What Are Millennials Thinking?

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
The Jeff Jackson Junior Show and the top fifteen eighty.
That's Heartbreak Hotel by Jackson's I heard it anywhere on Earth.
What a masterpiece of a creation of a magnificent song,
Heartbreak Hotel by the Jacksons. This is a really interesting
news day, and today we're going to seek to answer

(00:24):
the question with one of my favorite millennials, Ernest krim Iid,
the question of what does Ukrainian policy have to do
with us? It seems that we can easily dismiss what
it means for Vladimir Zelensky to be in the United States.
For European leaders in a surprise move to accompany Vladimir

(00:49):
Zelenski to the United States in part because they cannot
trust a one on one meeting with the President of
the United States. The future of Europe is a stake. Obviously,
the future of Ukraine has been at stake, and the
dom Bass region seems to be on the table in

(01:11):
terms of any kind of peace agreement. Ernest krim Id
is an Emmy nominated producer, public teacher, anti racist, educator,
and hate cried victor who uses black historical narratives to
empower and educate through a culturally equitable lens. Mister Krim,
a South Side of Chicago native and University of Illinois
Urbana Champaign graduate, is a former high school history educator

(01:33):
of twelve years who now also advocates for social justice
issues and teaches by history to the world through social media,
with the platform that reaches roughly four million people each
month as of twenty twenty four. Ernest Krim third, welcome
forward to the Jesse Jackson Junior Show.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
Hey, brother Jesse, thanks for having me again. It's a
pleasure and honor to be here. As always look forward
to our conversation.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
I certainly do as well. Ernest. Listen. I while I'm
starting with Ukraine, I want to focus on millennial thinking
generally about their role in the world. Obviously, the news
is dominated by what is taking place in that part
of the world today. I mean all of the leaders
of Europe and Zelenski and the President of the United

(02:19):
States who just came off of a summit in Alaska
with Vladimir Putin, welcomed in a US Air Force base,
given the red carpet treatment. Publicly, not much was accomplished,
and yet President Trump feels compelled to deliver some kind
of message to Zelensky, which is obviously forthcoming because it's

(02:41):
taking place at this moment. But if I'm on the
South end of Los Angeles or the South side of Chicago,
or I'm in Harlem, New York, or I'm I'm in Atlanta, Georgia,
or I'm in Oakland, California, in a real sense, as
a young black person, a young millennium, what does the
world and what is going on in that part of

(03:04):
the world mean to me? Do I have any relationship
to it whatsoever? In a real sense, our spending in
terms of its military budget is money that we're not
spending on domestic priorities here at home. It is a
far away, distant location. It undermines every dollar that we

(03:24):
spend around the world is not is money that's not
being spent on education, not being spent on healthcare, not
being spent on jobs. But I wanted to get your
reflection in this moment. There's so much going on domestically
that the millennials now are being asked to turn their
attention to the rest of the world.

Speaker 2 (03:42):
Your thoughts, I think that's it right there. I think
that when you think about our role in this world
as Americans, regardless of our race, I think that we
are often taught directly and indirectly that we are the
center of the world. And we're taught that through, of course,
this lens of euro Centrism, which places them at the

(04:05):
center of the world. And because of the way we
digest news, are exposed to news, are exposed to the world,
it feels as though everything comes through us, and if
it's not about us, it does not matter. And I
say that to say this, I think in this generation,
so as we talk, you know about myself being a millennial,

(04:27):
and even folks in gen Z who grew up like
right next to social media. I was introduced to social
media in college, you know, like we got gen z
who they were there as soon as they came out
the womb. I think that we become more aware of
our connection to other places. And going back to your point,
the question then becomes, if we have all of these

(04:48):
issues in our neighborhoods, as you said New York and
Cali and Chicago, Illinois, and Atlanta, Georgia, then why aren't
we focusing on solving our issues here as opposed to
getting involved than all of these other foreign entanglements when
we think about our role now, I think for this generation,
what has forced us to be aware of our role

(05:09):
is what we have seen go on the last couple
years on social media in Palestine and Gayza. I think
that has thrust it to the forefront because not only
has this already been going on, but we're able to
say and see firsthand now more than ever, what our
tax money has paid for. And I think in previous
generations we were kept in the dark about anything that

(05:32):
was going on, whether it be over there, whether it
be Ukraine, whether it be in Russia. Now, because of TikTok, Now,
because of social media, we see that. And the question
that arises for many of us in this generation is,
you know, not that not that we want to be
more aware in the sense of becoming experts on it,
but how can we then channel that same energy and

(05:55):
attention that goes to these other countries and foreign policy
to what we have going on over here. And I
think there's also an understanding that unless there is justice
for people and other parts of the world, they can
be no justice for us. Because as America does abroad,
we also realize that they also do here domestically as well.

Speaker 1 (06:17):
I'm Jesse Jackson Junior listening to the Jesse Jackson Junior
Show on KBLA Talk fifteen to eighty. Our very special
guest in this hour is mister Ernest Krim. He is
my favorite millennial and we're going to dissect the role
that millennials have and how they see themselves in the world.
I'm Jesse Jackson Junior. Welcome forward to the Jesse Jackson
Junior Show on k BLA Talk fifteen eighty. Ernest Krim,

(06:40):
the third Emmy nominated producer public teacher, has created content
for companies such as HBO, Hulu, Disney, Paramount, and The
History Channel. Additionally, he is the CEO of Krim's Cultural
Consulting LLC. An international speaker who's spoken at Harvard, the
University of Chicago, Microsoft, Colin Kaepernick's Know Your Rights Can't,
and audiences in the United Kingdom and Canada. The author

(07:04):
of two books and a passionate aggressive education activists, has
worked closely with organizations to advocate for educational and political equity, reparations,
mental health awareness, and food justice. Ernest welcome forward to
the Jesse Jackson Junior Show.

Speaker 2 (07:20):
Thanks again for having me bag brother, Ernest.

Speaker 1 (07:22):
Our conversation centers around the role that millennials play in
the world and how they see themselves in the world.
Let me go through some issues, getting guns off the streets,
making health care more affordable and accessible, reducing the flow

(07:43):
of drugs in the community, providing more affordable housing, reducing
crime and making streets safer, improving public education, inflation and
the cost of living. I cannot find a query Time magazine,
Newsweek Magazine, the Washington Post, or the New York Times

(08:05):
that for millennials suggests that the war in Ukraine, or
even the war between Israel and Hamas is registering with
them as critical issues that confront their lives domestically. Maybe
they're learning from the news, maybe they're paying attention to

(08:26):
new to the news. My question to you, Ernest, is
are they making the connection between as doctor King did,
we are spending billions of dollars on weapons of mass destruction,
but we can't find enough money to put a man
on his own two feet right here in America? Or
the message of Muhammad Ali, why should I fight in

(08:48):
Vietnam or Ukraine? They never call me the N word.
Muhammad Ali's global consciousness, which if he were living today,
I think he would probably be short of being a millennial.
I think he said that probably twenty eight years old
and was willing to give up his title to not

(09:11):
respond to a draft. Are millennials making the distinction that
our resources that we should be using domestically are being
spent abroad in conflicts that do not concern them, and
or should they be concerned?

Speaker 2 (09:28):
Oh definitely. I think that, you know, to quote the
great artist and poet Tupac Shakur, who, in terms of
being a hip hop artists raised a lot of us
as millennials. You know, we got money for war, we
can't feed the poor. It's something that we've seen time
and time again. And it's not that we don't realize

(09:50):
that these issues across the country, across the world are
very pressing. But a couple of things. One, we are
more conscious and aware of a America's role in causing
these issues and exacerbating them, and we're now able to
draw these connections. We're able to see that if they

(10:11):
again are treating people across the world a certain way,
if they are helping fund genocides across the world, then
what does that mean for us here in America. I
would say that even too, during the twenty tens, when
I was becoming more aware of my role not just
as a student of history, but as someone who was

(10:31):
engaging in activism too, you would come across stories about
how our police departments would you go to learn how
to monitor and abuse us in Israel, and they would
carry these same practices to our neighborhoods and our communities
for instance, I think when you see things like that,

(10:54):
and you also see the ways in which we view
people in other countries when we are we are where
now of where our cell phones come from, Like this
was not the conversation ten to fifteen years ago. We
just wanted the latest iPhone. But as millennials here and
also to you know, part of gen Z as well,
now we're looking at what's going on in the Congo,

(11:16):
and we're looking at Cobalt, and we're seeing that this
device that connects us cannot be possible without the exploitation
of our people. Again, and in many ways, we maybe
we're just maybe we're a little naive and wanting the
world to be a better place, and wanting to imagine

(11:37):
a world where these conflicts don't exist, and where these
these where everybody is able to be housed, where people
are able to be fed, where the resources are redistributed
within our community to help people out, you know, like
when I travel, like I was just actually actually in
Nashville over the weekend, and whenever I go to a

(11:58):
new city, I'm always trying to you know, local black
history and things like that. And of course, just like
any large city, when you go downtown, I'm showing my
kids the mural for John Lewis they have there, you know,
about getting into good trouble and and how he engaged
in the city and when he was in college at
the time. But I I can't escape from the fact

(12:20):
that as I'm going down this street named after our
one of our great leaders and ancestors, John Lewis, that
I'm surrounded by people who are houseless on the corner,
you know. Or when I go downtown to get some
food with my kids before we go back to our hotel,
I'm letting them know that we have the privilege of
going to a hotel, but there are people who have

(12:41):
to sleep outside on this same street where there's a
million dollar enterprise, the Country Music Hall of Fame, all
of these museums and all of these different festivals that
come here. These are the issues that we see or
when we see the police, the President telling the National Guard,
and he's employing federal troops to DC and potentially Chicago

(13:06):
and LA not to help people out but to harm them.
So time and time again, it becomes again, to quote
another great poet from our generation that we grew up on,
Naza Nazier Jones, the hypocrisy is all I can see,
and we just want something that makes sense. And I

(13:28):
just kind of close out on this. I think that
there's something to us being raised in this duality. When
I was in high school, I did not have all
of this access. But as I was growing in my
consciousness in college, I'm begetting to learn Black history voluntarily.
I'm teaching myself. I'm going to quote to classes and

(13:50):
signing up for things, and I'm reading on my own.
Then Facebook comes, then Twitter comes, then Instagram comes, so
I'm able to grow gradually. And it is because of
that that in some ways it's overwhelming as a millennial,
because it seems as if you are overloaded and bombarded
with so much information and you want to see this

(14:11):
world be better, you want to see America be better.
You want the world to be better. But in many
ways too, when you see the connection between these trips
being deployed and the meetings that Trump is having, you
wonder if it's ever actually going to become a thing
that actually happens.

