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October 31, 2024 25 mins

Host Ramses J and cohost Q Ward continue their series profiling the distinguished ladies of the National Council of Negro Women. Today's guest is Ms. Johnetta Cole, anthropologist, Museum director, and former President of Spellman and Bennett College. 

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to our special series Distinguished Ladies of the NCNW
here on the Black Information Network. Recently, myself, Ramsay's Jah,
and q Ward made our way to Baltimore for the
sixty first Annual Convention of the National Council of Negro Women,
and we're able to have some meaningful conversations with some
of the most powerful and influential Black women in America.

(00:20):
We discuss politics, education, healthcare, economics, and everything in between.
So sit back and enjoy today's episode of the Distinguished
Ladies of the NCNW here on the Black Information Network.
So we've made a big to do about being on
the ground at the ncnw's National Convention twenty twenty four

(00:43):
in Baltimore, Maryland. An energizing event, to say the least.
And we've described this event in many ways, but one
of the ways that I think that we've yet to
describe it, and I think it deserved it initially, is regal.
It is indeed a regal event. And you are the

(01:04):
person that sparked that idea in my mind early on,
and now that we get a chance to talk to you,
I finally get to say that and lay that word
where I think it belongs.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
To the most right. We are truly in the presence
of royalty.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
Yes, exactly, exactly, So allow me to make the proper introduction.
Jeneta Cole who joins us now. She's an anthropologist, educator,
museum director, and college president. She was the first female
African American president of Spelman College. She was the president
of Bennett College, and she was the director of the
Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of African Art, as well as

(01:45):
serving as the national Chair and seventh President of the
National Council of Negro Women. So I don't know if impressive,
like the language falls short when we're able to hold
court with a person like you. So the most I
can say is welcome to the show. It's an honor

(02:07):
to have you here with us.

Speaker 3 (02:10):
And what I can say with full sincerity is that
among the things that I believe in incredibly deeply is
the importance of intergenerationality. Okay, I want to share with you,

(02:31):
two brothers. When I agreed to put myself forward for
the presidency and the chair of the board of the
National Council of Negro Women, I ran on two important

(02:52):
I'm gonna say powerful necessities. One that the National Council
of Negro Women had to become more intergeneration. It would
literally die out in my view if we didn't begin

(03:15):
to reach not down to but across to younger sisters
and others. And the second ask that I made a
vote if you believe as I do that we at
NCNW have to rediscover our seat at the social justice table.

(03:45):
If you believe as I do that we must do that,
then vote for me to be your president. So I
have to be fully transparent and say this is really
an honor for me. I know I'm much older than
the two. Probably if I put you two ages together,

(04:08):
you still wouldn't get to be what I will reach.
On the nineteenth day of this month, good Lord Willing
and the Greek don't write, which is eighty eight years old.
But if there's anything that I have learned, it is
that this work is neither about nor does it belong

(04:35):
to any single generation. It belongs to all of us.
And let me just sort of round that out with
with an African proverb. I collect them, and I'm very

(04:55):
very well instructed by African proverbs. It says, she who
teaches must learn, and she who learns must teach, and
so being with you, two young brothers, I am going

(05:20):
to learn and probably as much as I'm going to
be able to teach, So thank you both.

Speaker 4 (05:31):
If you're hearing my voice right now, and you've heard
it before, you've likely heard me say.

Speaker 2 (05:39):
That the closest to God.

Speaker 4 (05:42):
That we can be in this lifetime on this earth
is the black woman. And if you're listening to the
voice that you heard before mine, you probably understand why
we say that. To say it's an honor to be
in your presence is a bit in a bit of
an understatement. But now that I'm here and I get
to borrow from this wisdom, I will ask of you

(06:05):
some charges to myself, my brother Ramses, and our collective
generations so that your mission for a more intergenerational collective
can be realized. First of all, happy birthday, as I
know that's coming up. My birthday is today, so you

(06:26):
and I, you and I have that in common. In
your opinion, what is the best way for us to
realize that intergenerational coalition with our leaders who are in
power now, like you said, not reaching down but reaching across.

(06:47):
What are some action steps that we can take to
ensure that that is a realization because we have these
conversations about the leaders of our past, Doctor King, you know,
Reverend Jesse Jackson, and how how young they were when
they were the leaders in the faces of the civil
rights movement, those people in that age group, How do

(07:09):
we engage them now and start to shape them into
the leaders that we need, because, like you said, if
we hold onto this for too long, it will perish
with us.

