I Am Somebody: Remembering Reverend Jesse Jackson feat. Jamal Bryant

they're going to show up and show out. And so Kyle Creek Moore, let me know when we knocking on doors what we need to do, brother, because I appreciate your energy, and I appreciate the way that you are mobilizing young people. In the mind frame of another North Carolina Anti State University grad, none other than Jesse Jackson.

illegal for non citizens to vote. According to the League of Women Voters, compared to white US citizens, citizens of color are three times more likely to lack documents such as birth certificates, passports, naturalization certificates, or certificates of citizenship or face difficulties accessing them. For example, while approximately half of all American adults possess a passport, two thirds of

black Americans do not. Senator Chris Murphy had something to say about the Save Act coming to the Senate.

our elections in this country are wildly clean. There are very few, if any, actual cases of fraud in most elections, and when you find them, it's on the margins, one or two people that shouldn't have voted here or there. But Republicans want you to want you to believe that this is an epidemic.

women in this country are basically disqualified from voting. It requires you to produce when you register a birth certificate or a passport. We don't do that now, and that's how millions of Americans registered to vote online. But now online registration may be completely eliminated. The bill requires states every thirty days to purge their voter files of people,

for instance, who haven't voted in a while. So if you're just busy and you haven't voted in the last couple elections, you might show up to vote in the next presidential election. And your name's gone because what they're trying to do is just take you off the rolls. This is absurd. It's all built on a lie that elections are being stolen by some cabal of Democrats and Nicholas Maduro and George Soros and whoever else. But it's really all about just trying to stop you from being

able to vote. That's why we have to stop the Save Act in the United States Senate. That's what I'm going to be working on over the next couple of weeks.

the country who were elected because of his mobilization. And I want to hinge a wagon on the first clip is we spend a lot of energy around voter registration and get out the vote, and not enough energy preparing people to run for office. So for what that young student is doing in North Carolina, I'm excited and I hope that it catches on.

solution in search of a problem. It'd be one thing if we had tens of thousands, even thousands of people or votes rather after each election being determined to have been illegally cast. But in most cases it's not even

that the vote. That that a person has voted illegally is that they have inadvertently registered to vote or have been registered to vote, because many d mbs will put you on the rolls should you sign the consent, and people find themselves unaware that they had gotten registered and may later learn that they were not legally registered. Most the issues around votes in illegal voting taking place is caught at the registration process, and even there there are

not significant numbers. So we're talking about a few hundred votes in the entire country over the last ten years were later determined to have been of votes cast that should not have been cast, and in truth, not enough to change the outcome of the election almost anywhere, not enough to change the outcome of the election. So this

is a ruse. This is an attempt to disqualify as many women because women oftentimes when married changed their last name, the birth certificate doesn't match the last name that they have now. They then have to write to the government in the state in which they were born asked for

them to produce a birth certificate that then matches. Then get with the state Secretary of state or whoever keeps documents for the state and the state that they may live in and figure out how they make reconciliation of all of these different documents. And I don't know about y'all, but I tried to get a Social Security card because I had misplacedmined and I will tell you I got two different cards sent to me with two different middle names.

Homeland Security. The Secretary is responsible for what is called the continuity of government. Should there be some cataclysmic event that takes out the president, the line of succession, a nuclear attack, or some other unforeseen circumstance that removes the power structure, the federal power structure, they are tasked by

law to have a continuity of government. What would happen in such circumstance that the line of secession is wiped and you've got to keep the government running in some form or fashion that typically involves bureaucrats, people who know how to create these sorts of systems, researchers who produce these kinds of medicines and medical research, other administrators. People

can keep up a basic function of government. Elections, however, through the Constitution and through everything where we've been taught so far as I know, are is a power that is to that of the state, and quite frankly, the state then develops that power further down to municipalities, most

often at the county level. There are over one hundred thousand municipalities or governmental functions that are responsible for the conducting of any federal election at any particular point in time, over one hundred thousand agencies, and each one of them, by and large are operating by a different and unique set of circumstances, rules, guidelines, with only probably two major interventions by the federal government. It was the Save America

Act and it was something like help America Vote. If y'all remember after the two thousand election tobacco, there were some guidance given to help states update their counting materials on and so forth. So the Secretary again has overstepped her boundaries. She has no responsibility for the elections of anyone at any level of government, federal, state, local, municipal. She's responsible for the continuity of government, which all of us out of shutter at the thought of any way.

