The Strategy to Fight Back Against White Nationalism

What happens when the right to vote is no longer protected—but quietly weakened?

In this powerful episode of Rethinking Freedom, we confront the ongoing fight for Black voting rights in America—from Reconstruction to the Civil Rights Movement to today’s legal battles over redistricting and representation.

This is not just history. This is happening now.

We break down:
• The true history of the Black vote in the United States  
• How voter suppression has evolved—from Jim Crow to modern-day tactics  
• The impact of key Supreme Court decisions like Shelby County v. Holder (2013)  
• The role of gerrymandering and redistricting in shaping political power  
• What’s at stake in the latest Louisiana redistricting case  
• And most importantly—how we fight back  

This episode moves beyond awareness into strategy. Because the question is no longer whether voting rights are under attack…

The question is: What are we going to do about it?

Featuring Reverend Philemon Brown

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Well, good morning, everyone, and welcome to the month of May. And welcome back to Rethinking Freedom. As usual, I am your host, Aya Fabarinelli. And today we're going to be talking about we fight back, dismantling white nationalism. And if those terms seem like things you haven't heard before, stick around because we're going to tell you what we're talking about here. We fight back, not because it's easy, not because it's new, but because it continues to be necessary. There's a lie in this country, this United States of America, that progress is permanent. That once rights are won, they are secure. That once we gained the right to vote, the fight was over. Women even fell for this lie. That we actually had autonomy over our bodies, but history tells a different story. The right to vote for black people in this country has never been given freely, was paid for with blood, sweat, tears, bodies in the ground. It has always been contested, resisted, and yes, attacked in multiple ways on multiple fronts. And that has been unrelenting. From Reconstruction to Jim Crow, from literacy tests to poll taxes, from racial gerrymandering to modern day, still racial redistricting battles. The question has always been the same. Who gets power in America? Who is really American? And more importantly, who decides? Today we are not just looking back, we are confronting what is happening now. Hopefully, you've been paying attention to some of these rulings coming down from the Supreme Court and some of the actions being taken by governors and legislators, particularly MAGA legislators are legislators around the country. Today we are confronting what is happening because the lines are being redrawn, the rules they think are being rewritten, and the protections that we thought safeguarded our votes are being both quietly and loudly dismantled. And I'm not sure that enough of us are paying attention. This is Rethinking Freedom. And today we have with us an incredible guest who has been a fighter in my community here in Central Texans since I moved here 17 years ago. I speak of no one else than Reverend Philemon Brown. He currently serves as a chaplain with the Seton Pastoral Care Team in Central Texas. He's chairperson of the City of Harker Heights zoning board of adjustment. He's also a CASA advocate and a community activist. And those of us in the community know that if you need someone who can speak truth to power, unafraid, will say in the front rooms what he says in the back rooms, on the streets and in the boardrooms and everywhere else, you call on Reverend Brown. He is the founder and executive director of Sankofa Central Texas Ministries and previously served as the founding pastor of Hawker Heights Community Church until the congregation concluded its ministry. Reverend Brown, we welcome you to Rethinking Freedom.

SPEAKER_01 3:13

Thank you for having me. It's a joy uh to be back in this space. Um, kind of brings back some memories from those video conferences during the COVID era. Yes. Talking about things, but um we are in an unusual, unusual place. And I had to deal with a couple of things in terms of reckoning with my place of former employment where I retired from, the University of Texas, it's significant changes in dismantling uh diversity, equity, inclusion. And now recently the African-American Studies program, they combined it, and they have a new president who is aligned with uh the MAG policies and the governor and lieutenant governor and all those things.

SPEAKER_00 3:59

So it's tell us a little bit about that role that you played, because I didn't mention that at the University of Texas. Tell us about that part of your life because you're also a veteran. I could have gone on, but tell us about that part of your life.

SPEAKER_01 4:12

I was um we did organizational diversity and development, and uh we created the diversity programs and uh within the residence life program and on campus. And um, and we actually had a program where the employees were required to complete so many diversity hours because it was understood understanding um yourself as well as others would would improve service, and um all that went away. Um uh gone. As a matter of fact, it's illegal now. SP SP5 and 7, and um, and the folks who were then within the diversity of community engagement DDCE, that department has been dismantled, and I know uh some colleagues they're still looking for work, um, and the way they actually got rid of their boys via email was uh unfortunate. And they've um they really they really did it, but they really did it thus dirty um with that uh and the work that folks done uh in that regard. And and and again, all of this was happening um while folks were just kind of um just kind of whistling in the wind. I I quote what one preacher said in the sermon maybe about about two months ago, and he said, Many preachers are preaching like they're not living in America, and to live in America, and when you understand the gospel and that Jesus Christ being about justice, you can't ignore what is going on with the folks that's sitting in your pews, and so uh yet they tend to do so, they do, and and and and what that has done uh has created this community where folks are not interested or engaged, not interested or engaged, and of course, this is a a particularly critical time, I think.

