October 27, 2020 • 29 mins
My next guest Rev. Dr. Al Sharpton is an Internationally Renowned Civil Rights Leader, Founder, and President of the National Action Network. National Action Network is one of the leading civil rights organizations in the Nation with 106 chapters nationwide. Rev. Al Sharpton hosts a daily radio show "Keepin' it Real w/ Rev. Al Sharpton," and a national cable news television show titled "Politics Nation." He does a combined 17 hours of television and radio media every week. In his new book RISE UP: Confronting a Country at the Crossroads, the Reverend Al Sharpton draws on his decades of a unique experience as a civil rights leader, a politician, and a television and radio host to encourage voters to stand up for what they believe and enact change in their country. Please welcome to Money Making Conversations, Reverend Al Sharpton.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Money Making Conversations. It's the show that she
has the secrets of success experience firsthand by marketing and
Brandon expert Rashan McDonald. I will know he's giving me
advice to many occasions. In incase you didn't notice, I'm
not broke, you know, he'll be interviewing celebrity CEOs, entrepreneurs
and industry decision makers. It's what he likes to do,
it's what he likes to share. Now it's time to
(00:25):
hear from my man, Rashan McDonald. Money Making Conversations. Here
we go. Welcome to money Making Conversation. I am your host,
Rashan McDonald. I recognized that we all have different definitions
of success. For some insercisable paycheck. Mine is helping people
wake up and inspiring them to accomplish their goals and
live their very best life. These are my passion and
(00:45):
that's what we're gonna do for you. That's why I
asked you to listen to Money Making Conversations. That's why
I invite the people on the show to drop negative
there to help you in your life. When you when
you're employed by someone on Entrepreneur or just looking to
find an outlet to be able to define what your
dream can be for you. I want you to stop
tripping over small challenges and prepare to rise above the
bigger obstacles that life will present to you. My next guest,
(01:07):
Reverndewe Shopton, there is an internationally renowned civil rights leader,
founder and president of the National Action National Action Network.
National Action Network is one of the leading civil rights
organizations in the nation, with one hundred and six chapters nationwide. Reverndewe.
Shopton hosts a daily radio show, Keeping It Real with
Reverndee Shopping, and the national cable television show titled Politics Nation.
(01:29):
He does it combined seventeen hours of television and radio
media every week, and this new book, Rise Up, which
we're talking about on the show. Confronting a Country at
the Crossroads, The Reverndewe Shopton draws on his decades of
unique experience as a civil rights leader, a politician, and
a radio and television the radio host to encourage voters
to stand up for what they believe and an act
(01:49):
change in their country. Please working the money making conversation,
Reverend Al Shopton, how you doing, my friend? Before we
before we got on the air. I was real. I
read the book the last couple I try to read
quote a book. It's close to my interview, so everything
stays fresh rep now shopping I started yesterday. I wrapped
it up. I got up at four o'clock this morning,
wrapped it up this morning. Uh. The book was so
(02:11):
compelling because it felt like because the things you were
talking about were just like in the news almost yesterday
and here am I reading the book today. So when
did you wrap? When did you stop writing the book
and turn it over to the publisher to make it
such a relevant and current event book. Well, what happened
(02:31):
is uh, in early spring I started writing, and I
said that I wanted to write a book because I
felt that the countries at the crossroads. Uh, in many
of the things that we have dealt with for the
last half a century as a country, fight around black
lives and and our civil rights, African Americans to fight
(02:56):
around gen D quality for women, to fight around l
g b t Q rights, to Friday around healthcare. And
it was a stark contrast between the way the past
administration of Barack Obama all the way back to the
days of Dr King when I was just a kid
was going one way and now the way this president
(03:18):
administration has gone in those areas. And then the pandemic hit.
So I staid in the purpose of wait a minute,
let me put the pandemic, and not knowing it would
last as long as it did, because as you know,
in early March when it started really hitting, we thought
it would be over by Eastern and Eastern turned into
the fourth of July. So I kept adding and keV
(03:41):
adding and updating until uh, George Floyd happened, and I
really had to delay it because I ended up in
the middle of all of that, And then I finally said,
right before we did the big march on Washington August
that that was it. I was gonna have to close
it because it looks like things we're not gonna called down.
So I wrote all the way to the late August.
(04:03):
You know when I look at things and you know
I've alone your long time. You know, my relationship with
Steve Harman. I still have a positive relationship with Steve
uh and trying to define who my what my voice is,
and listening to your voice and I see what it
really is. Because I want to call out some information
about the Black lives Matter movement, which is about police
accountability reform. But now I guess in eighty four, which
(04:25):
you marched on, shot four black men on the subway,
this is about you discussed this in your book. He
was ultimately cleared of attempted murder and served less than
a year in jail for illegal firearms. That's what they're
charging for today. But now I guess it's still living
in New York City. Okay. Then you had the Howard
Beach incident in the eighteen eighty six what you're discussing
your book, when Michael Griffin was struck and killed by
passion motor after being troy chased by white mall. Then
(04:49):
in eighteen eighty nine the Vincent Hurst incident, another white
mall and sixteen year old Yustep Hawkins was shot and
killed Sean Bell fifty bullocks. Now fast forward to in
his back, and now fast forward to Air Ghana and
George Floyd, and I say, I have to ask you
about the Black Lives mar The movement because you've been
(05:09):
doing this for a long time and people kind of
act like this movement just started because it's been publicized
so much in the media and seen, you know, the
Trump administration, led by Rudy Giuliani, tried to call it
a terrorist group, an organization. I made accusation. It was that.
Tell us, from your your standpoint, what is the Black
Lives Matter movement? I think it is a movement that
(05:34):
is really calling on accountability of police. I don't think
it's even an anti police movement. It's an anti bad
police movement. And I think it has been effective and
it has grown. UH. You know when tray Blon Martin
was killed UH in UH two thousand and twelves and
(05:56):
Lamford's flada UH and ironically President Trump is kicking off
his you know, coming out of COVID UH with his
first rally in Stanford, Florida, and UH in the same
exact location. UH when they happened, They wouldn't even arrest
George Zimmerman, who shot and killed Treyvon and his parents.