But it's generally a document that's passed on from secretary to secretary, so hopefy she don't screw around with it, somebody else has to hit this.

that little fact check out there for you. You can't make it up, reverend, reverend doctor. I wanted to throw that fact check out. There's a New York Times article by the one and only Jonathan Carl who went through this and profiled how DHS had this huge thing about the about the criminal alien who voted multiple times in Kansas. He's now being prosecuted by the Kansas Attorney General for three counts of voting without being qualified in three counts of election perjury.

go through so many? I'll tell you how I went through so many because I took that basket of condoms and I opened my backpack and I shoved the whole maybe three thousand of them in my backpack, and I gave those to my friends as souvenirs. I think like the real Shenanigans are happening at the summer Games, because if you look at those athletes, they're basically naked and it's warm outside. I don't know what you think you're getting into at a cold place, you're in a parka.

They already set you up so that there's too many layers to go through.

it's true in every profession. I'm proud of these brothers and I, you know, and sister, I wish them well. But just think again, when we want to push people so quickly out of this country, stop folks and coming in, how much this nation has grown, been built, sustained expanded by the you know, the teachings, the talents and creativity of people from all over the world.

that we're strengthening our HBCUs. Because of that five and a half percent, six percent, fifty percent of that number have graduated from our historically black colleges and universities. And my dad would always say, why are you trying to go somewhere where they don't want you anyway? And so I just want us to remember, as as young people are making these very difficult decisions about college, make sure you give the Xaviers of the world, the Florida and

ms I Guess of the world. The more houses those individuals who have a history of producing doctors, give them a look. If your child wants to be a doctor, And if you're in a lum of that institution, instead of writing your five or ten dollars check a month, maybe one month, just use your drinking budget, you know, write one hundred and fifty dollars check, you know, a

two hundred and fifty dollars check. And so I think that this is a lesson of our excellence, but also shows how much we have to you know, Ecclesiastes chapter three, Reverend says that there's a time and a season for everything. But you got a water. You got a water, what you've what you've sown in order for it to grow. And so hopefully we want our HBCU so we can continue to put forth great individuals like these. Five kudos and hats off to them.

a pocket full of mints. But we got to make sure that we equipment. We got to equip the church so that we can get that information, and we need our black health care professionals to assist us because a lot of people in our community are going to be adversely impacted because they are either uninsured or underinsured.

she's gonna be honest. When she's safe, she'll be playful with you. She'll tease and have banter back and forth with you. When she's respected, she'll be emotionally open with you and begin to share her fears, her vulnerabilities, and her dreams. She'll be nurturing and affirming. Her nonverbal attributes will show in her body language that it feels good to be around you. Can I tell you that a woman who is safe speaks differently, She moves differently, she

engages differently. Now there is another style that she may have when she feels unsafe or indifferent. My lord, She's gonna be direct and short guarded, emotionally flat at times, cold, possibly withdrawing access from you. She might cold switch.

There's no such thing as a woman cave.

What was crazy is we wanted to honor the couple that had been married the longest. They had been fifty seven years married. And then we said, who's been married the shortest amount of time. It was a couple that was four months. So we said, we're going to give a gift to the couple who's been married the shortest amount of time to go to dinner with the couple that's been married the longest, so that they can them and mentor on and give them the tools. So my

staff hands me a card. Okay, the couple that's been married. To show this some abount of time is Lisa and Michael, said Lisa and Michael. Because it's one hundred and fifty couples out here. Lisa and Michael, y'all come up. We want to give you this gift certificate and meet the oldest couple. Okay, the couple that have been married for four months was sixty years old. Because the groop, the group was on a cane.

