Monday’s New Netflix Release is “Sunday’s Best”

As Kerry Gordy’s hot Netflix flick premiers today, he rejoins Jesse Jr and Gina A. Towns in recapping the new release, “Sunday Best” for its historical capture of Ed Sullivan’s impact as a civil rights pioneer, responsible for bringing Black talent to the television stage when segregation was still the order of the day. Joined by Moving Mountain Mondays crew Ernest Crim III, and host of the 2nd hour show, The Faith Not to Fall,” Rev. Terri Hord Owens, Kerry spends time in discussion with Crim, who underscores the importance of Black storytelling so history is not lost. Most importantly, we give credit to those who have helped shape and catapult the narrative of the Black experience in America. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm Jessey Jackson Junior from folio Tesse Jackson Junior Show
on KBLA Talk fifteen to eighty for dedicating our program
today and our show to the late Malcolm Jamal Warner.
It's almost impossible to refer to him as late, but

(00:25):
based upon preliminary information, Malcolm Jamal Warner died in an
accident today while swimming or in some position tied to
suffocation related to water. He has been so much a

(00:46):
part of those of us who are sixty somethings fifty
five somethings, from THEO Huxtable to his extraordinary role in Resident,
which I think is among his greatest work available on Netflix.
Malcolm Jamal Warner as a brain surgeon brought us deeper
into the complexities of the lives of black physicians, the

(01:14):
role that they play in operating on the human brain
and trying to save people and their memories, their thoughts,
their actions, their best thinking. And so today I am
just struck. I'm struck by his loss. I'm struck by
the age in which he has departed. And we're dedicating

(01:37):
today's program on the Jesse Jackson Junior Show to the
late Malcolm Jamal Warner. Today on the Jesse Jackson Joe
Junior Show, our very special guest is none other than
the incomparable Carry Gordy. Kerry Gordy is one of the
producers creators of a new Netflix series that came out

(02:00):
last night called Sunday's Best And before Carrie comes on
the program, I want to also share that our contributor
to The Jesse Jackson Junior Show, Gina Towns, will be
joining us in the first hour, maybe in the second
hour where Teresa Horde Owens will be joining us. But
I want to share with everyone the impact in the

(02:24):
role that culture plays in our thinking. We know the
history of the civil rights movement, Brown versus the Board
of Education, the death of Vim Mattil Rosa Parks taking
her seat, the Montgomery bus boycott, the I Have a
Dream Speech, the Civil Rights Act of sixty four, the
Voting Rights Act of nineteen sixty five and subsequent public

(02:44):
accommodations legislation, and the death of Martin Luther King Junior.
What we don't think about during that era is the
impact that culture had when we're not protesting, when we're
not boycotting, or we're not fighting, when we retreat to
what it means to be ourselves, our authentic selves as musicians,

(03:07):
as people who express themselves as a musical cultural contribution
and delight to humanity. And Sunday's Best I'm going to
put a plug in for it right now, is heading
to the nomination for the Oscars. It is on Netflix.
It came out last night. It doesn't have Ed Sullivan's

(03:30):
name in it, but what it shows is the extraordinary contribution,
the conscious contribution, the intension to a tension that Ed
Sullivan played in selecting artists during that era to be
on his program. He shaped the culture. If you think

(03:53):
Beyonce shaped the culture, and jay Z shaped the culture,
and Tupac shape the culture, and Biggie shape the culture
and Drake shape the culture, then you just have to
watch this film to see the impact that Satchmo, that
that King Cole, that Nina Simone, that Harry Belafonte, that

(04:18):
the myriad of arts artists that Carrie Gordy brings forward
in this film along with the niece of Ed Sullivan,
on shaping the culture that we retreated to when we
were not protesting, when we were not expressing our outrage
at the idea of segregation in the United States. Whatever

(04:41):
films have received an OSCAR over the last several selections
of Oscars, there is no doubt in my mind when
you talk about Summer of Soul, when you talk about
other programs that have received critical acclaim that if we
pay attention to Sunday's Best on Netflix, that this particular

(05:08):
resurrection of Ed Sullivan and his role as a pioneer
in civil rights, introducing black artists and black culture to
white audiences on little screens called television sets, and then
holding the standard, the high standard of excellence that is

(05:31):
represented by our community. I'm Jesse Jackson Junior. When we
Come Forward. Gina Towns and Kerry Gordy are joining us
on the Jesse Jackson Junior Show, KBLA Talk fifteen to
eighty When We Come Forward. Garry Gordy, affectionately known as KG,
was born in Detroit, Michigan, the same year that his father,
Barry Gordy, started Motown Records. He grew up around all
of the major stars such as Diana Ross, Stevie Wonder,

(05:53):
Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gay, and Michael Jackson. He started in
the mail room at Motown and worked in in every division,
from A and R to publishing and marketing to business affairs.
While at Motown, he wrote and produced songs for The Temptations,
the Four Tops, and Billy Preston. The first hit he
had as an executive with Motown was with his brother

(06:15):
Rockwell Somebody's Watching Me. KG was also the leader of
the nineteen eighties teen idol band Apollo. More on kg's
biography later in the program, however, KG, Gina Towns, our
contributor on Fridays who had you scheduled for two hours,

(06:37):
will be joining us in this hour. Gina is a
record recording artist herself. She is enormously talented, and she's
also the creator of the Jesse Jackson Junior Show. For
those of you who are listening last Friday, I read
an extensive bio about Gina, and I will also refer
to her bio throughout this program as well. Gina Kerrie,

(06:58):
welcome forward to the Jesse Jackson Junior Show.

Speaker 2 (07:01):
I am. I just want you to know that that
music that you have, the interview music, that's some funky stuff.

Speaker 3 (07:09):
I believe.

Speaker 2 (07:12):
It's good.

Speaker 1 (07:15):
I want to share with you, Carrie, that you've been
on our program now a couple of times, and last night,
Sunday Best came out on Netflix, and I got up
early this morning, I watched it, and I began watching
it again right before the program, so I've seen it
one and a half times, okay, And I want to
reflect upon this before I turned the program over to

(07:36):
you and Gina and before our first break. And that's this.
We talk about these dates, this history of the civil
rights movement, but there's also a culture that is taking
place that we retreat to, where we are at our
Sunday's best, where we laugh, where we enjoy everything isn't

(07:59):
everything that the man is doing to us. There is
a place that we go, where we survive, where our
spirit energy manifests itself in the culture. And what I
saw in the extraordinary documentary that I believe is heading
for an OSCAR and whatever appropriate awards that it absolutely deserves,
is this. I saw ed Sullivan on the scale that

(08:26):
I've never seen him before. That his attention that he
paid to intention with respect to desegregation and civil rights,
introducing the spirit, energy and the culture of our people
to the broadest possible audience came at great risk, and

(08:46):
it came at great risk to his reputation in the
newly developing medium of television. It came at great risk
to his life, to his career, to the embodiment and
the very definition that he ultimately changed of what it
meant to be an American. With that said, Carrie Gordy,

(09:07):
welcome forward to the Jesse Jackson Junior Show. And Gina,
if you have anything you want to comment on regarding
what we've seen, please share it now.

Speaker 4 (09:17):
I am so grateful that you took the time to
do this work. You know, every now and then you'll
see a movie or a documentary, maybe be it a
concert that you wish never ends. And that's how I

(09:38):
feel about this documentary. And there's so much richness to it, Carrie,
that I'm gonna have to sit with it, you know,
definitely more than the one time that I've been able
to watch it today.

