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Welcome, Welcome Home, Everybody. It is another edition of Native Landpod where I am your host, Angela Riah. Especially for the solo pods, I'm missing my dear co hosts and sister and brother Tiffany and Andrew. But today we're going to get into something that is near and dear to the hearts of many. You know, right now we are facing trouble really on every side, and as we face that trouble, we have to hold on to hope.
We're trying to hold onto.
Hope in an era that has tried diligently and violently to erase us black culture, black books, black art, black people. And in the middle of that erasure, there is still a fight that continues.
Again.
You know that we've been on our State of the People Power tour, and on that tour, we've seen just how much it is important that black people have relief, that we work together to find those points of relief, and that we also work together to shape, to develop, and to strategize around policy. One thing that black folks have been arguing for for a really really long time,
really since before emancipation in this country is reparations. I often reference HR forty, which was first introduced in the House of Representatives by Congressman John Conyers, who was one of our former Congressional Black Caucus bosses. He began introducing reparations legislation in nineteen eighty six. I believe he introduced the first bill, and he would introduce that reparations bill that just called for this study of reparations every single Congress.
And then when Congressman Conyers passed away, Congressman Sheila Jackson Lee from Houston, Texas picked up that mantle. And when Congresswoman Jackson Lee passed away, Congresswoman Ayana Presley has now picked up that mantle.
But there's also some folks who are.
Doing this work every single day in the streets, in the halls of state legislatures at the city level, and that also includes faith leaders. So today I'm thrilled to present to you all pastor. His name is Reverend doctor Robert Richard Allen Turner. And for the ammes among us, y'all understand that Richard Allen in the middle means a lot and the Robert Turner at the ends, on the front end, the at the end is making history himself.
So let's bring Robert Richard Allen Turner to the stage, to the podcast stage.
How you doing, pastor Hey, hey, hey, I'm all right, just trying to recover.
Yes, so I'm high energy. He is not.
And let's tell the people why you're not. You have taken a long journey in the fight for reparations, engaging in a practice that many of us are familiar with but don't always implement ourselves. You have taken the time to walk for reparations thirty three times. You have walked over fourteen hundred miles for reparations, and I want to know why. What is the point of that protest and why do you see that as your most effective effort to get reparations across the finish line nationally.
First, thank you, dear Sister Angela for having me on your show. I've been a huge fan of your work for a long time. I am now the day after my walk, and I have done it, as you said, thirty three times, and the reason being, as a good clergy colleague friend of mine, William Lamar calls it the piteoprophetic ministry and witness that we see so pronounced in the Old Testament, when people of faith exercise their faith
and become a witness by walking by marching. We saw it first and foremost when the Israelites marched out of Egypt and they got reparations on that way out. We saw it also before the Battle of Jericho, when Joshua led the Israelites around the walls of Jericho. It's something said when you can participate in God's divine plan of liberation by showing your testament, it's almost like a military march,
but we're not doing the physical fighting. We're showing by our marching that we are believing that God is doing it. So they're also more or less like pilgrimage as well for me, because it's a time for spiritual and renewal and repair as I become a public witness to this nation on her need to repent and to repair from the worst forms of enslavement and the worst forms of Jim Crow and the worst forms of white supremacy.
That this word is scene.
So for the listener, you've walked our march thirty three times.
Where was the first march held.
It was the same spot I start every March from Carroll Park in Baltimore, Maryland on it's Route one, but it's also Washington Boulevard. And just ironically enough, John Carroll Park is named for John Carroll, who was and in Slaver And in fact, the park where I started was the site of his plantation.
You know who would have thought, which is.
Now a public park in Baltimore, Maryland. And I've done actually thirty two of these walks from Baltimore to the White House. One of my thirty three was from Selma to Montgomery, the same route that doctor King took. That's actually fifty four miles. Doctor King did it in five days. I didn't have enough good since I did it in twenty hours, and that almost killed me. The back rolls of Alabama, I mean pitched. I started at three am
in the morning. I took a four hour break to go speak out a rally in Montgomery, then had to drive back to where I stopped, and I didn't finish till like three the next day. So yeah, that was a lot. I started three twenty six am in the morning,
finished three am the next day. But the other walks, the other thirty two have been from Baltimore to the White House, and now the last two or three walks I've done, I've ended at the Smithsonian to highlight joining the call from dear brother Oldest Masster third and trying to encourage people to join the Smithsonian, the African American Smithsonian also aka Blacksnian, to increase their membership numbers of black folks to show the federal government, because I think
right now their budget is sixty two percent from the federal government. We're trying to make which we're trying to help alleviate their alliance upon the federal government to increase encourage folks to become individual members that range as low as twenty five dollars to one thousand dollars.
