The Supreme Court's Callais v. Louisiana decision (2026) eviscerated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which had protected minority voters' ability to elect candidates of their choice, effectively removing federal oversight that prevented states from implementing discriminatory voting practices. This ruling allows states to redraw congressional districts without considering racial impact, potentially eliminating majority-Black districts and reducing Black political representation across the South. The decision represents a continuation of historical efforts to suppress Black voting rights, requiring communities to mobilize through litigation, advocacy, and organizing to protect voting rights and maintain political power.
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Louisiana Postpones Election. Roland Moderates Black men's Mental Health Forum in Shreveport.本站添加:
It's Thursday, April 30th, 2026. I'm Wesley Lowry. Roland will be joining us shortly.
Here's what we've got coming up tonight on Roland Martin Unfiltered.
Louisiana's congressional primaries, originally scheduled for May, have been postponed due to the Supreme Court ruling yesterday that undid a crucial component of the Voting Rights Act.
We'll continue to break down what is one of the major stories in the ongoing attack on voting rights. Additionally, [music] Roland will moderate a crucial and important panel in our ongoing coverage of domestic violence and the role of men in domestic violence and femicide. He's down in Shreveport, Louisiana. Uh where that community is still grieving a brutal, horrific murder in which a father of in which a father killed several of his children um and crucially injured um what their mother.
It's time to bring the funk on Roland Martin Unfiltered here on the Black Star Network.
>> [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Louisiana's congressional primaries have been postponed from their originally scheduled date in May due to a Supreme Court ruling that invalidated a majority black congressional district. Early voting was already supposed to begin on Saturday for those primaries set for May 16th. However, Republican Governor Jeff Landry issued an executive order to postpone the US House primary following Wednesday's court ruling.
Joining me now are Davin Rosborough, Deputy Director of the ACLU's Voting Rights Project, Advocate Gary Chambers, and Ashley Shelton, President and CEO of the Power Coalition for Equity and Justice.
I I want to start by going over to Gary who I know is on the ground in Louisiana.
What is this What is the mood and what is the response to this action from the Supreme Court and now this aggressive action from Governor Jeff Landry? We know Louisiana has been ground zero for ongoing fights over enfranchisement and disenfranchisement of black voters. We know that it has long uh been one of the key battlegrounds as it relates uh to equity and justice. And now we are seeing it becoming one of the key places where our right to vote is going to be litigated and is being litigated. Gary, what is your response to the last few days, your your reaction, and and what do the folks around the country need to know?
Well, first they need to know that uh one of the fearless leaders of Louisiana, Ashley Shelton and the Power Coalition, led this charge to help create the second minority district here in Louisiana uh that gave us the ability to have that representation. Louisiana has not always had a second majority black congressional district. People are angry, they are upset. Uh people are figuring out what does this mean? Uh we're getting orders from the Secretary of State, comments from the Attorney General, comments from the Governor, comments from the Speaker of the House.
There's a whole lot of conversation, not a lot of clarity. Uh we don't know what map is going to be existing for the voters of Louisiana. We know that uh absentee ballots were already in the mail, which means that people have already cast ballots. Those votes are already in the bag. They're telling us those votes won't be counted. That's the level of confusion. People are going to vote on Saturday. There will be uh congressional candidates on their ballots. If you click that, will you be able to click it? We don't have any of those answers. I'm sure litigation is uh forthcoming if not already filed uh in this matter. And so it's a a ball of confusion created by the disaster of Republicans that continue to allow these racist uh tactics that have existed as long as Louisiana has existed to play out in our politics today.
Now, let's rewind and you mentioned that Ashley was intimately involved with this, and so maybe she wants to come in here. Can we talk about what exactly happened and break down exactly what happened here in Louisiana? That Louisiana is a state uh that's about a third black, has six congressional districts. Can we talk about the creation of this new congressional district that would have been majority black, and then the legal fight that has played out since then?
Certainly. Um thank you guys for having me um this evening. So, in Louisiana, uh Press Robinson was the named plaintiff in Robinson versus Landry. And so we fought to realize a second uh majority-minority congressional seat.
And in that fight, you know, in the midst of many fights, cuz we've been fighting this fight since 2022, we were actually able to realize the second seat that is now currently held by uh Congressman Cleo Fields. Um and what Callais you know, they intervened. And the Callais case um the Callais the Callais interveners said that the new map actually um discriminated against them. And so in the in the in the in the fight for a fair map in the state of Louisiana, we had nine non-black uh white interveners say that somehow a fair map uh discriminated against them.
And then we saw this case play out last year. We defended this case in the you know, within the Supreme Court. Um defended by uh the Attorney General's office. And then we saw the Supreme Court not decide last year. And then we um also saw, you know, Janai Nelson have to come back the next year and defend this. But with the caveat of the Supreme Court asking how Section 2 didn't violate the 14th and 15th Amendments, which I will note as particularly cruel given that those are the reconstruction amendment amendments that were created to protect minorities in this country, and they were being used to do the exact opposite. And so here we sit in this moment um with the Callais decision, which to be clear eviscerates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Um and what this means um for black voters, not only in Louisiana, cuz I think I want people to be really clear. This started out as a case about Louisiana and an additional congressional seat. And then what the subsequent ruling that we received yesterday, what it means is that black voters and and all minorities, which include women of every race and ethnicity as well, um have law you know, like could lose the ability to elect a candidate of choice at every level of government. And I think that people need to understand what that means um and the reality of the fights that we're going to certainly see in the South for sure. And the fights that we've already seen play out in places like Texas um and and other states that are trying to vie and jockey for pop for for power.
And I think, you know, the thing that's really unfortunate is that the Supreme Court didn't even have the um you know, like they wouldn't even stand in their visceration of the the the Second Amendment. They said that the remedies for race were no longer necessary and that somehow we all live in some post-racial um you know, country that I there's not any black or other person of color that I've ever met that has experienced this this America where we are afforded all of our rights without the oversight of the federal government. Um and so this is a huge decision, and it's going to have sweeping implications. If you have a seat in your community right now that is held by a person of color, more than likely that's an opportunity seat that was protected by Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Um that protection as of yesterday um no longer exists.
So, I want to just make sure to break it down. In Louisiana, again, it's a southern state, large black population, about a third of the state's population is black. Nine congressional seats.
Historically, the vast majority of black voters were crammed into one congressional seat. Due to advocacy, activism, work on the ground, a second congressional seat in in the drawing of the district it was created in which black voters were significantly represented, where there are now two seats of the of the nine representing a closer representation to to the population of of black Louisianans. That was then challenged and taken to the Supreme Court. Davin, can you talk a little bit about the look what the court's argument were was? What they were considering here, the distinction between whether this was a quote partisan gerrymander or whether this was a racial gerrymander, and this idea that this has now been flipped on its head. The argument that creating a congressional seat explicitly for the purpose of enfranchising historically disenfranchised black voters, that they would now argue, as the majority of the court did, that that in fact was somehow racially discriminatory.
Yeah, I mean, and it's as outrageous as it sounds. Um this is really the end of the project of the Roberts Court to slowly, piece by piece, take apart the Voting Rights Act, which was key to actually providing black voters in the South um the opportunity to elect candidates of choice. It was litigation under the VRA. Very few, if any, states in the South gave that up willingly.
It's been a fight over decades. I've spent a lot of time uh with our case in Louisiana, the Milligan case. And Alabama didn't have a black congressional representative until the 1990s uh since Reconstruction. So, um what this did is it turns um a statute that really has been the cornerstone coming out of the civil rights movement of being able to start moving toward a multi-racial democracy um to allow uh black voters and and other voters of color in other parts of the country to um be represented uh to some degree even if not enough. Um and so this is really um it's really a an affront to what Congress intended um when they said we're finally finally going to start taking the steps we need to have the multi-racial democracy that the reconstruction amendments promised.
And it's a cruel I wouldn't say irony. I mean it it's really just a cruel statement um that they have taken these amendments which were created with race explicitly in mind and said no this is part of a colorblind constitution.
Um and and because of that we can't really consider um the ongoing effects of even past discrimination that's that's so recent where there's so many people uh so many of our clients that that lived through segregated schools for instance um you know well into the late 60s and 70s. Um it's it's just it's it's really a perversion of um both those amendments and what Congress intended to do with the Voting Rights Act.
I was reading a piece by Adam Sewer in the Atlantic earlier today where he was breaking down and talking about this idea that that key to the conservative justice's argument was the suggestion that this was just a partisan gerrymander that that because black voters are most likely to vote reliably democratically right? That it would not be constitutional to say we are specifically drawing these districts to pack all the all of the uh black voters into one district. But you are in fact able to say well we're just trying to pack all the democratic voters right? That it seemed to be this kind of bank shot where we pretend as if we do not know uh what we know about voter behavior and the reality of of voting and what the impact would be here. That seems to be in so many ways the the central tension point between so much of our battle publicly right now over issues of race and how we remedy historical injustice. Right this question of are we allowed to consider disparate impact? Are we allowed to understand the way I mean it's what Derek Bell would have called critical race theory. Understand the way that race embeds itself into otherwise colorblind policy or or are we forced to be quote unquote colorblind um in which we pretend as if race does not exist and that and that the actions that we are taking are not going to have impact in those ways.
The fear now uh and we've seen this alarm from black journalists from black activists and black lawyers um has been what what state legislatures state governments are now going to be empowered to do across the country if previously they had this restriction on some of their behavior that it seeming now the handcuffs have come off. Can you talk a little bit about uh specifically what Louisiana has now done or begun doing as well as what the fear is about what this could mean in districts across the South whether it be Mississippi whether it be Georgia Louisiana and in other places where we know black political power has been systemically historically siphoned off and reduced um and in some ways those efforts been restrained by the Voting Rights Act which has now been further weakened.
Absolutely. I mean this is this is a break glass moment. Um there's no question about it.
As a someone who is a litigator I'm you know often maybe on the more careful side about how I state things but there's no way there's no way around this. This this is the final step um in in really taking apart the key law um that protected um the the hard won gains literally you know fought over you know blood and people's lives to create the Voting Rights Act and the fact that it is being turned on its head in this way and that partisanship can say as long as you as long as you say the magic words that this is for partisan reason it doesn't matter how much you're hurting black voters. That's fine since they happen to be Democrats um in in certain places right? Which is part of the whole point of the Voting Rights Act that when voting is polarized so much that you need those protections because opportunities to participate are still not equal for black voters. So yes um you know we are going to do everything we can to stand up and fight uh with all the tools we have necessary and that certainly got needs to go beyond litigation advocacy organizing everybody um it it really is a break glass moment but um the effects of this are are going to be felt throughout the country. Well and we're already seeing it in Louisiana and and so just to be hyper clear um Ashley and Gary this we're supposed to have a mid we're in a midterm election year right now right?
We we're already seeing primaries play out across the country. Louisiana has a primary this year for which the election day is May 16th. So 17 days from now.
And and what we have seen within the 24 hours of this Supreme Court ruling is Republican Governor Jeff Landry come out and say he wants to potentially alter or postpone push off the current primary for the current midterm fight which is going to determine in part who controls Congress for the next two years of the last two years of the Trump administration. Right? And he is saying hold on I want to potentially redraw the maps now based on what the Supreme Court ruling is. Ashley am I understanding that correctly and is that what's what's happening in Louisiana? Yes and so he so there's so much voter confusion and I think that we you know we have to talk about how important and critical um election administration is to an effective election. And we he is now saying that he is going to pull that congressional house seat seats from the the ballot but what will still be on the ballot May 16th will be everything else which would include five constitutional amendments a Supreme Court seat a Louisiana Supreme Court seat two public service commission seats um and several local ballot measures depending on where you live in the state. And so those things will continue to will you know and again everything is changing in real time. So as of this moment what we're hearing is is that that will remain that will be what will remain on the ballot.