(06:19):
And attorney Ben Crump, who has worked with UH media
National Action Network for on the other cases, came to me.
I had not even heard of Treyvon, and Attorney Crupp said,
that's why we came to you. Trayvon had already been
funeralized and buried for about two weeks. They said we
want you to help make this a national issue. So
(06:41):
I got on it and I said, well, let's have
a rally right there in Sanford, and UH we called
some of our people chapters around Florida, but then we
also called out national radio people. One of the people
that UH called and people the listeners need to know,
was you got Steven. I mean, let's let's not act
(07:03):
like a lot of these cases. You didn't get the
first call, and you say, Steve, we better get on this.
And then you started with your own media platform. You
were my link because you know Steve is all over
the place as you were, but you would call me
right back. But he said wherever wouldn't call me if
it wasn't important, and h we beat the drums and
we put ten thousand people in in Sandford. And it
(07:27):
happened to be when I was getting ready to get
on the plane hit the Orlando that day because I
flew the Atlanta to drive to Sanford. I got to work,
my mother died, who had been to sick and I
went anyway because I felt my mother would have wanted
me to do that, and I did, and we got
enough people to where they felt the pressure. They arrested
(07:48):
Zimmerman as he went on a few months later went
on to trial. As you know, he was acquitted. That night,
three young ladies sat out and wrote the hashtag lives matter,
and uh it blew up and became a theme, and
it went through a lot of the protests around Trayvon
(08:09):
all the way in Eric Gardner and Michael Brown in
uh in Ferguson, Missouri, and then a kind of law
for a minute, and then it picked back up when
we started shooting a rash of other cases. So to
say that they are terrorists, you know, these were three
(08:29):
brilliant sisters that captured a phrase that captured exactly how
we all felt that we didn't matter. You can shoot
a kid with a make believe security guard, he wasn't
even that and quit him. We matter, And it wasn't
saying others didn't matter. It was saying that you act
(08:50):
like we don't matter, and we're affirming that we do.
You get in life which you affirm yourself to be.
And I think that that movement grew. They formed some
Black Lives Matter organizations. They worked along in many cases
with other groups. In some cases they didn't. The three
sisters worked very closely with us in national Actually they're
(09:12):
working other groups. And there's always been like that, as
you know, And back in the days when you and
our kids and they had then a CP you had
Dr King, you had uh Care, But then you also
had Malcolm X and you also had the students sitting
there that King in, sitting on a lunch cot or
ride a bus. So I think a lot of the
(09:34):
media are lazy and don't deal with the fact that
we're not looking at anything different. There are different ways
that people expressed their outrage, but all of us are
trying to fight for change. Black Lives Matter is not terrorists.
They're trying to stop the terrorism. When police can shoot
a man in his back running away from them, as
(09:56):
the case in Kenosha, uh and and when police can
shoot a man at Wendy's that is intoxicated, uh and
and and he's running away, that's terrorism. So how do
they call that terrorism? And and and not and call
those that are peacefully protested, many of them white Black
(10:18):
Lives Matter? How does that become terrorists? We know then
they don't speaking of that, because that's that's the part
that really changed for me, was the white participation in
the protests because of the fact that you know, we
all know there was a scheme out there to make
it a black violent crime situation. Don't trust black people.
We're gonna tear up your neighborhoods and create white fear.
(10:38):
But in this particular movement, after the George Floyd, white
people were watching and not just a few white people
were watching. I watched TV and I just see white
people just walked up my screen on television, then a
black person, then more white people deal a black person.
What do you why do you feel that has been
a tremendous up swell and white people being angry, being
(10:59):
an or being upset because we know it's white people important.
We know it's white people in Seattle. There's not black
people up there. That's right, that's right. Well, let me
say this. I think what happened was because the George
Floyd video came out during the pandemic. Everyone was shut
down and couldn't go out. There was no distractions. As
(11:23):
she turned on the TV, people were watching the news
trying to get the update on the pandemic. When will
this break? When can I go out? When can I
go to work? And then watching the news they had
no distractions because she couldn't watch the ball game because
there was no ball games. There's no baseball, no basketball,
nor anything. And I think this is the first time
(11:43):
that the whole country was locked into having to watch
this video over and over again on the news, and
a lot of whites just said this is outrageous and exploded.
So many of the whites that didn't see the video
tape on Ari Gando when he died from a trokell
from a New York City policeman, they saw what happened
to uh, George Floyd. And then when they when you
(12:07):
emphasize to them that this man, the policeman had his
knee on his neck eight minutes and forty one seconds,
they would say, wait a minute, that's just beyond the pale.
Which is why when I did the unergy in Minneapolis
or for George Floyd's family, I asked everybody to stand up,
and people all over that were watching, even all over
(12:29):
the country, people stood up. I got all kinds of
tweet says, I really didn't get it till you told
me to stand up, because after three minutes I was tired.
How do you have that kind of vigor and rage?
To hold your knee on somebody's neck that's pulsating and
begging for their life unless you have a whole lot
of venom in you. And I think it was the
(12:51):
graphic of eight minutes and forty one second and the
fact that everybody saw it that ignited a lot of whites.
I went to matches where there were more white stin
blacks right then, and I think that that's what happened.
And I think that's a good thing. So they can't
pigeonhold it. He's just angry blacks. It's angry Americans saying
that we have to do something about bad cops. And
(13:14):
good cops are to be wanting to see something bad
about bad cops because it makes them look bad. It
really does. I'm talking to Reverend Shopping his new book
Rise Up, Confronting the Country at the Crossroads Wherever. Now.
I'm just reggorr book and it's a great reader. I'm
gonna just call out some really great line liners and
moments in the book that that I want you to
(13:34):
respond to. One of my favorite lines in the book
is if if don kid was born white, he will
be Trump. Yeah, DoD Kids, who you and I know
is a great promoter. That's what he is. He doesn't
profess to me a political leader, consensus leader. He promotes,
he sells his promotion. That's who Don Ken don don
(13:57):
Donald Trump is the same. He's a promoter. The man
UH does not have a political ideology, does not have
a real philosophy. His thing is he promotes what works.