SPEAKER_00 6:10

If you go through our history in this in this country, every time seems to have been critical, but some more than others. But there was a recent Supreme Court's um ruling um that I wanted us to to focus on and to give some historical context. Do you want to jump in on that?

SPEAKER_01 6:26

You're talking about this past week.

SPEAKER_00 6:27

Yes, yeah, um the Louisiana versus Collapse, yes.

SPEAKER_01 6:33

They dismantled the they they they dismantled, they took the power out of the civil the voting rights act um based on a case out of Louisiana. And Louisiana had I think about 33 black, and they wanted to have representation. Um and it's unfortunate that um the that that happened, um, but it happened while we were living our lives and they dismantled it. Um it's it's significant in that now Alabama governor, the Louisiana governor, they uh the Louisiana governor want to postpone the elect upcoming election so that they can redraw the line to take away the representation of black votes. What is even interesting is I was um looking at getting caught up, you know, so I can you know be prepared. Um, is this term race neutrality that seems to be framed in all of this? And uh I think Kagan and her descent talked about it being being gutted. Um, but this term race neutrality, it sounds really nice, but it defaults to whiteness and um it gives whites the upper hand and it and it invokes a negative um for black folk. And and that's the mass.

SPEAKER_00 8:09

The status quo, when we talk about white nationalism, if the status quo is white, if the standard is white and white male protestant to be more specific, yeah, then anything else you introduce or that to try and widen that circle becomes a threat, which is why someone will open their mouth and tell you I am anti-DEI. And what I always ask them is, can you tell me what DEI stands for? And sometimes they don't even know. And so then it's like, okay, so are you anti-diversity? Because in your garden there's diversity, you need biodiversity. We did so, like in every other form, you you you encourage diversity. Are you anti-equity? And what does that mean exactly? And equity for who? Are you anti-inclusion? So don't just say I'm anti-GI. Tell us what you are about, you know, tell us what you are really about if you understand this because the default is actually I am pro-white Protestant men with wealth, by the way, because the poor ones aren't counted in that in that number either. Um and so, yes, there has been the discussion of hasn't been gutted. And what I would say as a lawyer is that these laws are man-made laws when we look at the 15th amendment or any part of the constitution, human-made laws, but they're also prone to open to interpretation. And so what we have here, as far as I'm concerned, is not just the issue of what MAGA is doing, what white nationalists are doing, while the oligarchs are raiding the coffers of this country and Trump and his family enriching themselves. It's not just about pushing women back into the 18th century and certainly black and every other group. And people need to understand every group that has any rights in this country, those rights were built on the backs of black people because it all started with the quote-unquote civil rights movement by black folk, people of African descent, and every other person piggybacked on that. But the point I was trying to make is you elect people who then are in positions to introduce laws or policies or to nominate and approve the kind of justices that we now have that have chosen after all of these years, and we're talking about the 1965 Voting Rights Act, who have chosen after all of these years to look at and interpret the language of that act so narrowly and so differently as to bring about different results than what it was intended for. And so if we are upset about anything that's going on, including what the governor in Mississippi and Louisiana and many of the other reports they did it here in Texas with the redistricting, if they're doing it now in Florida, if we're upset about what they're doing, then one of the ways we can respond is to actually go out and vote. And that is not happening.

SPEAKER_01 11:26

Yeah. Um, I would like to add, in terms of the how far it goes back, um a couple folks who are really familiar with things suggested that Brown versus Board in 1954. There were these folks who uh started this notion of wanting to dismantle that because that was significant legislation there. And I want I also want to go back to Reconstruction because I think what uh Lewis Gates talked about and he provided through his research was how these uh folks um use this flawed science uh and flawed theology to create this uh this these this information that would be saturated, which will give birth to lost cause and other things that will continue to be present to today in terms of how folks black folks are viewed. Um, and so they did not view blacks as human. They they would suggest that blacks were a different creation. And you you have to be really sad and sick to take God's word when he said, I made man and woman, he didn't create a separate person, a black person, but that's what these folks did, and folks believe that today. And so you have the president um using his old image um of a monkey uh to uh to uh uh to disparage um President Obama, and that's been around for a long time. Here's a resource Ethnic Notions is a documentary a few years ago that captured all of this stuff and how it was how it was um um used. And I know a few years back uh at work back at university, we wondered why why there was such negativity associated with watermelons and all these different features of blacks eating watermelon, how they were being disparaged. And then at that time, doing that research, we come to come to understand and learn watermelons came from Africa. They was a product of Africa, and that these folks was using again Africa and its products to disparage black people, and that work that the stuff that was done during Reconstruction, um, um, that period of time, and the images, uh, the printing press came about. So they the the the world was saturated with these images, and people thought about that, and they would see that, and thus creating that caste system and reinforcing that in terms of these images. Um, what is also interesting in terms of religious relationships, in terms of religion, at the same time appear, Paul Quinn in his book, The Apostle Liberation, um, with the uh AME Church, he was doing significant work with Underground Railroad at that same time and uh advocating for literacy and advancement of um um the clergy to be educated. And um, and he even talked about how they even attended Lincoln's funeral there by invite and how they processed and marched with him. And so we are at a critical time where there needs to be a trans a transformative move um whereby we would become interested in our work. I did an op-air uh I think maybe three or four weeks ago. And one of the things that I said was, we as a collective don't value our history.

