Black People Need to Stop Waiting for the System to Save Us! -- Ben Crump & Gary Chambers

00;00;00;00 - 00;00;25;04 Unknown Hello. Welcome back to the Baldwin and Co podcast. I'm D.J. Johnson. I'm the founder and CEO of Baldwin and Co. We are a bookstore and coffee shop located here in New Orleans. Make sure if you're in the area you stop by and check us out. We are open from 7 to 6 seven days a week. These podcasts are recorded here live in person at Baldwin and Co, so make sure to drop by. 00;00;25;04 - 00;00;31;28 Unknown You never know who you're going to see on today's podcast. Very exciting show for you. Very very very exciting. We have 00;00;31;28 - 00;00;34;08 Unknown Ben Crump in conversation with 00;00;34;08 - 00;00;49;09 Unknown Gary Chambers. And so if you're not familiar with Ben, Ben is one of America's most prominent civil rights attorneys, and he's known for representing the families of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and many others in landmark cases seeking accountability and justice. 00;00;49;11 - 00;01;25;26 Unknown And, Gary Chambers is a Louisiana native, Louisiana activist, and a political organizer recognized nationally for his unapologetic, unapologetic advocacy for voting rights, criminal justice reform, and economic justice. In this conversation, it is not an interview. It is more of a strategy session about the unfinished work of American democracy. Ben and Gary, they begin with a stark reminder that legality and morality are not the same thing. 00;01;25;28 - 00;01;59;18 Unknown From slavery and segregation to today's courtrooms, the law has often reflected power more than justice. At its core, this dialog ask a difficult but necessary question if the law can be used to oppress, can it also be used to liberate? And what does it take for communities to ensure that justice is actually delivered? So powerful conversation. Very excited to get into it. 00;01;59;20 - 00;02;08;29 Unknown As always, please like, subscribe and share it with at least one person you know. Thank you for listening. 00;02;08;29 - 00;02;29;07 Speaker 1 Well, I just say this, and I always love Gary, using his platform to engage people and educate people. So I want to say publicly what I've told you privately, brother. Thank you for being essential in the liberation of black people, especially in your home state of Louisiana. 00;02;29;10 - 00;02;59;24 Speaker 1 Here. Yeah. But to speak directly to the question. You know, two things come to my mind immediately when we talk about what's legal and the law. That do not equate to liberation for our people. The first thing really is what Martin Luther King said in the letter from the Birmingham jail. Most people remember the famous quote, injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. 00;02;59;26 - 00;03;19;11 Speaker 1 But I think equally profound in that letter is when he said, just because they say it's legal, that don't make it right. We have to remember everything. Hitler did to the Jews in Germany. They say it was legal, but that didn't make it right. They said slavery was legal. He said that didn't make it right. They say segregation was legal. 00;03;19;17 - 00;03;52;05 Speaker 1 He said that didn't make it right. He said that everything they did to that little black boy in Mississippi named Emmett Till, they said was legal. But he said that didn't make it right. Legally, D does not equal morality. And so the concept of equal justice is such an abstract idea that it's a loser to whoever is defining it. 00;03;52;07 - 00;04;29;19 Speaker 1 I mean, people, the way the courts engage in the intellectual justification of discrimination in America today is baffling at best, is shocking at worst, that they could come up with ways to justify black people being denied, advancement and careers or access to capital women having to put up with sexual harassment. I mean, it's so many things that they justify that are unjustifiable to moral people, but it happens every day. 00;04;29;21 - 00;05;08;14 Speaker 1 The reverse of that is this here, if the words are applied on paper. As they should be in a moral universe, then the law could lead to liberation. But it's always up to interpretation. And there lies the problem. Even in the book I write Worse Than a lie. We talk about how different people can see things. This, right from the same distance, same vantage point, but have a completely different perspective. 00;05;08;17 - 00;05;15;06 Speaker 1 And that's what I think is the problem. I would defer and let Gary chime in. Before we go to the second part of your question. 