Speaker 1: And now.
Speaker 2: Watch move my mic back. You're like that you can
Speaker 2: strike with waters from head borders behind him.
Speaker 1: And then well, if you're just tuning in the civic
Speaker 1: site for I'm the host, ramses job, he is Rams John,
Speaker 1: I am to board.
Speaker 3: This is a civic site.
Speaker 1: Thought we should have stick around. We've got a lot
Speaker 1: more show in stow for Yo. I didn't quite roll office. Well,
Speaker 1: I thought it was going to I'm out here.
Speaker 3: Man, you know what I'm saying, And I got your back, bro,
Speaker 3: appreciate and roll that vow and make.
Speaker 1: We're gonna we're gonna stress it out. We're gonna do
Speaker 1: our eminem right. It's in the websters doing. They look
Speaker 1: at us and man, it's there all right. So again,
Speaker 1: a lot more shows to stick around for. We're going
Speaker 1: to be talking about the origins of this show that
Speaker 1: you're listening to right now. Yeah, we're gonna tell that story.
Speaker 1: We're also gonna tell a little bit about the origin
Speaker 1: story of the National Urban League. Again, many folks are
Speaker 1: familiar with the na A c P, but we're gonna
Speaker 1: take it back and perhaps even introduce you to another
Speaker 1: organization that does good work on behalf of black and
Speaker 1: brown people and marginalized folks and another group that you
Speaker 1: can support in their efforts and in fact for our
Speaker 1: become a better alli Baba segment, let's talk about donating
Speaker 1: to the Urban League. Oh yeah, let's do it. So.
Speaker 1: This segment comes via Hip Hop League Magazine and we
Speaker 1: want you to donate again. Historically, African Americans and underserved
Speaker 1: urban communities have fought to overcome policies of discrimination, economic
Speaker 1: and social injustices. Since nineteen ten, the National Urban League
Speaker 1: has been a force of progress and empowerment Through the
Speaker 1: ninety affiliates across the country, the Urban League delivers services
Speaker 1: and programs gener nearly two million individuals in three hundred
Speaker 1: communities each year. Although they have made progress, vast disparities
Speaker 1: remain in employment and education opportunities, quality housing, and basic healthcare.
Speaker 1: These disparities create a socioeconomic divide that they believe can
Speaker 1: change through empowering communities. The mission is to achieve equality
Speaker 1: for all Americans, and that depends on your support and commitment.
Speaker 1: With the millions of lives that they impact every day.
Speaker 1: A gift to the National Urban League means financial stability,
Speaker 1: a job opportunity, a better education, access to health, care
Speaker 1: and fair and affordable housing. Programs that are offered include
Speaker 1: college preparatory classes, mentoring activities, STEM education, science, technology, engineering
Speaker 1: and math, parental enrichment activities, work for skills development, training
Speaker 1: in starting new businesses, home ownership classes, for closure prevention,
Speaker 1: nutrition education, health screenings, and assistance securing health insurance. So
Speaker 1: the urb League definitely holds its own relative to its
Speaker 1: much more well known cousin, the NAACP. One time for
Speaker 1: the Urban League, Yes, indeed, so bear that in mind
Speaker 1: and stick around for again the way Black history fact
Speaker 1: now quo, Yes, sir, tell us a story. How did
Speaker 1: Civic Cipher come to be?
Speaker 3: I like how you asked me that in such a
Speaker 3: cavalier tone, as if this was just some small undertaking
Speaker 3: that we just decided to do one day. It's interesting
Speaker 3: when talking about Civic Cipher to listeners, to friends, to
Speaker 3: people that know us from radio and DJing, because the
Speaker 3: way that everything happened would give people the impression that
Speaker 3: Civic Cipher was our plan all along, like this was
Speaker 3: something that we set out to do from the very beginning,
Speaker 3: and that could be and is very misleading. Ramses and
Speaker 3: I spent you know, myself over a decade, Rams is
Speaker 3: much longer than that in broadcasting and DJing like music
Speaker 3: and talking into microphones, specifically for him, I don't like
Speaker 3: talking into microphones, but I'm kind of good at it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's that's been my brother's bag for a long time.