SPEAKER_00 15:15

Um we and if we value that when you say we, what we are you referring to?

SPEAKER_01 15:22

We blacks collectively. Um because I was um I was I've been having these little casual conversations. I know this is anecdotal with some young people asked I asking, do you know um, you know, lift every voice and sing, you know, Negro National Anthem? No, I had no clue. And I said, It's your homework, read about it, and um and and even in churches, that song is a great hymn, and many churches don't even get to it. Maybe they'll get to it during during February, but that song maybe in February, yes.

SPEAKER_00 15:53

And whether and whether we actually resing all three stanzas and understand the words and and the history of that, of of even um of the words that we're written to.

SPEAKER_01 16:03

That song provides a framework for our liberation, for our understanding of God, and for our fighting. We march on till victory is won. And lest we forget, you know, where we came from. A lot of folks don't want to be associated with Africa because of the misinformation about Africa and how it's been portrayed. And we've got to do more to really to when we start getting people to vote. We got to do more in terms of understanding why I need to vote and why it should be a part of my duty as a person. Uh, the historical black church uh in the 60s, before it kind of dropped and went away in the 70s, it was that was an expectation for folks to vote. That was a community expectation, but now we've been bombarded by, if you will, celebrities and saying there's no need to vote, so on and so forth. So we got to deal with that as well.

SPEAKER_00 17:03

And we and we need to understand the history of even that propaganda. Why, yeah, if if voting was so unnecessary and unimportant, why do they spend so much power and energy and resources to dissuade you from voting?

SPEAKER_02 17:22

Right.

SPEAKER_00 17:23

Um, so just in terms of some history, because you you were alluding to that, is we know the black vote did not begin in in 1965. We know that people of African descent had been fighting um for their own autonomy, for their own sovereignty. We talk about Tulsa, Oklahoma, but we since we're here in Texas, don't even realize that at one point we had over 500 towns, small towns that had been set up by black people.

SPEAKER_01 17:53

Freedmen.

SPEAKER_00 17:54

Yes, freedmen, thank you. And gradually between the Klan and other policies, white nationalist policies, those towns were done away with many of the times under, you know, through violence. So we know that after the Civil War, we had the 15th Amendment in 1870, which guaranteed black men, not women, but black men the right to vote. And for a brief moment during Reconstruction, which we would put at about 1865 to 1877, we could see black people gaining political power.

SPEAKER_02 18:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:36

Black legislators, we had black senators, we had black governance, and we worked a lot of times collaboratively with members of other communities. But then came the backlash. And I hate to say this, but there was a picture that I saw in the newspaper. No, first of all, I saw it on my screen, and then I got the newspaper. And when I saw that picture, I said there are three different communities that are looking at this picture very differently. It was a picture of Barack Obama swearing in Justice Sotomayor, and Eric Holder, the attorney general, was also in that picture. So it was a Latina Supreme Court justice, an African American attorney general, and an African American president. And I said, now people in the black community in the um Latinx community where this is great, first Latin, you know, first Latina on the Supreme Court and all of these things, right? And I said, but I've studied enough of United States of America and its history to know that whenever black people make very clear progress, there comes the white lash.

SPEAKER_02 20:03

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:04

And so we saw during Reconstruction time, you you you can maybe you can tell us a little bit more what that white lash looked like, and we can see what the parallels are till today.

