November 20, 2025 • 46 mins
James E. Clyburn Breaks Down Threats, Affordable Housing, Lessons from The First Eight + More
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
What's up his way up with Angela yea, And we
have Congressman James E. Cliburn with us today, a really
important time for you to be here. And you also
have this book, The First eight a personal history of
the pioneering Black congressman who shaped a nation.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
Thank you very much for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
And this is a.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Great history lesson for me, you know, not being from
South Carolina and understanding the relevance and the huge role
that South Carolina has played when it comes to civil rights.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
This was important as a read for me.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Well, I'm glad to hear that because I think that
people tend to believe that because of the way things
were reported along the way, South Carolina took on sort
of a waywardness. For instance, you know South Carolina mostly
(00:57):
because of the Civil War. Yeah, people will say, and
that's where the Civil War began. Well, if you look
at the history of the country, South Carolina is where
the real consequential battles of the Civil War, I mean
of the revolution near War took place. And you go
back and you look at where these real critical battles
(01:20):
were that really changed the fortunes of the revolution Near
War they were basically in South Carolina. Now, South Carolina
has never been a part of the whole media network.
You go to the Civil Rights era, what I call
(01:40):
the student movement, part of the civil Rights era because
there's been a civil rights fight ever since black people
came to this country in sixteen nineteen. But if you
go through that student era, when media began to dictate everything,
they focused on Mississippi, Alabama, and even Georgia. It was
(02:06):
never South Carolina. Though Brown v. Board of Education started
in South Carolina, and Brown the name came from Kansas,
and so people associated with Kansas. But the original case
Briggs v. Elliott, the people who found who signed the
original suit, they were from Cloudon County, South Carolina. I
(02:31):
grew up with those people and I knew them, and
I just look through history. And one of the reasons
I wanted to write this book is because just after
I finished my memoir that I call Blessed Experiences. And
the reason I called that book Blessed Experiences, there were
(02:53):
two reasons. One Blessed Assurance was my dad favorite him
and it seemed to really sent him to really dig
deep in himself. Easter spend all day Saturday, writing his sermons,
and he would be reading and writing and would always
(03:14):
be humming at him. And so it was sort of
and ode to my dad. But the second reason is
because I learned early that we can be no more,
no less than what our experiences allow us to be.
And I said in the introduction to the book, all
of my experiences have not been pleasant. Yeah, but I've
(03:38):
considered all of them to be blessings. I learned from those.
It wasn't pleasant to me.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Listen, you talk about that in the book as well.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Even look, I think sometimes we also think about how
I'm from New York, right, and so even like that
Confederate flag still being placed amongst the flags, and that
was something that you wanted to fight against. But you
even would get some time threatening letters about things like that,
and you talk about that in the book as well.
When you think about, you know, people sending threats to
(04:09):
your during your public service career, you said when you
were state Human Affairs commissioner, you got a letter in
nineteen eighty seven by signed by a larger than you
think group and it told you they've heard you run
your mouth about our flag on the state House long enough.
Best to shut your mouth before somebody pops a bullet
(04:30):
between your eyes. I couldn't even imagine getting a letter
or letters, because I'm sure you've had cheval instances.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
But you frame that.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
Yeah, if you go to my office in Columbia right now,
you see that. And there were three other letters I
got in a big frame, and I call it all
in a day's work, yeah, because these threatening letters are there.
And then in the bottom right corner it's a letter
(05:00):
from a young lady who was in college and was
not going to be able to finish college. She had
one semester Togo and she was six hundred dollars short
of paying the tuition and they would not let her enroll. Well,
(05:21):
I gathered the resources to get her back in college,
and she wrote me this great letter about what that meant.
If that leader was the work walking here and there,
I would not know her. I don't remember her name, you, Yeah,
But that's the way I did things in South Carolina.
(05:43):
And so this book was all about that people should
know these.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
People, right.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Yes, the first eight you made sure that you also
hung up their portraits.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
All eight of them, all of my office. And what
incented me to do the book was visitors to my office.
One group came one day and they saw these pictures
and asked me who are these people? And when I
told them, one of them said, I thought you were
the first black person the serving Congress from South Carolina.
(06:16):
And I kind of playfully said, oh, no, before I
was first. There were eight. And I told my staff
that day my next book is going to be about
these eight people. And so I started writing the book,
just keeping a little that one really sick.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
How long ago was this?
Speaker 1 (06:35):
I'm just hearing about because I'm thinking about the times
that we're in right now and the parallels that you
draw from twenty twenty five, you know, to back in
the eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
Well, this incident took place about eight or nine years ago.
My memoir was published ten years ago, twenty fifteen, and
this conversation took place a year so later, right after
I became whip the first time. That's when I first
(07:06):
put all the pictures up. Well, in the middle of
writing this book, twenty twenty elections game and the reaction
to you to the twenty twenty elections so familiar to me,
I said, no, people, you know, people were asking me
all the time, have you ever seen anything like this before.
(07:28):
I says, no, that's only because I wasn't living in
eighteen seventy six when it was just like this. I
recognized it. I used to teach the stuff, and I said,
wait a minute. They're trying to overturn this election and
doing it by using a playbook from eighteen seventy six
(07:51):
president's election. And New York played a role in that
because the two candidates for president at that time were
from New York and Ohio, and the New York guy
came up one vote shop Samuel Tilden in the Electoral
(08:13):
College at that time, you needed one eighty five, he
had one eighty four. Rather be Hays from Ohio. The
Republican had won sixty five, so he was twenty vote.
Shaw Well, the deal was cut, not to give up
too much, that's in the book, but the deal was
(08:33):
cut for Hayes to get those votes, which meant those
twenty votes allowed him to go from one sixty five
to won eighty five. He became president by one vote.
So anybody that tells you one vote does not matter,
(08:54):
tell him about this story, right, because what happened when
he became president by one eighty five the one ate
it for he brought an into reconstruction. That's the promise
he made. Y'all give me these twenty.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Votes and I'm gonna do what you need me to do.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
I'm gonna do what you need to do.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
How hard is it in politics to not do what
people need you to do? That are the ones that
are funding campaigns, because I've always felt like politicians can
have the best intentions, but then there's some type of
accountability when somebody elects you and there's people that are
funding you, and there's certain things that they have expectations of,
(09:31):
like what is the balance with that?
Speaker 3 (09:33):
Well, that's the way that society is set up, and
that's what we are where you and I come in
and we have to fight off that. Because I used
to be in this business. My daughter was my partner
who's here with me today, Mignon and I. That's not
the daughter in the corner there, but we were in
(09:54):
this business. And I can tell to you, I know
what it is when you are the pun advertising this
grocery store. You want them to get a full page
adding your newspaper, and all of a sudden, the owner
of the grocery store wants you to say something or
write something favorable. So I know what that pressure is.
(10:17):
Those pressures are in the media, and they're in politics,
and they're in the church. We'll help you with your fundraiser,
your building fund, but we need favorable sermons coming from you.
My father was a minister. I grew up in apostles,
(10:40):
so I know about all these pressures, and so I
step back when people tell me, oh, we don't have
that kind of pressure. Come on, what just happened with
to the Washington Post, the owner of the Washington Post.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Even these TV networks right now, absolutely that's been yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
You know, Kamala Harris was being endorsed by the Washington
Post until the owner of the Post said, oh, no,
went doing that. He knicks the endorsement. And now we
know who won. And now all of a sudden, the
Washington Post, we are fact tricking them all. And I
was on the train coming up here with Eugene Robinson,
(11:23):
who is from South Carolina. But Eugene says, no, no,
I'm not taking this. I'm resigning. And he is an
opinion writer for the Washington Post. So these things are
in the system, and that's what happened to these guys. Yeah, yeah,
I wish you could see the headlines when you read
this book. You're gonna see the headlines about them, what
(11:45):
they're are saying about these guys, and some people believe it.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Yeah. I mean, the media plays such an important role.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
I feel like there's more misinformation than ever, just because
there's so much access for anybody to write anything, and
it's so hard to understand as an average person what's
real and what's not. Like we hear we're upset that
there's Democrats who have sided with the Republicans without coming
to an official resolution on what's happening with the Affordable
Care Act of what type of health plan is in
(12:13):
place for people, so their insurance isn't going to triple
in January, and we're hearing, well, some people are like, well,
they should have done that because Trump is not going
to budge and they'll fight this out in December. But
I want to hear from you, because, like I said,
we hear all these different things depending on what network
you're watching or who you're listening to, but you're in it.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
I'm in the middle of it, and I don't fear
it at all. I think I realished the battle But
the fact is, this is never it's not People don't
realize this because most people don't think about these things.