I had compartmentalized. And because all of us, Bacary, Angela, Andrew, we have grown up in public space one way or another. You can become so numb to it or adjusted to it that you almost have to parent your partner. You know you holding it. It's gonna be okay, right, this will be at the next news cycle. Just give it a couple of days. Don't respond, because we've been in it, and if not ourselves, the people who have mentored us we have had to watch them go through it and

so becaar. It tapped into my humanity that it's okay to be superman. But the reality is all of us are clock can and so rather than being dismissive, you have to identify with the pain. Not I tell you it's okay, but to say, you know what, this hurts me too, and it hurts me that it hurts you. But minimizing it is only going to exacerbate it, because it's gonna make them question why am I hurt? Why

am I angry? And when we're in this public space, people forget that you're human, They forget that you actually have feelings. And so we have gone into we pray together every day as opposed to praying together when we're in crisis. So when you pray together every day, it creates a different kind of rhythm so that it doesn't become alien and it's not in case of emergency break glass. My mother used to say something to me years ago, and I give this to all the singles who are watching.

Prayer is more intimate than sex. That people will sleep with you who would never pray with you. That's a fact.

But blessing to your parishioners and obviously for you all's willingness to make sure that you're sharing your messages outside of the edifice, outside of the building itself, so that you know, unchurched people and otherwise are able to access it and be drawn closer quite frankly to Christ, because that's what this is all is that's what this is all for. That it brings us closer uh and and

deeper into our faith. And I'll just say you you were running down my street, up the block through the front door on this idea of the numbing that you do with regard to criticism, to the point that you lessen it so much that when others are going through it, your spouse, you're like, why can't you snap back? It's just like, you know, keep it moving, like get with it where that is what it is, move on and

it'll be over and Jay during you know. So the zenith of crisis that we were in, a bought this T shirt that said, what you don't understand about me, what you need to understand about me is I'm not you and the rest will make sense. And it, like spoke, she had reached out a place where it was like, Okay, what works for you is and what work for me, and what work for me may not work for you, but you just need to understand that we're not gonna see these things the same way. I have my own

way of seeing it. And now the rest of all my decisions will make sense to you that they're not yours, their mine.

previous relationships. Sometimes the lesson is you learn what not to do, and you learn that it's not always the other person, but what is the brokenness in you that has to be address right?

Those of you were watching this broadcast at night in the projects on the corners, I understand. Call you out cast, low down. You can't make it. You're nothing. You're from nobody, sub class on the class. When you see Jesse Jackson, when my name goes in nomination, your name goes in nomination. I was born in the slum, for the slum was not born in me, and it wasn't going in you. And you can make it wherever you are tonight. You can make it. Hould your head high, stick your chest out,

you can make it. It gets dark sometimes, but the morning comes. Don't you surrender suffering, grief, character, character, priests, faith In the end, faith will not the support. You must not surrender. You may or may not get that, but just know that you are qualified. When you hold on and hold out. We must never surrender. America will get better and better. Keep hope of life. Jeep Hope alive, Jim Hope alive. Oh tomorrow night and the yond, Jeep Hope Alive. I love you very much.

I will yield to whomever wants to start. I need just a second to gather, but we have a ton more clips just of Reverend himself and also a response, a preemptive response from Reverend to Donald Trump before that crazy social post on Tuesday.

And what a lot of people are going to miss over the next ensuing days is that Jesse Jackson really heralded around corporate responsibility from Budweiser to Pepsi to Toyota, and a large measure what it is that we're doing with the Target Fast boycott is the the seed of

Reverend Jesse Jackson, who modeled that. And I am proud that his last protest in his life was with me outside of Target in Chicago, and so I'm grateful that the legacy he left, he was able to see another generation carried the torch, and I prayed that we'll continue to do.