SPEAKER_01 20:14

It looked like uh uh but before we move forward, there's actually a book. Uh I can't think the name of it. It's is is by it's printed by the University of Texas Press, and it's a pretty comprehensive history of uh Texas freedmen in Texas after Juneteenth, it talks about how they settled and in these low-line marshy areas and progress all the way up. Bill Pickett, Liberty Hill, was a freedom community, and uh where he came from, it's not not there now, it's not well documented. And in Belton was a freedom community. There's a school that came as a result of that. So after during Reconstruction, um, particularly like 1870, uh in Mississippi, um, there was violence. Um, so here's a number: uh 9,000 of um Mississippi's 147,000 African-American voters, they were registered to vote. And um 6% of Louisiana went from 130,000 African-American voters in 1896 to 13, 1,342 in 1904. So you so during the reconstruction, y'all say the emergence of the Klan, where the Klan came and was terrorizing folks um because of their because they were black, and they did not like the success or the movement of the black folk. And what's his name? Um, when they removed the Union troops from the South, he was the president, and that was one of the conditions for his election.

SPEAKER_00 21:50

You're talking about Andrew Jackson?

SPEAKER_01 21:52

No, Seward. Um, it wasn't Jackson, it was, I can't think of his name now. But when they did that, that's when the violence started. Um it was just terror. Um, and so it was it was just chaos. Um, because I think um Bishop Barber calls this the third reconstruction that we're in now, as you talk about President Barack Obama. But the idea about the blacks voting and having the right to vote was something that they did not want because of the prevailing uh rhetoric that was created um by these folks who suggest that blacks weren't human, and so they did not want to share the same space of parity or being equal with what they thought there was the inequality or the unequalness of blacks. And so, but the the pattern was it was to dismantle and keep at this the lower echelons of um the the if you will the strata, um the caste, the system that was in place. And so they had poll taxes, and you had um the grandfather clauses. Yeah, you had uh and so yeah, so early 19th century, um the birth of a nation um was viewed by then sitting president, I think Woodrow Wilson, and he in essence gave it gave it two thumbs up, first motion picture, black and white. Um, but it portrayed the Klan as these heroes, and it showed the elected leaders in Louisiana and the Senate as being lazy, depicted them as being lazy. But the one of the themes in that uh birth of a nation was to protect the virtue of a white woman. They did not want the black person to be touching a white woman. Um, and that was the reason the clan would ride in the town and to save the day, if you will. Um, and that is just something um that was unfortunate. And I liken the current president to Woodrow Wilson because Woodrow Wilson he instituted um where blacks had to go into the back through the back of the White House prior to his arrival, they could just go where in the front. But he was that guy, it's unfortunate he was from Virginia. Um but he was from Virginia, he created League of Nations and all that kind of stuff. But he had a racial motive and it was not good. Um, and so that was in essence, but that but but but um Gates talked about there was the hope, there was a bright glimmer of hope during this time of Reconstruction. Pinchback was elected in uh Louisiana and throughout the South and um and did well. Um and there was a the Flower Mound, Mississippi, um very prosperous town in Mississippi, was a strategic place uh where blacks gathered and those things. As a matter of fact, uh that was the place where Emmett Till's mother went before she went to Chicago to get out of uh Mississippi, and so it was strategic.

SPEAKER_00 25:19

And there were freedmen there who protected her.

SPEAKER_01 25:22

Yes, yes, it was it was strategic, but these folks, I don't know how degree degraded, she talked about how did Thomas Jefferson reconcile having slaves and sleep well at night? Um, he put them in a category of not human because the the archaeologists discovered the bone said they were working.

SPEAKER_00 25:48

But but but I but I think these are lies we're telling ourselves because and that lies that they've told that we are imbibing. Because if we're not human, why are you letting us serve as wet nurses for your children? If we're not human, why are you leaving the white woman, your so-called preservant, in your bed and coming out to quote unquote the slave quarters to rape us? If we're not human, why are you using our ingenuity? So this is an excuse for the evil that they already intended to do.

SPEAKER_01 26:21

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I I I get that. I get that. It's the the what was that? My one of my history professors talking about it was the irony of hypocrisy. You know, talk about your lazy, but you did the you did all the work for the Western expansion, clearing the land and all those things. And so to your point, yeah, it's the it it's it's it's it's it's some it's some it's some horrific ironies there uh in that in the life of this country that needs to be reconciled um and addressed. And that's a that's a question I would just I'm just gonna tag that, put it up there for maybe toward the end and talk about how do we move this forward.

SPEAKER_00 27:06

How do we move this forward?

SPEAKER_01 27:08

Yeah, because I think there has to be an understanding of what has happened. Uh from saying Kofa is going back looking to understand what has happened and to bring that forward.