But we just heard a proposal coming from this president
(12:56):
saying that what he would like to see to address
affordable housing is.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
It fifty year mortgage, fifty year market, which is insane.
We'll never have equity, you'll never own your home. The
banks will get rich.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
Absolutely. Now you watch and see how many people go
out there and start talking about the fifty year mortgage.
It means you buy a four hundred thousand dollars house
and over that fifty year period of the margage is
about one point two million that you pay for the house.
Now subtract four hundred thousand from one point two million,
(13:29):
you got eight hundred thousand dollars. That's going to somebody.
Who is that somebody or who are those somebodies that
will make all the money off the eight of one
thousand dollars house. And you will never have equity in
the house. You would never be able to pass equity.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Rates will be crazy on that.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
It a loan is that's exactly right now, that's not new.
When Social Security first came online in the nineteen thirties,
it was regarded as the greatest poverty program ever. But
when Social Security went online, people who were in domestic
employment or people who were in agriculture employment were not
(14:10):
allowed into Social Security. Sixty five percent of the black
folks in this country were in those two fields, which
meant on the thirty five percent of the black people
in this country were ELSI belefore social Security. But that's
not the worst because at the time that they put
Social Security in place, which is why they have never
(14:33):
been a fan of Franklin Roosevelt, they would set the
retirement age at sixty five. What was life expectancy of
black people in nineteen thirties, fifty eight, which meant that nobody,
no black person was ever going to get the benefit.
(14:54):
Theoretically not some people live beyond fifty five, but theoretically
you were not supposed to get the benefit. So what
it means you gonna pay all your life in the
Social Security but pime you get to the year you're
gonna be dead.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
You know, it's so interesting to me that we think
about like getting people out to vote and reading this book,
and I know we always say that like we really
fought and people died for our right to vote. But
when you see how people were intimidated by the ku
Klux Klan, I mean and still manage though to get
out and vote and do with it. But no matter what,
(15:30):
like moving where the ballot box was, all of the
different tactics that were used, it's interesting to me to
see how people are not going out just seeing how
people fought for that. And I know it's cliche because
everyone says that, but when you really see these stories
about the ku Klux Klan, how they came up into existence,
and the tactics that they were using to make sure
(15:51):
that voices weren't heard, I feel like sometimes we don't
fight hard enough today.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
Oh you're right about that, and what we have to do.
And what this book is all about is showing you
that this is not new. Back then, when they form
all of these they call them the rifle clubs, the
kooklus Clang in some places, basically in Tennessee, though they
(16:19):
came to South Carolina. They were throughout the South, these
rifle clubs. They are no longer in existence for that purpose,
but we now got the Proud Boys. They're thereby other names.
When they did this back in the eighteen seventies at
the time that this book covers, they told everybody wear
(16:43):
red shirts.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
They were called the red shirts.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
Today wear red caps or red ties. The most things changed,
The mothers stayed the same. And I'll tell you something else.
You might be wondering, why is it this president is
calling on the National Guard.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Read this book and you will see how the national
the National.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
Guard was used the so called Hamlin massacre. It was
all about the national gods. And these confrontations that you
see being formed by ice, these are the same kinds
of confrontations that were used back in these eighteen seventies. So,
(17:32):
as I said, I'm in the middle of writing this book,
and all of a sudden, this stuff starts happening.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
The Amnesty Act.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
You talk about that, and the comparison to the Amnesty
Act and the January sixth insurrection at the US Capitol.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
And all those people who led the insurrections against the
government were pardoned by President Andrew Johnson. As soon as
Abraham Lincoln was murdered. He is should pardon to all
those people. Does that sound for me?
Speaker 1 (18:03):
Yeah, sure does. And you were there at the Capitol.
You had to evacuate at that time. How is it
sitting in the same spaces with people that you know,
we're calling I just don't know how. I mean, I
know it's part of what comes with the job, but mentally,
how is.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
That for you?
Speaker 3 (18:23):
Tough? There are some people that don't sit with and
you know, I know it's not a blanket against Republicans.
My mother and father were Republicans, but this is not
the Republican party they were in. People don't look at
this history and therefore they don't understand that all eight
(18:48):
of these people in.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
This book were Republicans.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
There were Republicans, which is so weird to get used
to reading these black people were Republicans. And how things switched,
you know, the way that they have to day with
Democrats being the party that cares more about people.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
Well, let me tell you in simple terms what happened.
In nineteen forty eight. The Democratic Party decided that it
was going to chart a new direction. And when they did,
strom Thurmann was the leader from South Carolina. He bolted
(19:24):
the Democratic Party. He formed the States Rights Party. He
ran for president against Harrod Truman. Harrod Truman was a
Democrat who went He was the first president to address
the NAACP, he integrated armed services, he did everything that
black folks were trying to get Roosevelt to do it,
(19:48):
and Roosevelt wouldn't do it. And so when this happened,
and then followed by a speech by Hubert Humphrey, they
decided they were gonna leave the Democratic Party. So all
of these people who were white supremacists that I call
(20:09):
in the book redeemers trying to redeem the South through
his pre Civil War days, all of these people left
the Democratic Party and they went over and took the
Republican Party from black folks because black folks were basically Republicans,
and drove them out. They took over the party. So
(20:31):
the Democrats that were left where they pro civil rights democrats.
So then they had to build up a party and
it lasted right up to Kennedy and Johnson, and then
Johnson culminated it. I'm talking about Lyndon Johnson, not Andrew Johnson.
(20:56):
Lyndon Johnson then got the Civil Rights Act passed in
sixty four, the Voting Rights Act in sixty five, the
fay House Law in sixty eight, and every time he
passed the law, another Republican got mad, and they all left,
and so they're now camped out in the Republican Party.
So it's very easy to see what happened. And so
(21:17):
when people tell you, oh, you know, I'm a good Republican,
Martin Luther King Junior was a Republican. I don't know
if Martin Luther King Jr. Was a Republican, but I
know his daddy was.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
Right.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Yeah, it's the history of it that people have to
understand because people put these statements out there with no
type of context, no.
Speaker 3 (21:35):
Type of context at all, and people run with it
and they get it looped out here in the media
and people intelligent people should know better, and they seem
not to pay attention to it, but I do.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
So, what do you think needs to happen now, just
because we're in the midst of all of this, and
I know that there is this people are going through
it right now, out with benefits cut, with people not
getting paid to work, with a lot of things being
more difficult. We also have tariffs on top of everything else,
a lot of things that we're battling right now. And
then of course healthcare, which is a huge, huge issue,
(22:13):
which in January, people will really see what type of
issue that is, if things don't happen, what should we
be looking for to happen?
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Now? Would you say, can that be basically just for
a moment? Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
I stayed married to the same woman for fifty eight years.
We had a lot of disagreements. We were not always
on the same page. You do not have to have
unanimous thought to have unity. My late wife and I
(22:46):
were always unified. I have now three daughters grown, I
have four grandchildren. We have discussions, we have disagreements, and
we talk through those disagreements. What we do know is
that it's us against the world. And that's the basic
(23:10):
stuff you have to apply to politics. Which party does
the most for your basic needs? It may not do everything.
You know, it's this whole thing. We get angry about
one issue, and I says, okay, I did show the
(23:34):
last night that someone was telling me about the price
of age going down and the price of bread or something.
