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Ray Wood: Civil Rights, Union Leadership, and Faith
Ray Wood's remarkable journey from Toledo's Door Street to leadership in both labor and civil rights movements offers powerful lessons on perseverance, purpose, and personal transformation. In this candid conversation, Wood takes us through the vibrant Black business district of his childhood, sharing memories of the Black Panthers' presence, movie theaters, and community landmarks that shaped his worldview.
After tragedy struck when his sister was murdered, Wood enlisted in the Air Force, beginning a transformation that would eventually lead him to spiritual awakening in California. His story of hitchhiking across the country, driving taxis in unfamiliar cities, and gradually finding his purpose illuminates the unexpected paths that often lead to our greatest contributions.
Wood provides rare insider perspective on the intersection of race and labor relations, detailing his rise through union leadership at General Motors while confronting workplace racism that included nooses and hostile graffiti. His methodical documentation of discrimination led to landmark civil rights victories that resonate beyond Toledo. As both a UAW president and NAACP leader, Wood navigated complex political territories, challenging stereotypes about both organizations while fighting for worker protection and civil rights.
Perhaps most compelling is Wood's reflection on how faith anchored his activism. "Only what we do for Christ is going to last," he shares, revealing how spiritual purpose infused his approach to negotiation, representation, and community service. For anyone interested in labor history, civil rights, or personal transformation, this conversation offers invaluable wisdom from someone who's fought on multiple frontlines for justice.
Ready to explore how one man's journey through Toledo's changing landscape reflects broader American struggles for equality? Listen now, and consider what lessons we might apply to today's divided workplace and society.
Follow Allen C. Jackson - @2cupschronicles
I'm going to do a countdown. We're going to go five, four, three, two and Welcome back to Two Cups Cafe. I'm going to go again Five, four, three, two and Welcome back to Two Cups Cafe, where I'm your host, allen C Jackson, and who I have coming through for a high-quality conversation today is none other than my man Ray Wood. How you doing, mr Wood?
Speaker 2:Hey, I'm doing excellent, brother. How about you, man?
Speaker 1:Oh man, I'm doing great. I just appreciate you coming through spending some time with me. Man, I know you're a very accomplished individual. I know you're a real humble guy, but you're a real accomplished individual, man. You're a former president of NAACP here in our hometown, our local town. You were a president of the UAW. Tell us a little bit about just coming up in Toledo and how things kind of progressed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was born in Toledo. I was was born in Toledo and I was raised partially in Toledo, but we lived other places as well. The first school I ever went to was on Collingwood. It was a school called Washington Elementary and that's since been torn down a long time. I'm telling you, it's showing my age now. Yes, all right yeah and I was baptized at Jerusalem, a few steps away. Okay, jerusalem Missionary Baptist Church. Went to school at Maccomber, a few steps away from Jerusalem Church, everything around the same area.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so had many, many jobs up and down Door Street at that time. You know we lived on Door Street. It was kind of like one way in and one way out.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:But we loved it. You know, sometimes you get caught in traffic for a few hours, but it was okay with us. As a matter of fact, my first banking account was on Doran Junction. What was the name of the bank? It was First National and later changed to Fifth Third.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:It was First National, my granny told me. She said that money you're making, you ain't going to spend it all, yes, sir. And so she made me get a banking account and that meant a lot. And you know I don't know if you heard the story or not about Door Street, but there was so much activity on Door Street. There was a lot of black businesses. Black Panther had a store there, but the Black Panther had an office there as well. Black Knight's Men Shop.
Speaker 2:Yeah, was a men's store that you know. We all went and they had a movie theater there.
Speaker 1:I heard it was a black hotel over there, a motel maybe.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah it was. We had so much on Door Street. It was Kroger's there. It was a Kroger's store there. Of course they moved out, but it was just so much. I remember the M&L club there.
Speaker 3:We were too young to get in, but we sure could fantasize about being able to go in one day.
Speaker 2:I do remember, as I went to MacHumber I think I was a freshman that year and a lot of gunfire mmm and there was a the Black Panthers. They got into it with Toledo police, okay, and they were officer. There was an officer kill there. Well, right there in Dorne Junction yeah but I heard the gunfire because I wasn't going that way, but I was going to Mac Humber and it was just. You know, there was so much going on there at that time.
Speaker 1:So let me ask you this so after you graduated high school, like what happened after that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, had some challenges. Okay, yeah, well, had some challenges. After I graduated, I had a partial scholarship to run track for Miami-Oxford.
Speaker 1:What was your?
Speaker 2:meet oh, 100, 200. I was a speed guy, Okay, and 100, 200, both relays and a long jump, but that changed a little bit. And a long jump, but that changed a little bit. My older sister was found murdered in a field over there on Klondike and King in that area. And so how old was your sister? She was three years older, she was 21, and I just graduated Okay, and the reality is that everything changed because I thought that, because somebody murdered her, I wanted to murder somebody. Vietnam was going, war was going on, so I enlisted, okay, and I enlisted in the Air Force and, you know, got to travel a little bit, but the man upstairs took that thought of me wanting to do bodily harm to somebody away.
Speaker 1:So did you wind up over in Nam? No?
Speaker 2:no, I was stateside. Okay, I was stateside. I wound up at a base called Minot, north Dakota, okay, north.
Speaker 1:Dakota. They say why not, Minot? You might not come back.
Speaker 2:So all the brothers that did go to Nam and come back, that was a processing base to get them reacquainted with being back stateside North Dakota. Listen, when I first went there, we had base orientation and in base orientation they would tell you for three days. They would tell you for three days, they would let you know don't walk around without your bunny boots on, don't walk around without your parka, don't walk around with your ears uncovered or your hands, or else that was an automatic Article 15. If they caught you, because the wind and the cold was unreal, they showed us pictures of people going into town. The base was 18 miles from town, but they would go into town and get drunk and they'd get in fights and they found them frostbitten.
Speaker 2:Frostbitten, yeah, laying outside in the alley, so we stayed on base.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So how long did you do in the military? I did four years.
Speaker 2:Four years, yeah, and after that you came back um to ohio yep uh, uh, came back to toledo and um, and then, uh, the the other stuff started. Okay, yeah, my wild streak that everybody had to go through. Um, it started I and not speaking for everybody, but, right, absolutely speaking for myself. I know I went through that Okay.
Speaker 1:So tell me about how? Okay. So you went to school for a while, you went to the military, find yourself back here. Like you said, you go through a time where you're wild. You're wild street. When do you feel like your turnaround started?
Speaker 2:Well, actually, you know, we um and I'm not ashamed to talk about it now because I'm not that person but uh, we, we did just about anything we get our hands on, okay, from drinking and drugging to to all of that, and and we did it with a, with a gusto, I mean, you know we wasn't half stepping at all, but what turned around for me is that I went to, moved out to California.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And in moving out to California I only had listen my stupid days I had. There was a place called and it's still there University Hills, right on Bancroft, right across from the University of Toledo. It was still there University Hills, right on Bancroft, right across from the University of. Toledo. There was apartments there, and so me and my friend we got an apartment there and loaded it up with glass furniture from a store called Timmons Okay, and it was really beautiful, yeah.
