Broadcasting from the Hip Hop Weekly Studios. I'd like to welcome you to another episode of Civic Cipher, where our mission is to foster allyship empathy and understanding. I'm your host, Rams this job. He is Rams this job, I am Qward. You are tuned into Civic Scipher as you are, and we would like for you to stick around today because we have a special guest in the building. He goes by the name of Jevin Hodge.
Welcome back to the show, Jenny. A great to be here, looking forward to this conversation.
Absolutely, And for those that don't know, Jevin serves as the president of an INACP branch representing nearly two million people. He is currently leading one of the nation's most historic and influential civil rights organizations in advancing equity, opportunity, and community empowerment. He previously served as a state representative and
a former congressional candidate. And we have a lot to talk about with him today, including really the conversation that we want to have is kind of the role of local organizing, local politics and how people can get involved and should people we'll get involved. So again, Jevin is the expert, and so far as things like that are concerned because neither myself nor Q has gone that far politically speaking, But we'd certainly love to get your thoughts.
And I know for a lot of people around the country, pushing back against kind of some of the recent goings on politically is something that a lot of people are interested and so we appreciate you taking the time to stop by. For those that are able to check out the second half of the show or check out some online content, we will be discussing the boycotting of the
boycott of DEI. So this is something that was called for by Reverend Al Sharpton and it is a way to sort of exert some form of power over what's happening around all of us. And so we're gonna kind of dissect that and examine the merits, the pros and cons of that maneuver. But before we go too far, let le kick off some ebony excellence, shall we? Yes, sir, I think we shall. So today's ebony excellence comes from the Black Information Network. Class is now in session at
Hillman Talk University. Black professors have gone viral for sharing their syllabi and reading materials through TikTok, allowing users to digitally engage in their curriculum. The viral trend was sparked by doctor Barlow, an African American studies professor, who was initially using the platform to interact with students in her physical classroom. As her videos gained traction, other TikTokers who weren't Barlow students began watching her videos to learn more
about what she was teaching. Throughout the semester, more black professors began sharing their course expectations and reading materials to educate TikTokers on various subjects, from history to financial literacy. One oh one two screenwriting professors are now offering free, weekly live classes and corresponding homework assignments at what has been dubbed Hillman Talk University. Doctor Barlow said she was shocked to learn that the video she initially shared for
her thirty person classroom sparked a viral trend. The African American studies professor has now created a TikTok syllabus specifically for her digital students to follow. And you know, Q and I were talking about this. We love this story.
You know, doctor Barlow, you are our ebony excellence this week again right now a lot of people are dealing with a lot of hopelessness, especially when it comes to we'll call it CRT because that's what is popularly known as, but really American history, black history being taught in its full glory, and for people to take this online gain some traction and actually get students enrolled and have syllabus
and have it be a formal thing. We just think that's just a fantastic effort and we wanted to applaud you.
Pang Gomash to Himan College from a different World is a really cool shout out to.
Absolutely so Jevin Hodge again, thank you for coming back.
To this show. I appreciate being here. I just really quickly, especially to all the viewers out there and the listeners out there. These two brothers right here are holding it down nationwide. So q Ramses, thank you so much speaking truth to power but really upholding journalistic integrity and bringing the light these stories. I love this Hillman Talk story. I've been following it very closely, and I'm so happy to see that it was the ev Any Excellence for this.
Oh yes, sir, so y'all, thank you for including me and having me back.
On the show this week with you all sure, Okay, So let's start where we're supposed to start. The NAACP, the NAACP and the minds and the hearts of a lot of people, is a civil rights organization that kind of encompassed and defined the movement of our grandparents, in some cases our great grandparents. And you know, because Q and I happened to work with civil rights organizations all over the country and you know, individual local chapters as well, we happen to know that the NAACP or the NAACP.
I should say, is.
Really, I don't want to say, making an effort, let's say, has made an effort to include a new generation of people to kind of continue the work there. So do us a favorite talk to us a little bit about your role within the NAACP, and really what the NAACP, what this new leaf looks like, and what it means to people on the ground.
I appreciate the question to start. The NAACP is the nation's law longest serving civil rights organization. Started in nineteen oh nine, right, that's one hundred and twenty six years ago. This organization has been on the front lines fighting for the advance The National Association for the advancement of colored people, fighting for equal rights, fighting for justice for all under the law, fighting for economic empowerment, housing security, you name it.