I forgot that. I said, okay, what about the price
of milk? So you have to balance everything. And so
I think that what we have to do in politics
(23:55):
is learn you are not going together one hundred percent
of what you want out of this process us, So
you balance the interest. He says, Okay, I'm getting ten
percent of what this part over here has offered me
ten percent. This part of it is offered me seventy percent.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Which would you take right?
Speaker 3 (24:13):
So why do you make your decisions about the seven
percent part are based upon the ten percent that you
get from the other side.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
I think it's also interesting that when we vote, we
also that's just part of the job. There's other things
that we're also responsible for doing, which is holding people
accountable for what it is that we need and want.
You can't just sit back and be like this didn't happen.
Like there's certain actions that people can take and be
vocal about it to make things happen. And I think
(24:43):
it's important to show up, like I posted town halls
and I'm like, it's pretty empty here. But people have
things that they need and that they want, but they
just expect things to just happen and it doesn't really
work like that.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Even encouraging people to run for.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
Office that you would like to see in office, and
you actually ran for office several times before you actually landed.
Speaker 3 (25:04):
I lost three times, and the friend of mine came
to me and says, what you gonna do now? You know,
they say three strikes and you're out. I said, nobody
should live their lives by baseball rules. That's a baseball rule.
And I don't care how many days your mother and father,
I know how many times you heard to say it.
If at first you don't succeed, you try and try again.
(25:26):
They didn't say try one more time or two more times,
no numerical limit. If I had quit after losing three times,
I never become the number three guy in the United
State's House, a representative, which is what I became. Wollman
number four technically, but on the Democratic side, number three. Now,
(25:46):
when you look at this and I try to say
to young people all the time, I just got out
the form of my grandson earlier today. He's thirty two
years old, and he called me because he wants to know,
how are you going to vote on this bill that
the sinder just passed last night and then you're gonna
vote on tomorrow? And I walked them through why I'm
(26:09):
gonna vote no. And I might tell your listeners I'm
voting know simply because this guy says we're gonna put
this bill on the floor, and I'm not gonna guarantee anything. Well,
you can guarantee the votes that I need to break
the filibuster, even if you aren't for the bill. So
don't tell me you're gonna put something on the floor
(26:30):
and then you allow the filibuster to keep it from
coming to a vote. You just got eight votes from
the Democratic side to cut off the filibuster so that
you can get your fifty one votes. Well give us
thirteen votes on the other side to cut off the
filibuster and let us take our chances on whether or not
(26:52):
we get fifty one votes. No promises been made to that.
So my whole thing is be clear, yeah, with what
you're going to do, and be subjective with all of this,
and so that's why I'm going to vote no.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
You know, it's interesting too, because I've seen a lot
of conversations about how people expect that Democrats are always
going to be the ones that have to be responsible
and get blamed for a lot of different things that
are going on for what they haven't done, but Republicans
aren't held to the same standard. It's because your expectations
are low for what people expect, and I feel like
(27:29):
also going on the record for what it is that
you stand for for your constituents who are also suffering
because more Republicans, you know, their base is also having
issues too. It's not like everybody's doing well there. They're
not all the one percent, most of them are not.
And so to see that their whole base is suffering.
And we've seen, I think with these last elections too,
(27:50):
what the results of that can be. You know, there
are some things that actually can end up being something
that's a bonus in the midst of all of this.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
If that makes it well, it makes a whole lot
of sense.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
You know. Look, you talked about health care, the Affordable
Care Act. No matter what they missage to the contrary,
it was to make health care affordable. Well, the make
it cheaper, as people says, No, it was a maket affordable.
So why do we say, because there's this cost, we
(28:27):
are going to get rid of the Affordable Care Act?
What will you put in this place?
Speaker 1 (28:32):
There's no plan, There is no plancy. Marjorie Till, the
Green who never would think would be talking about that,
discussing how upset she is that there's no plan.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
There's no plan. Why because they don't plan to make
a plan. My late wife suffered the diabetes for thirty years.
I saw her insulent deal anyway from six to eight
hundred dollars every month. She was a full shot a
day diabetic. So for thirty about fifty eight years she
(29:05):
battled diabetes. Now she died from diabetes only after a
heart attack that required five vessel bypass surgery, back surgery,
total kidney failure, and a stroke. Now without insurance, wherever
(29:25):
she be, without medicare, whoever she be, without security, all
of these things are under attack by the Republican Party.
And so why do you tell me you see some
value in supporting the Republican Party when the party that
(29:47):
is advocating all of this is a Democratic party. So
this whole thing is so crazy to me, and I
don't understand. It's so simple. You may not need it.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
Right now. You never know when you'll need it, never know.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
And so one of the reasons that people end up,
you know, going broke, is because of health care.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
That's one of the main reasons.
Speaker 3 (30:11):
Is the main reason that people end up in And.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
You don't anticipate it. It's not anything you could predict.
Nobody thinks one day I'll be sick. One day I
have to go to the hospital. One day, I'll have
an emergency, one day I'll need surgery. You don't really
think that ever.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
No, you never, You never plan to be sick, but
you should ensure against what the consequences are of that.
And that's why we have these kinds of efforts, lack
the Affordable Care of Act. Nobody plans to be denied housing,
(30:45):
and that's why you have fair housing laws, not because
you planned it, because there's somebody who may be planning
against your heaven these things. Oh Luther, can't you just
say it all the time. The law can make you
love me, but the loss sure can keep you from
harming me. And that's what we're trying to do here.
(31:08):
So when people come up with all this crazy stuff
about the law won't do this, and law won't do that,
The law will not do a whole lot of things.
But if I have healthcare and healthy enough to work,
then I can.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
Yeah, I feel I fundamental things like it's not even
nobody's asking for nothing crazy, it's fundamental rights that we
should have. You know, when you talk about this first
eight in this book that you have right now, I
want to know who you relate to the most. You know,
you characterize one is a persuader, one is the appeaser,
(31:48):
one is the orator. And the different degrees of success
that they have. Dealing with the quote redeemer Democrats, which
is like Mega, right, which we would compared to Mega,
how would you characterize your style?
Speaker 3 (32:01):
I am basically a combination of several of them. Thomas Miller,
who was number seven among the eight. Thomas Miller was
the first president of South Carolina State. When he got
kicked out of Congress, he became the first president of
what is now South Carolina State. The school that I
(32:23):
graduated from, Robert Small's. In so many instances, he had
the guts, he rad.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
His life, Yeah, absolutely life.
Speaker 3 (32:36):
Oh he was arrested, put in jail. All of these
guys were subjected to the stuffs. So throughout the years
I have associated with many of the guys here. In fact,
Richard Kane, who used to preach right here Bridge bridget Church,
he left New York and went to Chompston. He's the
(33:00):
one that re established emanually Amy Church. He's the founder. Absolutely.
So I look at a combination of all of them,
and I can see a lot and I've picked up
a lot from them. I've also looked at them and
decided which one of them I did not want to be.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
Let me guess.
Speaker 3 (33:25):
Well, the Large my least favorite person.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
I could tell.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
Yeah, And so one of the reason I wanted this book, yeah,
because I want uh people like yourself to look at
these guys, see what they went through. And this is
not to say that they were perfect. They were not.
They did not all get along with each other. They
had their individual differences. But I'll tell you this, even
the Lodge, Robert Brown Elliott literally hited the Lodge, and
(33:54):
he really says some horrible things about them, and you
find it in this book. But the Large got in
trouble and they were trying to kick him out of office.
Who represented him, Robert Brown Eliot, and to keep them
from kicking him out of office. And they didn't kick
him out of office, but because he had become so
(34:16):
obnoxious to so many people, he got voted out of office.
And he too had real serious health problems. He died
at thirty nine years old.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
I want to, you know, before we wrap this, I
want to talk about something else, he said in the book. Today,
some sixty years after the Advanceags of the nineteen sixties.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
We are again witnessing.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
Parallels to the backlash of the first reconstruction, and for
similar reasons, census officials project that white Americans will become
a minority of the US population by twenty forty five.
Some feel uneasy about these changing demographics and are directing
their insecurities at governmental efforts such as affirmative action and
other diversity, equity and inclusion programs, which are rapidly being dismantled.