Speaker 2:But you know, when you're young and dumb and don't realize it, you know we would do things that in a neighborhood, in an apartment building, where it was elderly people, okay. And so we had music blasting, we had smoke coming out under the doors, and so, to make a long story short, I had had a job. I was working for a golf hole refinery. It's not there anymore. It was on Front Street. I had a job there and I wanted to work, but I also wanted to play Right, right, and you can't do one without the other and keep what you got.
Speaker 2:Make a long story short I wound up getting fired, and rightfully so. But let me say this there were people there that kind of took me under their wing and they were talking to me about the Lord. I grew up in church, my grandfather was my pastor at one time, and so I knew that wasn't necessarily the answer, but they kept talking to me and those were seeds that were planted and I really didn't realize that they were planting seeds. So, al, not happy to say this, and I hope to please say listen now, but this was a long time ago. I got three speeding tickets in one week, two in one day I was just wild. On my lunch break I'd go to the bar and shoot some pool, have a beer and smoke a doobie and then I'd try to get back in a half an hour.
Speaker 1:So I think when I was working at Jeep and they used to run across to the post there on Central. So, everybody would run across the street and they already had the whole counter lined up with beers and the guys would just go in and start driving around.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, yeah pretty much like that man. And so, anyway, to make a long story short, I got my income tax back after I got fired and I decided that I was going to hop a plane, buy me a ticket, and I did. I moved to California, a place called Oxnard, California.
Speaker 2:Oxnard okay, yeah, ventura County. I was out in the military then, Okay, and a friend of mine was stationed in Ventura, okay, so, anyway, we go there. And I probably had about 20 bucks in my pocket, you know, because I was blown my grandmother, I called her from the airport and she told me. She said I said, granny, I'm getting ready to go to California. And she said, boy, go to church. Well, you know, I grew up in church and I didn't think that was the answer, but I took it a different way, getting to the Lord, and so that's pretty much what I did.
Speaker 2:Whenever we landed, you know, they was giving out tracks. Okay, yeah, you know. So I took a track and I had a duffel bag because I had been in the military. So, while I was waiting for my partner to get his room, I'm sitting in the day room and with my duffel bag, didn't know what I was going to do, okay, well, when he got his room, he had three beds in it, okay, so he thought I was in the Navy and I wasn't in the Navy, I was in the Air Force and I go up there, okay, and worked out perfect, you know, had my own bunk had a place to stay, and then I was going to figure it out the next day.
Speaker 2:Right, right, but then the next day came and I decided to stay a little bit longer. The next day came and then I wound up getting a job. You know, at Matt Comer they gave out the CARS Vocational Technical High School and I got one of those and I wound up getting a job on base.
Speaker 1:Okay, what was your shop over at Matt Comer? Admin, admin, admin.
Speaker 3:I was an admin yeah, and that's what I did in the Air Force too, okay.
Speaker 2:Admin specialist, worked for the 1st Sergeant in North Dakota and you know as people I did meal cards, article 15, you know process people in the base off the base. But yeah, I kept that going a little bit. So anyway, staying on the base and just hanging out, man, and I went and I used that car, I got a job on the base as an automobile supervisor.
Speaker 1:Oh man. And we changed tires.
Speaker 2:We did just about everything. It was I got a job man. And when you're young and don't realize just how stupid you are. Instead of me taking that money and I had time to do it getting a place off base, getting- your own spot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I just kept staying there. I kept staying in the room and we did crazy stuff when you're in the military, whether it's the Army, air Force, navy or Marines everybody got a drug problem every base. And so ours was the party room, okay, and the party room man, we played chess all night and then we'd get buzzed all night. Well, that wasn't going to last too long, right? So, laying in bed one night, well, that wasn't going to last too long. So, laying in bed one night. It was the SPs. They signed a flashlight on my part. They said let me see your military ID. And he showed them. He is because he was there. He said let me see your military ID.
Speaker 2:I pulled out my Ohio driver's license, so they took me to jail. And what they were saying then is that because they had such a big drug problem on base, now they finally got somebody that's flying everybody on the base. Oh, they can try pinning on you. That was big time, but it's a funny thing. When my grandmother told me to go to church, I started reading my Bible at night. I'm not proud to say this either, but I'd be laying in bed blowing one, reading about Jesus. I grew up in church kind of. But I never read the Bible. Never read it for understanding. So anyway, when they took me to jail, I referred back to the Bible that I had been reading for a few months.
Speaker 2:Yes sir, and believe it or not, there was a passage in the Bible where Christ said you know, don't worry about what you're going to have to say, because the Spirit will give you the things to say. And so the base commander. They thought they had somebody. And guess what I did?
Speaker 1:too Right, right, he said got me.
Speaker 2:I thought for sure. So anyway, I go in front of him and I just told him the truth. I told him the truth, I was down on my luck in Toledo, ohio, and I went to come get a fresh start, you know, and he asked me why I was, you know, in that type of activity. But he knew that what he found in the room was just enough for usage. Right right, it wasn't no pounds or key, nothing like that. So after he listened to me, he had his head down. He raised his head up and said young man, I don't know why, but I believe you.
Speaker 2:And so I had a check coming in a hole, plus from the job I had. They gave me that and it kicked me off the base. And so I did what I should have did all along Al. I went and I got me a room and got me some big jars of peanut butter and jelly, because I didn't know how long it was going to be. But, to the glory of God, I got a job three days later, driving a taxi cab in a city I knew nothing about.
Speaker 1:You got to run that meter up because you had to find where you was going. That's a good point, because I did, I didn't know.
Speaker 2:You kind of play it you ask people Instead of saying I don't know how to get there you ask them what's the quickest way to get there. Yeah, I don't want to run up on you and they tell me they would take pleasure in telling me.
Speaker 1:Oh man, that's funny, yeah. So how long did you wind up staying out in California before you come back?
Speaker 2:I was out there for a couple of years, okay, okay, yeah, and, as a matter of fact, I was out there to the point where that's where I wound up getting saved at. Okay, I wound up, you know, at one time I was smoking two packs of Kool's cigarettes a day.
Speaker 3:Kool's. You know, kool's, you got to have a menthol Right Bel Air.
Speaker 2:Newport. You know you had to have a menthol cigarette, so I was smoking two a day and then every time somebody got in the cab, you know, you just reflex, but he gradually took all those things away. You know, it wasn't like I was pressing, I got to stop doing this, got to stop doing that. You know, the more I read the word, the more I prayed, the more I did those things. The more I prayed, the more I did those things, the more those other things fell off. And so yeah, and that was pretty awesome. And then finally I got a much better job out there and when I flew out there on an airplane it was kind of like I was so buzzed it seemed like I got there on an airplane. It was kind of like I was so buzzed it seemed like I got there in maybe 15, 20 minutes. Okay, that's three hours.
Speaker 1:Right, right right.
Speaker 2:So I wanted to. On my way back, I wanted to not get on a plane. Okay, so I hitchhiked home.
Speaker 1:You hitchhiked all the way home, all the way up.
Speaker 2:Man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, back then you could do that.
