking about you know, uh,
Speaker 1: It really came up because we were talking about meat
Speaker 1: crossing and becoming an a member of Alpha Cappa Alpha
Speaker 1: Sorority Incorporated. Because you gotta say all that and make
Speaker 1: sure that you say it right. Um. And so as
Speaker 1: we were talking about that, we're talking about Kappa men,
Speaker 1: Alpha men, and just talking about why we as black women,
Speaker 1: successful black women are single, so many of us. And
Speaker 1: there were men at the table, and older man in particular,
Speaker 1: who started to say that we as women have lots,
Speaker 1: we as successful women have too many demands. And I'm
Speaker 1: wondering if everybody else feels that the reason why so
Speaker 1: many of them of us are single is because our
Speaker 1: expectations are too high. All night I was thinking, are
Speaker 1: expects Can your expectations be too high for yourself? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean that's it's it's based on who you are, right,
Speaker 1: it's based on what you think. They might not be
Speaker 1: too hot for you in your mind, but if they're
Speaker 1: actually not being met, right, if you if you can't
Speaker 1: find something that fits your expectations, then you might have
Speaker 1: to rethink your expectation, right. I mean if you look
Speaker 1: at y'all want this, and I want this, and you're
Speaker 1: going everywhere eation, but I don't know what it is
Speaker 1: because I don't know what everybody expectation is. I just
Speaker 1: think they don't have realistic expectations. I think, you know,
Speaker 1: I think in relationships, and I say this all the
Speaker 1: time that women fall in love with the fantasy of relationship,
Speaker 1: not the reality of it, right because in their mind
Speaker 1: is they watching on TV and then they've got their
Speaker 1: their perspectives of what love is supposed to be by
Speaker 1: their favorite show in the movie where he grabs her hand,
Speaker 1: he kisses her, he picks her up, and he does
Speaker 1: all these things, and there's there's none of this term
Speaker 1: when you don't see none of this stuff. It's just
Speaker 1: like people who watch anything else. They watch the sport
Speaker 1: and they say, yo, I want to be Michael Jordan,
Speaker 1: But they don't never watch him practicing. They don't talk
Speaker 1: about when he got cut from the team. They don't
Speaker 1: see when he broke his ankle. They don't see when
Speaker 1: his brother used to whip his ass in basketball, be
Speaker 1: daying dump on it. They don't see none of those things.
Speaker 1: He had to stay in there the gym all day.
Speaker 1: Women have the same mentality when it comes to relationships.
Speaker 1: They a lot of them, a lot of them, all
Speaker 1: of them. I won't say, no, there's no absolute. There
Speaker 1: are a lot of women who want all of the
Speaker 1: fun and the glitz and the love and the romance
Speaker 1: and all of the good times. They don't want nothing
Speaker 1: that comes with the the bad times that come with it.
Speaker 1: So you see, I agree with that because I know
Speaker 1: a lot of women who are willing to struggle and
Speaker 1: go through not not so much struggle, but the growing
Speaker 1: pains of a relationship. But they still have certain things
Speaker 1: that are just not acceptable. And when you say you know, well,
Speaker 1: I guess this kind of contradicts my whole point because
Speaker 1: when you talk about most of us getting these fantasies
Speaker 1: from TV, my fantasy comes from my father and how
Speaker 1: good he is to my mother, how amazing he is
Speaker 1: as a man. But I guess the contradiction is that
Speaker 1: she went through a lot to get to the place
Speaker 1: that they are at today. And I'm sure he would
Speaker 1: say that, hey, she wasn't just a cup of iced
Speaker 1: tea when he get hurt. But the problem is the
Speaker 1: thing is, you're looking at the relationship right and you
Speaker 1: you you're looking at the end all you and you're
Speaker 1: looking at where we are now right, And all the time,
Speaker 1: all the ship that she dealt with that you're saying
Speaker 1: that you won't dealt with, you won't deal with right
Speaker 1: now that she dealt with, you just didn't know what
Speaker 1: she dealt with it, right. And that's what a lot
Speaker 1: of women do. Right. A lot of women say, I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna deal with this, I'm not going through this.
Speaker 1: This is my expectation of man. Gotta be this, you
Speaker 1: gotta do that, you gotta do this right. And then
Speaker 1: other women be like, yeah, yeah, and they ain't deal
Speaker 1: with men who ain't doing none of that ship. They're
Speaker 1: going through it. And when you see them, they look
Speaker 1: like they're smiling, they're happy, and they're dealing with a
Speaker 1: man that ain't doing to doing none of the ship
Speaker 1: you're talking about. They get into a certain place, they're
Speaker 1: going through ups and downs, they're going through so much ship.
Speaker 1: Every day. They're ready to break up, they're ready to cry,
Speaker 1: they're leaving. They this they didn't broke it, They don't
Speaker 1: went through all the type of ship that the average
Speaker 1: person doesn't know about their relationship. But in in in
Speaker 1: to the public, everybody ain't gonna deal with this type
Speaker 1: of man. I'm not gonna let my man do this.
Speaker 1: I don't want a man that doesn't do this. I
Speaker 1: don't everybody has these things and it's and it's not
Speaker 1: really so, but it's okay. So what my real question
Speaker 1: that what I was thinking about is like, so we
Speaker 1: shouldn't have standards or expectations, but yet men have expectations
Speaker 1: and they have standards because there's certain things that we
Speaker 1: as women cannot get away with. But what I'm trying
Speaker 1: to tell you is this, right, you have to have
Speaker 1: a realistic standard. Right If a man has a standard
Speaker 1: about a woman and he dates ten women, he can't
Speaker 1: find that standard, and another woman he takes twenty, if
Speaker 1: all his whole life he was trying to find a
Speaker 1: certain standard of a woman and he don't find it,
Speaker 1: then that that that expectation is not realistic. Right now,
Speaker 1: if a woman is dating all these men, you've been
Speaker 1: you forty and you fifty, and you dating man and
Speaker 1: you're like, we just can't do I want a man
Speaker 1: have done this and that and you and you ain't
Speaker 1: got him at fifty And not saying he don't exist,
Speaker 1: I'm just saying that the probability of what you're looking
Speaker 1: for being not realistic. It's higher if because I don't
Speaker 1: think men have expectations about women that they don't find.
Speaker 1: Most men have expectations, right, and they find a woman
Speaker 1: and said, oh, that's the one I want. Good, this
Speaker 1: is what I'm looking for. The women change, the woman's
Speaker 1: expectations change, or the woman starts to want more or
Speaker 1: feel like it's not so most, for the most part,
Speaker 1: men don't have. It's bigger problem. It's because because we
Speaker 1: because we as women come doubt, we come pretty much
Speaker 1: put together. A lot of us come financially stable. We
Speaker 1: come cooking cleaning. That's not true. You're not doing that.
Speaker 1: That's not a lot of a lot of that's not true.
Speaker 1: That's not true. And they're all women who do come
Speaker 1: the way that I'm talking to understand the need to cook, clean.
Speaker 1: But you having those conversations, right, You having no conversations
Speaker 1: with them, right. If you have conversations with the men
Speaker 1: that they probably did, they'll probably have a completely different
Speaker 1: understand that this person you're talking about everything in everybody's
Speaker 1: mind near the perfect mate for somebody else. Everybody can
Speaker 1: tell you I do this this and now I'm dope
Speaker 1: this and I don't think it's nobody that you will
Speaker 1: act and say, yo, you think you compatible for a relationship,
Speaker 1: And then I'm like, nah, I don't do this. I
Speaker 1: don't do this. I'm not this type of person. To
Speaker 1: my man, nobody's gonna say that. So you can have
Speaker 1: a conversation with a bunch of women that look dope
Speaker 1: and they've got all these things and you don't know
Speaker 1: what you think, and the women are lying. I'm no,
Speaker 1: I'm just it's not really lying their perceptions of themselves
Speaker 1: in the reality of who they are to other people.
Speaker 1: That's it's completely different. Yeah, Okay, well listen, we gotta
Speaker 1: move on with the show. But I think it's time
Speaker 1: for us to circle back to some more conversations with
Speaker 1: some powerful women. Who are they are the cook is
Speaker 1: the cleanest, and the and some and some form of
Speaker 1: bread winners. And yet still in all we are still single,
Speaker 1: and it's too many of us that's single. And I
Speaker 1: could tell you men, tell you who can tell you?
Speaker 1: While you sing? You Kevin Samuels, We bring Samuels. Here's
Speaker 1: how I'm gonna deal with Kevin Samuels. And I'm really
Speaker 1: sad that you would make him an example listen, listen,
Speaker 1: let me say something. Let me just say you already
Speaker 1: said it, because already said it, that you would make
Speaker 1: him an example of a man who can tell me
Speaker 1: why I'm not, why I'm single. Because when I listened
Speaker 1: to Kevin Samuel, which I don't often, but the ones
Speaker 1: or twice that I did. Yeah, even like we say
Speaker 1: all the time, a broken clock can be right twice
Speaker 1: a day, but he makes me feel diminished and devalued.
Speaker 1: It's nothing about what it's nothing about what he's saying
Speaker 1: that makes me feel encouraged and understand that they are
Speaker 1: things that I could do better. Instead, he tries to
Speaker 1: basically strip women of their self esteem and then somehow
Speaker 1: another we're supposed to look at that as a way
Speaker 1: to rebuild. I'm very I am very very upsad suggest
Speaker 1: him as an example. What I would say is this right,
Speaker 1: I definitely agree with you. I think that his delivery,
Speaker 1: in in his motive in which he delivers is in
Speaker 1: his information, is just off right. It's totally off killed.
Speaker 1: It's just totally off kill to like, totally off but
Speaker 1: like you said, broken clap a lot of time, disrespectful
Speaker 1: and harmful it is. And that's why I said, oh,
Speaker 1: off means disrespectful, off needs, off needs. You could get
Speaker 1: up and say I was off today like today. But
Speaker 1: what I'm trying to tell you is this if if
Speaker 1: if you come to me right and you say yo,
Speaker 1: which five five, and I say it's tender, motherfucker, fucker's
Speaker 1: wrong with you don't know what the fund is tending?
Speaker 1: And I start cursing at you. The delivery of this
Speaker 1: message just completely off. No reason for me to be cursed.
Speaker 1: It's wrong, it's disrespectful. What I'm trying to tell you
Speaker 1: is I wouldn't deliver the message away. But five us
Speaker 1: five is ten, right. So what I'm trying to say
Speaker 1: is it depends on it. Because everybody gains information differently.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of and I want you to acknowledge
Speaker 1: this right, There are a lot of women. His his
Speaker 1: biggest fan base is probably woman who go there to
Speaker 1: listen to this information and they go on his page
Speaker 1: to talk to him. So the way you feel, and
Speaker 1: I agree with you, I wouldn't. You couldn't talk to
Speaker 1: me this way. I want to allow you talk to
Speaker 1: my mother, my sister. I'm just wildn't allowed. I wouldn't
Speaker 1: talk to a women that way. But unfortunately, they are
Speaker 1: women who are receiving this information and they go there
Speaker 1: for the information after watching him talk to them a
Speaker 1: bunch of ways like that, And these are not and
Speaker 1: these are not women who are not well to do.
Speaker 1: They're not women who are ignorant. I've seen him have debates,
Speaker 1: and I've seen him have arguments and go back and
Speaker 1: forth with strong black women and debate. But again, sometimes
Speaker 1: you go down but here. But here's my position on
Speaker 1: it is that I wouldn't give him five minutes of
Speaker 1: a platform, and I'm sure he wouldn't give me a
Speaker 1: platform either, So his name never comes out of my mouth.