Speaker 1 (14:26):
One of the reasons I enjoy engaging you is I'm
learning a lot. The first time my son called me
Pops and his friends in college called me Unk mean,
I looked at them like they were out of their minds.
I mean, man, what do you mean Unk? You know Unk?

(14:47):
And what do you mean, Pops? Man? I'm your daddy boy.
I then got to develop an appreciation that as I
around this corner at sixty, that things in my space
have changed relative to the generations themselves. Right, So I'm
thinking in this moment ernest that doctor King often quoted

(15:09):
the philosopher Hegel. He talked about synthesis. He said that
Hegel said that the truth can neither be found in
the thesis nor the antithesis, but in the synthesis, which
reconciles the two, which means every thesis has some truth

(15:32):
to it, every response to that thesis or the antithesis
has some truth to it. The reconciliation of that in
the form of a synthesis creates a new truth. But
at the same time that it creates a new truth,
it creates a new thesis. And therefore the process creates
a new antithesis. And such is the process of life. Right.

(15:56):
So I'm thinking about this generation now that is is
the product of artificial intelligence, where they can look up
anything on their cell phones, they can get instant answers,
they can write term papers that would take many of
us months to write. They can write them in minutes.
They can have all of the footnotes and the endnotes
corrected before the day is over, even though they've been

(16:18):
given a very complicated assignment. But then I think about,
on the other hand, a community of values and the
extreme community of values that I'm referring to in this
particular case, and it is from my perspective extreme is
the Amish between AI radical individualism and innovation, the ability

(16:42):
to make decisions and do what you want, and also
recognizing that AI has serious limitations when it comes to
replacing human beings. But then I think about the community
value and needs of the Amish, right, I mean fiercely communal,
but less individualistic than our economic system and the innovation

(17:06):
that comes from individualism. But somewhere between Ai and the
Amish is a synthesis where we think about our community
on the one hand as black people, as brown people,
as progressive people, but at the same time we don't
give up our own inward drive to be something that
is unique. That we have a unique calling and a

(17:28):
unique responsibility beyond community to express ourselves, that God has
created each of us unique to operate in this space.
Do millennials give consideration to the idea that they are
the hybrid the synthesis of not only their parents, but
of history, this moment, the present, and our future.

Speaker 2 (17:50):
That is a profound question and observation. I think that
you know when you when you speak, when you bring
up doctor King, for instance, As a student of history,
I'm often comparing myself to the age people were at
certain points in history, and I think, you know, as

(18:10):
someone who is in the middle of being a millennium,
I'm thirty seven, so I look man like, what was
Doctor King? And what was Malcolm? What was you know?
What was Rosa? What was John Lewis? What were they
doing around that age? I think that as a collective
in our society, I don't think that we are as

(18:31):
far along as they were, and I think it's because
of what you say, what you speak on. I think
because we are that hybrid. We have seen in many ways,
like I said before, the greatest aspects of what life
was like prior to the technological age that we existing now,
and the best and worst aspects of where our society

(18:55):
is headed. You aren't able to pull from what we
experienced in the nineties before then and bring that with us.
I think we're doing. And what I mean is because
having more access to information does not mean that we
are smarter with it and more intelligent with it. It
means that we know more, but we have to then

(19:16):
perfect the art of application. I'm often amazed when I
think about what, let's say, in nineteen fifty five, what
they were able to do to galvanize an entire community,
to spread the words so that a majority, far more
than a majority, of black people knew that we weren't
riding the bus, that we were going to car, report
we were going to walk, we were going to do this,

(19:37):
and how they make the word like thinking of great
ancestors like Joanne Robinson who was going out around campus
and passing out flyers to get people involved, and she
didn't care that her name wasn't at the forefront, even
though she had been there, organized and had experienced it
before Rosa Parks. She put her ego to the side
and said, this is the moment. I don't know if

(19:58):
we if collectively because of the distractions, if we can
engage in something like that over the course of time.
Because in the midst of doing that and passing our flyers,
our phones go off and we share everything on our stories.
And I'm including myself in this because this is what
I'm immersed in too. So do we have the wherewithal,

(20:20):
do we have the stamina? Can we withstand what it takes?
And I've been reflecting a lot this summer. I've been
reading a lot this summer, and for me, I think
what it really boils down to is for all of us.
Although these devices and this technology can be an asset
to our movement, we have to be more strategic in

(20:42):
how we use it and how we organize and how
we plan. And I'm not convinced that we can do
this productively without taking a step back from our cell
phone and social media addictions. So to bring this back
around to even what you asked at the onset, I

(21:03):
don't know if we fully understand the degree to which
we are this hybrid of these two different generations and understandings,
because for many, for many of us, and what people
I'm in conversation with and what I see online, we're
still trying to figure this out. Because you know, the
statistics show and say that we are of that one

(21:24):
of those first generations or if not the first generation,
that will not have more wealth than our parents. And
you think about what that means as Black Americans, African
Americans in this country that is multiplied based on what
we have dealt with historically. So we're trying to put
the crumbs together. We're trying to put the pieces together

(21:44):
so that we can even have time to sit and
think about what this means moving forward for us.

Speaker 1 (21:49):
All I am. I'm so impressed with you, Ernest, because
you see the hybrid. You see that you have an
obligation to the past, obligation in the present, and there
is some reflection upon direction, trajectory and the future, and
it matters to this generation. Kamala Harris probably said it
best that we are not a generation that just fell

(22:11):
out of a coconut tree. We are part of a
whole that we are part matters. I'm Jesse Jackson Junior.
This is k BLA Talk fifteen to eighty. When we
come forward, we are with my favorite millennial millennial, Ernest
Krim the Third. More with Ernest Krim. When we come forward,
I'm Jesse Jackson Junior. Welcome forwards to Jesse Jackson Junior's

(22:32):
show on k BLA Talk to fifteen eighty. Our very
special guest in this hour is none other than my
favorite millennial, Ernest Krim the Third. Ernest is an Emmy
nominated producer, public teacher, anti racist educator, and hate crime
victor who uses black historical narratives to empower and educate
through a culturally equitable lens. Ernest, welcome forward to the

(22:55):
Jesse Jackson Junior Show.

Speaker 2 (22:57):
Thanks for having me back. Brother.

Speaker 1 (22:59):
Well, now that we have established that both of us,
my generation old people and your generation young people are
in time, we are in sync. Johnny Mack says in
our thought provoking Thursdays that not only are we in time,

(23:24):
we are in time over time, which means the things
that we do in the present are the culmination of
history and things that have occurred over time. We are
in time and over time. We're in time because we're
over time. The reason I raise that question is because

(23:45):
you mentioned nineteen fifty five, but there's also what's taking
what took place in nineteen sixty four, in nineteen sixty five,
and Ernest, I know your mind has given it consideration
when we look at what's taking place in Texas, where
Donald Trump has encouraged Governor Abbott and the Republican majority

(24:07):
to redraw the entire state, which could in fact eliminate
certain majority minority congressional districts led and head historically by
African Americans since the nineteen sixty five Voting Rights Act,
the reaction from the state of California and Governor Newsom
to redraw their entire state to offset the damage done

(24:31):
to the national process by the state of Texas. I'm
wondering if the end time over time is part of
millennial thinking when it comes to this idea of what
John Lewis was fighting for and Martin Luther King Junior
was fighting for. Are millennials going to be in time

(24:54):
in the present with what is taking place in the
midterms in six because they are present in the moment,
but their understanding of what it took to get to
this moment.

Speaker 2 (25:09):
Brother, it is to see so much of what's happening
now with a historical mind is It's disturbing to me
because so much of what I understand about studying history
is the cycles that repeat are the ones that, for

(25:31):
good or bad, are the ones that we most often
are not conscious of or paying too. So the cycles
that repeat that harm us are the ones that we
do not pay attention to in the previgeneration, that we
did not carry over to make sure that we attacked appropriately.
I believe, and again I'm you know, I cannot profess
to speak for every millennial. I speak for myself and

(25:54):
my circle what I observe, and these are observations that also,
you know, can be in regards to gen Z and
some of my kids are jen Alpha. I think that
we have too often been prisoners of the historical moment.
I think the ways in which we have been taught

(26:14):
history has harmed us for this moment. And I say
this because I cannot differentiate between the ways in which
I was taught history and the ways in which I
was made aware of comic book heroes, like when when
you when you look at comic book heroes and I
love like X Men and Spider Man and all these people.