Speaker 2:You sure could Wouldn't attempt to do it now, right, unless the Holy Spirit told me to, and I don't think that's going to happen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, hitchhiking man, I haven't seen that since I was a little guy. Yeah, so when you got back to Ohio. So let me, just for my listeners and viewers that don't know, like, by time I met you, you was already. You know, mr Wood, you know he was my one of my best friends. Dad, I mean, I was like man, you were still. You know, you worked out, you used to go play basketball, and so by time I met you, you were already. I don't know you was at GM. I'm not for you. You were already at GM. I'm not for certain if you were involved in the union, but how did you get into that job.
Speaker 2:I had worked at a place called Bostwick and Brown. It was a hardware distribution center on Monroe and Washington and so I started working there. I worked there for nine years until they decided to move. Before they moved I hadn't had no interest at all in becoming involved in the union. What worked for me is that they asked me if I would consider running. I ran and I won Bostwick and Brown. Their management had a desire to leave, to move anyway, Okay, and they found a place in Ashley, Indiana, which we didn't know about. We had contract negotiations and so we didn't know about that. But we used to go to the Teamster Union on Harley Street. So you was a union steward even back, then yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, and because I was changing my life around, I was saved. It wasn't perfect, but I was saved and I didn't do a lot of things that the other union stewards did. Okay, you know, they, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure. They engaged, you know.
Speaker 2:And so the people on the floor, they had a lot of respect because, you know, I wasn't going to be caught up in profanity and all that other stuff. So we and the teamsters used to fight I mean, after a union meeting, oh, they would fight, They'd call the police.
Speaker 1:You mean like fighting at the union meeting? Yes, each other.
Speaker 2:Yeah, fighting each other at the union meetings and that was almost every meeting and it was pretty much what they would fight about the contract issues, disagreements that they might have had with somebody else, somebody talking over them. And so, yeah. But we had our contract negotiations and, for whatever reason we knew later, they were stubborn. The management wasn't going to move at all. They wouldn't budge. No, what they had wanted us to do was to turn the contract down. They were stubborn. Yeah, the management wasn't going to move at all.
Speaker 2:They wouldn't budge. No, what they had wanted us to do was to turn the contract down. Okay, and turning the contract down, then we'd go out on the picket line, and they had a plan where they would hire scabs to replace us, because they didn't know that they had already purchased a plant, that they were building a brand-new plant in Ashley Indiana.
Speaker 1:Oh, you had another plant. Yep See, that was before we had social media and Internet. Oh absolutely, Y'all picked up on that right away.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was back in the 80s and so, as a matter of fact, it was 83. Okay, and so they had a big argument whether they want to accept the contract or not. Well, our chairman, you know, he did a lot of things they did and he kind of hung out a little bit. His respect wasn't 100% Okay, but they were like you're lying man, they could give us more than that. Blah, blah.
Speaker 2:They was tearing him up, man. And so a couple of guys stood up and said we want to know what Ray Wood thinks. And I told them the truth. I said I don't think we're going to get nothing else. They're dug in and they haven't budged off of our initial offer.
Speaker 1:If they were serious, they'd at least give us something You'd try to make a compromise Absolutely.
Speaker 2:And so they believed it and because they believed it, we ratified the contract. Then we found out that they had purchased a building in Ashley, indiana, but out of that we got a severance package and people were allowed to, you know, to go to find other jobs. And you know, by me being a union guy, I was one of the last ones to leave and a few months after that I got on the GM.
Speaker 1:So, man. So was that like? I know you said you're changing your life around. The Lord was working with you, but where do you think that acumen came as far as to work with people, hear people out, understand negotiations? Do you think you picked that up in the military? Was it part of your upbringing?
Speaker 2:Well, believe it or not, it was the word of God. You treat people the way you want to be treated. I would want somebody if I had an issue, if I had a complaint, if I had a grievance, I would want somebody to come and at least listen to me, take time and tell me whether I'm wrong, be honest with me or if there's something that they could do, be honest about that. So those values pretty much was given to me growing up, but really through the word of God was given to me growing up, but really through the word of God. You know you treat people the way you want to be treated.
Speaker 1:Yes, sir.
Speaker 2:And treat your neighbor, you know, as yourself, and so those things meant a lot. And so when the plant closed, that summer, man, I, just I played softball almost every day. I coached two teams, played for two teams Every day, until one day I realized that this unemployment ain't going to last forever. At that time I had my kids with me Because, believe it or not, up until that time we would fantasize, we would talk about moving to California.
Speaker 2:You know, that's where I'd been, you know I told them hey man, they got banana trees out there. They got orange trees. You riding down the street and so you know that was their way of getting caught in, but it wouldn't have been wise I don't think for me to continue that course of thinking when I had a good job at GM. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So tell me about GM. So you immediately got involved in a union over there too.
Speaker 2:No, it took a while. Okay, it took a while. And once people, yeah, I ruptured my Achilles tendon Okay, with one of my sons and so rupturing my tendon. I was off work for a total of seven months because I re-ruptured it. After it got healed, I re-ruptured it, and so when I went back to work, there was so much confusion about representation, about the committee people, and how they viewed you, how they looked at you, because once you get those type of jobs, you still have to be committed. It's not a luxury job, it's a working job. So they asked me. They found out that I had been a union steward for the team, so they asked me if I would run. Okay, and I ran and I won, yeah.
Speaker 1:You went steward first or you went right to the committee. No, no.
Speaker 2:They called them committee men and that's what I got hired in. I mean, that's what I did. I was a committee man, yeah. And then after that you know it's just a progression. After that, you know, once you prove yourself to people and you know I was never one of those type of committee people that went into the office and just hung out in the office waiting for a call.
Speaker 2:I had a bag that I went out and bought and I kept the local contract, the national contract, my grievance pad, my phone numbers, everything I needed I kept right there with me. And so, yeah, that's.
Speaker 1:That's so interesting because I know when I Because I worked at Jeep for 15 years and I never got involved, you know, in the union I went to a few meetings but it was just I don't know if it was just a disconnect from kind of the way that they were doing things, kind of to the way where things were going. It just seemed like it was a disconnect. But I remember when I first started there there was a guy named Ron Conrad and he was kind of like one of the big guys there. But I always remember they had the FBI, you know, investigating the unions and committees and they do that type of stuff over where you guys were at?
Speaker 2:Absolutely, when I first hired in at GM I'm going to be perfectly honest when I first hired in they kind of told you that the culture at GM plant, you know, the shop chairman was a KKK member, okay, okay, and that was pretty much. Everybody said that it wasn't just a rumor. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:And so didn't really give it a lot of thought. Okay, but you know, but that was the reality and because that was the reality and that was the culture, it was just kind of difficult to get beyond that in a lot of ways. So what I did is that I never hung out in the work center. I'd come in, I'd get my, and I had the biggest, the largest district on the work shift. Second shift yeah, second shift. That's the work force.
Speaker 2:It is man and you know second shift, that's the workhorse. It is man and you know second shift pick up the slack for third and for first. So that's what I did. I would even take my breaks at the picnic table on the floor, because you know you go in the work center and those guys you know their mindset isn't, you know, to really be conscious of people having issues and when they have issues they just want somebody to address them.