Speaker 3: The summer of George Floyd's murder really turned not just
Speaker 3: our community, not just our country, but the world on
Speaker 3: its side or really upside down. The reaction, the public outcry,
Speaker 3: the very very difficult to watch video. I came across
Speaker 3: that video again recently, maybe a few months ago, and
Speaker 3: it still made me cringe. It still made my stomach hurt,
Speaker 3: and then it still made me visibly angry to where
Speaker 3: someone was like, yo, you're okay, and I had to
Speaker 3: like snap out of it. The way that all of
Speaker 3: us reacted, and I say all of us because a
Speaker 3: very very large majority of people that I know reacted
Speaker 3: the same way, which was kind of refreshing. Donald Trump's selection,
Speaker 3: and the way the other side reacted to it revealed
Speaker 3: some other things to me about people that I know
Speaker 3: and some that I considered myself close to. That was
Speaker 3: really heartbreaking and kind of emotionally and mentally damaging to
Speaker 3: see so many people stand on the opposite side of
Speaker 3: something that was so obviously and straightforwardly wrong and criminal
Speaker 3: and disgusting. I'd also become a father for the second time,
Speaker 3: and there was a lot of daddy daycare going on,
Speaker 3: and while I was home with my newborn daughter, Ramses
Speaker 3: and his sons were in the street and peacefully protesting
Speaker 3: just our rights to breathe, just our rights to exist,
Speaker 3: just our rights to matter, and us proclaiming that we
Speaker 3: mattered became a battle cry and somehow a controversial statement.
Speaker 3: The news during this time of civil unrest in our
Speaker 3: country was, I guess I can just blatantly say unfair
Speaker 3: in a lot of ways to the people who were
Speaker 3: unknowingly risking their lives by peacefully protesting because they were
Speaker 3: met with aggressive military style policing, and you just opposed
Speaker 3: that to almost no policing at all. When our quote
Speaker 3: unquote patriots stormed our capital premeditated and announced, met with
Speaker 3: little to no resistance from our military style police who
Speaker 3: had just you know, days or weeks earlier in that
Speaker 3: same city, showed up in mass when full riot gear
Speaker 3: in battleshields to keep us from just simply again and
Speaker 3: proclaiming that we matter and that we should be able
Speaker 3: to exist. We're not even saying that we should be
Speaker 3: able to thrive, just simply exist. It became more and
Speaker 3: more difficult for Ramsas and I to be out in
Speaker 3: public amongst these people who were supporting that movement, looking
Speaker 3: them in their faces, and then going and getting behind
Speaker 3: our microphones and just talking about the Migos and Cardi
Speaker 3: b Right. Someone had to say something about what was
Speaker 3: going on outside because so many people were not giving
Speaker 3: a fair account of the happenings in our streets. The
Speaker 3: ironic part about all of this is there Ramses and
Speaker 3: I did not determine that we were the voices that
Speaker 3: need to do it, and not because we didn't want to,
Speaker 3: but we just didn't want to imagine this. We're broadcasters
Speaker 3: working in radio hip hop radio and for lack of better,
Speaker 3: excessively popular and successful at it. To come to our
Speaker 3: broadcaster at the time and say, hey, can you guys
Speaker 3: give us another show? I know we have one, and
Speaker 3: I know we've had one, but can you give us
Speaker 3: another one? Just seemed like a lot to ask. And
Speaker 3: there was no money involved, I mean, but not that
Speaker 3: would have been necessarily right. We were in the streets
Speaker 3: for free. We would have been on the air for free.
Speaker 3: But I think it was least it was less likely
Speaker 3: that we received pushback if we were not pitching something
Speaker 3: else for ourselves. It wasn't about not being able to
Speaker 3: make money. It was about us saying, hey, this should happen,
Speaker 3: and we don't even have to do it. It was
Speaker 3: us trying to move ourselves out of the way so
Speaker 3: that it could happen. Not because we didn't want to,
Speaker 3: but like, okay, we're not asking for something else for us,
Speaker 3: we'll produce it. We'll even create the content, and you
Speaker 3: guys can have whoever you want to talk about it.
