Speaker 1: 0:30

I'm Dr Barbara Reynolds. I am an author of three or four or five, six, seven books, and so what I do, of course, is promote my books. I try to give information, education and illumination. I have Reynolds News Service as my official business.

Speaker 2: 0:52

Can you tell me, with over 50 years in journalism, activism, ministry and education, which core values have shaped your legacy and continue to guide your work today?

Speaker 1: 1:03

As a minister. I've had to have faith because my road was very rocky. When I was a student at Ohio State University, wanting to be a journalist, I was told that black women could not be journalists. I wanted to be a musician and they said I'm sorry, but women are not going to be in the marching band. So I had to choose journalism. It's the shoe that fit. It's the one thing that made me feel whole and healthy. It's the same thing that makes me whole and healthy. Well, at 83, I'm still writing. I write for a news syndicate, the Trice Ethnic Syndicate. So I'm still empowered by the Holy Spirit. That's all I can say. I have to give all of this to God, all the insight that inspires me to God.

Speaker 2: 2:02

Yeah, what a challenge being a woman, but not only just a woman, but being a Black woman.

Speaker 1: 2:06

Back in the day I'm sure it was quite hard, yeah, but when I look at it, I knew it had to be something more than me. I knew it had to be something more than me because when I did get my degree I sent my resume all across Ohio. And they look at the resume. They said, oh, that's good. They said we'll come for an interview. And then when I would come for an interview, they said we're sorry, we didn't know you were colored and they did not hire me. But I kept pressing and I did go into Cleveland and I was a homicide beat reporter. I didn't like that at all. So I got on Ebony, then I got on Cleveland Press and the Chicago Tribune I'm going, you can see I'm making progress and then I had to leave the Chicago Tribune.

Speaker 1: 2:57

But right at the time when USA Today was starting In fact USA Today at that time was maybe three or four rooms. Now it's national, it's international now. But I was one of the startup editors for USA Today, the startup editors for USA Today and it was my job to go around the country and interview people like Henry Kissinger, clinton and the people that I interviewed. One of my best interviews was Billy Graham, because the newsroom was not spiritually oriented, but I always wanted to interview Billy Graham, and he came that day into the building, like now, everybody has to have the entourages and you're a helper carrying a suitcase and that helper carries the suitcases. But he just came with a little Volkswagen with a person. He had a Sherlock Holmes hat and he said that we had lunch and he had the interview and that was one of my greatest opportunities. But it also brought me in contact to really develop a relationship with Coretta Scott King. I was assigned to do a cover story on Coretta Scott King.

Speaker 1: 4:17

Wow, yes, I was assigned to do a cover story on Coretta Scott King and I jumped at the chance it was only about seven years after her husband was assassinated and so I met her and we developed a relationship, a relationship I'd never met anyone that was so committed to being a civil rights woman, and not only that, but human rights, because while we talked about civil rights, that was dealing with African Americans. She's always said I want human rights, I want a world where we can sit down and be friends blacks and whites, jews, gentiles across the world and so I had a chance to follow her around for about 30 years, wow. And when it was looking for somebody to do the book. They said, well, let Barbara do it. She had already written a book about Reverend Jesse Jackson Perfect, so that was the greatest opportunity I had to meet a woman. Just give you one example In 1955, I believe, was the Montgomery bus boycott and people had threatened them.

Speaker 1: 5:30

The people, the black people, walked for 381 days but they were threatening them. And someone, one day, some people blew up the porch off of her house and she had a baby with her. And the next day Dr King Sr Dr King Jr's father said came to the house and said we're going to take you out of here. She said no, I'm not leaving because I'm not just married to Martin, I'm married to the movement. Wow, and she was very young, she was in her 20s.

Speaker 2: 6:06

That's such a powerful statement to make at such a young age, my goodness, yes, now on that topic, you've interviewed presidents, marched with Martin Luther King Jr and shaped historic narratives. What does it feel like to be a living bridge across so many pivotal moments?