at those tables. And I will tell you, if we could interview some of those earlier C suite executives and corporations Fortune five hundred and for one companies in this country, if we could interview those black folks who walk through that door, I would wager that many of them would credit the work of Jesse Jackson. Those who are aware were credit the work of Jesse Jackson as having created

a pathway and open opened some doors. I'll tell you my first real work with Reverend Jackson was in like nineteen ninety nine, two thousand, and I will admit I was not really receiving him with open arms. I had and I think, if I'm to be honest, a lot of my peers, you know, in college in two thousand

at that time, were skeptical of Reverend Jackson. They weren't sure if this was you know, some flash you got, you know, suit who with cameras coming in to overtake you know, our protests and what we were trying to

do or what was going on. So there was a there was sort of an eye of suspicion, and I'll tell you those walls came down and the very few days that we got to spend together organizing around the march on Tallahassee, the largest civil rights protests in the history of the state of Florida, around voting the two thousand presidential election, where he came and camped out here. The marches in which he came and assisted me with

not by my invitation, by the way. And that was the beauty of him is he didn't really wait for you to call him, you know, to invite him to the protests. You were organizeding to the city and you were leading. I don't know how he did it, but Rev had his tentacles, you know, to the ground, and you know.

And he was the one of the first people who teach me, to taught me the lesson that it wasn't It wasn't just when black people at fam you were impacted that we need to show out, but because of our proximity to where power was, and he meant physical proximity in the same city where the governor lives and where the legislature convenced that when when they come out to black people, is our responsibility to be the first

line of defense. He expected us to be down sleeping at the capitol or protesting us either governor's mansion or doing whatever was required to raise the voices and the rejection of black people and to register that complaint not just on behalf of us as family students, but on behalf of black people in the state of Florida.

to other young leaders as I've encountered them. He was here again with my sister when she was student body president, and Philip Agnew, who was student body president, served as vice president to him, and they began the organization Dream Defenders right there sitting at the knee of Jesse Jackson when they protest and stayed and slept on the capitol floor of the rotunda in the Florida Capital for thirty one days, thirty one days, and Reverend Jackson came in

in those final days because he said he knew that the government was not going to respond in the way that it should under the Republican administration, so that those kids needed a way that they could exit that building with pride.

really invested in what it is you do. I would actually to reconsider and think again, because as I now reflect on it, I know that the attention that we got on so much of the activism that we were doing at the time wasn't because it was good and just working us necessarily. It was because the Reverend decided to show up, and with him came twenty thirty forty cameras and journalists who told our stories and broadcast it out for huge audiences to here, to understand and to

activate around. And so I thank him, and I hope that he goes to glory knowing that he has raised multiple generations of people who were prepared to pick up the torch and keep marching.

in peach time. Sure that they are recovering. The big corporations and rich individuals who received the book of the three year mother begging tax cuts for mister rigging are recovering, but no such recovery is on the way for the least of These rising tides don't lift all boats, particularly those stuck at the bottom. For the boats stuck at the bottom, there's a misery index. This administration has made life more miserable for the poor. Its attitude has been contemptuous.

Its policies and programs have been cruel and unfair the working people. They must be haled accountable in November for increasing into mortality among the poor. In the chart one of the great cities of the Western world, babies are dying at the same rate as Honduras, the most undeveloped nation in our hemisphere. This administration must be held accountable

for policies that look contribute to poverty in America. They are now plenty four million people in poverty, fifteen percent of our nation, twenty three million of white, eleven million Black, Hispanic Asian, and others, mostly women and children. By the end of this year, that would be forty one million people in poverty. We cannot stand O Leby, we must f fight for change now.

Ronald Reagan. I mean, just when you look at the resume and the breath of it, I think we all envy the level of respect that came with being Jesse Jackson. I also think that his mind worked in ways that others really don't understand. It was a message that Jesse

and my father would always say. And I remember when Deray and Brittany and all of them at the beginning of Precipice of Black Lives Matter, where marching and blocking highways in Louisiana, and my daddy called and said, you know, let's make sure that they're not protesting at night, because people do under the cover of darkness what they wouldn't otherwise.