Speaker 3: And initially because they were human beings and didn't want
Speaker 3: to be looked looked at like monsters, they agreed that
Speaker 3: it was a good idea, and Ramses, with his optimistic
Speaker 3: heart and mind, heard that was a good idea and translated, oh,
Speaker 3: we're about to do this. So Ramses left said conversation,
Speaker 3: I'll say, I won't even call it a meeting, and
Speaker 3: when he went back to the street, made sure that
Speaker 3: everyone knew soon enough, you guys's voices will be heard.
Speaker 3: I know that the stuff that we're seeing on the news.
Speaker 3: Isn't fair, isn't honest, isn't even showing the nuance in
Speaker 3: the context of the things that we're dealing with and
Speaker 3: what our actual experiences are. And I know this because
Speaker 3: I'm out here with with you. But I assure you myself,
Speaker 3: and this is me speaking as Ramses to everyone that
Speaker 3: we encountered, we will have a voice. I assure you
Speaker 3: of it. Right, And then Ramses spent the next few
Speaker 3: months trying with as much grace as possible to remind
Speaker 3: these people of the great idea that they heard and
Speaker 3: seemed to show support for. And many of those conversations
Speaker 3: were met with affirmations not only did we say that
Speaker 3: was a good idea, but yeah, we should do something
Speaker 3: like that. You know, let's hear your ideas and let's
Speaker 3: put it into action. And then more weeks would pass,
Speaker 3: and then more weeks would pass, and finally a tipping
Speaker 3: point happened, really unintentionally, because even at this point, Ramses
Speaker 3: did not walk into the station intending to deliver an
Speaker 3: ultimatum or even hold anyone's feet to the fire. It
Speaker 3: was just really like, hey, remember that great idea you
Speaker 3: guys heard, I got the studio ready, got the MIC's
Speaker 3: you think we might be able to actually follow through
Speaker 3: on that? And what happened next changed our lives professionally
Speaker 3: for always at least, but maybe even for better. And
Speaker 3: there are so many different ways that this conversation could
Speaker 3: have happened that would have resulted in Civic Cipher not
Speaker 3: existing today and us probably still working at that radio station,
Speaker 3: and that radio station still having the same name and
Speaker 3: call letters.
Speaker 1: I on the trademark to that radio station now and
Speaker 1: they can't use that name in the state anymore. By
Speaker 1: the way, how about that heady fact shout out to C.
Speaker 1: Bradley one time, Yes, sir, so.
Speaker 3: We understood the gravity of what we were asking by
Speaker 3: the time this conversation happened, because Ramses had now half
Speaker 3: a dozen times reminded them right gracefully that this was
Speaker 3: something that they'd agreed to and reminding them that it
Speaker 3: was absolutely necessary. And what Ramses was met with this
Speaker 3: time led him to make a decision for both of us,
Speaker 3: because there are so many answers that we could have
Speaker 3: tolerated and just really had to grit and bear and
Speaker 3: just Okay, I guess we just have to accept that
Speaker 3: but what they said next made a decision for us
Speaker 3: that would effectively as far as we knew at the time,
Speaker 3: in our careers in radio. I'll let Ramses.
Speaker 1: Tell you what he was told. Excellent setup, excellent setup there, bravo.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so yeah, that's that's the long and the
Speaker 1: short of it. Yeah, we were out marching, protesting. You know,
Speaker 1: longtime broadcasters on the radio doing hip hop radio in Phoenix, Arizona.
Speaker 1: I remember we up until that point we had to
Speaker 1: show radio solstice that we were doing, where we'd break
Speaker 1: new music, we'd you know, talk about things, that sort
Speaker 1: of stuff. Man, we were having a ball. And then,
Speaker 1: of course, as you mentioned George Floyd, you know that
Speaker 1: stuff happens. We get out on the streets, we're protesting,
Speaker 1: we're marching. The protesters, the women from BLM Phoenix Metro,
Speaker 1: a woman in particular named Zara's just a powerful leader,
Speaker 1: powerful voice in our community here and nationally. You can
Speaker 1: look her up. She's actually made a lot of national
Speaker 1: noise as well. But she just wasn't She was talking
Speaker 1: on a bullhorn. You remember that she was on a bullhorn.