00;05;15;11 - 00;05;39;06 Speaker 2 I think, number one, I, I'm grateful to be in conversation with you. And thank you for the tireless work you do for our people. I think that, a lot of times we don't recognize how important it is for us to have people who are students of the law to be able to, combat against those who enforce the law on us. 00;05;39;08 - 00;06;07;20 Speaker 2 And I think that's what, is the missing link in a lot of this. It is not just that, the law is applied, but it is the of the enforcement of that said law. Doctor King said, I just want America to be true to what it says on paper. Right. And if it was true that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, then many of the things that, come under those laws, right? 00;06;07;21 - 00;06;41;25 Speaker 2 The, the subsidiary laws that get written or changed every legislative session when you've determined that black folks have liberated themselves and in another way. Right. Because every time we get a sense of new liberation, we in a new fight, it seems. Jesse Jackson, I think it's fitting to give, homage to him, considering he just passed this week and one of the things he gave a quote about was he talked about how black people did well in sports because the rules don't change. 00;06;41;25 - 00;07;02;06 Speaker 2 Yeah, the rules are the same every time. Once we understand the rules, we know how to play the game in politics, in the law. They change in every legislative session. Because once people realize I cannot restrict you anymore by this means, then I find a new way to do it. And we change the language, whether it is, shall or a must. 00;07;02;06 - 00;07;20;23 Speaker 2 Right. And giving the latitude or the ability or the inability of us to hold people accountable when they do, violate our rights. And I think that is the never ending or never ceasing battle that we end up in. But there is no way for us to proceed without the law. 00;07;20;26 - 00;07;34;19 Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah. No, that's what you said about Brother Jackson. Because when you think on so many levels, he was brilliant. Because we have to be brilliant. We can't be average of mediocre, like. 00;07;34;19 - 00;07;35;15 Speaker 2 At, 00;07;35;17 - 00;08;10;29 Speaker 1 White Sisters and brothers. If we're going to be leaders for, people that are going to be acknowledged, we have to be excellent. We have to be thought provoking. We have to be intellectually superior, just to be able to be acknowledged where I think they can just be so average and they still are exalted. And so I'm thinking about Reverend Jackson that, you know, that you brought that up, Gary, and the fact that, you know, we, still accept his transition from this world. 00;08;11;01 - 00;08;55;13 Speaker 1 I thought Reverend Jackson got it. What? Doctor King was talking about the tail end of his life. This notion that economic justice is so critical to the survival of our black communities. Reverend Jackson understood it, that economic justice was a civil rights, that financial freedom was a civil right, that access to capital was a civil right. And if you got financial freedom, then you have a much greater chance of attaining the other freedoms because you got financial freedom. 00;08;55;19 - 00;09;23;28 Speaker 1 Oh, you can get education. For your children. If you got financial freedom, you can have homeownership. If you got financial freedom, you can have quality health care. But the problem is, so many times throughout the history of this country, black people have never had financial freedom. And when we did accumulate it, then they would change the rules and come and burn it down like. 00;09;23;28 - 00;09;25;13 Speaker 2 You're saying here, kill. 00;09;25;13 - 00;09;25;18 Speaker 1 You. 00;09;25;24 - 00;09;26;10 Speaker 2 Steal you. 00;09;26;13 - 00;09;27;17 Speaker 1 And then change the laws. 00;09;27;17 - 00;09;27;24 Speaker 2 Yes. 00;09;27;28 - 00;09;30;14 Speaker 1 Like Tulsa didn't give him the insurance. 00;09;30;16 - 00;09;52;10 Speaker 2 I was having a conversation with somebody recently and talking about how black people had 16 to 18 million acres of land, post-Reconstruction. And now we own about 4 to 5 million acres of land in this country. And when you process that, all that we've lost, right, the wealth that we've lost in that, and why is so critical for us to gain? 00;09;52;13 - 00;09;58;09 Speaker 2 Why is so critical, critical for us to have land ownership and to go after these things? 