Speaker 1: I'm never gonna suggest to anybody that they go and
Speaker 1: listen to him as a way to get information about
Speaker 1: what's happening in their lives. Under no circumstances would he
Speaker 1: be in my mind of a suggestion. Pretty much not Actually,
Speaker 1: because you didn't. You didn't see that it was a
Speaker 1: joke for the beginning when I said it. But it's
Speaker 1: not funny. That's why I'm saying, it's not like Kevin
Speaker 1: said it was. People listen to me. I can get
Speaker 1: information from anyone. You can learn a lot from sometimes
Speaker 1: I'm hard and how I speak to my child, and
Speaker 1: sometimes i'm I'm I'm hard and what I say to myself,
Speaker 1: But I'm saying that I'm not making a brand and
Speaker 1: of diminishing people and making them feel like they are
Speaker 1: being destroyed and then built again in some weird, twisted way.
Speaker 1: So for me, I passed on the brother. But for
Speaker 1: others that may like him and he's their cup of tea.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm not the type of person that's going
Speaker 1: to tell you not to go where you think you
Speaker 1: need to go to drink the type of water that
Speaker 1: you need so you could be whole. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: and and and and that's that all that. LaToya Bond
Speaker 1: also with her husband um Uh James Bond, who is
Speaker 1: our there our family they actually are, have created a
Speaker 1: brand called a family Bond, and they spent a lot
Speaker 1: of time discussing and delivering information about how to stay married,
Speaker 1: how to keep your significant other, um you know, sort
Speaker 1: of excited if you will, um. You know, what to
Speaker 1: do as a man to make your wife feel loved,
Speaker 1: you know, how to to honor your king, honor your man.
Speaker 1: And I would much rather to get my information from them,
Speaker 1: and I would to go to see my boy James,
Speaker 1: My boy James Bond. Make sure you check out his
Speaker 1: page and family Van and the dadi is also shout
Speaker 1: out to Dadish the brand. Shout out to La Toya,
Speaker 1: We love you, keep doing what you do. So now
Speaker 1: let's get into our guests, because we've been talking um,
Speaker 1: but we have two important individuals that's coming up. And
Speaker 1: just for folks who are listening and watching, we pre
Speaker 1: taped these interviews, so you'll hear uh some time frames
Speaker 1: that sound a little different from the day that we're
Speaker 1: actually in. But we were trying to get information, especially
Speaker 1: from our first guest, Tiffany Lofting, about what's happening with
Speaker 1: Julius Jones, the young man who is on death row
Speaker 1: UM for a crime that he did not commit. Uh.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna Bringiffany on right now to talk to
Speaker 1: us about Julius, and then we're gonna hear from another
Speaker 1: powerful sister once again. We have another one of our
Speaker 1: friends were I wouldn't even say friends, our sister, our comrade, conflicts,
Speaker 1: our partners and justice. Tiffany Dina Lofton. She is the
Speaker 1: immediate past National Director of the n double A CP
Speaker 1: youth in college. She's also one of our biggest advisors
Speaker 1: that until Freedom, and she's the senior advisor at Grassroots
Speaker 1: Law Projects. Welcome to the show. Finally, Dina, I don't
Speaker 1: even call it Tiffany. I call it Dina. What's going on?
Speaker 1: I can't believe you haven't been on our show. That's
Speaker 1: like crazy, Like I thought you were one of the first.
Speaker 1: We had all of Stephen Green, Leslie Redman, we had
Speaker 1: all of our um young leading organizes on At one point,
Speaker 1: I had no idea that you have been with us.
Speaker 1: But I guess today is the right time. Today is
Speaker 1: the day. Today is the day. Slow and steady, we've
Speaker 1: been working out here. So I'm just honor to be
Speaker 1: on the show. And even if I'm not on the show,
Speaker 1: I with y'all in person, so and I've met I've
Speaker 1: done better at that. And I think that's what it is.
Speaker 1: You with us so much that we assume that you
Speaker 1: on the show. You know what I'm saying, Like, Tiffany
Speaker 1: been there three I thought you three times. I was
Speaker 1: with you on the studio. I just wasn't on the screen,
Speaker 1: but here we got here, Like Tiffany is the show
Speaker 1: you are the show. You are the work. Thank you, sir,
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you. You know as much as we
Speaker 1: love you and we we we you know, we could
Speaker 1: do a little small talk all the time. Right now,
Speaker 1: we have serious business and you're here to give us
Speaker 1: some updates, you know about brother Julius and um what's
Speaker 1: what's currently going on? And I've here there's a lot
Speaker 1: of little things going you know, some negative, someonere positive
Speaker 1: as of late. So give us some updates. So I'm
Speaker 1: gonna start with this top headline. Elections are so damn important, y'all.
Speaker 1: Elections are so damn important. So, uh, today is Thursday.
Speaker 1: We're on Monday. I flew from Washington, d C. To
Speaker 1: Oklahoma City anticipating Julius's clemency hearing that was going to
Speaker 1: take place at nine am. When I landed around nine
Speaker 1: pm on that Monday, I got my phone was blowing
Speaker 1: up telling me that the coming to hearing had been postponed,
Speaker 1: and I was trying to figure out why. In two
Speaker 1: thousand and fifteen, the state of Oklahoma halted all of
Speaker 1: its executions. It is the It is one of the
Speaker 1: deadliest states, and I think it's the second, but it's
Speaker 1: one of the deadliest states in um when it comes
Speaker 1: to the death penalty, there were a couple of botched
Speaker 1: executions that took place in What that means is and
Speaker 1: so I need people to breathe. This is really how
Speaker 1: you talk about. What that means is that they issued
Speaker 1: two executions through lethal injection, but the cocktail of the
Speaker 1: lethal injection and didn't work, and so people suffered before
Speaker 1: they died. So Oklahoma stopped the executions in Julius is
Speaker 1: one of seven people. Julius Jones is one of seven
Speaker 1: people who is now scheduled on death row to be
Speaker 1: executed between now, which was supposed to be today, with
Speaker 1: the first being John, a gentleman named John Grant, until
Speaker 1: March of next year. There are seven people on that
Speaker 1: list in that roster. The state of Oklahoma is now
Speaker 1: saying we're just going to continue these executions. Nothing has
Speaker 1: happened since until now. They're just saying we want to
Speaker 1: continue them. But they went to these seven people on
Speaker 1: death row and said to them, if we can't do
Speaker 1: the legal injection because it doesn't work, how else do
Speaker 1: you want to be killed? M hm wow. Six out
Speaker 1: of the seven of them said, I you you're not
Speaker 1: going to make me choose my way to commit suicide,
Speaker 1: and it is actually against my religious beliefs to commit suicide.
Speaker 1: So I'm not giving you that that that that easy
Speaker 1: way out. On September three, team the pardoner Parole Board,
Speaker 1: who are people appointed by the governor and the governor
Speaker 1: is selected by the people. They passed a decision, a
Speaker 1: recommendation to the governor basically saying, keep Julius alive with
Speaker 1: the possibility of parole, don't kill him. We have evidence
Speaker 1: that that proves that he could be innocent. Now, the
Speaker 1: partner of roleboard is not a court or jury, it's
Speaker 1: just the pardner of parole Board, so only power that
Speaker 1: the only power that they have is to issue a
Speaker 1: recommendation to the governor. The governor looked at that recommendation
Speaker 1: and said, I'm not going to make this decision. Y'all
Speaker 1: go back and have an entire hearing and do it again.
Speaker 1: There's a couple of reasons why he could have did that.
Speaker 1: My personal belief is he's been too much of a
Speaker 1: punk to make a decision when he could easily at
Speaker 1: any moment in time, sign a piece of paper stopping
Speaker 1: this entire process and freeing Julius and making sure he's
Speaker 1: home for the holidays. The governor has not done that yet.
Speaker 1: He keeps putting the blame and trying to redirect it.
Speaker 1: So the pardner of Parole Board can now have that responsibility.
Speaker 1: He does not want to make that decision. So a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff has happened since then that we can
Speaker 1: talk about later. But where we're at right now, it's
Speaker 1: because of because of the protest that those seven people took.
Speaker 1: Excuse me, six out of the seven people took saying
Speaker 1: don't kill me. I don't want to be killed. You
Speaker 1: better figure this out. There was a lawsuit on the
Speaker 1: state of Oklahoma that went to the Supreme Court. The
Speaker 1: Supreme Court said, go ahead and continue with the executions.
Speaker 1: Since they don't since they didn't find another way. They
Speaker 1: didn't didn't tell us how else they want to be killed,
Speaker 1: go ahead and do lethal injection. Then we were worried
Speaker 1: about that, and so then we found out that the
Speaker 1: Tenth Circuit, because they got challenged, the Tenth Circuit, which
Speaker 1: is the regional court of that area that which Oklahoma
Speaker 1: is a part of, said no, no, no, on all
Speaker 1: y'all acting crazy over there in Oklahoma. No execution. Stop it.
Speaker 1: This has been a this has been a game, and
Speaker 1: it's been really hard as somebody who's organized was supporting
Speaker 1: the local members on the ground, supporting the family, both
Speaker 1: Antoinette Jones and uh Mom I called Mama Jones, but
Speaker 1: Madeline Jones, Mama Jones, and their brother and their dad,
Speaker 1: and especially Julius who's been on death watch for over
Speaker 1: a week listening to these different reports come in. At
Speaker 1: any point in time, I am I gonna get killed.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna ge killed. You're gonna kill me, I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna kill me. It's been an emotional rold coaster
Speaker 1: for the family, for the community, and especially for Julius.
Speaker 1: Where we're at right now is because that Tenth Circuit
Speaker 1: said don't kill nobody. The Attorney General he has now
Speaker 1: tried to challenge that decision of the Tenth Circuit court
Speaker 1: and we are waiting for that response because of that
Speaker 1: challenge from the Attorney General General O'Connor. Today was October
Speaker 1: there was a gentleman by the name of John Grant
Speaker 1: was scheduled to be executed today. He is on pause.
Speaker 1: Julius Jones. He has a set execution day for November
Speaker 1: eighteen because that Ted Circuit said no one more executions.
Speaker 1: November eighteenth has been canceled. That is a victory, but
Speaker 1: it's not the long term victory. We want Julius to
Speaker 1: be free. Right if the November eighteenth is anceled, he
Speaker 1: stays in prison for the rest of his life. The
Speaker 1: only two opportunities we have right now to say Julius
Speaker 1: and get him home is one again, the general has
Speaker 1: excuse me, the governor has to sign the permission for
Speaker 1: him to be released, not just on his own accord,
Speaker 1: but his own board. His partner broad board said this
Speaker 1: is the right thing to do, so he should sign
Speaker 1: that and go with their recommendation. Or Julius has a
Speaker 1: scheduled hearing, the clemency hearing that got rescheduled on November one,
Speaker 1: which is this coming Monday. We need that clemency hearing
Speaker 1: to happen so that Julius can tell his story for
Speaker 1: the first time, so that people can so that we
Speaker 1: can hear what his alibi, what he was at home
Speaker 1: with his family when the murder happened. We have to
Speaker 1: be able to have the witnesses and the information and
Speaker 1: the stuff that was not shared the first time twenty
Speaker 1: one years ago, when Julius had his first case and
Speaker 1: his attorneys didn't have any experience running a capital murder
Speaker 1: case or dealing with anybody on death row. We are
Speaker 1: calling for November one to happen. For that hearing to
Speaker 1: take place, we need a Governor's Pardner in Parole Board
Speaker 1: to happen. It is not up to the Partner in
Speaker 1: Parole Board if that's going to happen in November one.