This organization has been at the forefront, and I have to say it is an absolute honor to serve in a role. I am a local president of the NAACP representing two million individuals. In a way that this works is the national can't answer the call for every civil rights violation or every inaction injustice that has served in
this country. So the NAACP is set up in such a way where the branch chapters or units as they're called within the organization have the jurisdiction and ability to under their charter, to live out the organization's mission and vision in their local jurisdiction. So the same exact way, you have the naac pre president of at Los Angeles, you have the of a CP president of Shreveport, Louisiana. You have the NAACP president in Tampa, Florida. You have
the NAACP President of Wichital Kansas. And working in unison to protect the rights, to advance equity, and to ensure that we have we're living fulfilling the mission and obligation of our constitution right, and that declaration that makes the United States what it is, that that that we're all self evident, that all men and women are created equal, that they are endowed by their creators with those certain inalienable rights and what are they life liberty and in
pursuit of happiness right. And so that's our constitution, that's the creed that we all subscribe to as Americans. But the one thing that we know for certain is that it hasn't been like that for us. And and the NAACP role is to keep holding individuals and institutions accountable until we are all are free.
You know, rams Is made a point earlier, and I want to know kind of what steps can we take to further something that he hinted that but that I think we have not fulfilled and that we owe it to our people to do. When most people here in AACP, they do think longest standing legacy civil rights organization, but
they think of it as something of the past. They see that a lot of our leadership are are our grandparents' age, and in this effort to reach the generation that now should be leading us right that the passing of the baton, I think shouldn't even be to people our age. You know, doctor King accomplished so much in his twenties. Yep, that's
exactly right, you know what I mean. So, how is it that we get that generation, who at some point will be the majority of our country, to be more engaged, more leading their generation into taking these steps so that they don't live most of their lives in this place where we just arrived a week ago or a couple of weeks ago.
In Q, I love how you just position that and Ramses you talked about turning the leaf, passing the generational baton. I'm thirty one years old, and our organization represents nearly two million people, right, and that's our service area. We
have to tell the story. I'm one of the youngest chapter presidents Unit presidents in the country, leading this civil rights organization, one of the youngest people in the fold, leading this organization, and we need to showcase that, Q to your point that this is for everyone, right, and our generation is going to be the generation that fights back. Right. Doctor King wasn't in his fifties. Doctor King wasn't even
in his forties. Doctor King, like you said, was in his twenties and in his thirties when he led the civil right its movement and is going to be us up to us, right, It's going to be up to us the generation that is mostly impacted by this. I mean, just let's just use this for a second. I'm want
to answer the second part of your question. If you're a millennial, you have lived through an economic depression, you have lived through a global pandemic, you are likely crippled in debt, and you have seen a tyrant elected twice to be the President of the United States that has displayed in the first nine days of his presidency an authoritarian role in this country. And you are a millennial, you might have school age children might right, And so it is going to be young people that drives this
country forward. And the reason why I personally believe the NAACP is so vitally important in this moment is because the NAACP is nonpartisan. The NAACP does not take sides. They just hold people accountable. You could be a bad personal to right, you could be a bad personal left. We're going to get the job done. And when you think about what is important right now in this moment, it is protecting the future of our democracy. It is ensuring that all people have economic justice in this country.
It is ensuring that people have a place to live right housing security, It is ensuring that our education system isn't dismantled from within. And so if you're passionate about those issues, then the NAACP is a home for you, and it's a home for you that comes with a brand and legacy that people respect and take serious.
Now, I appreciate you reminding everyone that the NAACP as they wish to be referred to as. Now, so that's why you hear us kind of going back and forth
with how we're referencing them. But the NAACP is nonpartisan. However, I would have to imagine that just like with every administration, there has to have been a particularly strong reaction to the Trump administration in the first handful of days of the administration kind of taking power, and this has caused a lot of concern for a lot of people on the ground, certainly people that listen to this show communities affected. You know where this show is broadcast, and we've heard
it stated that community organization. Community is where we need to focus on. Community is where we need to pull our resources and create robust, enduring, well formatted, call it systems, so that for people who this administration hits the hardest, enduring will be less of a chore, less of a
less burden. Right, So I would like for you to talk to us a bit about what community organization entails and indeed what the NAACP and similar orgs think, The Urban League think, the National Council Negro Women comes to mind, you know, these other orgs. What is the role that they can that these organizations can play in attracting and helping communities organize their efforts in remaining afloat, so to speak, during this these four years.
I would I would say it sums up to this. The role of these legacy organizations, these community organizations is to serve as the convener, the educator, the organizer, and the mobilizer. And when we can do those four things effectively, we have a community that is united and that is moving in unison. We have an abundance of organizations serving our community in some way shaping for right. Urban League is doing its role right, the NAACP is doing its
role right. And then as you look to our other counterparts, you got lou Lack. That's doing their role. Right, you have these organizations that are on the front lines. But right now, more than ever, these organizations and I said this not too long I said this at our last NAACP meeting, said We're no longer on the front lines.
We are now special forces. And what we have to do now is that we have to reinsert ourselves into the community to provide that community education as to why their rights are being disenfranchised, why they are being impacted.