Speaker 1: And there's thousands of people at these protests and the
Speaker 1: bullhorn doesn't go that far, so people are having to
Speaker 1: repeat what she's saying, so she's her delivery is more
Speaker 1: choppy than.
Speaker 3: It should be.
Speaker 1: And yeah, okay, well listen, we can do more. You know.
Speaker 1: Channel fifteen is saying their Channel twelve is saying that
Speaker 1: we were writing and there was no riot. I'm there
Speaker 1: with my children. Everybody's cool, we're safe, we all get home.
Speaker 1: There's nothing to see here. But you know, later they
Speaker 1: call it a riot. People were thinking BLM was coming
Speaker 1: to their house to rape them. All kinds of crazy
Speaker 1: rumors were going around. I was hearing this from the
Speaker 1: actual people thinking that, and yeah, so you know, we
Speaker 1: work in media. You know, you'll hear the song at
Speaker 1: the end of our show. It's a song called Proper
Speaker 1: Propaganda by the Dilated People's shout out to the Dilated
Speaker 1: Peoples one Time. And there's a bar in that song
Speaker 1: that you'll hear when we close the show that says journalists.
Speaker 1: We're journalists too, we can strike back, you know. And
Speaker 1: so that's kind of the thought behind the show, which is, Okay,
Speaker 1: if they're saying as you mentioned, if they're saying that,
Speaker 1: it's they're saying something as not true, Well, we can
Speaker 1: just we're working media. We can just go and do
Speaker 1: the same thing. So again, you know we worked with.
Speaker 3: Well, actually go and do the opposite. We don't want
Speaker 3: to do the same thing. We can tell stories, you know,
Speaker 3: That's what I'm meaning. So we go to you know,
Speaker 3: the program director of the old radio station. They've changed
Speaker 3: their name now and and the program director is no
Speaker 3: longer working there anymore. But yeah, asked back and forth
Speaker 3: the whole time. I'm buying equipment, setting up of studio
Speaker 3: because remember it's COVID, so we couldn't bring guests into
Speaker 3: the studio. I as Q mentioned, I'm like, hey, you
Speaker 3: can send over an intern or a promo rep or
Speaker 3: somebody whoever's next to do this public affairs type show.
Speaker 3: We're thinking it's going to be thirty minutes a week.
Speaker 3: You know, we're buying roadcasters, which is a device that
Speaker 3: allows us to make programs like this outside of an
Speaker 3: actual station or studio, spending our own money, this sort
Speaker 3: of stuff. And yeah, like you said, dragged us along,
Speaker 3: dragged us along, hit me next week, you know, whatever
Speaker 3: was going on. And then finally the program director said
Speaker 3: to me, hey, you know at Ramses I got a
Speaker 3: level with you. I don't want to do a black show,
Speaker 3: all right.
Speaker 1: So imagine that. Imagine a hip hop radio station. Well,
Speaker 1: a program director was not black, the owner was not black,
Speaker 1: and the general manager was not black. Telling the longest
Speaker 1: running employee there. Because I was the person who had
Speaker 1: been there longer than anyone at that point and one
Speaker 1: of the only black people functioning in a significant capacity,
Speaker 1: like a full time ish capacity. They knew who I was.
Speaker 1: You know. I worked with the NAACP for many years
Speaker 1: before I got there. I was a president of the
Speaker 1: Black Student Union and I was in college, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. So I came with the pedigree and
Speaker 1: I help them always stay on the right side of history.
Speaker 1: Whenever there were problems that came up, I would be
Speaker 1: the one to go and speak this sort of stuff.
Speaker 1: They knew me, and they knew how important this sort
Speaker 1: of stuff was to me. They knew that I'm a
Speaker 1: fierce protector of my culture, and I'm the great defender
Speaker 1: of all people who were born with you know what
Speaker 1: could be considered to strike against them. I just was
Speaker 1: born to love. I was made to do that, and
Speaker 1: far be it for me to go against my own nature.
Speaker 1: So they knew this, and sometimes love looks a little different.
Speaker 1: And when I heard I don't want to do a
Speaker 1: black show on a hip hop station that plays seventy
Speaker 1: percent black artists hire but one hundred percent black music
Speaker 1: in an environment where black employees aren't necessarily promoted in
Speaker 1: the way that they should be, I was very fortunate,
Speaker 1: but I recognize this is a hip hop station. Most
Speaker 1: of the people do not look black.