(34:58):
Much of the potential rhetoric on the far right teams
designed to divide, exclude, and insult rather than honor America's
motto e plaribus unum out of many one. The political
pendulum is again moving to the right. The question is
how far will it go and for how long? If
you had to predict the answer to that question, what
would you say, Well, because I'm wondering how long is
(35:18):
this going on?
Speaker 2 (35:19):
And when is this coming to like? What are we
doing about it?
Speaker 3 (35:23):
Well, I would say this. One of the reasons for
the book is to ask have we learned the lessons
of history or or we gonna allow ourselves to repeat them.
These people at one point, South Carolina at five Congress
(35:44):
people representing the state in Washington. Of that five four
we're black. Four of these people served along with one
white guy that was in the eighteen seven And what
happened in eighteen nineties because of rogue Supreme Court it
(36:06):
went to zero. So it meant that when the pendulum
went right that time, it was ninety five years before
I came along. Now the question is are we going
to do what is necessary to interrupt that right would
(36:27):
shift that pendulum going to the right. Are we going
to turn up at the polls when it's time to vote,
or were going to sit down with candidates and make
sure that we get people in office who are dedicated
(36:47):
to the dreams and aspirations that you want for your
children and your grandchildren. Or are you going to sit
back and say this too shall pass. My daddy was
a minister and he used to sit to me all
the time. Son, you pray every day, but you pray
for good health and strength, and if the good law
(37:09):
gives you some modicum of that, get up off your
knees and work like hell. That was his motto. And
I believe that today this whole thing about just leave
it up to the Lord. This too shall pass. No.
When Barack Obama was elected president, he was elected president
(37:32):
with a record turnout at the post.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
Yeah, mom, Donnie, right now in New York, more people
have voted than we've seen vote, especially in early voting.
Speaker 3 (37:40):
Absolutely, but let me tell you what we have to
be careful of. You turn out in record numbers to
elect somebody, and then when it comes down for re election,
we decide that we've done our job. When we won
with Bill Clinton, it was a record turnout at that time.
(38:05):
Two years later we lost fifty six Democrats, and the
Republics got the same for it in nineteen ninety four.
They got in nineteen ninety two, but the black turnout
in nineteen ninety four was weighed down from nineteen ninety two.
Same thing happened with Obama. Obama got elected in two
(38:26):
thousand and eight, a record turnout. In two thousand and ten,
we lost fifty some of our seats. Why because it
turnout in ninety ten was weighed down from eight. So
the attitude was, well, we've elected Obama, he's gonna do
it for us. No, he's got to have a supporting cast.
(38:48):
During the four years that Obama was president, we lost
one thousand and fifty legislative seats across the country. Now,
what does that mean. We know what happened redistricted, because
redistricting takes place at the legislative level back in the states.
And so I'm now the last Democrat left when I
(39:10):
went to when I came to Congress, I was one Democrat.
John Spratt was there. We had a Democrat in the
third Congression on district Butler Derreck was there. We had more.
Frich Hollins was in the Senate.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
And we see this in Texas.
Speaker 3 (39:34):
Now Texas is going the same way. So the point
I'm making is you cannot sit back after the election
that says I don't need the voting anymore, because when
you don't show up at the polls, you may not
have the president of the ballot. And that's why I
love so much about what happened with Mandomic, what happened
(39:59):
over in New Jersey.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (40:01):
Uh, In fact, she called me yesterday and yeah, I
was driving along he is. She said, you know, when
I started feeling good about this election, just someone told
me when you left New Jersey, you told them because
you were not worried about this election, that you analyzed
it was that I was going to win this race,
(40:21):
and I started feeling better about it.
Speaker 2 (40:22):
That's what she told me.
Speaker 3 (40:24):
Well, Mom, now now what she was going to win
because I feel it, see it.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
You're like the whisperer when it comes to you.
Speaker 3 (40:33):
There's some things I don't know that I don't know
some things, but I well, I think that I didn't know.
Speaker 2 (40:39):
You know it?
Speaker 1 (40:40):
Yes, And seeing Mary Sheffield in Detroit that was really exciting.
Speaker 3 (40:43):
Absolutely, her dad is a preature too.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
Yes, I know her.
Speaker 3 (40:49):
You learned a lot of things growing up in Apostas.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
Yeah, man, I love it, and well, I appreciate you.
I really am such a fan, so it was exciting
for me. I could talk to you all day. I
know you have a lot going on. I know, sure
we're back at it, but I appreciate this book. I'm
such a fan of reading like true stories history, understanding history,
potentially repeating itself as it has been, but also knowing
(41:15):
like what we're standing on. You're standing on the first
eight right in South Carolina, and we need to know
that history of South Carolina. You've been in office for
over thirty years and just making some great, amazing positive
changes but we all got to make sure that we
support that too. I saw you talking about Hakeem Jeffries
also on MSNBC earlier and just discussing because I feel
(41:39):
like he gets a lot of criticism for not being
more vocal, stronger, and they say, you know, Democrats need
to fight harder and stop trying to do things by
the book all the time.
Speaker 3 (41:51):
Well, Hakim is a great leader. He has a tremendous
ability to keep our callers together a big tent. You've
got to be able to allow a diversity of thought
to exist under that tent. And I'll close to this.
I mentioned earlier that I have three daughters. Those three
(42:14):
girls are as different as night and day. Mignoni is
with me on this trip. Mignon is a very independent thinker.
I don't think she's ever said she's over sixty years old.
She'd never said the contrary word to me in her life.
(42:40):
But she keeps counsel to herself. When we're in business together.
I used to tell her what we want to do
and she would agree. But when that newspaper came out,
he was exactly the way she wanted to do it.
But that's the way she is Jennifer married you children,
(43:00):
and she's a grandmother. But Jennifer is always calling me,
as she did yesterday with a suggestion and sent me
a textives morning, always wanting advice for me. I said
to her one time, Jennifer, go ask your husband and
(43:22):
I give you away. That's it. My youngest daughter, Angela
is so contrary. I don't care what you said answer.
She's gonna have the last words. You just have to
just accept the fact that it may not be you
may not be able to understand it, but she's gonna
mumble the last word. I don't treat them the same way.
(43:44):
They're different. I treat them according to their needs. Angela
needs things that Mignon does not need, So why would
I waste on Mignon that which Angela needs. So your
love is based upon the need. And that's the way
(44:06):
Hakeen is. He recognizes that he's got a big tent party,
and there are people in the South who cannot say
things that you might be able to get away with
saying in the now, and the same thing for the
East and the West. So keep the tent big enough,
(44:26):
keep the atmosphere that exists in the tent of such
that everybody under it can feel comfortable working with each
other to find common ground. That's just the way the
guy is. I appreciate the other about him. I spend
a lot of time with him, and I do believe
that is where success is. If you think that all
(44:49):
you need is somebody cursing somebody, eut. You will never
hear me publicly using profanity. I don't do.
Speaker 4 (45:00):
It privately, I know, yeah, because you got to keep
the atmosphere right.
Speaker 3 (45:16):
Because you know, I can say something you're in private,
and it's one thing. I said the same thing that
you in public, it's a whole different thing. And that's
the way how I came miss And so I would
say to people, Look, give the guy benefit for trying
to take We got about fifteen Caucasus within the Democratic Caucus,
(45:40):
the Black Caucus, Hispanic Caucus, Asian Pacific Islanders, Progressive Caucus,
the Blue Dogs. We just got a bunch of them.
He's got to keep all of them together. On the
other side, the all CORTI to the Americas.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
Yeah, they all fell in line. Oh yeah, it don't matter.
Speaker 1 (46:04):
They could know what's wrong, but they're going to be
right there, right in line, all right, well, thank you
so much. I appreciate you for coming through. This was
such an honor to have you. The first eight a
personal history of the pioneering black congressman who shaped a nation.
I learned so much from reading this. I thank you
for that, and I thank you for coming here today.
