2.3.2023 #RolandMartinUnfiltered: Bethune-Cookman University Town Hall
Today Roland Martin will be live from Dayton Beach, Florida, streaming from Hope Fellowship Church. Roland will be speaking with Students, Faculty, Staff, Alumni, and the community about the recent firing of Ed Reed and issues on Bethune-Cookman's Campus.
Third, two thousand twenty three, rolland Barton Unfiltered on the Black Start Network, broadcasting live from Whope Fellowship Church in Daytona Beach, Florida. We are for the next couple of hours. We were talking about Watune Cookman University, the issues that have been taking place on this campus, UH and hearing from students as well from alumni. We also will hear from interim President Dr Drake as well. What is the future? Also new football coach has one been hired? Will answer all of those questions. Has coming out next? It is time for us to bring the funk on Roller Black Unfiltered, my Black Start Network. Let's go whatever the mess, He's on it, whatever it is, He's got the fine. He's right on top of this rolling best believe he's going to politics with entertained. Just he's scoring. It's golden, he's spooky, especially's filled upon though. He's roll In Martelet's hip church and it's on the beach, Florida for this a two our town hall conversation on the president and the future of a film Cookman University. Of course, UH, all this controversy started when UH former coach who actually was never really hired as coach and read UH really sparked a lot of this UH discussion in terms of the status of the university. Of course, he was not retained or hired by the university, did the head football coach? UH? Students UH and also football players were still believing in him want him to be hired, but they said no. That moving in a whole new direction. It was also what we've done over the past a couple of weeks really has been talking about what's been happening at this institution, one of the most revered hbc USED And let me be real clear off the top, because there's a whole bunch of people out here who love running their miles. And y'all know, I got no problem with jacking people up. So when when when people say, oh, you're trying to tear our school down and tear hbc USED down and you didn't go to an HBCU, Well you don't complain with somebody cut you a check who didn't go to hbc U. This is about improving and building black institutions. I told you and Dr King's book where do we go from here? Chaoso community? He said, there are four institutions that are prime position to liberate Black America. He said, the Negro Church were in the whole Fellowship church here uh in the time of the beach to remember our first location, uh, Greater Fellows. Uh. They actually canceled our town hall. But y'all know we were not playing around. We found one less than twenty four hours later. So we appreciate Bishop allowing us to be here. Give it up. And so there are folks who are saying, oh, you shouldn't be talking about this because you didn't go to one. Well, if you don't like it, you should start your own show. But MLK s the four institutions, the Negro Church, the Negro press, Negro fraternities and sororities, and Negro professional and business organizations. What he said about the Negro press, he said, maintain your militant see and not fall for the conservative. And so when you're in black owned media, our job in black owned media is not to be always positive. Our job is to be truthful. And so if there are things that that happen, y'all know. My model has always been, if you do good, I'll talk about you. If you do bad, I'll talk about you. At the end of the day, I'm gonna talk about you. And that's exactly what it should be. And so what our responsibility when it comes to our institution is demanding accountability, demanding excellence and not accepting what is less than. And so when we were sitting here having a conversation with a doctor Drake, when he invited me to come to campus, I readily accepted, and I said to him, let's have a town hall on the campus with students, love, not the board, bring everybody together. Well that was later rescinded, no problem. Look, and I fully expected that to happen. So we always had a plan B. And so we are here not to sit here and tear down with him Cookman, but to actually say, how do we make it better? How do we fulfill uh the vision of Dr mayor McLoud with thun How do we sit here and confront the challenges that are facing HBC used but also strengthen them. Because the one thing that keeps driving me crazy when we discuss our black institutions, I'm tired of us having what I call survived conversations. But we we we always say about surviving, Oh we we we make do with little, And it's always survived. No, I want us to be having thriving conversations. I want us fighting for our institutions who look as good or even better than Florida State or the University of Florida. Which means that we have to use our collective power to be able to do so. For the next two hours, we're gonna talk with folks who are simpled here and we'll talk about some of the issues and the challenges, but not just simply focus on the past, but also layout a path forward. Because you have dissension going on. You have UH the universities soon the alumni Associate it's being disbanded. You've seen a lumni donations go down tremendous. You've seen people who are saying I want to help you. Having students who complaining about conditions and dorms and food and complain about those things that shouldn't be what's going on. Students should not have to be protesting on HBC used for better conditions. They really are here to get an education, and so that's what we want to move forward. It's really focusing on those issues. And so I hope you let everybody know what's going on here, and I make this last point. And I appreciate mainstream media being here and I get an interview earlier. But here's the thing that we have to understand, and this is why black owned media matters, and that is we ain't here for a nineties second sound bite. This costs us thousands of dollars to be here. Ain't no sponsor paying for us to be here. But the reason we're here because these are the types of stories that we must be talking about. And all the folks out there who call themselves new blue, New media, or or black whatever they want to call themselves, if all you're doing is talking about what somebody else is doing, well then you ain't legit. What this is about is for us as African Americans, using our collective wealth, our collective knowledge to be able to improve our institutions and make them better, not just for us, but for our children's children. Because if somebody else fifties, sixty seventy eight, a hundred years ago did not do what they did, we could not be even having this conversation today. So with that, UH, we're gonna go to a break. We're gonna again have this conversation. We're going to start uh with the interview with Dr Drake, because I want folks to hear our conversation, to hear what they say is being done to improved, and then we'll be able to use it as a basis for our conversation here and Hope Fellowship Church. And it's on the beat. So again, I gotta go to your break glad to have everyone in here. Folks. You're watching Rolling Martin Unfiltered Live in that's on the beach on the Black Start Network. Don't forget downlard the Black Studen Network app Apple Phone, Android phone, Apple TV, Android TV, Roku and was on Fire TV, Xbox one, Samsung Smart TV. Support us in our efforts by joining our greena Funk Fan Club. 