Speaker 3: Are not black? There, you go, don't look yeah.
Speaker 1: Are not black. And it's and I don't want to
Speaker 1: say that it's overt racism. I think it's just kind
Speaker 1: of like ingrained in people's minds that they think that
Speaker 1: black culture needs to be expressed through different faces in
Speaker 1: order for it to be palatable by a city where
Speaker 1: statistically black people are irrelevant, you know, statistically speaking, there's
Speaker 1: not a lot of black people in Phoenix, you know,
Speaker 1: so they would try to slap a white face or
Speaker 1: hispanic face or whatever on black culture. But my argument
Speaker 1: has always been and still remains that if people can
Speaker 1: tune in to listen to black music, then they can
Speaker 1: listen to black radio hosts and black you know, commentators,
Speaker 1: and black thinkers and black everything full stop. Right, And
Speaker 1: I think that it is incumbent upon you, the powers
Speaker 1: that be, to familiarize the the people, the masses with
Speaker 1: an alternative reality that works for everyone, you know. And
Speaker 1: so this responsibility is something that I really held central
Speaker 1: to all of our conversations. But when he said that
Speaker 1: he wasn't he didn't want to do a black show,
Speaker 1: he wrote my resignation, our resignation for us.
Speaker 3: Because good. It's important to point this out because a
Speaker 3: lot of our ecosystem and I almost make fun of
Speaker 3: Ramses on our show for being so hopelessly optimistic and
Speaker 3: hopeful and like always looking for the good. Our show
Speaker 3: producer Maggie b. Noan is another person who I think
Speaker 3: intelligently always gives the benefit of the doubt in a
Speaker 3: way that I sometimes refuse to. Because with the climate
Speaker 3: in the country being the way that it was, he
Speaker 3: could have successfully said to us, you know, guys, we
Speaker 3: really don't want to do a political show to be divisive. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, we don't want to alienate our listeners. And
Speaker 3: we would have had to translate what that meant, but
Speaker 3: still probably digested and kept going to work. And he
Speaker 3: knows that too, and he still chose to say I
Speaker 3: don't want to do a black black show.
Speaker 1: That was so hurtful, and you got to think when
Speaker 1: you know somebody for that many years, you know, and again,
Speaker 1: nobody's just the worst thing that they've done. I know
Speaker 1: a lot of people will get mad at me for
Speaker 1: saying this, But that man that said that to me,
Speaker 1: he let me go and take care of my grandma
Speaker 1: when she was sick. That man let me take time
Speaker 1: off when my son was born so I could be
Speaker 1: in the hospital with my baby. You know, nobody's just
Speaker 1: the worst thing that they've ever done. But that was
Speaker 1: the wrong thing to say to the wrong person at
Speaker 1: the wrong time, and it forced my hand because I
Speaker 1: had hold everybody. Okay, I see you out here working.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to sit up on my radio throne,
Speaker 1: high horse and just be the man and be cool
Speaker 1: and whatever. Nope, I'm out here with you and if
Speaker 1: you need me, I'm coming. And when he said that
Speaker 1: to me, everything just came together like that, and I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: and then you know, I wrote a resignation which is
Speaker 1: still up on my social media if you want to
Speaker 1: check it out. I'm at Ramsay's job. You got to
Speaker 1: scroll back to that time, but I think it was
Speaker 1: August twenty twenty somewhere now. But you know, I wrote
Speaker 1: the resignation to the city. The city had given us
Speaker 1: our ratings for so many years, and I'd been on
Speaker 1: quite a bit longer than Q, so you know, I
Speaker 1: was walking away from a career that was I tried
Speaker 1: as much as I could, but it sort of became
Speaker 1: a part of my identity, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: and as I kind of think about, like chopping off
Speaker 1: a part of your body, because it's the right thing
Speaker 1: to do, you know, And I knew who I was
Speaker 1: doing it for. It was for the people that were
Speaker 1: marching to people of the city. I knew that they
Speaker 1: deserve better from the radio station, and by me staying
Speaker 1: there that I would be complicent. And you know, I
Speaker 1: kind of threw Q in there, but I knew I could.