Do during the day. It was this kind of way in which we've seen this and done this type of ideal that Reverend Bryant talked about that they lived through that you don't have to read about it. You know the people who can tell you the stories. And my familiarity with Reverend Jackson is that I call him Uncle Jesse, like we called him Uncle Mary and Barry or Uncle Julian Bond. I'm a product of the proverb it takes

a village to raise a child. And so as we were laughing beforehand, we always call the little Jesse Jesse Jackson Junior, Little Jesse because when he was at North Carolina A and T he used to babysit me. He used to come over and eat spaghetti dinners on Friday. That was the type of family structure that we had. And my dad and Reverend Jackson they clashed at times like many people throughout the movement, and it wasn't a

clash over how much do we love black folks. It was a clash over how do we get to the mountaintop. And as I talked about a little bit on air and love using my platform to uplift store, where is that people don't know. You know, as you had those rifts between W. E. B. The Boys and Booker T. Washington, the same rifts you had with Martin and Malcolm, the same riffs you had of legendary riffs that I know Reverend Bryant knows about between Julianne Bond and John Lewis.

The more fascinating part about Barack Obama and Jesse Jackson is that they were able to have a conversation before one of them passed away. They were able to mend those fences, They were able to let their heart beat. You saw the tears that came from Jesse Jackson's eyes when Barack Obama won that election. You saw him be able to echo the fact that his work meant something. And I just look at the product you talked about, Andrew,

what he meant to you all in that circle. I recall when my father worked on the nineteen eighty four and eighty eight campaign, really close to Jesse. But they hired two young women who we both know. They hired a young woman named Donna Brazil. They hired a woman named Mignon Moore. These institutions, right, that's where they got their start. You know how many people got their start in nineteen eighty four, in nineteen eighty eight, and it's

just fascinating to see. And Bernie Sanders, for example, is eighty something years old. And I can say this with true veracity. There would not be a Bernie Sanders if there wasn't a Jesse Jackson. There wouldn't be an AOC if there wasn't a Jesse Jackson. And he was bigger than the Democratic Party. That's what I want people to know. He spoke to a humanity that people don't necessarily recognize.

I encourage everybody to go back and look at his nineteen eighty eight speech, the one that we watched a clip of, but watch how he talked about the American quilt. The last point that I'll make is something that I echoed before, but it's so important, and his oratory reminds me of revend Bryant's so much, not just an allocution, but in the way that they're able to drive home lessons with metaphor, because the way that Jesse Jackson was

one time pinned down by a white reporter. He echoed this later in his life about equality, and he compared it to sport. And I go back to that all the time, because it's not that we excel in sport because of our size or our hyper athleticism. We excel at sport because no matter what basketball court you get onto, it's ninety four feet, it's fifty feet wide, the rim is ten feet high, the basketball is the same size,

and the rules are known before the game. It's the same with the with the baseball feel, it's the same with the hockey ring. It's the same with the track. We know the rules. When the rules are clear, we can excel. However, outside of sport, for black people, those rules change. And Reverend Jackson was just so clear about it. He loved his family, He loved Youseuff, he loved Jesse, he loved he loved Jonathan, he loved them, He loved every single person that he came around with. I was

fortunate enough to allow him the opportunity. We saw each other in Chicago and he was in a hotel. I was for a conference, and he wanted to speak to Cleve. He had an opportunity to speak to my dad, and that was just a powerful moment.

so far away. It was a change of what we knew for leadership to look like and gave permission that we did not need acceptability from what a culture was looking like. So from some of the Montgomery they marched, all them miles in suits and dresses and eels and stockings, and Jesse comes with his chest out with a fist

lifted up saying, hey, take me as I am. And out of that really came the raw audacity of hip hop culture to say this is who it is, that we are the most known slogan and Americana outside of a coca and a smile, and you deserve a break today? Is I am? Somebody? Keep up alive. And so that's before we started using saying you have a brand. This was our marching orders. The soundtrack of Jesse Jackson's movement was James Brown say aloud, I'm Black and I'm proud.