Speaker 3 (46:22):
I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (46:22):
All right, it's way up
What's up his way up with Angela yea, And we
have Congressman James E. Cliburn with us today, a really
important time for you to be here. And you also
have this book, The First eight a personal history of
the pioneering Black congressman who shaped a nation.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
Thank you very much for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
And this is a.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Great history lesson for me, you know, not being from
South Carolina and understanding the relevance and the huge role
that South Carolina has played when it comes to civil rights.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
This was important as a read for me.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Well, I'm glad to hear that because I think that
people tend to believe that because of the way things
were reported along the way, South Carolina took on sort
of a waywardness. For instance, you know South Carolina mostly
(00:57):
because of the Civil War. Yeah, people will say, and
that's where the Civil War began. Well, if you look
at the history of the country, South Carolina is where
the real consequential battles of the Civil War, I mean
of the revolution near War took place. And you go
back and you look at where these real critical battles
(01:20):
were that really changed the fortunes of the revolution Near
War they were basically in South Carolina. Now, South Carolina
has never been a part of the whole media network.
You go to the Civil Rights era, what I call
(01:40):
the student movement, part of the civil Rights era because
there's been a civil rights fight ever since black people
came to this country in sixteen nineteen. But if you
go through that student era, when media began to dictate everything,
they focused on Mississippi, Alabama, and even Georgia. It was
(02:06):
never South Carolina. Though Brown v. Board of Education started
in South Carolina, and Brown the name came from Kansas,
and so people associated with Kansas. But the original case
Briggs v. Elliott, the people who found who signed the
original suit, they were from Cloudon County, South Carolina. I
(02:31):
grew up with those people and I knew them, and
I just look through history. And one of the reasons
I wanted to write this book is because just after
I finished my memoir that I call Blessed Experiences. And
the reason I called that book Blessed Experiences, there were
(02:53):
two reasons. One Blessed Assurance was my dad favorite him
and it seemed to really sent him to really dig
deep in himself. Easter spend all day Saturday, writing his sermons,
and he would be reading and writing and would always
(03:14):
be humming at him. And so it was sort of
and ode to my dad. But the second reason is
because I learned early that we can be no more,
no less than what our experiences allow us to be.
And I said in the introduction to the book, all
of my experiences have not been pleasant. Yeah, but I've
(03:38):
considered all of them to be blessings. I learned from those.
It wasn't pleasant to me.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Listen, you talk about that in the book as well.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Even look, I think sometimes we also think about how
I'm from New York, right, and so even like that
Confederate flag still being placed amongst the flags, and that
was something that you wanted to fight against. But you
even would get some time threatening letters about things like that,
and you talk about that in the book as well.
When you think about, you know, people sending threats to
(04:09):
your during your public service career, you said when you
were state Human Affairs commissioner, you got a letter in
nineteen eighty seven by signed by a larger than you
think group and it told you they've heard you run
your mouth about our flag on the state House long enough.
Best to shut your mouth before somebody pops a bullet
(04:30):
between your eyes. I couldn't even imagine getting a letter
or letters, because I'm sure you've had cheval instances.
Speaker 2 (04:37):
But you frame that.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
Yeah, if you go to my office in Columbia right now,
you see that. And there were three other letters I
got in a big frame, and I call it all
in a day's work, yeah, because these threatening letters are there.
And then in the bottom right corner it's a letter
(05:00):
from a young lady who was in college and was
not going to be able to finish college. She had
one semester Togo and she was six hundred dollars short
of paying the tuition and they would not let her enroll. Well,
(05:21):
I gathered the resources to get her back in college,
and she wrote me this great letter about what that meant.
If that leader was the work walking here and there,
I would not know her. I don't remember her name, you, Yeah,
But that's the way I did things in South Carolina.
(05:43):
And so this book was all about that people should
know these.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
People, right.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Yes, the first eight you made sure that you also
hung up their portraits.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
All eight of them, all of my office. And what
incented me to do the book was visitors to my office.
One group came one day and they saw these pictures
and asked me who are these people? And when I
told them, one of them said, I thought you were
the first black person the serving Congress from South Carolina.
(06:16):
And I kind of playfully said, oh, no, before I
was first. There were eight. And I told my staff
that day my next book is going to be about
these eight people. And so I started writing the book,
just keeping a little that one really sick.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
How long ago was this?
Speaker 1 (06:35):
I'm just hearing about because I'm thinking about the times
that we're in right now and the parallels that you
draw from twenty twenty five, you know, to back in
the eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
Well, this incident took place about eight or nine years ago.
My memoir was published ten years ago, twenty fifteen, and
this conversation took place a year so later, right after
I became whip the first time. That's when I first
(07:06):
put all the pictures up. Well, in the middle of
writing this book, twenty twenty elections game and the reaction
to you to the twenty twenty elections so familiar to me,
I said, no, people, you know, people were asking me
all the time, have you ever seen anything like this before.
(07:28):
I says, no, that's only because I wasn't living in
eighteen seventy six when it was just like this. I
recognized it. I used to teach the stuff, and I said,
wait a minute. They're trying to overturn this election and
doing it by using a playbook from eighteen seventy six
(07:51):
president's election. And New York played a role in that
because the two candidates for president at that time were
from New York and Ohio, and the New York guy
came up one vote shop Samuel Tilden in the Electoral
(08:13):
College at that time, you needed one eighty five, he
had one eighty four. Rather be Hays from Ohio. The
Republican had won sixty five, so he was twenty vote.
Shaw Well, the deal was cut, not to give up
too much, that's in the book, but the deal was
(08:33):
cut for Hayes to get those votes, which meant those
twenty votes allowed him to go from one sixty five
to won eighty five. He became president by one vote.
So anybody that tells you one vote does not matter,
(08:54):
tell him about this story, right, because what happened when
he became president by one eighty five the one ate
it for he brought an into reconstruction. That's the promise
he made. Y'all give me these twenty.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Votes and I'm gonna do what you need me to do.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
I'm gonna do what you need to do.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
How hard is it in politics to not do what
people need you to do? That are the ones that
are funding campaigns, because I've always felt like politicians can
have the best intentions, but then there's some type of
accountability when somebody elects you and there's people that are
funding you, and there's certain things that they have expectations of,
(09:31):
like what is the balance with that?
Speaker 3 (09:33):
Well, that's the way that society is set up, and
that's what we are where you and I come in
and we have to fight off that. Because I used
to be in this business. My daughter was my partner
who's here with me today, Mignon and I. That's not
the daughter in the corner there, but we were in
(09:54):
this business. And I can tell to you, I know
what it is when you are the pun advertising this
grocery store. You want them to get a full page
adding your newspaper, and all of a sudden, the owner
of the grocery store wants you to say something or
write something favorable. So I know what that pressure is.
(10:17):
Those pressures are in the media, and they're in politics,
and they're in the church. We'll help you with your fundraiser,
your building fund, but we need favorable sermons coming from you.
My father was a minister. I grew up in apostles,
(10:40):
so I know about all these pressures, and so I
step back when people tell me, oh, we don't have
that kind of pressure. Come on, what just happened with
to the Washington Post, the owner of the Washington Post.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Even these TV networks right now, absolutely that's been yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
You know, Kamala Harris was being endorsed by the Washington
Post until the owner of the Post said, oh, no,
went doing that. He knicks the endorsement. And now we
know who won. And now all of a sudden, the
Washington Post, we are fact tricking them all. And I
was on the train coming up here with Eugene Robinson,
(11:23):
who is from South Carolina. But Eugene says, no, no,
I'm not taking this. I'm resigning. And he is an
opinion writer for the Washington Post. So these things are
in the system, and that's what happened to these guys. Yeah, yeah,
I wish you could see the headlines when you read
this book. You're gonna see the headlines about them, what
(11:45):
they're are saying about these guys, and some people believe it.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Yeah. I mean, the media plays such an important role.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
I feel like there's more misinformation than ever, just because
there's so much access for anybody to write anything, and
it's so hard to understand as an average person what's
real and what's not. Like we hear we're upset that
there's Democrats who have sided with the Republicans without coming
to an official resolution on what's happening with the Affordable
Care Act of what type of health plan is in
(12:13):
place for people, so their insurance isn't going to triple
in January, and we're hearing, well, some people are like, well,
they should have done that because Trump is not going
to budge and they'll fight this out in December. But
I want to hear from you, because, like I said,
we hear all these different things depending on what network
you're watching or who you're listening to, but you're in it.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
I'm in the middle of it, and I don't fear
it at all. I think I realished the battle But
the fact is, this is never it's not People don't
realize this because most people don't think about these things.