Speaker 1: It's up to the executive director his name is Tom Bates,
Speaker 1: and except to the General Council of the Partner in
Speaker 1: Parole Board. So we need those two solutions to happen
Speaker 1: right now. We need that hearing on Monday, and we
Speaker 1: need the governor to take action immediately so that Julius
Speaker 1: can come home and so that the Paul that the Paul,
Speaker 1: excuse me, Paul Howell's family, who was the man who
Speaker 1: was killed, his family can can be at ease and
Speaker 1: rest and recovery, because we are praying for his family
Speaker 1: to what happened to his family, what happened to him
Speaker 1: is not okay. But we also don't want them to
Speaker 1: kill another innocent man and call that justice just because
Speaker 1: we need the governor, and we need the Partner Parole
Speaker 1: Board to do the right thing. But but I'm under
Speaker 1: the understanding that Mr. Howell's family does not support the
Speaker 1: support they be. They do not support Julius being released.
Speaker 1: They do not support that. No, they do not accurate, Yes, ma'am.
Speaker 1: That is they do not they believe they believe that
Speaker 1: even with all the evidence, all the information that has
Speaker 1: released over the last several years, but certainly most recently,
Speaker 1: all the work that has happened in the state of Oklahoma,
Speaker 1: even knowing because I I've actually watched uh information get
Speaker 1: out there about the person that is actually what that
Speaker 1: that is alleged to be um for um Mr Howell's murder.
Speaker 1: Even with all of that, the family is saying they
Speaker 1: still think Julius should be held and executed or just held.
Speaker 1: It's I've watched two interviews Oklahoma's media, They've had two interviews.
Speaker 1: I have watched them to makea say that they want
Speaker 1: him to be held and executed. That is what I've
Speaker 1: heard latest from the Hower family. Yes, it's just so unfortunate, man,
Speaker 1: just being being a victim of the injustice system, just
Speaker 1: understanding how they get it wrong, just under down how
Speaker 1: you can be falsely accused and sitting in just several
Speaker 1: time for a crime that you didn't commit. Right to
Speaker 1: know that there's a brother and and he's not the
Speaker 1: only brother. And throughout history we found out that people
Speaker 1: sitting on death row should have never been on even
Speaker 1: in prison. And to see that we still have a
Speaker 1: justice system that when there is even a shred or
Speaker 1: doubt that someone committed a crime, is willing to put
Speaker 1: someone to death? Is so is mind? Boy gun to me?
Speaker 1: Like it doesn't if someone else admits to a crime
Speaker 1: that you're about to take someone's life for that in
Speaker 1: itself should at least say we're not taking this, you know.
Speaker 1: And and and the fact that that is not the
Speaker 1: process is the fact that that doesn't immediately happen to me.
Speaker 1: It's just like who created these lords? Who? What? You know?
Speaker 1: They said that the lords is supposed to before the people,
Speaker 1: by the people. What people sat down and came up
Speaker 1: with this process and said that this made sense. Some
Speaker 1: very sick people my sidentists. I've learned a lot, so
Speaker 1: I've been doing organizing work for the last twelve years
Speaker 1: this I've worked on a lot of cases to free
Speaker 1: people who were about to be executed. I've never been
Speaker 1: this close to the family, and I've spoken to Julius
Speaker 1: um there. There are two sick things that have come
Speaker 1: up for me in this case. One is I don't
Speaker 1: understand why if somebody in this case, Julius Jones. I
Speaker 1: don't understand why if Julius Jones had a hearing that
Speaker 1: was scheduled so that he could testify, so that they
Speaker 1: can sort out the evidence and make a recommendation to
Speaker 1: the governor, I don't understand why then the warden of
Speaker 1: Oklahoma State Penitentiary where he is currently sitting, would put
Speaker 1: him on death watch before his hearing took place. It's
Speaker 1: mind boggling to me. When you are about to be
Speaker 1: on death watch, they ask you the most sickening questions,
Speaker 1: what do you want your last meal to be? Who
Speaker 1: do you want to hold your hand when you do it?
Speaker 1: Who do you want to witness the execution? Psychologically what
Speaker 1: that can do to somebody? And then they lock you
Speaker 1: underneath the jail in a little cold cell and they
Speaker 1: feed you food through the door. But you have you
Speaker 1: have a fifty possibility because you just got a recommendation
Speaker 1: to the governor to keep you alive, So why they
Speaker 1: would put you on death watch to begin with is
Speaker 1: sticking to me and to your point, my son, about
Speaker 1: policies and who makes these rules. That was the warden's decision,
Speaker 1: and the warden is not elected. Then I'm trying to
Speaker 1: understand why we even do the death penalty to begin with, right,
Speaker 1: why is that even still a thing that states that
Speaker 1: people that that systems we we know, we know that
Speaker 1: there are people who have been executed who were innocent,
Speaker 1: and we still do it. We know that there are
Speaker 1: other ways. We have talked about restorative justice in this
Speaker 1: injustice system and and that executing people actually doesn't stop crying.
Speaker 1: So there is a whole entire conversation we need to have.
Speaker 1: And I and I have learned so much and been
Speaker 1: challenged so much. I have lost sleep, I've had nightmares.
Speaker 1: I've been praying very hard for Julius. This is not
Speaker 1: weak because we didn't do this ship can I cut start?
Speaker 1: We didn't do this, But the people who made these decisions,
Speaker 1: to your point, my son, are some cruel, sick and
Speaker 1: devilish people. How you can't even do that to me
Speaker 1: is like I don't understand who I don't even understand
Speaker 1: how you're human. I don't get it. I don't understand.
Speaker 1: It's torture and it's disgusting, and it happens to our
Speaker 1: people the most. So unbelievable, you asked me, man, I've
Speaker 1: been watching this case, you know, and watching you you know,
Speaker 1: people are real close to me or you know, this
Speaker 1: is one of his close friends, and just see that
Speaker 1: that is taken, you know, and it's not even this
Speaker 1: is not even somebody and I'm physically no, but just
Speaker 1: watching it through y'all and just just having a heart
Speaker 1: as a human being. It's like, damn, this man's life
Speaker 1: is on the verge of being taken for something that
Speaker 1: more than likely, you know, there is evidence that says
Speaker 1: that he didn't do that's right, and since he's been incarcerated,
Speaker 1: so he went to jail when he was nineteen, he's
Speaker 1: forty one. Now at this point, he's been in jail
Speaker 1: longer than he's been alive for something that he didn't
Speaker 1: do and wasn't even act. And so to take his
Speaker 1: life that means he lived nineteen years. Because it's like
Speaker 1: we're talking about taking his life in the execution sense, right,
Speaker 1: but to take his life and to lock him up.
Speaker 1: He's been in there since he was nineteen and what
Speaker 1: and so so one. He's been held wrong right like that.
Speaker 1: He wasn't supposed to be in the begin with. His
Speaker 1: his future has been taken from him. And if he
Speaker 1: has any small chance of a future after this, which
Speaker 1: is depending on the work that we all do, so quick, uh,
Speaker 1: call to action to folks. We need folks to go
Speaker 1: visit free Julius Jones dot com. That is where folks
Speaker 1: can make phone calls to the people asking how can
Speaker 1: I help how can I help save this black man.
Speaker 1: We need folks to go visit free Julius Jones dot
Speaker 1: com so they can make phone calls not only to
Speaker 1: the governor but to the executive director in that General
Speaker 1: Council that I was talking about. That window was very
Speaker 1: very very very small we had between now and Monday.
Speaker 1: And if uh we do win that, or to me,
Speaker 1: if we do not win that and the Attorney General
Speaker 1: wins his case by contesting what the tent circuit did,
Speaker 1: then they will proceed with the execution. M hm. So
Speaker 1: this is not like we got all the options are
Speaker 1: still on the table, but the window that we have
Speaker 1: is a lot smaller, right, we have between now and
Speaker 1: November eighteen. Now we've got between now and whenever that
Speaker 1: Attorney General response comes back, and we don't know when
Speaker 1: that is that can come out tonight, right um, and
Speaker 1: so we have that smaller window. But I I do
Speaker 1: I want folks to go to free Julius Jones dot com.
Speaker 1: I want folks to follow the grassrootslot project. I want
Speaker 1: to shout out until freedom followed the support the job
Speaker 1: had been doing, both in front of the scenes and
Speaker 1: behind the scenes. Folks don't understan and how we always organized.
Speaker 1: We'll be getting stuff done. But even on your social
Speaker 1: media page and the work that y'all have been doing
Speaker 1: a phone called y'all been making have helped make that useful,
Speaker 1: have helped push the envelopes so that the governor can
Speaker 1: pay attention because the thing that we know go ahead.
Speaker 1: It's interesting that you say that because I've sat by,
Speaker 1: and you know, people all why Toneck mallory always have
Speaker 1: something to say, Well, why doesn't So sometimes I just
Speaker 1: sit by and I said, okay, let me just you know,
Speaker 1: play my role, be in the background, do the things,
Speaker 1: find the scenes. But I realized that if I didn't
Speaker 1: say anything on social media and rev up our audience,
Speaker 1: if you will, the people who listen to and support us.
Speaker 1: It would just be days that go by and Julius
Speaker 1: would need to be mentioned other than Class Fools law page.
Speaker 1: You know. Of course, Shaun King has talked about him, um,
Speaker 1: you know several times, and you see some of the
Speaker 1: same people out there advocating. But the folks who claimed
Speaker 1: that we all are uh overwhelming, and we are co opting,
Speaker 1: and we are all of these things, they have not
Speaker 1: done one thing to bring attention to this situation and
Speaker 1: to try to fight to save Julius's lives. And the
Speaker 1: reason why they can't do that is because they spend
Speaker 1: so much time focused on trying to tear other people
Speaker 1: down that they're not even they don't have any goal.
Speaker 1: Because to me, Julius Jones is probably one of the
Speaker 1: most important issues of our time right not because friends
Speaker 1: and family that we know have come to us, but no,
Speaker 1: we know the facts, we understand the story, and yet
Speaker 1: there are many days that Julius is not even being
Speaker 1: mentioned by some of these same people who have so
Speaker 1: much to say about us. And I recently saw you
Speaker 1: online saying that one you don't know everything. And two,
Speaker 1: you shouldn't spend your life talking about other people. And
Speaker 1: I know that the work sort of at times, all
Speaker 1: of the energy, the negative energy especially can get you down,
Speaker 1: especially while you're also working with someone who's on death
Speaker 1: row dealing with his family. It's a lie or Rolland
Speaker 1: for those people who don't know, we keep mentioning him,
Speaker 1: but we haven't said or Rolland who is our friend
Speaker 1: who's also um a coach within the n B a
Speaker 1: UM he works very closely in terms of training um
Speaker 1: UH athletes, not just in the NBA, the NFL, and
Speaker 1: he also has a youth organization where he trains young
Speaker 1: people as well. And he's our brother. UM. You know,
Speaker 1: he said to me one day I called and he said,
Speaker 1: in his heart, he believes that julius life is going
Speaker 1: to be saved. And I want to believe that also.
Speaker 1: But if for some reason, this system does not do
Speaker 1: what it is supposed to do, you should just know, Tiffany,
Speaker 1: that the world will acknowledge eventually how hard you went
Speaker 1: for Julius and how much um it became your own story,
Speaker 1: like you know, not just something you're working on, but
Speaker 1: I see you and your own leadership developing and you growing,
Speaker 1: and so I just want to make sure to give
Speaker 1: you your flowers on street politicians and make sure you
Speaker 1: know that you're loved and appreciate it. And that means
Speaker 1: so much to be coming from y'all as people that
Speaker 1: two things that you said, one that means so much
Speaker 1: to me because everybody that we don't know can talk
Speaker 1: about us, but what really matters the people that do
Speaker 1: know us. Yeah, and I also know that if at
Speaker 1: any point I am stepping out of line, which has
Speaker 1: happened before, but the people that love me and the
Speaker 1: people that got my back are the ones that I
Speaker 1: can go to who will tell me the truth. And
Speaker 1: so to even have and this is not to reverence
Speaker 1: you in my son in any different way, right, but
Speaker 1: but to have people that I look up to and
Speaker 1: people who I feel like I've done this work genuinely
Speaker 1: even though they get dragged, even though they get talked about.