Speaker 5 (09:52):
I was grateful that it.

Speaker 4 (09:53):
Was on early this morning. I was like, what time
do they launch on Netflix?

Speaker 2 (09:58):
Midnight?

Speaker 3 (09:59):
Is eight o'clock thing?

Speaker 4 (10:01):
But there it was, And I am so happy that
you were able to come back today. Congratulations, today is
your launch today, and thank you forting us with some
of your time because I know you are jam packed
your phone is ringing off the book, and so thank you.

Speaker 1 (10:17):
This is this documentary contains footage that I don't believe
anyone on earth has ever seen before. I mean, at
least maybe if you were young in our generation when
it was actually occurring live. But I'm sixty so I'm
born in nineteen sixty five, So you really need to
be about sixty five years old, about seventy years old
to be able to say that you actually saw at

(10:39):
Sullivan live and saw some of the footage that we're
seeing now that we haven't seen for what one hundred years.

Speaker 2 (10:44):
Yeah, you could be sixty fifty nine, fifty eight. You
just would have been young when you saw it.

Speaker 1 (10:50):
Okay, Okay, Well, Kerrie, extraordinary work and this is now
your work. You have resurrected At Sullivan, just like I
believe Eddie doctor dy Claude resurrected James Baldwin. We are
going to be discussing this for quite some time. Your
thoughts now that this documentary has entered the public space.

Speaker 2 (11:13):
Well, first of all, I want to tell you how
much I appreciate you for giving me the platform to
actually tell the story. It's really interesting, you know, when
you're doing a documentary or a song or a movie
or a book or whatever it is. There's a thousand

(11:34):
ways that it can be done. And the fact of
the matter is is that what's unique about this isn't
the fact that we did Ed Sullivan, which by the way,
would have been a great story if we just did
the normal what you would expect Ed Sullivan's story to be.
What makes this unique is that we took it from

(11:58):
a place of passion, and I would say Sasha's passion.
The director who passed and Sasha and I had worked
on two previous movies together, so he knew where my

(12:19):
heart was. I felt where his heart was. So when
he approached me and said he wanted to do the
Ed Sullivan's story, I was like, well, here's the thing.
Ed Sullivan meant something different to me. I believe because
I was young, Black, impressionable, and so forth at the time,

(12:41):
that it would have that it means to everybody who's
out here now. So he said, well, this is amazing
because I want to take it from the perspective of
what it meant to the black culture. And as soon
as he said that, I said, okay, I am totally
in because I know what it meant to me, and

(13:06):
it meant the same thing to me as it meant
to Dinah Ross. And it meant the same thing to
Dinah Ross as it did to Oprah, and the same
thing to Oprah as it did to pre people prior
to them. So to that end, you know, to that

(13:29):
end I had, this is this, This was a this
was a calling, This was a passion. This was not
a project that I that I was doing. This is
something that needed to be told and it needed to
be shown to our I mean to the grand population,

(13:50):
but specifically to the black population that can that will
remember it, to those who came after them, that remember
their parents talking about these amazing this amazing talent, whether
it's Sammy Davis Junior or Louis Armstrong or Ella Fitzgerald

(14:11):
or Lena Horne him. Yes, absolutely one hundred. So to
that end, this was a very important project. As as
as it relates to film projects, I think it is
the most important project that I've ever done. You know,

(14:35):
you guys know that I do copyright termination, and I
terminate contracts for people who assigned their rights over early
in their careers, before they had the leverage to make
the best deals for themselves. That's a calling and a
passion as well. But as far as my film projects go,
this is definitely the number one in my whole, you know,

(14:59):
universe of projects, the number one project in my whole,
in my whole history. As far as I'm concerned, you have.

Speaker 1 (15:06):
A lot to be proud of right here. And Gina,
I want you to come in and offer your thoughts
on this point right here, that you know, we are
a generation right now where American history, American forces that
have been against desegregation are all coming together seemingly to
end a second reconstruction. And what I think among the

(15:29):
many different narratives that come out of Sunday Best is
this we saw, through Ed Sullivan and through Carrie's work,
a method and a way to attack non violently a
movements towards segregation through our culture. Ed Sullivan consciously introduced

(15:53):
us to the culture, and the culture changed. And I'm
saying to myself right now, Gena, and I know that
you're recording artists yourself, that the introduction of our culture
to the majority is also a tool, a nonviolent tool
for change. It just is. And that becomes increasingly clear

(16:15):
when you see the Sammy Davis, the Mahalia, the Smokey
Robinson interpretation. When you see the broad scope of what
Carrie has accomplished in this documentary, and God blessed Sasha
who did not live to see this extraordinary work. What
they've accomplished here is something that has to be taught
in schools. Gina.

Speaker 5 (16:34):
Yeah, my claim to fame.

Speaker 4 (16:36):
Really I love to write, and as a person who
likes to journal and has done journalism professionally, storytelling is
so important. When we tell our story and we share
it with people who don't know our story, you know,
you learn something about it. It serves to build bridges,

(16:57):
and you know, I really see this documentary as a
civil rights piece. I don't know if that's the term
for this generation necessarily, but a human rights piece.

Speaker 2 (17:10):
That will live on.

Speaker 4 (17:12):
And this work I am going to share it with
everyone that I know who is in Gen Z and
you know that is a millennial that's Generation X and
let's see, oh the Baby Boomers and I think there's one,
there's another one that's Generation I mean, who does not
need to see this piece of work And it's so

(17:32):
well done and the way that you tell the story
and in particular hearing Ed Sullivan, and I know some
of these things were you know, conversations that were shared
that he had with people, but his strength of conviction
and not being afraid and not being able to cowtow

(17:53):
to what people wanted him to do, you know, some
of that he talked about. He got it home. You know,
how they grew up, how the Irish felt like they were,
you know, if you will, spat upon the low man
on the totem pole when they came to the United States,
and certainly his parents instilled in him that they didn't

(18:13):
want anybody else to feel that way, and that applied
for him to African Americans.

Speaker 2 (18:20):
Yeah, it's really interesting when I think sometimes I think,
when I'm talking to Stevie, how does someone who's blind
really really how can they be prejudice against a different color?

Speaker 1 (18:41):
Right?

Speaker 2 (18:41):
And so the concept here was very interesting as it
relates to Ed Sullivan's upbringing because his Irish anceceestoriage and

(19:01):
his parents let him know that, wait a minute, we
are no less than any of these other people out here, right,
We aren't less. The Jews aren't less, the Blacks aren't less.
And just because we are of a you know, different

(19:23):
culture or a different color or race or religion or
whatever it is, that should not be the thing that
dictates how you are treated from a civil rights perspective.
So he really, he really said, you know what, it

(19:46):
doesn't matter to me who you are, where you've been,
who you love, doesn't matter to me. What matters to
me is are you talented? And can you entertain my folks?