(26:38):
Growing up, you knew that when something was happening in
that city, most often it was New York. Like they
just act like Chicago and l A and all these
other places didn't exist. It was always New York.

Speaker 3 (26:50):
But whatever, And I don't even know what the planets,
It's like what borrow was even there. But when something
when something went down in New York, you knew one
of those heroes was gonna come and save the day.

Speaker 2 (27:08):
And you didn't have to do anything except cheer on
that person. And when I think about the ways in
which we were taught history, to me, it felt the same.
Most often. We stopped at the end of that movement,
at the end of the nineteen sixties. We might touch
a little bit on the Panthers and what happened there.
We barely even discussed the eighties, But it was always
just this idea that when something went wrong Dad, there

(27:32):
was a doctor, king or somebody like that who came
to save the day. And that removes the obligation that
we all have because if we are to think that
it was just him, then we will be perpetually caught
in this cycle of waiting on somebody else outside of
ourselves to save us, when what we need to do
is collectively save us. Right. It's this idea that you

(27:55):
know when people say, and you better save yourself right now,
save yourself, like, no, no, I reject that. Let's save
each other cause because by me helping you, I'm helping myself.
Because when I go past those homeless or houseless folks
in Nashville, I have to help in some way metaphorically
because that could be me, like we are, like so

(28:17):
many of us, the majority of us in this country
are very are closer to that than we are to
the billionaires that many of us grew up idolizing. So
unless we can break it down and say, doctor King
was a regular person, Malcolm X was a regular person.
Rosa Parks regular person, John lewis regular person. I challenge
us all to go beyond even those folks and say, well,

(28:40):
who was there inner circle who supported them? Who are
the people in those marches that you saw them shoulder
the shoulder with that we don't know.

Speaker 1 (28:51):
I'm gonna put some real pressure on you right here,
you're thirty seven years old. Yes, Sir Martin Luther King
Junior was assassinated at age thirty nine. Yeah, so that
would be nineteen sixty eight. He would be thirty five
years old when he's fighting for the Voting Rights Act
of nineteen sixty five. He would be thirty four years

(29:14):
old when the historic civil rights legislation is signed. He
would be thirty three years old when he delivers the
I have a Dream speech, and I think the same

(29:34):
numbers my producer could probably confirm for me could be
written back from I believe Malcolm X also assassinated at
age thirty nine years old. You can walk these dates
back and in that moment that puts you at thirty seven,

(29:54):
capable of I have a dream, capable of fighting for
Civil Rights Act, capable of fighting for a Voting Rights Act,
capable of fighting for public accommodations at thirty seven, because
you are in the space that our King operated, that
our Malcolm operated. And I say that because when I

(30:22):
have you on the program, it's because of the confidence
and the reflection that I know that you give to
the moment that your life is in against the backdrop
of the generation before you that had to make decisions
that included, but not limited to, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

(30:44):
You think about Julian Bond, and you think about James Bevel,
and you think about these players who, some of whom
lost their minds trying to change the social edifice and
the value of our system. I'm Jesse Jackson. You're listening
to the Jesse Jackson Junior Show with our very special guest,
mister Ernest Krim, the third on KBLA fifteen eighty. When

(31:06):
we come forward, a couple more questions and then a
word of hope for Ernest Krim. I'm Jesse Jackson Junior.
Welcome forward to the Jesse Jackson Juniors Show. In our
next hour, none other than Reverend Teresa hort Owens is
going to be joining us with the Faith not to Fall.
Doctor Teresa hort Owens is the General Minister and President

(31:27):
of the Christian Church Disciples of Christ in the United
States and Canada. She's the first person of color, second
woman to lead the denomination with a priority of welcoming
all to the Lord's Table at God's House, just as
God has welcomed us. I believe Ernest Krim is going
to be with us in this hour as he has
been at least in the next segment, and Teresa hord Owens,

(31:49):
who is standing by, is also going to join us
in this closing segment with Ernest Krim. Ernest, Welcome forward
to the Jesse Jackson Junior Show. Teresa hord Owens. Welcome
forward to the Jess Jackson Junior Show. Teresa. I've been
talking with my favorite millennial in the last hour about
their obligations to the world, and in the presence Teresa

(32:11):
and Ernest, welcome both to the Jesse Jackson Junior Show.

Speaker 4 (32:15):
Good to be with you and always good to hear
what Ernest is saying. I'm a follower. I'm a follower,
Doctor Owens.

Speaker 1 (32:23):
Your thought on the millennial obligation.

Speaker 4 (32:25):
To the present, Oh wow, I mean we all have,
I think our obligation to the moment and to the present.
My son is a millennial. My grandson, I guess would
be two and a half. That. I guess that's Jen Alpha.
Now I'm struck by Ernest's comment about being on that

(32:47):
cusp of knowing enough about sort of a pre industrial
or information age kind of thing where you came of
age just before social media and smartphones, et cetera. And
now living in a world where we just can't imagine them,
and even having the view of history where you're able

(33:10):
now given what you do, to make those comparisons about
what you would have been doing and about what other
people would have been doing. I think the responsibility we
have is to not let our own children suffer from
the gaps in their knowledge that we may have suffered from.
I'm a real unique situation at the end of the
baby boom. Had a dad who made me read from

(33:33):
the time I could read, and got books where I
was reading about history, and little graphic novels that were
there were a series I can't even remember how to
ask him there was one. There were little biographical graphic novels,
little comic books about Harriet Tubman. I remember just reading
about the whatever hit her in the head that created

(33:56):
the caesars that she had. But I was learning about
those people and those things at a young age. And
when I got to college and met people who, like you, Ernest,
were then challenging themselves and were interested in learning, I
sat back in amazement, going, Oh wow, that you would
have this own inner drive to know this when for

(34:17):
me it's almost been a matter of not only rigor
but mandate in my house. And I think that's part
of the responsibility is to make sure your children are
better equipped and better prepared than you were, that they
have that context, because if you don't help shape that identity.

(34:38):
The textbooks in school are still not any better than
they were when I was a young person in the
nineteen sixties. There's still not any better, marginally better. We
still don't have as many people of color in these
schools who are equipped to do the work that we
need them to do. So I think that responsibility is

(34:59):
both personal one, but it's also that understanding of community. Uh.
It is really important. And when I look at you know,
Multicultural Congress denomination like my own, the difference between basically
the white communities and how African American, Hispanic and Asian

(35:23):
Pacific Islander people understand the church is that sense of community.

Speaker 1 (35:27):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (35:27):
They they understand that the church has this particular responsibility
to their communities and it's not just a place where
we want people to come and have a good program
and some coffee on Sunday. That there is that that
sense of community and we have to instill that in
our kids. I have a nephew who grew up in

(35:47):
Englewood and live with us for a while, and I
remember him take him taking him downtown. He had never
been downtown. There were parts of the city that he
had never seen. There are kids growing up in Chicago
who don't know anything beyond the few streets where they
travel and go to school, your entire life, and what
they see on TV. And so we've got to take

(36:09):
some accountability. And that's what I love about what Ernest
is doing to teach those kids whose parents may not
have had not even financial resources, but memory resources right
who may not have been exposed to certain kinds of
education and aren't equipped because they weren't given the resources
to frame and shape that sense of identity for their kids.

(36:31):
So we've got to have that responsibility for children who
are not of our own flesh, but kids who are
of our own community, and be responsible.

Speaker 1 (36:38):
You know, when I think about Ernest and his own
knowledge base as a teacher, as someone who has is
well traveled, what elevates him above people who never moved
or lived past their neighborhoods or never been beyond their
own streets is the sense of universalism right. The exposure

(37:00):
helps establish the foundation in a real sense of his leadership.
It makes him special amongst the millennials because I remember,
like the individual that you mentioned, when my housekeeper, my
mother's friend, Miss Florine Malone, God bless her soul. At
sixty six years old, my brother Jonathan and I took

(37:21):
Florine Malone to downtown Chicago for the first time in
her life. All she knew was Marco, Illinois and coming
to Constance Avenue to work with my mother, to work
with our household. She came that far north and then
she went back south every day for most of her life.
We took her to downtown Chicago, and she thought she

(37:42):
was in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. So if that's where the average
thinker is or person dwells within the context of our community, Ernest,
then you are already light years ahead of them in
the neess of this moment, over time, because of your

(38:04):
knowledge of what it has taken for us to get here. Ernest.
In this hour, we have about three minutes for your
final thoughts, a word of hope, and if you don't mind,
I'm going to bring it down one segment with Teresa
to answer Teresa's question in the second hour, and then
we will move forward together the faith not the fall.

(38:25):
Ernest your thoughts on hope.