Speaker 1: And folks won't always recognize this, but to mecause most
Speaker 1: of the time nine nine percent of the time y'all
Speaker 1: get asked to come and do this work. You don't
Speaker 1: just go on everybody's business and show up and say
Speaker 1: I'm gonna help you and save the world people. At
Speaker 1: the same thing for Sean King, people called Sean to say, hey,
Speaker 1: can you help with the Julius Jones case. This wasn't
Speaker 1: him popping up, and I wanted to help. He actually
Speaker 1: tried to avoid it because he knows that people talk
Speaker 1: cracked about him all the time. And I know that
Speaker 1: that struggle as a leader is hard, and so it
Speaker 1: I have been nervous right to say, Okay, well people,
Speaker 1: what the people gonna say, But at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, exactly what you said to me, because it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter what people say. I'm doing God's work. God
Speaker 1: asked me to be here. God put me here. I've
Speaker 1: been praying since I left the end of a a
Speaker 1: CP to do work that really really matter to me.
Speaker 1: And this is the work that really really matters. And
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter what anybody else thinks, because anybody else
Speaker 1: gonna fly to Oklahoma and yell at the governor, organize
Speaker 1: a protest. Talked to Julius on the phone, who also
Speaker 1: believes that he will be saved. Julius doesn't believe he's
Speaker 1: going to die. I spoken to Julius. Julius says, listen,
Speaker 1: I believe and I have prayed that I'm going to
Speaker 1: be here, but that this is this is about me,
Speaker 1: and God is using me for a bigger cause. And
Speaker 1: if Julius, if Julius on death brow can say that
Speaker 1: to me, then I have no other choice but to
Speaker 1: do the work. So that means a lot of sense.
Speaker 1: Thank you for my flowers. I love you. That's right, Roses,
Speaker 1: blu care Roses. Well, Tiffany, it was you know, it's
Speaker 1: a pleasure to have you is always a pleasure. Like
Speaker 1: she said, the work you're doing is definitely God's work.
Speaker 1: I gotta get you your guard's work hat because you
Speaker 1: gotta wear it, you know. But um, we love you, man,
Speaker 1: continue to fight. We we're praying for Julius. We're fighting
Speaker 1: for Julius, and like you said, we believe that God
Speaker 1: is gonna do what he does man, and he would
Speaker 1: definitely be free and he would be back where he's
Speaker 1: supposed to be. Man. So let's just from God's is,
Speaker 1: from our mouth to God's is. Yeah. Man, alright, Peece, Tiffany,
Speaker 1: thank you, keep thank you love you too. So you
Speaker 1: know that interview with Tiffany is really really powerful. But
Speaker 1: we need to bring our next guests on as well,
Speaker 1: and so I think we can I really give a
Speaker 1: summation if you will, of both interviews at the end,
Speaker 1: if that's okay with you, because you know, I think
Speaker 1: I'm like part producer of street politicians and we don't
Speaker 1: roll your eyes listen if that's what you want to
Speaker 1: do with Shout out to Tiffany for coming up here
Speaker 1: with the information and just being dope anyway. Yeah. Cool,
Speaker 1: So we'll talk about both interviews after right now, we've
Speaker 1: got our next guests, a friend, another friend another day.
Speaker 1: As usual, we have a great friend joining us today. Uh.
Speaker 1: This is it's a story that I feel extremely connected
Speaker 1: to because I knew uh this young sister before she
Speaker 1: um ended up being incarcerated. Actually we hung out in
Speaker 1: the streets in New York. We was out in the
Speaker 1: street partying and doing it up, yeah, some years ago.
Speaker 1: And um, she has an incredible story. And you know,
Speaker 1: we love to highlight people who have turned their pain,
Speaker 1: their trauma, their tragedies into purpose and passion. Um and
Speaker 1: certainly Topeka Sam has done that. Topeka K Sam to
Speaker 1: be exact, she has certainly turned um a a story
Speaker 1: that some would think, where do you go from here?
Speaker 1: You know, how could we ever even make a comeback
Speaker 1: from um where she's been, But she certainly has. She's
Speaker 1: the founder and CEO of Ladies of Hope Ministries, which
Speaker 1: is a facility that really manages and cares for and
Speaker 1: helps to advocate for and as a re entry program
Speaker 1: for women who are formally incarcerated. UM. And you know,
Speaker 1: there are many people who have found Ladies of Hope
Speaker 1: to be a beacon a light for what we do
Speaker 1: to support women who have been incarcerated. You know, as
Speaker 1: you know, we talk about all the time that that
Speaker 1: is one industry and one area that is under resourced
Speaker 1: and in fact, in many places is non existent. But um,
Speaker 1: you know, Topeka Sam has has started a program there,
Speaker 1: and I think we could just go ahead and bring
Speaker 1: our sister on and let her talk about her story.
Speaker 1: So welcome to street politicians, Uh, Topeka k Sam. Hey, y'all,
Speaker 1: thank you so much to make a deep Mallory and Lennon.
Speaker 1: I don't know if there's a middle initial, okay, but
Speaker 1: you don't use it, so you just so okay, So
Speaker 1: thank you so much for having me on. I'm super excited.
Speaker 1: Thank you. So let's get into Peka. First of all,
Speaker 1: First of all, you're everywhere, and I think everybody knows
Speaker 1: your story, but they don't write just like folks say,
Speaker 1: I'm everywhere and people think they know my story. And
Speaker 1: it's funny because this morning I got a call from
Speaker 1: an elder who I've known forever. She's from the same
Speaker 1: town that my mom is from, UM in Alabama, and
Speaker 1: she's like, I had no idea that your son's father
Speaker 1: was murdered. And I had no idea. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: this lady has been knowing me since I was like
Speaker 1: a young teenager, and yet still she doesn't know these things.
Speaker 1: She said she heard me on Jamal Hills podcast while
Speaker 1: driving late night in the rain, and she said she
Speaker 1: asked a young person to direct her to something that
Speaker 1: she could listen to that would, you know, keep her
Speaker 1: going on the ride. And this was just a few
Speaker 1: nights ago, and she said she listened to this podcast
Speaker 1: and heard all of this new information about me. So
Speaker 1: people don't always know your story, even though you think
Speaker 1: that you told it over and over again. So we've
Speaker 1: got to ask you on street politicians to tell your story, UM,
Speaker 1: to make sure that our listeners know and understand who
Speaker 1: you are, where you come from I and from New York.
Speaker 1: You knew that. But I grew up in Long Island
Speaker 1: in Manorville. My parents were franchise business owners. They owned
Speaker 1: a cargo franchise in Brooklyn over twenty something years and
Speaker 1: two restaurants in Hall, and they grew up in Harlem
Speaker 1: and the Bronx. They wanted a different life for us,
Speaker 1: so we were the only black family in our neighborhood.
Speaker 1: We came to the city every weekend where I learned
Speaker 1: how to play piano at um Harlem School the Arts.
Speaker 1: So I was there every weekend and then I would
Speaker 1: go to Brooklyn and then come back and then go
Speaker 1: right back out to him. Now, so that was my life,
Speaker 1: me and my brothers. And when it was time for
Speaker 1: me to go to college, obviously that was going to
Speaker 1: be my trajectory. I chose an HPCU because, to be frank,
Speaker 1: you know, I wanted to be around other kids that
Speaker 1: were black and like me, and I wanted to be
Speaker 1: in community with my people because I have been around
Speaker 1: all white people all the time, and though my friends
Speaker 1: and loved them, if I just wanted something different. And
Speaker 1: so I went to Baltimore and with to Morgan State university,
Speaker 1: and I experienced life very differently there. Um it was
Speaker 1: another culture shock because you know, I come from one
Speaker 1: place to another. I get to Baltimore and though super
Speaker 1: excited because now I'm finally in community. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: often I say my swag was a little different, and
Speaker 1: so I was, you know, kind of isolated. I was
Speaker 1: told like, you know, you talked like your wife where
Speaker 1: you think you're better than us, so you're pretty, to
Speaker 1: be dark, skinning, all these things that I never heard before.
Speaker 1: And UM, so through that, you know, I found myself
Speaker 1: really just trying to find a sense of connectness, of belonging.
Speaker 1: I really wasn't dating before I went to college. My
Speaker 1: father was very strict. UM, and I started dating. I
Speaker 1: started dating guys who were from the city, were from
Speaker 1: the street, and eventually they were guys selling drugs. And
Speaker 1: I thought that I could do it better because I
Speaker 1: thought I was smarter, and I found myself engaged in
Speaker 1: that lifestyle. And this went on for years and through that, UM,
Speaker 1: I was also I'll speed it up to being uh
Speaker 1: maybe thirty five. Around thirty five years old, I was
Speaker 1: division chairperson for Amtrak for New York in d C. UM.
Speaker 1: I had one business that I wanted to open another business,
Speaker 1: and I had stopped being engaged in that lifestyle priorly
Speaker 1: about seven years prior, and I received a phone call
Speaker 1: out of the blue, and UM, I was like, well, damn,
Speaker 1: I can do this real quick. Connect some people make
Speaker 1: this money to start this next business, and I'm out
Speaker 1: this one last run. And that one last run ended
Speaker 1: up being a federal drug sting operation. And so I
Speaker 1: found myself in Virginia, UM, in a county gym, and
Speaker 1: I thought I would bail out, no big deal. It
Speaker 1: was like I said, it was a sting operation. There
Speaker 1: were no drugs. I was added into a superseding indictment. UM,
Speaker 1: I was set up and so that was that, but
Speaker 1: that's not gonna happen. And UM, the judge was like,
Speaker 1: when I thought I was gonna bail out, you know,
Speaker 1: you're a drug queen pin and the threat to society,
Speaker 1: No bail. And I began to really understand at that
Speaker 1: point that the legal system, um was very different than
Speaker 1: what I thought prior to that. And so now I'm
Speaker 1: in this county jail in Virginia and I'm like, all right,
Speaker 1: well now I'm gonna here. I'm not gonna bail out.
Speaker 1: I need to begin to become a part of this
Speaker 1: new community I'm a part of. And while they're um selfishly,
Speaker 1: I started going to n A and a A classes
Speaker 1: because I was not able to be out of myself.
Speaker 1: I was separated as a federal detainee and accounty jail,
Speaker 1: and so they had to keep us separated. So I
Speaker 1: was in a cell. The twenty one twenty three, I
Speaker 1: was a day by myself, and so I would go
Speaker 1: out to go to these programs. And so when I
Speaker 1: went to the n A class, I asked the sisters,
Speaker 1: I was like, you know, why did you use drugs?
Speaker 1: Because I had an idea that people use drugs because
Speaker 1: they wanted to. I didn't have anyone in my family
Speaker 1: that struggled with substance mishoes at the time. I did
Speaker 1: not know UM the impacts that it had because I
Speaker 1: wasn't connected in that way and UM. One of the
Speaker 1: sisters told me that her father had been raping her
Speaker 1: and gave her heroin and told her to take the
Speaker 1: heroin so the pain would go away. And another young
Speaker 1: lady said that the only time she was able to
Speaker 1: spend time with her mother was when they smoke cracked together,
Speaker 1: and it was all of these difference worries and testimonies.