We have to recruit these people to be into the fight with us by educating them on what they are missing out on, knowing their rights trainings, right, understanding what a federal freeze means to them in their everyday life, sure, right, and then using the levers that we have to put pressure on the institutions, right, that is mobilizing, to put pressure on your elected member of your congress, or state representative or state senator or city council member, organizing folks
that they can participate in the democratic process. The entire reason that we're in this problem where we're at right this second, is because of the systemic and the systemic disenfranchisement of limiting people's voices to participate in their democracy. The people do not want this administration, but the people aren't voting, right. Bad politicians do not get elected by good people. Bad politicians get elected by people who are
apathetic or not participating in the system. So that community organization is making sure people are registered to vote, that they understand what is happening, that they're participating in their democracy, that they're contacting their elected representatives, that we're giving them the resources to go down to these city council members and these state legislators and to these members of Congress to share their stories as to how you know, because
grandma just lost her benefits, right, Grandma is not going to get meals on wheels today, right, That is where she's getting her only sense of food. Right. And this is impacting us no matter where we're at in this country. So that community organization is so vitally important because strength is in numbers. But if you aren't participating in the system, you can't get mad when the system choose you up
and spits you out. Right, And when you've been pushed on and stepped on by the system for so long, you don't want to participate. But it's our role to remind folks that they do have power, that their voice does matter, that they are important, and that's what we're going to do, you know, That's that's what this is all about.
We notice people pay a lot of attention to national elections and then after they don't go the way that they like or that we like, that apathy does kick in. People do disconnect and throw their hands up, and what do we do now? Right the role of not just civil rights organizations, but community organizers, the community itself when it comes to local politics, when it comes to local civic engagement, when it comes to finding a plan, because a lot of people's angst right now is is there
anything that we can do? Like what's next? What role do organizations like the NAACP play in moments like that where we live? How does it affect where we live right now? And what can we do to make change?
Well, there's a few different direct roles that.
The NAACP plays and organizations like it. Number one is, like I said, providing that community education. Folks just do not have the information that they need to be successful. And this administration is flooding the market and they're doing this as a strategic approach to confuse people and to keep people all, you know, so discombobulated that they have no clue what's happening. So it is our role to make sure that we are providing that education and information.
Number two is participation in the democratic process, and the NAACP is a nonpartisan organization. However, we can ensure that folks are registered to vote, that they have all the information that they need, that we're mobilizing people to vote, that they're reminding them about their elections, and providing the scorecards of people been on the right side of history and the right side of civil rights. And then last, the last opportunity here that what can happen immediately is
that the NAACP can leverage its membership. It can leverage the legal redress process, because there are multiple ways to set the legal precedent in this country. And we've learned that right schools were integrated because of Brown v. Board of Education Right and because of infraction or because of a violation that may occur at a local branch level.
It is the legal response that we have on our side right now, because legal president doesn't just happen to happen to have it doesn't just happen to have to happen at the Supreme Court level, it can happen at any of the federal court levels or state court levels. And when you can lies these opportunities to dictate the strategy based off of the legal response, that is going to put the ball in our court. Do we know why did the federal freeze stop because a judge said
that it was unconstitutional? Because we had the legal precedent that states that it is unconstitutional. And so we have to be incredibly surgical with our approach right and incredibly coordinated with our partners, and our community needs to be incredibly informed because the legal response is going to be a significant part of what happens here over the next four years in the future of this country because we still have very good people in the judicial system that upholds judicial integrity.
So I'll be honest. That made me feel hopeful, and I'm looking for hopeful wherever I can get it, So thank you for that. I got about a minute, so it's not a lot of time. But for folks who maybe they have been thinking about running for their own city council, their own you know whatever, local office, what do you say to them who they might be on the cuss they might be intimidated by it. What advice would you have where do they start? Anything that comes
to mind. I know it's a short amount of time.
Do it. Just do it and reach out to me on Instagram twice, Facebook or Twitter at Jevin Hodge. I will guide you through the process. We need good people running for office. And the reason why, like I said earlier, people we lose elections right and we get bad people in offices because the apathetics doesn't participate and we have the same candidates running. We need new ideas in the process, and I would argue that the first thing to do is whatever office you want to run for, go to
that meeting. Go to a city council meeting and learn about what the city council members are talking about. You want to run for school board, go to a school board meeting. You want to run for state legislature, go to the state legislature. There are people that and you want to see the people that you agree with, Go
walk up to them and introduce yourself. That's the easiest way to get the ball rolling, because if you are bold enough to run for office, then you're bold enough to go introduce yourself and shake somebody's hand that is already in the space of something that you want to do, and that would be my first recommendation, Rams' job for president. Hey there, we god support that.
Well, hopefully you're gonna stick around for the rest of the show. We do appreciate you coming and share sharing your insight on the show. And I know that as a long standing member of the NAACP or the NAACP, you know, been a long life. I am very much looking forward to working together to get through likewise, just the next chapters.
Likewise,