SPEAKER_00 27:20

But how do you engage people who are not interested in history or, if you will, the struggle because they already feel like they have arrived and there's nothing to I well I I think I think that we're all getting a rude wake-up call in terms of they have arrived. We certainly saw the gutting of the federal government. Um and that was a very precise, precise attacking of an area where black people quote unquote overrepresented in terms of our numbers and we're making very good, a very good living. And so from the information that has been put out, three to four hundred thousand black women who suddenly who are suddenly out of those really high-paying jobs and now have to figure out what's next if they weren't ready for retirement. Um, the reason that that it's so important for us to talk about what has happened in the past as we now bring it up to the present, this latest attack on the Voting Rights Act and how we respond is to understand the implications, right? So after Reconstruction, we had Black senators. The last one was Blanche K. Bruce, who I believe was there, I think from 1875 to 1881. And then after that, we did not have another Black senator in the United States Senate until 1967. So someone do the math. If it was 1881 to 1981, you would be talking about a hundred years. So if you do the math, we're just talking about what, 14 years different. So for over eight decades, we are paying taxes, but we do not have a single black senator. And even when we look at the the Congress as well, our numbers dwindled to nothing and then it started to take back. But it was really the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that allowed us to start to see the representation that we're seeing. But now here we have, as they are taking, I don't know if you'll call it an act, to the Voting Rights Act. That the act still exists. It's the interpretation of the act, similarly to how the constitution still existed. And one Supreme Court said, oh, based on the constitution, a black man has no rights that a white man has to um respect. And yet later, based on that same constitution, there was a different interpretation. I bring all of that up to say if we have the right elected officials, we can impact the policies being made, and we can impact who is on the Supreme Court and what choice, what decisions, how they're interpreting the law, because the law is not blind. Justice in this country is not blind. So the Voting Rights Act did two critical things. It banned discriminatory voting practices, so you couldn't use the poll tax and those kind of things, literacy tests and so on. And it required certain states, mainly those in the South, to get federal preclearance before changing voting laws. And so first they attacked the preclearance. And once that was out of the way, you immediately saw states like Texas, like Ohio, Florida, so many of these southern states changing their voting laws to make it tougher for those they don't want to have a voice to actually be able to vote. And now we're dealing with racial gerrymandering. They claim and this Supreme Court again decided oh, if you're drawing redistricting just based on party, that's fine. Of course, choosing, intentionally choosing, to deny the obvious, which is that there is a party that primarily is promoting white nationalism, manga politics. Look at Project 2025. They've written out their playbook and they are implementing that playbook. And that there is a party that it is that is more inclusive and more about diversity. So where do we go from here? What do we do with this information? Especially since I know you're in a community where we just had an election this past weekend and the voter turnout wasn't that great.

SPEAKER_01 32:02

Yeah, that's the that's the that's a concern. Uh, like is it's lower than it was last election cycle. Um and I looked at um Dr. King's Selma March, Selma speech after the march, and they walked, man. It was like a week. Um they you know they did some incredible stuff. And um I was at the I think it was two years ago at the black preaching conference at Truett, and um Cam Trans, um, he had done some research on Dr. Shuttlesworth, um, Dr. King, and remember Abernathy. They were their churches were in close proximity to the Capitol, and he talked about how they work together to bring uh about legislative change. And I remember asking that question then. I still ask that now, if they could have they could do that then, what prevents us from doing it now? And um, we have there are just so many factors that keep folks apart. And we've had we had some conversations about starting a having a Saturday school with the church. Um Paul Quinn, bishop for the AME, talked to him about it. And well, he said, Well, you know, you go and get the other people ready, then bring me in. It starts at the top.

SPEAKER_00 33:35

It starts, you know, you know, you know, we started a Saturday school. Um, wait a second, what year was this now?

SPEAKER_01 33:42

That was a few years back.

SPEAKER_00 33:43

It was 2019, yeah. 2019, and we were strong for I would say, oh, let's say about five months, summer hit, and that was before that was before that was before COVID African-American studies in the schools, yes, and um and now that's at that's at risk.

SPEAKER_01 34:10

Um, the state board of education is just chaotic now. They they just manga all the way. Um, my last time there, they were that was maybe about three years ago. They had these parents from Dallas, and they had just reviewed the the TKS, and they did not want to approve them. They pushed it back so that they could get more folks on the state board in the fall. And that board representative from George, Florence, he's from Florence. Um, he didn't support it. This is the same guy that wrote me a congratulatory note for the work we did when we got that uh that uh uh the course approved about five years ago. So they changed, and so so with the that legislation that was happening a couple years ago, I was talking to, and I and given the history of the AME church, it just seems fitting, but nobody would want to even entertain the idea more than just hearing it, and because again, why they they don't care about history, that's my so we got to figure out how to do that because we need our kids and adults to understand the history of reconstruction, not only reconstruction, because uh we need to go back to Kemet Africa, where it all began and move it forward because we can't rely upon the school system, they're not gonna do it, they got too many problems, and we need to do that ourselves.

SPEAKER_00 35:44

They got too many problems, and that's not really their focus, it's not is teaching it teaching us our our history because they do not want us to be informed, they don't want us no miseducation of the Negro.