Speaker 1:That's what you're paying union dues for. Right for sure, yeah, for sure, yes sir, yes sir, from transitioning from being president of the union and then getting into local NAACP. I was about to say politics, but I don't even know how you the action yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, interplant issues is politics, believe me, because you've got to run and you've got to get enough votes. You know you've got to campaign. So I started off as a committee man. Then they asked me if I would run for shop committee.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And then they asked me if I'd run for sergeant of arms. I ran for those and won all of them, okay. And then they asked me if I'd run for vice president. And I tell this story, I facilitate, I try to class up at up at University of Michigan.
Speaker 2:okay, black man in Union class and yeah, and I was just in February, okay, yeah, so they, they ask you about, about doing that, and then you kind of like I ran, but it was, it wasn't really my desire to be a committee man, to be shop committee man, to be started an arm or to be vice president. This is exactly what happened and, as far as me becoming president, the the guy that was the vice president, his name was George Cerevolo.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:He was a good committee man. I kind of modeled myself after him being a good committee man, yes, sir, you know, and so representation. So he called me in the office one day and the guy that was the financial secretary was he had a history of using the N-word and talking about. You know, you walk in his office and he's got Rush Limbaugh, plop, plop, plop blasting and so. But this guy that was the vice president, he said I got to get him out of there.
Speaker 2:right, he says so the best way is not to go on the floor and say what I've heard or what I know. I'm going to run against him and he really didn't want that job, but it was in him so much to want to make a change. So he said if I run against him, would you consider running for vice president?
Speaker 1:Vice president okay.
Speaker 2:And I said I thought about it and so I went home and come back and I told him that I would. Well, reality is, I won and he lost.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, so now you're working right with the guy. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I was the vice president and in 2006, gm ran into a lot of trouble. 2006, gm ran into a lot of trouble. Gm and Chrysler in particular. Ford was in trouble too, but that's in 2008. That's when they had the financial crisis with the banks and all that failed.
Speaker 2:And because that was happening, everybody had opportunity to get a buyout. So the guy that was the president, oscar Bunch, and he was a really good friend of mine, somebody he had a lot of respect for, because when I did become president, he told me he says, ray, I'm going to be there if you need me for anything, call me day or night. He said, but I'm not going to get in your way. In other words, he was going to let me be the president. So, anyway, when those guys left, I was a vice president. He left, okay, and I just took over his, finished his term, okay, and then I was elected to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, okay. So tell me like, so you don't have to get too far into it. But you know like I'm hearing, you know like you grew up, you got Door Street you got. Junction area. You got Black Panthers. Then I'm hearing the same city. You've got like a guy was in the KKK.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know. So those two realities have to meet at the workplace at some point, like, if you know, you're not saying names or anything. Is there any things that stood out to you in your time, as you know, president or committee dealing with those type of, you know, race relations or?
Speaker 2:cultural differences yeah, yeah, al, absolutely. Um. Like said, when I first hired in, there was the reality that the shop chairman he's the number one guy in the plant was a member of the KKK, and not just one person said that it was blacks and whites.
Speaker 1:It's kind of like common knowledge.
Speaker 2:Yeah, express that right. And so where I grew up at, grew up in the hood, was one of the reasons why that Smith Park was even built is because there were houses all along the 10th block of Fernwood and 10th block of Palmwood, but we didn't have a place to play. Okay, so we were playing in the alleys, in the streets and jumping on people's cars getting on their grass. So they realized that we didn't have a park on that. And you grew up over there on Forest, in between Woodruff and Prospect, you know that island, those islands that were there.
Speaker 2:We would go over there and play.
Speaker 1:Yep for sure.
Speaker 2:Yep, and so we did that. But with Smith Park coming along, and Smith Park, man, I'm going to tell you the truth, man, I went to Roosevelt too. I went to Washington, but I went to Roosevelt. Roosevelt later became king and king. They tore that down and they moved that where it is right now.
Speaker 2:It's all boys' school, but when they built King, we were pretty rough guys. I mean, I'm just going to be honest with you. We did it all. We played football, basketball, baseball, boxed. We did it all and we enjoyed being around each other. It was tough In the neighborhood that we grew up in. You had to be tough, you couldn't be. You had to defend yourself. I was just talking to a friend of mine that grew up over there. Man, we'd fight going to school.
Speaker 1:We'd fight coming home from school.
Speaker 2:So with that going on, I had a different mindset. When I went to powertrain, when I went to Chevy, when I went to Hydromatic, and the big thing is that I was saved. I was a different creature because if I hadn't been the same person I would have been hurt or somebody else would have been hurt, because I just didn't want to take all that. And you know where Powertrain is right, a mile from the line, right From Michigan line. A lot of people did not come from it was more then but a lot of people was from the outlying areas too, so they had a different mindset too.
Speaker 2:But what wound up happening, and the reason why that became such an issue, is that when I was a committee man, al, I had a certain district and everybody from all over the plant, even the plant two that we had, you know, they kind of knew that I was going to represent people and I would used to, you know. You know, working in a factory yourself, you put in a committee call. I don't know if you ever did, but you put in a committee call. You know the committee person. The first thing he does is go to the supervisor and a lot of times we hear the foreman or the supervisor side of the story at first and you said, no, you're watching, your committee man. You know, the first thing I did is that I went to the person that put the call in Right and I said I got to get you off the line because it's not fair for you to try to work and explain what's going on.
Speaker 2:And so I'm going over here to talk to the foreman but just to get you off the job. And that's exactly what I did. And that kind of spread around because other committee men wasn't doing that. Spread around because other committee men wasn't doing that Other committee men didn't have their contracts with them and their grievance pads and phone numbers.
Speaker 2:They came out If they had a pencil and a notebook. That was rare, but I had my bag with everything in it and so when I did that, the reputation kind of spread Okay. And now when the reputation spread anything, I did that, the reputation kind of spread Okay. And now when the reputation spread anything, I ran for. I ran overwhelmingly, and I was in every election that I was in, whether it was for a committee, man shop committee, sergeant at arms, vice president or president. None of them were close, they were all landslides Until I ran for and became president of the two-chapter NAACP. Then they had a hook, Okay, they had something to tell people negative, and that's what happened. So what was the negative part? That you were too pro-black. Tell people negative, and that's what happened.
Speaker 1:So what was the negative part? That you were too pro-black.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because the NAACP itself says National Association for Colored People, and so they used that as an opportunity to tell people that didn't know that was from the outlying areas that this guy's a part of a racist group. Oh, okay, yeah, he ain't no better talking about the KKK, the neo-Nazis, the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers. He ain't no better because he do the same thing. Wow, and this is exactly what happened. You know, if you ask me, with the president that we have now, the president that we have now, the president that we have now, he's in his bullying mode. He made people think what he wanted them to think, and so he's still doing that. Because my grandfather had told me a long time ago that a well person can't walk into a room full of sick people and make them well, but a sick person can walk into a room full of sick people and make them well, but a sick person can walk into a room full of well people and make them sick.
