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March 10, 2026 16 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hartfeat Saint Louis with AKA Holiday bringing you the pulse
of the city.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Hey, what's up this boy? Doctor at b J the
DJ Holiday.

Speaker 3 (00:15):
And as we get ready to get into the season
of elections, we know that when that time come around,
there's a lot of they did this, they did.

Speaker 4 (00:29):
That, and.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Da dada and da da da.

Speaker 3 (00:34):
So I'm just one of those people that like to
get away from that because I like for people who are,
you know, running for office, to be able to have
the opportunity to really tell their story. And it's not like,
you know, you do the interview and then all of
a sudden, Uh, I played back only a couple of

(00:54):
minutes of it, and I chop up what I think
is important. I just let the entire interview go so
people can really hear from the candidate. And in the
studio today I got mister John Bowman. He has raised
his hand for the State Senate District fourteen. And you know,

(01:19):
as I know John on different things that we've been
involved in, I don't know John, because there's a lot
of things about John I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
But you know what, today I'm gonna get all up
in this business.

Speaker 5 (01:33):
Let's do it.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
You're about to get inside of me. You don't know.
I'm about to get all up in his business. All right, John,
how you doing man?

Speaker 5 (01:43):
I'm doing well, brother, good good, I'm doing well.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
Okay. Yeah, we're gonna start off all nice and easy. Yeah.
But anyway, born and raised work.

Speaker 4 (01:52):
So originally born in a small town car stillun Mississippi.
My family moved here when I was very young. So
the majority life here in Saint Louis.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
Okay, So did you go to school here in Saint Louis.

Speaker 4 (02:04):
I graduated from a Catholic school in the south of
Aclei Conception. Okay, but I attended college here.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
Okay, well, comee.

Speaker 4 (02:12):
I attended fund Buying College for my business degree as
well as my master's degree. I have a certification from
Harvard University John F. Kenny School of Government, and I'm
also a Aspen Fellow.

Speaker 3 (02:27):
Oh okay, all right, see I didn't know that. I
didn't know that. So you went to find bond. A
lot of people don't know about fine By.

Speaker 5 (02:34):
Yeah, yeah, forty times?

Speaker 2 (02:35):
Did I heard that name?

Speaker 4 (02:37):
Well, when I was going there was fine Bye College
and later on became fun Bine University.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
Okay, yeah, so.

Speaker 3 (02:43):
Yeah, It's been a long time since I heard Finn
bin So you graduated, Finn Bond.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
Uh did you? You said you had a business degree business.

Speaker 4 (02:52):
I have a BS and Business Administration, a master's in
business in the NBA, focus on marketing and also BJ
I it's really it's an interesting journey. I was hired
at Chrysler Corporation while I was in college. Oh really, yes,

(03:12):
and I completed It's My original goal was to be
an electrical engineer. So I received a sociate's degree in
electronics and I started working at Chrysler. And the money
was good. You know, it's a twenty some years Winsville
was wind Benton.

Speaker 3 (03:30):
Yeah, Chrysler plant put off for forty four if you
drive down the street.

Speaker 5 (03:35):
Yeah yeah, Yeah, the money was good.

Speaker 4 (03:37):
So I stayed there and completed what's known as the
Skills Improvement Program over the next six years, and I
became a journeyman electrician. Oh so over this is something
else you don't know before. By the time I retired
from Christler the first time in twenty ten, I was
a robotics programmer. Oh, I was an automation tech. Okay,

(03:57):
so I actually was responsible for Mateen and programming robotic systems.
Those you see the welders and moving vealcles around, those
were the robots that I had to do the maintenance for.

Speaker 3 (04:10):
Oh wow, did not know that. So you worked at Christler,
left Christler and went to work.

Speaker 4 (04:18):
So I got introduced to politics indirectly because I was
coaching Little league baseball in the city where I lived
and I wanted to approach my leadership about buying some
T shirts for my players, and they blew me off,
said they had more important things to do. And I
didn't appreciate that because I was getting off work in

(04:40):
the evening, going out there cleaning off the field, taking water,
my a degree weather, coaching these kids, giving them an opportunity,
you know, to excel in sports. And I complained about it,
and I was nagging people about why won't they do
this until someone said, well, why don't you stop complaining
about it and just run for office. And so I've

(05:02):
never been good at taking theirs, and I said, well,
you know what, I think I will and I ran,
not really anticipating that I would win the race. And
at the time, my daughter was one of my daughters
who was about seven years old, and she wrote on
a piece of paper both of my dad. He's a
cool guy, and I shamelessly made one thousand copies of

(05:24):
that and that was my campaign literature.