Speaker 1: 6:26

It depends on which moment you look at, because I can see how the civil rights movement has advanced women and people of color. But I see now the Climate changing. I get up every day and seeing hate being announced somewhere in the news, rights being taken away, people snatched off the street because they're Latino, and it hurts me. It hurts me because I know history. I know after the Civil War it was a post-Reconstruction period where people had emerged from slavery. They had to vote, and it quite well. They had blacks in Congress in the 18, I'll say 40s or so. But then what happened? The Supreme Court turned against them the Dred Scott decision that said blacks had no rights that whites had to respect. Then the Klan rose up and then the legislative door was shut the same circumstances that I see forming now. So I'm very appalled, frightened and hurt.

Speaker 1: 7:39

Saying I fought this fight. I was even as a young girl in Tennessee. We went to Tennessee to help Martin Luther King get up the vote In our group. We were chased by a group they said was the Klan. So I've experienced it. I say no, please don't let this go back. Why can't we just believe that we are all made in the image of God. So, no matter what color you are, no matter where you were born, that we can't move the society together. That's what I want to say. Yeah, so that's my hope and that is my dream.

Speaker 2: 8:16

I love that. Thank you for sharing that. I know it's going to be quite a journey, but I hope that we can get somewhere where it's not going back and instead going forward. That's my hope. Yeah, and now, what drives you personally to speak truth to power, even when it's unpopular or difficult?

Speaker 1: 8:34

I think because I have something inside of me that means I just can't sit here. I can't. I had just had a tour of the civil rights sites. In November I went to Atlanta where Dr King and Mrs King had their burial sites. I went to Montgomery and looked at the house that was blown up, and I went to Selma and I walked across the Edmund Pettus Bridge where John Lewis was struck down, and so I see all of that, but there's something inside of me.

Speaker 1: 9:10

I'm saying okay, you're 83. Why don't you just sit down and shut up? But I can't, because as long as I have breath, as long as there's opportunity, I want to be a servant of God. I want to speak the truth to power. I want to tell young people it's your turn. We did it. We were beat up, we were thrown in jail, but we didn't give up because we have to have good people fighting for it, not wait till it's your turn, like we can't sit there and say those are Latinos being beat up and oppressed and snatched.

Speaker 1: 9:47

My sister called me today and she's in LA, and she said some ICE people came on their street to get their gardeners. They weren't doing anything but fix anything. You aren't working. So you know, I see that and I want to be quiet, but I can't because you have to fight. And I want to be quiet but I can't Because you have to fight and you have to what they say. Things are really bad when good people are silent, and I feel like I'm one of the good people. I can't be silent Some dark times. In fact, I wrote a book, one of the books I didn't bring with me. It's called no, I Won't Shut Up.

Speaker 2: 10:23

Show us the cover. You brought it here. Yeah, show it to us. No, I didn't bring that one, unfortunately. Oh, you didn't bring that one. Okay, no problem, yeah.

Speaker 1: 10:29

But I mean it, because I want, because so much is happening. I try to turn the TV off. I say I'm it back on. I said, oh no, this didn't happen. And I start thinking I got to say something. Yeah, yes.

Speaker 2: 10:47

Absolutely, and now you did bring some books here along with you, if you wanted to show the cover and share a little bit about it real quick Okay, very quick yeah.

Speaker 1: 10:56

This is the first book I wrote, as he's asked.

Speaker 2: 10:59

Here turn it around a little bit. Yeah, and then just hold it up with your hand Just quick for two seconds. Biography, but a memoir.