That's an easy call to action on this program. Make sure y'all join the Black Sonian so we can keep hope alive in the museum open without being under threat. I want to ask you, so the distance from Carroll Park, Maryland to the White House is how many.
Miles forty two nine?
Can you call this like?
Basically they're a forty for forty so it's forty miles for forty acres. Okay, that's right, Okay, And so when you consider now that you're marching essentially out of Baltimore, Maryland, which is a power of a power center for black folks, for black political power, for everything that you know the city has meant to us in our history, and you're
going into a bastion of white supremacist ideology and fascism. Now, of course you started these when Joe Biden was in office, but now this is meaning something very different.
So you're essentially.
Bringing the spirit of black political power into a place that is now compromised by fascism. How does it feel now to be walking under that type of oppressive energy.
Really, it's totally different. The energy is immensely different. My first walk on the Trump was literally the Death is inauguration, Doctor King's Holiday, he had his inauguration on the same day, and going into d C with all these magas, I mean maga folks there, it was just it was a lot to deal with.
It was a lot to.
See, and I was it was first I was freezing coal, freezing cold on Doctor King's holiday.
Uh.
And then all the maga folks were there, the Proud boys, and I'm the only black man, uh in the sea of all these folks. Then my phone battery dies and because of the barcase, my escort could not accompany me. So I heard some of the worst vitriolic language you could ever imagine. Well you probably could imagine because you've been doing this thing for a while that that I could have ever imagined hearing in my life from from from from white people.
And uh, just the whole setup now of DC.
Like last night, Uh my walk, I was at first unable to make it to the fence of the White House because the president since everything's been going on, I guess in California, Uh, his attack on on immigrants, it's all barricaded off like it's his his.
The White House is completely barricaded off.
It looks like, you know, we're preparing for a militia martial law, and just a vibe and the tone. Uh, it's just it's markedly different from when President Biden was in office.
It's just not a good look.
It looks very much so like a dictatorship or when I went when I go to foreign countries and and and go to authoritarian places to see how how barricaded things are. It's just not what you would expect from what's supposed to be the freest country.
In the world.
Yeah, exactly, and yet we hear we are living in this conundrum. I want to ask you to Pastor. I know there's got to be some folks who are listening for me growing up with my dad who is a marcher, especially around Doctor King's Day, which, of course you just referenced, five miles was a lot for a little kid. I would be like at the end, be like, y'all gonna have to put me in the back of this Seattle medium van and ride me the rest of the way or something got to pick me up.
My feet hurt.
So I want to know how you prepare for this and monthly at that. So how do you prepare for.
Doing these doing these marches?
It really depends on the time of the year. So my winter marches are a lot different. They are a lot My winter marches are a lot more dangerous because the weather here in Baltimore, such as Seattle.
Probably not as cold a Seattle, honestly, but it is.
It's cold in Baltimore, Maryland in the winter. Oh yes, I remember DC. There was a DC day I had and it was I got back in my car it said eighteen degrees and I said, the devil is a liar. It was so cold it was burning, you understand, Like, yeah, I don't understand that type of called.
I didn't come from that.
Yeah.
So when I'm preparing for a winter march which is freezing like and I'm from Alabama, if you can't tell with my accent, I'm from Tuskey, Alabama. My parents mart that of school, and it is really I'm not built for this type of coldther at all.
And so my my winter march is.
I have to make sure that I layer up a lot, and I have to make sure that I eat a lot of food before my walks, because you really need to pack on carbs the day before you walk, and of course try to rest my legs. But I'm just not I'm not built for this. I'm six foot six, two hundred pounds, and I'm just my body is not built for these walks.
It's just not. I just these are all labors of love.
The winter walks, I don't have to eat as much, but I have to drink a lot more fluid like.
I have to summer March.