And racism worked for him. Birtherism is how he started
his political career, saying the president of the United States
(14:19):
was not really one of us. And when he saw
that work, he therefore leading and used that. And they's
been using racial language and and and racial leadings ever since.
And I told him in our last UH meeting that
because he's saying, why are you calling me a racist?
Because if you're comfortable with racism, you've got to have
(14:42):
racism in you, because there's things that you and I
would just not be comfortable if I don't care how
much he was working for us. And that's where I
made that assercition. He's a promoter. He's not a thinker,
he's not a doer. He's a promoter, and he uses
whatever works. You know, it's really absolutely the truth, all right,
(15:02):
I learned, you know, like I said, I was called
off first of all, called off guard when he one.
I voted against him, but I still was called off
guard when the one. And then when you look at
his game plan, he is a like you said in
your book, he's a he's a uh, he's a guy
theorist about comparracity, conspiracy theorists. You know, he sits around
when I when I read last week where he fought,
(15:23):
he he he tweeted forty times, forty times in a period.
Oh my god, who does that? You do social media?
Not do social media? Can we casual social media? It's tiring.
I'm just stilling about. It's tiring to post, it's tiring
to come up with ideas to say in social media.
To do it for forty times right now, that's really
(15:45):
really ridiculous, And it suggests you if he's supposed to
be the head of the free world, how do you
even have time to do that forty times? But that's
who he is, that's where his focus is. That's where
his priority is to promo old and he uses social
media to do it, and he uses television to do it.
And as he said, I was surprised when he won.
(16:07):
But the way he was able to manipulate the media.
He was rolling over in the bed calling TV shows
and they put them on the air, and he he
got tons of free media, like he's doing with Fox
News now right now. You don't even have to come
in the studio. They don't have to set up the zoom.
He just talks and they let him go. And that's
(16:28):
a promoter, but it's dangerous for the future of the country.
You have to ask yourself when I say he has
no philosophy, and and you reiterated that your shows about
how people can really be entrepreneurs or make their ends
meet whatever level they want in terms of money, what
is his economic policy. I do not know a black
(16:49):
businessman in New York that ever got a major contract
from the Trump organization. So when he says the blacks, uh,
he worked with me. The only record we have of
him as a businessman. I don't know a big black
firm or small one they could say I was able
to expand my business and get a major contract through
(17:09):
Donald Trump. It takes effort to get in New York,
as you know, and do business and never do business
with blacks or Latinos. It takes effort effort because we
wanted were there's too many of us. First of all,
especially when you go to the boroughs. It's if we
just populate. And I've always said that the five boroughs
and each one of the five boroughs have more Black
(17:30):
people than most major cities in the United States. So
trying avard the black person, and then when you include
the latinos, it's ridiculous when you say you can't do business.
It was just like, you know, the CEO of Wells Fargo,
so he can't five qualify black people to work for him.
When people can make these statements, they make these statements
because guess what, they don't want to associate themselves or
accept the fact that we compete. And when I look
(17:52):
at you and I've been blessed to you know no, no, uh,
Jesse Jackson, I know you for long time being associated
with we've sat down a very intimate situation and trying
to motivate black people with information. And that's what you've
all been about me with information. That's why I've always
returned your phone call so quickly because he called him
me he needs something and they need something. I gotta
(18:13):
be there to assist. Now I had the start of
the interview, I talked about the movements that you've been
involved with, most notably since in eighteen eighty four. The movements,
the marches, the marches, the marches, the marches are such
a dominant arch right now, and what we're doing and
going on right now, they just don't report them anymore.
People are still marching in this country. There's just marching.
This is not reporting it. But people are still marching
(18:34):
because of the fact that that Donald Trump was making
it a political issue. But now he realized it doesn't work.
Guess what, He's backed off, like they're not happening anymore,
you know, But not saying anything about those same guys
who went up to the in Michigan who tried to
kidnap and possibly kill the governor, or the same idiots
in march who he said, liberate Michigan, he could he helped,
(19:00):
who put some or some gangs on the fire. And
these guys, that's carrist Why he calling them terror? Why
isn't he calling them out and these guys. Can you
imagine if some black guys talked about kidnapping a governor
or any Latinos or the Mexicans or Muslims, he would
(19:22):
have been going bananas. He just spent out every National
Guard he could. But these are white. He has nothing
to say, hasn't announced it. And they literally were talking
about studying a civil war and it's absolutely And some
of them really didn't care about him, you know, they
were just anti governor, and that's why government. So that's
(19:43):
why it's really crazy when you realize that the people
you're trying to motivate are really anti you and anti
government and really are terrorists just like you said, they're
domestic terrorists. And he's not even acknowledging that, and nor
is Mike Pitts either. And that's the information I just
try to deliver on my show. It's an entrepreneurs show.
But guess what what they're doing in the White House
affects us. What they're doing in the right affect us
(20:04):
as black people with the COVID eighteen because we're overtly
affected by the the way we eat, through our lifestyles,
all that by our finances are being affected by COVID
eighteen and the financial packages that they failed to approve.
When you look at all this happened in and you've
not been around a long time for ever. Now, what
(20:24):
is your fear take on this? What is our future?
And how important is November thirty for everybody to get
out and vote. Our future is in our hands. We
have the numbers if we come out and vote in
these various states. UH to turn this around, and not
for Joe Biden, but for us. We can't afford to
lose the affordable care and we can't afford to lose
(20:47):
the voting rights which in many states they have changed
the voting laws and we need the Voting Rights Act
could be empowered more with the John Lewis Vote Rights
Bill that has passed the House of Representatives but has
not even been been put in front of the Senate
because McConnell will not put it up. But if the
(21:11):
majority of the Senate changes the Democrat, it won't be
up to McConnell, be up to the new majority leader
would probably be Chuck Schumer. We cannot afford for them
to turn back affirmative action that's going in front of
the Supreme Court. Uh. So, these all of these issues
say that we have got to stand up and take
(21:32):
our feature and magic is not gonna bring us a
reverse and liberation. We've got to do the work. God
is not gonna come and do it. God has given
us the strength to do it. And we've got to
vote that our forefathers, who had faith in God for
to get us. We need to use it in a
mass way. And as you said, it is related to
(21:55):
entrepreneurship and business. But God called me one day on
the show my radio or and said, well, Remnune, I
ain't in the politics. I want to go in business,
I said, But you can't go in business without dealing
with the political reality. Where you want to set up
your store is a zoning board decides whether it can
be a business, their commercial or whether it's residential. That's political.