But to Gary's earlier point we have no idea you know like can voters still vote on the the ballots as they currently exist? Um many voters have already voted. If you are you know an senior or um a service a service man or woman across um you know a working across this just this you know anywhere it where you're stationed and you had sent in your absentee ballot absentee ballots have already been received. And so I think that there's a big question about like what where like where are we? And I think that you know there's been so much talking to Gary's point and you know and the and the governor and the AG are saying they have to do this because the map has been enjoined but I remind folks that the legislature is currently serving and you know and making and moving policies and they've been in they're they're all seated on an enjoined map as well. So I think that like there's some things that we got to talk about and I think that like this voter confusion definitely sets up the you know the opportunity for more litigation because again you we are already here. We are already in the midst of an election. We are already starting early voting on Saturday. And so what you know like so what are so now organizations like mine are being forced to push out all of this information.
People think the election has been canceled. That's what people think. And so we are trying to you know hurry and try to understand and and put out our graphics and share information with the public about the fact that as we understand it today cuz it could change right? Like this is this is where we are which is that they're going to pull the house congressional seats from the election until they can redraw you know new maps that you know as we're hearing would be a 5-1 map or potentially a 6-0 map. I think the thing that's interesting is that you know you know if they do a 6-0 map there's so many black people in the state of Louisiana that they actually do themselves harm if the goal is to have you know a trifecta of you know or to have a complete you know um a completely white Republican um delegation that um they run the risk of there's so many black people in our state that at somebody's going to lose at some point.
And especially if you look at um Baton Rouge New Orleans uh Shreveport uh Alexandria in the center of the state.
It's so at some point somebody's somebody's going to have to reckon with black voters um you know in this state and um and that you know you you can run and play some games but um but ultimately you will be a you will be held accountable by these black voters in our state. Gary I want to go back to you.
This has been we're in this moment and I think back a few years where we would have all this talk about whether or not we were in a third reconstruction after Barack Obama was elected right? There was this feeling it seems baffling now to think that back that far where we thought were we entering a post-racial America with something different happening. Now look viewers here and followers of you understand and know that that's not what happened right?
Roland wrote a book called white fear.
I've written a book called American backlash. We've seen and talked about the ways that over the course of 50 60 years these crucial civil and voting rights that were established uh these victories of the civil rights movement have been eroded and pushed back. And yet even with that understanding it is pretty remarkable to think about. Even those of us who have seen it coming who followed the Roberts court who've written about these issues the idea that we have in the last 10 years seen the final two major pillars of the Voting Rights Act essentially undone. We've watched a state like Louisiana in 2026 attempt to give some appropriation of uh approximate representation to its black citizens and seen those efforts not only opposed but completely thrown out to the extent that we may end up with a less equitable map that existed beforehand afterwards um and the Supreme Court to to pretty overwhelmingly dictate this.
What do you make of this moment we are in right now? I I I was in I was someone was talking to me earlier today about this idea that we're in a a another period of redemption that comes after reconstruction that we're in a period where white supremacy is lashing back at the perceived gains and and here we are again in 2026 seeing crucial components of the Voting Rights Act by the Supreme Court being thrown out opening the door potentially to the erasure of majority black districts across the South which could see potentially could see losses um in congressional representation and other black elected officials that we haven't seen since the Civil Rights era. Gary, what do you make of all this?
You know, none of this surprises me. Uh if you've been active uh in the fights that we've been in for the last 10 or 15 years um from city council meetings when Alton Sterling was killed here in Baton Rouge, the lawyer who represented Alton Sterling's killer Blaine Salamoni was appointed in a vote 7 to 2 tonight as the parish attorney of East Baton Rouge Parish. I have been watching local government white Republicans uh aggressively opposed the progress of black people. I live in a city where black people make up over 50% of the population but we uh had one parish wide seat that was black and now we have none. I live in a state that uh consistently oppresses and so suppresses black people. I live in a city again that is over 56% black and 10 years ago we were at 2% uh in city parish contracts but we pay a large portion of the taxes in this parish and so uh these disparities that exist have always existed. I think that what I think is happening today is that more of us are being awakened to the moment because of how dramatic the racism has boiled up to at this point but what I hope this teaches us is that we have to stay on the fight every day in every way uh that those who are aggressive and loud and agitating that you need that because the energy that is up against us is aggressive, it is loud, it is agitating, it is oppressive and so you cannot go up to that uh like a little sweet church lady praying. Uh my Bible tells me that the violent suffereth violence and the violent take it by force. And so if we are going to be oppressed and subjected to this, then this is the moment where we fight back. Jeff Landry has five constitutional amendments on the ballot.
The whole country needs to be helping move voters in Louisiana to kill his five constitutional amendments. This is not a time to lick our chops and say oh woe is me, how did we get here? This is a time to say this [ __ ] will not stand.
We are going to do everything in our power to secure uh future seats and to hold on to the power that we have. There are DA races in Louisiana. The Caddo Parish District Attorney is up for re-election. There's a black man running for District Attorney in East Baton Rouge Parish. There are people that need the vote of the black uh electorate in this state and we need to mobilize them this year so that Jeff Landry understands that the people see you and we're coming for you.
I think we've got Roland now with us.
He's down on the ground in Louisiana making his way to Shreveport for tonight's uh for for tonight's event uh continuing our coverage of black men's mental health, domestic violence. But Roland, you you I mean you you went long on this in the show last night. This has been a key portion of our coverage.
Speak to me about what's happening in Louisiana.
Well, hold on. Here's the first thing.
So Ashley and Gary there. First of all, here's the deal. Has anybody filed a lawsuit against Governor Jeff Landry the action that he's taken today? Has that happened yet?
No, it has it has not happened yet. Um mostly because of the fluid nature of what's going on right now but it is no one has filed just yet.
Pending but not filed. Um are are y'all are y'all expecting that um NAACP or Black Voters Matter or someone is going to file a lawsuit uh saying that how in the hell can you postpone an election voting is already started?
So yeah, no, I think there's a bunch of uh a bunch of us that are um working with our lawyers um to like again understand um understand what what our options are. I mean Power Coalition has been voting fighting for voting rights in the state of Louisiana since its inception and we're going to continue those fights.
And so we are definitely working with our partners including NAACP and so many other ACLU um and others to try to understand exactly what power we have um in this moment.
Um one of the things that uh is Gary still there?
I'm here.
Uh Gary, this is an absolute wake-up call uh I believe for a whole bunch of Democratic Party strategists uh other black folks and let me be real clear, Congressional Black Caucus members who have not been going hardcore uh when it comes to these donors and funders, when it comes to putting money on the ground, when it comes to investing in turnout strategy uh because what I have been saying and you've been saying and Ashley's been there as well is that we have to be maximizing our turnout. I think people have to understand what we're now faced with as we speak. We are literally dealing with folks uh who absolutely want Jim Crow 2.0 and if as if we continue to sit on the sidelines and choose the couch and listen to a bunch of these yahoos talking on YouTube, people don't understand this is not just losing political, you know, individuals who are in power. We're going to be talking about losing billions of dollars that flow back to our community because we have black representation.
You uh you are absolutely right, Roland. Uh I think that number one, watching you bounce around on these Louisiana roads tells you that Jeff Landry's focused on the wrong thing today. He needs to be fixing roads and bridges in the state instead of taking away the vote of black people in in Louisiana.
Uh but the reality is uh this is the time to invest, this is the time to uh gear up for the fight, this is the time for us to show the power of black voters in this state. If Jeff wants to fight, we need to give it to him. And so I would encourage members of the CBC, I would encourage uh the the black entertainers, the black uh sports folks, everybody who gives a damn to start making your way to the Louisiana Legislature. They're still in session between now and June. They're going to at some point bring these bad maps. We need to be in there in their faces and we need to show people who these racist bigots are. We need to show every one of the people who vote for this and then we need to have the resources. Power Coalition needs to have the resources.
Vote needs to have the resources so that they can send mailers into these people's districts right now in this legislative session so that they can robo-call into their districts right now so that their voters know that your racist state senator, your racist state's representative is down there making an ass of you and it's eventually going to come to the point where we end up losing economic opportunities as a result of this. What needs to happen is the NBA needs to say we're not going to play no All-Star games in any state that takes away the vote or a congressional member from black people. The the the the All-Star game, whatever the festivals are, Essence needs to consider whether they want to be located in Louisiana if Louisiana is not going to give them the the 30% of the state black representation because they create millions of dollars of economic impact for this state every summer and that festival uh if it leaves the 4th of July, there's an economic drain in the state of Louisiana. Now I want you to come back Essence after we put Jeff out but maybe there needs to be a pause and a stay on anybody doing any type of activities in the state of Louisiana if they are going to deny a third of the state the ability to serve in Congress.
That's hundreds of millions of dollars that you're robbing us of and Roland already riding around here bouncing and needs some uh we need some infrastructure for these roads right here.
>> [laughter] >> Uh Gary, I know you have to go. I still appreciate it. Gary, I appreciate it.
Thanks a lot. Davant, I do want to ask you a question because listen, y'all have been y'all have been fighting the good fight. The lawyers have been in the courtrooms battling out but to Gary's point y'all do need people rising up putting pressure, public pressure, protesting uh because uh you have to be able to focus public sentiment on what the issue is and not just sort of make this this esoteric legal discussion.
Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. I mean I I say I'm a litigator, that's that's my particular skill here but I think the organizing is is more important honestly. The advocacy, getting people out in the streets.
People should be furious about this. Um this is this can't be the lawyers alone and I'm sure it won't be. It hasn't been so far. Um it it it's it's absolutely just so important that this be a moment where we push on all the levers, litigation, advocacy, organizing, communications and speak to speak to what this means to people. As you've been saying, yeah, this affects the the people who are making the decisions, who who represent our our communities, you know, who make the choices about jobs and roads and economic opportunity.
And everybody's got to realize they have a stake in it and this is is a do or die moment. This is a really really important moment. And so yes, the litigators will be there, but I couldn't agree more.
I would be proud to partner with amazing organizers like Ashley and Gary and we need them more than ever in the fight and like they've been in for for many years. And and Evan, what's so insane about this this Supreme Court decision? This is the same Supreme Court that literally allowed for this congressional seat to move forward just a couple years ago. So, it's like but wait a minute, this is the same court. I mean, that was a massive legal fight against Republicans and they won. And so what these what what these white supremacists did here in Louisiana say, oh, let's try to find a second bite at the apple. In fact, this is a third bite. They tried the second bite and got rebuffed there as well. That's what's so insane about what the Supreme Court ruled because they ruled on this very seat just recently.
I agree. It's it's just absolute madness.
And now we see the effects. We see what this what they've unleashed. You know, Ashley was just describing it. And yes, there will I can I can say pretty confidently that there's going to be legal action coming against the suspension of the primary.
You know, it's the the opinion is so cowardly and dishonest in what it how it tries to to say the decisions just a couple years ago, the decision in our case out of Alabama, Milligan, where it seemed like the Voting Rights Act was was maybe going to survive.
And it's just it's just dishonest the way that they've tried to say, well, no, this this we just weren't really presented with the right questions. They reached out and grabbed this opportunity to finally finish their project of of taking the consideration of race, of taking the legal tools out of people's hands and it's it's an absolute disgrace.
So, so here's what I want everybody watching to understand. We're talking Louisiana.
But Republicans are putting pressure on Alabama Governor Kay Ivey to call a special session to wipe out the seat of Congressman Shontel Brown Figures as well as Congresswoman Terri Sewell.
They're putting you see Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn running for governor Tennessee. They're putting pressure on them because they want to wipe out the congressional seat that covers the Memphis area. And so I need everybody watching to understand, this is going to target and listen to me clearly, this is This is Louisiana, Texas, Alabama, Florida, Arkansas, North Carolina, Carolina, Tennessee. The old Confederacy is that this is about crushing black power and people have to understand, it is the only reason you have the largest delegation of African Americans in in Congress today is because of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
And this is not just going to be Congress. This is going to impact Supreme Court seats across the country.