Speaker 1 (20:02):
Right? I think I think you're right on target. Obviously,
I mean, you're the creator of this work. But I'm
I listen, I'm sitting here struggling with the words to
describe this documentary because of the impact that culture has
on our politics. And what I figured out today and

(20:23):
gave some thought to for the first time was that
there is this place, Carrie, that we retreat to where
we laugh at mister Charlie, there is this place where
we sing. There is this place where the existential realities
of who we are as black people presents itself in
a form of excellence, where Nat King Cole is asked

(20:46):
by at Sullivan, Hey, he's introducing Nat King Cole to America.
Now today, it's just a foregone conclusion that what during
Christmas we listen to you know the Christmas Song by
Nat King Cole. Yes, Ed Sullivan had to make that introduction.
I'm Jesse Jackson Junior. This is Kbled Talk fifteen to eighty.

(21:06):
We're on the Jesse Jackson Junior Show. Our very special
guest is Carrie Gordy. Kerry Gordy has produced an extraordinary
documentary called Sunday's Best that was released yesterday on Netflix.
When we come forward more with Kerry Gordy, Carrie has
done some extraordinary work and has recently released a new
documentary on Netflix released yesterday called Sunday's Best. And this

(21:32):
documentary shows the relationship between the courage, the integrity of
Ed Sullivan and his introduction of a standard class a
African American entertainers to white living rooms, to white households,

(21:54):
and how ultimately some form of acceptance touched White America
that which they defined as America. To be an American
meant you were on the Ed Sullivan shoe. To understand
American culture means it was processed through Ed Sullivan. And
Ed Sullivan looked for the best talent on earth, and

(22:16):
he brought forward Nat King Cole, He brought forward Bo Diddley,
he brought forward Dizzy Gillespie. He brought forward Nina Simone,
he brought forward Mehelia Jackson, he brought forward Gladys Knight
and the Pips. He brought forward the Temptations. So it's
almost impossible in this hour that we have Carrie to

(22:38):
completely process what we have witnessed and what we're going
to be witnessing and processing through this extraordinary documentary. Gina Towns,
our executive producer, who is also a recording artist, is
joining us in this hour in part because Carrie was
her very special guest on Friday or two hour segment

(22:59):
on the introduction of this documentary. Due to some technical difficulties,
Carrie only joined us for an hour, and we're welcoming
Carrie back in this hour, Gina. Harry Cordy is our
special guest.

Speaker 2 (23:10):
He sure is.

Speaker 4 (23:11):
And as you were naming all of the people that
made appearances in the documentary, I thought about Harry Belafonte
and a young Diana Ross, and you talked about Rach
Charles and Stevie Wonder who we're blind. I mean, to
be able to take a chance on people that you

(23:35):
may not have been so sure, But then again he
must have been sure about what he saw because it
was his passion. But as I look at for those
people who are not listening, if you get a chance
to go and see on KBLA YouTube which we are
live on, or on Facebook, you'll see Ed Sullivan smiling

(23:58):
as he introduces.

Speaker 1 (24:00):
I didn't know Ed Sullivan had teeth until this time, smiling.

Speaker 4 (24:05):
You know, you know, after the person performed, you know,
it was always so amazing to see what they presented,
to see the audience respond, and then I can almost
imagine him going, yep, I tried to tell you this
was gonna be a really big shoe. So man, just

(24:25):
what a personality. And I think you laid out a
timeline for us on Friday of how this whole thing
worked with from Ed Sullivan to your father Barry Gordy too. Yeah,
can you talk a little bit more about that.

Speaker 2 (24:45):
I don't know. That was just my six degrees of separation.
Because the point is is that you don't get from
point A to point Z without a lot of things
happening in the middle. And so the fact that we
lived in a society now where a lot of blacks

(25:09):
and minorities in general don't understand the struggle. Yeah, I
had to go through to get here. I mean between
what Martin Luther King and your father did and and
everything that's happened since, from from not even being able

(25:32):
to be on TV to the Cosby Show to the
Oprah Show, to the ability to have now Oprah have
a platform to physically endorse a candidate, Barack Obama that
ends up becoming President of the United States. In the

(25:55):
United States of America, here's a deal. See, Jesse, When
I was a kid it people would say stuff like,
you can be anything you want to be, you can
be the president of the United States. And I knew
that was bull s.

Speaker 1 (26:15):
Right because that we never seen them.

Speaker 2 (26:19):
That's right, that was something that we had never seen before.
And even though people would say it, you didn't. You
didn't believe it within yourself. The same thing applies to
whether or not someone can aspire to be a Michael Jackson.
But Michael Jackson got to see Jackie Wilson. Jackie Wilson

(26:47):
got to see James Brown, and James Brown got to
see Sammy Davis Junior. Right because of Ed Sullivan.

Speaker 1 (26:57):
Yes, yes, And that's what's so fascinating about the timeline, right, Gina,
that Ed there's nothing before Ed Sullivan, and there's a
different world after Ed Sullivan. So some of you might say, well,
it was just our talent that brought us forward. No,
it was our talent plus some people who risked their

(27:18):
position in society on television and other mediums to bring
us forward and introduce us to the culture and to
show the culture what it was missing and how bankrupted
was without our participation. That was a factor in the
courage of a Martin Luther King. And so some of
us are trying right now to get our politics right.

(27:38):
We're trying to get what to say right. We're trying
to stand for the right policy. Hey, I get all
of that, but it must be reinforced by the spirit
energy of the culture itself. And therefore we need the
musicians to step forward with their pants pulled up, with
their integrity.

Speaker 2 (27:57):
Well, that was another other thing we had about.

Speaker 1 (28:02):
We have about ten seconds and then we're going to
come forward. I'm going to give you the final segment.
I'm Jesse Jackson Junior. You're listening to the Jesse Jackson
Junior Show, KBLA Talk fifteen to eighty. We are talking
about the new Netflix documentary Sunday Best, where Carrie Gordy
has for the last several episodes of the Jesse Jackson
Junior Program prepared us for what I believe will be

(28:23):
an OSCAR winning documentary when we come forward. You're listening
to the Jesse Jackson Junior Show. Jackson Junior KBLA Talk
fifteen eighty. You're listening to the Jesse Jackson Junior Show.
Our very special guest is none other than the incomparable
Carrie Gordy, whose new documentary on Netflix, Sunday's Best, aired

(28:48):
last night on Netflix, and it details the courage of
at Sullivan and it brings it really resurrects his life
for the modern an era to show that in large measures,
so much of what we fight for we did not
just fight by ourselves. There were allies in the struggle

(29:08):
and they crossed every conceivable medium. Carrie, Gene and I
are so grateful that you're spending this time with us. Gina,
I know you wanted to have this series of inquiry, well,
car of course.

Speaker 4 (29:19):
You know I wanted him to go through his whole timeline.
If this didn't happen, if that didn't happen. From Barry
Gordy meeting Michael Jackson to Steven Spielberg. Uh, and the
work that they did together. And it was Steven Spielberg
who said something about Oprah, Hey, we are to try
her on the No, no, no.

Speaker 2 (29:37):
It was Steven who got with Quincy. There Michael Jackson, Okay,
so I'll start again. You want, you want, you want
to give you the time. Arry Gordy, Barry Gordy, he
discovers Michael Jackson. Big if they sell one hundred million records.
Then Barry Gordy decides that he's going to do a movie,

(29:59):
The Whiz, and he's gonna get Quincy Jones to be
the musical director, and he's gonna put Dinah Ross and
Michael Jackson in that.

Speaker 1 (30:06):
In that movie, Quincy, we forget, don't forget. Oh yeah,
I'm not gonna oil oil and mckinn you can't buy
some oil to meat.