Speaker 2:Well, that's what's happening now, because in 2016, when Donald Trump ran he ran his base of people was undereducated white men. Now his base of people is dentists, lawyers, soccer moms, even judges, so you can make a person think the way you want them to think. And if you stop and think about it, marco Rubio, lindsey Graham, ted Cruz, rand Paul and even JD Vance's president, vice president all of them at one time they was against him. At one time they talked about him real bad and more. But now it's a world of difference because his bullying mode and his making people think the way he wanted to think and speaking certain things into existence that he could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and kill somebody or shoot somebody and never lose his base. Well, no, he's only growing his base. And so you know. And art at our plant.
Speaker 2:I remember I met with the vice president. This was back when Hillary Clinton was running and she ran against Bernie Sanders. Okay, the vice president of the union, she was supporting Bernie Sanders. So she came to our meeting and we had all appointed people, all elected people out and she was sitting there and I was sitting next to her and she was saying that we got to hit the pavement for Hillary because she was previously reporting Bernie Sanders. We got to phone bank, we got to do this, we got to make sure she get elected, and it was kind of quiet in the room and we're talking about 60 people. So she leaned over to me and she says Ray, do you think that we have many Donald Trump supporters in the plant? I said we got many Donald Trump supporters in this room and this is after Obama had bailed them out. We had jobs in 2008, 2009. This was after he did the bridge loan.
Speaker 2:George Bush. When he was on his way out on December 19th, he had said I don't know what's going to happen because the banks had failed. Everything was going down. He gave us a bridge loan, the UAW, a bridge loan to get into Obama. When Obama came in, he had already had the bankruptcy filled out, had everything worked out. Only thing we had to do as the UAW is that we had to give some concessions and we did that on May 29th and then that Monday they filed bankruptcy and if it wasn't for Obama, we wouldn't even have jobs, and these are people that didn't support him and they still don't.
Speaker 1:A lot of folks say that. A lot of folks act like he didn't do anything.
Speaker 2:Oh man, listen, if we could just go down line by line what he did, maybe he didn't do the things that we as and listen, if we could just go down line by line what he did, you know, maybe he didn't do the things that we as a community would have wanted him to do, because, you know, some people wanted for reparations 40 acres and a mule?
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely. And you know that story. That story was crazy, but because and he was still this dude couldn't even wear a beige suit, they clowned him for that. He couldn't even kill a fly, they clowned him. So they really didn't have nothing. And, just for the record, the Affordable Care Act, which they called Obamacare, tried to take it from him now and they were mad. Ooh, they were mad about him, but the reality is that he did a lot and that's why he had two terms Right, and he also had a great wife by his side helping. But you know, people are going to think what they want to think, just like it was. Unfortunately, there's a lot of people that thought that, you know, by electing Donald Trump, we're going to be rich. We're going to think what they want to think, just like. Unfortunately, there's a lot of people that thought that, you know, by electing Donald Trump, we're going to be rich, we're going to get money, and I'm talking about we. There's a lot of us.
Speaker 1:Right, right, right, oh man, oh man. So when you became the president of the NAACP, was that the end of your run as union?
Speaker 2:It wound up being, Like I mentioned in every election that I've been in and I was the president for 10 years, but I served other positions before that. None of them had been close, but they did have a hook, and the hook was that, by saying that the NAACP was supportive of blacks in particular, and our motto says for all people, and that's what we stood on still do what they took the opportunity to do is a tactic that they had used before they started putting nooses up.
Speaker 2:I remember that was on the news and, matter of fact, it was nationwide news. It was in the USA Today, it was on CNN. Matter of fact, sarah Sittner is the anchor at 6 o'clock in the morning for CNN. She came into the plant. She came into the plant, oh, wow, okay. She came into the plant when they did an investigation and I had. I filed charges with the Ohio Civil Rights Commission, affirmative Action, eeoc, and I also knew that when the nooses and the writing the stuff on the wall in the bathroom, I also knew that I, the nooses and the writing the stuff on the wall in the bathroom. I also knew that I had an obligation and what I did is that I made sure that the dates, the time, who I spoke to, what their responses were.
Speaker 2:I documented every single thing that I could and I even told them because I was president of NAACP. Then I even told the human resource director. I said I won't be offended. Please talk to GM Legal and let them give you some advice, because it's a powder keg. And it really was and you know you couldn't even hardly walk the floor and everybody kind of lined up. You know it was brothers and sisters.
Speaker 2:You know For sure and yeah, so whatever happened came of that. Yeah, I filed those charges with the Civil Rights Commission and they unanimously approved that it did happen, that there's probable cause that those things happened. I had all my notes and, like I said, they came in and they interviewed people on the floor black and white, management and union and they told them. They said, you know, even management people were saying, yeah, now, just for the record, nobody in management was putting the noose up.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Nobody in management was writing stuff on the wall, you know, because they have to really walk on Straight and narrow. Yeah, absolutely, it was Union Brothers that was doing it, so they ruled it in my favor. And then it was appealed.
Speaker 2:Gm appealed it and we went to Wright State in Dayton to hear the appeal, and that was an experience because there were people from all over the country there lawyers, law clerks, and that was the thing that they do, and so they tried to appeal it. Gm. At this time they had fired the legal team that they had the first time, and so they got in this big law firm out of Cincinnati. They got a super group together.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they got a super group together and the reality is this they still lost unanimously. Unanimously, I mean, and what I would tell anybody if they have an issue and they think that there's no action, document everything Right From the very beginning, and if they see you documented, that's fine, do it anyway. Make sure you put down dates, time, who was in the room, who was present, what they said, who spoke up, and then that will help your case whenever you go forward. And so that's exactly what I did, and it turned out the way it was supposed to.
Speaker 1:So I remember I saw you on TV one time, the NAACP meeting, and there was a brother in there talking crazy and whatnot. So tell me about your experience from dealing with in a plant.
Speaker 1:You deal with people from all walks of life all different ethnic backgrounds, cultural backgrounds, socioeconomic upbringings and whatnot. But then when you come back and deal with people from your own community, sometimes it looks like that could have been more difficult. You know what I mean. So tell me about those experiences. I'm trying to get people to understand, because I was in the car carrying a member of the NAACP but I used to hear about different things that was going on, but I always, I guess, like I said, it was a disconnect again. I get it was a disconnect again. I get it from them. I want to say the information, but just from what we grew up, thinking that an organization was, until what it actually is and not taking the time out or not even understanding what, what, currently, how things look. So you could just like what's the I want to say the purpose, could just like what's the I don't want to say the purpose, I know the purpose but what's the driving reality of what the organization can do now?
Speaker 2:Yeah, adam, I'm glad you asked that, and the reason why is because so many people have the idea that we go in and beat our chest and you know, and we're ready to put up our dukes and there's a time for every type of protest. Whether you're having a protest or a demonstration, whether you're picketing, there's a time and a place for all that. So when people have an expectation of what an organization is and what it's supposed to do and they don't deliver, then they feel some kind of way. We've had those issues. But the reality is that the NAACP was founded in 1909. And it wasn't founded in a great state because of issues in Alabama, georgia, mississippi, tennessee. It was like 60 miles from me in Indiana. They were lynching blacks in Indiana and so that's why the organization was started. And you know, back in 1909, and, believe it or not, here in Toledo, the first person who organized the NAACP in Toledo was the mayor.