It's going to impact state seats in these same states. It's going to impact county commissioners, city council, school board, water district. What this is about and I have been saying this by what white fears about it, this is all about attacking black political power because the right wing is angry with the advancements of African Americans and what they want to do is [ __ ] or simply eradicate black political power for the next 100 years.
Absolutely what they did after reconstruction and we are now having to live through it. And so folks, this is all hands on deck. This is no sitting on the sidelines. If you're in Louisiana, you should be emailing and hitting Ashley right now saying, how can I get involved because I'm telling y'all, this is the battle for this generation. No no more talking about Fannie Lou Hamer and what they all did. That battle was then.
This is the battle that we're dealing with right now. And so we appreciate y'all being with us on the show. Thank you so very much and then we're going to keep this fight going. Thanks a lot.
Thank you so much.
All right, Wesley, I am pulling up to the the church here in Shreveport for our conversation that we're going to be having on the issue of mental health. So, let me step in. We got folks here who have already been waiting for us to have this conversation. And so let me step where my head is.
All right, let's be good.
Okay. All right, this So so as as you guys know, Roland is he's making his way into an event in Shreveport, Louisiana that he is going to be hosting, moderating and I'm going to be bringing to you all live of as part of our ongoing coverage following what has been a miserable, tragic, horrific set of of stories. Stories of black men who have taken the lives of their wives, of their children.
And and so we're here in Shreveport specifically uh to to convene a community gathering because because that community is is grappling with the story of a man there who took the lives of eight children as well as shot the his partner, the mother of many of those children. And so Roland's going to be hosting co-hosting a event there on the ground. We're going to be bringing it to you live for the remainder of the show tonight. But before that, we're going to get into a quick break. This is Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network.
We'll be right back.
With medicine and science under attack, [music] I want to keep you and your family informed and healthy. I'm Dr. Ebony Hilton and I knew at the age of eight that I wanted to be a doctor. So I studied hard and became the first African-American female anesthesiologist hired at Medical University of South Carolina since its opening in 1824.
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What's good, y'all? This is Doug E.
Fresh and you're watching my brother Roland Martin Unfiltered as we go a little something like this. Hit it.
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Here we go.
Three, two, All right, folks, we're here in uh Shreveport. Glad to be here. How y'all doing?
Glad to see everybody here.
After the uh tragic shooting that took place a couple Sundays ago, Dr. Kevin Washington, who was on our show, uh said that he wanted to do something here and I said, well, we'll come down, actually broadcast this event. So, we started about 30 minutes ago and so Kevin, why don't you introduce the folks who are sitting on the panel here and we're we're only ever live. Let's go.
All right, I want to introduce you all to Shreveport Roland Martin. Give it up for brother Roland for agreeing to come to the Port City.
That's a powerful piece. We have uh the DA, District Attorney Stewart is here uh with us. Give it up for DA Stewart.
We have principal of Woodlawn High School, brother Grady, G O, Q side.
We have the Shreveport representative, the student coordinator. We have brother Marvin Muhammad, the Nation of Islam.
And we have Derek Henderson. Uh so give it up for Derek Henderson.
Oh.
Oh, wait a minute. We got the chief of the polices in Shreveport, the chief.
Give it up for the wing.
Uh so that's where we are. We have many other people in this space that have done the great and wonderful things. We have educators, we have people who have transformed many of us in this room with Dr. Hicks from our president of Grambling State University. There's several people in this space, brother, but we want to give it up. Thank you all. Thank you Roland for being here and we talking again about black men and mental health.
Um, this has been Kevin you stay up.
This has been a very very difficult 3 weeks and I was it's been difficult for this city.
No one wants to go national with a story like this.
Um, and so just a sense from you what have been the conversations?
Uh, what have folks been saying as a result of this absolutely tragic heinous shooting. Eight kids left there, two women shot.
Police this man who committed the crime. He you know, he's there.
What have folks been talking about and what have they been feeling and saying?
Anybody can jump in.
Is that mic on?
This happened in our neighborhood of our school and it was on and even though none of the kids had made it to Woodlawn yet, I have several students who were related to the victims and so we've had to give them excuses out of school. We've had to understand you know, give them work excuses. They don't have to come and understand where they are emotionally with the tragedy. So the the it has been real quiet around the school. Um, it has been real eerie for lack of a better term not like it has been before.
What I was talking about earlier how we were normalizing things as normal. I think the kids understand this is way not normal. This is not normal at all.
So I think this is really taking some of my kids back and hopefully they understand the magnitude of what had happened.
>> This took place on a Sunday. Did you have both available for students and or your parents on Monday?
We did. We we reached out to the like I said we have family members that are there. So some of the the stakeholders in the school did reach out and um some of the students did go to the schools elementary school so I know for sure they had counselors available with those schools.
So so we've had people who have been so we've had people who have expressed that they are overwhelmed, outraged, but they also are encouraged by conversations like that we're having today centered around black men as it relates to mental health. It is a issue uh, that's a plague in our community and we know that if we want to stabilize our society, if we want our city to grow then conversations like this, efforts like this have to happen and it has to come from us and so you know, those are the responses that I've gotten. People have been overwhelmed, outraged, but they also are encouraged by efforts like this where we can come together and start pooling some resources to address this issue and hopefully to create a path to move forward.
I think at first it was a reaction of domestic violence.
Uh, and that's been a big conversation in our community recently. But as it went on I think people realized there was a mental health component to this and people trying to wrap you know, if you're a parent trying to wrap around what mentally happened to a person that was literally sitting on the steps watching his kids play one day and then the next day he takes all their lives and then so that mental health component and so that's why we're here because as you know, mental health is a it's an art not a science.
If you have a broken arm you can fix it.
Mental health is a a lot different and trying to figure out okay, well, what can we do? What what can we build upon to make sure this doesn't happen again? We can't change what has happened, but how as a community can we come together? What resources can we put together? How can we educate ourselves?
How can we reach out to try to see these actions before they happen and stop it from from from the result we had. But here's the thing right there. I want to stay right there because when I talked about that after the the tragic murder suicide in in Virginia with the former lieutenant governor Justin Fairfax shooting and killing his wife out in the street in Fairfax there were a number of people mad upset with me saying it's not mental health and I'm going but it is. Uh, and they were upset, they were mad, they were mad and and a lot of it was rage and I kept saying well, if the professionals say it's mental health if law enforcement says mental health, if the judges says mental health, well, how in the hell you can get mad at me cuz I'm saying it's mental health. Uh, and the the the point is to if we're saying protect black women. There's somebody wrote a piece who was critical of our panel discussion.
And I said well, you wrote a piece and you had no experts in it.
You had no no clinicians in it. You're just giving your opinion.
And I said that if we're going to if we were saying protect black women, we want them to to live. We don't want the kids impacted then you're going to have to deal with what's happening between the ears of individuals who either shoot, kill or beat women. That is a something is happening between their ears and so that has to be confronted and dealt with.
Otherwise, we're only just expressing pain and outrage and not confronting what still is the problem. Anyone anyone can speak to that.
What I've been hearing brother Roland of course is the need for unity.
And out of this tragedy the call for unity now exists like it never has in the city of Shreveport. But explain that. When you say a call for unity, what does that mean?
What we have here today.
Without that tragedy could we say all of us would be in this room together?
Can we say that Roland Martin would be in Shreveport without that tragedy?
So that tragedy has produced the unity that we are now coming together to talk about and try to form.
But does the but does the tragedy but but the question then becomes you have a tragedy and what often happens and I've covered numerous stories over my 30 plus year career. What often happens just like with domestic violence after something happens 2 weeks 4 weeks a month or two it sort of just dissipates. So the question is unity is one thing but I think what is critically important is how do you build infrastructure in this city and not just in this city other places as well where it's a continuation. So we're talking about churches, schools, we're talking about DAs, we're talking about police departments.
That has to be there because this state uh, domestic homicide is you're number two in the country.
This is a problem this ain't just Shreveport.
This is a problem for the state and the country. 22,000 phone calls are made every day to domestic violence hotlines.
So the question is how did that how how is that now saying 6 months from now, a year from now, 2 years from now, 5 years from now we have things still in place.
Go ahead. Okay, so years ago not too long ago and the chief remembers this we had an incident in Queensborough where somebody died and they died because it was a mental health issue that turned into a criminal matter and he died. So they created a unit. There was a unit at the Shreveport Police Department now that when officers have a situation instead of just arresting a person they called this mental health unit out to come and deal with the situation. Okay, so that's that's some action that came out of an event. And this event we we we even had to fine fine tune it now. So I agree with you.
Uh, domestic violence is the issue in this area but the sheriff has just opened up a domestic violence unit here.
We helped support that domestic violence with unit this next week. Uh, we're having two forums on domestic violence.
>> So I want you to put a pin right there.
So explain that. What is the what is that domestic violence unit? What is that? So what happens is two different categories. You have the civil category where somebody comes to get a protective order. Okay, they get a protective order and they go back home.
Now they're going to a law enforcement agency that can take it and turn it into a criminal case.
You have a attorney on staff. Okay, and you have a domestic violence person there to help them with resources at the at that time. So, what's so instead of having a gap between the action and the court, you now filling in the blanks between that time and narrowing it down.
You're creating ways for people who are having issues to to reach out and get help. And it and it's growing on a weekly basis here. So, now the public is realizing that this is something we have to deal with.
We got homicides down, okay? We have other violent crimes down, but this is something that we need to to put more actions. You have citizens coming forward offering money, offering support. You have professionals now coming forward offering and volunteering. So, the more we get the public involved in it, uh we may not get it down to zero, but the number should come down. So, when a person is going through the court system, >> that's already happened. Uh Chief, you're on the your office is on the front line because if something happens, they get a phone call, they're now arriving on the scene. Um and I was Capital B did a story that I was reading it on the way over about a woman who called and she called multiple times and police came out multiple times. What is your process? People who don't understand, if if someone calls 911, it's a domestic violence situation, uh what's your protocol in that in that case?
It is a high priority call. Officer will immediately be dispatched, uh go to the scene, evaluate things, first determine whether anyone has been injured or not and seek the appropriate medical help, then evaluate the circumstance there on.
And if an arrest needs to be made if there's signs of violence, then I think it's our protocol uh to do whatever is necessary to make sure that that doesn't continue.
Uh and I'm glad that finally we all coming together uh because we realize there are many resources out there to help people that people don't know about. And if we can get that to the forefront, uh I think it'd help. But you know, even more importantly than that, and using uh our mass incident that occurred a few weeks ago as an example, when you talk about mental health, certainly that is there is a growing need for that in our community.
The morning of when this happened, when I arrived on the scene and began to work the crowd, it would just amaze me how many people that I talked to that knew the one who committed this horrible thing that talked about his mental condition way before that.
But what I didn't hear was any action that had taken place prior to then to bring that to someone's attention to get the appropriate help this man needed before he had a total neurological chemical breakdown that caused him to go in the direction that he did.
And to go along with that, what I was hearing from the community was many incidents of domestic related incidents that was a sure sign of things progressing along.
Uh I ain't going to say to the point that it got to, but that it was getting worse instead of better.
You know, these are things that law enforcement and the community, we that are public servants, don't know about, but there are family members and others that know about it, but don't take actions prior to it getting to the catastrophic that it did.
You know, we had so proud and recognized sometime ago that every incident is not necessarily an incident that deserves an arrest. That wouldn't fix the problem.
So, we partnered and now is able to when officers go out on the scene and, you know, violence hadn't occurred at that point, and we determined that someone uh probably had or is having some kind of neurological issue that we can summon professionals to come to that scene right then and find some other way to try to resolve it other than putting someone in jail.
Chief, I I appreciate that. Thanks a lot. Uh Kevin, if you could speak to that point.
He goes out and people are say telling what different instances, but no one said anything.
So, part of this as we're talking about how do we confront this issue of domestic violence, it really which is why we've had all these conversations, it really requires folk to be one, paying attention, armed with information, and know how to actually start a conversation. Speak speak to that that because if all these folks heard things and knew things, no one did anything or said anything.