Speaker 2 (38:27):
And you all said so much that was beautifully stated,
And what I extract from that is a reminder of
a thread post I came across recently online where someone
was just reflecting on the various Black history movies they
were forced to watch growing up from you know, Roots
and Homastide and so on and so forth. I think

(38:49):
that we have to as as technology becomes more and
more advanced, like we're in the era where they've had
to create instruments that allow college professors to detect how
much of a paper was written artificially, we have to
pull from this and say, what do our kids need

(39:10):
to learn? What are these soft skills? As we say
that they need to learn that they cannot learn on
those devices that no amount of social media etiquette or
social media followers can teach. There's a difference between seeing
a TikTok on a downtown versus actually experiencing it. We

(39:31):
have to remember now, I think it'd be important for
us to say, can we create a working list in
each community things that all of our children need to
need to know and learn, and these things are possible, y'all.
I want us to be encouraged with the fact that
although social media in many ways can be looked at

(39:52):
as delitarious, we have to remember that the Montgomery bus
boycotts and the subsequent movement was successful because of this
thing called the television, and it became ubiquitous in every household.
And I'm sure there were people during that time just
like us, that said, this is the worst thing to
happen to our kids, because when you sit there, when
you watch it, and you're distracted, and so on and

(40:13):
so forth. But we can use it in a progressive
way to achieve the change that we need. And I
think that it's time for us to do that right now.

Speaker 1 (40:21):
I'm Jesse Jackson ging you, but listen to KBLA talk
fifteen eighty whom we come forward, it's the faith not
the fall with doctor Teresa Hord Owens. We will have
Ernest Cream with us for just another moment when we.

Speaker 5 (40:29):
Come forward, Jesse Jackson, who we're walking for to Jesse
Jackson just said, you want to kid the other top
fifteen eighty Reverend Terry Teresa Hord Owens is the General
Minister and President of the Christian Church Disciples of Christ
in the United States and Canada.

Speaker 1 (40:43):
She is the first person of color and second woman
to lead the denomination. Since her election in twenty seventeen,
Reverend Hoard Owens her ministry has actively reflected the Disciples
priority of being an anti racist church, something very hard
to do, being a movement for wholeness, something hard to do.
Welcoming all of the Lord's table as God has welcomed us.

(41:05):
Her exhortation to the church, let the Church be who
we say we are. It is in being who we
say we are that we are actively bear witness to
God's limitless love for all. Doctor Teresa Horde Owen's welcome
forward to the Jesse Jackson Junior Show in the Faith
not the Fall Hour on Moving Mountain mondays.

Speaker 4 (41:26):
Good to see you, Congressman. Always good to be here
for some good conversation.

Speaker 1 (41:30):
I am certainly looking forward to your thoughts as we
recap the week. And in this very very brief segment,
we brought our favorite millennial on down to the program
to pick up on on his thoughts about really about
really this hour, this calling that is upon their generation

(41:50):
to do what the previous generation did in terms of
spirit steering the trajectory of the nation. Let me turn
it over to you, Terry at this moment for any
thoughts that you might have for Ernest before he leaves
us in the segment.

Speaker 4 (42:04):
Yeah, honest, I am just curious, and I think we've
talked about this a little before when you've been on
about the role of faith or church for the millennials.
I was worshiping at Salem Baptist Church yesterday where my
husband serves as the minister of music, and I try
to get there when I'm in town. It's not a

(42:26):
part of my denomination, but it's where my spiritual home
is when I'm not traveling. And there was a young
pastor who Healen. I can't remember his last name. He
pastors New Jerusalem Baptist Church in Miami, Florida in his
mid forties, has just taken over the church that his
father used to pastor. And he said, there's a huge

(42:47):
rise of young adults. And usually when we say young adults,
we are thinking millennials gen z who are coming. And
he says, I don't know that, you know, I'm not
like a tripped out, rapper, preacher or whatever is. But
they're looking for something. And I'm curious, from your perspective
spiritually speaking, what role does faith or things of the

(43:10):
spirit have for this generation and what do people like
me need to be thinking about in terms of helping
to build that foundation. I think it's necessary personally, and
I know people are searching in lots of different ways,
and I know it can't look like the church I
grew up in. I'm just curious as to how you
think young people are grappling with the need for faith

(43:30):
to deal with our current.

Speaker 2 (43:33):
I think so many of us from our generation. For
people who have church anyway, I think it was because
they were in environments where they were expected to be perfect.
To be in a place where we know no one
can be perfect, or even comes to the place like that,
we come to learn about the one who was perfect.

(43:54):
So I think that. But we have been in churches,
of course, and these are institutions may by men that
have harmed a lot of us. I think that we
just have to, all of us, have to find places
that are more welcoming and embracing up where we are
in our journey. I think the beautiful thing about church
is like, you know, especially if you're working a nine

(44:15):
to five Monday through Friday, what other place can you
go to where you feel love? And it's not based
on you are producing, how you know, how many clients
you served or whatever you did throughout the week. We
have to have spaces like that more than ever because again,
to my generation, we saw what it was like to
have a third space and then to have them taken away.

(44:37):
When me and my friends grew up, we were going
to the mall, kicking it, going to you know, or outside.
Now I can drive down streets eighty nine degrees weather
and I don't see kids playing basketball. I don't see
kids at the playground. So it saddens me to see
those types of institutions going. But we had a variety
of third spaces to choose from. But the church has
always been there. The church has been the cornerstone of

(44:59):
all of us are all of our movements here and
for us, And I don't you know, often speak about this,
but like to be Black American, African American is to
be of faith. You know, they're a variety of police
people have, but I think that we come from people
who always knew there was something beyond who we are.
There was a creator. I can't even fathom the word

(45:21):
atheism being uttered like for us and who we are
because of what we have been through to be where
we are now, you had to have faith in something
beyond what this moment is, and we have.

Speaker 1 (45:34):
We have about two minutes before before the segment is,
but I just want to throw this out there. They're
probably two safe spaces, the church and the classroom. Doctor
Teresa hord Owen's is in the church, your phone and
your laptops are off during that service, and as a teacher,

(45:55):
you demand the undivided attention of your students with their
at least their phone's off in the classroom, So the
competing influence is this device, this world that we let
into our central nervous system. The church, we have respect

(46:17):
for it, So we turn our phones off and for
an hour, hour and a half, maybe two, the pastor
conducts a service that allows us to inculcate ourselves with
the value system and to give some thought separate in
apart from all of the influences of social media, and
in the classroom, Ernest krim My teacher commands my attention

(46:43):
in ways that the rest of my day is bombarded
with this information. But the value system of who we
are community comes somewhere between the preacher and the teacher,
and I know that it is time for our break. Ernest,
you come forward with us in the future. I'd love

(47:05):
to have you on the program to talk about between
the preacher and the teacher. Ernest, thank you for being
on the Jesse Jackson Junior Show. Can't wait to see
until next week you, Ernest. When we come forward? When
we come forward more with Teresa hord Owens. I'm Jesse
Jackson Junior and KBLA talk fifteen eighty am. When we
Come Forward not Small with Reverend doctor Theresa hord Owens,

(47:28):
who is a descendant of one of the oldest African
American free settlements in Indiana and a disciple since a
young adulthood. Reverend Hoard Owens earned her bachelor's degree in
government with a minor in African American Studies from Harvard University.
Doctor Horard owens was resume includes more than twenty years
in corporate America, leading diverse teams and data management in

(47:49):
healthcare and other industries before she entered the seminary. Now
I'm president welcome forward to the Jesse Jackson Junior Show.

Speaker 4 (47:58):
Thank you for having me, my brother always good to
be here.

Speaker 1 (48:01):
Madam President again, I want you to share with us
anything that might be on your mind. But I just
want to add this little point right here. I'm hearing
from everybody that as crazy as this whole Trump era is,
it is providing us an opportunity for community. It's an
opportunity to buy black. We got no more DII. It's
an opportunity to shout in our own neighborhoods it don't
want us no more. It's an opportunity to go to

(48:24):
our own churches. Well, our pews are empty. Everyone keeps
saying that this opportunity is presenting itself as the antithesis
to what doctor King and the movement of the sixties
actually created. The kind of church congregation that you presently lead.
I mean, you are some the first African American woman,

(48:48):
the second woman to lead a major multicultural denomination where
eighty percent of its members are white. So much of
the last sixty maybe seventy years has been about well,
it comes together in you, it comes together in me,
It comes together in Reverend Barber, it comes together in

(49:09):
Katanji Brown Jackson, and all of the experiences comes together
in Barack Obama, it comes together in Hakeem Jeffries. In
a real sense, we are in the moment that over
time created and now we're being told, well, we need
to make aggrete again, and it doesn't include this moment.
In fact, it seeks to a racent.