Speaker 1: And I remember being spiritually convicted. UM I was, I
Speaker 1: was raising the church. I knew who God was, and
Speaker 1: I um said, well, you know what, I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: ahead and plead guilty. And I did, and I went
Speaker 1: to federal prison. How long? How long were you in
Speaker 1: federal prison? I end up spending three years in federal prison. UM.
Speaker 1: I was in five different jails, two county jails, three
Speaker 1: federal prisons. UM. I came home in t But while
Speaker 1: I was inside, you know, whether I was in the
Speaker 1: county jail where it was poor black, poor white women, UM,
Speaker 1: you know, low levels of education, no access to any resources.
Speaker 1: When I went to federal prison, it was more like doctors, lawyers, senators, judges,
Speaker 1: women who had you know, high affluence, high levels of education. UM,
Speaker 1: different types of opportunities, but it was still the same
Speaker 1: underlying issues sexual trauma, violence, mental health issues, lack of
Speaker 1: resources and opportunity. And so while I was there, you know,
Speaker 1: God just imparted in my life that I needed to
Speaker 1: start the order with Station and gave me the name
Speaker 1: of the organization and told me what I needed to do,
Speaker 1: and so I came home in and just began to
Speaker 1: hit the ground and learn. So you know, I'm always
Speaker 1: you know, coming from a different background, Like you said,
Speaker 1: you came from more fluent, you know, a bringing and
Speaker 1: going into prison was it like a real shot because
Speaker 1: I know most people that I talked to that come
Speaker 1: from in fluent background, they just think everybody that's in
Speaker 1: jail supposed to be in jail did worse people in
Speaker 1: the world. They just commit crimes and they don't want
Speaker 1: to hear nothing about it. Where you really like shocked
Speaker 1: to see that these are just everyday people that are
Speaker 1: down on their luck, that had hard time. Some of
Speaker 1: them shouldn't even be here, Like did this is where
Speaker 1: you shocked by what you saw on the system? Absolutely?
Speaker 1: I um to your point. I had the biases. I
Speaker 1: thought it was a certain type of person that went
Speaker 1: to prison, right, a certain type of person that was
Speaker 1: in there. You know, I would watch cops locked up
Speaker 1: abroad and all these things, and you would see a type.
Speaker 1: Um until I became that tight, right, and while I
Speaker 1: was there, and I remember, um, after I was sentence,
Speaker 1: I was on that plane they call it con air,
Speaker 1: the transport plane. And I remember saying to myself, then
Speaker 1: the last flight I was on was a first class
Speaker 1: like the Hawaii And here I am now handcuffed and
Speaker 1: shackles um to assister who had never been on a
Speaker 1: plane at all. And that way, mant that was too deep.
Speaker 1: We gotta go back to that. You said, you the
Speaker 1: last time you were on a plane, it was to
Speaker 1: Hawaii first class. You were on vacation or you know,
Speaker 1: going to Vaca, Hawaii. And then this time the next
Speaker 1: time you're on the plane's shackle to a woman who
Speaker 1: had never been on a plane at all. Yeah, m
Speaker 1: hmm it was. And I said in that very moment,
Speaker 1: I said, you know it didn't matter, you know what
Speaker 1: what mode of transportation we go in our lives. That
Speaker 1: we're more connected than we think we are. And though
Speaker 1: I I like, I kept myself away for so long
Speaker 1: because even when I had first got arrested in my
Speaker 1: friends were like, You're not like them, don't talk to them.
Speaker 1: You know, we're gonna do all of that right that
Speaker 1: when I was like, wait a minute, I am them.
Speaker 1: That is me. You know, I just had a different
Speaker 1: level of you know, education or opportunity really afforded by
Speaker 1: my family. UM, but I was no different and it
Speaker 1: really allowed me to connect to people in a very
Speaker 1: different way. Let me ask you this question to go
Speaker 1: backwards because you you and I know you probably are
Speaker 1: so used to telling this story. But again, most people
Speaker 1: don't know. When you say you were a part of
Speaker 1: a sting operation, explained to us what that means. You
Speaker 1: were called by individuals who were agents, like they were already.
Speaker 1: What was the details of that? So what happened was, Um,
Speaker 1: I got called back, Like I said, it was like
Speaker 1: seven years, seven years later because I had stopped something
Speaker 1: drugs for a while. Um, it was a whole situation
Speaker 1: that happened. And that's a whole other story. We don't
Speaker 1: have enough time. But I decided when I got this
Speaker 1: call seven years later because I knew them, it was
Speaker 1: my connect Um. I dealt with them before they were
Speaker 1: you know, Mexican, they were in the cartel and I
Speaker 1: was like, all right, well these are the same people.
Speaker 1: It was never a problem for you know, things are good.
Speaker 1: This is cool. Um. But you know, you know, especially
Speaker 1: when you're connected spiritually, even when you don't realize you are,
Speaker 1: that something just doesn't seem right. But nonetheless, um, I
Speaker 1: end up meeting with them and something I was supposed
Speaker 1: to meet with them originally in Baltimore. I flew out
Speaker 1: to California to have a face to me his conversation,
Speaker 1: and they told me to meet this person in Virginia.
Speaker 1: And I was like, I'm not going to Virginia, Like
Speaker 1: there's no need for me to go to Virginia. And
Speaker 1: I kind of prolonged it, but one of my co
Speaker 1: deferends was like, look, let's just go get this done.
Speaker 1: D da da da da. You know, I'll drive you
Speaker 1: out there. So we went and the journey out there
Speaker 1: laughed now because it was like all the signs in
Speaker 1: the world like don't God was like stopped and I
Speaker 1: remember him and I leave it from the city hall um,
Speaker 1: And we left and we're driving down. Usually even when
Speaker 1: I drove down to Baltimore on my own, I would
Speaker 1: just be able to get a straight you know, straight shot,
Speaker 1: short trip, no big deal. But every hour I had
Speaker 1: to go to the battom. So I kept making him
Speaker 1: stop so I can go to the bathroom. And I
Speaker 1: was like, something isn't right. My spirit was like it's
Speaker 1: not right. We keep I fall asleep, I wake up
Speaker 1: to some smoke and I'm like, what's going on. We
Speaker 1: pull over and find some kind of like shop auto shop,
Speaker 1: and the guy said that the transmission was and I
Speaker 1: said to him, this is a sign we need to
Speaker 1: turn around, and he like, no, this is a sign.
Speaker 1: It's like we just suit me to Scar need to
Speaker 1: give me my money back. Well I'm like all right.
Speaker 1: So then I'm like something is it right? Then we
Speaker 1: end up going to um rent a car right across
Speaker 1: the street from the place, and we get there to
Speaker 1: where we're supposed to meet these people. Now, the person
Speaker 1: that we were supposed to meet wasn't there. Some other
Speaker 1: person came up and let me take you back. So
Speaker 1: before that, this homeboy of mine, he was like, yo,
Speaker 1: you need to go see these like you know, he's
Speaker 1: saying a low us. You know, the Spanish people that
Speaker 1: tell you about all of that. Now, I was Christian
Speaker 1: and I knew at the time, but I decided to
Speaker 1: do what he said. And the guy who I spoke
Speaker 1: to told me that because I asked about this situation
Speaker 1: because I have been out for so long, so I
Speaker 1: was asking me. He's like, no, everybody around you is good,
Speaker 1: but if you go to a table and meet somebody
Speaker 1: with a New York Baseball cap on one, that's the
Speaker 1: police leave. Do you know When I got to that
Speaker 1: restaurant and that man walked in, it was a man
Speaker 1: with a New York baseball cap. He sat down at
Speaker 1: the table. I literally got anauseous. I got up, I
Speaker 1: went to the bathroom. I had like three cell phones,
Speaker 1: like throwing the chips out, clear the things in the bathroom.
Speaker 1: I come back to the table and I told my homeboy,
Speaker 1: let's go. We walk out. As soon as we walk out,
Speaker 1: and it's probably about twenty cops that just swarmed us,
Speaker 1: told us to get on the ground and all that,
Speaker 1: and I just kind of looked up and was like
Speaker 1: to see, like I knew this right. So then I
Speaker 1: get there. They take us to this little place and
Speaker 1: they separate us in these two little rooms and we're
Speaker 1: there and then the fact he comes over and he's like,
Speaker 1: you know, such as such wants to talk to you.
Speaker 1: So of course red flag goes up, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: they don't let you talk to each other, So like
Speaker 1: what are they trying to do? You know? And he's like, um, yo,
Speaker 1: tell them what they want to know, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: you need to get a little He's like, yo, that's
Speaker 1: your connect. I don't even know what them people, but
Speaker 1: I was like, listen, you need to get a lawyer.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do the same, and I just completely shut down.
Speaker 1: We get to the county jail and I remember being,
Speaker 1: you know, they put you in this little whole thing
Speaker 1: south and the women, and with the women of course
Speaker 1: the men with the men. So we're starting, we're starting
Speaker 1: to make me have an opportunity to make our phone calls.
Speaker 1: And he goes out to the pay phone and I'm
Speaker 1: just sitting down and the young girl, she's probably like eighteen,
Speaker 1: she says to me, yo, that's your cody. And I look.
Speaker 1: She's like, girl, you finished. And I laughed because he
Speaker 1: was at the pay phone. That dude, like she could
Speaker 1: hear him, but he was sick something, tall, big dude
Speaker 1: and he's sitting on a pay phone prime So she
Speaker 1: sh that and she was like, your finnis right, like girl,
Speaker 1: you know, you know, and she could hear him talking
Speaker 1: to whoever he was talking to Ottabla, and so yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what happened. So that's part of that. It's how
Speaker 1: I got to that place. But the thing is when
Speaker 1: you know they set you up, so a conspiracy, which
Speaker 1: is what it was. Um, it's one it has to
Speaker 1: be one or two, two or more people having to
Speaker 1: talk about this thing, right. But because it wasn't considered
Speaker 1: entrapments though it was, um, they put it in the
Speaker 1: fourth circuit, which is in the federal prison in the
Speaker 1: federal government. Fourth circuit is like Virginia, Maryland, that area,
Speaker 1: which is one of the harshest circuits. Um. The reason
Speaker 1: why it was really juris channel entrapments because had my
Speaker 1: case been out of Baltimore, likely I wouldn't have gotten
Speaker 1: anye jail time because there were no drugs in the case. Um.
Speaker 1: But because they did it in Virginia, they did it
Speaker 1: purposely because they knew in Virginia I would definitely be
Speaker 1: prosecuted in Richmond, Virginia. Well, damn, that's crazy. So what
Speaker 1: did your parents have to say? But how did your
Speaker 1: family feel? Well? When I was in of course during arrayment, Well,
Speaker 1: when I called everybody and they came down and you know,
Speaker 1: bring deeds to houses and money and whatever to bail
Speaker 1: me out, you know, of course everybody was shocked. All
Speaker 1: my friends, all my family. They had no idea what
Speaker 1: I was doing. I mean I had like living different lifestyles.
Speaker 1: I had my work life, I had my my friends
Speaker 1: from college life, I had this street life. And you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't realize how separate I kept everything until it
Speaker 1: was sentencing day and some of my friends that I
Speaker 1: had known for twenty years never met. My parents didn't
Speaker 1: know I had brothers. Um like, new nothing about me personally,
Speaker 1: yet I knew everything about everyone else. So they were
Speaker 1: very shocked, of course disappointed. Um Like, you know, my
Speaker 1: mother remember when they had to do the PSR, which
Speaker 1: is a pre sentence report where they call and ask
Speaker 1: about you and your family. They asked my mother if
Speaker 1: I was on drugs, and my mother said, if she was,
Speaker 1: I would understand. Wow wow wow wow. Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: I know, reliving all of that is not what you
Speaker 1: probably were expecting today because you have so much more
Speaker 1: um that we can with that we will cover. But
Speaker 1: I think it's just important for people to understand how
Speaker 1: you can get wrapped up so quickly in these situations.