00;09;58;12 - 00;10;06;01 Speaker 1 But because I love where you're going there. Because I always think 40 acres on the mule, if we got it, what that would mean economically for our people. 00;10;06;04 - 00;10;32;09 Speaker 2 To me, the the critical pieces of even why they take the the history of our people out of schools and things of that nature. They don't want you to understand how much we had acquired. Yeah. Because they want you to see yourself as a slave at every point. And the reality is the enslaved ancestors that we come from liberated themselves so that every generation of us could be, the wildest dreams that we are today. 00;10;32;15 - 00;10;57;21 Speaker 2 But we are. What we have to recognize, I think, is that every generation has this fight. There's a quote that I heard once before. They said, good times. Make weak men. Yeah. Weak men make bad times. Bad times make strong me a strong men make good times. Yeah. And, I said that wrong. I said they're wrong. 00;10;57;24 - 00;11;30;21 Speaker 2 Let me go back. Weak men make hard times. Hard times make strong men. Strong men make good times. And what we don't have enough of is strong men. Like you who are willing to go into any city in America that irrespective of if the sheriff is white or black, if the officers who committed the crime, or white, black if the individual in the citizens are white or black if you have violated the rights of the people according to what the law says, we going to hold you accountable for that. 00;11;30;24 - 00;11;47;22 Speaker 2 And I think that we have to recognize that those who went through the hard times of slavery and Jim Crow, they made better times for us. And what we can't do in the better times is let up or relent in a way that allows us to end up back at hard times. 00;11;47;22 - 00;12;31;23 Speaker 1 Yeah. And, Gary, just to piggyback on what you're saying, when we talk about economic power and freedom is symbolic, it is symbiotic on one another, because when you have economic base, a strong economic base for your community, then you don't need others to come and save you and liberate you. You can save yourself. And so it's exactly where everybody from Malcolm X to Marcus Garvey to Patrice Lumumba over in Kenya and, you know, cry me and me over and gone. 00;12;31;25 - 00;13;07;24 Speaker 1 They understood that. How long? Yeah. Black people. We got to own our destiny. We can't have others being able to control the means by which we survive because they're in control. And so education is about trying to be able to think for ourselves. And then once we think for ourselves, we can understand that, hey, we got to be able to control our resources, our community, have a strong economic base so we can give generational wealth to our children so they can have a chance. 00;13;07;24 - 00;13;24;28 Speaker 1 Like you said, every generation got to come and fight the struggle for themselves. But if you got a strong economic base, then it makes all the difference in the world. There's a reason I, Jewish sisters and brothers, don't depend on the government to come and save them. 00;13;25;01 - 00;13;25;18 Speaker 2 They got my. 00;13;25;18 - 00;13;49;06 Speaker 1 Brothers like we got our own base. You know, this the, Holocaust Museum. You know, we griping about the African American Museum since, you know, this administration, this current ruling class is saying, well, you can't say things that hurt white people feelings. And so we are we won't fund you and everything, man. The Holocaust museum, we found ourselves. 00;13;49;09 - 00;14;15;26 Speaker 1 We found ourselves. We we man. Yeah. Keep your money. And that's where we got to get as a people. And we gotta be willing to sacrifice. We got way too many billionaires and millionaires. They say the African-American museum needs to have the Trump administration to sustain it. And that is the crux of the matter. What are we willing to sacrifice for the greater good of black people in America? 00;14;16;00 - 00;14;39;03 Speaker 2 One of the things that I challenge every room of, you know, I'm a millennial, I'm 40. And y'all, I try to challenge all of my generation to become builders so that we can challenge the institutions all we want to. But if we not building our own institutions that ensure that there is something lasting for our people, then we. 00;14;39;04 - 00;15;02;09 Speaker 2 It's often not right that that we have got to get to a point where, we are dog, it's about going to get power. Yeah. Because if many of us were participating in the Georgia election, right where Stacey Abrams lost her first election for governor by 40,000 votes, there were 40,000 black people in Georgia that could have showed up in that election. 