Speaker 4 (49:32):
Yeah, I think even as you look at my story
in this denomination, our congregations, local congregations are still very segregated.
Eleven o'clock still remains, as doctor King said, the most
segregated hour in America. When I visit congregations, they are

(49:52):
predominantly one thing or another. They may be predominantly white,
maybe there are a few black members or a few
Asian Pacific Island of rem Uh. And then we will
have congregations that are mostly Asian mostly or all Pacific Islander,
or all black or all Hispanics. So so that segregation
continues to exist even as we try to build this
community at the denominational level that reflects more of of

(50:17):
that beloved community. I think the while, yeah, this you
know by black, it's like I don't go into target.
I've betten into target for a long time, I'm trying
to keep keep up with the list of their you know, Walmart,
all these things. We don't go to Sam's Club anymore.
I'm doing Costco. It's we're all trying to, you know,
be socially responsible in that sense. But if we keep

(50:40):
too much to our own little corners, we will miss
the bigger danger that's happening. And that's what's happening in
d C with legislature and what the challenges that we
have in terms of how we affect policy and how
we affect law that are happening. Who we elect is

(51:02):
very very important. Having people you were once my congressman
and say I will say here that I hope you
will Wantce again be my congressman. I still live in
the second Congressional district. It matters who I choose. It
matters who the alderman is here in Calumet City where

(51:23):
I live. It matters who the dogcatcher is. I lived
through the whole drama that was Tiffany Heinyard and Dalton.
I don't know if you were paying any attention to
what was happening when there were such hope people had,
Oh this young black woman, youngest black mayor and she
just totally went off the rails, no sense of ethics

(51:45):
or responsibility. And I watched that drama up close. She
was the Thornton Township supervisor. I live in Thornton Township.
I paid attention because this woman handles money in terms
of what social services are going to be provid to
senior citizens in our township, all sorts of things if
we don't pay attention. And people in Dalton, which is

(52:07):
predominantly black, weren't paying attention until some of that was
being threatened. They started showing up at their local town
hall meetings. They showed up at the Thornton Township open meetings,
and she was actually doing what Trump was doing, using
the police to block people from coming to the microphone,

(52:29):
taking the keys away, so that the City Council of
Dalton couldn't even meet in their own city hall because
she ordered it closed and they had to find other places.
But if we're not paying attention day by day on
a local basis as to what's happening, and we can
get so, you know, we're so earthly bound, sometimes we're

(52:51):
so heavenly bound that we're no earthly good. We have
to pay attention to these local issues. And one of
the things I'm trying to do with my Denier nomination.
It's great to make sandwiches PB and J sandwiches for
the MICA Ministry to give out. It's great to put
together hygiene kits of body wash and shampoo and conditioner

(53:13):
and deodor and all these things for the people who
need it for short term needs. But what I need
you to do on today is like today which moral
mondays at state capitals all over the country. I need
you to pay attention to what's happening in your local
community and fight for policies that will respect humanity, fight
for policies that will ensure that this society that you

(53:36):
say as a Christian is so important that we love
our neighbor as ourselves. There have to be policies and
laws in our country that reflect that. And we've got
to as a faith based people, grab on to this
responsibility that we must speak, we must show up, we
must stand up. We've got to be registering people to vote.

(53:58):
I'm involved with the Faith I to Save Democracy, you know,
Barbara William Skinner and Jim Wallace and so journals, the
African American Clergy Network they're already starting training sessions to
train clergy to serve as a poll chaplains, to have
people to show up in the polls, in the polling stations,

(54:21):
to not only ensure that the laws being followed, but
to give people a sense that there are people who
care about me who are here, and we have data
that says that they're less likely to have actions that
result in voter suppression when we have clergy people at
the polls who've been trained as to what they can
and cannot do. But we've got to get beyond this

(54:44):
short term charity that we are so good at doing,
to understanding long term systemic work that we also need
to do. I've been a poll chaplain. I remember when
Rever Meeks was running for state senator and I was
one of the volunteer whole judges, and I saw some
shenanigans going on in Dalton actually, and I was able

(55:07):
to intervene. But we've got to be doing that kind
of work too, you know.

Speaker 1 (55:11):
I know that we only have about a minute, maybe
two minutes before the break, but our producer asks the question,
in terms of the value system of some of our
elected officials, is it a function of melanin Gina asks
or is it spirit? Is it a reflection of on
us as generations before us would have whipped For example,
the mayor of Dalton's tail or embarrassing us. And I

(55:33):
also regent, by the way, the first notion of the
first African American to do this or to do that,
because all of that symbolism right there, you know, we
need the second African American, who is beyond the first,
to actually get some stuff done because the first is
so symbolic and so celebratory. We almost get nothing done

(55:55):
in that generation.

Speaker 4 (55:56):
Almost nothing, And I think we do have to hold
each other accountable. But what it says is that that
Tiffany Heinyr didn't have a particular structure, in a particular
set of values wrapped around her. We're not sure what
her context was. That she didn't have the sense of
responsibility for her community was not greater than her sense

(56:16):
of how she could benefit monetarily from that job. And
that's where we're failing. We're not building those moral systems
around our young people.

Speaker 1 (56:25):
I think that's a disease that exists in our leadership
generally in their inter system. I'm Jesse Jackson Jerry, this
is KBLA talk fifteen eighty. We are with on Moving Mountain,
Monday's the Faith Not the Fall with Reverend Doctor Terry
Horte Owens. When we come forward more with Doctor Owens,
Jesse Jackson, who were working forard to with Jesse Jackson. GA.
You know kid, you only talk fifteen eighty. Reverend Terry
Teresa Horte Owens is the General Minister and President of

(56:48):
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 denomination. Since her election in
twenty seventeen, Reverend Lord Owen's her ministry has actively reflected
the Disciples priority of being an anti racist church, something
very hard to do, being a movement for wholeness, something

(57:10):
hard to do. Welcoming all of the Lord's table as
God has welcomed us, her exhortation to the church, let
the Church be who we say we are. It is
in being who we say we are that we are
actively bear witness to God's limitless love for all. Doctor
Teresa hort Owens, Welcome forward to the Jesse Jackson Junior Show.

(57:31):
In the Faith Not the Fall Hour on moving Mountain. Mondays.

Speaker 4 (57:35):
Good to see you, Congressman. Always good to be here
for some good conversation.

Speaker 1 (57:40):
I am certainly looking forward to your thoughts as we
recap the week. And in this very very brief segment,
we brought our favorite millennial on down to the program
to pick up on on his thoughts about really about
really this hour, this calling that is upon their generation

(58:00):
to do what the previous generation did in terms of
spirit steering the trajectory of the nation. Let me turn
it over to you, Terry at this moment for any
thoughts that you might have for Ernest before he leaves
us in the segment.

Speaker 4 (58:14):
Yeah, honest, I am just curious, and I think we've
talked about this a little before, when you've been on
about the role of faith or church for the millennials.
I was worshiping at Salem Baptist Church yesterday where my
husband serves as the minister of music, and I try
to get there when I'm in town. It's not a

(58:36):
part of my denomination, but it's where my spiritual home
is when I'm not traveling. And there was a young
pastor who healing. I can't remember his last name. He
pastors New Jerusalem Baptist Church in Miami, Florida, in his
mid forties, has just taken over the church, as father
used to pastor, and he said, there's a huge rise

(58:57):
of young adults. And usually when we say young adults,
we are thinking millennials gen z who are coming. And
he says, I don't know that, you know, I'm not
like a tripped out rapper preacher or whatever he says.
But they're looking for something. And I'm curious, from your
perspective spiritually speaking, what role does faith or things of

(59:20):
the spirit have for this generation and what do people
like me need to be thinking about in terms of
helping to build that foundation. I think it's necessary personally,
and I know people are searching in lots of different ways,
and I know it can't look like the church I
grew up in. I'm just curious as to how you
think young people are grappling with the need for faith

(59:40):
to deal with our current.

Speaker 2 (59:43):
I think so many of us from our generation, for
people who have church or anyway, I think it was
because they were in environments where they were expected to
be perfect. To be in a place where we know
no one can be perfect, or even come to the
place like that we come to learn about the one
who was perfect. So I think that. But we have

(01:00:06):
been in churches, of course, and these are institutions made
by men that have harmed a lot of us. I
think that we just have to all of us, have
to find places that are more welcoming and embracing up
where we are in our journey. I think the beautiful
thing about church is like, you know, especially if you're
working a nine to five Monday through Friday, what other

(01:00:27):
place can you go to where you feel love? And
it's not based on you are producing, how you know,
how many clients you served, or whatever you did throughout
the week. We have to have spaces like that more
than ever because again, to my generation, we saw what
it was like to have a third space and then
to have them taken away. When me and my friends

(01:00:48):
grew up, we were going to the mall, kicking it,
going to you know, or outside. Now I can drive
down streets eighty nine degrees weather and I don't see
kids playing basketball. I don't see kids at the playground.
So it saddens me to see those types of institutions going.
But we had a variety of third space to choose from.
But the church has always been there. The church has
been the cornerstone of all of all of our movements

(01:01:10):
here and for us, and I don't you know often
speak about this, but like to be Black American, African
American is to be of faith. You know, they're a
variety of police people have. But I think that we
come from people who always knew there was something beyond
who we are, There was a creator. I can't even
fathom the word antheism being uttered like for for us

(01:01:35):
and who we are because of what we have been
through to be where we are now, you had to
have faith in something beyond what this moment is.

