Has Civil Rights Lost Its Bite?

This week's episode of Shelley's Plumbline explores the opposition to Human Rights progress, including the anti-DEI movement and the inaction of the Black bourgeoisie, prompting a call for a desperate resurgence of the movement for freedom. 

Shelley and Ricky emphasize the crucial role of education, advocating for widespread reading and critical thinking as a necessary exercise to counter the shallowness of social media content. 

Shelley recounts a striking personal story about openly engaging with members of the Ku Klux Klan in their hometown.

Follow us and continue the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, and  LinkedIn.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Hello, world, and welcome to Shelly's PubLab. Truthful Topic of Tough Topics, hosted by Dr. Shelly Stewart. Shelley started broadcasting in 1949, and he has been on a journey to discover the truth for humanity ever since. And at 91 years of age, Shelley still sits down before the microphone as he pursues answers to tough topics, challenging us to change the experience of being human and our outlook on humanity. Ladies and gentlemen, I am honored to present the newest member of the Radio Hall of Fame and the oldest podcaster in the world. Get ready, here comes Gentlemen.

SPEAKER_03 1:17

I'm fairly still, and I'm the old dude, and Ricky coming in the shooting shooting of the bear. And uh after last week, I don't know whether Rick is gonna speak with me.

SPEAKER_05 1:40

The preacher, the preacher is misleading us.

SPEAKER_03 1:59

Ricky talked yesterday. Yeah. This lady will be a little company, but not next week or so, but uh sometime later, a couple weeks or so. She is uh retired now. But I've been known all her life. I never would tell people that she would never call me Shelley. She knew me as old Shelley. Because her father came up somewhere in the community that came up and under the similar conditions as I did. Her father all worked him through bad times. He became the director of public works of a major city in the state of Alabama. Just barely made it out of school, but he and I uh went and stayed together. He died a few years ago. But he became a one of the America's great writers. Uh she graduated from Michigan State University. Oh, really? Uh she could talk about an experience that I never shared with anyone that I cared out of the age of 14. And I'm Joe Jackson, he was the father of Michael Jackson. We were close at that time. Uh, and uh the Jackson Pie were playing, and uh there was that I went with her to she wanted to go see the Jackson Ply. And I thought I didn't forget it, but I never would uh talk about it. But she used to tell you about she was 14 years of age, and I carried her and she met Michael Jackson and she would talk about those things. So that's the and then she ended up writing for what? Well, she's uh I'll give you the writing, you know, she's she's not an entertainer, she's not a writer, right? She's a journalist for Enterprise Magazine.

SPEAKER_05 4:01

Yeah, and Mark, she talked about how you know she was losing her mind when the old man took her to see the Jackson 5 and she was 14. And you know, they go to the concert, he takes her backstage, and and I don't want to steal her thunder from when she comes on on the plumb line, those conscious father-son podcast in the world. And she talks about how she's standing back there in my pop, but I don't know why he did this, and maybe they'll talk about it. He's like, Stay here, I'll be right back. So he leaves his 14-year-old, and then Michael Jackson comes up and is like, Hey, how you doing? She's like, She didn't know what to do. So it was it was this great experience for her, it was insane, and of course, for him, you know, it was just just commonplace at that time in his life, but what a wonderful experience that was. And to hear her telling me about it, man, it was great.

SPEAKER_00 4:52

But this is just a preview of coming attractive, right?

SPEAKER_03 4:54

And she went on to uh went on and graduated from Michigan State, uh, and she was so good. The people in Michigan told me about this person who was a journalist and graduating. I said, that's my that's my niece. And I called Sydney Miller, who is the publisher of Black Enterprise magazine, uh Blackhead Radio and uh California Black Radio, PRE. And uh they hired her as one of the great writers of that time. She she's gonna be radio about me in 1982. I've forgotten about things about industry. All right. That's kind of forthcoming. Anyway, uh talk about the thing that I went to uh Ricky because he he almost had a heart attack last week. You caused it, you you caused this but he did. Um I told him I said only thing I did, I was a nice guy. And I said, uh okay, okay. Do you believe that blacks and whites together destroyed the so-called promise of the civil rights era movement? And when I said that, he began yet and screaming in that microphone over there. Oh God, because it's such an unfair question. What do you mean, unfair question?

SPEAKER_05 6:27

I mean, you go ahead, pop. I'm gonna be respectful because you are my father, so I'm just gonna go ahead and let you finish framing this in such an unfair way. No, because you know when you say, Do you believe, do you believe, son, that blacks and whites together, like black people and white people locking arms in this? But you you you go ahead, old man.