SPEAKER_01 35:56

I I I I I Cardi G. Wilson had a point, got a great point. Um, so we've got to really um have some critical conversations about how to do this, um, and what is the fear of uh understanding the history and understanding moving forward, understanding it being a uh a critical member of um of taking making our life as a member of the community uh powerful, where we're active. And so when when we uh when we when we become an ancestor, what would our legacy be? You know, what do we do? Did we leave this place better than we found it? Yes, that should be the uh that should be our all of our goal because we got so much to do. And when I um uh I had one kid ask me, I was yeah, you thought we was he was a junior in high school. He thought the look there was the same was some kind of pop song. Wow. I said we fail you.

SPEAKER_00 37:01

Exactly. I was gonna say, and and and we failed that child. We failed that child. We we we absolutely did. It the responsibility is ours. So, you know, I'm gonna say it right here in the air because we we tried it before. I'm open to trying it again. Um, having a uh a forum where we are engaging our young people and teaching them history. There is a gentleman um who is uh who for the last six years now, I don't know if you've um he actually came to our community, Dr. Greg Carr, and he has a program on Saturday mornings on YouTube um called In Class with Carr. And every Saturday he is breaking down our history and connecting the dots and bringing it up to the present and just try to help us remember and to to learn for some of us anew um what our real history is. So hopefully we can move differently. So people can check that out on yeah, check they check that out on YouTube. It's in class with Car C A R R. And then there's actually another community um that that flows out of called Narrative with a K K-N-A-R-R-A-T-I-D-E, where people can even dive in a little bit more. But you were about to say, sir.

SPEAKER_01 38:19

I I like Dr. Carr. Frequent listener. Um, I appreciate it. I think he's leaving Howard though.

SPEAKER_00 38:28

I don't believe so, at least not yet. You gotta leave us.

SPEAKER_01 38:33

He's leaving the radio station, one of the he's leaving XM or something. He's leaving. Um, but yeah, I was.

SPEAKER_00 38:38

No, no, no, no. I think you know what happened on April 1st. He was playing April Fool's Day joke on on folk, and he announced that he was leaving when he was leaving um Urban View Radio, but it was an April Fool's Day joke.

SPEAKER_01 38:53

I don't have context.

SPEAKER_00 38:55

It was an April Fool's Day joke. Yes, I don't have context.

SPEAKER_01 39:00

But I I know this, um we've got a problem. So one of the we we had an initiative, we were working with um the city of of forming a cooperative grocery store. Yes, and one of the things that came out of that was people did not want to work together to achieve a common goal. They understood a need, there was a need, there was interest in having it, but no one wanted to do the work to create a board, to develop the whatever, all that that took for it. And um, even we were privileged to present it to the city for the council and all those things, and um but nobody was saying let's let's come together, um, we're ready to do it. And I don't know what that is that prevents us from everybody wants groceries, everybody want healthy options and things like that. And we did a survey, the survey indicated that, but nobody wanted to put the hand to the plow and sit in a room with uh different folk and to come up with what the actual operation of the store looked like, and every time we want it now, we want it now, we don't want to do the work.

SPEAKER_00 40:22

But is that is that is that learned behavior when you've gotten to a point where you doubt yourself or you don't believe in your power to bring about change, and so you quit even before you get started? I what is that?

SPEAKER_01 40:36

I think it comes from I think you you you're right, environmental. Um, if you don't believe you can, if you keep hearing these messages that you can't, you buy into that. But that's the same thing that some folk talked about crime, you know, and and there's no jobs that have crime and so on and so forth. But I I some of that's in there, but again, if we look back, Black Wall Street, we look back to uh the freedmen communities, how they started, it was all hands on deck because we know we need this resource and we're gonna work to keep it uh at play. Um, but there's something that's preventing folk from wanting to do it. Um I think again, it's not knowing our history.

SPEAKER_00 41:26

If we know what we've been capable of before, so I'm not sure if this is the book you were referring to, but I was thinking about um a book called Um I think the author was uh Todd Stitson Stilton, something like that. Freedom Colonies. And it was Black Texans in the time of Jim Crow. It specifically focused on how we navigated those times and found ways to build community and be strong.