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You are watching My Man unfiltered, All right, Foss, Welcome back to Rolling Mark Unfiltered. Here at the UH They're on the Beach Hope Fellowship of Church for Alberton Cipman town Hall. So earlier today, as soon as I landed, went right to campus and I interviewed the interim president, Dr Drake about the issues that we've been talking about on this show for the last uh ten days or so, and so here is part one of our conversation that was set up the rest of our discussion here at the church. President, Dre, You've had quite uh any eventful, Um, I would say, last seven of ten days. Um, I'm gonna start first off with um, communicating with your students. It was one thing that I've heard from so many students saying not enough communication and I'm not transparency. How are you d link with that so they know what's going on on their campus? Yeah, yeah, I would say that. You know, I would say the students in some ways are correct. We need to communicate more a lot of things going behind the scenes. But what we've done is we've decided to create and this is with taking the voices of the s g A and student government and other student leaders and saying, okay, let's design a way to ensure that the communication from the administration and anything right frankly is consistent. Last night we held our first session with our freshman class, were subsequently to do that with freshman, sophomore, juniors, and seniors. That's part one. Part two is actually to have the subject matter experts for each of our major areas of concern housing, campus safety, etcetera. So that they get the subject matter experts in front of them and not just hear them, but also create an action itemist, which is what we did last night. Um. You you talk about those areas. One of the areas that whether it's between cooking, whether it's any institution I've been dealing with folks talk about food services. You've had some students who posted videos a mole and thing along those lines. And what have you said to your person, Nail about what they have to do because anytime a video gets posted, the photo gets posted. Uh, look that that can take off, it can go viral. Uh. And so what have you communicated to staff right right? Yet? So you know the thing that I'm getting everybody used to is that we live in a digital world now, we don't live in an analog world. That means something can happen in a second, in the next second, it's viral potentially. So what I said to staff is simply this. We have a third party partner, UM and Sexo is our third party partner. They actually do our food service and dunning, and they also do part of our facilities leadership as well. We said to that, look, you need to be more careful and more diligent about that. And in fact I was just on the phone this more in at ten thirty meeting to discuss not only that issue, like any other issue with respect to what we received from vendors, for example, prepackaged goods of any kind. So bread might come prepackaged, broccoli might come prepackaged. You need to take the extra step of checking it. If you're getting food or vegetables, they might come pre washed, open up the bag and wash them again. If you've got bread, look at the rack, make sure the rap matches the date that it's supposed to be eaten by, and not have some bread that might have been old. It might have been delivered from an in vendor that you didn't check. So what kind of system are you putting in place to ensure that's happening. So if I had I've had that conversation and I feel very good about the leadership of that particularticularly in the dining hall. Uh. That said, you know, youve got to inspect what you expect. So I'm going to be doing a regular check with them once a week and we're gonna have a session with their people to ensure that no hiccups and if there are, I want to know what we're doing about it. Speaking of inspection, housing, the same thing and so um UM, I've had folks sending me a photos and video saying, oh my goodness, we're seeing cleaning crews, We're seeing folks going building the building. And so UH explained what has been happening there in terms of assessing uh facilities. Yeah, so we started about seven months ago when I took the job as interim president of assessing our facilities. Of course, what happened in the middle of that was too hurricanes. Um. When Ian happened, we were the first campus to evacuate. Um. Some people thought that was foolish, but if you look sort of hindsight, it was a great decision. That said, we had to deal with the aftermath of that about six million dollars with the damage across the campus, depending upon our y add up the numbers, and so there was a lot of things left in the wake. Uh And what we've been doing now is a six million Did you get any fellow assistance for that? Not yet, but we've applied to FEMA uh and and they're walking us of the process. But quite frankly, you know, we have gotten some support from a lot of people who care about the campus and care about the university. So you know, we've been very blessed about that. But of course, you know, it takes a lot to do, right, So we we actually started assessing each of our facilities in a more comprehensive way, so it's not just what happened post hurricane, but what were the conditions before the hurricane, what are we doing about it? What can we do now cosmetically, So that's sort of what's the first priorities that we can do, and then what do we need to do along the range. So in that assessment, it's age, building condition, um, not only the age and building condition, but what is the things that might be harmful to our students or might compromise the safety. So we've asked ourselves a number of questions about each facility. So we have a base list now of about sixty We've got over a hundred buildings on campus, so now we're really getting aggressive about doing that, and the board has been very supportive about making sure that we began to prioritize these facilities in a in a really aggressive way. And I'm very pleased with that. I couldn't I couldn't be more pleased with it with the support of the games. One of the things that UH, I had some parents reach out to talk to about again um locks on dorm room doors not not working properly, and shower heads and UH and then also dealing with um rotents or roaches and things along those lines. And so have you been also looking examining your reporting procedures and not not just in terms of UM dorm folks, but also what are you saying to students about how they use the facilities, because that that obviously impacts things as well. Yeah, listen, you hit it. You hit the big nail on the head that I talked about last night, And in fact, I was so I was so proud of our freshman class president because she called out a classmate. She said, Hey, you told the administration they need to be here to talk to you. Are you what are you saying, and what what I said to them was, Look, we talk about accountability. As you know or you may not know, but I want to share it with you, is that our core values are around first. That's faith, that's integrity, that's respect, that service, and that's thirst for knowledge. So when you are you know, doing something in your room, whether that's letting people in the dorm who shouldn't be there, whether that's propping open a back door which keeps your you know, your roommates and the other people in that building unsafe, or it's you know, using any kind of substance that is banned from the university because there have a no alcohol, no drug policy and no tolerance on both of those. If you're doing those things, you compromise our ability to do things to help you. So we try to we're talking about first and we're creating sort of this idea of going back to our roots called b c U. We are first. We take those four those key core values, and we build things in there, like for example, respect, Well, I don't want somebody living in a place that's uninhabitable if we've got mold or mildew or things. And let us know that because some of them. We can see some of them, we can, but if it is there, then we want to take care of that because if we say we live to our core values as the administration, we gotta hold you accountable to do the same thing. Respect means respect for your your roommate, respect for the other students in your facility. Those are going to be the way in which we also communicate to our student body things like the progress of our work across campus. So we use d CEU we are first as a way to frame how we continuously keep them abreast of what's happening on campus and what progress were meeting, So you're meeting obviously, so you're meeting with your students. Um, how are you repairing this fractious relationship with your alumni? Uh? This lawsuit is not a good thing. Again, you've got alumni that supportive of a university no matter what. But then you but you have others who are saying, look, it is way too much friction, uh and all. So what is happening there? Because certainly, you know when you talked about going from twelve percent to one percent of giving, I mean that's that's huge. Yeah, So you know, I would say, you know, rolland that's probably you know, one of the thorniest issues that we UM continue to contend with, which is, you know, how do we bring community together when we have major disagreement about the community. UM A little bit of context around this whole litigation and what it means is that you you know, we had a longstanding national alumni association, have been around long time. They've evolved over time, and two different models have evolved in terms of how they engage with the university. In