SPEAKER_03 6:49

You go ahead and I'm just asking a question because that that's that's what I was told. And I said, Oh my god, uh, I gotta ask the question to Ricky. I said, Well, I asked Ricky, that's wrong. The black people weren't together, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:04

You have your other question there that says, Should should the whites in this country have any guilt about the race conditions of today?

SPEAKER_03 7:11

Yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah. Oh, oh, you oh, oh, you were getting all the white people. You speak with all the white people, you got a hell of a lot of power, man.

SPEAKER_05 7:24

Yeah, I know. That's a better question. That's a better question. Okay, I ain't mad with you. No more power. That's a better question.

SPEAKER_00 7:29

So here's the thing: they shouldn't have any guilt about it. What we should have is awareness of it and responsibility toward it. So I think I think the the guilt issue.

SPEAKER_05 7:42

What did you say, Mark?

SPEAKER_00 7:43

No guilt, guilt seriously, Mark Jam Ross. Guilt won't solve anything, guilt will fix the problem. Feeling, but being aware of it and doing the right thing is more important than feeling good or bad about it. I think the problem with um like what you see happening, why, oh, we're not gonna we're not gonna teach things in school that trigger our children because it makes them feel bad. And um, you know, yeah, that that's that's a problem. But um again, I think knowing what's going on is more important than having a guilt about.

SPEAKER_05 8:23

So you know what, Mark? See, you've been you you Mark Jamroz been running around with my old man too long, y'all and y'all are teaming up against me. You're playing these word games. Oh, oh well, they shouldn't have any guilt, but but you know, take some responsibility and and try to do the right. No, I want them to have it all, have guilt and engage in some actions to set things right. You need that guilt first. You you know, look, this is becoming a two-on-one situation, and and y'all about to drive me to drink.

SPEAKER_03 8:59

Listen, if if uh if uh if he hasn't said he agrees, if the president of the United States, if the president of the United States, okay, um it was wrong, then what? Well, that's a start.

SPEAKER_05 9:18

I mean, look, if if if the first step to any type of recompense, to any type of correction, is an admission that you've done something wrong, or you are benefiting from something wrong being done. If you constantly sit around and say, Oh, I ain't did nothing wrong, then you ain't gonna make no changes. That's what one of my ex-girlfriends told me, Pop. She said, Negro, you don't think you've done nothing wrong. So you ain't gonna make no changes, and you know what? She was right, she was right. So these people need to look at racial stratification to use a very nice academic term, use look at racial stratification in this country, understand how it was established historically, and understand that there were some good guys and there were some bad guys in this story, and then try to make some corrections, but they're doing the opposite, and that's why I was so mad about your initial question, Papa. The black folk and white folk got together and destroying the games of the civil rights movement. No, black. Well, let me take that back. There's some white, some black people, the Clarence Thomas's of the world, uh that that boy Tim Scott, you know, though them, your friend, your friend Pop, uh Condoleezza Rice's of the world, the Nicki Minajes of the world, the Candace Owens. Those are a few black people, though, but they're not in the majority. But what's really going on with this anti-quote DEI movement is it ain't about no DEI, it ain't about no critical race theory. These people are trying to destroy all of the gains that were made during the civil rights movement. And Pop, you should be pissed about it because you were really integrally involved in the civil rights movement, even though you don't want to say it was about civil rights. You're like, oh, we ain't talking about no civil rights, it was the movement, it was human rights.

SPEAKER_03 11:10

I'm gonna I'm actually gonna jump right in there on that. We know I didn't say it. Uh I didn't say that. What I said was we never heard the term used civil rights prior to 1963. We said we will commit civil disobedience in our fight for human rights. Okay, now that's that's what we started with. That is what's on the mission statement for the Alabama Christian movement for human rights. That is the mission statement for the SCLC. That is that. That's the mission statement. It did not say we were a civil rights organization. It said we were fight for our human rights. Well, he here you go. So that's what civil, it's it's it's the fight for human rights, the big picture.

SPEAKER_05 12:13

Well, here we go again. Here we go. Listen to the Shelley's Plum Line, the most uh conscious father-son podcast in the world. Listen to it on your favorite streaming platform, and you can hear once again every week, every week, Dr. Shelley, the Playboy Stewart, Radio Hall of Famer, and his friend Mark Jamroz ganging up on Ricky Jones, playing their tricky, playing their tricky word games, you know, and and and I don't know if they're saying anything different than what I'm saying, but they they they want to persecute me. This is what we're doing these days.

SPEAKER_03 12:43

No, I'm not persecuting you. I'm still saying we're fighting because fighting for human rights using civil. Okay, if I we gotta wait on Congress to pass a civil law to fight for human rights. Nothing wrong with that vote. But the name of the game is scoring. And that school, you're in school until you it's the right.