Speaker 1: You know, me and Q were friends long before radio.
Speaker 1: We've been friends forever, So I knew I could make
Speaker 1: that move and he would trust me to do it.
Speaker 1: And you know, my resignation ended up getting shared by
Speaker 1: thousands of people on social media, and you know, some
Speaker 1: folks reached out. One of the first folks is a
Speaker 1: guy named Ben Romero DJ Complex in Phoenix, Arizona, shout
Speaker 1: out the Complex loved the helm of a station called
Speaker 1: Power ninety eight point three. A shout out to all
Speaker 1: the programmers carrying this show right now, because you all
Speaker 1: are very important to me, and I've communicated with all
Speaker 1: of you. I love you dearly and we appreciate you.
Speaker 1: But Complex was the first one with a FN signal
Speaker 1: to say, whatever you were trying to do over there,
Speaker 1: I mean, he's like, I read your resignation. Whatever you're
Speaker 1: trying to do over there, please come do it over here,
Speaker 1: and gave us a home. And then we had to
Speaker 1: come up with the show, and we gave us an
Speaker 1: hour instead of thirty minutes. And Doctor Westernberg she would
Speaker 1: work and she was working on something with the NAACP
Speaker 1: called from the Circle to the Cipher that has its
Speaker 1: roots in a more traditional African storytelling type of roots.
Speaker 1: And she said that I could use that name, and
Speaker 1: from the Circle to the Cipher didn't quite work, but
Speaker 1: Civic Cipher certainly did and it was a better reflection
Speaker 1: what was going on at the time in the country.
Speaker 1: She loved it. So there's our name, you know. My
Speaker 1: sister designed the logo my brother gave us our FTP sites.
Speaker 1: Maggie b Noan came along and she decided to lend
Speaker 1: her support and her expertise and of course having a
Speaker 1: black woman's voice in the room. And then programmers around
Speaker 1: the country said, hey, we need that content as well,
Speaker 1: and we would like to carry that show. We partnered
Speaker 1: with iHeartMedia via Tony Coles, Steve Earnhardt and Tucson and
Speaker 1: you know, now we're supported by you, our listeners, and
Speaker 1: you know, we just want you to know that we're
Speaker 1: grateful for everything that has come our way.
Speaker 3: I think it's important to say as we you know,
Speaker 3: finish up this story. Civic Cipher was born of that resignation,
Speaker 3: not the other way around. We didn't have some We
Speaker 3: didn't know what it was going to play in line,
Speaker 3: so then we quit radio like no, we had to
Speaker 3: figure it out. Resignation meant that our careers were effectively over. Yeah,
Speaker 3: Civic Cipher came because of you guys, because of support,
Speaker 3: because of like you said, people like complex. We didn't
Speaker 3: know it was going to look like this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we didn't have a plan, all right, So now
Speaker 1: it's time for the way Black History fact. We're going
Speaker 1: to talk a little bit more about the Urban League.
Speaker 1: So today's way Black History fact comes from a responsored
Speaker 1: by Rather Hip Hop Weekly magazine, So we'll read about
Speaker 1: a little bit of the background. The National Urban League
Speaker 1: was founded in nineteen ten the Civil War between the
Speaker 1: North and South. It ended forty years before, but the
Speaker 1: country was still deeply divided and most former slaves remained
Speaker 1: locked in a system of political powerlessness and economic inequality.
Speaker 1: The new organization set two major goals removed barriers to
Speaker 1: racial equality and achieve economic empowerment for the country's Negro citizens.
Speaker 1: When Congress removed civilian governments in the South and put
Speaker 1: former Confederacy under the rule of the U. S Army,
Speaker 1: the South resisted violently. Kukuk's clan groups attempted to restore
Speaker 1: white supremacy by murder and other forms of mayhem. Black
Speaker 1: codes were enacted in the South that severely limited the
Speaker 1: former slaves as legal rights and economic options. Some states
Speaker 1: limited the occupations to limited the occupations open to negroes.