(22:18):
Or the regulations you're gonna have to follow is decided
by regulators. That's political. Everything you do, how you bank,
what the interest rates, so all of that is political.
So you can't run from it in the name of
I'm in business, I'm not in politics. To be in
business is to have to engage in who makes the
political decisions. That's why you should at least vote to
(22:40):
make sure you have the people in there are sensitive
to your issues and your interests. It's that's what a
powerful statement, and that's what y'all tell. But people, you
can't have a closed minded approach to it doesn't bother me,
it's not affecting me. It's not in my neighborhood. That's
them and them look like you. You can't talk like
that because eventually I always tell people they pulled towards
flat out of them and say he's been okay. That's
(23:01):
what I tell people all the time. Remember the car
he got pulled out of. It wasn't a jelappe. He
wasn't on the side of the street looking homeless. They
pulled him out of Mercedes Ben and Stay. And so
that means that economic structure means nothing to people who
devalue you because of your color or you as a
human being. But when I was reading the book, or
you know, your book rides up, um, what compelled you
(23:22):
write the book, because there's so many layers that talks
about you know, four years old, when you started your
James Brown experience and what he taught you, and and
the and the one of my favorite lines in there
is like in my life, I run with dreamers and schemers.
Martin Luther King, Jr. Nelson, Mandela and John Lewis are
dreamers Roger Stone, Don King and Donald Trump or schemers.
And then I added this line, good out runs bad
(23:45):
only if you stay the course. That's your line. I
just put it together because that is absolutely the truth
what we're talking about right now with this election. Good
out runs bad if we stay the course and vote
because too many schemers win. We're letting two minutes schemers win.
That's that's right, and we let them win because we
(24:05):
don't do our best. We don't stay committed and dedicated
and discipline. But if you stay the cost, no matter what,
there is going to be a win. There is always
light at the end of the tunnel if you don't
give up little way to the tunnel. And you just
got to keep going. And one of the great things
I wanted to bring out in the book was that
(24:25):
you brought out the book because of the fact that, well,
did you write the book or you have a ghost writer?
How did you how I wrote fantastic, fantastic Mike Eric Dyson.
Now he puts some pay he putsn't working that uh
that forward, Now he puts the word forward. And because
of the fact that he told me some things, he
gott be excited about the book Michael Eric and I went, wow,
(24:46):
this is powerful stuff. When I went into the book,
I went, wow, this is really the things I didn't
know about you. And one of the things that was
compelling to me was the fact that the gold medal
you wear around your neck is not jewelry. Tell everybody
about it, you know, the Lord what. I were there
the march that you mentioned in Howard Beach in the
eight six where we were marching, about three black young
(25:09):
men were attacked for being in the Howard Beach section
of Queens, New York, which was mob dominated at that time. Uh,
And we kept watching. We ended up getting three of
those young men indicted for manslaughter. Jose Williams, who was
one of Dr King's chief lieutenants years before, came to
(25:30):
New York and he would give people the Martin Luther
King medallion he had made to try to unite them.
That you have worked in the spread of Dr King,
who he worked with for so long. And uh. He
came to the rally and hung out around my neck
and it made me feel like if I was in
the streets, it made you feel like a made man.
(25:51):
He was one of the main elders of the movement
that I had looked up to all my life, uniting
me with this motel king mcdaine. I think I slept
with him for three days, so I would wear it
all the time because I was so honored by and
the press with all him and in the day and
even some black word he went jury for. It wasn't jury.
It was an award from uh from Jove Williams. Now. Yeah,
(26:16):
I wore track suits, but I was a young guy.
That was what we wore in those days. DNC Curtis
blow all of them. With my contemporaries. I grew up
Spike Lee, Russell Smers, all of us was Brooklyn and Queen,
same age group. We grew up together, and I dressed
my age. I wasn't you know. Jesse was thirteen fourteen
(26:36):
years older than me, and and John Lewis and then
they were a generation ahead of me. I dressed like
my generation, and uh so people made caricatures out of it,
But I was just being me. And I talked about
that in the book Be Yourself, Be Offended. You don't
have to try and and and cramp your style or
readjust your style, be you, because if you understand yourself
(26:59):
value and have real self awareness. You can make it work,
and you are making it work. And in closing, uh Reverney,
how can one be an activist? You know, how can
one use the media? And because that's important right now,
because you've been doing it so long, you're you know,
you've written a book on motivation, seeing us, seeing it through,
you know, getting through the through, from the positive and
(27:22):
from the negative to the positive. Talk about how can
I be an activist? One can be an activist by
first determining what it is you want to get done.
It doesn't have to be a huge march. It doesn't
have to be uh, something everybody talks about. It could
be I want to do something in my neighborhood, I
want to do something in my church, something in my
business or some of my workplace. Set a goal and
(27:46):
then be determined to get that done and in your
local or even bigger than that. Use the media to
tell your story. Don't have the media be your goal,
Have the media be your means to a goal. Martching
doesn't solve a problem. Watching exposes a problem. But if
somebody doesn't know how to expose the problem, you'll never
(28:08):
force those in power to deal with it. As long
as they can operate in the dark, they will continue
to do whatever they want to do. But as soon
as you put the light on something, everyone has to
just because everyone's looking at what's being done. Wow, Rise Up.
Confronting the Country at the cars Row is a new
book out by Reverndew Shopping Reverndew. Thank you for coming
(28:28):
on the show. Tell them, tell them to come and
send me some flyers. I got over a million social
media followers, I got a fan club, over a thousand
fan club members. I want to send your flyers out
with the links with the sellers. Book is a great book,
as you know. I've read it. I'm enjoying and I'm
sharing with my friends and tell them when I say
share and share the link to buy. I don't just
share books, I said. We try to sell books here.