the latter years. What's happened is you found that many of the university chat actors that were assigned and as you know, when you have an authorized alumni association, they carry our our e I N number. They are, they carry our nonprofit they're essentially an arm of the university. And what we discovered is that much of the funds that we believe needed to come directly to the university simply weren't. We weren't able to substantiate. And in addition to that, because the tax received for those who gave needs to go to those people. If we can't substantiate where coming from, we can't exactly get a tax received for that. Well, that wasn't the worst part. The worst part was that some of our alumni decided, well, if we're not going to carry and do the way we used to do it, then we'll create our own. And I have not a problem with people saying, you know, we believe in Dr Mary mclapperton, we want to continue to give scholarships to students, but you can't say you're then an alumni official alumni association of the university, because we own the marks and the trademarks and the seals, and the moment that you start you using those things is the moment that we have to be in litigation to stop you from doing so. And that is the crux in part of our disagreement. Now, I'll grant you I would love to see how we get this resolved. Unfortunately, because it's in litigation, we're gonna have to let it play out. But rest assured we are inviting every alumni, regardless of what side of defense you're on, to join us and trying to do it the most important thing, the main thing, is our students. Whether you like someone, you don't like a policy, you don't like something that the university is doing, that's one thing. But when you do that and it doesn't benefit the student. It doesn't really give the student the identity because every time those kinds of things happen, they compromise the credential that students are practically given their life away, mortgaging part of it because of the debt they're going into and you can't cheapen that degree. And every time this kind of thing happens, it hurts, It hurts those young people. Hold on a second, I'm gonna take a break and come back when pick up on that. Uh. In just a moment, you're watching Roland Bart unfiltered on the Black Star Network. I'm jebber Owens, com Erica's wealth Coach, and my news show Get Wealthy focuses on the things that your financial advisor and bank isn't telling you what you absolutely need to know. So watch Get Wealthy on the Black Star Network. Black Star Networks a real revolutionary right now, thank you for me in the voice of black apparent moment we have. Now we have to keep this going to the video. Look phenomenal, Black Star Network and black owned media and something like CNN. You can't being black owned media and be scared. It's time to be smart. Rings your eyeballs hole you dig on the next A Balanced Life with Me, Dr Jackie, a relationship that we have to have. We're often afraid of it and don't like to talk about it. That's right. We're talking about our relationship with money. And here's the thing. Our relationship with money oftentimes determines whether we have it or not. The truth is, you cannot change what you will with not acknowledge balancing your relationship with your pocketbook. That's next on A Balanced Life with Me, Dr Jackie here at black Star Network Break, go to the break. We're talking about a lum not. So you're meeting with students. Are you looking to do something similar across the country with the alumni that bringing them up to speed? Because yeah, the look the lawsuit is still going on, but uh but surely there is some sort of path pathway for them to also still be engaged. So what is happening there? Yeah, good question. So, Um, I've been doing a series of fireside chats around the country and they have been we've been, you know, well received. Our Director of Alumni Affairs has done in our standing job of sort of redirecting some of that energy into what we can do in the future together, and next week we'll be holding a national alumni um town home for all of them. Are Anything you have to do is prove that you're in alone. So we're gonna have a system by checking and make sure your names available to us at our alumni roster. But if you are, you'll come in and I will walk them through the same thing I'm talking to our students about. They'll have a chance using a QR code to actually ask their questions in advance, and then we'll have, of course the opportunity to chat to answer more questions to be moderated. But but I want to talk to them. I want to hear what they have to say. Um not in not in a gripe session, of course, but in a session that really we can have some constructive conversation about what has taken place, what the future can look like, because you know, I'm I'm kind of one of those people that I'd love to focus on what the future looks like. You got to deal with the president. You can't agree with that. But the future of our university and the future of many of our students is based on how well we began to lay the ground work for them and the more time we spend on individual agendas, it's hard to focus on their agenda, and their agenda is making sure they have the credentials to go out and compete in them. So you're talking to future. Um, So I'm traveling yesterday and I see a tweet that you have a new football coach. Uh, and then all of a sudden, tweet disappears. All right, so what what what the heck is going on that about you? Do you have a new coach or not? Yeah? So, so we we are really excited about our new candidate. That's that we are about to hire. The only thing that's you know, we're being careful about is that it does have to be ratified. His contract has to be ratified by the board. But barring that, we do have an in football coach, which we're really, really really excited about Nybody. He's a great guy and you know, he has the Christian ethos and his blood, he's an alum and we're really excited about him. But all of that will become more public next week and we want to hold an official press conference and we we know that, you know, once he sent his tweet out and then once it was on Facebook, it was over. So now that the cats have a bag, now we have to say, okay, you know, but we really do want to have a formal announcement of his coming in and give him the spotlight that a new head coach does it. So how are you how are you getting control of that to wear folk under stand uh, procedures, practices. Look, I get it. Uh. There's someone who we've been working on the show of my network who posted on social media and I was like, did you see me posted? I didn't? Uh, And so uh that that also is a part of institutional standards present procedures. Yeah. Yeah, So you know, one of the one of our our areas of growth is again recognizing we're in the digital world. Now, what that simply means for us is we got to have people to monitor digital behavior. But we need practices and policies that we need to share with our employees when they come to work here and also those who are here already about how social media needs to be used and how it's governed by the institution. We haven't quite frankly, haven't been aggressive in that, and we're gonna get a lot more granular and precise about what we ask and expect our employees and our students to do. And with all the stuff that has happened, has this also call all should you two be even more thorough in looking at and raising the question do you have the personnel needed to go to the next level. That was a CEO who wants said the people that made me a five million dollar your corporation can't take me to a billion. Uh. And this is one of the hardest things for a lot of people coming in saying, you know what, you're a nice person, you've been great, but actually it's time for you to go because you can't elevate the institution. Are you that's why actually looking at buildings, are you looking at people the same way? Absolutely? And uh, you know we just uh we just hired a new a CFO. We're gonna be hiring new ce IO. We we want to ensure that we're building a team of professionals who have experience, but more importantly, that they have the forward thinking catid because you're absolutely right. You know, it's one thing to happen idea, but if somebody can't help get you to the next level to make that idea come to reality, and it's not really something you should even focus on. And I think that you know, between Coopman University came through such a rough time in its history a few years ago, and thankfully there were some people who really took it to heart