So, um several things happens, right? First of all, we have to recognize that Louisiana not only leads in this idea of IPV, but also leads in capital punishment.
It also leads is also one of the lowest uh in education, the disconnect. Let's say with all those factors that creates a condition around which you have somebody becoming violent. Now, now uh the other thing, brother Stewart, is it's clear that I want to say this, all mental health is not good mental health.
If it does not fit the population, and use a good classic example. The example was that the broken bone therapy is to the soul or spirit what a cast is to a broken bone.
And if the person that is putting the particular cast on the body has no knowledge of what the bone looked like prior to its breakage, then the cast will put on in a manner that would deform the particular body.
Same thing then for therapy. Because if a therapist doesn't understand what it means to be who we are and and what happened is that when I was beginning to learn about it part of violence in my graduate program, and they gave us these particular uh of of activities to go through and they said, "Listen to what's being said." And they were and it was a black man clearly talking about how he was aggressing against his spouse. And I began to point out what I was hearing was being said there and he mentioned race and racism in the conversation. And so, when I when I mentioned that, the people that were teaching me discounted what I was saying. And I was clearly saying that part of what was happening here is about race, racism, and oppression that they were responding to.
They said, "No, he's really an aggressive black man aggressing against at that time it was a the person in hypothet was a was a non-black woman."
And so, my point then is that not only we talking about the issue of of in general what can we do, but if I report somebody and I and I did say go to this this therapist, are they going to understand what's happening?
Black men are not going to therapy for one reason. One of them is that because they they concerned about do you understand what's going on with me?
Secondarily, do I have access to you?
And thirdly, is there understanding of what it means to be who I am. So, the community has to do a better job.
When we see something, say something.
Also, we have to do a better job of making sure that people are trained.
That's how you and I met at at Texas A&M. Uh the idea of me training in psychology. And one of the problems that I ran into was talking about culture in the context of mental health, which was one of the first programs that we you and I had did together on multiculturalism at Texas A&M.
And so, I'm suggesting that we just can't say report somebody to mental health. But we have to the services, we have to be able to also say that it is a service commensurate with the population that we we engage in. Does it meet their needs? And I'm I'm I'm very clear that again, all therapy ain't, biblically correct, good therapy.
If you don't understand what's happening with me. So, we have to do a better job of training individuals, brother Stewart, brother Smith, in this space of how to deliver culturally competent services. Secondly, we have to be able to understand what does it mean to have these patterns of behavior that exist.
And some things we accept as normal versus your question is not normal. If somebody is beginning to walk off the ledge, how can we begin to talk them back off the ledge in a manner that's consistent with who they are? Thirdly, we have to recognize that there's a lot of self-medication going on.
And we're self-medicating together.
Don't understand that self-medication is problematic. If you are mixing a particular drug that's designed to help you with with stress or ADHD, and you combine that with marijuana, you are now re-wiring the brain in a manner that is making you go into a violent position, and you already were fragile.
Let me give it to you be clear.
I grew up with my man saying, "Don't push me cuz I'm close to the edge." Right? That's clear.
And then another brother comes along years later saying, "Y'all going to make me lose my mind up in here." What are they saying? That there's something that's what? Disrupting my spirit, my psyche.
And I need somebody to come in and intervene. And we have to be clear. We just can't say go to services. The question is are we critiquing the services that they're getting that is consistent with their needs, their desires, and their particular aspirations. Also, we also can't tell somebody See, this this is Go ahead.
See, one of the reasons why I've been uh again, spoke a bit upset, mad, upset, I don't care uh because I'm about to tell you the problem is.
It's easy to put on Instagram or Threads.
>> That's true.
Go seek help. That's it.
One, if I don't know where to go, I can't seek help.
Two, if I don't have health insurance, I don't even understand So, exactly. So, that's the That's why it it drives me crazy when people just say that. And again, that's easy to say. Yes.
But the issue is how do you actually do it? And when we talk about when they was one of the things you said that "Oh, you're dismissing this as mental illness." First of all, I never even used that phrase.
And I think part of this part of this conversation that we have to understand is that So, let's just say where I'm standing, this is the mental illness um end of the conversation.
So, this is schizophrenia, uh suicide ideation, uh this is bipolar, all of sort of stuff.
Your end, uh Kevin, your end is anxiety, stress, and all of that.
Well, in order You got to go That end I call that the mental health end.
This is the mental illness end.
But it's all on the mental health spectrum.
And so, people are going "You're making excuses." No, you have to acknowledge that if there's an individual who has an anger problem, why does he have an anger problem?
Go ahead. So, so, have I I believe in pathology a lot. And so, a lot of these behaviors are kind of patterned behaviors, right? And so, I used to work in domestic violence. And And what you will see is um if if the father's aggressive and there's a son in the situation, then there's a good chance that the son will uh pattern after his dad. And when he gets into a relationship, he will start to exhibit some of those patterns. As well as if uh uh the wife is uh passive uh and she has a daughter, then she emulates or takes that position in in her relationship. So, there are indicators, right? Uh that we can probably uh look at more closely as it relates to uh 100% of uh of of the resources that we have to address and make them violence actually goes to to the victim. And I think rightfully so.
Um but when I worked in um domestic violence in this area, you know, the perpetrators looked like me, right? Right. And And See See See, that is that has been That has always been And I I've said this, you know, when I was speaking uh and with Chris Brown uh and Akriana.
I was filling in for Campbell Brown. In every conversation, there were women on the air that were talking about "Protect the woman. Get her to safety. Know how to leave." And I agreed to all of that. But when I decided to host, I said I want an all-male panel.
You thought I had asked the craziest thing in the world. And I literally said, "If men are committing 96% of domestic violence cases, at some point, we're going to have to talk about what is going on with men."
And folk were fighting me on that.
Folk were fighting me in this case here.
And I said I said, "Y'all, you can't tell me y'all need to protect black women if I do not confront what's happening with men."
You I mean, you There's no way around that.
Um So, to the point that you just raised, I want to ask you when you were in school.
So, you're in school.
How are you, as you're looking at students, what How do you look at when you see a second or third grader who has anger outbursts on the playground or in the classroom?
Um how do you handle that because you can track that behavior in second and third grade to fifth, sixth, ninth, 10th, and it ends up being what you're talking about what happens when they go when they graduate from high school and now when they're in a relationship because we are seeing higher incidents of domestic violence among girls elementary school through high school.
That's a fact.
So, I did used to work in elementary school and that is true. You can track those behaviors.
Now, in the high school, even today, uh we all a majority of us in here were raised "Don't hit women." Right? That's what you raised from knee-high all the way up.
It's amazing to me now to see young men what they call square up, put up their set against a girl.
And it's amazing to me like And in that moment, we go, you know, we do have our business. We talk to the young man. And I'm proud of the men I have on my campus that can can reach this young man and talk to him and say, "Look, you're going to get this discipline. But let's talk about why you feel like it's okay that you can square up with this girl like she's a boy."
Something is not happening. And I have to talk to my teachers because they get frustrated because what we say that should be taught where? At home. Well, look guys, we're in a position now we can't wait today. We got to address this here on campus. So, so okay. So, so okay. So, when that happens and the men in your campus talk to them, what's the what's next? What happens next?
So, I I say that's the gap.
Right. So, and that's something that we are working on and it's it's here and now in the in the real time that we are working with community partners that come and cuz we're not equipped. We're educators. Right.
So, we have to be cognizant that we can't do this work by ourselves. We have to reach out to the community partner, wrap-around services. We can bring professionals. Hey, mama, I don't know what's going on, but little Johnny trying to fight this young lady. But but but but but but here's why I say what's next.
Because this is where I need our people to understand where voting Absolutely. and politics Absolutely.
connects with funding and resources because school boards need to allocate the resources in the schools for you to deal with that.
So, when people tell me "You always talk about voting." I'm like, "Yes, because that is a distribution method of resources."
And so, let's I I want people to understand.
Police chief, somebody gets somebody calls, that's public. Mhm.
That's public dollars. The officers, if somebody files, the DA, that's public.
If they go to jail or you or you pick a diversion program, that's public. They go to the state prison, that's still public. So, what I'm saying to our people, what we need from you is to say, "This is what I need in my school."
Y'all then have to roll up on the school board and say, "Principal needs this. Y'all should be allocating resources to deal with mental health elementary school, junior high, high school."
And so, that's how to me how all this is connected. And so, community is one thing, but we can't leave out all of these different pieces. And I think a lot of times we try to have this conversation, well, what can the church do? No, church has a role.
Community groups have a role. That's right. Black male groups have a role.
Everybody has a role, but we can't leave out also where the resources are that also that that that can give you what you need and deal with the problem then because having a quick conversation with a young brother, clearly, that's something going on that's far deeper than just they're fighting on the playground.
And I think that's part of our problem is that we're having short, finite, quick, in-the-moment discussions to deal with far deeper problems that manifest themselves later on.
So, we like We enjoy actually dealing with the symptoms due to the thing. We buy medication and the box it says for the symptom due to the common cold. We don't want to deal with the problem. So, I love how you couch the conversation as being a holistic one. We have people that bring actually culturally responsive solutions.
And many people actually are afraid of that because they're afraid of how we may lose some dollars.
But if the issue is about a population that has certain experiences, we must then be responsive to that population and give them what they need.
Don't give me uh some particular uh pizza [clears throat] with mushrooms when I don't I'm allergic to mushrooms.
Give me what I desire and what I need.
So, principal, you need to be able to request services that you know are going to be responsive to the needs of the population. Uh we we even research this all over the country. And it's amazing how we can do this everywhere, but it's hard to do some of those things at home.
Responsive to the population. Second thing I want to mention here as as as you go into when you brother Derek is understand that males and females typically deal with problems differently.
Whereas a female, in general, this is a generalization, may talk, have a conversation, may go back and forth, may banter.
It's not but so much bantering men are going to do with one another, males.
It's going to be, "So, what you want to do? You want to take it outside? Right, you want to take it to the grass?"
Right? It becomes that. That is a that is something about the wiring genetically about being physical, so we see that happening. So, when you talk about a male aggression against a female, it's like it's even though I get that it may be a female, it's not so much bantering I'm going to do. So, we have to be able to help not only the idea of of of of understanding gender in relationships, but also help the people understand how they can regulate their emotions. What's pushing you to that point?
And if we don't teach that from our perspective, because we get these wonderful models. I get them Well, we'll just simply just say no, right? Just if you just do this, right? That is not going to resolve what's happening because not only is it about my emotions, but it's about the things that I have to encounter. I have to encounter a person who may be in a household who is underemployed. He comes in angry and upset. Have to deal with the issue of the fact that though as a black male I bring home a dollar, that dollar is about 7% of the whole dollar what a white man brings home the entire a whole the 100% of of that dollar. I got to deal with the dynamics around the issue of of of I can't get a FICO score to move in any direction positive. Right? I I have to deal with all these things are compounded.
And so, when you have a child coming out of that frustration, and they come into your space, yeah, everybody is game. So, we have to be clear then about this process of how do we help one to regulate? It has to be clear about the terrain. And what was mentioned earlier on by brother Roland was what was powerful about the issue of racial socialization. That we know that two things happen that when a child has racial socialization, that is that they are aware of the dynamics dynamics of racism and oppression in their space in what's called America, they tend to perform better academically.
Somehow we want to move away from the race conversation. No, that's clear.
Secondly, we got to deal with the issue of of how it impacts how individuals perform on jobs because they're very clear about how they navigate in certain spaces. And the third thing is that it tends to promote greater marital satisfaction just simply by knowing the terrain on which you're operating. Our services must have infused within them this knowledge of what it means to be and to become human from a perspective that respects our experience, our condition, and our aspirations.
So, so I get So, so I was going to speak make a comment earlier.
We This report is not unlike other places where, you know, we have some of the best and and most talented people at at all levels, but we do have our challenges with efficacy.