(28:51):
We try to get number one on the best sellers
and stuff like this if we try to, but just well,
I will offend it to you. And uh, let me
tell you something. It's only about twenty twenty five people
in the world whose opinion matters to me and rash
and you are definitely on that list. I appreciate it.
Much respect man, and you all respect. Thank you, my friend.
Bye bye, all right, take care. If you want to
(29:14):
hear more money making Conversations, please go to money Making
Conversation dot com. I'm Rashaan McDonald. I'm your host.
Welcome to Money Making Conversations. It's the show that she
has the secrets of success experience firsthand by marketing and
Brandon expert Rashan McDonald. I will know he's giving me
advice to many occasions. In incase you didn't notice, I'm
not broke, you know, he'll be interviewing celebrity CEOs, entrepreneurs
and industry decision makers. It's what he likes to do,
it's what he likes to share. Now it's time to
(00:25):
hear from my man, Rashan McDonald. Money Making Conversations. Here
we go. Welcome to money Making Conversation. I am your host,
Rashan McDonald. I recognized that we all have different definitions
of success. For some insercisable paycheck. Mine is helping people
wake up and inspiring them to accomplish their goals and
live their very best life. These are my passion and
(00:45):
that's what we're gonna do for you. That's why I
asked you to listen to Money Making Conversations. That's why
I invite the people on the show to drop negative
there to help you in your life. When you when
you're employed by someone on Entrepreneur or just looking to
find an outlet to be able to define what your
dream can be for you. I want you to stop
tripping over small challenges and prepare to rise above the
bigger obstacles that life will present to you. My next guest,
(01:07):
Reverndewe Shopton, there is an internationally renowned civil rights leader,
founder and president of the National Action National Action Network.
National Action Network is one of the leading civil rights
organizations in the nation, with one hundred and six chapters nationwide. Reverndewe.
Shopton hosts a daily radio show, Keeping It Real with
Reverndee Shopping, and the national cable television show titled Politics Nation.
(01:29):
He does it combined seventeen hours of television and radio
media every week, and this new book, Rise Up, which
we're talking about on the show. Confronting a Country at
the Crossroads, The Reverndewe Shopton draws on his decades of
unique experience as a civil rights leader, a politician, and
a radio and television the radio host to encourage voters
to stand up for what they believe and an act
(01:49):
change in their country. Please working the money making conversation,
Reverend Al Shopton, how you doing, my friend? Before we
before we got on the air. I was real. I
read the book the last couple I try to read
quote a book. It's close to my interview, so everything
stays fresh rep now shopping I started yesterday. I wrapped
it up. I got up at four o'clock this morning,
wrapped it up this morning. Uh. The book was so
(02:11):
compelling because it felt like because the things you were
talking about were just like in the news almost yesterday
and here am I reading the book today. So when
did you wrap? When did you stop writing the book
and turn it over to the publisher to make it
such a relevant and current event book. Well, what happened
(02:31):
is uh, in early spring I started writing, and I
said that I wanted to write a book because I
felt that the countries at the crossroads. Uh, in many
of the things that we have dealt with for the
last half a century as a country, fight around black
lives and and our civil rights, African Americans to fight
(02:56):
around gen D quality for women, to fight around l
g b t Q rights, to Friday around healthcare. And
it was a stark contrast between the way the past
administration of Barack Obama all the way back to the
days of Dr King when I was just a kid
was going one way and now the way this president
(03:18):
administration has gone in those areas. And then the pandemic hit.
So I staid in the purpose of wait a minute,
let me put the pandemic, and not knowing it would
last as long as it did, because as you know,
in early March when it started really hitting, we thought
it would be over by Eastern and Eastern turned into
the fourth of July. So I kept adding and keV
(03:41):
adding and updating until uh, George Floyd happened, and I
really had to delay it because I ended up in
the middle of all of that, And then I finally said,
right before we did the big march on Washington August
that that was it. I was gonna have to close
it because it looks like things we're not gonna called down.
So I wrote all the way to the late August.
(04:03):
You know when I look at things and you know
I've alone your long time. You know, my relationship with
Steve Harman. I still have a positive relationship with Steve
uh and trying to define who my what my voice is,
and listening to your voice and I see what it
really is. Because I want to call out some information
about the Black lives Matter movement, which is about police
accountability reform. But now I guess in eighty four, which
(04:25):
you marched on, shot four black men on the subway,
this is about you discussed this in your book. He
was ultimately cleared of attempted murder and served less than
a year in jail for illegal firearms. That's what they're
charging for today. But now I guess it's still living
in New York City. Okay. Then you had the Howard
Beach incident in the eighteen eighty six what you're discussing
your book, when Michael Griffin was struck and killed by
passion motor after being troy chased by white mall. Then
(04:49):
in eighteen eighty nine the Vincent Hurst incident, another white
mall and sixteen year old Yustep Hawkins was shot and
killed Sean Bell fifty bullocks. Now fast forward to in
his back, and now fast forward to Air Ghana and
George Floyd, and I say, I have to ask you
about the Black Lives mar The movement because you've been
(05:09):
doing this for a long time and people kind of
act like this movement just started because it's been publicized
so much in the media and seen, you know, the
Trump administration, led by Rudy Giuliani, tried to call it
a terrorist group, an organization. I made accusation. It was that.
Tell us, from your your standpoint, what is the Black
Lives Matter movement? I think it is a movement that
(05:34):
is really calling on accountability of police. I don't think
it's even an anti police movement. It's an anti bad
police movement. And I think it has been effective and
it has grown. UH. You know when tray Blon Martin
was killed UH in UH two thousand and twelves and
(05:56):
Lamford's flada UH and ironically President Trump is kicking off
his you know, coming out of COVID UH with his
first rally in Stanford, Florida, and UH in the same
exact location. UH when they happened, They wouldn't even arrest
George Zimmerman, who shot and killed Treyvon and his parents.
(06:19):
And attorney Ben Crump, who has worked with UH media
National Action Network for on the other cases, came to me.
I had not even heard of Treyvon, and Attorney Crupp said,
that's why we came to you. Trayvon had already been
funeralized and buried for about two weeks. They said we
want you to help make this a national issue. So
(06:41):
I got on it and I said, well, let's have
a rally right there in Sanford, and UH we called
some of our people chapters around Florida, but then we
also called out national radio people. One of the people
that UH called and people the listeners need to know,
was you got Steven. I mean, let's let's not act
(07:03):
like a lot of these cases. You didn't get the
first call, and you say, Steve, we better get on this.