Speaker 1: And you know, you say, seven years you you try
Speaker 1: to change your life. God gave you new opportunities, you know,
Speaker 1: new spaces and places, but sometimes we think we can
Speaker 1: slide backwards and then look, you know, look, look what
Speaker 1: happens because at that point, great, Yeah. So I tell
Speaker 1: people all the time. I remember when I was in
Speaker 1: the streets and I had one out of town, A
Speaker 1: lady pulled me to the side, never forget it. And
Speaker 1: I was out of town, hustler and it was in Charlottesville,
Speaker 1: m And the lady pulled me to the side and said,
Speaker 1: what are you doing here? And I said what she said,
Speaker 1: get out of here now, you don't belong here. I
Speaker 1: never went back. That's the last day of hustle in
Speaker 1: my life. I followed the signs and everybody that I
Speaker 1: know out there. Two of my friends got killed out there,
Speaker 1: and one of them in serving life in that same town.
Speaker 1: Jesus always followed signs. Man, So how did what? What
Speaker 1: was the process for you coming home? So I was
Speaker 1: originally sentenced to a hundred and thirty months, so that's
Speaker 1: ten years ten months because it was a mandatory minium.
Speaker 1: In my case, I was convicted of conspiracy to south
Speaker 1: as a cocaine or more. Because that was the conversation.
Speaker 1: And again when you talk about conspiracy, like you know,
Speaker 1: real real talk. It was I was going to purchase
Speaker 1: fifty key loads and they were like, oh, well, we'll
Speaker 1: give you thirty more key loads, you know, basically on
Speaker 1: the on the hook, right, so with no money. So
Speaker 1: obviously if a person is like, we're gonna give you
Speaker 1: more for no money, if you're gonna take it right
Speaker 1: a wrong. But all that was was them to do
Speaker 1: it in order for them to get the mandatory minimum
Speaker 1: up right. So that's why they did that, in order
Speaker 1: to get me in a different sentence in category. So
Speaker 1: you know, you learn about all these things afterwards, but
Speaker 1: that's what it was. So when I was pleading guilty,
Speaker 1: I left my plea open so that I could appeal
Speaker 1: in my case with a downward archer, which is called
Speaker 1: the safety valve. And in the safety valve, it's five
Speaker 1: different criterias that you have to meet, like you can't
Speaker 1: have a criminal category under one, you have to fully
Speaker 1: tell the truth about yourself, um, and it's the three
Speaker 1: other things involved. But after that, I requested it downward
Speaker 1: departure at sentencing. Obviously, they denied my downward departure, which
Speaker 1: is why I ended up getting the one thirty. Fast
Speaker 1: forward about a year later, I'm in federal prison and
Speaker 1: I'm you know, telling my lawyer like, listen, I want
Speaker 1: us to appeal, Like there has to be a way
Speaker 1: that we can do this. I remember reading the law,
Speaker 1: going to law library and all that. It was a
Speaker 1: motion called thirty two, which is a motion for a sentence. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's called imposition of sentence. So through the booker variants,
Speaker 1: which allows them to take into consideration like other things,
Speaker 1: your your history, you know where you're your upbringing, you
Speaker 1: know any family, all these things. Um, you can put
Speaker 1: an emotion to do that. So I prayed, was fast
Speaker 1: thing doing all these things, and I wrote the letter
Speaker 1: to the judge and the lawyer put in the motion,
Speaker 1: and on March fiveteen, which is the day before my birthday,
Speaker 1: I got a call the offense and I was told
Speaker 1: that my sentence was reduced from a hundred and thirty
Speaker 1: months to sixty five months. At that time, I qualified
Speaker 1: for all what's what they call a drug program, and
Speaker 1: it's our DAP, And our DAP was the only program
Speaker 1: in the federal sy that you can take to give
Speaker 1: you a year off your sentence. Now I didn't know,
Speaker 1: you know, again, by the grace of God, because I
Speaker 1: didn't have any drug history, but I didn't know how
Speaker 1: I qualified. But when they told me that I would
Speaker 1: get a year off, I was like, signed me up,
Speaker 1: send me anywhere, and they end up sending me to Greenville, Illinois.
Speaker 1: So I took that program, and at that time a
Speaker 1: law passed called all Drugs all Drugs minus two and
Speaker 1: with that, I end up getting another fifteen months off
Speaker 1: my sentence. So I end up getting called into the
Speaker 1: office and reading the Illinois and I was told I
Speaker 1: was going home in two weeks, and that's how it happened.
Speaker 1: I end up being released. UM and I knew at
Speaker 1: that point. I said, God has something greater for me,
Speaker 1: like right, and I was like, I know this is
Speaker 1: what it is, So let me follow and let me
Speaker 1: be obedient. Let me do everything that God said for
Speaker 1: me to do. And that's exactly what I've done. And
Speaker 1: so I mean, I watched you when you came home.
Speaker 1: You really didn't have the program yet, but you were
Speaker 1: working to um, get secure housing, to secure build then
Speaker 1: if you will, you could have Ladies of Hope ministries
Speaker 1: operate from You got right in and started trying to,
Speaker 1: you know, figure out how to make it work. And
Speaker 1: you know, I think the thing that's interesting. We say
Speaker 1: it all the time, but it definitely um needs to
Speaker 1: be stated in this case that we have the skill
Speaker 1: set even when we use it for things that are
Speaker 1: not good, it's really about taking those same skills and
Speaker 1: applying it to things that are actually positive. We can
Speaker 1: make big things happen. I look at Jamil T. Davis,
Speaker 1: who you know, UM and worked with, and just looking
Speaker 1: at how innovative Jamilla is and how she's able to
Speaker 1: help so many of other people, UM, you know, make
Speaker 1: money and and and and figure out ways to be
Speaker 1: innovative in terms of their ideas, things they want to do.
Speaker 1: So this is these are these are things that it's
Speaker 1: not even Jamilla's wheelhouse, but she still can get in
Speaker 1: and help you figure out how to make things happen
Speaker 1: because that's the type of brain that she has. She
Speaker 1: just didn't know that it needed to be used for
Speaker 1: the right reasons. And also the type of people around us,
Speaker 1: the company we keep because our company tells us to
Speaker 1: do this or that, and sometimes we follow and don't
Speaker 1: realize that God has his own plan for our lives.
Speaker 1: So Ladies of Hope Ministries is your plan. But you
Speaker 1: had to go through all of these things to end
Speaker 1: up in this place. And I feel like that in
Speaker 1: my own life, I've had to go through such pain
Speaker 1: and trauma in order to end up in the place
Speaker 1: where I am today. And so I'm proud of you
Speaker 1: first of all, because I know the story and have
Speaker 1: watched you hustling. You didn't take no for an answer.
Speaker 1: People try to shut you down, shut you out, and
Speaker 1: you kept pushing. So tell us now, Ladies of Hope,
Speaker 1: tell us what it is and where are you trying
Speaker 1: to take it? How can we all help to get
Speaker 1: it there? Absolutely well, thank you so much, um So,
Speaker 1: Ladies of Hope Ministries mission, we say it's epic to
Speaker 1: end poverty and incarceration of women and girls globally, and
Speaker 1: we do that through two buckets. That's direct service and
Speaker 1: sustainability and policy and advocacy. What we know is we
Speaker 1: can't change laws, We can't change you know, conditions for
Speaker 1: people until our basic human rights are met, which is
Speaker 1: saint housing, equitable opportunity for career UM and also food,
Speaker 1: healthy food. And so we do Hope House, which is
Speaker 1: our first level of safe housing for women and girls
Speaker 1: UM impacted by any type of state violence. So we've
Speaker 1: expanded from not just women who have been impacted by incarceration,
Speaker 1: but women who have been impacted by any type of violence.
Speaker 1: And so we have a house in the Bronx, we
Speaker 1: have one in New Orleans, and we're developing our first
Speaker 1: twenty unit apartment building in Miami and South Florida for
Speaker 1: women and girls over women over the age of fifty
Speaker 1: five who are returning into South Florida because the numbers
Speaker 1: in Florida are crazy and we're gonna be scaling that
Speaker 1: right now. We're working in seven different cities to provide
Speaker 1: housing and build affordable housing developments and the Caribbean Trinidad
Speaker 1: specifically right now. Then we have our Angel Food Project,
Speaker 1: which partners with insta card, Whole Foods and other supermarkets
Speaker 1: where we give our fresh bags of food seven days
Speaker 1: a week, three d and sixty five days. We've been
Speaker 1: doing that for over five years now, every since I've
Speaker 1: been home, I've been doing that. Before I started LAUM
Speaker 1: became a program of that UM. Our Pathways for Equity
Speaker 1: program is a partnership with Virgin Unite where we partner
Speaker 1: with corporations to give growth focused positions to women who
Speaker 1: are impacted by these systems in corporate America. UM changing
Speaker 1: with diversity inclusion looks like not just race, religion, gender identity,
Speaker 1: but also lived experience. And so we partnered with you know,
Speaker 1: people from Chanel to now Virgin Orbit, which is super
Speaker 1: exciting because we can provide jobs for women UM in
Speaker 1: aerospace and so that's really really a great again, a
Speaker 1: great career path. And then on our policy advocacy work,
Speaker 1: we have our Faces and Women in Prison program, which
Speaker 1: is a global Speakers Bureau where we're trained over fifty
Speaker 1: women UM on how to use their voice in order
Speaker 1: to share their experiences to change policy but also become
Speaker 1: public speakers. Has paid public speakers because so often we're
Speaker 1: asked to share our stories, but we're not actually compensated
Speaker 1: for it. And so to your point earlier, we relive
Speaker 1: this trauma UM all the time and they're not giving anything.
Speaker 1: But you know, someone crying and you know, thank you
Speaker 1: for your story. But then it doesn't you know, equal anything,
Speaker 1: and people have childcare and taken over work UM and
Speaker 1: they need to be compensated. They are an expert in
Speaker 1: the space, and so that's what we've done. That program
Speaker 1: UM is also fund to by Chanelle, our for Justice
Speaker 1: for Foundation and the NFL. And then we have our
Speaker 1: Epic Ambassadors work, which is our policy and advocacy where
Speaker 1: we trained women on how to draft and right legislation,
Speaker 1: partner with local elected officials to get bills moved, and
Speaker 1: then get them registered as lobbyists in their estate. And
Speaker 1: so we're super excited about that because we feel that
Speaker 1: if you live the particular experience, you need to leave
Speaker 1: the policies to change that. We know what needs to happen.
Speaker 1: And again, you know, for me doing work around the
Speaker 1: country passing legislation, what I learned there's a lot of
Speaker 1: times they have people going to what they call legislative
Speaker 1: advocacy days and again taking off of work, not getting paid.