But we just heard a proposal coming from this president
(12:56):
saying that what he would like to see to address
affordable housing is.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
It fifty year mortgage, fifty year market, which is insane.
We'll never have equity, you'll never own your home. The
banks will get rich.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
Absolutely. Now you watch and see how many people go
out there and start talking about the fifty year mortgage.
It means you buy a four hundred thousand dollars house
and over that fifty year period of the margage is
about one point two million that you pay for the house.
Now subtract four hundred thousand from one point two million,
(13:29):
you got eight hundred thousand dollars. That's going to somebody.
Who is that somebody or who are those somebodies that
will make all the money off the eight of one
thousand dollars house. And you will never have equity in
the house. You would never be able to pass equity.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Rates will be crazy on that.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
It a loan is that's exactly right now, that's not new.
When Social Security first came online in the nineteen thirties,
it was regarded as the greatest poverty program ever. But
when Social Security went online, people who were in domestic
employment or people who were in agriculture employment were not
(14:10):
allowed into Social Security. Sixty five percent of the black
folks in this country were in those two fields, which
meant on the thirty five percent of the black people
in this country were ELSI belefore social Security. But that's
not the worst because at the time that they put
Social Security in place, which is why they have never
(14:33):
been a fan of Franklin Roosevelt, they would set the
retirement age at sixty five. What was life expectancy of
black people in nineteen thirties, fifty eight, which meant that nobody,
no black person was ever going to get the benefit.
(14:54):
Theoretically not some people live beyond fifty five, but theoretically
you were not supposed to get the benefit. So what
it means you gonna pay all your life in the
Social Security but pime you get to the year you're
gonna be dead.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
You know, it's so interesting to me that we think
about like getting people out to vote and reading this book,
and I know we always say that like we really
fought and people died for our right to vote. But
when you see how people were intimidated by the ku
Klux Klan, I mean and still manage though to get
out and vote and do with it. But no matter what,
(15:30):
like moving where the ballot box was, all of the
different tactics that were used, it's interesting to me to
see how people are not going out just seeing how
people fought for that. And I know it's cliche because
everyone says that, but when you really see these stories
about the ku Klux Klan, how they came up into existence,
and the tactics that they were using to make sure
(15:51):
that voices weren't heard, I feel like sometimes we don't
fight hard enough today.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
Oh you're right about that, and what we have to do.
And what this book is all about is showing you
that this is not new. Back then, when they form
all of these they call them the rifle clubs, the
kooklus Clang in some places, basically in Tennessee, though they
(16:19):
came to South Carolina. They were throughout the South, these
rifle clubs. They are no longer in existence for that purpose,
but we now got the Proud Boys. They're thereby other names.
When they did this back in the eighteen seventies at
the time that this book covers, they told everybody wear
(16:43):
red shirts.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
They were called the red shirts.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
Today wear red caps or red ties. The most things changed,
The mothers stayed the same. And I'll tell you something else.
You might be wondering, why is it this president is
calling on the National Guard.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Read this book and you will see how the national
the National.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
Guard was used the so called Hamlin massacre. It was
all about the national gods. And these confrontations that you
see being formed by ice, these are the same kinds
of confrontations that were used back in these eighteen seventies. So,
(17:32):
as I said, I'm in the middle of writing this book,
and all of a sudden, this stuff starts happening.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
The Amnesty Act.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
You talk about that, and the comparison to the Amnesty
Act and the January sixth insurrection at the US Capitol.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
And all those people who led the insurrections against the
government were pardoned by President Andrew Johnson. As soon as
Abraham Lincoln was murdered. He is should pardon to all
those people. Does that sound for me?
Speaker 1 (18:03):
Yeah, sure does. And you were there at the Capitol.
You had to evacuate at that time. How is it
sitting in the same spaces with people that you know,
we're calling I just don't know how. I mean, I
know it's part of what comes with the job, but mentally,
how is.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
That for you?
Speaker 3 (18:23):
Tough? There are some people that don't sit with and
you know, I know it's not a blanket against Republicans.
My mother and father were Republicans, but this is not
the Republican party they were in. People don't look at
this history and therefore they don't understand that all eight
(18:48):
of these people in.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
This book were Republicans.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
There were Republicans, which is so weird to get used
to reading these black people were Republicans. And how things switched,
you know, the way that they have to day with
Democrats being the party that cares more about people.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
Well, let me tell you in simple terms what happened.
In nineteen forty eight. The Democratic Party decided that it
was going to chart a new direction. And when they did,
strom Thurmann was the leader from South Carolina. He bolted
(19:24):
the Democratic Party. He formed the States Rights Party. He
ran for president against Harrod Truman. Harrod Truman was a
Democrat who went He was the first president to address
the NAACP, he integrated armed services, he did everything that
black folks were trying to get Roosevelt to do it,
(19:48):
and Roosevelt wouldn't do it. And so when this happened,
and then followed by a speech by Hubert Humphrey, they
decided they were gonna leave the Democratic Party. So all
of these people who were white supremacists that I call
(20:09):
in the book redeemers trying to redeem the South through
his pre Civil War days, all of these people left
the Democratic Party and they went over and took the
Republican Party from black folks because black folks were basically Republicans,
and drove them out. They took over the party. So
(20:31):
the Democrats that were left where they pro civil rights democrats.
So then they had to build up a party and
it lasted right up to Kennedy and Johnson, and then
Johnson culminated it. I'm talking about Lyndon Johnson, not Andrew Johnson.
(20:56):
Lyndon Johnson then got the Civil Rights Act passed in
sixty four, the Voting Rights Act in sixty five, the
fay House Law in sixty eight, and every time he
passed the law, another Republican got mad, and they all left,
and so they're now camped out in the Republican Party.
So it's very easy to see what happened. And so
(21:17):
when people tell you, oh, you know, I'm a good Republican,
Martin Luther King Junior was a Republican. I don't know
if Martin Luther King Jr. Was a Republican, but I
know his daddy was.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
Right.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Yeah, it's the history of it that people have to
understand because people put these statements out there with no
type of context, no.
Speaker 3 (21:35):
Type of context at all, and people run with it
and they get it looped out here in the media
and people intelligent people should know better, and they seem
not to pay attention to it, but I do.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
So, what do you think needs to happen now, just
because we're in the midst of all of this, and
I know that there is this people are going through
it right now, out with benefits cut, with people not
getting paid to work, with a lot of things being
more difficult. We also have tariffs on top of everything else,
a lot of things that we're battling right now. And
then of course healthcare, which is a huge, huge issue,
(22:13):
which in January, people will really see what type of
issue that is, if things don't happen, what should we
be looking for to happen?
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Now? Would you say, can that be basically just for
a moment? Yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
I stayed married to the same woman for fifty eight years.
We had a lot of disagreements. We were not always
on the same page. You do not have to have
unanimous thought to have unity. My late wife and I
(22:46):
were always unified. I have now three daughters grown, I
have four grandchildren. We have discussions, we have disagreements, and
we talk through those disagreements. What we do know is
that it's us against the world. And that's the basic
(23:10):
stuff you have to apply to politics. Which party does
the most for your basic needs? It may not do everything.
You know, it's this whole thing. We get angry about
one issue, and I says, okay, I did show the
(23:34):
last night that someone was telling me about the price
of age going down and the price of bread or something.
I forgot that. I said, okay, what about the price
of milk? So you have to balance everything. And so
I think that what we have to do in politics
(23:55):
is learn you are not going together one hundred percent
of what you want out of this process us, So
you balance the interest. He says, Okay, I'm getting ten
percent of what this part over here has offered me
ten percent. This part of it is offered me seventy percent.