Speaker 2 (30:24):
So so Barry Gordy discovers the Michael Jackson. They do
The Wiz. Uh. He had Quincy do the music. Michael
and Quincy get together and they have the biggest album
in the world, Thriller. It catches the attention of Steven Spielberg,
Stephen and Stephen and Quincy get together and they produce
the color purple. And in this production, Quincy found this

(30:48):
regional TV host in Chicago by the name of Oprah Winfrey.
He puts her in the color purple. From there, her
television show goes national and now she's got the platform
to get behind the candidate, and she decides that she's

(31:09):
going to get behind Barack Obama and he becomes president.

Speaker 1 (31:16):
So now that's particularly important on the political side because
Oprah Winfrey by and large introduces Barack Obama to an
audience that, just like Ed Sullivan took thousands of talents
and introduced them to a national audience. That matters. Who
introduces you to everybody doesn't matter, It certainly does.

Speaker 2 (31:39):
But remember Oprah Winfrey said that it was Diana ross
on the Ed Sullivan Show that changed her perspective and
changed her life based on the aspiration of her knowing
that she can bring that much joy to people as well.
If Diana Rosskin.

Speaker 4 (31:59):
Do absolutely And that's why I wanted you to go
through that exactly the way that you did. And it's
important why because one of my favorite people right now
is a gentleman by the name of Ernest Krim the
third and he's a very influential gentleman in his generation.

(32:22):
And he's a millennial, and so what you described went
from generation to generation. And this is why it's important
that you did a documentary the way that you did
so that we can continue to tell our story. Because
I do believe he's listening in right now wait to
hear you know what he has to say. I'm looking

(32:43):
forward to him looking to seeing the documentary so that
we can discuss it.

Speaker 3 (32:48):
Because these are.

Speaker 4 (32:48):
The kinds of things, these are the kinds of people
that have to step.

Speaker 5 (32:51):
Into history right now.

Speaker 4 (32:55):
And hopefully as people watch the documentary, they all kind
of figure out where where do I fit in this?
And so yeah, Ernest, I just got a note from
Ernest says, yes.

Speaker 2 (33:08):
He is listening.

Speaker 4 (33:10):
Let's let me say I can bring Ernest Krim to
the stage.

Speaker 2 (33:14):
Let me let me say one thing first. It's really
important that anybody who's listening here that that goes to
Netflix and watches the documentary, uh Sunday best. If they
love it, then it's very important to do two things.
One to give it a double thumbs up because of

(33:38):
the algorithm in that that that that matrix, I mean
that that Netflix has uh. And it's also important to
tell your friends to email, to tweet, to post so
that we can get the word out, because we think
that if the word gets out, then everybody's gonna go

(34:00):
avitate to it. Yeah, but this is marketing is always
a very very important component. It doesn't matter how good
your stuff is if you aren't marketed. So Michael Jackson
without the ed Cullibant audience could be great, but if
nobody knows he exists, then he's still gonna be that

(34:23):
little Michael Jackson.

Speaker 1 (34:24):
And Gary Gary, that's right.

Speaker 5 (34:27):
So Earnest is with us. Kerry Gordy meet Ernest Krim.

Speaker 3 (34:31):
Hey, Ernest, Hey, what's up, brother Gordy. It's a pleasure
to be here with you. I'm learning a lot and
I haven't even seen the documentary yet, so I can't
wait to check it out.

Speaker 2 (34:40):
Well, it's important for you to to post it and
tweet it and do whatever you can to to to
your generation.

Speaker 1 (34:48):
Let me, let me, let me, let me help Ernest
here and allow Ernest to reflect upon this. There's so
much about the past that is surface level stuff, and
you may have heard of at Sullivan, but when you
see this documentary. Kerry Gordy and Sasha who has now deceased,

(35:09):
and the extraordinary team behind this great work are going
to introduce you to the micro steps that it took
for some of our greatest heroes to become who they are,
and some of the courage that was required on their part.
They are really, in some ways, Carrie, the unsung heroes

(35:31):
of our movement, because if we are publicly leading the
bus boycott, we are privately hymning and repeating in our
minds what Mahalia is singing, and that matters to our
energy and our dignity, and what Gnat is doing, and

(35:53):
what Dizzy is doing and Bojangle isn't bo Diddley isn't
in black?

Speaker 3 (36:00):
Right?

Speaker 1 (36:01):
I mean, these guys have integrity in this process.

Speaker 2 (36:04):
Now, they also had to be clean cut. They had
to deal with all of the name calling and all
of the being spat on and being beat up and
the whole shot and still maintain their dignity. So we
had to go an extra mile because had we caused

(36:25):
a ruckus like they wanted us to, then this would
have never happened.

Speaker 1 (36:32):
Hmm, that's right, that's right, Ernest. Your moment with Kerry Gordy.

Speaker 3 (36:38):
Yeah, I think to me, just off of hearing this interview,
it reminds me of the importance of reclaiming our narratives
and that it speaks to so much of what I
do when I'm speaking to children and speaking to audiences
about the importance of black history. To be able to
view things through this lens immediately for me makes me

(36:59):
ask the question, how can we do this today or
in what way is it being done today? Or in
what way is it not being done? Because this, to
me proves that we all have a role in paving
a path for a better future for us all. So
again I can't wait to see this too, because for me,

(37:19):
I never knew this aspect of Ed Sullivan. This is
somebody that you were just you know, usually just knew
how to talk show back in the day, as they say,
but you didn't know, especially considering the error in which
he was doing. This just makes me admire his works
even more and you, of course for bringing this to
the forefront.

Speaker 2 (37:38):
Listen to this. My father had to put white people
on the Isley Brothers cover on the beach with a
bolli with a beach ball playing right, and the fact
of the matter is is because he couldn't put the
Isley Brothers on it because they were black, and he
wouldn't get racked. He wouldn't get the visibility in the store,

(38:00):
He wouldn't be able to UH get his UH product
distributed because he had a black face on.

Speaker 1 (38:08):
The cover of an album.

Speaker 2 (38:10):
People don't even get that. How how how far that's
come now? Right, So we had and he had to
think of that. He had to say.

Speaker 3 (38:20):
You know what.

Speaker 2 (38:20):
And another thing is he my father had to have
all of these white executives fronting UH so that when
they walked into a distribute a distribution center, they weren't
There wasn't a black person talking to someone who might
be hiding behind a Koo kokx Klan mask. Right, we

(38:43):
don't we We we take our freedom for granted and
people died for what we have now.

Speaker 1 (38:55):
Wow, but I've decided to if you both of you
can hate with me, I'd like to take you guys
into the next segment, just for the about seven or
eight minutes, because I think this is so rich that
it needs to be projected just fifteen minutes. Guys. It
reminds me of what I just heard when Reggie Lewis

(39:16):
the first black billionaire purchase McCall's patterns, and he could
never tell anyone that he owned McCall's. He had to
sign in as if he was just any old employee
because he didn't want white women who who bought the
magazine to know that it was owned by a black man.
He told me personally, if they thought for a moment
that somehow the patterns were changing, which they weren't, that

(39:38):
somehow the material was going to be daishiki, and he
would have lost value in the magazine. I' Jesse Jackson Junior.
When we come forward more with this conversation as we
prepare for reveren Tery Horde ORNs, I'm Jesse j In
this hour, of course, we dedicate this hour to the
life of Malcolm Jamal Warner, his life today in an

(40:02):
apparent swimming accident of sorts. We're waiting more information. We're
so grateful that in this hour Carrie Gordy has joined
us in this first segment along with Gina Towns, our
regular Friday contributor, and Teresa hoard Owens. Teresa hoard Owens

(40:24):
is our regular contributor in this hour. She is the
General Minister and president of the Christian Church Disciples of
Christ in the United States and Canada. She is the
first person of color and second woman to lead the nomination,
and the first woman of African descent to lead a
main line denomination. Madam President, Welcome to the Jesse Jackson
Junior Show.