Speaker 1: In other words, black people can't be drivers, black people
Speaker 1: can be doctors, black people can be whatever. None allowed
Speaker 1: negroes to vote or provided public funds for their education.
Speaker 1: In response, the Army conducted new elections in which the
Speaker 1: freed slaves could vote, while those who held leading positions
Speaker 1: under the Confederacy were denied the vote and could not
Speaker 1: run for office. Sounds dope right anyway. The Army's intervention
Speaker 1: in the South ended in eighteen seventy seven wam Wah.
Speaker 1: The newly formed legislatures in former slave states quickly adopted
Speaker 1: Jim Crow laws that again severely limited the civil rights
Speaker 1: of freed slaves and once more denied them the right
Speaker 1: to vote. There's an editor's note here that Jim Crow laws,
Speaker 1: for those who don't know, were state and local laws
Speaker 1: enacted between eighteen seventy six and nineteen sixty five. That's
Speaker 1: recent history, therefore, you. They mandated racial segregation in all
Speaker 1: public facilities with a quote separate but equal clause for
Speaker 1: Negro Americans. In reality, this led to treatment and accommodations
Speaker 1: that were usually inferior to those provided for white Americans
Speaker 1: and systematized a number of economic, educational, and socio social disadvantages. Sorry,
Speaker 1: the Supreme courts separate but Equal ruling in plus versus
Speaker 1: Ferguson legitimized Southern segregation policies. The alternatives for former slaves
Speaker 1: were limited. They could work for white farmers as tenants
Speaker 1: or sharecroppers, barely a step above slavery, or they could
Speaker 1: lead the South. Many opted to migrate and move north
Speaker 1: to find a better life. By nineteen ten, the Negro
Speaker 1: population had increased dramatically in urban areas of the North.
Speaker 1: With the population explosion, a new set of problems emerged.
Speaker 1: Remember we're talking about the.
Speaker 3: Urban League, hence Detroit, Michigan.
Speaker 1: Ooh, talk to them. The co founders two people stepped
Speaker 1: forward at this time to provide leadership, one Negro, one white,
Speaker 1: one man, one woman, and together they founded the National
Speaker 1: Urban Lea. Their names were Ruth Standish Baldwin and George
Speaker 1: Edmund Hine Haines. Sorry, the multiracial character of the Urban
Speaker 1: League that they established still exists today. Ruth Standish Baldwin
Speaker 1: came from a family of New England colonists with a
Speaker 1: history of social activism Baba, her father was the editor
Speaker 1: of the Springfield, Massachusetts Republican. A graduate of Smith College,
Speaker 1: she was the wife of William Henry Baldwin, Junior, president
Speaker 1: of the Long Island Railroad. The Baldwins were deeply concerned
Speaker 1: about the poor and disadvantage. The health and welfare of
Speaker 1: Negro migrants were of particular interest. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: George Edmund Haines, unlike Ruth Standish Baldwin, did not come
Speaker 1: from a background of privilege. His father was a laborer
Speaker 1: and his mother was a domestic servant with great ambitions
Speaker 1: for her son. George Haynes completed his elementary education, the
Speaker 1: family moved from his birthplace in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, to
Speaker 1: the more cosmopolitan community of Hot Springs. At a point
Speaker 1: in history when educational opportunities for Negroes ranged from limited
Speaker 1: to non existent, George Haynes's achievements were astonishing. In Hot Springs,
Speaker 1: he completed the limited education opportunities available and went on
Speaker 1: to take high school level courses and college preparatory studies
Speaker 1: at the Agricultural and Mechanical University in Huntsville, Alabama. He
Speaker 1: received his bachelor's degree from Nashville, Tennessee's Fisk University and
Speaker 1: then a master's degree from Yale. Because he was an
Speaker 1: outstanding student, Yale awarded him an academic scholarship, and he
Speaker 1: waited tables and stoked furnaces for his room and board
Speaker 1: together Ruth Standish Baldwin and George Haynes founded the Committee
Speaker 1: on Urban Conditions among Negroes. Within a year, three organizations,
Speaker 1: the Committee for Improving Industrial Conditions of Negroes in New York,