00;15;02;15 - 00;15;25;11 Speaker 2 And when you ask the question, what is the economic viability of those people look like when the governor is black? And we don't know that. But the greatest example we have right now is Wes Moore in Berlin. And seeing that one of the first things he did was expunge, or pardon all of these folks with these marijuana offenses right now, you had governors that have been there 40, 50 governors prior to him. 00;15;25;16 - 00;15;33;09 Speaker 2 And nobody took an action like this because you were not impacted by the decisions of the law in the same way, to be motivated to do that. 00;15;33;11 - 00;16;02;25 Speaker 1 And that raises two questions to me. The answer my question when will black people be willing to sacrifice for the greater good of black people? And it's a real radical thought, because America wants you to be comfortable and complacent. And that's why young people lead all the revolutions. But I know Jamal Brown was talking about this because once you get older, comfortable. 00;16;02;25 - 00;16;04;01 Speaker 1 You said when you. 00;16;04;01 - 00;16;05;18 Speaker 2 Get a mortgage, that car. 00;16;05;19 - 00;16;10;19 Speaker 1 No job and all this kind of stuff, but man, you'll be so much better. 00;16;10;19 - 00;16;11;16 Speaker 2 Off. 00;16;11;19 - 00;16;50;27 Speaker 1 Rejecting that and saying, no, no, we can have this without having to submit to the will of them. And it comes down, I think, Gary, to this here it comes down to a lack of courage and conviction. I have a dear friend, Billy Murphy, 84 years young, out of Baltimore. Brilliant negro, brilliant brother. Billy told me, Billy, I you know, the reason that I get so excited when I see you on TV, he said, I don't care what the case said is. 00;16;50;27 - 00;17;23;09 Speaker 1 I, going to speak truth to power. That's right. No matter what the case is. And he said, you see, brother, we got enough educated African-Americans in America today. He said, we got enough articulate African Americans in America today. But what we seem to lack is African Americans who got courage to speak truth to power when they get a seat at the table, when they get in the room, when they get a voice, they rather play it safe. 00;17;23;11 - 00;17;25;27 Speaker 1 I think to fight for our people. 00;17;25;28 - 00;17;48;16 Speaker 2 I think part of the problem in that is that, a leopard don't change his spots, a zebra don't change his stripes. If you elect somebody or put people in a room who were not fighters before, you put them in the room and then expected them to turn around and be a fighter for you, you never going to get that. 00;17;48;19 - 00;18;04;19 Speaker 2 And I think that we've got to be willing to put the people who are willing we we have a image problem. We want a certain type of leader to go in. We want you to have this image. We want you to be a part of this sorority, this fraternity. You had to have done these things in order for us to deem you worthy. 00;18;04;23 - 00;18;22;26 Speaker 2 And then we have to ask ourselves the question, what separates us from white folk? If we are making the determination that you got to check these boxes in order to be the leader for us, and you got to say it in a way that is palatable to white folk, right? There's a generation of black people who can't make a decision without considering white people. 00;18;22;29 - 00;18;52;05 Speaker 2 I think that we are at a disadvantage. We are at a disadvantage when I'm making a decision based on what people who don't always have my best interests at heart think about what I'm going to do. And if I make my decisions based on that, I'm losing every time. That's that's no different than when, and I'm grateful that, President Biden was the president at the time that he was, but how he won the nomination over black candidates or other candidates, that was in that race. 00;18;52;07 - 00;19;18;03 Speaker 2 Elderly black people in South Carolina made the calculation, who will white people vote for? They believe that white people would vote for Joe Biden. So elderly black folks voted for Joe Biden. And there goes his pathway towards the Democratic nomination. If we had that same level of thinking right, we influenced the culture in everything, every single thing, they are duplicating us. 00;19;18;03 - 00;19;42;13 Speaker 2 And if you study enough history, there's not an invention or a cutting edge piece of technology that we were not at the forefront of being the inventor or the creator of that thing. Yet we consistently leverage our capital, our political power, our intellectual power based on what a white society would tell us. And that's why my belief is we need a new black South. 