Speaker 1:A white man named Bran Whitlock.
Speaker 2:They named the apartments after him and he was serious enough to have that. And it's always been somebody out there with the right spirit, with the right mindset, with the right heart and I don't know can't speak for how long they're going to have that, because when the pressure gets tough, when the bullies come out, when it's a matter of you, or you're gonna tell the truth or you're gonna.
Speaker 2:You know it can change but when people don't really understand that we never could take an army and go kick somebody's behind. We never had those opportunities. But what we did is that we've always negotiated behind their scenes. We always wanted to Right right to today. Back then, if we had done anything other, they would have did just what they did. They had KKK. They were marching in big cities like Chicago and New York.
Speaker 2:They come out in the 1900s with the birth of a nation, jim Crow started in the 1800s, 1860, right after, I'm sorry, 1870, when black folks was getting ready to vote in Louisiana because the Emancipation Proclamation, and they realized that we were going to get some black folks in those politically elected positions, and so they killed 100 and something of them and hid the ballot boxes. We've always been not having the firepower, you know, but we always had the determination, we always had the willpower to try to do it. So we would sit down and we would, you know, not begging, but we would sit down and we would let people, let those in power know that we're demanding our rights, you know. And so we negotiated a lot, and a lot of those things worked here in Toledo.
Speaker 2:Here in Toledo, after World War I, the servicemen came back and they couldn't get a job, just like World War II, yeah, but what we were able to get for them was they become, some of them became cashiers, some of them got got, uh, employment, regular employment, and now it wasn't the type of job that they deserved, but it was, it was, it was, it was jobs, right, and we've always been about jobs. Uh, we've always been about the educational, the political, uh, uh, opportunities. So what, so what?
Speaker 1:My question is like in doing those things, like what leverage does a community have these days to speak out against? You know, injustices.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. We got to use our economic power. Black folks in America we do, absolutely positively keep the economy going because we're going to spend some money and right now there's a movement going on with, as a result of DEI, takeaways for the Walmart and the Target and for us to stand as people and withhold our money, and that does a lot. Today is a little bit different from back when the NAACP first started, because when it first started, we had to trade, we were growing and the NAACP isn't just black folks. There's a lot of white folks. As a matter of fact, six of the eight white folks that started the NAACP isn't just black folks. There's a lot of white folks. As a matter of fact, six of the eight white folks that started the NAACP were white Okay.
Speaker 2:You know and so, but we needed all of that to help us. We needed all that to open doors, to make our voice be heard. And for some of us that did stand up. And there was man, there was. I mean we were prosecuted, I mean we were persecuted and prosecuted. But all those things happened to us just trying to stand up for equal rights. Because we say this all the time Land of the free, home of the brave, they've never been free for us, One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for some. It ain't never been that way for us and it still isn't that way. And can you imagine back in the? You know a lot of my friends, they say, man, if I was living back there, they would have had to kill me.
Speaker 3:Well, Kuntikenti thought the same thing too, in the movie Roots you know, because it was just so much of an obstacle.
Speaker 2:It was so much hatred, so much division and even to this day, you know, germans could come here, the Italians could come here and make a living, but we were brought here you know we were brought here and we had no desire to come here and make a living. But we were brought here. We were brought here and we had no desire to come here. They wanted to come here and the Statue of Liberty they got that carved on there. Give me, your yeah.
Speaker 2:They came and they were okay. As a matter of fact, Some of the Italians were mobsters. They came here and they were killing people, bootlegging and everything, and they still didn't get treated the way we were treated.
Speaker 1:Yes, sir, yes sir.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So let me ask you this it's going to be two parts. It's going to be the first. You know, like some people that might see this, they might live in a right-to-work state. How needful do you believe that, with all the technology and stuff like that, are unions today, and what are the unions' strengths now to be relevant? And then the second one. I'm going to ask the same about the NAACP.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a different world today as far as unions, because people hear what they want to hear, think what they want to think, believe what they want to believe. And some people that were union people or that still are, you know, they, um, they listen to people that don't have their best interests, because how else could, uh different unions go to support trump? Support trump is for millionaires, for people with access, with means to an end. That's why he's got the attack on Social Security and Medicare. But people hear what they want to hear and in hearing what they want to hear, they've turned. And just let me say this Unions have been their own worst enemy in a lot of ways.
Speaker 2:Let me say this Unions have been their own worst enemy in a lot of ways Because, you know, we didn't put enough emphasis on people getting involved in the unions, coming to union meetings, knowing your contract, your local, your national, making sure that we support those that have our interests in favor by going out by phone, banking, knocking on doors. We didn't do that. We kind of left that up to people and at the same time we were not representing people in a manner that was worthy of representation. You know they pay every month that's coming out your check and every month you got to pay that regardless in a state that's not right to work. Now and Ohio is still okay, michigan is right to work.
Speaker 1:Indiana is right to work. So what I couldn't understand, though, because I was a union member. So what I couldn't understand, though because, you know, I was a union member, yes, what I couldn't understand about the union was the people that were representing us, but they still worked for the company, though, yeah, so they still had, like. So, for people that don't know, when you get a contract, you kind of, as the layperson, just a regular union member. We voted on the highlights.
Speaker 1:They tell us certain things and then we find out, oh yeah, that was in the contract, oh yeah. Well, we got the highlights, that's right the stimulus. But, we didn't understand the concessions, all the details.
Speaker 1:That's right, you know, but we didn't understand the concession, all the details, yeah so. But I remember one time we walked off the line and our, our committee guy pretty much got fired because he wasn't supposed to do that. That's working for the company. It wasn't. I guess you know he didn't dot all his I's cross, all his T's, but if you're working for somebody, the same person that's paying you is the same person that you're supposed to be negotiating, kind of against. Like that's just a weird. It always seemed like a weird dance to me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and Al, you're right. One of the things that most unions negotiate is that you know union people are doing union work, but they're doing it. It's supposed to be a partnership and you know when they sit down and they shake hands at the beginning and they shake hands at the end. When they have a contract, the union and management is supposed to have a relationship, a partnership, and part of that partnership is that they will management will pay the union to do their job. You know, because if the union paid it, you know that would be money that they really don't have and expense so in good faith. But that doesn't mean that a union person has to compromise in any way his representation because that's against the law. Okay, but some of them do. Some of them do. Some union guys take advantage of the system.
Speaker 2:Just in case and point in the plant that I worked at, union people. They could have vacations and holidays off and never be disciplined. They could come vacations and holidays off and never be disciplined. They could come in late, they could do just about anything they wanted to. And, by the way, if they worked second shift and they were in work in second shift, they had the ability to take off at 7 o'clock for a family reunion. They could do that. All they had to do was ask put someone off the floor to fill in for them, right, right. And that person off the floor man, he don't really understand the contract, no, and they just somebody. Basically they're a note-taker and so they would never get disciplined for being late, right? So that's something that the that they could get. They got for themselves why the people on the floor had to go by the body of the contract.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure, because I know not just union, I would say any time it seems like there's a system, there's those that want to take advantage of the system whether it's unions whether it's church, whether it's wherever there, whether it's church, wherever there's an established hierarchy, people begin to take liberties in different areas.