SPEAKER_01 41:56

I learned that book. But there was uh there was uh there was a high level of love for for each other, humanity, each other, and um that there was uh there was a difference in community because um I can't John Hope Franklin in his autobiography, he talked about how he went house to house asking for donation to go to graduate school. That's Oklahoma. That's the level of community that he came out of. And uh had a got an opportunity to hear him speak uh some years ago. He was in his 80s then. Um but he talks about that community um and and and how we gave, I remember growing up, you know, somebody walking down the street and they would just come in, can't have a glass of water, just that was just a common thing. And now it's so much different. And of course, obviously we got to be careful, we gotta be so careful these days because you just never know. Um, but there are these differences. However, understanding who we are, where we come from will play a huge role in how we can move forward in achieving things, and not only related to the grocery, but in terms of our education and education, um, in terms of um uh academic excellence and being able to read. And I and I and I and uh I appreciate what Dr. Otis Moss said, I mean about three weeks ago, in terms of how to counter all of this misinformation. He he suggested just find some a good book uh and read it.

SPEAKER_00 43:46

So here's the here's the professor telling you all once a professor, always a professor, you're always gonna be educating. And you've repeatedly said it in different ways today. Read a book, go and get some knowledge, right? Right. So let me have let me let me ask you this in the time that we have left. So if clearly the American legal system is swinging in the other direction. I mean, we we had a few years where it was trying to protect our rights. And when I say our rights, I'm talking about people of African descent, and as a result of that, every other group, um, to the extent that the legal system is becoming less protective and actually is really going after all of our rights. Where does that leave our community? And what does fighting back look like? If I say we're going to fight back, what does fighting back look like in this time for us?

SPEAKER_01 44:45

That's a great question. Um, we have to understand what it is that we're dealing with. Because if you have always been asleep, this is not this is not a change. If you feel like it hasn't affected you, it's not it's not gonna do anything. But in terms of um when we see and feel it, uh what's that saying? Um it don't have you don't really understand until it comes to your house. You know, and and it's not like it's somebody else's problem, it's our problem. And I think that comes out of this individualism that has been that's been put in our all of our laps that we got to deal with, which in essence it kind of speaks to what happened to the community because we become more individualized rather than community-oriented. So it's understanding the problem, uh and and then organizing around it, and that's presents some challenges in itself because everybody again would have to see what the problem is. Because one of the things that um Dr. King and Daddy King and and I heard um Otis Ma Sr. talk about the strategy that they used um before they did anything, they would research the problem. They would get the research together, get the options, then have a meeting. And if the meeting didn't work out, that's when they would do the next action or boycott and things like that. Um, and so I think those things still apply. Um, the research, and then do the options and uh then take actions.

SPEAKER_00 46:31

Um but so so so you're saying rather than just reacting in the moment, which is which we don't sustain, right? Actually our research, understanding the nature of the problem, understanding what our options are, having that clarity, right? Trying to talk through it, if that doesn't work, then okay, what's our next step? And then having a game plan, which is the only way that the bus the the um bus boycott in Montgomery was successful and was able to last for over a year. Can you imagine today if you told people don't don't take the bus and don't take any Uber or whatever? Like you gotta find your way. How many of us will actually volunteer our vehicles or help our neighbors out?

SPEAKER_01 47:17

That's a community, and and uh churches played a huge role. They played a central. Yes, they did, and so let's look at the lessons from the target board card. And uh a lot of folks still wouldn't target, a lot of folks didn't, um, but it certainly it changed their bottom line. Um, it did not help what was it, three couple months ago. Um, the guy, what's his name? He's down in Newburgh, was talking about it was over.

SPEAKER_00 47:47

Oh, um, Reverend Bryant, and he had the right to do that.

SPEAKER_01 47:51

That didn't help. And and so so we have these, we have these great opportunities, but it's about sacrifice, and and it's it's about sacrifice, and and I think the there's there was the illusion of some assimilation, and many now think that integration was a fail, it was a bad mistake. Um and and and and many in the educational service talking about integration was gonna help black folk because you put kids in close proximity to white kids, and that would make them do better. But that that was not that was not true.