Speaker 1 (01:01:43):
We have a we have about two minutes before before
the segment is, but I just want to throw this
out there. They're probably two safe spaces, the church and
the classroom. Doctor Teresa hord Owen's is in the church,
your phone and your laptops are off during that service,

(01:02:04):
and as a teacher, you demand the undivided attention of
your students with their at least their phones off in
the classroom. So the competing influence is this device, this
world that we let into our central nervous system. The church,

(01:02:26):
we have respect for it, so we turn our phones
off and for an hour, hour and a half, maybe two,
the pastor conducts a service that allows us to inculcate
ourselves with the value system and to give some thought
separate in a part from all of the influences of
social media and in the classroom. Ernest krim My teacher

(01:02:50):
commands my attention in ways that the rest of my
day is bombarded with this information. The value system of
who community comes somewhere between the preacher and the teacher,
and I know that it is time for our break. Ernest,

(01:03:12):
you come forward with us in the future. I'd love
to have you on the program to talk about between
the preacher and the teacher. Ernest, thank you for being
on the Jesse Jackson Junior Show. Can't wait to see
until next week when we come forward. When we come
Forward more with Threeso hoard Owens im Jesse Jackson Junior

(01:03:32):
on KBL They talk fifteen eighty am when we come
Forward see Jackson Junior looking forward to the Jesse Jackson
Junior Show. This is Moving Mountain Mondays with Reverend Teresa
Terry hoard Owens. In addition to collaborative service with the
ministries that comprise the Disciple of Justice ministries. She's been

(01:03:54):
an active in the leadership of the Poor People's Campaign
and other ecumenical collaboratives, including the Faith Table. Reverend doctor Owens,
welcome forward to the Jesse Jackson Junior Show.

Speaker 4 (01:04:06):
Thank you, Congressman. Always good to be here with you.

Speaker 1 (01:04:09):
I am absolutely sure that there are a host of
things that you want to talk about that I never
bring up, So I'm going to leave a lot of
space on the program today for that to take place.
But I do want to ask you the question because
I know you work very closely with doctor William Barber.
The passage of Big Ugly Bill, expected to be lost
sometime after the primaries next year, can only exacerbate pain,

(01:04:33):
suffering and poverty on a scale that we have never seen.
Your interpretations of what the Poor People's Campaign and what
we must do collectively to confront really this evil in
our space.

Speaker 4 (01:04:50):
Yeah, as you are probably aware, Poor People's Campaign and
doctor Barber's, Bishop Barber's Organization, repairs of the Reach and
National Council of Churches, people like Jim Wallace, who was
a long long time advocate for justice in white evangelical spaces.

(01:05:11):
Somebody who was really considered person and on Gradi by
White Evangelical simply because he was advocating for justice. So
many people were lobbying and advocating and in DC and
marching and praying and reading scripture with senators on the
steps of the capital. So much was going on, and
I don't think people really understand then the real pain

(01:05:35):
that that we're about to see take place. It's it's
heartbreaking because you know, I used to work as the
special assistant to the CEO at the University of Chicago
Medical Center, and that institution is the largest Medicaid provider
in the state of Illinois because it's a it's a

(01:05:56):
premier research center. It also has a lot of you know,
private pay insurance. But the the what do you call it,
the the revenue profit generator is not Medicaid. It's hospitals
lose money on Medicaid, they make more money with private

(01:06:16):
pay insurance. And so those people are going to lose
Medicaid coverage period, let alone access to great facilities, say
on the South Side, like the United University of Chicago,
which now has satellite primary care and clinic facilities all

(01:06:38):
across the South suburbs, northern suburbs, they're even into northwestern Indiana.
But people are going to lose access to healthcare. People.
The idea that the only reason that you're using medicaid
is that you just don't want to work is very false.
Most of the people who are on medicaid are suffering

(01:06:59):
from various disabilities. White people, I mean larger numbers make
up those who are are part of what we call
low wealth or poverty. There are more white people by
the numbers than there are people of color. So poor
white people, the very people who put Trump in office
because they actually did go out and vote, are the

(01:07:19):
major people who were going to suffer in our communities.
Even if you have snap benefits you think about, you're
literally taking food away from babies. And I see people
all the time in the grocery store with their with
their little cards and their electronic benefits that are now
there's some dignity the right that's allowed to at least

(01:07:40):
have something that looks like a credit card for you
to use to pay for your food. But that's going
to be diminished. But people who need the support of
medicaid to pay for life saving medicines for children who
were born with chronic illnesses that will require expensive medicines. Sometimes,

(01:08:03):
if you get a job, you may be working very
hard and not have a job that provides you with
health care benefits. Those people sometimes are eligible for Medicaid
because they don't make enough or the job doesn't provide
them with benefits. So we're not talking about people who
are sitting around or just don't work. There's one Senator
who keeps saying, shouldn't able body twenty eight year old

(01:08:25):
be able to get medic health care for free?

Speaker 2 (01:08:29):
Know?

Speaker 4 (01:08:29):
And those are the people that we're talking about who
will be hurt. Those aren't the people because most of
those people who are on Medicaid are not there because
they want to be. They're there because their job does
not provide them with the benefits, or they're not able
to find your job. So we got to work on
getting people jobs as well as ensuring that the only
way to healthcare is through as a job benefit. This

(01:08:52):
whole idea of Medicare for all. You go to Canada,
you go to parts of Europe, they cannot believe the
way the United States deals with medicare. So this horrible,
awful bill as we call it, is going to create
lots of pain for people who need life saving medicines,
for people who As I'm diabetic, I'm not as dependent

(01:09:13):
on certain kinds of insulin on meal time insulin as
I used to be, thank God.

Speaker 1 (01:09:18):
But the.

Speaker 4 (01:09:20):
Overnight insulin Atlantists that a lot of people take, it's
a long acting insuluin you take overnight without medication that
costs one thousand dollars a month. One thousand dollars a month.
So if you don't have any kind of medicaid or
any kind of coverage and you have diabetes, you're going
to look at me and say, oh, you don't deserve

(01:09:40):
that because you don't work, or I'm sorry, you can't
afford it. Too bad, So sad. That's the kind of
structure that we're talking about being put into place. And
I think low income, poor white people are going to
be the most surprised because they have this maga, this
unfair failing faith and Trump going to bring America back,

(01:10:03):
but they're going to be the first ones to suffer.
And I it just the ignorance about what these bills
actually are going to do, and the way that you know,
given what we're talking about with news and and where
we're getting our information. I'm really afraid. I was in

(01:10:23):
Where was I this past weekend? Kansas? I was in
Kansas Overland Park, Kansas, meeting with disciples from Kansas, Nebraska
uh and in the Kansas City area. They were doing
work with the ministry called Micah Ministry, and they were
talking about the fact that their churches are preparing. What's

(01:10:46):
going to happen when people can no longer get certain
kinds of medications, when people can no longer have certain
kinds of benefits that are being provided by homeless shelters,
what's going to happen when the federal government starts to
claw back all the support, And how our churches and
churches really don't have the capacity to be able to

(01:11:08):
replace a lot of what the federal government is doing.
But I hear those conversations all the time. How are
we going to be able We can't replace it, but
what are we going to be able to do to
provide some kind of safety net? Because what we've known
as this understanding that we take care of our own
is shredding. It's being shredded and it's blowing away.

Speaker 1 (01:11:32):
One of the things that Ernest was particularly interested in
and I know that it is at the foundation of
your own ministry is this question of community. And I
tried to see the emphasis of the overly individualistic, self
motivated idea of capitalism in our system, in our democratic

(01:11:57):
and free and open republic, and I tried to find
if that is an extreme, and I think it is.
We've seen the billionaire class show you what they're capable of.
That is an extreme. And then I reconcile, for example,
the other extreme, which might be the Amish community, this
concern about community by locking out the outside world, and

(01:12:21):
in the hybrid in creating a balance between the over individualistic,
over individualistic and the narrowly community focused individual there is
this hybrid, there is this space where we can exist.
Towards that end, it seems to me that in the
absence of some of these programs, some activists that I've

(01:12:44):
heard give speeches on radio, on television, certainly on social
media start talking about we must do more for ourselves,
that the absence of these facilities are going to probably
restart the profession of home visits from doctors of churches
assuming more responsibility for providing some basic care and assistance.

(01:13:06):
On Sunday mornings, some time after service, there will be
medical professionals who attend the church available to check your
blood pressure, to check and see more critical care. That
somewhere in the removal of the social safety net, that
we're going to have to turn to community and to

(01:13:27):
the church in ways that we haven't as a source
of basic social services that I'm president.

Speaker 4 (01:13:35):
Oh, absolutely, And you see churches already doing that here
in Chicago, the New Covenant Stephen Thurston, they're doing some
work with a local healthcare system. Salem is always opening
its stores for those kinds of clinics, be it blood
drives or vaccines, or my congregation I used to passor

(01:13:57):
Danni's Grove would have folks doing be in my checks
and other healthcare kinds of things as a back to
school as part of the back to school fair, not
just giving out book bags filled with supplies, but social
services that families needed, getting those professionals to come. I
think you're absolutely right, and particularly in communities of color,

(01:14:17):
the church was always that place when we didn't have
access to those services. I'm you know, the was it
the tutoring for young black boys that's been going on
at Salem and progressive recognizing as Juwanza Kunjufu always talked
about that third grade. By the time you boys get
to fourth grade, they either have the fire for learning

(01:14:38):
or they're lost. That was always a really important aspect
for him. That were the church has stepped in and
with Black history, It's one of the things I'm thinking about,
how can our churches, how can I participate? You know,
when I'm on the ground with local churches. I'm so
afraid that if you take away things like the Smithsonian

(01:15:03):
Museum of National American History, African American History and Culture,
if that goes away, if if kids are not being
taught this in classrooms, the church is going to have
to step up in the Black community and make sure
that they have access to those books.