Uh and that's, you know, that's because we're plagued with identity politics, to be uh honest with you. And so, you know, we we have a lot of people from our When you say plagued with identity politics, what does that mean? So, um I have a family last name. My mama did it, my daddy did it, and so, you know, because we represented this area forever, then you know, we go and we reelect these people, but when they you when you look at the results that they bring to the community, it you know, it's it's it's dismal, right? And so, we have to decide um collectively what it is that we want. We need to educate ourselves more, become more familiar with I don't assume people don't know. So, but you know, maybe refresh ourselves in in terms of uh who's responsible for what in terms of uh legislation.
Uh we have school board, but actually our state reps and the people at the state legislature, you know, make the rules that the school board has to to to operate by, but then we need to make sure we have the right people on the school board who understand those rules, right? We need to make sure that we have the right people at the city council level and at at at the parish commission level. So, it's imperative that if we're going to address this this this issue, that we have the right people in the right places making decisions that's going to affect and impact all of us.
But but I I'll say this here. You're correct. You have to have those names.
But this is what I often see happen.
Um what don't see happen.
And again, understand where I where where I come from.
Um my parents were co-founders of the city club.
Um didn't go to college, didn't graduate from college, hard working, had five kids, but they cared about the community.
And so, when they got involved in the community, they then said, "Okay, let's we're we're looking for this, we're looking for that." So, they they began to learn, "Okay, what does the city do?
What does the school board do? What does the county do? We're looking for these services, who do we call? We're looking for this and this and this."
What we have to recognize is that if we do not present an agenda to the people that represent us, well, then we're not going to get back what we think we need.
So, the reason I asked So, the reason I asked, "What do you have and you don't have?"
See, that's how I just how my brain is sort of just wired that way.
Um you know, with with when these tragedies happen, uh folks are like, "Well, you're only responding because you're attorney brother." I'm like, "No, it was a tragic situation. I could not bring her back. I could not bring him back. I could not talk to him. I could the case in Florida with the vice mayor uh and her husband could not I said, "So, I can't do anything on this situation, but the question is, what can I do?"
So, I think where we have to be as communities, okay, what can I do?
You cannot bring those eight kids back.
Those two women are going to have to deal with the trauma of this shooting the rest of their lives. The question is then becomes, "How can I do all I can to keep the next one from happening?" Which now means which now means if the assessment is, "These are the gaps in our schools," then we get the professionals who get with the school folks who then say, "What is that you need?"
And the community then comes back to the school board and say, "Um we need an allocation of $12 million, $15 million, $20 million to hire um to hire 30, 60, 50 people, whatever the number is. Uh but and then here are the numbers, here's the problem. This is the issue with the state, number two in uh domestic homicides." Lay the whole thing out. So, if you don't confront this on the front end, you're going always confront it on the back end. Now, when that happens, it's now communities got to put pressure on the elected to do their job, and then if they then don't follow through, you then say, "Well, then we're going to take y'all out at the next election."
It's not enough to go to the school board and yell, "Y'all got to fix this."
There has to be a community-driven plan of action to the school board, to the city council, to the state reps, state senators, and the governor.
And so, I don't care if he's MAGA, you're still constituents.
So, a community-driven plan has to also be a part of this.
Yes. Also, we must be inclusive of programs that we know work.
You know, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan teaches us, he said that a child does what is uh natural until he learns what is normal.
What is it What is normal in society?
So, once we learn what is normal, then the child conducts itself to the norms of the society.
He also teaches us, he said that the black man is righteous by nature, but he's been made other than righteous by circumstance.
He said that if you change the circumstance, the black man will return to his nature, which is uprightness.
So, we saw the paradigm shift in full effect when the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan called for a million man march, and nearly 2 million of us showed up on that mall.
Many of them were gang members, enemies of each other, that swore on that day to put down the guns, to not take another life, to not make another black mother cry.
So, we've seen the transformation.
So, we want to just include the Nation of Islam in the conversation of transforming our communities.
Take the best of everything that we've discussed today, but don't leave out a big part of what you see working. We're in a process of evolving our people from one stage of development to another.
We're going to hold tight one second.
I'm going to take a break while that's a kissing in the microphone so we can get that fixed. So, let's go to a break.
We'll be right back. Roland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network live here from Shreveport. Uh we'll be back in a moment.
With medicine and science under attack, I want to keep you and your family informed and healthy. I'm Dr. Ebony Hilton and I knew at the age of eight that I wanted to be a doctor. So, I studied hard and became the first African-American female anesthesiologist hired at the Medical University of South Carolina since its opening in 1824.
And I always say I was made into a doctor, but I was born to be a mom. And as a new mom, wife, sister, daughter, and friend, I understand how frightening a medical crisis can be. I care for individuals on some of the worst days of their lives and it's my mission to provide you with a safe space to gain clarity on issues affecting your mind, body, and soul.
I recognize that there are health disparities, particularly as it pertains to race, and I want to help bridge the gap between you and your health care providers. Join me every Thursday for Second Opinion on the Black Star Network where each week I'll invite experts from various medical fields to share the latest health news.
We'll discuss topics such as the vaccine debate, mental and sexual health, medical bias, infertility, menopause, andropause, nutrition, and aging.
Together with my medical colleagues, we aim to provide you with a second [music] opinion.
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Black Voters Matter is 10 years old and we are just getting started.
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We win. [music] hatred on the streets. A horrific scene.
A white nationalist rally that descended into deadly violence.
White people are losing their damn minds.
As an angry pro-Trump mob storms the US Capitol, we've seen so We are about to see the rise of what I call white minority resistance. We have seen white folks [music] in this country who simply cannot tolerate black folks voting.
>> what we're seeing is the inevitable result of violent denial.
>> This is part of American history. Every time that people of color have made progress, whether real or symbolic, there has been what Carol Anderson at Emory University calls white rage as a backlash.
>> This is the rise of the Proud Boys and the Boogaloo Boys. America, there's going to be more of this. There's all the Proud Boys, guys. This country is getting increasingly racist in its behaviors and its attitudes because of the fear of white people.
>> The fear that they're taking [music] our jobs, they're taking our resources, they're taking our women. This is white fear.
I'm Brittany Noble, Midwest born, HBCU educated with experience in newsrooms across the country. I've teamed up with Roland Martin to bring to you The Breakdown. This isn't [music] just news.
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Hey yo, what's up? This is Mr. Dalvin right here. What's up? This is KC from the group JODECI, [music] that's Jodeci, right here on Roland Martin Unfiltered.
Hey program.
Come on, turn it up.
All right, folks, we're back here in Shreveport. Glad to be here. Uh we uh go ahead.
And the panelists Dads on Duty. Tell folks your name and what y'all do.
Craig Lee, co-founder of Dads on Duty.
And ironically, five years ago, Roland helped to promote our program once we launched at Southwood High School to respond to the gang violence at Southwood. And we're happy to promote uh the news that five years later that is not an issue. We've had three good principals since 2021.
And at this stage in the ball game, what we can report is that when you bring positive male role models into a school, especially at the high school level, but if we start at elementary and junior high and high school, you can now start to change the direction of the thinking, the behavior, the conduct, and the actions of young people in any particular school district. So, how do you see regarding this issue of domestic violence, role that y'all can play in reaching these young brothers in the early stage? Uh it's it's it's a very important role, Roland, because um I'll give you a prime example. There was a program and Woodlawn has this program as well called JAG, Jobs for America's Graduates. They actually have the best program um in the city along with Huntington. Um but in that program, it allows individuals like myself, our chairperson Mike Morgan, who was a very effective city worker, to come into the school, engage young people in real conversations about life. Cuz a lot of these um a lot of times the children don't get these conversations from individuals who are not out outside of their household. So, when you can engage them in real dialogue and they begin to trust you, they now begin to confide in you a variety of different things about relationships. We we were able to stop three murders back in 2021 based on the fact that we had connected with these children and so we gathered intel. And when we gather the intel, then we can report that back to the principal. The principal then reports that information to law enforcement and now you have that active engagement.
Um look, you look around this room.
Um everyone is older.
And if we're talking about how do we have an impact uh on, let's say, 5 to 25.
Uh the question then, uh who are the folks who are you also engaging with in this city uh where you have peer-to-peer discussions, peer-to-peer conversations?
How do you see how do you how do you envision uh reaching and teaching and training these young brothers to deal with their fellow young brothers when it comes to um violence, domestic violence, uh being able to control emotions.
Um And is there any is there anyone, any group who's doing a great job of that in the city right now that could be replicated?
Well, I think if you look at the fraternities and and some of the mentoring programs that we have um um such as the Kappa League and the Lamplighters and the Alpha Esquires. I think that's where where it started. Uh I happen to be um president of my chapter when we reinstituted the Kappa League in the city.
>> Oh, yeah. That's the Kappa League youth group there.
Uh but one of the things that we wanted to do, you know, is we we we we wanted to um make sure that we had a good um mixture of of of young men that we who we were working with. Uh There definitely was some men uh some young men uh who came from, you know, situations where they had the support uh maybe their family had the financial background, but then there was some men uh some young men who didn't and we wanted to make sure that we had a a a good mix. And uh then we wanted to make sure that our program uh uh met the needs of of of what they were doing. At at the time, uh the Top Ladies of Distinction, you know, they had the uh the cotillion for the boys and the women would always come to me and say, "Mr. Henderson, Mr. Henderson, it's good, but we really want some men to pour in to our boys and what kind of programs are there to support our boys and where they come from and because the mothers are doing it by themselves, right? And so we thought it was prudent that we uh do that. So I think that that's a place to start. I think you know, form partnerships. One thing I say to churches is that, you know, you don't have to invent the wheel. There are nonprofits, there are organizations out there. Boy Scouts of America is a great program for you young for young men. And if you have that at your church, it's structured. Uh you can measure it. It's rewarding.
There's training involved and so you don't have to invent the wheel, but you just need to know where the resources are and then form partnerships with the people that are subject matter experts and to help you in in in that resolve.
But I'm going to go ahead and say this and I got no problem with saying it, but let's just be real.
Um the programs that you're talking about, I've I've spoken to the others around the country country.
Those are speaking to a certain group of young brothers.
And the reality is there are so many other young brothers who are not being reached, not being talked to.
And and I I I and this I get cotillions, boatillions, I get all of that.
But what I'm talking about, we have to create real engagement directly in those neighborhoods with folk who may not show up in ties and jackets.
And so what I'm curious is, is that happening? And if it if if it hold on a second. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on cuz it might. You just may not know.
If it is it happening and if it is, how do we now expand that? So So Roland, it is happening and primarily that happens in the youth sports leagues.
You take Express Sports. They're one of my clients.
They produced nine um NFL football players out of that particular program since 1996.
The the addition to that can be a etiquette cultural etiquette component to that where you're teaching them how to interact with young girls. But they're actually dealing with the hardcore young people who are coming up in the inner cities and there are several and that's really your biggest volunteer ship of African-American males because a lot of guys used to play football, basketball. So they're pouring into the young folks and I remember when Lonnie Bryant and Le'Warren Brown told me to just come out. Um and parents actually, especially mothers, they support their children.
And this is an act of engagement, but with a little tweaking kind of like to what Kevin is talking about, the culturally relevant component that deals with etiquette.
How you talk to young ladies, how you approach them, these particular things that can then help turn it >> phone off, Kappa.
>> [laughter] >> But but that could happen tremendously, but what what we try to encourage, whether it be the Divine Nine or the Masonic Order, come into the school because a lot of people are not going to go into the habitat of these young people. They're not going to do it. Um and deal with the gang warfare. The safest place to deal with them is in the school. Right, but but but the reason I'm and I just just follow me here why why I'm going down this line because just literally how the panel is set up.
If we're talking about domestic violence and we're talking about violence, what we're trying to do is we're trying to keep them from going here from coming to him.
But before they go to him, they going go to him.