00;19;42;15 - 00;20;18;24 Speaker 2 Because if you look at Louisiana, we 34% black George is 34% black. Alabama. Mississippi is 38% black. The only place the Democratic Party has been successful at taking a US Senate seat from the Republicans is in Georgia, in the South, where black people make up 30% of the state. The logic in this is if all we need is 51% to win an election, if 30, 34, 35% of the people and 90% of those people vote with you as black folks, then I only need 20% of white people in any given community in the South to go along with this in order to make this happen. 00;20;19;00 - 00;20;26;10 Speaker 2 Yet we continue to chase this moderate middle that doesn't really consider all of the mosaic of the people in this country. 00;20;26;10 - 00;20;45;05 Speaker 1 And I know, Sister Jasmine Crockett is dealing with that. Right. Same thing. I mean, and we can never, ever depend on moderate white people to save us, in fact, that the king said they may be more dangerous than the conservative racist. 00;20;45;06 - 00;20;53;24 Speaker 2 If you ask me, because you supposed to know better than the bigot, but you're silent, which allows the bigot to go on his rampage. 00;20;53;24 - 00;21;17;19 Speaker 1 And so I think what you were saying, Gary, which was, very thought provoking and new Black South, that's that's a deep thought. Carter G. Woodson. We in Black history Month, the hundredth anniversary of Black History Month. You know, Carter G. Watson said, when you control a man's thinking, you don't have to tell him to stay here that are to go yonder. 00;21;17;22 - 00;21;45;03 Speaker 1 He would go without being told. You don't have to tell him to come through the back door. He will come through it without being told, he said. In fact, if there's no back door, he would cut one for his own special benefit, because, as the boy said, in the hood, when they, you know, trying to be the so-called Mac that I'm in our head, I'm in here, okay, that's what America has done to black people there and I hey you, sir. 00;21;45;03 - 00;22;15;25 Speaker 1 And until we get to the point where we can eradicate ourself from these psychological shackles, not the ones on our wrist, on our ankles, but the ones that on our mind to say that we have to get approval of Mr. Charlie, that we judge our success based on Mr. Charlie's definition of success, that we that, determine our self value based on Mr.. 00;22;15;25 - 00;22;41;14 Speaker 1 Charlie and far too many black people have bought into that trap. I always think, man, once I become a billionaire, why am I scared? And but yeah. You see, so many billionaires still ski. Yeah. I'm like Negro. What can I do to you? I mean, you can do whatever you want. You got your own means. What are you afraid of? 00;22;41;16 - 00;22;43;18 Speaker 1 And that's the problem. They in their. 00;22;43;18 - 00;23;11;10 Speaker 2 Minds, the Bible says so. A man think is so is he. And I think that that is or lived reality for many of us. And when you talk about, you getting in our head and Mr. Charlie, one of the things that I think about you that made me process, if you say for those who say, you know, we need to do like those, those in the white community, well be like the white man. 00;23;11;10 - 00;23;33;10 Speaker 2 If you really going to be like the white man, damn it. Be like him. He hired his people. He invest in his community, he protect his woman. He vote for his, in his best interest for the people who think like him and share his values. He shows up, because the billionaire class they bought. They politicians? Yep. 00;23;33;11 - 00;23;50;23 Speaker 2 They bought theirs. Did you buy yours? The question I always ask black people. Somebody bought your politician. Did you do it, though? How much money do you have in the pot on them? Because somebody is putting resources there. And if you say that you want to be like the white man so bad, these are the things that he does. 00;23;51;00 - 00;24;08;19 Speaker 2 He's he's involved in his politics. He's investing in his community. He's protecting his family. And if you say that those are the thing, he's not doing it for other communities. No. Yeah. He's being very intentional about doing that for people who look like him and share his values. And we should not be apologetic about doing the same. 00;24;08;25 - 00;24;20;11 Speaker 1 Yeah, I absolutely agree. And you transition on something there about being unapologetic. I think the same way the current folks in power. 