Yeah something sorry, Yeah, my summer, my summer warm month, March is I have to make sure I stay hydrated because I've almost fallen out. But the problem is the more you drink, obviously it has to come out. So when you're drinking a lot of water, you're going to stop like every two or three minutes. So my summer walks, although the weather is better, I have to stop a lot more frequently. Otherwise I just don't drink and then
become have the risk of being dehydrated. But my winter walks, I tell folks, my summer walks are more painful because it's hot, you're dizzy, you sweating, and then when you sweat, the salt is salt in your sweat. When you wipe your sweat from your eyes, the salt literally because you do it so much, it cuts your skin. Like my skin now is very sensitive and it burns and so
but when you still sweating, it burns even more. My winter walks are dangerous because of ice, in black ice, and just all people who can't they barely can drive in normal conditions, they drive even worse in winter conditions, And so just preparing for is more of a mental preparation because either both both scenarios, I get exhausted. Both scenarios.
My body gets worn. The winter walks are worse because in some aspects, because my snow boots are not as comfortable as my warm weather shoes, like my own clouds, my hookas that I wear. I have to actually buy snow boots to walk in, which okay, the hiking style, but they're not as comfortable as my other.
You talked about it being dangerous. You got hit, like swiped by a car right in the winter runs.
What happened? How did that happen?
Actually happened in May my May walk. Yeah, and then one of them was my own escorts. That's a whole of the conversation.
He's no longer that does the service, just no texting and driving. How did that happen?
I know, I know, right, But the first one, I was hit by a passer buyer who he had to make an effort to veer off to hit me because I'm on the sidewalk and he was on the highway and he drove off across the white line and his passenger mirror hit me on the left side of my body in my shoulder. Thank god, I am a pretty nice sized man. I did not fall, and I mean I felt it, but it was more like to me, I felt like somebody just pushed me in my shoulder.
Then nobody's behind me, and it was this card. Thats just you know, pushed me pretty hard. But I thankful I didn't fall down. I had to my sign and the other in my right hand, and he hit me on my left shoulder. And I haven't gone to the hospital. I don't feel any pain from it, not the moment, but I kept walking. I kept walking, And in fact that walk was in the honor of John Conya's on his birthday May sixteenth. I did it in honor of him. And to walk yesterday was an honor of a Philip Randolph.
I love that.
So you have these your muses for your walks. You talked about your preparation. Now this is the day after your walk again, fourteen hundred plus miles so far.
What do you do to repair? We talked about prepare. What do you do to repair?
I don't do that well.
I was supposed to be resting today, but I'm in my office, as you can tell, I'm gonna tell myself I'm gonna do a heat of foot soak because you know, blisters and I have you know size fifteen feet and cous a lot of service area. None of the athletic socks did they sell Other cushion things are big enough really for my size feet. I would make a great spokesperson for some athletic attire because I've tried out of everything. But I yeah, really, I'm supposed to keep my legs elevated.
I have a huge appetite on today, whereas yesterday I was on adrenaline.
Today you feel how human you are.
Yesterday I'm more or less on a on a mountaintop experience because I'm I'm thinking about a Phila Randolph.
I'm thinking about our ancestors.
I'm thinking about you know, those who've gone on before us and done this work throughout their lives and sacrifice that some some sacrifice their lives. So I'm I'm all in meditation with them and the world and community with God. And today I'm back to being you know, human, fragile Robert, and I'm filling every inch of it. And so today I tried to take it easy.
But you know, Hences, indeed you talked about the ancestors. What is the like, the motivating message for you from them? When you think about the work they did to make life a little bit easier for us.
What is.
You know, kind of the your core, your core mission when you think about reflecting on the ancestors contributions to our the betterment of our individual lives.
For me, it contextualizes it a lot. It encourages me and also challenged me. It encourages me because it it shows that I'm a part. I'm one piece of a fabric and the continuation of deliberation of our people right and at this this fight did not start with me. It would be nice, but don't think it'll end with me either, But it kind of joins me into this, not for turning because it's males and females, but this to this fabric of leaders who have worked tirelessly for
the liberation of our people. So each month I find something someone that I look up to, be Afred Hampton, be Rosa pars b, Harry Tubman, but of course John Conyers and I a phil the Randolph that I can draw inspiration from and at the time in their life. I also try to find people who did things that folks thought were impossible, because right now, that's how folks
a broborations. They feel like it's impossible. So a Phil the Randolph, first president of Sleeping car Porters right, also push President Roosevelt to integrate and have and to stop discriminating against federal contracts and government jobs. So all these folks, especially in Maryland area, who have federal jobs, you owe a debt to pay to A Phil Randolph integration of the military through Herrod Truman.