to try to ensure that the university got back on stable footing. Well, good news is that we are on stable footing. We do have a way forward. Now. We got to build the right team, right people, get the right things in places we can move forward. And I think this was a wake up call that we need to move fast. Moving slower is not an option right now. That I saw tweet from several people, including Ed Reads about warning football players being suspended. Uh, first of all, is that true? And what happened? So he was disciplined um, and the discipline really was as a result of still in scholarship. To my knowledge, I don't think he's lost his call, um, but I do believe that Um, the violations were more around things he was asked not to do and he did. And that's what the code of conduct says here. So you know, we we didn't penalize him as might have been reported for speaking out because trust me, you know I had three d students speaking out and you can't get rid of all that, nor would I want to. By the way, um, I think that it was just a situation where he it was a judgment call for him, It was a judgment call for his coaches. They made the call, and it was he had the players only meetings and what they were trying not to record and recorded. Yeah, yeah, and he was asking not to record it. And that was because and by the way, he was monitored by some of his players as well and his teammates. So you know, look, we gotta have rules. We don't have enough, and sometimes we have too much. I think for that particular event, you know, we were trying to ensure that the state of the family so we could work it through. You know, I don't, I don't. You can't come and call my house nasty and then ask me can you spend the night? You know, fundamentally, we needed people who were able to focus on what we needed to do for our football team. And the players that were there, those UH alumni players didn't gosh, I just thank governing them because they were able to come in and talk to the players in the language that I can't speak right honestly to them and I'm grateful that we had a great meeting and we're off to a great start. They're they're working at once uh. Once our coaches in place and he begins to assemble the staff. He's a great recruiter. We're gonna be fun. Where are you in terms of practice field on the campus minderstanding, you're spending thousands of dollars transporting players back and forth to the stadium, UH as opposed to being on campus and also on campus locker room, showers, things on those lines. Status of that, Yeah, So we have what's called the AGC, which essentially is the Athletic Training Center, which sits at the corner of International Speedway Boulevard and Lincoln Avenue. There is that building and that land behind that building, which is where we want to build that practice field on campus and lockers and showers. We have two adjacent buildings that have not been used that we want to convert so that that also has weight rooms and other kinds of facilities for our athletes. We're gonna put up the sea capital for that. We're thinking somewhere about two millions UM, but that's that's sort of a preliminary cost. We had a lot of work to do, but we're working on the architectural drawings now. Our goal is to try to have that facility up and running by the end of the summer. But we're excited about that. That's gonna be fun for our athletes. And the other thing we could do is we want to keep them having from having to cross the street, So we want to be able to make sure that everything is all in one place so when they do cross the street, they're actually going back to their residence. All um, what's the biggest thing that you I've learned from this UM experience the hiring of Ed read Van, choosing not to retain him and all the controversy. That's that's uh, that's in super I learned a lot of things. I mean, you know, I consider myself to be a life among learners, so that means, you know, I never think that I have all the answers to all the questions, because I don't, UM. But what I do do believe is that there are some things we could have handled better. I think we should have been ahead of our work and communicated to the campus more about what we were doing with our facilities. You could have cut down on a lot of stuff. I think that while hiring it read and not hiring actually, but in negotiations with him, um, you listen. You know, he was a fantastic player, and I think that his intentions were we're good. I don't think that you wanted to harm the program or the university. Um. I think that it's just not a good fit. And sometimes you've got to get ahead of that. I wish we would have been a little bit more ahead of that. The third thing is is that done transparency and excessive communications sometimes works better. Sometimes you don't think you need to communicate when you really do need to communicate. So things like ensuring that our financials people understanding that we're not only solvent and in the black, but that you know the Cares Act funding and the money that we were given by the federal government was stewarded. Well, uh, and you made that public. Yes, that money went to Students Direct website. It's on our website, but we gotta make you know. We've been thinking about how do we break it down so the average person can understand, and we're working on that because it's not just about putting it on our site. We gotta say, okay, we just spent six x million dollars that went to students and to repay their debts so they could stay in school. Many of them were carrying forward debt and we wanted to pay that off and use that as funds. And the rest of it went to actually instruction, new faculty or existing faculty, creating the programming that allowed are greeting to expand. Um. Those are things that I wish we would have done sooner. I didn't think about it, but now we know the importance of doing it. Last question, UM, there's someone out there who's saying, m hmm, I'm not sure if I want to send my students send my child to Boon Cooking. Or the alumni who's saying I'm not sure I want to send my money. Um, what do you say to that person? Both of those people? So the first person I'd say is the parent, is you know, before you make the decision, talk to us. Come see our campus, spend some time with our admissions people, see if the culture year for your daughter or son makes sense for your family. Um, because you know you gotta take a look. See my daughter, I took her to see my own mate when she was getting ready to go to college. One of my daughters. She looked at the camp and she said, not doing it. Dance. Sorry, I know you want to be a legacy kid, but this is not gonn to be. She ended up with family. UM, so I want them to come and feel the campus for themselves, meet the people, meet this community. Daytona Beach is a welcome and community in this environment that we have, and we want them to feel like this is a place they can be. But the one that says I don't want to send my money or I'm not sure I should send my money, I would say, listen, I can't tell you what you send your money, but if you have an interest in investing in kids that need a future, and this is there's no better place to invest in here. All right, Well, we'll look forward to see what happens over the next several months. Uh, and then UH tell that story as well, keep us honest. Thank you, appreciate it, appreciate thank you. All right, when we come back to Hope Fellowship, we'll talk with students here, get their reaction to the president had to say, uh, and talk about the path forward for Bathon Cookman University. You're watching Roland Black unfiltered and there's live community town hall here and they told to be Florida right here on the Black Star Network Live Start Networks a real old revolution day right now, you remain the voice of Black Ameran moment that we have. Now we have to keep this going. The video look phenomenal. Between Black Star Network and Black owned media and something like CNN, you can't be Black owned media can be scared. It's time to be smart. Bring your eyeballs, hold you dig on the next A Balanced Life with Me, Dr Jackie, a relationship that we have to have. We're often afraid of it and don't like to talk about it. That's right. We're talking about our relationship with money. And here's the thing. Our relationship with money oftentimes determines whether we have it or not. The truth is, you cannot change what you will with not a now at balancing your relationship with your pocketbook. That's next on A Balanced Life with Me, Dr Jackie here at Black Star Network. Hi, I am Dr Jackie and