Speaker 2 (24:11):
Which would you take right?
Speaker 3 (24:13):
So why do you make your decisions about the seven
percent part are based upon the ten percent that you
get from the other side.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
I think it's also interesting that when we vote, we
also that's just part of the job. There's other things
that we're also responsible for doing, which is holding people
accountable for what it is that we need and want.
You can't just sit back and be like this didn't happen.
Like there's certain actions that people can take and be
vocal about it to make things happen. And I think
(24:43):
it's important to show up, like I posted town halls
and I'm like, it's pretty empty here. But people have
things that they need and that they want, but they
just expect things to just happen and it doesn't really
work like that.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Even encouraging people to run for.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
Office that you would like to see in office, and
you actually ran for office several times before you actually landed.
Speaker 3 (25:04):
I lost three times, and the friend of mine came
to me and says, what you gonna do now? You know,
they say three strikes and you're out. I said, nobody
should live their lives by baseball rules. That's a baseball rule.
And I don't care how many days your mother and father,
I know how many times you heard to say it.
If at first you don't succeed, you try and try again.
(25:26):
They didn't say try one more time or two more times,
no numerical limit. If I had quit after losing three times,
I never become the number three guy in the United
State's House, a representative, which is what I became. Wollman
number four technically, but on the Democratic side, number three. Now,
(25:46):
when you look at this and I try to say
to young people all the time, I just got out
the form of my grandson earlier today. He's thirty two
years old, and he called me because he wants to know,
how are you going to vote on this bill that
the sinder just passed last night and then you're gonna
vote on tomorrow? And I walked them through why I'm
(26:09):
gonna vote no. And I might tell your listeners I'm
voting know simply because this guy says we're gonna put
this bill on the floor, and I'm not gonna guarantee anything. Well,
you can guarantee the votes that I need to break
the filibuster, even if you aren't for the bill. So
don't tell me you're gonna put something on the floor
(26:30):
and then you allow the filibuster to keep it from
coming to a vote. You just got eight votes from
the Democratic side to cut off the filibuster so that
you can get your fifty one votes. Well give us
thirteen votes on the other side to cut off the
filibuster and let us take our chances on whether or not
(26:52):
we get fifty one votes. No promises been made to that.
So my whole thing is be clear, yeah, with what
you're going to do, and be subjective with all of this,
and so that's why I'm going to vote no.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
You know, it's interesting too, because I've seen a lot
of conversations about how people expect that Democrats are always
going to be the ones that have to be responsible
and get blamed for a lot of different things that
are going on for what they haven't done, but Republicans
aren't held to the same standard. It's because your expectations
are low for what people expect, and I feel like
(27:29):
also going on the record for what it is that
you stand for for your constituents who are also suffering
because more Republicans, you know, their base is also having
issues too. It's not like everybody's doing well there. They're
not all the one percent, most of them are not.
And so to see that their whole base is suffering.
And we've seen, I think with these last elections too,
(27:50):
what the results of that can be. You know, there
are some things that actually can end up being something
that's a bonus in the midst of all of this.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
If that makes it well, it makes a whole lot
of sense.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
You know. Look, you talked about health care, the Affordable
Care Act. No matter what they missage to the contrary,
it was to make health care affordable. Well, the make
it cheaper, as people says, No, it was a maket affordable.
So why do we say, because there's this cost, we
(28:27):
are going to get rid of the Affordable Care Act?
What will you put in this place?
Speaker 1 (28:32):
There's no plan, There is no plancy. Marjorie Till, the
Green who never would think would be talking about that,
discussing how upset she is that there's no plan.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
There's no plan. Why because they don't plan to make
a plan. My late wife suffered the diabetes for thirty years.
I saw her insulent deal anyway from six to eight
hundred dollars every month. She was a full shot a
day diabetic. So for thirty about fifty eight years she
(29:05):
battled diabetes. Now she died from diabetes only after a
heart attack that required five vessel bypass surgery, back surgery,
total kidney failure, and a stroke. Now without insurance, wherever
(29:25):
she be, without medicare, whoever she be, without security, all
of these things are under attack by the Republican Party.
And so why do you tell me you see some
value in supporting the Republican Party when the party that
(29:47):
is advocating all of this is a Democratic party. So
this whole thing is so crazy to me, and I
don't understand. It's so simple. You may not need it.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
Right now. You never know when you'll need it, never know.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
And so one of the reasons that people end up,
you know, going broke, is because of health care.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
That's one of the main reasons.
Speaker 3 (30:11):
Is the main reason that people end up in And.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
You don't anticipate it. It's not anything you could predict.
Nobody thinks one day I'll be sick. One day I
have to go to the hospital. One day, I'll have
an emergency, one day I'll need surgery. You don't really
think that ever.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
No, you never, You never plan to be sick, but
you should ensure against what the consequences are of that.
And that's why we have these kinds of efforts, lack
the Affordable Care of Act. Nobody plans to be denied housing,
(30:45):
and that's why you have fair housing laws, not because
you planned it, because there's somebody who may be planning
against your heaven these things. Oh Luther, can't you just
say it all the time. The law can make you
love me, but the loss sure can keep you from
harming me. And that's what we're trying to do here.
(31:08):
So when people come up with all this crazy stuff
about the law won't do this, and law won't do that,
The law will not do a whole lot of things.
But if I have healthcare and healthy enough to work,
then I can.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
Yeah, I feel I fundamental things like it's not even
nobody's asking for nothing crazy, it's fundamental rights that we
should have. You know, when you talk about this first
eight in this book that you have right now, I
want to know who you relate to the most. You know,
you characterize one is a persuader, one is the appeaser,
(31:48):
one is the orator. And the different degrees of success
that they have. Dealing with the quote redeemer Democrats, which
is like Mega, right, which we would compared to Mega,
how would you characterize your style?
Speaker 3 (32:01):
I am basically a combination of several of them. Thomas Miller,
who was number seven among the eight. Thomas Miller was
the first president of South Carolina State. When he got
kicked out of Congress, he became the first president of
what is now South Carolina State. The school that I
(32:23):
graduated from, Robert Small's. In so many instances, he had
the guts, he rad.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
His life, Yeah, absolutely life.
Speaker 3 (32:36):
Oh he was arrested, put in jail. All of these
guys were subjected to the stuffs. So throughout the years
I have associated with many of the guys here. In fact,
Richard Kane, who used to preach right here Bridge bridget Church,
he left New York and went to Chompston. He's the
(33:00):
one that re established emanually Amy Church. He's the founder. Absolutely.
So I look at a combination of all of them,
and I can see a lot and I've picked up
a lot from them. I've also looked at them and
decided which one of them I did not want to be.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
Let me guess.
Speaker 3 (33:25):
Well, the Large my least favorite person.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
I could tell.
Speaker 3 (33:30):
Yeah, And so one of the reason I wanted this book, yeah,
because I want uh people like yourself to look at
these guys, see what they went through. And this is
not to say that they were perfect. They were not.
They did not all get along with each other. They
had their individual differences. But I'll tell you this, even
the Lodge, Robert Brown Elliott literally hited the Lodge, and
(33:54):
he really says some horrible things about them, and you
find it in this book. But the Large got in
trouble and they were trying to kick him out of office.
Who represented him, Robert Brown Eliot, and to keep them
from kicking him out of office. And they didn't kick
him out of office, but because he had become so
(34:16):
obnoxious to so many people, he got voted out of office.
And he too had real serious health problems. He died
at thirty nine years old.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
I want to, you know, before we wrap this, I
want to talk about something else, he said in the book. Today,
some sixty years after the Advanceags of the nineteen sixties.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
We are again witnessing.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
Parallels to the backlash of the first reconstruction, and for
similar reasons, census officials project that white Americans will become
a minority of the US population by twenty forty five.
Some feel uneasy about these changing demographics and are directing
their insecurities at governmental efforts such as affirmative action and
other diversity, equity and inclusion programs, which are rapidly being dismantled.