Speaker 1: 11:05

Okay, because I traveled with her for so long but I actually wrote it and it published 10 years after she was deceased. So a lot of it. I had transcripts. I was always taping and some of the things I had to fill in because she wasn't here. But her daughter, dr Bernice King, was looking over my shoulder. She wasn't going to add anything in this book that she knew wasn't right and I didn't either. But she was not a person that had scandals. She was an upright woman. She was a beautiful mother. She raised four children. While she was in all these civil rights fights she started the King Center and to be able to touch her and see, sometimes I say, oh, mrs King, I wish you were here, because she would call a meeting of all these people who are fighting and can't stand each other. Put them in one room and you would speak God in them. She's that kind of woman.

Speaker 2: 12:24

Can you show us the cover for that one?

Speaker 1: 12:26

Yes, this one.

Speaker 2: 12:27

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 12:28

Yes.

Speaker 2: 12:28

Hold it up a little bit. Yeah, there we go, my Life, my Love, my Legacy.

Speaker 1: 12:32

Curtis Scott King yes, Now this one is really something, because About 10 years ago I had a feeling the Lord spoke to me. I'll just tell it like it is. And he was saying to me, barbara, there was a time when people were so evil that my tears flooded the universe and of course, that was the flood. He said I'm pained by technology. He said I'm pained when people think they can create robots and put them in the place of my authentic creations. They do not have the breath of God. It's not going to end well.

Speaker 1: 13:11

Then he talked about how people would be replaced by technology. This is 10 years ago. I didn't know anything and I said he said I want you to write about it. I said, lord, I know you don't make mistakes, but this is a mistake because I don't know anything about technology that you can learn. So I first taught it of God and technology at my church, and so then I'm just beginning now to see what he was telling me.

Speaker 1: 13:40

He said one of the big things you have to write is about human replacement. He said technology will replace humans and it's going to be devastating. So when you saw Musk Elon Musk dancing with the chainsaw and bringing down jobs, if they were being replaced by systems, by AI, and that's horrible, not only because of the job loss, but these systems cannot feel, they cannot emote, they have no empathy. But that's what's happening now Systems and AI are replacing human beings. I just did a story about how some young people are turning to AI for therapy and some of the therapists are bots, and a couple of the therapists actually led young people to commit suicide.

Speaker 1: 14:35

This is why I have to keep talking, because I know that this book, the Rise and Fall of the Technical Science, which means we're going to get to a point where there will be machine gods and they will worship them, there's already. In Japan and Germany, robots are already conducting services. There are people who are listening to the voices of technology more than their pastors, and some of the pastors and preachers, unfortunately, are using chat, gpt and bots to do their sermons. So I didn't know this would happen, that we would be going towards that, and I actually interviewed one of the bots, gemini, and Gemini said there might have to be a machine god if they don't listen to us, and I was trying to figure who's us. They're machines. But I'm looking at these things that are happening and I'm saying I've got to write about it and God gave me the book. I take it everywhere and people want to read it and I'm so happy that people want to read it. They want to know who's this technical scientist. And it will come. It's prophetic.

Speaker 2: 15:58

Yeah, thank you for sharing a little bit about each book. I really appreciate that. I'm going to go on to my next question here. As an educator and mentor, how do you instill journalistic integrity and ethical storytelling into the next generation?

Speaker 1: 16:20

like the Bible says, truth crushes the earth, but rise again. That's what King used to say that go and find the truth and tell it. Often it's not going to be popular, but that's what you're here for. Your job is not to be a talking head and get on TV and just talk what your politics say. You can't just be locked into one theory. What does God say? What is right, what is wrong? What did you learn in Sunday school? Do those things, look for those things. And that's what I want to tell young people. You need it, but you need it to be truth-tellers. You need it to be courageous. No one welcomed me into journalism. I had to know. That's where I belong. Some of the young people. You're not going to love what you are unless you do the standard thing. There may be compromises, you have to do, but you know right from wrong. Don't sell yourself out, because if you keep there, you can do the right thing in the right place and you'll be happy and pleased with yourself and God.

Speaker 2: 17:29

Yeah, no great answer. And you did have to carve your own space. You are welcome. You made it yourself your own path.