Speaker 3 (07:21):
I'm just thinking of two responsibilities. For folk of my generation,
we need to remember that we were once young us
and for young uns, I'm asking that you not remember,

(07:47):
but that you imagine. Imagine the day when you don't
move so easily. Imagine the day when you're trying to
recall that that name and you just can't quite pull
it up. Imagine, if you can, what it is like

(08:14):
to know that you don't have many more days on earth.
I guess what I'm saying is that if we're gonna
have genuine intergenerationality, this is work. This is not just
you know, well, why don't we just sort of hug
each other and sing kumbayah. It's gonna take work. It

(08:40):
is so easy for my generation to turn to yours
and to start to preach. It is equally easy for
you to turn to my generation and say, you know,
get a life. I mean, you're really not with it anymore. Obviously,

(09:08):
we've got to respect each other before we can love
each other. But this notion that any one of us,
whether we're in my generation or yours, can make it
without the other, we can't. And I so love my

(09:31):
bro the way that you reminded us all that young
people have been central in every movement, yep, for social justice,
every movement. And we like to remember doctor King, but

(09:55):
we don't remember he was once young. We forget that
there was a Ruby Doris Smith Robinson, a Spellman college
student who went to glory much too early. She became

(10:18):
a righteous civil rights and women's rights warrior as a
young man, and held a position in snack. You know,
we remember our civil rights and women's rights and leaders

(10:40):
in various sectors of the struggle in their maturity. But
they were not only young, but the folk in those
struggles were young. And so somewhere along the way we've

(11:01):
lost we've lost a connection with each other, and we
gotta find it. Sure, we gotta find it.

Speaker 5 (11:12):
If my voice didn't matter, people wouldn't be trying so
hard to silence me, and if my vote didn't matter,
they wouldn't work so hard to take it away. So
you know why I'm voting this November because I know
they don't want me to.

Speaker 6 (11:24):
Your voice is powerful, your voice matters. Don't let your
voice be silenced. To register, confirm your voting status, or
get information about voting in your area, visit vote dot gov.
That's vote dot gov. A message from the Perception Institute
and the Black Information Network.

Speaker 1 (11:44):
One of the things that we talk about on the
show is, well, we talk about setbacks on this show,
and we have to do so responsibly because we are
not given to despair overall. But there are moments where

(12:07):
it's hard to really accept to take on the chin
a Supreme Court decision or another unjustifiable police murder, or
some revelation of some other form of systemic oppression that
we are enduring, or you know, a community is enduring

(12:29):
simply because they look like us. And one of the
things that I've said on the show recently is that
in the span of a lifetime, you can see setbacks,
you can become disheartened, But in the span of a
country's lifetime, we've seen a lot in the way of progress,

(12:50):
as illustrated by the fact that I was not born
a slave, right. I was born after the Civil rights movement,
and so I was born into a country that there
were more rights for me than there were folks born
into a Jim Crow America. Where I'm going with this
is that having lived as long as you have and

(13:12):
accomplished as much as you have to now being on
the verge of potentially seeing the first black woman make
it to the White House, all of the progress that
you've seen in your life, and I want to make
it about this event today. Talk to us about some

(13:34):
of the positives that you see in terms of the
ncnw's leadership, in terms of what you've seen on the
floor of this convention, and indeed your hope for our future.

Speaker 3 (13:46):
Oh, I love that question so much. And the reason
I love it so much is because each of us,
I really believe, has the responsibility to do what you
just said, asked to be, to not let the setbacks

(14:07):
triumph over the progress, because that's very easy. I am.
I am. I am deeply convinced that even today, in

(14:27):
a time that I think is more troubling, more divisive,
more filled with hate that I ever thought I would
experience again. There are extraordinary, almost for me, unbelievable triumphs

(14:59):
in my lifetime. If we get this work done, I
will not only have participated in the election of the
first black man as president of my nation, I will experience,

(15:25):
on the fifth day of November, ascending to the highest
office in this land a black woman. To me, now, now,
if this isn't about joy, that I give up. I

(15:46):
will never be able to tell you what joy is about.
And so the easy thing, the easy thing, is to
be discouraged. The necessary thing is to be constantly inspired

(16:09):
to press on because they're just are moments, actions that matter.
If we're gonna keep this tally about when we're gonna
get to freedom. You know, one of the one of

(16:30):
the songs that I just can't get out of my
head is Alabaca her words, and then of course Sweet
Honey in the Rock put.

Speaker 2 (16:43):
It to music.

Speaker 3 (16:45):
We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes.
And while that that is centered in some way in
all all that's wrong, I feel joy in that song.

(17:08):
You know, It's what reminds me that this really is
ultimately possible.

Speaker 1 (17:22):
You make me so happy Oh.