Speaker 1:So I know, for me it was always difficult for me to wrap my head around the whole structure of the union and the relationship between the union and the company and just the different um, just the different dances that go along with. You know relationships and and you can see certain things, but you know it just, I always just wondered, like now with um, everything like contracts and stuff being so, so like you can go on AI and they can give you a contract just for about anything and outline it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they can.
Speaker 1:You know, and just the whole, like the 40-hour work week, the time off, the shifts, I mean there was things that the union helped establish. You know, from the beginning, like you know, they used to work people, you know, 100-hour weeks without no time and a half. So there's things that, across the board, are put in place. So do you think that if the union went away, they would start taking some of those things away without representation and putting people back in a position where they're getting taken advantage of, or do you think that the American workforce is so established now that some things are just in stone?
Speaker 2:Well, that's a good question, because we had to answer that question a lot. The reality is that they ain't going to give you nothing If you take the union away, the mechanism that enforced a contract and negotiated for benefits and wages and worker rights. If you take them away, then there's nothing that's going to make them want to do it. When we organized Al, we would go out and we would hear the concerns of the people that were organized. Okay, and in hearing their concerns, you know we were trying to make sure that we could address them all in our negotiations with management. But you know what, by the time we got into negotiations, they had already realized that it's easier to just give them a few dollars. Right, we're going to give them a few dollars, and then you don't want to sell union. You got to pay union dues.
Speaker 2:And a lot of people have bought that they're not as educated or they're not as in tune with what's really going on in the workplaces as we might think. And I'm not saying that there's not errors and mistakes that the union could have made to make it better and to have the confidence and the support of the membership. But if you take the union away because listen, you can see it right now they don't want to give us nothing, right, you know whether it's Musk just thinking he could fire somebody without notice or without cause, or whether it's Trump, and that's what they would do then the companies you've got to remember this. Companies are rich, they've got money. They're part of the haves. Workers are part of the have-nots. They want to keep it that way.
Speaker 2:The United States has been built first of all on free labor with slaves, and then on cheap labor. You get the Mexicans Hispanics come in and the Asian people it's cheap labor, child labor. They want whatever it takes to give them more profit, to make sure that their pockets are always padded. Listen, we've had people that had death in the family. I mean illnesses. I mean, yeah, man, but they're not thinking about that. I mean, yeah, man, but they're not thinking about that. They're trying to fire you, if they can, to get somebody younger and somebody that's going to go along more with what they say. So I'd hope that nobody is thinking that management likes them or cares for them or is going to do something for them other than take advantage of them Right.
Speaker 1:but I guess a lot of the premise for the people that have means is that when they do better they can offer more jobs and more opportunity. But if you cap them or bring their wealth down, then they're not going to be any more jobs because they're not going to be able to afford to keep being so benevolent. You know what?
Speaker 2:I mean and you're right, al, that's their argument, that's what they would tell us and anybody that would listen to that. But the reality is that their whole thing is to make more profit and a bigger profit. And if they could listen, if they could work this whole nation for minimum wage and give them very few benefits, if any. Don't doubt that they wouldn't do that, because they absolutely would. You know, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, and that's a natural fact. That's been going on for a long time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I know, I think somewhere along the line that people that are in the so-called middle class or they kind of sold them the dream that they're in the club until they find out like a job could be eliminated and other things like that.
Speaker 3:So it's just real interesting like a job could be eliminated. That's right. You know other things like that, that's right.
Speaker 1:So it's just real interesting, like these times we're living in now, because you can see like the transition, or you can see like it's like two eras living at the same time.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean, that's a good point you don't really know, because you know, like you've been through so much with negotiations or civil rights, you were able to see different eras that a lot of us had to learn about if we were in tune enough to listen. Because now it's like this new way of doing things. I know you've got fast food restaurants paying people by the day they're at work and then the end of the night or before midnight they get a deposit on their little card or on their digital wallet. They're getting paid daily, working day to day. I remember when we had to put two weeks in the hole and then get paid. So it's like.
Speaker 1:But now it's like everything. I know some places like I think, like Amazon, you could pick your days of the week that you want to work. I mean, everything is just changing so much. Like it used to be mandatory, you know, an eight-hour shift or this was the defined time. Now they have, you know you can work four here and six there. So it's just so interesting the times we're living in and I know that just becoming informed on all of it is like the key, because I know, like I talk with my daughter she's 12 years old and some of the things I say, I catch myself sometimes because she has no frame of reference for it. You know, I'm like you, know you work hard.
Speaker 1:You get a job, you this, you that but you know they've got these influencers or these people. They're showing them working in Dubai off a laptop.
Speaker 2:So you know it's kind of like, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:So it's like how do you paint a picture to get somebody to understand where the defined lines are and what the plan is or what the pitfalls could be if you just kind of go along to get along? So it's just real interesting. I find myself wrestling with a lot of that stuff, just personally.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's going to be a struggle. I mean it's going to be a struggle because even the Bible talked about some of the kings and some of his people. They had influence and affluence. I mean they could do almost anything, get away with anything. They had anything, you know. They had the best of food, they had the best of robes and clothes and they were always the poor. Jesus said the poor you're going to have with you always. And that reality is that you know the haves and the have-nots is a big deal is that the haves and the have-nots is a big deal. In this country it's even more so because there's so much to have.
Speaker 2:Yes sir, yeah, I mean, it's easy to have a nice house, a nice car, being able to choose what you want to eat that day if you want to go out and cook in.
Speaker 2:I heard this a while back and it said that if you own more than one pair of shoes, if you got more than one method of transportation whether it's a donkey, a cow, a camel or a bike or if you got more than one choice of what you're going to eat that day, you're in the upper 10% of everybody who's ever lived Wow, and that's hard to imagine In the United States, the land of freedom. Eldridge Cleaver I read a book by Eldridge Cleaver. He was a Black Panther and he said that he was so disappointed and disgusted with the United States that he started to live abroad. But as he lived abroad back in that day, the Russians and everything he said you know blacks is more acceptable over here. They got more here in America than they do other places.
Speaker 2:It's not to say that they're taking care of us. It's just that America is such a land of plenty but it ain't going to ever stop being the rich, get richer. And Donald Trump he associated himself with the richest man in the world, musk, and they all hang together. I remember Shaq had said one time Shaq got a rich contract. He got mad. He had all kinds of money and he said, yep, he said I'm rich, but the guy that pays me is wealthy. Right, right right.
Speaker 2:That's where the real money is Right. That guy yeah.
Speaker 2:And that's the way it is. And back to the Bible. God made a way for us to share. Yes, you know he wanted us. He didn't want everybody to just hog it in. And the more I get you can't take it with you and the more people respect me when there's people starving, when there's people that don't have anything to eat, because God made this land plenty for all of us. And if we just lived the way he wanted us to live, shared the way he wanted us to share, share the way he wanted us to share, give to others and to whom much is given, much is demanded, if we just did that, there wouldn't be no starvation, because God made this. Even in today's day, with all the disasters and the fires. But people ain't like that. People want more and more and more, insatiable yep, that's 100.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, like here, uh, I call this two cups, right, so it's a. It's a metaphor for life I try to live by. Yeah, two cups is like one for the wake, like that's the first cup in the morning, like one for the wake what's waking you up, what's what you're meditating on, what you're dreaming about? Um, what's what's um, what are your dreams, what are your visions? And then by time, you just get done just in that space. Now the next cup come. Now it's time for the work. Like what steps are you taking, you know, to get to that place? Like so, so what, what these days? What's what's waking up? What's your first cup?