00;24;20;12 - 00;24;21;08 Speaker 2 Yes, sir. 00;24;21;10 - 00;24;43;16 Speaker 1 Unapologetic. And the white supremacist beliefs, we have to be unapologetic defenders of black life, black liberty and black culture. Unapologetic. We gotta say it with our chest. Like they say it with their chest, that they believe white is better. We gotta be black is better. And we can't be afraid to say that I know it's a radical thought. 00;24;43;16 - 00;25;01;17 Speaker 1 They call me Black America's attorney general and I make it a point. And I sometimes get in trouble. But I get a lot of death threats. But that's okay. I get on TV and they be said, where, why do you say minority, people of color? I said, I will say that, but I just want to first say black, but I'm black. 00;25;01;17 - 00;25;02;14 Speaker 2 Before anything else. 00;25;02;15 - 00;25;30;29 Speaker 1 I don't want to be afraid to say black people, everybody else dance around the word. Oh, you controversial when you say black or whatever? No, no, I'm telling you, dealing with a man who means what he says says what he means. And the fact that even when we talking about the anti-Asian anti-hate crime bill and everything, and they said, oh, well, they did it for us already and everything, but what is the problem if they already did it just now? 00;25;31;06 - 00;25;37;26 Speaker 1 The black hate crime bill, you know, well, they said it for the Asians. They said it for the Jews. 00;25;37;29 - 00;25;39;04 Speaker 2 They do it for everybody. 00;25;39;05 - 00;25;58;29 Speaker 1 What they said for the black people. Because like you said, they don't think we have the political power and wherewithal to hold people accountable. And I know our time is running short. But like we were talking about the billionaires and the white man and so forth, what brothers can do, that's very practical. We can hold each other accountable. 00;25;59;00 - 00;26;20;28 Speaker 1 Yeah. I mean, once a month we gotta get together. We gotta all have lunch. And then I frat boys versus the deacons of the church, Mason coworkers, boy, whatever, sit down and say, did you spend 50% of your money this month? Were black businesses and and we gotta be intentional about it. And we got to be honest about it. 00;26;21;00 - 00;26;42;03 Speaker 1 I'm looking at myself in the mirror, too. What did you do, Ben Crump, to give at least 50% of your money to your own? Because, you know, this day, the Jewish sisters and brothers, 17 times, 17 days in their community before it go out. That's right. Asians, 21 days, their dollars stay in their community for go out. 00;26;42;10 - 00;26;44;08 Speaker 1 They said black people 17 minutes. 00;26;44;13 - 00;27;04;04 Speaker 2 You know, I have kept a record every year. Now I keep up with how much money I spend with black people every year in order to be intentional about it, because I want to ensure that I increase that number every year and that I'm not being casual about something that I say is important to. Yes. So that's something that I started 5 or 6 years ago. 00;27;04;10 - 00;27;26;08 Speaker 2 The other thing is, I think that we have to really be, cognizant of this understanding before I was before my parents, when they can see me before they knew if I was going to be a boy or girl, before they knew if I was going to be a Christian, before they knew if I had any developmental delays or anything else. 00;27;26;08 - 00;27;53;00 Speaker 2 The first thing my parents knew about me is going to be black. And I think that one of the things that we've allowed society to introduce to us is all of the things we pick up after Black, I pick all these other things up after black, we and we, we as black people, we then segregate ourselves as the black man in the black woman, the the straight black person, the gay black person, the trans black person, the wealthy black person, the poor black person. 00;27;53;00 - 00;28;16;10 Speaker 2 But the reality is, all that it comes down to is you black. Yep. Before you add it on every other layer that when your mom and your dad conceived, he was black and America didn't need any other condition on you besides being black. Yeah, and if you understand that, then you have a fundamental responsibility to protect, protect and preserve your blackness because nobody else will. 00;28;16;12 - 00;28;42;25 Speaker 1 Yeah. And I don't know if time is running, but we own this something here, in this sense here. That is a profound thought as the first begin at the very most basic common denominator, we have is we're black people, and then everything else comes out of that. And when you go back, the economics of everybody say, we're going to build a strong black economic community. 