Speaker 1: the National League for the Protection of Colored Women, and
Speaker 1: the Committee on Urban Conditions among Negroes merged to form
Speaker 1: the National League on Urban Conditions among Negroes on September
Speaker 1: twenty ninth, nineteen ten, in New York City. George Edmund
Speaker 1: Haines became the executive Secretary in nineteen ten and served
Speaker 1: in this capacity until nineteen eighteen. Ruth Standish babl And
Speaker 1: served as President Board of Trustees from nineteen thirteen and
Speaker 1: nineteen fifteen. In nineteen twenty, the name was later shortened
Speaker 1: to the National Urban League. In nineteen eighteen, doctor Haynes
Speaker 1: left the National Urban League to become director of the
Speaker 1: US Department of Labour's Division of Negro Economics. He left
Speaker 1: behind a well planned and efficient foundation to help guide
Speaker 1: Negro migrants to better education, employment, and housing. Eugene Kinkle
Speaker 1: Jones became the second National Urban League Executive Secretary in
Speaker 1: nineteen eighteen and held the position for the next twenty
Speaker 1: three years. A period of extraordinary growth. When he took office,
Speaker 1: the National Urban League had an operating budget of twenty
Speaker 1: five hundred dollars. Twenty three years later, the League had
Speaker 1: fifty eight affiliates and an annual budget of two point
Speaker 1: five million dollars. Several subsequent leaders of the National Urban
Speaker 1: League were also leaders in the field of professional social work.
Speaker 1: This came from the National Urban League one hundred Years
Speaker 1: of Empowered and Communities booklet. It was authored by Ann Nixon.
Speaker 1: And again, a lot of people are familiar with the NAACP.
Speaker 1: The Urban League is also a major player in that
Speaker 1: space in terms of bringing equitable and equal treatment of
Speaker 1: black and brown people in this country. But obviously the
Speaker 1: NAACP is older and it is just better known. But
Speaker 1: in terms of knowing all of the the do gooders
Speaker 1: in this space, you know, it's important for us to
Speaker 1: bring this to your attention with this platform that we've
Speaker 1: been you know, given and developed, because we don't want
Speaker 1: to take credit away from ourselves and our producer, Maggie,
Speaker 1: and so it's important that you know about the Urban
Speaker 1: League as well. And there are plenty of other organizations
Speaker 1: that we will get to and do time. But you know.
Speaker 1: Shout out to the Urban League and keep on trucking.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 1: We love all that that you do. So with that
Speaker 1: in mind, that's going to do it for us here
Speaker 1: on Civic Cipher once again. I'm your host, Rams's jaw.
Speaker 1: I remain at least for now. Q Ward aka Q
Speaker 1: Dirty Right. Shout out to my mom for Q Dirty.
Speaker 1: I'll tell that story one day too. Man.
Speaker 3: We need we need to reverend Estella see Chris nicknaming
Speaker 3: her son Q Dirty. That's the one man show produced
Speaker 3: by our producer Ms. Maggie aka Maggie b Knowing. Another
Speaker 3: one for the books. If you got love for us,
Speaker 3: hit the website Civic Cipher dot com. Submit any questions,
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Speaker 1: We've got some numbers there as well and that is
Speaker 1: looking great again. More support would go a long way.
Speaker 1: And I follow us on a social media at Civic
Speaker 1: Cipher and until next weekend.
Speaker 2: He act yeah, like yo, we had to live.
Speaker 4: These brothers are fabulous that lady showing you where ROMB
Speaker 4: travel is Wo spik tones from sunlight to move, busting
Speaker 4: on stage like gonna fights the b roll my mic back.
Speaker 2: You're like that.
Speaker 4: Journalists with journalists too. We can strike back all borders
Speaker 4: with waters from head, borders behind in, the beline sides
Speaker 4: up and the borders the press passing.
Speaker 2: We bring it to you as it happens. The streets,
Speaker 2: love popped them from music.
Speaker 4: Your rapping the street compared the slash we expando. You're
Speaker 4: gonna fight the slander with the proper propaganda.
Speaker 2: What's happening, it's happen. You've got a questions and asking
Speaker 2: the deuce. It's just a TV show. You're past it.
Speaker 4: And this from a white wartime journalist headlines, we'll go
Speaker 4: pres and reasoning it