SPEAKER_05 13:10

It's the game. Let me ask you this, Pop. Let me ask you this. Let me ask you this, Pop. You you and Mark. Who there's certainly a movement to roll the games of the civil rights or human rights movement back? Correct? There's certainly a movement to roll those games back. Who who do who do who do you all who do you all think is doing it? Who do you all think is at the at the tip of the spear of that movement to take those rights back?

SPEAKER_03 13:39

The same people's children, grandchildren, and the likes that had slaves. They was going to get the damn money. I know what I'm talking about.

SPEAKER_05 13:49

Okay, I wouldn't say you Paul, I didn't say you didn't know what you were talking about. I was just saying it was a tricky question. I was saying it was a tricky question when you included black people in that. And I'm saying that yes, there's a a percentage of white people who are actively involved in taking back the gains of the civil rights movement, and there's also there's a larger percentage of white people who are absolutely silent about it.

SPEAKER_03 14:11

They're absolutely silent about it. There's some black people in the screen. We never say anything about it. Everything's all right to you.

SPEAKER_05 14:17

Well, they scared. I mean, I shouldn't call black people scared. Well, it's a black, it's some black people out here who are scared, it's some black people out here who are selfish. They exist, they out here. See, man, y'all trying to trick me. You're gonna have me defending all black people. There's some black people that I do not want to defend.

SPEAKER_03 14:40

If I still say we will def we will actually we will commit civil disobedience. In other words, do you believe right now that many black people don't want to hear this conversation we're having now? Many, many black people don't want to hear it. Many white people don't want to hear it, but yet people who love it, there are many people who say, Thank God, but yes, yeah, pop.

SPEAKER_05 15:09

I think you're I think you're right. Being being very serious for a minute. I think there's a class dimension in the three of us, you, me, mark, have talked about this. There's a class dimension across lines of race, and it certainly exists in the black community. There's some black folk, the uh black bourgeoisie who you know who are very, very comfortable. Black booted black bourgeoisie, black bougie negroes who who got a little bit of money, got nice houses, got their two and a half car garages, you know, they they they got their six-figure salaries, and and they don't want to rock the boat, unfortunately. They don't want to rock the boat, and and and sometimes, and I god, it pains me to say this. It pains me to say this. Sometimes some of the hardest people on black people are black people. I hate to admit that.

SPEAKER_03 16:10

You not be hard when you tell the truth, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 16:15

They've been miseducated, they've been miseducated.

SPEAKER_03 16:19

I've said that over and over and over again. There are some black people uh really to this day who said we're talking about the wrong things. Yeah. I mean, I'm serious about that. Black people today say we're talking about the wrong things, and many white people say that uh they shouldn't be talking at all. Yeah, there's some black people saying, uh well, they're talking about the wrong thing. They shouldn't be talking at all, they shut the whole damn thing down. Let's cut it all off, as they cut to trying to cut all the media off. You understand what I'm saying? Uh so there's more waste than more than the skin of cat is what we used to say. You understand? So I do know that the uh resurgence of the movement freedom is needed very, very badly. I saw I never I was so happy when I saw uh the march. I was so happy to see the things I saw upon the end because fear was removed from so many people. And I can say this, I can say everybody, the people at that time were many they were they were tired of being beaten on. Negroes, they were tired of it. They were tired of the treatment, and I'm I'm not talking about slavery, I'm talking about in the 50s and the 60s and the 70s and passed with the 80s. People were tired of the treatment, but they were afraid to say anything about it. Everything's alright, don't run.

SPEAKER_05 18:29

Yeah, but pop, you know what really terrifies me? What terrifies you a couple of things in what you brought up. One, as a university professor, I'm seeing just the falling off of a cliff from political and educational attacks, the teaching of that history. There are fewer and fewer children who are being exposed to that history and really learning it in depth, so they have any sense of not just you know what happened in the 1860s, but what happened in the 1960s or the 1970s. They're being wiped out historically. That's one that that terrifies me. Two, I don't think the black community was really prepared for the white response. And and we talked about this during our adventures of Carter G. Woodson episodes with Mark and I back during Black History Month. I don't think that the Black community was really prepared for white supremacist institutions' response to post-civil rights games. What the civil rights movement did, it carved out spaces at many of these institutions, whether it be a media, government, education, there were a few kind of quote-unquote token institu uh positions for black people that were established. And what these institutions did, they chose the weakest black people they could find to put in those positions. So now, when you say we really, really, really need a resurgence of that movement, who's gonna do it? We don't have I don't know if we had the fighters anymore.