Speaker 1: But you know, as a consultant on a lot of projects,
Speaker 1: I also saw where we were retaining lobby firms so
Speaker 1: tan twenty dollars a month, and then that's not actually
Speaker 1: going to the people who are actually doing the lobby
Speaker 1: and so I said, well, there's an opportunity there. How
Speaker 1: do we actually get people registered as lobbyists in order
Speaker 1: for them to get paid as lobbyists to do the
Speaker 1: work that they were doing for free. As lobbyists. UM so,
Speaker 1: that's really exciting because now we're building this community of
Speaker 1: women and girls from around the country that are doing
Speaker 1: that work. Um so. And then our last program is
Speaker 1: our health equity work where we just recently partnered with
Speaker 1: optim and train fifty women to be birth douelers UM
Speaker 1: to go into prisons the help women who are pregnant,
Speaker 1: but also in community for women who cannot afford um
Speaker 1: a doula but would like one as an alternative to
Speaker 1: you know, maternal support. And now, so that's the work
Speaker 1: that we do. UM Like I said, right now we're
Speaker 1: stilling to seven different cities in the Caribbean, so you know,
Speaker 1: support from you know, the community like they look like us.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, to be frank, most of our
Speaker 1: funding come from you know, philanthropy, large philanthropists, corporate dollars,
Speaker 1: but mostly white. And you know when it's so disheartening
Speaker 1: to me is that incarceration and poverty disproportionately impacts people
Speaker 1: and communities of color. Yet we don't actually invest in
Speaker 1: the change in our own community. And so for me,
Speaker 1: you know, to be able to really connect to people
Speaker 1: that UM have the ability to push right our work
Speaker 1: to see opportunities for women and girls to change the
Speaker 1: outcomes for our families is critical and I really would
Speaker 1: like to see more support from people of color in that.
Speaker 1: So tell us, tell us where we can find you,
Speaker 1: as he can, tell us your website, all your social
Speaker 1: media's where people can invest because I hate the word donate.
Speaker 1: Invest in what you're doing, because what you're doing is
Speaker 1: something that people need to invest in, especially our people.
Speaker 1: We need to see it as mandatory. You know, I
Speaker 1: hate that. You know that people have expertise and come
Speaker 1: with this this will and this energy to do good
Speaker 1: things for our community, and we don't support it. So
Speaker 1: I just wanted to let everybody know how they can
Speaker 1: do that for you. Thank you so much. So the
Speaker 1: website is the th h E l o h M
Speaker 1: dot org so for the ladys, the whole ministryes dot
Speaker 1: org um we're on all social media platforms as at
Speaker 1: the l o h M. My social media platforms are
Speaker 1: at Topeka k sam um and then you know, for
Speaker 1: us and to your point, also my song like for me.
Speaker 1: You know what I realized most recently was, you know,
Speaker 1: I created a great nonprofit organization that is doing incredible
Speaker 1: work in four years. Right, Um, we've grown tremendously. We've
Speaker 1: been able to do things that people haven't been able
Speaker 1: to do as a nonprofit for twenty years. But while
Speaker 1: I I realized that I was here touting about equity,
Speaker 1: that I wasn't even creating equity for myself. That when
Speaker 1: as a nonprofit, you know founder that at any time,
Speaker 1: if my board or someone decides that I need not
Speaker 1: to be in this seat, that then they can say
Speaker 1: to pick up you know, thank you for your service.
Speaker 1: And that's it. And I have no legacy for my family.
Speaker 1: You know, I cannot create general generational wealth for my
Speaker 1: family for my sixth niece and it's the nephew using
Speaker 1: for my godchildren and all of that. And so what
Speaker 1: I decided to do was to start to launch, you know,
Speaker 1: for profit companies that actually help in order for me
Speaker 1: to build that well that will then I'll be able
Speaker 1: to fund my own nonprofit and be able to one
Speaker 1: day write my own five million dollar check to my
Speaker 1: own organization in order for sustainability. So with that, I
Speaker 1: started Epic Financial, which is gonna be launched fully in January,
Speaker 1: first quarter of next year, and that's a fintech platform
Speaker 1: that will actually give checking savings a counts to people
Speaker 1: who are presently incarcerated with financial literacy so when they
Speaker 1: get out, they actually have an account set up and
Speaker 1: don't have to worry about the barriers and banking and
Speaker 1: the barriers of all those things. UM, so super excited
Speaker 1: about that as well. And then you know, really partnering
Speaker 1: with not a lot of other non profits and other
Speaker 1: organizations for them to also get their community embedded in
Speaker 1: the platform that will also help to support our people,
Speaker 1: um in community. So well, that's the things, but that's
Speaker 1: the work. That's the work. Man. We really appreciate you.
Speaker 1: We we know that we're taking up a lot of
Speaker 1: your time, and we truly appreciate you. You know, the
Speaker 1: work that you do. You know, we we do work together.
Speaker 1: You know, we always see each other and we were
Speaker 1: always rooting for you man, continue to do the work.
Speaker 1: Me being formally incarcerated and always inspired just seeing the
Speaker 1: work that you do, you know, it gives me a
Speaker 1: little extra energy knowing that you know, we can come
Speaker 1: from wherever we come from and go through whatever we
Speaker 1: go through and still be successful and make sure that
Speaker 1: we pay it forward so that somebody's coming from where
Speaker 1: we come from, don't have to go through We went through. Sure, sure,
Speaker 1: thank you. I mean, I don't think there's much more
Speaker 1: than needs to be said. I'm happy that you came
Speaker 1: on today. Um. You know Cat Trigg, our director extraordinaire,
Speaker 1: really he loves Sopeica loves Topeka, and she kept saying hey,
Speaker 1: and we were like, yep, no, absolutely, let's get you on.
Speaker 1: Thank you for coming, and thank you for telling your
Speaker 1: story and digging into those deep places because you know,
Speaker 1: certainly when we talk about our trauma, it's not easy.
Speaker 1: You know, it's it's a lot of people kind of
Speaker 1: think it's just like a normal day, but it's not,
Speaker 1: because it brings up memories that come into your mind
Speaker 1: that are not good memories, you know. But um, telling
Speaker 1: your story will help someone else, hopefully a younger person
Speaker 1: or even a personal older person who's going through the
Speaker 1: same thing. Right now, we didn't get to talk about
Speaker 1: you being pardoned. Um, but I think there isn't there's
Speaker 1: a different show that we need to do to talk
Speaker 1: about the Trump era, if you will, and you being
Speaker 1: part I didn't buy Trump what that means. And also, um,
Speaker 1: you and I have had some difficult conversations about the
Speaker 1: need to work with the the Trump administration to help
Speaker 1: get people released and and and how to make that
Speaker 1: happen while still fighting against the um un the very
Speaker 1: very dangerous if you will, uh tone of that administration.
Speaker 1: So we want to bring you back to talk about that,
Speaker 1: but I think we've got to have you and Van
Speaker 1: Jones and some other people on at the same time
Speaker 1: so we can really get into a deep conversation about
Speaker 1: how we don't allow how we make sure every administration
Speaker 1: and pardons and works for us, but yet still find
Speaker 1: a way to make sure our people feel like we're
Speaker 1: still tent tooes down. And I think Ladies of Hope
Speaker 1: Ministry allows you to be in a lot of spaces
Speaker 1: and show what you're still doing for our communities. So
Speaker 1: thank you so much. Sobeka, Well, I really appreciate the
Speaker 1: opportunity to be on here. As Cat loves me, I
Speaker 1: love her equally, um and I love both of you.
Speaker 1: You know, as you say that you support my work,
Speaker 1: I support you. I you know, appreciate you. I do
Speaker 1: know how difficult it is to me go. I've seen,
Speaker 1: as you said you prior to me going to prison,
Speaker 1: and I've seen just all that you've done through, true
Speaker 1: and through, and so you know, God bless both of you.
Speaker 1: I know how difficult that is to be on those
Speaker 1: front lines all the time. I would love to come
Speaker 1: back to talk about that conversation that we have had,
Speaker 1: but also to talk about, you know, you know, how
Speaker 1: the community like how I mean I got daggered. I
Speaker 1: mean I probably be been if I actually if God
Speaker 1: did sparituly put the arm all over me while I
Speaker 1: was going into some of those places. Um, but understanding that,
Speaker 1: you know, when your people are calling you from inside
Speaker 1: of prison every single day and they're like, they don't
Speaker 1: care whatever you can do to get us out of here,
Speaker 1: because without them that they would die in prison, you
Speaker 1: have to make a choice if you were really going
Speaker 1: to you know, and it's not about you know, you
Speaker 1: you you have the amble to your point right on
Speaker 1: what you're doing and how you're doing it. But I
Speaker 1: think that it's also critical that we understand that, you know,
Speaker 1: whether we talk about you know, Trump or Republicans or
Speaker 1: anyone that's gotten us to this point. Every everyone has
Speaker 1: gotten us to this point. When you think about the
Speaker 1: crime Bill, you think about all those things, right, and
Speaker 1: who voted the crime bill, in all of those things. Um,
Speaker 1: when we look at what's happening now, you know, I
Speaker 1: had some ideas of what I thought this president administration
Speaker 1: should have done immediately when they came in to right
Speaker 1: some of the wrongs that they were a part of.
Speaker 1: That has not been done, um, and who knows if
Speaker 1: it will be done right? And so I think, you know,
Speaker 1: as people, we need to really really focus on our
Speaker 1: people and not so much the politics and what we
Speaker 1: don't like. We need to change. So, you know, we
Speaker 1: need to run for public office. We need to take
Speaker 1: a hold of those seats. We need to you know,
Speaker 1: figure out what's really happening in these communities around jerrymandering
Speaker 1: and everything else. And we need to position ourselves in
Speaker 1: these communities and take our communities back because with out it,
Speaker 1: we're gonna have these people representing us, which is not
Speaker 1: representing us at all. I heard you have it, Sopeka k. Sam.
Speaker 1: Thank you for being with us today. We appreciate you,
Speaker 1: love you, and we support you. Says that's right. I
Speaker 1: appreciate you'all, love you. Let me too. Shout out to
Speaker 1: Topeka man Tapika. That was an excellent interview. I didn't
Speaker 1: know all of the stuff. I've definitely heard a lot
Speaker 1: about her being incarcerated. I didn't even know her background
Speaker 1: or which she was actually from. I've just seen the
Speaker 1: work that she was doing, so she was very informative
Speaker 1: and just seeing how she transformed that. Like you know,
Speaker 1: I tell people that I'm about this. I told you
Speaker 1: I'm about to do a show co Evolutionary, where you know,
Speaker 1: I talk about people who have been informally incarcerated. Most
Speaker 1: people don't even know what have been formally incarcerated, or
Speaker 1: don't understand just how great they are after being formally
Speaker 1: because there's this stigma about you being incarcerated, and there's
Speaker 1: so many great people who've been incustrated. So I want
Speaker 1: to do a whole show that just focuses on that
Speaker 1: shout out to Topeka and that shoutout telling that, yeah,
Speaker 1: Topeka's she's she's She's a very driven young lady, always
Speaker 1: has been. She was driven when she was doing whatever
Speaker 1: you know, form of um dealing, drug dealing she was doing.
Speaker 1: She was ambitious then and I don't know, you know,
Speaker 1: but fifty keys and something. That's that's when you big outside. No,
Speaker 1: I don't know, but you know, she Um, she's always
Speaker 1: been really ambitious and a hard worker, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's just good to see that the story didn't end tragically.
Speaker 1: Like you know, it would have been tragic for her
Speaker 1: not to come back into society and you know, figure
Speaker 1: things out and be able to make a way for
Speaker 1: other people. As you said to her. I thought that
Speaker 1: was so positive that you all, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: I thought that was powerful when you said that. You know,
Speaker 1: not only are you trying to you know, forge away
Speaker 1: for yourself, but you're making a way for other people.
Speaker 1: So shout out to Tepeka Sam and and of course
Speaker 1: you know our girl Tiffany Lofton who came on first
Speaker 1: to talk about Julius Jones. Um, you know, just to
Speaker 1: see Julius, I mean to see Tiffany out there fighting
Speaker 1: for Julius. And really, you know her her wings have
Speaker 1: sort of been cut where she's no longer under a
Speaker 1: certain type of organization. You know, she's she's a bit
Speaker 1: worked in labor, so that's one type of organizing model.