Speaker 5 (40:44):
I love their Congressman. It's good to be with you all.
I've just been enjoying this conversation from backstage. So I'm
old enough to remember Ed Sullivan and growing up in Indiana.
I'll confess that I used to think I was going
to marry Michael Jackson, so everyone did. I was from Indiana,

(41:05):
so he had to come home to find a wife, right.
But anyways, I remember first seeing them on the Ed
Sullivan my parents being excited about the Temptations and the
Supremes and that. So that was must see TV right
back in the days when there were no VCRs and
just the narrative carry The way you've connected those dots

(41:28):
to really shape that narrative, as Ernest has said, I
think is so so important. I can't when we get off,
I'll be going to watch this this and I'll be
sure to share and promoted as much as I can
just such important history, important history.

Speaker 1 (41:42):
Also in this hour our very special guest, Ernest Krim
the Third, who is a millennial, who both Gina and
I have a particular fond of because we think that
so much of the future is invested in his work,
and the time that we spend with him is about
his development, our development, as we share and try and
find common ground between generations, knowing full well that those

(42:04):
of us who are sixty and older are out of here,
and in a moment we're going to bequeath a world
to Ernest Kramp the third, and we're going to trust
that that which we had to share mattered. Ernest, our
very special guest in this hour is none other than
Carry Gordy. He is an extraordinarily difficult person to get
in touch with and to book. And the fact that

(42:25):
he is honoring us in the last hour and certainly
in this sentment, and if he wants to hang around
for Teresa Hoard Owens's the suggestion if she suggests that,
I'm not suggesting that she should suggest it, because this
is her hour. I just want to say that Carrie,
we are so grateful, and I think the world is
going to be grateful because with this documentary you are

(42:45):
definitely on the ascension. Tell us about some of the
motivations on why at Sullivan.

Speaker 2 (42:51):
Well, the reason for why ed Sullivan is because people
needed to know the story, and I can't you know,
if I had let this opportunity go, there was a
possibility that this story would be lost for all of

(43:12):
our generations to know. I kind of feel like, if
we don't get stuff in in this generation, we could
potentially lose a lot of our history. You know, sometimes
you talk to people and if they don't even know who.
I heard something yesterday that was really crazy. It was

(43:32):
somebody that was kind of new I can't even remember.
I mean, not not like Diana Ross. I'm talking about
somebody knew knew, Uh, you know, people don't know Luther
Van Draws And I'm like, wait a minute, you know?
Or how could you not know if Teddy Pendergrast or

(43:53):
you know, it's it's it's crazy to me. So if
we don't tell the story now and tell the story
from our perspective, either the story won't get told or
it's going to be told by someone who really doesn't
know the story. And we really need to have those
of us who were there, and I was just a kid,

(44:14):
but I have to tell you we would rush home
on Sunday nights to see what Black Star was going
to be on Ed Sullivan, right.

Speaker 1 (44:26):
And the thing about it was.

Speaker 2 (44:28):
A lot of people didn't have televisions back then, and
so people would go over to the person's house that
had the television and they'd have those rabbit ears and
somebody owing the rabbit ear over here or whatever it is,
trying to get the reception good on a very small TV.
But we loved it, or everybody loved it, right, So

(44:51):
it's very important. This is like I said, this is
much more of a of a calling as it relates
to this project. Then it was a project.

Speaker 3 (45:02):
This this is.

Speaker 2 (45:03):
Something that I had to get out now and Ed
Sullivan could have been told one hundred different ways, and
we decided to tell it from our perspective.

Speaker 1 (45:17):
I'm Jesse Jackson Junior listening to the Jesse Jackson Junior
Show on KBLA Talk fifteen eighty. When we come forward,
our very special guest and co host is Reverend doctor
Teresa hord Owens. Hopefully Carrie and Ernest Krim will hang
around with us just for another segment. I'm Jesse Jackson
Junior listening to the Jesse Jackson Junior Show. This is Monday.
Reverend Terry hord Owens is the General Minister and President

(45:40):
of the Christian Church Disciples of Christ in the United
States in Canada. Last Monday, she was unable to be
with us and she had a substitute, a surrogate. Our husband,
Walter was on our program. And anytime the president of
a major denomination can't make the program, I have to
assume that God has called her to do something else,
and we have to absolutely respect that, Madam President. Welcome

(46:03):
forward to your show. Madam President, thank you so much.

Speaker 5 (46:06):
We were holding our biennial General Assembly and the business
sessions were in the afternoon. So grateful that Walter was
able to come on and join in the conversation. He
enjoyed it immensely.

Speaker 1 (46:18):
We had a great time. Let me allow Gina Towns
our Friday host of Reflectivity, whose guest is our guest,
Kerry Gordy. Last Friday, we had a technical glitch and
could not have him on for the full two hours
because of the release of his new documentary Sunday Best,
which aired last night, and it makes an amazing connection

(46:39):
between the role that Ed Sullivan played in civil rights.
I want to turn this part of our program over
to Gina Towns.

Speaker 5 (46:44):
I just wanted to thanks Jesse.

Speaker 4 (46:46):
I wanted to make a little bit of a connection
here because we're on Moving Mountain Mondays and I care
you said something about how this may be lost. Our
history may be lost if we had not captured this,
or if we don't continue to capture things that may
be slipping away from us. And Terry, you know, the

(47:08):
first thing I thought about was the lost scrolls. They
found the Arc of the Covenant because the scripture had
been lost for so long and people did not know
how to behave how to live their lives. And I
just think that that's the same issue with history as well,
because that's what the scrolls were, the Ark of the

(47:30):
Covenant was.

Speaker 3 (47:31):
It was Jewish.

Speaker 5 (47:32):
History, That's right. You know. My dad's a entire Black
studies professor at Knox College. He has a book of
literary criticism called Reconstructing Memory, and he basically says, you
can't go forward unless you know who you are and
where you've been. And so that history is one of
the reasons why I, too, am a fan of Ernest Krim.
The third because not only the history, but as Carrie said,

(47:56):
from our perspective, we have to be the ones to
share the narrative. And without that, we really don't understand
our identity. Without our history, we are identity less and
we really we don't understand what we've contributed to the
culture as opposed to how people think the culture has

(48:17):
shaped us. There's not much in American popular culture that
has not been shaped by black folks. We are the
original American culture, be it music, literature. We're what didn't
come from Europe. Right, So those stories have to be
told and they have to be preserved so that we
can shape our future generation's sense of themselves with integrity.

Speaker 4 (48:43):
Terry, this next image is for you. It's Michael Jackson.
I make sure that before Carrie leaves us that you
know Jesse always likes to give someone an opportunity to
share a word of hope, and this is and just
a wonderful opportunity to share with you. Carrie, Thank you

(49:04):
so much for coming back.