So what I'm trying to understand is what are we creating that's here this direction, which means if we're talking about what as I think about when I think about anti-violence, anti-gang initiatives in Chicago and other places, where they have former gang members who have created organizations that do that, then what is the missing piece? Is that missing piece creating something of peers of young men? Chief, you can jump in and speak to this.
That then they are going in those places. They are having those discussions where they are because I think what often happens is we want to be comfortable with the conversation. So y'all come over here and they're not going to come. I'm saying we have to be creating initiatives right where they are dealing with what they're going through.
I'm glad you brought that up. One of the things to your point, Yes. Probably about 15 guys who had spent 20 plus years in Angola.
And they and they joined Dads on Duty.
But the issue we faced was getting them into the school based on the regulations because the school tries to say if you're a convicted felon, Uh I can't Hold up. Hold up. That's my whole point.
>> Yeah.
If I'm creating a community-based deal, I don't need their permission. True, but but now we deal with logistics. See, you got to be able to get them to those places and now logistics becomes an issue.
>> Right. So now So again, I'm I'm Get understand how I'm saying this here.
Okay.
You said lodge. Mhm.
You said you um Are there Are there community rec centers?
>> Yes.
Okay. We've said churches.
So what has to happen is we have to take what we control I agree. and say these are going to be our centers to have the conversations. So if y'all are limiting these folks from coming in, got you.
Ain't no problem. We going to do it over here over here.
>> Yes. But that's all That's just a part of the community infrastructure building because again, it's easy to say we need to be doing it. It's different actually doing it. Chief, you want to jump in?
Yes, sir. Thank you so much for that.
We have here within the city limits of Freeport, we have taken on an endeavor to do just that, to avail ourselves to the community much more than we had in the past by decentralizing our complete operation, resources, and equipment.
Instead of being totally located in one place, we are decentralizing all over town.
Uh to give you a great example, there's a model that we are beginning that we think is probably going to be a model for the company country.
Uh we are building a new facility that's about 80% complete out in South Freeport, the Cedar Grove community, a community that needs us most where the tragic event took place.
The thing is we've partnered with a concept called PAL, which is Police Athletic League, which is what most young people recognize.
What's unique about this, we are building our facility directly in the middle of a park. We're taking over the park.
It is our objective um to get to the young people at a young age to develop those relationships, to be role models so that we won't see them otherwise uh when something has happened. In that place, um transportation.
Free express bus transportation from anywhere in Freeport to there and back home.
Uh we see this as a big big plus for our community um in becoming more embedded within our our fabulous community.
That's happening as we speak. And we are so thankful to all our other people in public service, the DA's office, our sheriff department, and everyone who serves a purpose in public government to be a part of that.
We want to get involved in the young lives of our community before they make some mistakes and errors that going to cost them the rest of their life.
That's happening as we speak.
Thank you. So one of the things Give it up for the chief. One of the things that we don't want to happen right in Washington, D.C. We were doing this work. We're doing interventions with individuals with youth. And so as as a youth was was murdered, you get his picture on a t-shirt and and his rest in peace. And then there was this this this this banner as you enter into Southeast D.C. It was a banner. It had the names on it. And then some of the children begin to say, "Do I have to be murdered to be acknowledged?"
So we have to watch out also that that we don't just simply show up uh when there is in a place that it seems to have the greatest amount of need because let me say it like this, the place that is good for the harvest is not always good for the planting.
So we got to be clear that that you know a desert may need a greenery.
There's a place that you begin to plant and I think that there should be planting all over the space, right? And not simply but going to places just because there's a need and what brother Roland said it is is very critical. In the spaces that we control.
We don't have to go to the school system. However, children are swarming in the schools because school is compulsory.
However, we need to also have spaces that we control where we are controlling not only the the location but the content, the information, the process of transformation, right? And that that's a gradual process. So so we want to and and and here's here's a here's a hurtful part about it.
If the prevention program actually works, we really don't know.
Until we we see it on the backside, right? We only you know So when there's an event that takes place, then we run to it.
But if you prevented it from happening, you really don't know that it it was prevented cuz it didn't happen.
Until you see the numbers that brother Roland is saying on the backside.
Is there a decrease in homicide? Is there a decrease in IPV? Is there increase in other behaviors such as proper school behavior, right? That's critical. We don't want to attend only when it's negative.
We want to control the space. We want to be able to put pressure on the populace to be able to say that we make the change and we don't wait for the change to happen. We make the change happen.
All right. So we're going to do um We're going to take some of your questions. We're not going to do the line stuff. So here's going to happen.
One once on this side over here, I need one person who has a question to stand over here with Kevin. One person on this side, you have a question over here.
Then after those two ask a question, then the next two folk can walk up.
So we have some ground rules. First of all, we don't need you touching the microphone. We got it. Okay?
Keep your hands in your pockets.
Assume the position. Do not touch the microphone.
Two. They're are questions. No sermonettes.
No speeches.
Uh no benedictions.
No dissertations. Questions. So we'll start. So who has the first question?
Come on up. Slide out that way. Stand stand right here.
If you have a question on that side, come stand right next to Kevin. He's going to stand right next to the uh pop up. So come on.
What's your name? Hi, my name is Fantine Monroe Brown and my question is, what can I do as a community activist to communicate to my community that this has to be a community driven plan?
We cannot depend on anyone else to help our communities.
Just us. When I was growing up in Eden Gardens, the parents in the community, we had less but we had organizations because the parents were willing to take up time. We had Mr. Pickens who produced professional baseball players. We had Coach Pennywell.
There were people throughout our community and we took care of ourselves.
So I just want to encourage everyone to get their mindsets in today's society. Let's move forward and let's take care of our own community. All right. So I got a question for you. So you said you're a community activist.
Are do you have an organization or you're part of an organization? Yes, I founded uh Seniors First and I'm the executive director.
We help seniors to integrate back in their communities to become liaisons and leaders in their own neighborhoods. We also help seniors in college and seniors in high school. So we touch those milestone areas. All right. So in in your program, how have you how are you bringing in next generation to help with that and then be a part of this training we're talking about in terms of how do they do of conflict resolution? Well, presently I have something coming up on July the 10th right here in Shreveport. I'll be working with the city of Shreveport and we are going to be catching children at much younger ages because by the time they get Hold on. Hold on. What's the thing on July 10th? Uh Hoops Don't Shoot.
Okay. And what is that? Uh Hoops Don't Shoot is a annual program that we have where we pull in children and we connect them with organizations to provide guidance for them beyond the basketball and the online game tournament. Okay. So somebody's out there and they want to they want to participate, how do they reach you?
They can reach me at 318-230-6697 or [email protected].
All right. Cool. Appreciate it. Kevin.
Name and what's your question? Uh my name is Willie White and I live over here in Allendale. My question is uh the side has F athletes and athletics. Can we be more diversible and if so, what programs can we start? What programs do y'all have in mind that we can start up? My thing is agriculture in our communities. Okay. So now I got a question for you.
What do you do? What I do? Uh I'm a parent at a school here in Shreveport and I'm also a gardener. Got you. What organization are you involved in? Right now, I'm with the Front Porch Ministry in my neighborhood in Saint Paul Methodist Church over here in Allendale and we're starting the Front Porch Ministry.
It's going to have different components to it. We're going to be doing our ministry and garden, ministry and our feeding and educating our people at a early age about tapping into their gifts and talents and start development. So how y'all how are y'all reaching people who are not in the church? Who are not in the church?
Uh recently we had a citywide clean up.
So we went to different streets within that area. No no no. What I mean is the initiative you just talked about.
If you want people to be involved in that initiative, how are y'all reaching out to people to say this is what we're doing and we want you involved in this program? Well, right now we having meetings and not just only meetings, we're gathering within the community and spreading out going from door to door right now. Got it.
Within that area and stuff like like I said we did the citywide clean up. We didn't just do right there at that location. We went down the streets no one would normally go down. Got you. You know, people with beer cans in the yard getting out there picking up the beer cans with them.
We went out there picking up trash and you know, they started tagging along.
>> Right. So then so the ministry that y'all launching, when is that launching?
When is it?
I'm not I don't know the tentative date right now. Okay. And since you've been going door to door, what's your target number? How many people in the community that are in that certain radius around your church that you want to be involved in the program? Well, I want I like to target like 10 right now. We got guys to play dominoes.
Uh we got two barber shops right there and on Looney Street.
On Looney Street. So like I said, I want to show it to the people who are I feel like they're mostly overlooked.
Got you. The reason I asked you all those questions cuz you just answered your own question.
Okay. Well, thank you. No no no no. No.
I I again, I I want you I want you to understand. The reason I asked the questions because you answered your own question.
One of one of the thing one of the greatest mistakes that and I've seen this in churches all across the country.
What happens is we have programs that are only internal.
They're not external.
And so what a church what a church what it what a if there's a church here, church mosque whatever you want anybody here, what they should be doing is they should be drawing a circle around the church and saying this is the point 05.10.25 radius and we're going to what you just said, go door to door and then knock on those doors and say this is what we're doing this is what we're providing.
Doesn't matter if they're not church members. What then happens is then they not may realize wait a minute, this is a church that's actually doing something.
So your ministry outreach may end up causing them to show up on Sunday.
So the problem that we often do is we like to talk we like to talk macro.
So when you said citywide, reason I wanted to ask more questions because you brought it door to door.
So the only way we go we have to go micro macro.
Not macro micro.
So the issue that we're talking about here, how do we reach people? So we're talking about a Kappa program or an Alpha program, how do we expand those things? We have to say no, we're going to go from five to 15. 15 to 30. 30 to 60. You have to build it that way. One of the biggest mistakes is when we want well, we can get everybody involved.
You're not going to get everybody involved. But it has to be a methodical deal micro to macro. So the question you asked is exactly what y'all should be doing and the component of that should be you talking about gardening or whatever, as as we said, conflict resolution.
Uh Kevin, what did you say? You called it um we've been talking about regulating emotions. These should be things that are part of the program you're talking about because the folk who commit domestic violence, they're in churches.
They're in fraternities. They're in other groups. We just don't talk about that part of it in our programming.
All right. All right. Good job.
Thank you.
What's your question?
You walking up like a straight OG.
I mean, you blue hat, blue suit. Come on. You coordinated. Go ahead. Thank you, sir. My question is to the panel.
It's about mental illness.
I have a family member suffering with that.
He goes in and out of the system.
Go to jail, come back out, go right back in.
I talked to him, talked to the coroners, I talked to the nurses up there, I talked to them all.
It's like it's stated it happened under this administration.
That administration been gone a long time ago.
How can we get all of these people on the panel?
All these people out here is in position to come together and work together for one accord, for a purpose.
Is there a body like that in place?
I mean that you can reach them.
Okay. Now, I'll I'll talk to the panel because part of the the question he asked, I mean the brother who shot and killed the eight kids, he went he was in the VA for a week.
And he kept saying, I told his mama, I can't overcome these demons. So, part of this issue and and Chief, maybe you can speak to or the DA, part of this issue is especially with the massive cuts that we've had in mental health.
How do we deal with somebody who actually went through a system but came back out and then ended up committing this sort of heinous crime.
Excellent question.
You know, and I'm of the opinion totally that the judicial system sometimes fail. And when I say that, I'm talking about incarceration.
Incarceration is not always a method to prevent further things from happening because there's not much of a component for rehabilitation.
I hear exactly what you said and that was some of the information I was getting from the people who knew him that very morning of the incident.
I don't have a good I don't have a good answer for that.
If medical attention had been sought, he had been going through professional therapy of you know, the people with doctors behind the name, I honestly don't know what else could have been done. I don't know.
Go right ahead.