Speaker 1 (01:15:21):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:15:21):
In that history, there are so many situations where young
black women are not getting prenatal care and we've got
to find a way to be that safety net wherever
we can. Vaccinations, you know, bad information about whether vaccines
are safe. Uh. If if insurance isn't going to cover

(01:15:46):
certain vaccines anymore, how are we going to provide all this?
It's just it's terrifying. And in the midst of all this, uh,
you know, keeping our faith and keeping a sense of
hope that somehow God will not let us fall. My
friend Tracy Blackman, who's a minister in the Unit Church
of Christ, made a post last week where she said,

(01:16:06):
the devil will eat his own. Don't worry about these
people that are perpetrating this kind of humanity, this horror
against humanity. The devil will eat its own. But in
the meantime, we still have to continue to take care
of one another. I have a friend you may know
of him, Woody Myers, who in Indianapolis. I used to

(01:16:31):
work for Woody when I was at Anthem. That's how
I started there. He was the VP of Medical Affairs
and we built a medical data warehouse. That was my
role on his team, and from there I went to
become the head of all of data management and Anthem
after he had left. But he would always go and
work weekends in the emergency room. That was his uh,

(01:16:51):
that was his specialty. He wanted to stay in touch
with what was happening in ers in the city so
that the work that we were doing with the health
insurance company was more relevant. So I see people doing
those kinds of things and as you say, being really
willing to give them themselves for the community and seeing

(01:17:12):
where those gaps are. We have to you know, you
were talking about the homage. I saw something on It
was a YouTube documentary. I'm mine YouTube for all kinds
of information these days, but it was it's a great
storage center for lots of stuff that you wouldn't think
is there. But this one amish Man said, it's not

(01:17:34):
that we don't want cars. It's not the technology that
keeps us away. But they're making the decision that says,
if I have a car, I might choose to live
so far out that I'm not available to my community
and my community is not available to me. And as
you said, they're on the end of one extreme in
terms of what community means. But the very thought that

(01:17:56):
we think am I available to my community the distance
or the gifts that I have, and how available am
I to my community and how much do I value
that in terms of the decisions that I make. I
think that's certainly something for us to think.

Speaker 1 (01:18:09):
About, Madam President. I have a friend who is a
distinguished cardiologist, and he says he now knows what Jesus
was doing for the thirty years that the Bible does
not tell his story. He said he was in medical school.
Medical school, he said, yes, he was studying ophthalmology. He
gave sight to the blind. He was someone who had

(01:18:33):
knowledge of issues of blood. He was a blood doctor
and a blood owner. He understood a B and O.
He said. He was a psychiatrist. Shame, blame, guilt, resentments,
and regrets are things that he focused on, and he

(01:18:53):
advanced the idea of forgiveness and love and mercy as
ways around the psychle associated with shame, blame, guilt, resentments,
and regrets. He had the power to raise someone from
the dead. He said. He was a funeral director, and
he was someone who could make judgments about whether or

(01:19:14):
not the vital signs of an individual were terminal or
whether or not they were revivable. And he had these
series of cures, including but not limited to baptism, like
a good bath and getting fresh. He just went through
just about every story that suggests a medical education. And

(01:19:35):
it seems to me all of the pain and suffering
emotional as well as physical, that we're going to suffer
as a community, we're probably going to have to look
at the idea of the role that we will be
playing when the dialysis centers close the role that we're
going to be playing when chronically and critically ill people

(01:19:56):
cannot get access to the clinics that are in our community.
Godless of erase their sex, their class, that the church
might have an opportunity, Madam President, to redefine itself in
this critical area, Jesse Jackson, we come forward more with
the General President of the United Disciples of Christ, Terry
hort Owens. When we come forward on KBLA talk fifteen
to eighty not small with Reverbon doctor Teresa hord Owens,

(01:20:21):
who is a descendant of one of the oldest African
American free settlements in Indiana and a disciple since a
young adulthood. Reveron hoard Owens earned her bachelor's degree in
government with a minor in African American Studies from Harvard University.
Doctor hord owens was resume includes more than twenty years
in corporate America, leading diverse teams and data management in

(01:20:41):
healthcare and other industries before she entered the seminary. Madam President,
welcome forward to the Jesse Jackson Junior Show.

Speaker 4 (01:20:50):
Thank you for having me, my brother always good to
be here, Madam President.

Speaker 1 (01:20:54):
I again, I want you to share with us anything
that might be on your mind. But I just want
to add this little point right here, hearing from everybody,
that as crazy as this whole Trump era is, it
is providing us an opportunity for community. It's an opportunity
to buy black We got no more DII. It's an
opportunity to shout in our own neighborhoods it don't want
us no more. It's an opportunity to go to our

(01:21:16):
own churches. Well, our pews are empty. Everyone keeps saying
that this opportunity is presenting itself as the antithesis to
what doctor King and the movement of the sixties actually created.
The kind of church congregation that you presently lead. I mean,

(01:21:36):
you are some the first African American woman, the second
woman to lead a major multicultural denomination where eighty percent
of its members are white. So much of the last
sixty maybe seventy years has been about well, it comes
together in you, it comes together in me, It comes

(01:21:58):
together in Reverend Barber, it comes together in Katanji Brown Jackson,
and all of the experiences comes together in Barack Obama.
It comes together in jakeem Jeffries in a real sense.
We are in the moment that over time created and
now we're being told, well, we need to make aggrede again,

(01:22:19):
and it doesn't include this moment. In fact, it seeks
to erase it.

Speaker 4 (01:22:24):
Yeah, I think even as you look at my story
in this denomination, our congregations, local congregations are still very segregated.
Eleven o'clock still remains, as doctor King said, the most
segregated hour in America. When I visit congregations, they are

(01:22:44):
predominantly one thing or another. They may be predominantly white,
maybe there are a few black members or a few
Asian Pacific Islander members, and then we will have congregations
that are mostly Asian mostly or all Pacific Islander, or
all Black or all Hispanics. So that segregation continues to
exist even as we try to build this community at

(01:23:05):
the denominational level that reflects more of that beloved community.
I think the while yeah, this you know by black,
It's like I don't go into Target. I've betten into
Target for a long time. I'm trying to keep up
with the list of their you know, Walmart, all these things.
We don't go to Sam's Club anymore. I'm doing Costco.

(01:23:26):
It's we're all trying to, you know, be socially responsible
in that sense. But if we keep too much to
our own little corners, we will miss the bigger danger
that's happening. And that's what's happening in d C with
legislature and what the challenge is that we have in
terms of how we affect policy and how we affect

(01:23:52):
laws that are happening. Who we elect is very very important.
Having people you were once my congressman, and I will
say here that I hope you will Wantce again be
my congressman. I still live in the second Congressional district.
It matters who I choose. It matters who the alderman is.

(01:24:14):
Here in Calumet City where I live. It matters who
the dogcatcher is. I lived through the whole drama that
was Tiffany Heinyard and Dalton. I don't know if you
were paying any attention to what was happening when there
were such hope people had. Oh this young black woman,
youngest black mayor, and she just totally went off the rails,

(01:24:36):
no sense of ethics or responsibility. And I watched that
drama up close. She was the Thornton Township supervisor. I
live in Thornton Township. I paid attention because this woman
handles money in terms of what social services are going
to be provided to senior citizens in our township, all
sorts of things. If we don't pay attention. And people

(01:24:58):
in Dalton, which is black, weren't paying attention until some
of that was being threatened. They started showing up at
their local town hall meetings. They showed up at the
Thornton Township open meetings, and she was actually doing what
Trump was doing, using the police to block people from

(01:25:19):
coming to the microphone, taking the keys away, so that
the City Council of Dalton couldn't even meet in their
own city hall because she ordered it closed and they
had to find other places. But if we're not paying
attention day by day on on a local basis as
to what's happening, and we can get so, you know,

(01:25:40):
we're so earthly bound, sometimes we're so heavenly bound that
we're no earthly good. We have to pay attention to
these local issues. And one of the things I'm trying
to do with my denomination is that it's great to
make sandwiches PB and J sandwiches for the Mica Ministry
to give out. It's great to put together hygiene kits

(01:26:03):
of body wash and shampoo and conditioner and deodor and
all these things for the people who need it for
short term needs. But what I need you to do
on today's like today, which moral mondays at state capitals
all over the country, I need you to be paying
attention to what's happening in your local community and fight
for policies that will respect humanity. Fight for policies that

(01:26:26):
will ensure that this society that you say as a
Christian is so important that we love our neighbor as ourselves.
There have to be policies and laws in our country
that reflect that. And we've got to as a faith
based people grab onto this responsibility that we must speak,
we must show up, we must stand up. We've got

(01:26:48):
to be registering people to vote. I'm involved with the
Faith United to Save Democracy, you know, Barbara Williams Skinner
and Jim Wallace and so journals, the African American Clergy Network.
They're already starting training sessions to train clergy to serve
as a poll chaplains, to have people to show up

(01:27:10):
in the polls in the polling stations to not only
ensure that the laws being followed, but to give people
a sense that there are people who care about me
who are here, and we have data that says that
they're less likely to have actions that result in voter
suppression when we have clergy people at the polls who've
been trained as to what they can and cannot do.