SPEAKER_03 20:12

I think that that's there's a group coming up now. I'm seeing that people are being hurt so bad now, right now. Being hurt, the young people that I say, I'm gonna be hurt, I've been quiet. I did not know this would happen to me. So I've got to do something to help myself by helping others, and that's through education. I'm seeing more young black people now saying, I want to go back to school. I want to go back to school. I think the fight is just beginning again. I hope you're right. I think it's just it's just beginning again. Uh in other words, I'm not giving up. I may die out, but I'm not giving up. That is why I sit each day and I think about how we can come together. And I was so blessed to mark uh look him up in life, and then we uh hedonist join us, he began to talk with me about heat and one day said I teach at the university, but it's bigger than the university of Louisville. This is a universal issue. Universal issue. And I and now what do you do it? And I'll enjoy it with you. Um we're not here trying to make a dollar for you. We're blessed, but at the same time. We were individuals. I just believed that this vehicle they're trying to wipe out the how was that we're trying to cover all media? All media that makes sense. I mean they're not under it. They're not telling you to cut off at the top. They know that the poor people, the black people now go out and cut from the top, the blood stops going. And that's what you're seeing now. The things that we're this this medium now that we're the podcast that we're on now. There's a medium on a mission on now to cut that off because it's too getting too free. The talk that we're talking about. Yeah. I mean, I'm telling you truthful. Anytime that public radio is crying because we do we don't want the slavery to be talked about, these series. We don't want that anymore. So don't think that it'll stop there. This what we're on this media podcast, they're gonna try to cut that too. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I mean, you know, anytime whoever can okay. I was talking in a poem where came about radio personality. Whoever goes in the community controls the community. Whatever goes in that community. People go back to history in the World War II. Uh you know, says uh you know, overseas, the media was part of the thing that put the soldiers' mind, get the mind set up, yesterday. So a number of things happened in the media has to go up. So how many black people have media stations now? Fewer than they had in 2000. Uh I'd like to say the athletes that out there. Many of them had the opportunity to preach facilities because they had a lot of money, but they did. They're black. Because the media outlets were black athletes. We talk about them, but they make a lot of money, but we learn how to put your money together and buy things. And this is one of them. I don't want to go on and on and on with this kind of thing, but I go back to this upset. Maybe upset you, Mark, but there's a uh a book, a writer who happened to be black, by the way, who wrote, and the question was, uh do you believe that blacks and whites? No, he didn't. Do you believe he said that blacks and whites together destroyed the promise of the civil rights movement? A black man didn't write that.

SPEAKER_05 25:36

Who was that? Who wrote that, Paul? Consider the source.

SPEAKER_03 25:44

Uh but he wrote the book. It was probably Clarence Thomas. But he's a black guy who wrote the book. Same thing. So that's why I put it out there. But that's the kind of book being placed and sold out there. Uh no, white folk didn't do it.

SPEAKER_05 26:07

Black people and white poet. Here's here's what I think is important now, no matter who wrote it. It is it and this is a lost art. People really need to read. And I think it's really important that you not only read the writings of people that you agree with, but read the writings of people you don't agree with. That is really the hallmark of a truly a true critical thinker, and that's where we're we're getting lost in American education right now. People think that American education is just about making money. I say, I say no. As an educator, I think the primary goal of education should be, should be, should be to create thinkers. That's what that's what it should be.

SPEAKER_00 26:57

I'm not gonna remind me. I agree with you about reading. Um, I think people it is it is becoming a lost art. It's funny that here I was a uh English major, grew up doing a lot of reading. I used to subscribe to a lot of magazines.

SPEAKER_05 27:13

Shelby Steele. Yeah, Shelby Steele is a fool, popping. You knew that when you brought that up. Shelby Steele is basically Clarence Thomas. See, this is why I mean, see, Mark, hold on, Mark. Hold your thought about you being an English major and you grew up reading. See, this is my problem with my father, and this is what I want to warn members of Shelley's Plumb Line about. He will trick you, he will lead you down a path, he will set you up and give you stuff from Shelby Steele and Clarence Thomas and his friend Condoleezza Rice and make you think that it's legitimate stuff. Shame on you, preacher pop. Shame on you, Mark. Go ahead, talk about your English stuff, man.

SPEAKER_03 27:57

No, no, pop no, Mark is talking. Look what Mark is talking. You never knew that Shelby Steele wrote a nice book like that.

SPEAKER_05 28:04

Shelby Steele ain't wrote nothing nice. Now go ahead, Mark. I'm talking about reading.

SPEAKER_03 28:09

But he said, he said that blacks and whites together destroyed this the the promise. He didn't say so-called. How could the so-called is that? He said destroyed the promise.