Martin and I have a question for you. Ever feel as if your life is teetering and weight and pressure of the world is consistently on your shoulders, Will let me tell you living a balanced life isn't easy. Join me each Tuesday on black Star Network for a Balanced Life for Dr Jackie will laugh together, cry together, pull ourselves together, and cheer each other on. So join me for new shows each Tuesday on black Star Network a Balanced Life Were Dr Jackie. CP Image Awards is airing live on February, honoring outstanding performances in film, television, theater, music and literature. But this year, Roland Martin Unfiltered is nominated for Outstanding News or Information Series or Special To vote, head to dub a CP IMAGE Awards dot Net scrolled down to Outstanding News slash Information Series, select the category you have to click on hashtag Roland Martin Unfiltered, Black Vote Matter Election Night coverage. To submit your vote. You will need an email only one vote allowed her Email Voting ends on February tenth at the n p M vote today. Hi, I'll doing it's your favorite funny girl, Amanda. All right, I'm Anthony Brown from Anthony Brown and Group Therapya. Well, and you're watching Rolling Martin. Really, why aren't we early to having everyone his finger? All right, we're supposed to play this thing coming back, but we didn't play it now, y'all Clapp go ahead, don't make me cussing this church, Carol. Hell maybe y'all come on, I look at show that I got. I got a vest with got a vest. All right, y'all, let me introduce our students here, folks. Uh joining us right now on my on the far end, Sinsoria McKay. She's a member of the band. A junior. Here be Thun Cookman, Dylan Sims, Dylan Sim's former Mr. Sophomore elect also uh well your sophomore uh and Maya Walker, but Thun Cookman, uh senior as well. So give it up for your students, all right. So, first of all, I didn't you to explain the hell Mary hashtag ed Reid was right, hashtag by by Belvin shirts don't have him on here. So whose idea was that? So? I was it was collection of students also also alumni. Um hell, Mary, they had a protests back in I believe so seen and that was to get a new board Trays Stees new president, and they saw very good, pushed through it. So we want to pick it back off the off of their success. Also with um everyone's right, every was right, and the fact that we had conditions that another book conditions on campus, and also that we need you neique change and by by Belvin basically means we want a whole new boy trustees and we need help the Imperial And we know that it started at the top, and the top is Boa, tress Fees and board chair p Paris. So we want all of them gone and and we want a new boaktras stees where alumni can't pick it. Students falcon teen and staff can also help out and pick a boaker to use that is for but con not for their own pockets. So I'm gonna get to I'm gonna get to the boarder in the second here, but I do want to uh talk about something. The President then did say, uh, control room, pull up the the post that I sent y'all. Uh. And so this went out yesterday, uh where uh coach Wood. He actually tweeted that he was coming to Bethune Cookman. Uh and this was the tweet here he went up on his Facebook page and then Twitter. Well, he had to take it down because he wasn't authorized to post it. And so when the President said that they'll make the announcement next week and so either one of you again your thoughts on the fact that, uh, the universe is moving forward that ed Rey will not be the head coach here but Thune Cookman. They have chosen someone else. Okay, So um, it's tadus the envy go because coach, you you want to change for us. He saw that the throne couldn't exchange. He wanted to change out for the football team, but for the whole school. So it's had to see him go. But you know, we have to keep moving on at the end day because they could. It's a business and you have to keep the business running. Um. I just want to say that with every every came in and it wasn't like he had this selfish attitude. It was no what selfish. It wasn't that, oh, I'm just here strictly for the football team. It was really just I'm here for the school. It's time to turn things around, like you're here to make a change, and for him to go, it's just it's sad. So like with the new football coach coming in, it's really gonna have to You're gonna have to pick back up um off where every left off that and if you can't do that, then it's just on to the next person. When you do you believe that the comments made by it, do you believe that that gave new life to the student and getting empowered folks to be able to freely speak out about what they are concerned about. I mean, there were previous protests in other years, but what I kept hearing from folks saying is that when he made those comments on social media, that it really spurred of us to say, you know what, I need to use my voice. Yes, his comments did create a spark in the protests of hell Mary Park two. Um, it needed to be said because students have been gone long enough from being unheard by the university and it was just time to make a change. So one thing about with thun and colipment, they hate bad press. So for us to get to them is to go to the media, is to say, hey, we have voted in our dorms. Is to say we're we have rats. We're getting sick by it because how many times do we have to complain for you to do something and nothing is being done? Now when you now, now, now, now, when you say complaint, here's what I'm curious about. Who are you complaining to what is the process, Uh, you know, is there a formal process when it comes to the issue that you're talking about. We can plain to maintenance, so people that stay in phase or these different dorms that complain the maintenance. But right, but what you're talking directly to maintenance. What I'm saying is it is it the worker, is it their boss, is it the supervisor or is there an administration administrative person who you're able to communicate with, who's frankly over them. It's a work form, so we don't know who we're talking to. It's just the form that we send in, the form you feel out, fell out and that we send um. Like Maya said, it is a form that you feel out and you send in. And depending on the severity of it is how the response time is with mode. For me personally, um, this being my third year be putting in a work or the fromte, I probably won't see nobody in my room doing something about it until maybe three or four weeks, almost a whole month, because it's always the issue of oh, you can take bleach and spray at it and it will come off, but it grows right back, or they come in and paint right over and cover up the mess that is still there that continuously make people sick um with even with the maintenance coming to fix it. Um, the foreign that's being put out, it's just it's not it's not enough response time, like the fastness of it going out and actually having it being done and not just covering up just to cover it up. If you look at the various issues and the number of issues that folks have talked about, what would would the housing be or the conditions in housing be the dominant issue among students. I believe housing would be number one just because of that. That's our home up with home were there most of the time out of the year, beside our breaks. Oh if somebody really definitely whole something break, but as home come home. So if we can't live in our home with from home, it's like I might as well just go back home and not come back to school. And our community even went to get our ucation and they want to make sure of our families, family families are straight. We want to make sure you get iocation and live a good life. You talked about, um the mold issue thinking three uh three or four for four weeks, Um again that communicating to other folks as well. You said folks have gotten said, I received an email from a parent who talked about their child had to go to the hospital because she had breathing issues as a result. Have you heard that from other students who have been impacted? I have heard that from other students, and I've also have dealt with it myself. UM. Even though I'm not UM, I don't have asthma, I still have gotten sit from the mode because not only does the mode sits on our walls, it we shower in it, we breathe in it, from the air events. It literally sits in every crack and crevice in the dorm. So I have heard and I've also experienced it also being sick just front the mold and the middle of that builds up in our rooms. So you heard the president talk about um already they already