And then you started with your own media platform. You
were my link because you know Steve is all over
the place as you were, but you would call me
right back. But he said wherever wouldn't call me if
it wasn't important, and h we beat the drums and
we put ten thousand people in in Sandford. And it
(07:27):
happened to be when I was getting ready to get
on the plane hit the Orlando that day because I
flew the Atlanta to drive to Sanford. I got to work,
my mother died, who had been to sick and I
went anyway because I felt my mother would have wanted
me to do that, and I did, and we got
enough people to where they felt the pressure. They arrested
(07:48):
Zimmerman as he went on a few months later went
on to trial. As you know, he was acquitted. That night,
three young ladies sat out and wrote the hashtag lives matter,
and uh it blew up and became a theme, and
it went through a lot of the protests around Trayvon
(08:09):
all the way in Eric Gardner and Michael Brown in
uh in Ferguson, Missouri, and then a kind of law
for a minute, and then it picked back up when
we started shooting a rash of other cases. So to
say that they are terrorists, you know, these were three
(08:29):
brilliant sisters that captured a phrase that captured exactly how
we all felt that we didn't matter. You can shoot
a kid with a make believe security guard, he wasn't
even that and quit him. We matter, And it wasn't
saying others didn't matter. It was saying that you act
(08:50):
like we don't matter, and we're affirming that we do.
You get in life which you affirm yourself to be.
And I think that that movement grew. They formed some
Black Lives Matter organizations. They worked along in many cases
with other groups. In some cases they didn't. The three
sisters worked very closely with us in national Actually they're
(09:12):
working other groups. And there's always been like that, as
you know, And back in the days when you and
our kids and they had then a CP you had
Dr King, you had uh Care, But then you also
had Malcolm X and you also had the students sitting
there that King in, sitting on a lunch cot or
ride a bus. So I think a lot of the
(09:34):
media are lazy and don't deal with the fact that
we're not looking at anything different. There are different ways
that people expressed their outrage, but all of us are
trying to fight for change. Black Lives Matter is not terrorists.
They're trying to stop the terrorism. When police can shoot
a man in his back running away from them, as
(09:56):
the case in Kenosha, uh and and when police can
shoot a man at Wendy's that is intoxicated, uh and
and and he's running away, that's terrorism. So how do
they call that terrorism? And and and not and call
those that are peacefully protested, many of them white Black
(10:18):
Lives Matter? How does that become terrorists? We know then
they don't speaking of that, because that's that's the part
that really changed for me, was the white participation in
the protests because of the fact that you know, we
all know there was a scheme out there to make
it a black violent crime situation. Don't trust black people.
We're gonna tear up your neighborhoods and create white fear.
(10:38):
But in this particular movement, after the George Floyd, white
people were watching and not just a few white people
were watching. I watched TV and I just see white
people just walked up my screen on television, then a
black person, then more white people deal a black person.
What do you why do you feel that has been
a tremendous up swell and white people being angry, being
(10:59):
an or being upset because we know it's white people important.
We know it's white people in Seattle. There's not black
people up there. That's right, that's right. Well, let me
say this. I think what happened was because the George
Floyd video came out during the pandemic. Everyone was shut
down and couldn't go out. There was no distractions. As
(11:23):
she turned on the TV, people were watching the news
trying to get the update on the pandemic. When will
this break? When can I go out? When can I
go to work? And then watching the news they had
no distractions because she couldn't watch the ball game because
there was no ball games. There's no baseball, no basketball,
nor anything. And I think this is the first time
(11:43):
that the whole country was locked into having to watch
this video over and over again on the news, and
a lot of whites just said this is outrageous and exploded.
So many of the whites that didn't see the video
tape on Ari Gando when he died from a trokell
from a New York City policeman, they saw what happened
to uh, George Floyd. And then when they when you
(12:07):
emphasize to them that this man, the policeman had his
knee on his neck eight minutes and forty one seconds,
they would say, wait a minute, that's just beyond the pale.
Which is why when I did the unergy in Minneapolis
or for George Floyd's family, I asked everybody to stand up,
and people all over that were watching, even all over
(12:29):
the country, people stood up. I got all kinds of
tweet says, I really didn't get it till you told
me to stand up, because after three minutes I was tired.
How do you have that kind of vigor and rage?
To hold your knee on somebody's neck that's pulsating and
begging for their life unless you have a whole lot
of venom in you. And I think it was the
(12:51):
graphic of eight minutes and forty one second and the
fact that everybody saw it that ignited a lot of whites.
I went to matches where there were more white stin
blacks right then, and I think that that's what happened.
And I think that's a good thing. So they can't
pigeonhold it. He's just angry blacks. It's angry Americans saying
that we have to do something about bad cops. And
(13:14):
good cops are to be wanting to see something bad
about bad cops because it makes them look bad. It
really does. I'm talking to Reverend Shopping his new book
Rise Up, Confronting the Country at the Crossroads Wherever. Now.
I'm just reggorr book and it's a great reader. I'm
gonna just call out some really great line liners and
moments in the book that that I want you to
(13:34):
respond to. One of my favorite lines in the book
is if if don kid was born white, he will
be Trump. Yeah, DoD Kids, who you and I know
is a great promoter. That's what he is. He doesn't
profess to me a political leader, consensus leader. He promotes,
he sells his promotion. That's who Don Ken don don
(13:57):
Donald Trump is the same. He's a promoter. The man
UH does not have a political ideology, does not have
a real philosophy. His thing is he promotes what works.
And racism worked for him. Birtherism is how he started
his political career, saying the president of the United States
(14:19):
was not really one of us. And when he saw
that work, he therefore leading and used that. And they's
been using racial language and and and racial leadings ever since.
And I told him in our last UH meeting that
because he's saying, why are you calling me a racist?