Speaker 2 (49:08):
Well, I you know this, this whole the whole culture
that we're in right now is very is. We're in
the craziest times that I can remember. Since I've been
a child. I had the advantage, I believe, of literally

(49:29):
living through the best part of American history because by
the time, you know, in the in the late sixties,
by the time I was growing up, things were starting
to ease up. And actually I was born into this

(49:50):
kingdom called Motown and I was living like a prince.
So I had the chance to to experience the goodness
and the positive let's say, trajectory of where we could

(50:12):
go as a people. And now we're actually it seems
like we've turned the corner and we're going backwards. So
what I would say is everyone needs to stay in
their lane and know what they can do to help

(50:36):
move that, to move the culture where it needs to be.
So my lane happens to be in entertainment. So anything
that I can do to uplift entertainment, like rap is
okay if a rap is okay in certain aspects, but

(50:57):
it has been totally taken out a con text and
made so that thelonious activity and negative stereotypes are what
is cool to the kids. And I think that's horrible,
and I think it's horrible for us as executives to

(51:20):
push that narrative out to our children. So I'm just
saying that, like Michael Jackson said, I'm starting with the
man in the mirror, And the fact is is that
I'm going to stay in my lane and focus on
what i can do and the same thing that Terry

(51:40):
rev and Terry can focus on what she can do,
and the same way that Jesse and Gina can and
Ernest can push their narrative the way that they do.
But people have to do it.

Speaker 1 (51:58):
Sunday Best is on Netflix today. It is one of
the new ads to Netflix. I would really love for
every viewer, every person who can hear our voices to
go to Netflix and listen watch Sunday Best this week.
It is one of the most extraordinary documentaries that has

(52:20):
been produced in the music realm, in the genre realm,
in the culture realm, and because of the pivotal moment
that is the life of Ed Sullivan. Extremely grateful for
the reservation of Ed Sullivan by Kerry Gordy. Kerry, thank
you for being on the Jesse Jackson Junior Show.

Speaker 2 (52:35):
We have to give the two thumbs up on Netflix
and everybody needs to post and tweet and tell their
people if they love it. To post and tweet because
I'm confident that they're gonna love it. We appreciate you,
carry appreciate you better.

Speaker 1 (52:56):
President Brother Krim. Let me turn our program over to,
of course, Madam President. We have a millennial, a young
man with extraordinary talents, who has we've taken fond of
because of his clarity on history, because of his clarity
on spirituality. But he also generally, generationally understands that a

(53:21):
bridge has to be built between that which we know
and that which the people that the young people that
he communicates with are experiencing. Madam President, I know Gina
made the introduction earlier. We've talked about a generation of
people staying at the table, your new work, which will
be available on Amazon dot Com and Barnes and Noble

(53:44):
and other various mediums across platforms. We have a millennial
who we'd like to invite to the table, Madam President.

Speaker 5 (53:54):
You know, I'm just so excited that Ernest is back here.
And as I was listening to the conversation, one of
the things that we engaged at our general Assembly again,
we're you know, eighty percent white, ten percent Black, six
seven percent Hispanic, two to three percent Asian Pacific Islander,
some powerful what we call statements of witness, one about

(54:17):
what Israel continues to do in Gaza, about the situation immigration.
We denounced the horrible, awful budget bill, et cetera. And
we had young people coming to the floor and speaking
for those things. And I remember, I'm still mad that
I'm no longer considered a young adult. And every major

(54:38):
movement forward in human history has been led by young people.
Certainly that's been the case in the United States, Jesse.
Our dads are about the same age. And I remember
my dad's activity as a college student in Indiana, the
work that he did as a young black man in

(55:01):
his thirties to lift up his community. I also remember
the fights that I thought, you know, apartheid was the
issue when I was undergraduate at Harvard. And I think
one of the things that our generation has to remember
is that there are certain fights where we were pushing
the ball down the court, we were breaking, we were

(55:25):
pushing envelopes. And I think that the interesting thing in
what's happening now is that this generation is now facing
the very fights that our parents fought, the very fights
we were supposed to be the children of the promise right.
We were supposed to be the ones that benefited from
affirmative action. We were supposed to be the ones who

(55:48):
were going to integrate. And and in the same way
that the slaves never talked about the struggle, some of
us never talked to our children about the struggle because
we didn't want them to, you know, to experience that pain.
And I think we've got to ensure not only do
younger people know these stories, but the reason they need
to know these stories is because, you know, they say,

(56:09):
if you don't remember it, history will repeat itself. We
don't learn those lessons, but it's coming back around. Some
of this stuff is not new, and we have to
also kind of make space for these voices at microphones
in the streets, at decision tables and listening to say,
maybe our taste in music, our taste in clothes is

(56:32):
not the same. You know, kids are wearing what we
wore in the seventies. It's back. It's back when I
was a teenager, my brother wore his hair like yours.
The fro was the thing. My son grew up wearing
a real close cut, and now he's got you know,
locks and curls. But everything makes that circle. But we

(56:53):
have to remember that these young people see the world differently.
If we don't give them that background so that they
can make right discernments and be able to analyze what's
happening to them, they will fall victim to things. But
it just breaks my heart that I'm fighting for the
very things I'm fighting for my grandson in the same
way that my grandfather fought for me. And it shouldn't

(57:16):
be that that just shouldn't be, and that that's where
we are. And I hope our willingness to listen and
make spaces what requires us to stay at the table.
You don't have to like, you don't even have to agree,
But everybody has the right at the table if you
believe as I do, that we're all created in the
image of God, and we all have we all have
beauty and dignity of our own that can't we don't

(57:37):
get there. We don't get to limit another person's dignity
or limit the space that they occupy.

Speaker 1 (57:43):
Earns your response to the President.

Speaker 3 (57:45):
Yeah, I would say, and again, thank you all for
the kind words that you saw upon me every time
I come on. You know, I'm grateful. As you're speaking,
I'm thinking of how we all experience pain in life.
And one of the worst feelings to have when you
experience pain is to feel as though you are alone,
to not have someone to con finding, or not to

(58:05):
have someone who can relate to your experience. History, to
me proves to us that we are not alone in
our struggles. And for the generations you know that come
even after me, gen z Janalpha and so on and
so forth. Without that historical perspective, they will be made
to feel as though they are inventing these new waves.
Right because my kids, my oldest daughters ten and twelve,

(58:27):
where bail wear, bail bottoms and stuff like that, and
you know, they bring back the seventies aesthetic, so like metaphorically,
without the knowledge of the past, they'll believe they created that.
And then without the context of the past, they want
to understand where these movements came from. I'm thinking of
as you all are speaking. I went to I was

(58:49):
in Milwaukee a couple of weeks ago for a track
meet for my daughter, and on the way back, I
decided that we had to stop because whenever I go
on these road trips of my kids, or any trip
in general, I'm always looking for historical landmarks to take
them to. We went to America's Black Holocaust Museum in Milwaukee,
which was founded by doctor James Cameron, who escaped a
lynching in Marion, Indiana. A picture that I'm sure many

(59:12):
of us are familiar with, and he has this quote
ethic as you exit the museum that I have to
take a picture of That stood out to me, and
I'll just read it real quick for you all, he says,
di quote. History tells me that a people without a
story are a people with no name. Without a name,
one is not respected or understood without a name or

(59:36):
a story. The depth regions of the heart will never
be plumbed. You remain a stranger to yourself and others.
Stories give shape to our personal journey. Stories give context
to our collective pilgrimage end quote. I think that speaks

(59:56):
to where we are now and the importance of making
our kids understand our experiences in the interconnectedness of them all,
especially as it relates to what Brother Gordy was speaking
about the Sunday Best. I think so much about how
my father indirectly taught me Black history through music. I
know the people that will be shown in this documentary

(01:00:19):
and when you spoke about Luther Vandros, my kids know
who Luther is because just like my father used to
quiz me in the car when I was growing up,
I quiz my kids all the time because they know.
Way you're gonna listen to Kenchrick, Lamar and Sissa rap
about Luther and sample him without knowing who he actually is.