Speaker 5 (05:27):
Oh wow, and I won.

Speaker 4 (05:29):
Okay, So don't get any more grassroots than that. Later on,
some members of the community I stayed rep decided he
wanted to run for a higher office, and so the
state Rep seat became open, and some of the leadership,
the mayors and local electors asked me to call a

(05:49):
meeting to determine who would run for his seat. Well,
I called the meeting and I ended up being the
person that ended up running. So that's why I always
tell people Polis found me. I didn't find it, but
I had some connection to it from being around people
like Senator Paula Carter and Jeed Banks.

Speaker 5 (06:09):
While I was laid.

Speaker 4 (06:11):
Off from christ but for several years I worked in
the civil courts as a courtroom clerk, and at that
time Senator Carter was working there as well. At the
same time, this joining the period when Joe Roady was
the clerk and former Mayor Freeman Bosley Junior decided to
run for the clerk's office, and Paula pulled me over

(06:34):
to the side one day say hey, let's get behind him,
and I agreed.

Speaker 5 (06:39):
And when when when when Old Man and.

Speaker 4 (06:42):
Rody found out about me working to help get Freeman elected.
He called me in the office one day and he says,
thank you a bright kid, think you had a good future.
But you know he's gonna have to win, right In
other words, if he doesn't, you're out of work. So
when he told me that, I appreciate that. Instead of

(07:02):
me just making calls once a week, I started making
calls for four times a week.

Speaker 2 (07:06):
For freemand got it, got.

Speaker 4 (07:09):
It, became the first black circuit clerk, and he promoted me.
He don't even remember this. He put me over the
municipal courts.

Speaker 2 (07:19):
Oh okay, yeah, so.

Speaker 3 (07:21):
Uh we fanned forward. He then became mayor. And then
you got involved with the NAACP.

Speaker 4 (07:29):
Yeah, there was a couple of other steps in there.
I was chief of staff for senator. I was a
policy director for a senator, and I had always been
a member of the NAACP. And there was some turmoil
that came about while I was vice president of the NAACP,
which one day the Post Dispatch called me and asked

(07:51):
me if I had any comments now that I was
the president of the NAACP, and I was in Colorado
when they told me. I didn't even know where that happened.
Oh wow, And I said, well, I'll find out more
when I get back. So when I got back, that
became my new role. Everything had been put into my
lane to lead the NAACP, which was a couple of

(08:12):
challenging years. To get the turmoil and all the I
guess the chaos that was around at that time, I
had to work in a kind of a I guess
a crisis management style to get it back on track.
After doing that, it also came about during the time
right afterwards COVID hit. So I shifted us out of

(08:35):
just being a civil rights organization to be in a
social service organization because for fifty eight weeks we provided food,
We gave food support because of food and security for
fifty eight weeks every week, rain, sleek, snow, cold weather,
members of the NAACP, and mainly support for my fraternity

(08:56):
brothers omegasci Fi Fraternity Corporated. So that was very rewarding
to be in a position to be able to do that.

Speaker 3 (09:05):
All right, So d D NAACP, now you're running for Senate. Why,
you know, that's the biggest question. People will say why,
and then if you are elected, what are your main goals?

Speaker 5 (09:23):
Yeah? Well what?

Speaker 4 (09:24):
The why is very simple the wise you have to
have a servant leader hard because when you're in public
when you're in public service, it's not about you. It's
about delivering to the needs of the community, which I
care about. I have lived in the fourteenth Senate District
for over thirty years, raised my children there, not just
lived there, but I have been an active participant, whether

(09:47):
it's as a labor leader, a community leader, or a
civil rights leader. I have never once not been active
and helping to improve the quality of lives of people.

Speaker 5 (09:58):
That I may never even no.