Speaker 1: Of course, since she was at the N double A
Speaker 1: c P, that's another structure that is very very structured.
Speaker 1: When you work for the N double A c P,
Speaker 1: you know, not to say that they wouldn't have been
Speaker 1: on this case because, um, you know, just thinking about
Speaker 1: like Jill taker Ead Uh, she is a young sister
Speaker 1: who was at the n Double A CP who specifically
Speaker 1: worked on ending death row and was able to get
Speaker 1: different state to stop uh executing individuals. So I'm not
Speaker 1: saying that a C doesn't do that work, but and
Speaker 1: that they wouldn't be involved in Julius Jones situation. But
Speaker 1: the issue is that when you are an employee, you
Speaker 1: really do have to go up the chain to get
Speaker 1: the right way and the approval on how you can
Speaker 1: approach these issues. And so now to see her out
Speaker 1: there working with grassroots law, which is obviously an environment
Speaker 1: that gives, um, you much more freedom to figure out
Speaker 1: what is the right way to run a campaign. And
Speaker 1: she's doing that and I'm watching it happen and I'm
Speaker 1: really really super proud of her, and I hope that
Speaker 1: in the end it it is it benefits Julius, you know,
Speaker 1: to have that energy on the ground. Um when I
Speaker 1: think about it, actually, uh, the local in Double A
Speaker 1: CP president and the organization is involved. So to have
Speaker 1: all until freedom and her Roland and all of these
Speaker 1: different individuals and entities apporting to me that should make
Speaker 1: up the mix the suit that we talk about that
Speaker 1: will free this man o man, you know, I believe,
Speaker 1: I really, I really, truly truly believe that, and I
Speaker 1: believe it's definitely gonna happen soon. To shout out to Tiffany.
Speaker 1: But um, we got we come to my own. I
Speaker 1: don't get it, you know, and it's it's a little
Speaker 1: bit offered this, but it is has to do it.
Speaker 1: That's black people. You know. We talk about legacy organizations,
Speaker 1: and you can't really talk about black legacy organizations without
Speaker 1: talking about HBCUs, you know. And unfortunately, I had an
Speaker 1: opportunity to go to Howard Campus a couple of days ago,
Speaker 1: and I really don't get this situation at all. Like
Speaker 1: I am so completely lost, you know. I looked went
Speaker 1: to a campus and seen young black men, young men
Speaker 1: and women sleeping intense sleeping in the buildings, talking of
Speaker 1: giving me blow blow by blows, and how there's mold
Speaker 1: in their rooms, how they don't even have WiFi, how
Speaker 1: they're paying fifty dollars to do online classes, how people
Speaker 1: are just some of them have been told to come
Speaker 1: to the campus because they had living and they didn't
Speaker 1: have nowhere for them to live, and they have to
Speaker 1: sleep in cars. Some of them talking about how the
Speaker 1: meal prep is so disgusting that you wouldn't even eat
Speaker 1: it if you was in prison. Like it was embarrassing
Speaker 1: because you know, as a young boy hearing about HBCUs,
Speaker 1: I never went to one, but I have a lot
Speaker 1: of friends and family who have been to hbc U
Speaker 1: s and I watched school days and I wanted to
Speaker 1: be part of that, you know, I wanted I wanted
Speaker 1: to go to HBCU so to see that this is
Speaker 1: the experience of young freshman's and and and a lot
Speaker 1: of them saying this is we don't have anything else.
Speaker 1: We we can't fail here, you know, like they're saying
Speaker 1: that they not even given their courses properly. They don't
Speaker 1: have the opportunity to excel. They've given up everything that
Speaker 1: mother took out, the loans they took out, put leans
Speaker 1: on their homes, all type of things. To be able
Speaker 1: to come to this experience and to see that this
Speaker 1: is what they're going through. They they had some of
Speaker 1: them had tears in their eyes. We had tears and
Speaker 1: eyes just listened to the story, and I really just
Speaker 1: don't get how the administration at Howard allowed this situation
Speaker 1: to get to this. You know, well, let me say
Speaker 1: that there's a few things on that um Howards administration.
Speaker 1: Of course, they have heavy, heavy, heavy, heavy load and
Speaker 1: burden that they have to answer to as it relates
Speaker 1: to the conditions of the students. Absolutely um. Even if
Speaker 1: they feel that some of it is misunderstandings, overblown. I've
Speaker 1: heard all types of responses. They need to speak to it.
Speaker 1: They need to speak to the students directly, not try
Speaker 1: to isolate one or two students, but to speak to
Speaker 1: all the students in an open format. UM. That gives them,
Speaker 1: the students the opportunity to ask questions, to bring grievances,
Speaker 1: and that puts the administration in a place where they
Speaker 1: will respond to what they can respond to, where they
Speaker 1: will be able to hear um and and here without um,
Speaker 1: without animosity and age a jerk to try to you know, well,
Speaker 1: we're gonna silence you by um having you thrown out
Speaker 1: of school. It would be best for them to show
Speaker 1: up and get their sleeves rolled up and get into
Speaker 1: what is happening with the students and walk alongside them
Speaker 1: to try to fix some of these issues. So with
Speaker 1: that being said, the reason why I I I suggest
Speaker 1: that the administration sort of roll up their sleeves and
Speaker 1: get in there with Howard is because all of it,
Speaker 1: everything that's happening, is not their fault alone. We have
Speaker 1: a problem with the funding, the real funding. Yes, granted
Speaker 1: fifty dollars, there's a lot of money from each student
Speaker 1: for the semesters. But if you go to predominantly white institutions,
Speaker 1: they are receiving more money and more support from the
Speaker 1: outside community, which are rich folks, particularly rich white folks,
Speaker 1: with endowments to help these schools succeed, and the resources
Speaker 1: that they receive from the government is completely different at
Speaker 1: HBCUs they are suffering severely from underfunding and from the
Speaker 1: disrespect that continues to happen over and over for black
Speaker 1: institutions within our society and by our government, and the
Speaker 1: fact that there are too many people out here who
Speaker 1: do not see the need to educate and make comfortable
Speaker 1: black students. So to be host out towards the students,
Speaker 1: to me is a lack of foresight and it's ignorant
Speaker 1: because really they could be coming together to show that
Speaker 1: these are some of the challenges that HBCUs go through.
Speaker 1: But the problem is that we are often wanting to
Speaker 1: put up a wall and to blame the victims rather
Speaker 1: than to understand that this is a problem that has
Speaker 1: to be worked through. Mold has to be worked on
Speaker 1: regardless of who is responsible for it, and if Colverus
Speaker 1: which is the company UM that owns and operates most
Speaker 1: of the buildings, So people need to understand that at
Speaker 1: Howard and other schools they do not own and operate
Speaker 1: all of the housing buildings, that there are other entities
Speaker 1: that have been bought in to do that because of
Speaker 1: the lack of funding within these institutions, and Calvus UM
Speaker 1: has not done a good job just trying to clean
Speaker 1: buildings and not actually doing the renovations. It's criminal, it's wrong,
Speaker 1: and the students need to be supported, their voices need
Speaker 1: to be uplifted. But I think this is also a
Speaker 1: good time to get into the real layers of what's
Speaker 1: going on with HBCUs, black institutions, Black educational institutions and
Speaker 1: to be able to see not where you can just
Speaker 1: blame UM, you know, one entity or the other, but
Speaker 1: to look at the entire problem and to see how
Speaker 1: our government is also feeling black students in these colleges.
Speaker 1: It's the fact, you know, um, that that was one
Speaker 1: of the things that the kids. So they we sat
Speaker 1: and had you know, closed for them inside the auditorium
Speaker 1: in Blackburn, and which you know, we just listened to
Speaker 1: their grievances and they and they have a whole plan
Speaker 1: and Calvarius was one of the places that they talked about,
Speaker 1: and they talked about also how the administration and how
Speaker 1: you know, how it has a contract with Cavarius that
Speaker 1: they could have broken, but because they didn't want to
Speaker 1: lose money, they allowed, you know, this could continue on.
Speaker 1: So as much as Cavarus is responsible. You know, the
Speaker 1: fact that um Howard University and who's in charge of
Speaker 1: those the board members and everyone involved in that situation, President,
Speaker 1: everyone involved in not breaking this contract is when they
Speaker 1: see that, you know, it's not being handled properly. You know,
Speaker 1: they also have to take some responsibility. And like you said,
Speaker 1: they should be. They should be sitting out there with
Speaker 1: the kids saying, yo, you know, none of our kids
Speaker 1: should have to sleep in rooms with molding, you know,
Speaker 1: so I mean, period exactly, they should be saying that
Speaker 1: they should be together with the students saying this is outrageous.
Speaker 1: But you know what's happening instead is that every single
Speaker 1: day the story is getting worse for the administration. Now
Speaker 1: I saw that the president. They have a sign, they
Speaker 1: got a big old poster and they have the president
Speaker 1: his picture. Well you have, yeah, So unfortunately that's what's
Speaker 1: happening because there is a level of hostility that you
Speaker 1: know it's unnecessary, but you know, hey, they'll figure it out.
Speaker 1: I think they got all over, they got this, they
Speaker 1: got this sign all over all over once again. Man,
Speaker 1: this is a dope show. You know, um listening. So
Speaker 1: Peaka just gave me reinvigorated a little bit of energy
Speaker 1: for me being formally incostrated means I gotta do a
Speaker 1: little bit more. You know, she's out here all of
Speaker 1: these programs and you know, paying it forward. You know,
Speaker 1: we want to appreciate her for coming on the show,
Speaker 1: and we're praying for Julius. Man, I believe, I really
Speaker 1: believe deep in my heart that you know, this hearing
Speaker 1: is gonna come and you know, his state of executional
Speaker 1: result in him actually being released. I believe, I really
Speaker 1: believe that I don't see. I don't see any of
Speaker 1: them option in this situation. So shout out to Tiffany
Speaker 1: for updating us with that, and shout out to his
Speaker 1: family and friends and role I mean for m herv Rolling,
Speaker 1: everybody who's been supporting him, everybody who's been on the
Speaker 1: front line, grassroots law and everybody. Man. Shout out to
Speaker 1: y'all man for the work that you're doing out there.
Speaker 1: So that brings us to end of another number one podcast.
Speaker 1: Number one podcasts in the world brings us to another end,
Speaker 1: another show that we end, and I want to appreciate
Speaker 1: y'all everybody who's been supporting us. You know, I always
Speaker 1: say we number one, but we're gradually moving again. You know,
Speaker 1: people are definitely being engaging. People stopped me on the
Speaker 1: streets sin how much they love this podcast. Just know
Speaker 1: that we appreciate you. If you have any suggestions, tell
Speaker 1: us things that you want to see, you want to hear,
Speaker 1: things you don't like, things you loved, you know how
Speaker 1: much you hate me or love me, whatever. I take
Speaker 1: all of it, man, We want all of the feedback.
Speaker 1: Go to Street Politicians Pod. You can leave suggestions there
Speaker 1: On Instagram for anything that you want to see or here.
Speaker 1: You know, if you like Tamike us here today, you
Speaker 1: can let us know. You know. She we we all,
Speaker 1: we want all of everything you got, man. So once again,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna always be right. Jamica Mallory will not
Speaker 1: always be wrong, even though most of the times between
Speaker 1: me and how she will. But we will both always
Speaker 1: and I mean always, be authentic solutely. Listen to Street
Speaker 1: Politicians on the Black Effect Network on I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and catch us every single Wednesday for the video version
Speaker 1: of Street Politicians when I Women dot Tv