Speaker 2:My first cup is a cup that's going to carry me all the way through. The reason why some people they may not understand, or they may criticize, or they may think, oh man, but my reality is I want to have a closer, deeper, more intimate personal to be able to share with the Lord. I mean that's on my mind day and night. Yes, sir, you know he's been good to me. Everything that I've been through in my life, I know that he's been there. He's been holding my hand, guiding my feet. You know Proverbs, trust in the Lord with all your heart, mind and soul and lean not to your own understanding, and all your not some of your ways, not many of your ways, but all your ways. Acknowledge him and he'll direct your path. And that's really what's important to me now. I used to say this I could be a good union person, a good president of NAACP, a good community activist, but only what we do for Christ is going to last.
Speaker 2:I'm thinking about something that's going to last. I am saved and I praise God that he looked beyond all my faults. But at the exact same time, I'm saved, but I'm also, you know, he's also got me, he's got me wrapped up, you know, and now I'm working on rewards.
Speaker 1:So the work continues. Yeah, the work continues.
Speaker 2:It continues and I didn't even notice that. But when I was with the union and with the NWAP, I was concerned about worker rights, women rights, human rights, civil rights. I was concerned about that because that's what God is concerned about. He loves all of us and he's no respective person, so he wants us all to be able to, first of all, find him, and finding him, he'll supply all our needs according to his riches and glory, and I really truly believe that. I think that my first cup is. I wake up in the morning thinking that. I go to bed in prayer, thinking that and you know, I really do want to be what he want me to be you know, I got a lot fewer days in front of me than I do, the multitude of days behind me.
Speaker 2:So I just want to do God's will. And I think that Martin Luther King was that way too. You know, even the last speech he gave, you know, right before, you know, the next morning, you know, in Memphis they killed him. He said I want to do God's will, you know, and he's allowed me to go up to the mountain and I've looked over and I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will make it to the promised land, and that's the type of mentality I want to have, you know, you're a man of God.
Speaker 2:And when we associate each, when we as a group of people, as God's chosen people, as people that accepted him, confessed with our mouth and believed in our heart. I think that what we can do is that he's soon to come back. We can spread the word. If you want me to stand on a corner, I'll stand on a corner because it's real. I wasted a lot of time growing up, but as I look back, al, I see that he was with me every step of the way the good, the bad, the ups, the downs, the mountains, the valleys.
Speaker 2:He never let go of my hand and I'm so honored that he thought enough of me to, you know, to look beyond all my faults and say that I need him. That's rich man.
Speaker 1:That's rich, it's real.
Speaker 2:And you know this ain't no mistake, al. We've been knowing each other for a while, for a reason yes, sir, you know, and my sons and my kids they you know praise God that they have a relationship with the Lord, my grandkids, do you know so?
Speaker 1:It's a blessing, man. Yeah, you know I appreciate sitting down and having this conversation with you, man, yeah, it's long overdue.
Speaker 2:It is. You know what I'm saying?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know you always like we're coming up. You know Sean didn't say too much, you know he was a dad and I just always respected the respect that he had for you, you know, and that you could tell you had a regimen, a discipline in your life that you know a lot of the men in our community they didn't exhibit. So we always kind of like, oh man, mr Wood, you're all right. You know what I mean Because you always, every time I was around, you always treated me kind and we was knuckleheads running around the neighborhood but you always extended your hand, gave me a encouraging word, man, and I always appreciated that.
Speaker 2:But you had something, Al. I mean you was gentle. I could see in you and feel in you that you were a good young man and at a time when it wasn't a whole bunch of it was a lot of bad out there, a lot of gangs, the blood's in the crypts, and you kind of kept to yourself and you kind of did the right thing and I know you was an example for my son and I appreciate that he says it all the time.
Speaker 1:He's too kind.
Speaker 2:He told me about when you played ball and you guys played ball. He used to say, yeah, he said I would tackle you but would basically hurt you. When he tackled, you say yeah, he said I would tackle you but would basically hurt you when he tackled you. Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, I'll put that helmet on. He can go into a whole other world.
Speaker 2:I know it man, yeah man.
Speaker 1:Man, I look forward to having some more conversations with you. Man, I like to have high quality conversations about. You know many things, like it's just I'm the type of person that I know that I don't know a lot, and some of it was just because you know you kind of insulate yourself to the to the world.
Speaker 1:But then, but then the world's not going to change if everybody just, you know, go inside, you know, into their silos. So so I found myself in the last probably, like, probably, like about five to seven years, really thinking about um through the work that you know, uh, pastor, and everybody's doing with the art tatum zone and just thinking about um, you know, education and and advocacy, and trying to help people, you know, be more informed, be more educated, trying to help people change a social-economic, you know, just to get the mindset to change first, but then to have that that trust piece to be able to people had, like they always you know it's cliche, but people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care Absolutely, you know. So just spending that time and just the work that I'm doing with juvenile at-risk boys is like you have to be patient. It's labor of love because you know, like the word says, like one plant, one water, but God gives an increase.
Speaker 2:So you don't always see that immediate result.
Speaker 1:But you have to know that you're not laboring in vain. That's right, and I've seen that you've been doing this consistently for at least 30 years. That I know of.
Speaker 2:You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:So that's a career. You know what I mean. So I just want to, you know, commend you, and I know a lot of people in our community look up to you and just continue to be. You know that standard. Now you know the word says you know you call it young because they strong and old because they know the way.
Speaker 2:You know I ain't calling you old, but I know, you know the way now I get it.
Speaker 1:I know, you know the way. So I'll be reaching out. I look forward to it More often and just get kind of picking your brain and just see how you know, because just today you educated me about a lot of things. You know, like I said, I was standoffish to you, know different systems and organizations just because I really didn't my idea, my perception about how they ran or what their purpose was still, even to this day, I kind of shied away from it. But I'm open to figuring out how I could plug into some more spaces.
Speaker 2:So I'll be reaching out to you about that, for sure. And you got the platform and the voice and the inner being transformed by the renewing of your mind and the mind to want to help, and it's going to happen. Yes, sir, yeah, I know it's going to happen. You're a good dude man.
Speaker 1:Oh man, Thank you. So, just before we go, anything else you want to say?
Speaker 2:No other than just we got to realize that we don't know. We don't know when he's coming back. Yes, sir, you know it could be when we walk out to the parking lot. We just don't know. And because we don't know, we should be prepared. Heaven is a prepared place for prepared people, and that's it.
Speaker 1:Yes, sir, once again this is two cups of I have my man. I want to say you know my good friend, you know we just rate, would just like like, subscribe, share. You could take different clips, different pieces of anything that was said that you know, registered you in any way? Leave a comment, man, leave a like and until next time it's your man. Two cups, all right.