Speaker 1 (01:00:38):
You know, we talk about we talk about passing the baton,
which I think is a kind of cruel way of
saying that our parents are old and that we're old
past the baton. But for those who are paying attention
to this conversation to what Kerry Gordy had to say,
that's exactly what's happening right now on KBLA Talk fifteen eighty.
We're passing the baton. We're speaking intergenerationally about our history,

(01:01:02):
and in that inter generational conversation, there is a passing
without the cruelty of saying y'all getting old. I'm Jesse
Jackson and you're listening to Jesse Jackson Junior Show on
KBLA Talk fifteen eighty. When we come.

Speaker 3 (01:01:13):
Forward, it's afternoon drive Time with Jesse Jackson Junior only
on KBLA talk fifteen.

Speaker 1 (01:01:21):
Eighty memorializing the light of Malcolm Jamal Warner, who apparently
perished today in a swimming accident or in some kind
of death related event that's largely tied to water. We're

(01:01:46):
still waiting for more information, but Malcolm Jamal Warner has been,
at age fifty four, a significant part of the culture
and the significant part of all of our lives. We
watched him grow up. We imagined that we were members
of the Cosby family. Yeah, and he was in a
real sense for parents who had never raised children before.

(01:02:06):
He was like kind of the young man that we
wanted to raise, and the Cosby children's daughters were kind
of the daughters that we wanted to have raised and
to raise. And professional parents is a vision of America,
both professional parents that we expected to have. Malcolm Jamal Warner,

(01:02:29):
Reverend Onans is a part.

Speaker 5 (01:02:30):
Of a part of who we are, absolutely And it's
just when those kinds of reports happened across social media
and it was posted by somebody that I have a
lot of confidence in, but I still did my own
Google search just to be sure that it wasn't fake.

Speaker 1 (01:02:48):
It's CNN, It's MSNBC.

Speaker 5 (01:02:50):
It is everywhere. It's everywhere, and it's just such a
shock to all of our systems, to somebody who was
so beloved in the culture as we as we were
all growing up. And of course the Cosby Show still,
you know, certainly a staple for many of us in
the late eighties, early in nineties. So just such a shocking.

(01:03:13):
Our prayers are certainly with his wife, and I believe
he has a daughter, but just just such a sad day,
such a sad day.

Speaker 1 (01:03:20):
It certainly is, Madame President. You know, when we think about,
you know, bridging generations, I've come to appreciate, brother Krim,
that a generation is about four years. It's about you know,
every generation has well their own president for either four
years or eight years. But that's about it. I mean,

(01:03:41):
some people reflect upon growing up in the Reagan years,
and they reflect upon growing up in the Clinton years.
I mean, what we remember when we come to this moment,
Madam President, of our consciousness. Yes, this defines who we are.
And Ernest Krim is coming into consciousness. And I'm I'm
not speaking down to your earnest or or belittling your

(01:04:04):
educational path, but you've had four years of Trump. You've
had four years of Biden, You've had you know, six
months of Trump and possibly four years of Trump. I mean,
you're in the middle of something that's really really ugly
and against the backdrop of our history, and I'm just concerned.
I don't know if the President has some thoughts about
it as well, about you know, from our generation, our

(01:04:24):
reaction or your generation. Wow, I can't believe I put
myself in that generation. What the reaction is going to be,
what the resistance is. We want to help you sharpen
that tensil ernest.

Speaker 3 (01:04:36):
Yeah. For me, just to even add some more contexts,
I was a child in elementary school making my way
to high school when Bill Cleantan was in office, and
I became a little bit more aware when George Bush one.
I distinctively remember my mom having a copy of Fairhegh
nine to eleven and watching that and being absolutely in

(01:04:57):
awe of everything that I was learning from that in
and I grew up like. I was speaking to an
elder the other day who is maybe eighty, and he
was saying that he couldn't have you know, imagined in Obama,
and I told him in response, I said, man, And
when I was growing up. I couldn't have imagined and

(01:05:17):
Obama either.

Speaker 6 (01:05:19):
So, you know, he's thirty plus years older than me,
so like forty years you know, so like going and
so experiencing that while I was in college and then
seeing where we are now has humbled me because you
would always hear politicians, you know, and you probably know
what I'm about to say, our democracy is fragile.

Speaker 3 (01:05:40):
You would hear it all the time, don't. I don't
think we truly understood what that meant. I didn't I
knew what they were trying to communicate to get us to,
you know, be excited to vote. I was gonna vote regardless.
That was just the expectation in my household. But to
see it be torn apart, to see executive orders become

(01:06:04):
legal according to our Supreme Court, is baffling to me.
And again it speaks to the importance of understanding these
pathways to this point because for me, as as a
history teacher, a former classroom teacher, I would tell people
that we have to understand that Trump is not new.
He's new to us, but he's not new to what

(01:06:26):
America is. And if we look at people like Andrew Jackson,
Andrew Johnson, we can gain a better understanding of just
what he is not just trying to do, but it's
actively doing now, and hopefully that would give us some
perspective to say that we refuse to have something like this.
And I'll say in closing that I was just looking
at a chart that was showing his approval rating across

(01:06:48):
the country, and there were the majority of states had
him in the negative. And these are states who many
of them voted for him as well. I just truly
hope that whatever happen is moving forward, that we don't
forget this feeling, because many of us will because we
are sometimes tied to the emotion we feel maybe in

(01:07:09):
the last few months leading up to an election. We
have to remember where we are now and don't let
him pacify us in any other way by saying that he,
you know, pardons somebody that we respect, or or he
put his name on a check or something like that.
Remember where we are now. And for those of us
who have children going back to school soon, remember the

(01:07:31):
lack of resources that you will have and how that's
going to feel to you and impact your family.

Speaker 1 (01:07:37):
Madam President, we have about a minute and forty five
seconds before we come forward.

Speaker 5 (01:07:40):
Yeah, absolutely, that failure to remember, failure to even have
that kind of context. You know, William Barber talks about
the Third Reconstruction, and that's what we're really seeing is
that there have been periods of liberation and then backlash.
Liberation and then backlash, the initial reconstruction backlash, and we

(01:08:03):
clamped down harder with slavery codes and Jim Crow laws,
civil rights movement. We had to fight tooth and nail
to get through that, and through all of that we
really did. Nobody has believed more in the Constitution and
the Declaration of Independence than formerly enslaved black people in

(01:08:24):
the United States. And now we can't even count on that.
We can't count on Congress, we can't count on any
respect for the rule of law, we can't count on
the Supreme Court. It's just it's tragic, and we really
do have to have that lens of history to keep
us from going crazy or to forget that. Trump can't

(01:08:47):
be kowtow too, he can't be bargained with. He's it's
just evils, is what's happening? To share evil?