00;28;42;28 - 00;29;04;09 Speaker 1 And we after we build that community up there, we can have our doctors to make sure we can have good health care, which is essential because you're easier to control if you're eating bad food right now, issue sizing. And then we gotta always talk about that because too many men. Reverend Al, I will talk about two men and sisters and brothers checking out way too early. 00;29;04;09 - 00;29;05;20 Speaker 2 I'm 90. We get down now. 00;29;05;21 - 00;29;33;11 Speaker 1 Yeah. And we can't blame the white man because they making us put stuff in our mouth where they are doing like good. Mom said they made this stuff affordable and they. That's why you eat the the SuperValu meal and so forth. That is terrible for you. But then when we got a strong black economic community, then we all have to worry about where the, governor DeSantis and Florida, Abbott and Texas and yo, crazy man. 00;29;33;11 - 00;29;40;27 Speaker 1 And them Landrieu if they are saying we're going to teach black kids in school, well, we can all our own libraries, our own bookstore. 00;29;40;27 - 00;29;41;24 Speaker 2 The teacher that we can. 00;29;41;24 - 00;30;07;23 Speaker 1 Teach ourselves and develop our children. Then when you start talking about your neighborhood and redlining and so forth, we did okay. And segregation. We can't be ashamed to live in our own community. I'm ashamed right now because I had to go live in a white community, only because we had to have gated security. I vow that, and I told my wife, baby, we going out to be intentional. 00;30;07;23 - 00;30;28;14 Speaker 1 We are going to find a black community, got gated, neighborhoods and so forth, because I worry about their safety. You know, I'm probably a little casual with my safety because I'm like, I'm not a free. I refuse to live in fear. And when we get these crazy death threats and everything, I worry about my wife and daughter, my family. 00;30;28;16 - 00;31;00;22 Speaker 1 And that's why you do certain things for their preservation. But they got to be some of us willing to be Harriet Tubman and ran to the front line and say, I can't justify me doing good. Why you doing bad? I can't justify me being free and you being enslaved. And as Harriet said, when they ask you that question, why do you keep going back into slavery and risking your life and all that hell? 00;31;00;24 - 00;31;12;13 Speaker 1 Where are you? Free? She said, I can't justify me being free and others being enslaved. And she said, when you start trying to do so, you sound just like the slave master. 00;31;12;16 - 00;31;13;08 Speaker 2 That's the true. 00;31;13;08 - 00;31;14;16 Speaker 1 Honor being with you. 00;31;14;19 - 00;31;15;05 Speaker 2 Beautiful. 00;31;15;05 - 00;31;25;07 Speaker 1 Thank you for spending time with us and for being a part of the Baldwin Co community. Every listen helps to keep the 00;31;25;07 - 00;31;42;19 Speaker 1 conversation alive. So thank you for listening. And if you believe in the work that we're doing, building literacy, nurturing curiosity and investing in our city, please, please, please consider supporting to the Bone and Co Foundation. You can go on to that Bco foundation at org. 00;31;42;19 - 00;32;02;11 Speaker 1 You can make a donation or you can just go to WW Baldwin or call books.com. You can follow us on our socials just at Baldwin and Company. So make sure you follow us. Check us out, subscribe. If you want to watch the video portion of this podcast and all of our podcasts, definitely check out our YouTube channel. 00;32;02;12 - 00;32;23;21 Speaker 1 It's just Baldwin and co on YouTube. Put it in the search and it'll come right up. So thank you so much. Please. Your donations, a few, programs that open doors our kids and our neighborhoods. And, when you're ready for your next great read, make sure to visit us online at Baldwin and Co. Every book you buy to help us just keep the movement going. 00;32;23;26 - 00;32;42;04 Speaker 1 If you're in New Orleans, make sure to stop by. Our address is 1030 Legion Fields Avenue. Come by and check us out. Get a good book, hang with us, get a good cup of coffee, and, look forward to seeing you. Have a good one.