SPEAKER_00 48:28

And I do want to uh the freedom, the fruit, the what's the the Rosenwall schools, the Rosenwall schools by Booker T and Rosenwall provide these educational spaces in the South because um black folks couldn't go to the white schools, and so understanding all of that, um that the solution for us isn't proximity to whiteness, the solution is autonomy and and self-knowledge and doing the work that it takes for us to succeed, which has nothing to do with whether you're sitting next to a white kid in the class or not. In fact, many of our students were superior in those all black schools, we just didn't have the resources. I'll tell you this really quickly because I want us to stay focused on what role churches, community organizations, leaders, all of us should be playing right now as we fight back against what is very clearly a mission to take us back to the early 1900s in this country in terms of our rights. Again, go back and read um read um Project 2025, and now they have an updated one as well. But the point I was trying to make is I was born here in the United States, but I was raised in Nigeria. And when so I did my elementary and my secondary school, so high school, middle school, high school in Nigeria, and then I came to the United States. And when I was taking a physics class at the Ohio State University as a sophomore, right? Second year student at the Ohio State University, I found out that the physics textbook we were using was the textbook we had used when I was an 11th grader in Nigeria. I did not have any white students in my class in Nigeria. What we needed were we we needed the information we had, we needed teachers who were able to teach and encourage, and that's what I had. And so when I came to this country, and people were looking at, oh, you know, you grew up in quote unquote a third world country, I could run circles around American raised, educated kids intellectually because they did not have to read the way we had to read, they did not have to grapple with writing, grammar, all of that the way we had to. We did not have all the technology with, you know, the computers and and and uh back then calculators and all of that. So we did, we we memorized and understood math functions, all of that. And so my transition here, my first two years was like this was like review. So we weren't fighting to sit next to white people, we were fighting for the resources to be able to be the best versions of ourselves, and I think that's what our focus needs to be today. You got y'all listen, white folk, truly go do what you want to do, but you never leave us alone. You're always bothering us. Now you don't want us to have any rights to even vote, so that we cannot make policies and create opportunities for our own communities as well. So, what role should churches, community organizations, and local leaders play right now? How do we fight back?

SPEAKER_01 52:00

Um, um the this is from the Virginia Union Seminary president uh a few years back. You gotta decolonize your mind. We gotta place a high value in education, high value, and a high value on our history. Um, because one of the things the church that I grew up in in Suffolk, Virginia, founded in 1869 by a former enslaved person, Iraq Cross, on the placard that's on the outside of the on the outside, the historical marker, at the end of every sermon, he said, read a book, buy some land. And that was the framework for success, education and land ownership, maintain, manage your wealth. And that would be the third, how about education, manage your wealth, secure, tangible properties that you can pass on to your heirs and things like that. And so the one the first one is going to be is the most difficult one. Decolonize your mind. And um, and that will provide the liberation because our churches should be places of liberation, not suppression. And um, Jesus was a great liberator, but a lot of our churches are oppressive in terms of their the theology that has been oh you're you're you're stepping on some toes today, but but that that's real, that's real. You can go sit in a church, and you would not know anything is going on in the church if by listening to this discernment. Never touched on anything about you, you can be your best life, your wealth, and all these other kind of things, and declare and decree it. Well, why don't you declare and decree that racism go away? Why don't you use this all this power that you have to eradicate racism? But now it's all about individual stuff. So that comes back to the back to reconstruction, how this flawed theology has crept into into modern day spaces. And I remember uh a couple years back, one of the lecturers re resource, research black theologians as opposed to all white theologians. Because some of the white the white preachers that have passed found out they're racist, mainstream preachers, racists. Yes, and um we thought they were we thought they was all that there was, but when new information comes, new changes. So decolonize your mind, high value education, high value um history, and own some land, read a book. And uh it's unfortunate. Some we got folks don't read. I was asking a grown man, what's the last time? What last book you read? Uh nothing. Come on, man.

SPEAKER_00 54:47

How do you think I think this the statistics are something like over 60% of US adults after they graduate from high school will never read another book, right? Which is what so your brain, your brain cells are simply just dying. Your your ability to think critically is is is diminishing. You cannot, yes, you cannot, you cannot join a board and problem solve because that would require using brain cells that may have just atrophied and died.

SPEAKER_01 55:15

Critical thinking. That's that would be the fifth one.

SPEAKER_00 55:19

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 55:19

Learn critical thinking skills, think for yourself.

SPEAKER_00 55:24

Yes, yes. Well, I want to thank you with your very busy schedule for taking the time to speak with us today. Um yes, you know what is very clear from what you have shared and from your the the arc of your life, being in the military, coming out to get that service, and we thank you for that service, and then going into higher ed, and now you see how they're getting that. Um, and then leaving, retiring from there and still serving in our community, being on that board that helped create that curriculum for the first Afro-American Studies um course that got approved in the state of Texas, which of course we now know is under attack. We thank you for all your work. And for the rest of us, let me just be really clear: you are not powerless, and you don't have to sit around and wait for someone else to come and save you.

SPEAKER_02 56:17

Right.

SPEAKER_00 56:18

We are not without strategy, and we do not have to start from scratch. Yeah, we had come from people who have turned oppression into movement time and time again, a very lighter testament to that. And they turned struggle into victory, but they were strategic, and they did unite and work together. Not everybody, and we don't need everybody to come along, but civil rights was not even 30% of African Americans. But once that momentum came along, other people came along as well. So the question is not can we fight back? The question is will we? Will we will we fight back? All right, y'all stay tuned. Thank you for watching. Thank you for subscribing. Get us to our 20,000 subscribers this month, and we will keep bringing you the news, the stories, the things that you should be thinking about to help change what we do and how we fight back and how we win. Thank you all.