expected sixty other one hundred buildings, and they've had crews on campus first, I have used Have you seen that in the past seven to ten days? Yes? So when so before you said he was coming to coming to do um a town, untying nobody was really out there cleaning. They would be regular cleaning. Then us to say on Monday or even Friday they got because of high gear dipping out every day cleaning. They've been cleaning, going from dormin dorm, trying to say we made them do some cleaning. They've been going from dormin dorm saying everybody's okay, saying what can you what do you need done? Because they knew they knew you were coming to coming. We're not coming, but you was in being an area. You were smiling when I when I raided that question, go ahead as because I just feel like it shouldn't take all of that. It should not take for us to complain and for us to go to the media, for y'all to do what y'all supposed to do. Y'all know the school is a mess. Y'all know we got motoro dorms. Y'all know these goods need to be paid. Just do what you gotta do and then we'll be quiet. That's just that's just point Blake, period. I want to say that with what she just said, some of us, and I'm speaking from me personally, some of us didn't even have the option to stay in a dorm that we wanted to stay in um. People who have high g p A is like three point ohs are higher. They've had to be forced into U the Honors dorm. Um, I stay in Lee Ryan, And when I say it's been it's been a challenge because this is supposed to be an honors dorm. We work hard for our g p A s and we're living in filthy conditions to the point where ceilings are not being fits. Water is coming in through our ceilings. We have no choice but to stay in there, like there was no other option. It was strictly you got this g p A you gotta stay in there and lived with it, deal with it. That's how it felt, so like well had to take all of that to really fix the problem. Honestly, So pay said, um, I know that Lebran, you got to have any a C for so they haven't had any a C since since July. Who hasn't had a C Lee Ryan. It's the it's the Honors doing. But then they've had an A since. You said the Honors building hasn't had air conditioning since July. They had to have an a C. Now, I've been in there since July because I stayed on campus for a summer program. And when I got moved into my um UM housing assignment for the school year. I didn't have no air and mind you, I have a service animal. So imagine living in that, being in band practice and coming back into a hot sauna room literally a sauna, and it's high hopes of we're gonna get this air conditioning fits, We're gonna make sure we do this, We're gonna make sure you do that. You're giving us high hosts. But there's no work being done. It's a lot of talk, but not a lot of work coming behind it. UM. We were talking to as we were talking about that. UH. And obviously the universe was impacted by the hurricanes. But you have been here, you've been here, what was it like before the hurricanes? Because I mean, obviously, I mean I get look, I lived I'm from Houston. I've lived through multiple hurricanes, knocking our power out for two weeks, UH and having bad conditions. But did these issues predate the hurricanes have impacted this university. I say yes because of the fact that even us coming back from the hurricane UM there was things put out on social media, on things that said by staff that were when we come back x y Z ABC is gonna be fixed because you know the effect on the hurricane. Some um, I know for my dor and Lee Ryan, the back wing of that dorm from the third all the way to the first, it's been completely like affected to the point where people have had had to move out because of the damage that came from the hurricane. Other rooms not so much. But just the fact that you say we're going to have this, Um, we're gonna have a c units. We're gonna make sure that you know, um, certain things are gonna be taken care of before we come back, because we was out for I think maybe two three weeks to three weeks at the most. Even with that, the campus was still being um, it was still being cleaned up, but it was still enough time for something to be changed. And coming back and there's nothing to be changed. It's just like what was y'all doing? And to the dort the molding dorms, there was more than dance before the hurricanes. So you turned the president of Drake he cannot say the hurricanes called mo because herricane is not called them. Was here before both hurricanes came before them. Even with that, we and I keep talking about my dorm, but I'm just using for where I live in personally, even with the the no air, With the no air, we ended up begging to get some type of fan. We didn't get a fan to literally the middle of fall semester, like an actual box fan. It did something, it did somewhat help, but we didn't get an actual a C unit like a portable a C unit in our room until right before herricane in and then when we came back, it was gone. Literally it was gone. And so as you laid this out, what are your parents in? Hurry up and get out of there. That's what she's telling me. Hurry up and get out of there. You're laughing so clearly. Oh, for my parents, it's very much what Maya said. It's it's time for you to go, like it's time to get up over there, because you shouldn't have to live in your home away from home and that type of condition. You're paying all this money out to the university, and where is the money going for our living conditions? So yes, it's my my parents, by her being a single mother, and it's frustrating to know that I'm constantly worried about my child's safety, my child's hell, you can't sleep like that. You can't as a parent, you can't sleep like that. So, like Mina said, my parent is basically like it's you gotta find a way to get up out of there. And you're graduating when next spring? So you got I got a little year. So, uh, what you're trying to give me to comeback every week so you can make sure stuff is great if you might sleep? All right? Hold type one second, We gotta go to break, folks. We come back with continue our conversation. I do wanna talk about, uh, the conversation last night that the President had with the freshman class, uh and what their plans are communicating with the Bears constituents on the campus. Folks, you're watching a special town hall here community town hall at a Whole Fellowship Church in Datona Beach, Florida. Uh. This town hall focus on BETHU Cookman. We'll be right back on rolland Martin, I'm Culture. I'm a Black starting network. Next on the Black Table with me Greg Carr, an hour of living history with Dr Richard Marie ba Kelsey, thinker, builder, author and one of the most important and impactful elders in the African American community. He reflects on his full and rich life and shares his incomparable wisdom about our past president and future, saying that my uncle was Viginia, my brother was Leginia, my neighbor was Leginia. I think we ought to drill that in ourselves and move ahead rather than believing that I got it. That's next on the Black Table here on the Black Star Network. Most people think that these television shows that that tell stories about who we are as black men, and then they paint these monolithic portraits of us. They think that they're being painted by white people. And I got to tell you, there are a whole bunch of black folks right that are that are the creators, right, the head writers, the directors of all of these shows, and that are still painting us as model it. So people don't really want to have this conversation. They don't. Hey, I'm as Jack, what TV doesn't matter? Dang it? Hey, what's up y'allist your boy Jacob Latimore and you're not watching Roland Martin right now? Stay welcome, all right, First, welcome back to the Whole Fellowship Church here in Daytona Beach, Florida, for our throne. Cookman Town Hall we're talking with some students here. We gotta packed house here of students and alumni and the community folks here. Uh, and so everybody wave, every boy wave, al right, glad to see everybody here, Glad to see here for this conversation. Um, we were we we played the interview there of President Drake. So I'm curious. So last night they had he said they had a meeting with uh, the freshman class. How many folks showed up had to be like less than twenty. Now, just anyone, just give me a number. How many freshmen are on this campus. Just just give me a just roundabout number. Go ahead. Class is the bigger class? We have kept this right now? Huh did a bigger packs campus? Right now? What? Seven hundred thousand? Okay? So, so