Because if you're comfortable with racism, you've got to have
(14:42):
racism in you, because there's things that you and I
would just not be comfortable if I don't care how
much he was working for us. And that's where I
made that assercition. He's a promoter. He's not a thinker,
he's not a doer. He's a promoter, and he uses
whatever works. You know, it's really absolutely the truth, all right,
(15:02):
I learned, you know, like I said, I was called
off first of all, called off guard when he one.
I voted against him, but I still was called off
guard when the one. And then when you look at
his game plan, he is a like you said in
your book, he's a he's a uh, he's a guy
theorist about comparracity, conspiracy theorists. You know, he sits around
when I when I read last week where he fought,
(15:23):
he he he tweeted forty times, forty times in a period.
Oh my god, who does that? You do social media?
Not do social media? Can we casual social media? It's tiring.
I'm just stilling about. It's tiring to post, it's tiring
to come up with ideas to say in social media.
To do it for forty times right now, that's really
(15:45):
really ridiculous, And it suggests you if he's supposed to
be the head of the free world, how do you
even have time to do that forty times? But that's
who he is, that's where his focus is. That's where
his priority is to promo old and he uses social
media to do it, and he uses television to do it.
And as he said, I was surprised when he won.
(16:07):
But the way he was able to manipulate the media.
He was rolling over in the bed calling TV shows
and they put them on the air, and he he
got tons of free media, like he's doing with Fox
News now right now. You don't even have to come
in the studio. They don't have to set up the zoom.
He just talks and they let him go. And that's
(16:28):
a promoter, but it's dangerous for the future of the country.
You have to ask yourself when I say he has
no philosophy, and and you reiterated that your shows about
how people can really be entrepreneurs or make their ends
meet whatever level they want in terms of money, what
is his economic policy. I do not know a black
(16:49):
businessman in New York that ever got a major contract
from the Trump organization. So when he says the blacks, uh,
he worked with me. The only record we have of
him as a businessman. I don't know a big black
firm or small one they could say I was able
to expand my business and get a major contract through
(17:09):
Donald Trump. It takes effort to get in New York,
as you know, and do business and never do business
with blacks or Latinos. It takes effort effort because we
wanted were there's too many of us. First of all,
especially when you go to the boroughs. It's if we
just populate. And I've always said that the five boroughs
and each one of the five boroughs have more Black
(17:30):
people than most major cities in the United States. So
trying avard the black person, and then when you include
the latinos, it's ridiculous when you say you can't do business.
It was just like, you know, the CEO of Wells Fargo,
so he can't five qualify black people to work for him.
When people can make these statements, they make these statements
because guess what, they don't want to associate themselves or
accept the fact that we compete. And when I look
(17:52):
at you and I've been blessed to you know no, no, uh,
Jesse Jackson, I know you for long time being associated
with we've sat down a very intimate situation and trying
to motivate black people with information. And that's what you've
all been about me with information. That's why I've always
returned your phone call so quickly because he called him
me he needs something and they need something. I gotta
(18:13):
be there to assist. Now I had the start of
the interview, I talked about the movements that you've been
involved with, most notably since in eighteen eighty four. The movements,
the marches, the marches, the marches, the marches are such
a dominant arch right now, and what we're doing and
going on right now, they just don't report them anymore.
People are still marching in this country. There's just marching.
This is not reporting it. But people are still marching
(18:34):
because of the fact that that Donald Trump was making
it a political issue. But now he realized it doesn't work.
Guess what, He's backed off, like they're not happening anymore,
you know, But not saying anything about those same guys
who went up to the in Michigan who tried to
kidnap and possibly kill the governor, or the same idiots
in march who he said, liberate Michigan, he could he helped,
(19:00):
who put some or some gangs on the fire. And
these guys, that's carrist Why he calling them terror? Why
isn't he calling them out and these guys. Can you
imagine if some black guys talked about kidnapping a governor
or any Latinos or the Mexicans or Muslims, he would
(19:22):
have been going bananas. He just spent out every National
Guard he could. But these are white. He has nothing
to say, hasn't announced it. And they literally were talking
about studying a civil war and it's absolutely And some
of them really didn't care about him, you know, they
were just anti governor, and that's why government. So that's
(19:43):
why it's really crazy when you realize that the people
you're trying to motivate are really anti you and anti
government and really are terrorists just like you said, they're
domestic terrorists. And he's not even acknowledging that, and nor
is Mike Pitts either. And that's the information I just
try to deliver on my show. It's an entrepreneurs show.
But guess what what they're doing in the White House
affects us. What they're doing in the right affect us
(20:04):
as black people with the COVID eighteen because we're overtly
affected by the the way we eat, through our lifestyles,
all that by our finances are being affected by COVID
eighteen and the financial packages that they failed to approve.
When you look at all this happened in and you've
not been around a long time for ever. Now, what
(20:24):
is your fear take on this? What is our future?
And how important is November thirty for everybody to get
out and vote. Our future is in our hands. We
have the numbers if we come out and vote in
these various states. UH to turn this around, and not
for Joe Biden, but for us. We can't afford to
lose the affordable care and we can't afford to lose
(20:47):
the voting rights which in many states they have changed
the voting laws and we need the Voting Rights Act
could be empowered more with the John Lewis Vote Rights
Bill that has passed the House of Representatives but has
not even been been put in front of the Senate
because McConnell will not put it up. But if the
(21:11):
majority of the Senate changes the Democrat, it won't be
up to McConnell, be up to the new majority leader
would probably be Chuck Schumer. We cannot afford for them
to turn back affirmative action that's going in front of
the Supreme Court. Uh. So, these all of these issues
say that we have got to stand up and take
(21:32):
our feature and magic is not gonna bring us a
reverse and liberation. We've got to do the work. God
is not gonna come and do it. God has given
us the strength to do it. And we've got to
vote that our forefathers, who had faith in God for
to get us. We need to use it in a
mass way. And as you said, it is related to
(21:55):
entrepreneurship and business. But God called me one day on
the show my radio or and said, well, Remnune, I
ain't in the politics. I want to go in business,
I said, But you can't go in business without dealing
with the political reality. Where you want to set up
your store is a zoning board decides whether it can
be a business, their commercial or whether it's residential. That's political.
(22:18):
Or the regulations you're gonna have to follow is decided
by regulators. That's political. Everything you do, how you bank,
what the interest rates, so all of that is political.