Speaker 4 (17:28):
We talk for a living, so I'm very rarely rendered speechless.
But I wish that I could sit and listen to
you more often. Your wisdom, your perspective, your perpetual cadence
for hope, your perpetual drive for the betterment of not

(17:50):
just your people, but all people. It's a very very
distinct difference in the tonality of the conversations that we've
had in the political space.

Speaker 2 (17:59):
To hear some one and a position.

Speaker 4 (18:02):
Of chosen joy and chosen inspiration and the face of
hardships and the face of setbacks, the choice to go
with inspiration and joy and hope instead of the possible
despair and letdowns. What you've just done for me right
now in this moment, Emotionally, I cannot pay you back for.

Speaker 2 (18:25):
I just I hope I get to have.

Speaker 4 (18:27):
This conversation and conversations like this one with you more
than just today, because this is truly inspirational for my
I'm speaking for myself and my brother.

Speaker 2 (18:39):
I could listen to you for the rest of this trip.

Speaker 4 (18:47):
I've done a conversation about calls to action with everyone
that we've had an opportunity to speak to, but it's
impossible to try to drive the conversation when you're the
sitting in the driver's seat.

Speaker 2 (19:01):
I don't even feel I don't feel like.

Speaker 4 (19:03):
I'm accomplished enough or qualified enough to tell you what
direction to take this conversation from here. I'm sorry, Ramses,
but sincerely rendered speechless. Just taking in what you're sharing
with us right now. I want to express unlimited gratitude.

(19:23):
I'm unlimited reverence. Let us know how we can show
up in this moment for you and for our sisters
here at NCNW and our listeners, as well as far
as things that we can do in a kinetic way
leaving this momentum from this conference and with these just
a few weeks leading up to this election, speaking to

(19:45):
us as your intergenerational collective, what are some action steps
that we can take from here moving forward.

Speaker 3 (19:54):
I think we all know we don't have a whole
lot of time. We're down now today, Yeah, and I
honestly believe that we are going to get what our people,

(20:15):
and by that I do mean black people and all people.
And if I had enough time, I would I would
name every possible marginalized group deserve. But I don't think

(20:39):
it's gonna happen without first of all, fate.

Speaker 2 (20:45):
Okay, it's just.

Speaker 3 (20:49):
You know doctor Mary McLeod mcthun, who I was privileged
to know as a youngster, She's said, without faith, nothing
is possible. With faith, everything is possible. And so I

(21:15):
don't think we get over that finish line on November
fit without faith. But I also know and doctor Bethune
and doctor Hight would say it, faith turned into the
Good Book with our work.

Speaker 2 (21:37):
Is dead.

Speaker 3 (21:40):
And so the work that we've got to do now
is substantial. But what I what I call on my sisters,
my brothers, my siblings all to do is to do
this work joy. I am going to And because I'm

(22:08):
not in the presidency and the chairship of Vincy and
w I can say this. Where I live in the
state of Florida, there is a huge billboard and I
make it my business to see that billboard as much
as I can. It shows common Harris and Donald Trump,

(22:41):
and the message kind of sums it up. It says
joy versus rage. Wow, that's really what we are working to.

Speaker 7 (22:56):
That's what we need to be voting for the joy
of our young people, not being denied.

Speaker 3 (23:09):
Learning about who they are and whose they are.

Speaker 1 (23:14):
Well listen, I mean, what do you say, there's there's
your orders, that we got our we got our marching orders.
That's what I'm trying to say. We know what to do,
we know what path is ahead of us. And if
for no other reason then to see the smile on

(23:35):
your face on November sixth, I say that our cause
is just and more just now. Our cause is noble,
our cause is true, and I'm going to redouble my
efforts just on the heels of this conversation alone. It's
it's been an absolute pleasure. You're an inspiration. I never

(23:56):
would have thought my life would have got me to
a point where I could even talk to a person you,
much less interview you and have it on record. So
thank you so much for taking the time to talk
to us. You appreciate you absolutely. Thank you so much.
Once again, today's guest Genetic Coal. I'm going to read
this again, make sure we got it all in there,

(24:16):
because people need to know, so, I said Regal Right. Anthropologist, educator,
museum director, college president. She was the first female African
American president of Spelman College. She was the president of
Bennett College. She was the director of the Smithsonian Institution's
National Museum of African Art, as well as serving as

(24:37):
the National chair and seventh President of the National Council
of Negro Women and my.

Speaker 8 (24:43):
Sister Amen, Sister Amen, thank you so much and a woman,
God bless you.

Speaker 1 (24:57):
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