(34:58):
Much of the potential rhetoric on the far right teams
designed to divide, exclude, and insult rather than honor America's
motto e plaribus unum out of many one. The political
pendulum is again moving to the right. The question is
how far will it go and for how long? If
you had to predict the answer to that question, what
would you say, Well, because I'm wondering how long is
(35:18):
this going on?
Speaker 2 (35:19):
And when is this coming to like? What are we
doing about it?
Speaker 3 (35:23):
Well, I would say this. One of the reasons for
the book is to ask have we learned the lessons
of history or or we gonna allow ourselves to repeat them.
These people at one point, South Carolina at five Congress
(35:44):
people representing the state in Washington. Of that five four
we're black. Four of these people served along with one
white guy that was in the eighteen seven And what
happened in eighteen nineties because of rogue Supreme Court it
(36:06):
went to zero. So it meant that when the pendulum
went right that time, it was ninety five years before
I came along. Now the question is are we going
to do what is necessary to interrupt that right would
(36:27):
shift that pendulum going to the right. Are we going
to turn up at the polls when it's time to vote,
or were going to sit down with candidates and make
sure that we get people in office who are dedicated
(36:47):
to the dreams and aspirations that you want for your
children and your grandchildren. Or are you going to sit
back and say this too shall pass. My daddy was
a minister and he used to sit to me all
the time. Son, you pray every day, but you pray
for good health and strength, and if the good law
(37:09):
gives you some modicum of that, get up off your
knees and work like hell. That was his motto. And
I believe that today this whole thing about just leave
it up to the Lord. This too shall pass. No.
When Barack Obama was elected president, he was elected president
(37:32):
with a record turnout at the post.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
Yeah, mom, Donnie, right now in New York, more people
have voted than we've seen vote, especially in early voting.
Speaker 3 (37:40):
Absolutely, but let me tell you what we have to
be careful of. You turn out in record numbers to
elect somebody, and then when it comes down for re election,
we decide that we've done our job. When we won
with Bill Clinton, it was a record turnout at that time.
(38:05):
Two years later we lost fifty six Democrats, and the
Republics got the same for it in nineteen ninety four.
They got in nineteen ninety two, but the black turnout
in nineteen ninety four was weighed down from nineteen ninety two.
Same thing happened with Obama. Obama got elected in two
(38:26):
thousand and eight, a record turnout. In two thousand and ten,
we lost fifty some of our seats. Why because it
turnout in ninety ten was weighed down from eight. So
the attitude was, well, we've elected Obama, he's gonna do
it for us. No, he's got to have a supporting cast.
(38:48):
During the four years that Obama was president, we lost
one thousand and fifty legislative seats across the country. Now,
what does that mean. We know what happened redistricted, because
redistricting takes place at the legislative level back in the states.
And so I'm now the last Democrat left when I
(39:10):
went to when I came to Congress, I was one Democrat.
John Spratt was there. We had a Democrat in the
third Congression on district Butler Derreck was there. We had more.
Frich Hollins was in the Senate.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
And we see this in Texas.
Speaker 3 (39:34):
Now Texas is going the same way. So the point
I'm making is you cannot sit back after the election
that says I don't need the voting anymore, because when
you don't show up at the polls, you may not
have the president of the ballot. And that's why I
love so much about what happened with Mandomic, what happened
(39:59):
over in New Jersey.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (40:01):
Uh, In fact, she called me yesterday and yeah, I
was driving along he is. She said, you know, when
I started feeling good about this election, just someone told
me when you left New Jersey, you told them because
you were not worried about this election, that you analyzed
it was that I was going to win this race,
(40:21):
and I started feeling better about it.
Speaker 2 (40:22):
That's what she told me.
Speaker 3 (40:24):
Well, Mom, now now what she was going to win
because I feel it, see it.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
You're like the whisperer when it comes to you.
Speaker 3 (40:33):
There's some things I don't know that I don't know
some things, but I well, I think that I didn't know.
Speaker 2 (40:39):
You know it?
Speaker 1 (40:40):
Yes, And seeing Mary Sheffield in Detroit that was really exciting.
Speaker 3 (40:43):
Absolutely, her dad is a preature too.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
Yes, I know her.
Speaker 3 (40:49):
You learned a lot of things growing up in Apostas.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
Yeah, man, I love it, and well, I appreciate you.
I really am such a fan, so it was exciting
for me. I could talk to you all day. I
know you have a lot going on. I know, sure
we're back at it, but I appreciate this book. I'm
such a fan of reading like true stories history, understanding history,
potentially repeating itself as it has been, but also knowing
(41:15):
like what we're standing on. You're standing on the first
eight right in South Carolina, and we need to know
that history of South Carolina. You've been in office for
over thirty years and just making some great, amazing positive
changes but we all got to make sure that we
support that too. I saw you talking about Hakeem Jeffries
also on MSNBC earlier and just discussing because I feel
(41:39):
like he gets a lot of criticism for not being
more vocal, stronger, and they say, you know, Democrats need
to fight harder and stop trying to do things by
the book all the time.
Speaker 3 (41:51):
Well, Hakim is a great leader. He has a tremendous
ability to keep our callers together a big tent. You've
got to be able to allow a diversity of thought
to exist under that tent. And I'll close to this.
I mentioned earlier that I have three daughters. Those three
(42:14):
girls are as different as night and day. Mignoni is
with me on this trip. Mignon is a very independent thinker.
I don't think she's ever said she's over sixty years old.
She'd never said the contrary word to me in her life.
(42:40):
But she keeps counsel to herself. When we're in business together.
I used to tell her what we want to do
and she would agree. But when that newspaper came out,
he was exactly the way she wanted to do it.
But that's the way she is Jennifer married you children,
(43:00):
and she's a grandmother. But Jennifer is always calling me,
as she did yesterday with a suggestion and sent me
a textives morning, always wanting advice for me. I said
to her one time, Jennifer, go ask your husband and
(43:22):
I give you away. That's it. My youngest daughter, Angela
is so contrary. I don't care what you said answer.
She's gonna have the last words. You just have to
just accept the fact that it may not be you
may not be able to understand it, but she's gonna
mumble the last word. I don't treat them the same way.
(43:44):
They're different. I treat them according to their needs. Angela
needs things that Mignon does not need, So why would
I waste on Mignon that which Angela needs. So your
love is based upon the need. And that's the way
(44:06):
Hakeen is. He recognizes that he's got a big tent party,
and there are people in the South who cannot say
things that you might be able to get away with
saying in the now, and the same thing for the
East and the West. So keep the tent big enough,
(44:26):
keep the atmosphere that exists in the tent of such
that everybody under it can feel comfortable working with each
other to find common ground. That's just the way the
guy is. I appreciate the other about him. I spend
a lot of time with him, and I do believe
that is where success is. If you think that all
(44:49):
you need is somebody cursing somebody, eut. You will never
hear me publicly using profanity. I don't do.
Speaker 4 (45:00):
It privately, I know, yeah, because you got to keep
the atmosphere right.
Speaker 3 (45:16):
Because you know, I can say something you're in private,
and it's one thing. I said the same thing that
you in public, it's a whole different thing. And that's
the way how I came miss And so I would
say to people, Look, give the guy benefit for trying
to take We got about fifteen Caucasus within the Democratic Caucus,
(45:40):
the Black Caucus, Hispanic Caucus, Asian Pacific Islanders, Progressive Caucus,
the Blue Dogs. We just got a bunch of them.
He's got to keep all of them together. On the
other side, the all CORTI to the Americas.
Speaker 2 (46:00):
Yeah, they all fell in line. Oh yeah, it don't matter.
Speaker 1 (46:04):
They could know what's wrong, but they're going to be
right there, right in line, all right, well, thank you
so much. I appreciate you for coming through. This was
such an honor to have you. The first eight a
personal history of the pioneering black congressman who shaped a nation.
I learned so much from reading this. I thank you
for that, and I thank you for coming here today.
Speaker 3 (46:22):
I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (46:22):
All right, it's way up
Way Up With Angela Yee News
Host
Angela Yee
Show Links
Official WebsitePopular Podcasts
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.