So you can't run from it in the name of
I'm in business, I'm not in politics. To be in
business is to have to engage in who makes the
political decisions. That's why you should at least vote to
(22:40):
make sure you have the people in there are sensitive
to your issues and your interests. It's that's what a
powerful statement, and that's what y'all tell. But people, you
can't have a closed minded approach to it doesn't bother me,
it's not affecting me. It's not in my neighborhood. That's
them and them look like you. You can't talk like
that because eventually I always tell people they pulled towards
flat out of them and say he's been okay. That's
(23:01):
what I tell people all the time. Remember the car
he got pulled out of. It wasn't a jelappe. He
wasn't on the side of the street looking homeless. They
pulled him out of Mercedes Ben and Stay. And so
that means that economic structure means nothing to people who
devalue you because of your color or you as a
human being. But when I was reading the book, or
you know, your book rides up, um, what compelled you
(23:22):
write the book, because there's so many layers that talks
about you know, four years old, when you started your
James Brown experience and what he taught you, and and
the and the one of my favorite lines in there
is like in my life, I run with dreamers and schemers.
Martin Luther King, Jr. Nelson, Mandela and John Lewis are
dreamers Roger Stone, Don King and Donald Trump or schemers.
And then I added this line, good out runs bad
(23:45):
only if you stay the course. That's your line. I
just put it together because that is absolutely the truth
what we're talking about right now with this election. Good
out runs bad if we stay the course and vote
because too many schemers win. We're letting two minutes schemers win.
That's that's right, and we let them win because we
(24:05):
don't do our best. We don't stay committed and dedicated
and discipline. But if you stay the cost, no matter what,
there is going to be a win. There is always
light at the end of the tunnel if you don't
give up little way to the tunnel. And you just
got to keep going. And one of the great things
I wanted to bring out in the book was that
(24:25):
you brought out the book because of the fact that, well,
did you write the book or you have a ghost writer?
How did you how I wrote fantastic, fantastic Mike Eric Dyson.
Now he puts some pay he putsn't working that uh
that forward, Now he puts the word forward. And because
of the fact that he told me some things, he
gott be excited about the book Michael Eric and I went, wow,
(24:46):
this is powerful stuff. When I went into the book,
I went, wow, this is really the things I didn't
know about you. And one of the things that was
compelling to me was the fact that the gold medal
you wear around your neck is not jewelry. Tell everybody
about it, you know, the Lord what. I were there
the march that you mentioned in Howard Beach in the
eight six where we were marching, about three black young
(25:09):
men were attacked for being in the Howard Beach section
of Queens, New York, which was mob dominated at that time. Uh,
And we kept watching. We ended up getting three of
those young men indicted for manslaughter. Jose Williams, who was
one of Dr King's chief lieutenants years before, came to
(25:30):
New York and he would give people the Martin Luther
King medallion he had made to try to unite them.
That you have worked in the spread of Dr King,
who he worked with for so long. And uh. He
came to the rally and hung out around my neck
and it made me feel like if I was in
the streets, it made you feel like a made man.
(25:51):
He was one of the main elders of the movement
that I had looked up to all my life, uniting
me with this motel king mcdaine. I think I slept
with him for three days, so I would wear it
all the time because I was so honored by and
the press with all him and in the day and
even some black word he went jury for. It wasn't jury.
It was an award from uh from Jove Williams. Now. Yeah,
(26:16):
I wore track suits, but I was a young guy.
That was what we wore in those days. DNC Curtis
blow all of them. With my contemporaries. I grew up
Spike Lee, Russell Smers, all of us was Brooklyn and Queen,
same age group. We grew up together, and I dressed
my age. I wasn't you know. Jesse was thirteen fourteen
(26:36):
years older than me, and and John Lewis and then
they were a generation ahead of me. I dressed like
my generation, and uh so people made caricatures out of it,
But I was just being me. And I talked about
that in the book Be Yourself, Be Offended. You don't
have to try and and and cramp your style or
readjust your style, be you, because if you understand yourself
(26:59):
value and have real self awareness. You can make it work,
and you are making it work. And in closing, uh Reverney,
how can one be an activist? You know, how can
one use the media? And because that's important right now,
because you've been doing it so long, you're you know,
you've written a book on motivation, seeing us, seeing it through,
you know, getting through the through, from the positive and
(27:22):
from the negative to the positive. Talk about how can
I be an activist? One can be an activist by
first determining what it is you want to get done.
It doesn't have to be a huge march. It doesn't
have to be uh, something everybody talks about. It could
be I want to do something in my neighborhood, I
want to do something in my church, something in my
business or some of my workplace. Set a goal and
(27:46):
then be determined to get that done and in your
local or even bigger than that. Use the media to
tell your story. Don't have the media be your goal,
Have the media be your means to a goal. Martching
doesn't solve a problem. Watching exposes a problem. But if
somebody doesn't know how to expose the problem, you'll never
(28:08):
force those in power to deal with it. As long
as they can operate in the dark, they will continue
to do whatever they want to do. But as soon
as you put the light on something, everyone has to
just because everyone's looking at what's being done. Wow, Rise Up.
Confronting the Country at the cars Row is a new
book out by Reverndew Shopping Reverndew. Thank you for coming
(28:28):
on the show. Tell them, tell them to come and
send me some flyers. I got over a million social
media followers, I got a fan club, over a thousand
fan club members. I want to send your flyers out
with the links with the sellers. Book is a great book,
as you know. I've read it. I'm enjoying and I'm
sharing with my friends and tell them when I say
share and share the link to buy. I don't just
share books, I said. We try to sell books here.
(28:51):
We try to get number one on the best sellers
and stuff like this if we try to, but just well,
I will offend it to you. And uh, let me
tell you something. It's only about twenty twenty five people
in the world whose opinion matters to me and rash
and you are definitely on that list. I appreciate it.
Much respect man, and you all respect. Thank you, my friend.
Bye bye, all right, take care. If you want to
(29:14):
hear more money making Conversations, please go to money Making
Conversation dot com. I'm Rashaan McDonald. I'm your host.
Host
Rushion McDonald
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