He fought for that. The chair of.
The nineteen sixty three March on Washington, where we know doctor King, but we don't realize the organizers who put that together, who were responsible for the large crowds. Like
everything this man did, people thought it was impossible. And before the march on watch he organized forty thousand plus folks to be in the nation's capital arguing in protests in nineteen forty three or forty five, and so just drawing upon their strength, it also humbles me too, because these men are these men and women are very high renowned and great accomplishment, and it just shows you as much as you think you're doing with more information, more technology,
more access. I mean, they organized mars of hundreds of thousand people with no Internet, no social media, and folks showed up and so it challenged me to see how we can do more with more as they did more with less.
Yeah, that is so true.
And I think one of the things that we know about our ancestors and their contributions is their collective sacrifice. And just recently you committed to that same type of sacrifice with this march, this commitment you have to our folks to regularly engage. You were going to do this on Juneteenth, and you heard that we were doing not only the State of the People Power Tour, but that we were going to do a national assembly in Baltimore.
And I reached out to our brother Jamal Bryant and I was like, Hey, we're trying to figure out where we're going to do this event, and he was like, shut up, Robert Turner, just come talk to me and is asking where.
You guys were going to be.
And I called you and it wasn't thirty five seconds into the conversation before you said we absolutely could hold this really important and historic convening at Empowerment Temple AMI Church. So I want to know what made you say yes. Why is it important for us to all gather as a people right now? And what would you say to folks who are considering coming to Baltimore June nineteenth through the twenty First.
Why did I say yes? First and foremost, who was the person gave me the question? Angela RAI, I mean had to, and because I know you are someone who takes our community's issues seriously and really you have committed your life to the progress of our people. I don't just leand space willingly. I feel like it is in great hands. I feel like it is in great hands and a great bad you trustee of our leadership.
And the state the people. It has been very successful.
In fact, I would once I found out you all were coming to Baltimore, I was trying to find a way just to register, like, hey, I want to attend, but I couldn't. I didn't find out where it was, and that's when I asked Jamal about it, and of course you The rest is history.
But I think it is vitally.
Important today today, at this moment in time, that we as a people don't take any months, weeks, and definitely not years off. To my frustration, oftentimes we only speak political. I get involved during the election year, and that is at the request and to the benefit of elected candidates, people who seeking to be elected candidates, Great for them, but what happened. My biggest frustration has been what are
we doing in the end? Not mid term elections, not presidential elections, not even a goodlatorial or mayoral or city council election, anyminist elections. But what are we doing for us to help keep us organized outside of a person's campaign. And so when I found out about the State of the People convening that you were having throughout the state, throughout the country, in different states, I was about I was like, about time, you know, this is exactly what
we need, and it wasn't. It's not sponsored by any And I love our politicians. I love all of them, I think, well, not all of them. I love the ones who are doing work for our people. That's great when we have things with them. But I love the fact that this is autonomous from any political candidate. Now they may come or whatever, but it's autonomous from them. But it's really about the people, and especially our people.
And so I'm thrilled. I'm so thrilled. This is like the highlight of I know, we're just six most in to be hosting it at the impomented we.
Are so grateful, Pastor. For those of you who are at home watching and.
You have yet to register it, I would say shame on you, but I'm gonna spare my judgment and just give you the website. We're at STATEOFTHEPPL dot com. You can also find our Black Papers Policy Initiative up on those site with tons of great resources. We'll have over thirty black papers when all is said and done, it is going to be a really, really great experience in Baltimore. I encourage all his pre homework to watch Nation Time.
It's a great documentary about the nineteen seventy two National Black Political Convention.
It was created.
By Reverend Jackson and A Mary Baraka and Charles Diggs and many others. And speaking of A Merri Baraka, his son Rasbaraka is running in a primary today in New Jersey for governor. So in New Jersey, make sure you get out and vote. And I am still between the pastor and hit the rest for his blistered feet. So we are gonna let you go, Pastor, and I will see you.
I'll see you next week. I will see you next week. Looking forward to it. Thank you so much, y'all.
This has been a great edition of a podcast. Make sure you join Pastor Turner on one of these reparation walks at least for a mile or so so he's not walking alone, especially when he's doing something for our collective advancement.
Until next time, y'all, let's keep pushing.
Towards freedom, fighting for what we know we deserve, and as always, welcome home.
See Tobron.
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