Uh So to know how revolutionary it was for poor black people to say I am somebody.

you can't even quantify. And so I'm I'm grateful for him by having that kind of brave, raw audacity to tell oppressed people I'm somebody. He is simply amazing.

when you're born into the villainy or whatever. But people don't know that his father, his father lived right next door to him. He didn't know that growing up. But his father was a successful businessman who was also his next door neighbor. And here he is growing up in abject property when I mean poverty. They used they had an outhouse, and he grew up under the rigors of segregation, riding in the back of the bus, drinking out of

different water fountains. And here he is growing up poor and the man who is your quote unquote father, is your next door neighbor. I mean, just think about the the effect that that has on who you are. And that's why when he says, I was born in the slums, but the slums are not in me. I mean, it

just speaks so powerfully to his story. And I also help I also think that his entire life and this is just me talking, and you know we've talked about it, but I think he was trying to prove something to himself, and I think he was proving something to the world. And I think he was proving something to his father that I am somebody, and I think that that was really, really profound. Yeah.

I think in eighty four, and I cannot remember. There's not an early childhood memory I don't have that doesn't involve Reverend Jackson's presence either, you know, through something my dad is saying, some other protests were about to get involved in. I talk a lot about this on my solo podcast from Tuesday. But I also came into being around Reverend based on the work path that I ended

up choosing, or the path that chose me. When I went to DC after law school, we started an organization called Impact, and very quickly Impact became like a partner organization with Rainbow Push.

just use a slingshot to take him out. He had to cut his head off. And I was like, why he want us to cut his head off? Like what's going on? And I think to this day there are aspects about what he said that I don't understand. But to me, passing the torch isn't about dishonoring the folks, the giants who come before you. It's about ensuring that you don't kill off a legacy unless you think that

legacy is not worth living for. And I certainly don't think the man who had a theme song run Jesse Run that Lou Rawls and Phillis Hymon and James Cleveland did for his eighty four campaign is somebody whose head is worth cutting off. Quite the contrary, this is someone who when I was the executive director of the Congressional Black Caucus, he was the only non CBC member who could come in the meeting and be a.

And the reason why his calls and responses are legendary is because you would start off with I am somebody, and you would do them three words, and then he would hit you with a paragraph you couldn't keep up with on the other end, like you're.

the Bay and worked for Reverend for many years. Shelley Davis, Lamel mc morris, and Tyrone. Tyrone, I'm sorry I cannot think your last name, but no, I love you. And then the last thing I'll say is the last time I saw him was in the hospital in November.

I would fulfill them. I made sure I called Congressoman Water so he could talk to her and hear her. And I called my dad, who decided to recite back to him his bio as if he hadn't lived out that story. But I will tell you that I'm very clear about my marching orders. I played them on the show on Tuesday in nineteen seventy two, Reverend told us that it was nation time, and as we go through these very harrowing times, my biggest regret for him is that he didn't see us turn the corner in a

very ugly moment in our history. But I know that our marching orders right now is that it's nation time and we have to build, and we have to build together. We have to do that with us. People see him as a great unifier, and he was. But before he was a great unifier, he ensured that our foundation as black.

and Jesse Jackson that Bakari's already addressed today. He lied about the long term funding for HBCUs that he claimed to give, about the criminal justice reform that he's taken credit for, about giving as if he's ever supported reparation space to Reverend Jackson for Rainbow Coalition. But he was right in saying that he was a great man, a good man with lots of personality, grit, street smart. Seems

a little racist, but we won't belabor the point. I do think it is worth hearing from Reverend Jackson his own words about what he had to say about Donald Trump.

House speaker or Democratic leader. People. And this was so I think people with the evolution of time and technology, you think because you posted your objection on Facebook or Twitter or or x or or or truth or whatever, that you've done your activism. And what what what? What rev understood so importantly, so critically, is that bodies in the streets, people in physical form, not in force, not not not not not a force of of of of of of of anything other than their bodies being there.