so here's here's my problem. Here's my problem. Your folks have been protesting conditions on campus, complaining about a number of things. I had the student leaders on the show saying they had not met face to face with the president since August. For the first opportunity to sit meet the president, twenty out of a thousand show up. Yes, sir, that's the problem, because if you're talking about confronting leadership and demanding change. Folks got the show up and to speak their mind and challenge the administration. Because I'll tell you, if twenty out of a thousand show up, a bunch of other folks will say we're good. I'm gonna move on. Right. What did you say to those freshmen? I would just say, you know, we did all this talk, we did all this work that, all the media came out, the news stations come out. You still need to speak your mind. Don't be afraid to go out there and say what you need to say. Don't be afraid to say, hey, this is what's going on in my room. I got more here. Don't be afraid to say go out and speak your mind. Um, I would say that freshman, even though you guys are fresh on this campus, y'all still have a voice just like the rest of the student body. So don't ever feel like your voice is not heard. Yes, we had a protest, but the protest is not enough to do what we need to the changes that we need to have happened on this campus. So, yes, we had a protest. We did all of that, But showing up to the town hall mutus is very, very important because this is where you get a chance to see the president. You get a chance to speak what you need to speak instead of just oh I went to a protest, I did what I need to do. I'm going back to my room, because at that point it's just like like I would saying, you know what, my job here is done. So you have a voice, use it. Don't feel like you you're the youngest on campus that you don't have a voice that you can't use, and use your voice. But also I think it goes beyond just being able to go to go there and speak your piece. Um. Information gathering is also important. Uh. And the fact of the matter is h what my favorite phrases is when you don't know, you don't know. Uh. And there are a lot there. There are a lot of folks who actually don't know. I've got questions in my pocket. I've had people emailing me and folks like, well, where is this and where is that? What's going on? Well, if you never have an opportunity look and a challenging the president, he readily admits they have not communicated enough with students and being transparent about what's going on. Um. You know, when he said that six of the funds UH that came from UH, the from the federal government was used to to pay downs a student debt. I said, wow, first of all, that's a story should have been telling the folk. That's kind of kind of important to actually shared with the folks. Other universities have done that. I know. I know at Fisk they actually gave stipends and folks that paired on their debt. The apency used it that as well. But that's information that needs to be shared. But if we're gonna have it again, this this type of conversation and we're talking about demanding change, then leaders have to lead and they have to tell folks you can't sit on the sidelines and not say anything. You must ask questions, make demands, but also get information so you know actually what's going on. So that was a freshman class, This becomes a sophomore class. Yes, sir, what you're gonna do? I'm gonna be there. How many of the sophomores in here? And how and how are you also going to challenge others UH to say, look, you need to be there to directly speak to the president administration. Right, So I'm like talking peers, say, we've been we've been him been for two years. Ever since we got here, we've been having problems with our dorms over the next so and thing, So we have to be there now. When you were listening to the interview, uh, there were a lot of groans, folks like, uh not happy with a number of different things. Uh that Uh the President said, Uh, where any of you aware of how the American Rescue playing funds, all the COVID relief funds were actually used. When the President says, were the student that I did not. I didn't even know that we got any money from the America Rescue Fan because you are a private institution. No, no, no, So the reality is um, the reality is I I this is my show. So about six point five billion dollars went to a variety of HBCUs um and we can thank Congressman Jim Clyburn, Congressman Bobby Scott coming from all the atoms for that. Uh. And the rally is buon Cookman. Out of the seven out of the actually about eight or ten different bills received about sixty eight million dollars. And so this funding, so you're talking about it, it was COVID and so it was a number of institution. They were public and private. So it wasn't just public institutions. Uh. Yeah, sixty by you gotta watch rolling about unfiltered because we broke it down. Uh and so, but but that was that was again that was just be thum cookman. Uh. If I pull the numbers up, Uh. In a second, Florida A and M I believe received about a hundred and seventy or so million dollars. And so again all the HVAC is combined were about six point five billion dollars. Uh. And so again what he says six with the parandium student that went to instruction, that's the perfect example. One of the university should have been explaining that. But but how many of you even knew where that money went? I got, well, one person back there, one person back there, I see, I see a second person. So so you were wearing go So so how will you wear? Hold on one second? Let me go into Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna walk over here. We got it right here and we're working all right. So so you so you stand up so you would wear it? So what you read it? Somewhere? You asked somebody, I got it? I got it, don't worry about it. Um. I believe that was in twenties one. Um, they had a sign up um to get the money basically, so if you didn't sign up, I think they gave the students around two thousand. But everyone that did sign up, they give us ten thousand to go towards our balance. It was a little bit over ten thousand they give it out to the students. Okay, now she knew that. Did you get the ten thousand? Okay? Who else in here got something? That student? That lord as a result of that funds? Raise your hand one that that's it. That's y'all. Y'all gotta read the sign and uh go ahead. So it went towards as students, um that we're here before COVID hit. So a lot of them that are freshman's and sophomores when they came in today freshman year, they weren't eligible to get it. So anybody that sophomores, they didn't get it. But anybody that's like juniors and seniors they should have got it if they signed up for it, got it all right, So hump, So, how how many folks are here? A juniors and seniors y'all don't get that money man, y'all better read those signs again. So so again, so for me, what I would emit, what I would immediately ask is, uh, if that's the case, would be again, how was information communicated out? How was it actually shared? Was it actually communicated to parents and the students? She's shaking her head, said, it wasn't. That's one of those things to me that I think, uh is critically important. Uh. Now, University they posted some of their financials on the Budoon Cooking website. You can actually go there and check that out. Uh and uh, and so we'll be pulling that as well. Um. But but but that again I think goes back to why you have to have these regular sessions with your with your with student body. So people are getting the information, but people also have got to show up, right, they gotta show up. Go ahead. I was just gonna say, it's a two way thing, like it's not. It's not a one way street. It's a two way street. You gotta go both ways. Moving forward. Um, because the president said they're gonna be holding with each class, you're gonna be having week weekly town halls. Um, do you anticipate again because people now understand that that people are gonna be more willing to actually engage with with this administration on the critical issues that you face. If I have to go to Phase or lea Ryan Roddy's or put flyers on the door and knock on these people door and say, hey, you need to come to this town hall, I will because this is important. This is how you make a change within your own institution by going to these Well, if I going to the President or whoever we're supposed to be talking to and saying the issues that need to be fixed, that's up to them to take what we're saying in consideration