(01:27:33):
But we've got to get beyond this short term charity
that we are so good at doing, to understanding long
term systemic work that we also need to do. I've
been a pole chaplain. I remember when Reverieks was running
for state senator and I was one of the volunteer
poll judges, and I saw some shenanigans going on in

(01:27:56):
Dalton actually, and I was able to enter. But we've
got to be doing that kind of work too, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:28:04):
I know that we only have about a minute, maybe
two minutes before the break, But our producer asks the
question in terms of the value system of some of
our elected officials. Is it a function of melanin, Gina asks,
or is it spirit? Is it a reflection on us
as generations before us would have whipped? For example, the
mayor of Dalton's tail or embarrassing us. And I also regent,

(01:28:27):
by the way, the first notion of the first African
American to do this or to do that, because all
of that symbolism right there, you know, we need the
second African American, who's beyond the first, to actually get
some stuff done because the first is so symbolic and
so celebratory. We almost get nothing done in that generation.

Speaker 4 (01:28:48):
Almost nothing. And I think we do have to hold
each other accountable. But what it says is that that
Tiffany Heinyr didn't have a particular structure, in a particular
set of values wrapped around her. We're not sure what
her context was. That she didn't have this sense of
responsibility for her community was not greater than her sense

(01:29:09):
of how she could benefit monetarily from that job. And
that's where we're failing. We're not building those moral systems
around our young people.

Speaker 1 (01:29:18):
I think that's a disease that exists in our leadership
generally in their inter system. I'm Jesse Jackson, Jerry. This
is KBLA Talk fifteen eighty. We are with on Moving
Mountain Monday's the Faith Not the Fall with Reverend doctor
Terry Horde Owens. When we come forward more with doctor Owens.
I'm Jesse Jackson Junior looking forward to the Jesse Jackson
Junior Show. This is moving Mountain Mondays with the Faith

(01:29:39):
Not to Fall. Reverend Doctor Terry Hoard Owens is our
active regular contributor on Mondays. Reverend Owens, welcome forward to
the Jesse Jackson Junior Show.

Speaker 4 (01:29:49):
Thank you, Jesse. Good to be here.

Speaker 1 (01:29:51):
She's a graduate of the University of Chicago Divinity School.
Reverend Hoard Owens served fifteen years as the dean of
students at her alma Mada. Reverend hoard Owens also does
the pastor of the First Christian Church of Downers Grove, Illinois.
We're under her leadership. F c C d G is
now open Hand an affirming anti racism, pro reconciliation congregation.

(01:30:12):
Madam President, is always a pleasure to have you on
the show.

Speaker 4 (01:30:15):
Oh, it's always good to be here. I'm always as
I'm out and about most weeks. Very seldom is there
a week that goes by where I'm not out with
one of our congregations or with some action. I really
regretted that I couldn't be We've got disciples in Tennessee
and Louisiana, Arkansas doing Moral Monday actions at their state

(01:30:40):
capitals today and trying to get people moving and not
just talking about this stuff and not just throwing our
mantras around, but really being the church that we say
we are.

Speaker 1 (01:30:52):
So, Madam President, how can we support your work and
tell us more specifically, what is it that we can
be doing on Mondays? Now? Listen carefully, everybody, we need
to do something and we're sitting around talking about it
all day, reflecting on it all day and even shame
on me radioing all day. Ain't no excuse for doing

(01:31:15):
something every at least once a week.

Speaker 4 (01:31:17):
Hence, yeah, moral money. Here's what I would suggest to
people as a way to kind of get plugged in.
You can go to Breach Repairers dot org breach Repairs
dot org and you can sign up to be on
their communication list. That's Bishop William Barber the second, that's
his organization, The Poor People's Campaign is a combination of

(01:31:40):
Breach Repairs and the Cairo Center out of Union Theological
Seminary doctor Lysdeo Harris. But Breech Repairs is what is
really fueling the Moral Monday actions in this present moment,
and you can get plugged in. There are still Poor
People's Campaign activities, the state campaigns. There's an Illinois campaign.
You can still go to Poor People's Campaign dot org

(01:32:03):
and sign up to get on the list so that
you're getting information about what's happening in your state, in
your local area. And that's one way I think to
plug in and and know what's happening. For clergy, there's
something called if you sign up for breach Repairs and
at Poor People's Campaign dot org, clergy are invited to

(01:32:25):
become part of what's called the Prophetic Council, and that's
just a monthly gathering of folks that doctor Barbara likes
to talk to and get information. But your local NAACP, right,
your your local church, ask ask your pastor what are
we doing to address issues in the community. Are we
helping to register voters? What are we doing about what's

(01:32:48):
happening here in Illinois. In Illinois when we do these lobbying,
Illinois was never chosen for the special lobbying work because
we had Durban Duckworth right, and we have currently Robin
Kelly as the second Congressional District Congressman. I was always

(01:33:10):
in a position where all personally, all of my people
were on the right side of the issue, as I thought,
but that's not the case everywhere we live. So getting
the ability to plug in with organizations who have done
this kind of work so you're not recreating the wheel.
Our denomination had its assembly in General Assembly in Memphis

(01:33:31):
in July, which is our triennial meeting for the whole denomination,
and doctor Barbara was planning a rally there and we
had a couple of our ministries who are planning a rally.
I was like, oh no, let's not fight each other.
Let's come together. Let's come together with what doctor Barber's doing.
And this is why, because he's done this, he understands
the mechanics, the logistics of it. He understands how to

(01:33:53):
get press attention to it, because you need press attention.
So when we collaborate with people who know what they're
doing with it out worrying about whether your face is
on the poster or whether you're going to be asked
to speak. We can just amplify the work that we're doing.
And that's what the goal I have for my own denomination.
I want our work to be amplified, and if that

(01:34:13):
means I'm coming alongside William Barber because it's going to
get more attention, or because I learned from him about
what's happening. We can do those kinds of things. But
the moral Mondays are focusing on state legislatures and trying
to get more visibility and amplification about what's happening at
the local level, because that's just as important as what's

(01:34:37):
happening in DC. But all of it gets back to
this work of faith being much more than just some
good singing and shouting on Sunday. So matter it, can you.

Speaker 1 (01:34:49):
Let me go around the world with you, Let me
go around the country with you, just on moral Monday.
Moral Monday, for example, in Texas might be if you
can hear our voice that you are standing with what
Texas democrats who have been refugees around the country but
are now back in Texas because a new session has

(01:35:12):
been called on the state's redistricting plan. That might be
the moral activity standing with them.

Speaker 4 (01:35:19):
Yes, Yes.

Speaker 1 (01:35:20):
And then, for example, a moral Monday in Los Angeles
might be the confrontation non violently and the resistance of
ice showing up in our parks, in our schools, disrupting.

Speaker 4 (01:35:34):
Families, Yes, and our churches, So a moral.

Speaker 1 (01:35:43):
Monday in Washington, d C. Might be opposition to the
president's expansion of authority by taking over the district. Government
has efforts to take over the police department, which the
courts have now resisted. You can define your action on

(01:36:04):
moral Monday, but it does mean do something.

Speaker 4 (01:36:09):
Yes, it means do something, and it means there is
still and I we have a lot of churches out there, Black,
Hispanic and otherwise who still think that Christians are not
supposed to be operating in this public space, that we're
politics and we shouldn't be engaged. And a lot of

(01:36:29):
what I do is trying to convince people otherwise by
going to the text. And as we were talking earlier,
you know, Jesus was that's a good theory. Jesus was
in medical school getting ready for the work that he
needed to do. But Jesus was out there. People came
to Jesus because he was getting things done. I don't

(01:36:54):
think Jesus would have been as effective, quite honestly, had
he not been doing some healing along the way. He
was engaging in miracles. If he had just been talking,
who knows who would have people made their way to
him because they said Oh, he's healing. He works, it works.
Whatever he's doing, things are changing. And I think that's

(01:37:14):
what our churches. My husband after church yesterday, we went
on a tour of the Pullman neighborhood in near Roseland,
near where the House of Hope is. I had not
been in that area in the neighborhood to see what
the National Pullman, the National park that is now there,

(01:37:36):
and what the old Pullman factory looks like. And there
was an actual ranger standing there on the grounds giving
a tour. There, there's a Chick fil A, there's a
Jimmy Johns coming in, a Duncin Donuts.

Speaker 1 (01:37:48):
And I offered that when I offered that legislation to
put a national park in Roseland, Illinois, there was a
single politician who showed up and they laughed at me.
Chicago Tribune and sometimes they laughed at me. A national
park in an urban area. And that legislation ultimately made

(01:38:08):
it to the President's desk with subsequent legislation, and it
was a seed that laid the foundation or an higher
region that attracts right and.

Speaker 4 (01:38:19):
The economic infint that is, yeah, that's now possible because
if your work to make that a historic side is
really really important that whole neighborhood is changing. There are
other businesses that are now locating in that area because
it changing. Getting the They're going to extend the red

(01:38:40):
line right past ninety fifth Street. So it's all of
that is is just a sign of how the church
and ys, you know, Reverend Meeks and now our reverend
dates have been active in this community. They haven't been
saying this isn't our business. They've been saying it is
our business because part of our businesssiness is Jesus said,

(01:39:01):
I've come that you might have life and that you
have it more abundantly. So part of our business is
abundant life in our communities. And if we're not engaged
in those things. You know, this the work of the church.
It has to be that. It has to be about that.

Speaker 1 (01:39:18):
You must have the faith, not the fall. I'm Jesse Jackson,
Junior on KBLA Talk fifteen eighty. You've been with Reverend
doctor Teresa Horde Owens. She is our regular Monday contributor.
When we come forward more on KBLA Talk fifteen eighty
Jesse Jackson

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