One of the issues you have in dealing with mental health is people get medicated, okay, and then there's no one to make sure that they either take the medicine or they decide the side effects of the medicine they don't want the side effects so they don't take the medicine or what we see a lot of is they have a substance abuse problem problem and they have a medication and a substance abuse and it doesn't work. So, as Wayne said, there's only so much we can do within the system when they when they've been treated supposedly and released and on medication, then that there has to be some way to make sure they stay on that medication and you got to hope that they're on the right medication because often in mental health they're not on the right medication because it takes a while for them to doctors to figure out what medication they need to be on to get them into a normal uh situation. So, to to to finish your your point, you said you know, we all must come together, absolutely, but that's that cannot happen unless we're working through organizations that are dealing with this stuff every day. Again, state policy is different from county, different from city from state policy, parish policy, city policy, school board policy. That's how we have to be using our organizations. And so, what I keep saying to people, if you are operating as an individual, understand you need to be aligning with an organization where they are the organization is putting pressure because a sole person is not going to be able to do it, but if you have one organization, a collection of organizations, now all of a sudden that changes the conversation. Question.
>> right here, right Roland. So, a year ago today, family, I was a psychologist with the VA.
And my role at the VA, my role was around cultural trauma in veterans.
I said year today because it was on a Wednesday.
I got a phone call that says, Friday is your last day.
Because I was using the word culture.
And so, I had over 50 men men on my women on my caseload who did not get a chance to close out because a decision was made by someone else because of the discourse was around cultural trauma. We want to be clear about this because certain services are available, but they're not consistent. So, what I'm telling you is not what I heard.
This ain't nobody else's story but my story.
And this story is that you get a call on on Wednesday and let me I want to be clear about this one, brother Roland talked about emotional regulation.
If it had not been for me going to present at a conference on intervention, I'm not quite sure how I would have would have returned back home that day based on what I heard from the VA. Are you Are you So, just because I'm a psychologist that that doesn't mean that I'm about to lose my mind. I lose I I get on the edge as well. Does that make any sense?
So, we have to be clear that sometimes the services that's why that's why I'm saying all services No, I say ain't. I didn't say not.
Ain't good services.
What's your name?
I'm Annie Bromfield and I'm assistant principal at CMCTS, which is a feeder school into Dr. Smith's school with our high school. And so, really my question and I don't even know if it's really a question, but what is your take on addressing mindsets of of the parents because I feel like us at the school level we are we're doing our best to instill in the children what the lesson is that we know that will take them on to the ladder, but it's like we're fighting mindsets. And so, how do you we want the parents to be involved, but how do you address parental apathy where you want them in the school, but they just they won't come. You know, you want all these different organizations, but there's no exposure because we're a neighborhood school. We're only we only have 358 students on our campus and most of them are impoverished. So, how do you how do you address mindset of parents that trickles down into our children?
The question And >> [clears throat] >> her her question is the most important aspect because [clears throat] what we have is what you just said. I I have a saying, the absence of spirituality and right culture is the foundation for all negative, toxic, evil, demonic thought, behavior, conduct and action. You can pour into these children in a righteous way at school, but then they have to go home, right? And so, how do we actually do it because you can't legislate spirituality, you can't legislate culture, you can't legislate morality, you can't legislate ethics. So, then the focus is on oh, what is the teacher doing? Y'all are doing your job in in most instances, but we have a fractured situation in the home and that's why I said, you have to have people who are willing to become village fathers and village mothers inside of the school and outside of the school to wrap around these children because other than that, they're going to be lost. It's just the bottom line.
So, so, so I think what they're asked on duty is it takes an empowered village to empower our children and if we don't get more village fathers, village people willing to be village fathers and be village others, we're not going to be able to help them because they're going back. And the and the point you just made, the principal at my former alma mater, Fair Park, which is now a junior high school, he said the same exact thing. They can't get the parents to get involved. So, now the community has to get involved, but the challenge is I my mean the Eurocentric mindset of I'm taking care of my child that they're on their own. But now when little Ray Ray comes and beats your child up or kills your child, now you want the community to be involved. So, that's the challenge. So, I'm going to say this here and this is this is really anywhere.
Um One of the things that we have to do is what I call community resource assessment.
Um We have lots of problems and we want to address all the problems, but one group, one person can't address all the problems.
I'm a firm believer in what lane are you in?
So, when we're talking about we're talking about how do we change our communities?
One of the things that most of us have never done, we've never actually done an assessment of what's at our disposal.
So, if I'm So, if I So, this this again and cuz I'm literally writing this book that's going to drop next year.
Dr. King said in his book where do we go from here, chaos or community?
He said there are four institutions that are primed to liberate black America. He said the Negro church, Negro press, Negro fraternities and sororities, and Negro professional and business organizations.
He said but neither of them have fully committed themselves to liberation of our people.
Then he critiqued each one.
And so what we have to recognize is that we have massive capacity in our communities.
We have a ton of organizations.
We have a ton of nonprofits.
The question is do we even know what exists?
So if I'm you in Shreveport, I'm sitting here going, "Okay.
Um who are the anti-violence prevention lane? Who's in that lane? What are the groups in that lane?
What are the groups that specifically deal with black women?
What are the groups that specifically deal with black men?
What are the groups that specifically deal with economic development?
What are the groups that deal with housing? What are the groups that deal with mental health? Now all of a sudden you now have a real assessment of what's at your disposal.
So if she says, "I'm looking to do this."
I guarantee you there's already an institution that exists, but she don't have to start a new nonprofit.
The nonprofit is waiting for her to show up.
But we got to be able to say, "Go here."
And go here.
And so if we're talking about how do you move forward that then means and someone mentioned earlier Million Man March really what should come out of this >> [snorts] >> really is the model of the local organizing committees that came out of the Million Man March.
So what should come out of this is, "All right.
People who showed up here care about this issue, care about this community.
So now it's like, 'Okay. How do we now harness the people?' So here's the first thing. Now I'll ask this question to Kevin or your sister or anybody else.
Has anyone collected the data of all the people in this room?
Right there is our first mistake.
It is the greatest mistake that we make as black people.
We call meetings. We gather. We have no idea who's in the room.
We have the event and they leave and then no one knows who showed up.
So that's first. So So uh See, he pulled a legal pad out, but we going we going to make it easier. So Kevin Yes. give folks an email.
Give folks an email.
And the people in the room or if you are watching from Shreveport send it to the email your name, your email, your number, and the area that you would like to work on.
So what then happens is you got more than 100 people here. Now you have a database to work from to say, "Okay. More than 100 100 of y'all showed up on April 30th.
You going to meet in 2 weeks and each one of you have to bring one person."
That means that your next meeting will have 200 people.
And then when you say your next meeting, I need the 200 to bring one.
You then going to have four in 1 month you're going to have 400 people prepared to now mobilize and organize.
That's how we have to approach this.
So what's the email? Email address is Muwata357 >> yeah. You going to spell that out. I'm I'm going to give it to you. Muwata357.
Hold tight.
Hold tight. Listen fast and I'll talk faster. All right. So Muwata. Capital No, not capital. M as in Michael, W as in water, A as in apple, T as in Tom, A as in apple. Muwata. M as in Michael, W as in water, A as in apple, T as in Tom.
Muwata. M W A T A. 357 @gmail.com.
Muwata357 @gmail.com. Why is that critical to the conversation? Because my birth name is Kevin. That is Irish.
My last name is English, Washington.
I've taken the liberty to move from that from one space to another. And so the name is legally Muwata Sankara. Does that make any sense?
I can tell you more about that as well, but Muwata is a whole So M W A T A. I like that, brother Roland. You said it.
357 @gmail.com. We can say a whole lot of names, but we trip on stuff like that.
>> to give you a second one and if you email me, I'm going to forward it to him.
This easy. See [email protected].
See now Roland See, I keep it simple. So So follow me here. I need I need y'all to understand. I need y'all to understand. Bishop William Barber hit me up a month and a half ago and he said, "Hey, I want to get 1,000 Alphas. We want to teach them to organize and mobilize for voting."
We put it out there. We hit the 1,000, but we probably had another 1,000 people who were not in the fraternity, men and women who who followed up.
This is what I'm telling you. This is the biggest mistake that we often make.
We meet and we gather, but we don't organize and mobilize.
So the data is critically important. So So how Muwata is right there, y'all.
Look at that. Look at that. M W A T A.
357 There's a reason for that. @gmail.com.
>> That's all. So all I want you to do just all this you just put Shreveport in the subject line.
Your name.
It's going to be your email, your cell, social media, whatever. Now as y'all go from here and now begin to organize, you'll now have a database of the people to begin to work from and build from. Question.
We going to take This the last two questions here. You got a question over there? This the last three questions.
Go.
Yes, uh Roland. Thank you for having me.
Uh I'm just concerned just like the young lady was about the situation here at school and all regarding the parents and everything coming back to my mind and all when I'm going with my grandparents before.
It was a lot a whole lot of other things more instilled in us at that Our parents were the guiding forces.
We would obey them. We would listen to them. We would learn from them.
A lot of young ladies and young men now their mindset is not even is still a child and yet they're raising children themselves. Right. And so So the question is what I'm trying to state in here is the the beginning point the first point is we got to start at home.
Before before anybody thinks about mental health and all, it's got to be a family figure to start and and No no no no no no. Follow me here.
Follow me here. How old are you? I'm 68.
You're 68 years old.
And this is why people need to understand.
I grew up both of my parents. They'll be married 59 years in June.
You're you're dealing with you're dealing with a child today that is born into a social media world where the moment they're born they the moment they're born. They're born to a social media world. Okay? So all of a sudden you have a third grader who is being bullied by classmates in social media.
And those classmates have a people around the country who follow them.
So now that child is getting DMs. That child is getting attacked with what they're wearing and how they look. So the parent has no idea.
So you now don't understand why why your child is withdrawn, why your child is angry and emotionally upset. You don't even realize it's because they're dealing with something you have no idea about.
So you being 68 have no idea about that world. And so it's hard for like I'm 57.
I raised six of my nieces. It's hard for us to understand what life is like for a young person today because their world is not our world.
So what we have to do is we got to Yes, how we grew up was one thing.
I have to accept the world that they're living in and now come up with solutions that apply to their world today.
Otherwise it's not going to work.
And so we can draw from what how we grew up, but I got to understand where they are. So the point is if we're not having dialogue with them to understand where they are, what they're dealing with, then we just going to be sitting and talking past one another. We're not going to get to the solution. So we got to be communicating with them where they are. Question here the last question here.
Good evening. My name is Joshua I am 21 years old and I'm representing the youth not speaking from a distance but in proximity. And so my question is as a 21-year-old minister, social media influencer, and advocate, are you all willing to collaborate with youth like myself to create pathways to promote continuity and empowerment for our community and combat surface level solutions for deeper issues to prevent reoccurrence? All right. Let me I'll ask you a question.
I'll ask you a question.
What are you What What are you currently working on to address these issues in what group?
So I pastor an online church called Hooper Ministries that's organically grown about 7,300 followers in addition to God and Trust with influence to reach about 1,300,000 people through Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, and Facebook. I advocate as a vessel and so anytime that I'm speaking on an issue, I'm not speaking from a place of uh confusion. Like my mother, for instance, is a victim of domestic violence. So with this issue that we've just experienced, it hit me personally and so I was able to create a 25-minute statement on YouTube and posted it for my audience to see. In addition to that, I realized that I cannot just speak about these issues without addressing men's mental health. And so I am aware that it is going to take somebody like myself to reach people my age and my generation with the assistance of established nonprofit organizations that are willing to work and collaborate beyond But but hold on hold on hold up hold up hold up what you said. You said you speak on the issues.
>> Yes, sir.
But how are you organizing around the issue? So I build events. So I work in collaborate people all across the world and we have uh one of the ones we did was an event called Skating for the Savior and I was reaching youth from the ages of 5 to 17 years old and we taught and discipled them and equipped them with resources and we we even gave some money and a few things.
>> One-time event?
It was a one-time event, yes, sir.
I just started my online church about 6 months >> no no no no no. No no. But I want I want you to follow what I'm saying here.
>> Yes, sir.
There's a difference between speaking Yes, sir.
and organizing. Yes, sir.
Okay?
So you said I you're reaching all these people around the world.