And if he didn't do anything else, he taught us to put down the phone, put down to this, bring your body to this fight, get on the streets, walk, march, sit ins, sleep in. And you know, people may call it old fashioned, they may think that that's just not how it's going to work anymore. Then let's just look to the example. The people coming to the streets are what got ice and a corrupt government out of their state. And I think that that's what's going to save us

every time. And that lesson again was talked to him. He taught it to us, and we got to keep teaching it, so on and so on.

who's a student who needs to study under you. Had that HBCU professor not seeing something in him and connected him to the most seminal voice of the time, then I don't know what the outcome would have been. And so I wanted to give a shout out to HBCUs and HBCU professors who are really pulling out the best in our students. I think it's serendipitous that we're having this conversation en route to the midterm elections, and so Megah Evers gave us the blueprint voter education, voter registration,

get out the vote. There is so much on the line, There is so much at stake, and I know all of us hear it in our sleep. Your vote is your voice, and so ask that you would please become

involved in get engaged. I would say from the Black Church lens, I hope that the Black Church will take a page from white evangelicals, and the page that we should take from white evangelicals is find out what are our principles in our policies and then find the personality a lot of times in the black culture, we look

for a personality without having what are our policies? There is so much on the line this election cycle that we've got to find out what are our policies, what is the ask, and then do the drive behind that.

while they're living, you know. We follow that up with an a man and the crowd usually says amen, right, and uh. I think the Reverend Jackson's death shows us something that we don't necessarily want to come to grips with, which is that our heroes are dying and so right now, while we still have the Jim Clyburns, the Maxine Waters of the world, while we have a lot of these bishops and ministers and bankers and people who come from a generation that have seen so much and toiled in

the proverbial vineyard. It's necessary we give people their flowers while they're living. And also if we're younger than they are, like Angela Rai and her dad, make sure we're writing for them and getting their stories and spending time with them. And I'm doing the same thing with Cleeve. It's hard to try to get them to write, but those things are so necessary. And today in particular, I know we're not supposed to necessarily give a date or a time,

but on Wednesday, February eighteenth is Willie Rix's birthday. I don't know how many of you all know Willie Rix. Mukasa. Mukasa used to walk through the campus of Morehouse all the time. But Mukassa was a young member of Snick and he loved Loved Love Jesse, and he loved Doctor King and he used to get on people's nerves all the time in the movement, and Doctor King ended up. He would always give Mukassa his old clothes and so

he would always have these suits and dress shoes. They were a little too big for him, but he was one of the smaller members. There's a picture of my dad in Mucassa and Harry Belafonte and Sidney Pardier at Rikers Island after they got arrested for protesting the South

African Embassy in New York and Mucassa's birthdays today. One of his claim the fame, although it gets stolen from him throughout history, is that he was with Stokely Carmichael in Mississippi when they came up with the phrase black power. And for them, black power was not saying that we were going to throw cocktails through the windows of white folk, but black power for them, and I've heard Reverend Bryant talk about this all the time, was black economic power,

it was black political power. Black power for them meant that we had a position of self fulfillment. And so happy birthday to Willie Rix, also known as Mucassa, one of the little known members of the movement. But you are a big part of the Seller's family and Seller's household, and you are a big part of our history.

self declaration. It's a powerful community declaration. And he said it the way he said it because he felt it with his whole heart, with his whole being, and he was ministering as much to himself as he was to to those who were on the listening side. I just asked us to think, will you know, be real thoughtful about the words that we speak if we want them to have a meaning, But that phrase has taken on new resonance for me today as we talked about the Rev.

I am somebody. It is my self declar but it's also a declaration for our community and the people who we love and care about, especially in this time. We're being pushed left and right and the compass isn't clear. But we are somebody, and I think that helps to make the future and what we have to do much clearer.

remember our power even in moments like these. The discipline that Reverend exercised in so many movements are why doors got opened for black business executiatives, blackboard members, black vendors and contractors, all of that, and we cannot ensure our progress in this country, especially in these times, without that type of extraordinary discipline.

lampod dot com. We are Angela Raie Andrew Gillen Bacari sellers with Reverend doctor Jamal Bryant. Welcome home, y'all. There are two hundred and sixty three days until midterm elections. Please remember, I am somebody, really on the stop.