Speaker 1 (01:08:55):
I'm Jesse Jackson Jr. Listening to the Jesse Jackson Junior
Show on k BLA Talk one fifty eight zero. I'm
Jesse Jackson June. When we come forward and jus well
go forward to Jesse Jackson Jewish Law. And in this
hour we are continuing our conversation on intergenerational connectivity, and
we are also commemorating, memorializing, remembering the life of Malcolm

(01:09:20):
Jamal Warner nineteen seventy twenty twenty five. And if you
haven't heard, Malcolm Jamal Warner is now part of the
Ages parent accident while swimming, Malcolm Jamal Warner lost his
life on this day and it is a very very
sad moment for many of us who grew up with

(01:09:42):
Malcolm Jamal Warner really writing the narrative, if you will,
The acting career of his life was our life. We
projected ourselves in that way, Madam President. Some thoughts about
Malcolm Jamal Warner.

Speaker 5 (01:10:00):
Again, as you said, sort of the that that family
was the first time we'd seen a black family on
TV with with two professionals living a particular kind of life,
still black, but with different contextual experiences. I think that
the makeup of the children uh mirrored Bill Cosby's own
uh family. Uh, four girls and one son. So he

(01:10:25):
was the boy he was. I was too old to
have had a crush on him, but certainly uh as
many as many did. As I'm seeing on social media,
people are just you know, grieving in all kinds of ways,
but certainly just the warmth of that family. The young
man that he became. He went on to be in

(01:10:46):
a couple of other sitcoms and in dramas. I think
he was in a show with Tracy Ellis Ross and
did some other things. But uh, and really tried to
give back to the community. Bernan's King The King Center
posted about a tribute to him. He had been the
MC of the twenty twenty three King's Beloved Community Awards,
and so I was engaged in so many different ways

(01:11:11):
with the Black community. And it's just tragic whenever you
lose someone suddenly, our systems are still in shock. It's
just hard to believe a fifty four is still a
very young man.

Speaker 1 (01:11:23):
You know. I think in this moment, Madame President and
Brother Krim, that I don't know why I'm reflecting upon
my own life and how I will be remembered think
about the loss of someone like Malcolm Jamal Warner. There's
this moment of reflection where we stop to think about
his body of work and the way in which, as

(01:11:43):
a black man he presented himself, and that is the
body of his work, that is the definition of who
he will be and is remembered as. And I'm wondering,
you know, there are some people who, Okay, I have
no problem being this dignified child of two professional parents
in the Cosby Show. I have no problem being a

(01:12:04):
brain surgeon. But some of us, in our acting careers,
we actually stoop to wherever the dollar is and we're
prepared to do just about anything to get it. And
so I'm not quite clear on what the message is,
but I get the impression that, for example, across the
career of Denzel Washington, there is a methodology, right. I

(01:12:24):
get the impression across Diane Carroll's career, there's a point
and there is a methodology. It's just about money. It's
also about what we heard in the first segment, which
was the dignity within which our actors and actresses and
entertainers approach their work. And Malcolm has a substantial body

(01:12:47):
of work as a dignified black man.

Speaker 3 (01:12:50):
Ernest I think, what's so profound about him to me
is so I grew up again seeing the Cosby Show
and seeing his representation. So although I was aware of
the negative images regarding our community, because it still existed
at that time, I grew up at a time where
we had more options and to be able to see

(01:13:11):
that and for him, he was a representation of what
I would strive or want to strive to be as
a teenager, you know, as a young adult. And I
think what impressed me the most was when I began
to see him outside of the role of THEO as
he got older, in seeing him on radio interviews and
to hear him talk, because sometimes you get caught up

(01:13:32):
in the character you think you you know, you think
that they're completely different in real life. He was profound.
He was what he showed and exhibited himself to be
on that show. He was an artist, true and true
through and through. I'm sorry, and I think that I
mean he was Grammy nominated. I believe he produced work

(01:13:52):
that shed light on the HIV age crisis when it
was becoming a part of our vocabulary in our consciousness
at the time. He spoke so highly of our great
ancestors and how his parents made sure that he read
and read. I mean, he was named after two of
our greatest historical figures. I think that speaks to everything

(01:14:18):
that he has become in his life. And when I
came across it, like you read, I was shocked. I
didn't expect. I was expecting to see maybe he was
in the hospital, or maybe there was an update on
something he did. But to come across death like this,
you all on social media, it's unlike anything that I've

(01:14:39):
ever known, you know, And I know I'm relatively you know,
I still want to hold onto my youth, but it's
traumatic to me to experience that collectively because fifty four
is to me, it's still young, and he had so
much more to give, so much more wisdom to teach.
So I just hope that we're able to learn from
his example up in to the point where he was

(01:15:01):
strategically taken from us.

Speaker 1 (01:15:03):
Today I met a president Doctor King raised the question
about our obsession and our concern for longevity, but he
encouraged us to look at the at the quality of
our lives and the quality of our existence.

Speaker 5 (01:15:16):
You know, he famously said, you know, longevity has its place,
and we all want to live a long life. But
I'm not, he said, I'm not worried about that anymore.
He got to the point where he understood that he
had a call and a purpose and that it perhaps
would would bear some costs. And I think what we
saw to turn this point in Malcolm Jamal's uh career

(01:15:40):
with somebody who wasn't just trying to be a big
baller shot caller and have cars and houses and just
be the celebrity thing, but but somebody who seeks not
just celebrity, but understands the responsibility that comes with having
a platform. And so when you have a platform, if

(01:16:01):
you care, if you care about how other people see you,
and about the role models that you're setting, and about
how you can leverage that platform for good or for ill,
or for yourself. Right, a lot of people just want
to leverage the platform for themselves. And he was clearly
somebody who took that responsibility seriously in other things that

(01:16:24):
he did and wanted to be able to stand proudly
and not just a whole lot of material gain, but
to have some integrity with everything that he did. And
too many celebrities just want to make money and not
accept the responsibility that comes with having people look up

(01:16:45):
to you.

Speaker 1 (01:16:46):
Madam President. We have about a minute in thirty seconds
and a hard stop at the top of the hour,
maybe a word of hope.

Speaker 5 (01:16:55):
I love the fact that you that you always ask
that there's a scripture I think as a first great
in somewhere it says, hope doesn't disappoint, And I think
there are so many things that happen in our society
where we want to from everything that we've been talking
about about what's been happening politically, the frustration and the

(01:17:15):
anger that we may feel about what's happening with executive
orders or just ridiculous Supreme Court decisions and readings, the
state of our communities, the economic injustice that still pervades,
the sad and equities that we still see in our
educational system. Hope doesn't disappoint. It's important for our own

(01:17:39):
spirits as human beings to believe, first of all, that
there's something that can be done. The moment that we
believe that we have to give up, then I'm not
sure what our journey is about. So regardless of whatever
your spiritual religious perspective is, there, human beings still have agency.
There's still work that can be done, and it's not

(01:18:02):
the audacity of hope. As Barack Obama said, there there's
nothing wrong with holding on to hope. Scripture tells it's
hope does not disappoint.

Speaker 1 (01:18:09):
Thank you, Madam President. We're excited that Ernest Krim will
be joining us on Mondays in the first hour moving
forward on moving Mountain Mondays. I'm Jesse Jackson Jr. Thank
you all very much for your participation. This is Jesse
Jackson Junior on KBLA Talk fifteen eighty until next time.