SPEAKER_05 28:23

Um, why are you doing this? Why are you talking with Shelby Steel? Like Mark, go ahead, man.

SPEAKER_00 28:29

The thing that the thing that Ricky said was that blacks and whites didn't work arm in arm to do it. We did it very very well on our own. Yeah, exactly. So it's like you did your part, we did ours. And uh that's more of the truth, closer to the truth. But as you were saying about reading, Ricky, yeah. I I forgot how how valuable reading is. I forgot that it is an exercise. Your brain, if you go to the gym every week or once a day, you need to do the same thing with your brain, and that's reading. And uh, you know, I for example, I've been, you know, read as we all have, social media, this article, that article. And then you get a magazine and you actually read a story and you go, What? Look how long this is, look how well investigated it is, look how how thought out it is, not this little thing that's basically designed for you to read on the toilet, you know. So it's important that yes, we we have to get back to reading and spending time on on topics, thinking about them, exploring them. Not only that, it's good for your brain because it just teaches you to sit and think a little bit longer on things. So I spent a lot of time tomorrow.

SPEAKER_03 29:42

I spent lots of time talking to Kluka Klan. Yeah, I'm serious about this. I knew because there were plenty of them in uh hometown. Yeah. I knew they were clansmen, and they were businessmen, yeah, they were clansmen, yeah. They were politicians, some of them. Yeah, we're clansmen. Policemen, police officer, we're clansmen, and I put that and talk with them openly, and uh they look at me. You're not afraid of me? Why you no? I'm not afraid of you. Talk with you, I'm not afraid, talk with you. I'm not afraid to tell you you're stupid. No, I'm not afraid. I mean, I'm not afraid to tell you you're stupid. I'm not you stupid enough. But at the same time, I didn't know, listen to them and you find out, oh my god, how stupid you are. So I talked to them. Yeah, not read about them all, I talk to them. As a matter of fact, if I had the opportunity, you know, ask one of them, look, when does the clan meeting? Shelly, we don't want so and so and so. I said, Well, can I come? Both of them were loving the help. I mean, I y'all's funny, but I really wanted to go and visit and sit with them at the clan meeting. Are you insane? No, why would you do that? I'm not you know that would let me around Kluk Klug land all the time.

SPEAKER_00 31:16

And why'd you want to do? Oh my god.

SPEAKER_03 31:18

Well, the mama you're around you. Yeah, I'm sitting here once I integrated. I had to sit on the bus with you. Kluk. I mean, you know, are you feeling well?

SPEAKER_05 31:30

Pop, I'm glad they didn't let you come to their meetings, man. I mean, real talk. I mean, you you infuriate me with your Shelby Steele stuff, but I'm glad they didn't get you up in a clan meeting. That that probably wouldn't have been a good outcome.

SPEAKER_03 31:42

Why not?

SPEAKER_05 31:43

Oh god, Mark, I think we had the end of this episode, are we not?

SPEAKER_03 31:47

I went to this. I went to I went to all the meetings with Martin here and Brett and the Negro Leagues.

SPEAKER_05 32:01

Pop, you knew Martin Luther King Jr. I knew you you yeah, but it's a it's a kind of different thing for you going to an SCLC meeting than you doing to a Ku Klux Klan meeting. Pop what you we gotta end this episode. We gotta end this episode.

SPEAKER_03 32:21

You you know, because we're we're out of time, remember. Okay, I I'm gonna call my friend who's Ku Club. And would you go with me? You have no friends who are in the Ku Kux Klan, they're not your friend. Well, they they call themselves my friend, they say my friend.

SPEAKER_05 32:38

Oh god, can we end this episode, please? It's out of control. I'm gonna start up. There is my side, Mark.

SPEAKER_03 32:55

Oh there's your side. There's this side in the middle, somewhere in the middle, somewhere in the middle.

SPEAKER_00 33:04

There's the truth.

SPEAKER_03 33:06

There's the truth. He won't go to the meeting with me. No, not I'm not going to a meeting with you. I won't go to the meeting.

SPEAKER_05 33:29

This is the Shelly's Plum Line, the most father's son podcast in the world. We appreciate y'all for listening. Please click that like button, subscribe, and share.

SPEAKER_00 33:56

This episode of Shelly's Plumb Line was written, produced, and edited by Dr. Shelly Stewart, Mark Jamrod, and Dr. Ricky John. It was produced by Stewart Productions at the Plumline Studios in Derek, Alabama. If you are a fan of Shelly's Plumline and you like what we are doing here, please remember to subscribe on your podcast platform of Twitter. Give us a review and share this podcast with others.