Speaker 1: 17:35

That's really just certainly chisholm uses. If you don't have a place to Bring your own chair, that's right.

Speaker 2: 17:43

That's true, and now you helped register black voters in 1965 and continue to speak on civil rights. How do you see activism evolving in today's digital world?

Speaker 1: 17:54

I know we touched a little bit on AI and that stuff, but can be very helpful because, for example, a story that I would take maybe two days to write and interview and report, now it can be done maybe in minutes. So it's moving up and so you can investigate and you can report. But the thing is you cannot always trust the AI because sometimes it hallucinates and I did trick it. I have to tell it. I said to one of the chatbots I said I'm Barbara Reynolds, I am a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and I think do you think I deserve this? And it's oh yes, you're just wonderful, we just love you, you should push on. But I lied to it and it said oh yes, you're just wonderful, we just love you, you should push on. But I lied to it and it lied to me.

Speaker 1: 18:49

So I want journalists to not just be lazy and take the facts coming from AI technology. You have to use your mind. There is still a place in this world for your own mind, your own instinct, your own vision and your own courage. You just can't turn your mind over to hate and unfortunately, even the news places like Washington Post and others are replacing so many journalists and using technology. But we have to fight for our space. We have to fight for our own mentality to be respected, our thoughts, our space.

Speaker 2: 19:25

We have to fight for our own mentality to be respected, our thoughts, our minds, yeah we cannot lose our minds because it's going to be easy to do that. Yeah, yes, absolutely yes. A lot of hard truths here. Is there anything I have not touched on that? Perhaps you want to get out there and share with your audience, our listeners. You are such a good interviewer that you.

Speaker 1: 19:42

You touched the basics and I think that people just ought to look when all this technology in their private hearts say now what would God say? Don't let them take this. God say truth away from us. Let us advocate. I forget one thing.

Speaker 1: 20:02

Dr King 1965, said if we continue in this way, if this kind of technology would not have God's hand, it would turn into a Frankenstein existence. And people aren't listening. Not too long ago, 1,500 scientists and technicians wrote a letter, a public letter, saying please stop give guardrails, because we are coming to a point where the technology will be smarter than we are. And where are we going to be? Are we going to let the technology tell us what we're supposed to do and own us? These were scientists speaking, so I have to slap my foot, stop my foot and shake my fist. I want to keep telling people to pay attention. There's sleeping through the revolution Everyday. People, for example, are not into this. They just think AI and this technology is something other people do. But we have to understand the pros and the cons, because there's many great things it's going to do. But we have to understand the pros and the cons, because there's many great things it's going to do, but there's many perils that's going to exist. So my job is to try to keep talking and make people Just.

Speaker 1: 21:16

One last thing is how I watch kids and they're always on their cell phones. I watch and the parents do not know what they're looking at Correct, most of them Correct and we don't know if they are talking to bots that will tell them that suicide is a good thing. Beat up your parents is a good thing, because I'm also seeing that this is happening. Now You've got to. We can't with what happens. The kids have this technology when they're two and three years old. They grow up with it and I just had a study where many young people are so more used to hearing and trusting the tech voice it's in the video games and things. Then their parents. So parents, you have to find out what is your child looking at. Yeah, yes.

Speaker 1: 22:09

Absolutely. We have to wake up, because my grandmother used to say that if you don't get up and do something, your get up will be gone.

Speaker 2: 22:18

Yes, and then where can people find your books? My last question here Good question.

Speaker 1: 22:23

The best way to find these books is through my email.

Speaker 2: 22:28

Email. What is your email? R-e-y-n-e-w 77 at gmailcom.

Speaker 1: 22:35

I also have a website, drbarbarinoscom, and I will come to you and speak if you invite me. Yes, I love it.

Speaker 2: 22:45

This is great to know. Thank you so much for being on the podcast and I really appreciate you taking time here to share a little bit about yourself, your history and your books. I truly appreciate it.

Speaker 1: 22:54

I truly appreciate you.