>> Yes, sir. Okay.
But do you know who you're reaching?
Have you Have Have you broken the data down on what what countries, what states, what cities they're in? Yes, sir. Okay. Now, how are you now communicating with people who are following you to create the organizations or the groups in those cities to address this very issue? So my priority demographic is the youth. I realized that analytically it's ages from 13 to 25 years old.
>> That's right. This not a question of age.
>> Yes, sir. Yes, It's a question of organization. Right. Because understand, I was in the I was in the Junior Knights of Peter Claver.
Junior division of the world's largest black Catholic organization.
I was a state leader, national leader when I was 14.
Age is not the issue. It's organization.
So what I'm saying is So you have this following.
How are you now taking that following and going beyond speaking to them but having them organize where they are to address these issues where you are in essence creating those different entities in each one of the cities. Are you doing that? I came to this mic exactly for that.
>> Okay. And that's what And so my point is you don't have to ask for collaboration.
You should be creating the entity yourself with the reach that you have and now say, "We've created this. Now we can begin bring on other people and now collaborate." Yes, sir. One of the greatest mistakes that we make, and I'll say this that young people always make, a lot of young people are waiting for somebody to hand the baton versus just starting off running.
And so what I'm saying is you create where you are how in your grouping here.
You created So then when you come to the table, you say, "This is what I've created. This is how many different groups I have, how many different chapters, X number of cities. This is what we're doing online. Now, who wants to now partner with us?" Yes, sir.
That's how you take your following.
Cuz remember, you have right now followers. Yes, sir. No. Take it back.
Right now you have fans.
Family for me. No no. No no no no no.
Did you listen to what I'm saying?
How many people you said you have? Uh about 1.3 million. Got you. You have 1.3 million fans.
I have 5 million.
But I've had 47,709 donors to my show.
Those are followers.
Fans are not followers.
>> Good point. So you may have 1. You can throw that number out, but if you ask any pastor of a church, they don't measure members by individuals, they do by families. Yes, sir. So it's not I got 10,000 members. No, I got 2,500 families. What I'm saying is you have to take your fans and now convert them to followers. So they're you're speaking to them, but now you need to organize them around the issues we're talking about. And then when you do that, now you have a body of people through organization to now be able to achieve the issues.
That's your homework. Build on something >> Yes, sir. All right. Appreciate it.
Question.
First of all, thank you for coming here.
We appreciate you here and putting on this event and our panel.
My question is to restore funding to a national model initiative when I was a commissioner.
Uh it was called Swag Nation USA. Save with Amazing Grace, She Wants a Gentleman, and Style with American Glory for Stop Sagging Start Swagging. We had a female etiquette academy training that dealt with most of the things that you talked about. Conflict resolution, anger management, quiet but social issues, how to deal with police when you get out the car. We had psychologists and psychology and sociologists that did a evidence-based study initiative and we were tracking our young boys and girls that were involved in the program. It was a We started out with like 100,000.
So we're trying to get more. The problem is Do we want to Do we really want to put the money at and be proactive or do we want to be reactive cuz this was a national model. The National Association of County Commissioner awarded with a national achievement award as one of the best programs in America. Okay, hold up.
So okay, all right. The program you're talking about How many cities was it in? How many kids? How many cities? How many Just It started right in Shreveport. Okay, started in Shreveport. How long did it last? It lasted about 4 or 5 years. Got you. Um Who funded it?
The county did. The parish commissioner did. Got you. How much was it? 100,000.
All right. So do you still have the model the the curriculum of the program? Yeah, I still have the concept in the model.
Okay.
And so when have you last presented it to new parish leader?
Um we can talk about that. I'd like to talk No no no no no no. No, you answer my question. Um When did you last You said you had it. Yeah.
And so it ended, right? This is not a story I can talk about right here on this panel about it. But you walked up to come up to this microphone. So if you're going to walk up in a public meeting and talk about a program needing being reinstated, you can't say you can't talk about the program that you just brought up that I ain't never heard of.
There was a certain sheriff years ago.
He was a sheriff of uh crime He was a sheriff of the incarceration.
We would have a We would have opportunity to participation to keep education. So we had No no no no no no.
Follow me here. Follow me here. Follow me here. I understand what happened then.
If you're telling me that that was a program that was effective, that worked then, I'm saying how you partner with other folk to put it back on the table to get it funded.
Well, here's the here I would like to talk to you about why it's not funded.
No no no no no. Bro bro bro, follow me here. No no no no no. No no. I'm being very serious here.
This is one of the greatest mistakes that we often make when we meet. Shh, 1 second.
This is one of our greatest mistakes we make.
We spend a lot of time on the problem and little time on the solution.
What I'm saying is if you are saying there was a program that worked, that was successful, that cost $100,000, and it's no longer being funded, turn around. You got a group of people sitting in the room who clearly came here prepared to address the issue. So now I'm saying take that concept, partner with these very people, go to the same body and say, "Fund this to deal with the issues that we are facing so we don't have the next tragedy."
See, if you're not in the seat, you can't fund thing You can't fund these unless you're elected. See, right now you dismissed it. If the people When the people go to the political people, political people know, "Hold up. Those are voters talking to me."
And then if I don't do what voters say do, I'm not going to be sitting in this seat.
So what I'm saying is stop saying what you can't do and turn around and partner with these people to do what you just said do.
Okay? Yes, sir. All right.
We want to give a special shout-out to Mount Canaan Church. Give it up for Mount Canaan Church for allowing us to be here, Baptist Church.
They were able to turn on a pivot thanks to Brother Bogan and Scoot and them and everybody that pulled this together in this space. Want to make sure that we acknowledge them. Thank you to to uh Oliver for allowing us to be in this space.
Um This has been a space of activism, of movement. As you all know that uh Pastor uh the late Pastor Harry Blake was not only um an activist, but he was uh one person rode a horse into a church and severely beat him in that church for standing up to liberate uh black and brown folks in this space. Drug him out of church and had to take him to another uh state uh to be able to get him medical treatment.
So, you are in a space of sacred grounds of activism. So, thank you.
Let me thank um everybody for coming out. Um when when Kevin said he wanted to do this, I said, "Absolutely. Uh it's important uh because whenever these whenever one of these tragedies happens, um national media Look, I spent 6 years at CNN. National media comes in, does the story. They put people on the air, uh but they never deal with the folk on who are left to left to deal with after effects of tragedies. And and one of the things that we have been doing in the past couple of weeks um is having uh extensive, deep, real conversations.
Um not listening to critics who are mad and upset.
Uh and we've been focusing on our experts.
It amazes me to listen to black people say black men need to get help. And then we put the very people on the air who are the ones who offer help and black folk don't want to listen to the people who offer who are giving advice and I'm like, "But that's what they're there for."
Uh and so, what we have to do is we have to be utilizing our resources in a completely different way.
Uh and so, that's why we're here.
Tomorrow we're going to be in Mound Bayou, Mississippi. Uh Trump is sending those white Afrikaners there to farm the historic black cities. We're broadcasting from there. Uh but that's really what our role also in black-owned media has to be. Um the reality is we saw this with the Supreme Court decision yesterday, the Louisiana vs. Kale decision. Like this on us.
Uh we have to recognize that this is a moment where we have to be using our collective power.
Uh April 3rd, um April 3rd, 1968 when Dr. King gave his last sermon at Mason Temple, he said, "Black people individually are poor, yet collectively represent one of the largest economies in the world." And he talked about the collective.
Part of the problem is that we love talking about the collective.
One of our greatest mistakes is we always are waiting for group consensus.
So, what happens is we'll say we invited 100 leaders and 15 showed up and we'll spend the 2 hours complaining about the 85 who didn't show up as opposed to the 15 who did.
So, what I want what I want each one of you to do is just look to your left, then look to your right, then look behind you, and then look in front of you.
And I want you to realize is that if everything that we've talked about, the starting point of any movement starts with a moment.
There's never been a single movement that did not start with a one person saying, "Hey, we need to do this thing."
And so, the question now is after today, after you've gathered here, it's now in your hands to now take this thing and run with it.
The reality is you may look at 1, 2, 3, 5 years from now and see a dramatic decrease in domestic violence in this city.
A dramatic increase in parental involvement.
You might see a dramatic increase in resources because a group of people chose to gather in a room on April 30th, 2026 to say, "Enough is enough. What can we do?" Not I as an individual.
And so, now it's upon you to now do the work after this.
I can't do it. I can amplify, had him on the show, talk about what they were doing. I know what we can do.
But I'm telling you, our history tells us this.
When black people use our collective power, it then leads to our collective resources, our collective knowledge, and we're working and leaning on one another, we can do incredible things. We can do things that have transformed the world.
But that cannot happen if we don't take a single meeting and now do the next and the next and do the organization and do the planning and do the mobilizing and hit all the various efforts. And last point I'll make is this here.
If there are some people in this city who do not want to participate, ignore them.
I talk all the time about the book of Nehemiah.
When Nehemiah surveyed the wall, the wall had crumbled.
Nehemiah surveyed the damage, came up with a plan, went back to the people, and the people said, "Let us rebuild."
If you read that, there were haters.
They said, "Y'all cannot rebuild that wall." Nehemiah said, "Ignore them. Keep building."
When they made progress, the haters said, "Oh, we got to stop y'all cuz y'all actually about to build this thing."
I'm telling you right now, you are going to face some haters in Shreveport who are not going to want you to take this and turn it into a movement.
What you must do is ignore the haters and keep building.
And the last part, which is what I love about when you read Nehemiah, when you read it, they have the names of the people who built the portions of the gate.
Meaning the people who didn't do any work, their names were never called.
And so, the point here is you build where you are, you do the work, you don't sweat who gets the credit, because the reality is everybody who built the wall, they all their names were mentioned.
You can do this.
You can achieve this. You can you can completely transform what's happening uh in this city. It could become a model for the state. It could become a model for the country.
But the people have to actually get to building.
So, we appreciate y'all coming out. Dr. Kevin Washington, we appreciate it as well.
Uh don't forget the folks who are watching. Don't forget to support the work that we do. Uh again, we have plans to travel all around the country this year. Y'all want to support what we do via Cash App. Our goal is very simple. I told you we've had 47,000 folks who become donors to our program. Uh and so, if you want to support the work that we do via Cash App, use the Stripe QR code.
You can see it right here. Uh also for credit cards, checks, and money orders.
Make it payable to Roland Martin Unfiltered, P.O. Box 57196, Washington, D.C. 20037-0196.
Uh download the Black Star Network app, Apple phone, Android phone, Apple TV, Android TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Samsung Smart TV. Uh also, uh folks out there, I've seen y'all sending photos. I appreciate it. Y'all want to get our Roland Martin Unfiltered swag, go to shopblackstarnetwork.com.
Shopblackstarnetwork.com.
And while you're there, uh we created a marketplace of black-owned businesses.
Y'all know I believe in supporting black-owned businesses. We've got more than 50 black-owned businesses with their products on our marketplace. I mean, you name it, whether it's STEM dolls, whether it's uh skin care, whether it's um whether it's uh makeup lines, you name it. All sorts of products on there. These are all black-owned companies. And when you buy from our marketplace, you're supporting them and supporting our show as well.
The control room, y'all should be scrolling uh on the website, Not the Static uh photo right here. Y'all should also be showing a shot uh of the products that are in my control room.
So, I don't understand why why I'm not seeing Thank you very much. Y'all late.
Y'all should've been showing that. These All those products you see right here, these are black-owned companies that are on shopblackstarnetwork.com.
Download the app, Fanbase. Follow me at Roland S. Martin every noon Eastern.
Listen, check out Ebony Hilton, her show Second Opinion with Dr. Ebony Hilton.
That's our uh weekly health show talking about the critical issues facing our community in health. And so, we appreciate that. Shreveport, thank you so very much for having us here. We appreciate it. Folks, I'll see y'all tomorrow from Mound Bayou, Mississippi.
Holler!
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