Speaker 4 (10:01):
And that's strictly because I was just talking about the
fact that Reverend Jesse Jackson they're having his funeral, and
I cannot ignore the fact of how many people put
their lives on the line and pay it forward for
people like me to even be in the positions that

(10:22):
I have been in and they have the lifestyle that
I've had. None of this happens in a bubble with
one single person. This is an accumulation of many years
of people fighting on behalf of our communities that allowed
me to get a good public education, to allow me
to be able to get into spaces that black people

(10:43):
normally cannot get into. So it's just it's like breathing
air for me to stand up. And it's a part
of my principles as an Omega man to be clear
about our cardinal principles being want, manhood, scholarship, perseverance, and uplift.
And this portion of uplift is what I do because

(11:06):
it's a part of my training who I am. So
I am selflessly running for the Senate for this reason.
As a former state Rep. I had tremendous success with
passing legislation. One of the first bills I passed was
a sixty five million dollar infrastructure bill for MSD. I

(11:26):
also passed House Built nineteen seventy three, which is why
children are required to take a half a credit hour
before they graduate from high school. And financial literacy that's
my bill, Loopu's education.

Speaker 5 (11:41):
And on and on. You know.

Speaker 4 (11:42):
Even as the chief of staff, I helped the center.
I worked with past eleven meaningful pieces of legislation, so
I know my way around the hallways of jeff City
and these things happen even being in the minority of
Republican governor, Republican House, and Republican Senate, because knowing how
to navigate those relatesationships it matters. And more importantly, the

(12:03):
fourteenth Center District is one of the largest contributors to
the state coffers and revenue. Our assets includes the airport
offsool Bowing. So when you're contributing those large amounts of
tax dollars, why woill we not fight hard to get
a return on our investment for our community. Our schools,

(12:26):
public schools need more funding, Our infrastructure needs repair, our
workforce needs to be trained better to attract new businesses
to the area. So the fourteenth district is critical. I
know it will. I know the different makeup of it.
We have incomes at the lowest level, and we have

(12:46):
some of the richest people in the Saint Louis region
as well. So knowing how to cross over and really
unify all those pieces it really matters. And prepared I'm
prepared to do it. I'm prepared to go up there
and work and fight and make sure that we receive

(13:07):
the support that we need.

Speaker 3 (13:09):
All right, well, John, one last question, if you had
anything to say to my listeners so that they can,
you know, walk into that booth and check the box
for you.

Speaker 2 (13:26):
What would that be?

Speaker 5 (13:28):
Well.

Speaker 4 (13:28):
I will say this because this word gets thrown around
a lot. Integrity is not a noun. It's a verb.
It's an action. It's a behavior that you do on
a daily basis. It's what you do when people are
not watching. And it's what you do that improves the
conditions of others lives that make their lives more affordable.

(13:50):
I will fight to make your life more affordable. I
would also fight to make sure you are treated with
respecting dignity by providing fair equity with health care. And
that's the civil rights part of me. But I will
more than anything. I will never go there and treat
this like it's my job and it belongs to me.

(14:14):
I'm always treated like it belongs to the people who
voted for me. And as an organizer, one thing I
remember is that the best organizers are good listeners. So
when I'm out knocking on doors, I don't just tell
people about what my vision is. I take time to
listen and see what is it that you want me
to do?

Speaker 3 (14:34):
All right, So if people want to get more information
about your campaign, or they want to make donations and
stuff like that, where do they go?

Speaker 4 (14:43):
Made it very simple, so if you go online, it's www.
Bowman or mo f O r m O dot com.
That'll take you directly to our website and there would
be a nice bright donate vote but greeting you there.
To help get our message out, help get this campaign

(15:06):
the support it needs to finish on the right way.
I think we're on a path to victory. So far
we received tremendous support, a diversity of support. Our fundraising
has been strong, our ground game is strong, and me
as a candidate with a heart that really has a
passion for the people, I think all of those dynamics

(15:27):
come together and stay support. John Bowman on August fourth.

Speaker 3 (15:32):
All right, well, mister Bowman, thank you so much for
coming in the studio, and I hope it's not the
last time I get to see you in the studio.

Speaker 4 (15:40):
No, from now to August fourth, that's a long time.

Speaker 5 (15:44):
Hi Man, Thank you, Thanks me Jay.

Speaker 1 (15:47):
This has been another redition of our beat Louis with
dj Aja bj Holiday bringing you the pulse of the
city
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