to fix it right. Well, but also putting that level of pressure it has it has to stay on because you can't let up. I mean that mean because but that's that That's the whole thing again. I think one of the things that people lose sight of when we talk about movements, Uh, there are moments and then their movements. Uh. Moments are something that happens for one day. But when you're there every single week, when you're constantly there, Uh, and look I totally understand I don't folks are saying, Look, I shouldn't have to do all of this because I should be focused on school. But to your point, if I'm having breathing issues, if I'm having mold issues, if I'm having issues with rodents, if the shower heads not working and lots not working, I'm telling right now I'm giving folks hell every single day uh to actually get it done uh and showing up. And so I certainly hope that is the case. Hold type one second. We're gonna go to break pay some more bills here and continue our conversation here at Hope Fellowship Church the Tomb of Beach. They we're talking for our community, for him, talking about the film Cookman University. You're watching Rolling Martin Unfiltered, the Black Star Network, down low our app, Apple Phone, Android Phone, Apple TV, and Ruid TV, roll through Amazon, Fire Tv, Xbox one, Samsung Smart TV support. I'll bring the Funk Fan Club. You're checking money or its a pel box five seven one nine six Washington d C two zero zero three seven zero one nine six pashap dollarside m on filtered pay pals are Martin unfiltered, venmos r M unfiltered, zeal Is rolling at Rolling s Martin dot Com rolling that Rolling Martin unfilter dot com and of course the book that is scaring white folks all around the country white fear, how the browning of America making white folks lose their minds. Get your copy of book bookstores nationwide, downloaded on audible, will be righted back. We talk about blackness and what happens in black culture. You're about covering these things that matter to us, speaking to our issues and concerns. 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Women of color are starting of the businesses in this country. That's the good news. The bad news, as a rule, we're not making nearly as much as everyone else. But joining us on the next Get Wealthy episode is Betty Kid. She's a business strategist and she's showing women how to elevate other women. I don't like to say this openly, but we're getting better at it. Women struggle with collaborating with each other, and for that reason, one of the things that I demonstrate in the sessions that I have is that you can go further together if you collaborate. That's right here on Get Wealthy only on Black Star Network. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Hi. Hey, I'm Anthony Smith. Work well and you're watching Rolling Martin on foo N Became King, became became King became all right, folks, welcome back to whole Fellowship Church Daytona Beach, Florida, for our community, for him the Throm Cooking University. Uh we of course, uh glad to have all of you who are watching, don't forget to be watching on YouTube. Hit that like button and some of y'all comment, y'are riding for free okay, and like we charge you. We hit the like button. Facebook shared as well. You're watching the Black Start Network app the exact same thing. Share your comments as well. We certainly appreciate that because it impacts the algorithm and you'll also know how stuff goes viral. Some of y'all may have seen my conversation last night with that black conservative um he and with this protection today uh aft. He then locked his Instagram account, Twitter account. They'been lightness behind up, but he has to come on. That's what happened. When you come on my show a lot, it's never good for you. Uh. And so again hit that button. We certainly appreciate it. All right, folks are joining us right now. A couple of our graduates of a Thune Cookman warn al Johnny Vickers Jr. Former football player here at Bethune Cookman. How's it going? Roderick Ziegler b c U alone. All right, I appreciate that. Now, I'll see yeah, yah, y'a. Don't y'all don't get a peebale alone. Nobody want to talk sick. See look at it. She like she just shot her hand up. Okay, come on, come on, I go a hand sit down right there? All right, Now, you don't do what's right and be like prince kick you up the stage. Mess? All right? What's your name? My name is Tom dra king in along a long alright? Cool, all right, So let's let's let's first the first deal with this here. I asked the president this, and I don't know of any other place I've seen where you have this contentious relationship with alumni and the university. The lawsuits that's going on. The President told me last week alumni giving dropped from twelve percent to one percent. Uh, that's unheard of, which is absolutely crazy. The national average only three to four percent, and so would even be below that is crazy? So how would your term what's going on? You heard what he said in terms of chapters, Uh, not being able to properly track funds folks looking for receipts and stuff along those lines. So um, explain to me, what's going on in this relationship that that with this alumnist university. UM, it's a very strange relationship. I've been a donor of a Throne Cookman since I graduated. Around nineteen, I became a police officer. My school was very important to me and I to leave a legacy, so I began to give, and I've continued to give to this day. I still allow the college, with all the woes that we faced, to take money from my account every month. So when we began to work with the college and we heard about the lawsuit that took place, it was devastating to me. I immediately email. At that time our interim president, which we've gone through several since that time, it was hiring power. I sent him numerous emails. I sent emails to the board saying, I understand that we went to a different model, but why didn't you notify the alumni to say we're deciding to take a different route so that we will feel inclusive. And I'm still yet to hear from someone asked to the change, why it's the change beneficial? And I heard all kind of things that the previous alumni weren't giving money, that is our falsehood. If I can say so myself, can I say lie, it's a lie, It's not true. We've continued to give. We work hard. I'm in the Brier County chapter, UM. Jackie Shorter is our president, and we worked diligently to give back of these students. So don't believe the hype. Students, the alumni, give money and we will concede again. So so in the previous assault the Proper Association, how many chapters were there? Um? Several and at least at least twenty at least um, it's about ten in here now ten and fifteen, Palm Beach, Lattadale, Miami, Orlando, they're here, UM, Roland. All of this could have been avoided had we had proper leadership and leadership that was willing to sit down and talk like mature, professional, educated black people. I said all that because you know, the fact that we're black is very hurtful. When you have people from your university calling your job to have you removed because you don't agree with the conditions. Are certain things that are going on? Something that happened to you, Yes, it happened to me. I'm a professional. You met me before role. I'm sorry that you don't even remember me. But it's cool really, and you here now though, brother, I comme in you and thank you for coming. Um. But but I'm like I met two or three people now you bet before But but um, yes, I used to host the Florida Blue Battle of the Bands for the Florida Classic for about ten consecutive years and somebody from a Thune Cookman, my alma mater, a black person, called to have me removed because I didn't agree with certain things that were going on and I made it known. And I don't work for a Bethune Cookman. Um, but I'll always be an alumnus to the day I died. And we have we have people that are in position and in power, and it's very hurtful to see them going about what they do because as an alumnus, I'm used to people like um dotr Oswald, Perry Bronson out I'm not saying, and I hold on, I didn't say that. But first of all, for the folks you're watching at home who don't know that was that was my president when I was here. Now I'm not saying. I'm not saying you have to be him or be just like him. I said that to say, I'm accustomed before him was Richard V. Moore. I'm accustomed who was a president before him. I'm accustomed to to class, I'm accustomed to um family atmosphere. One of the reasons I chose to come with them coming because I partied a lot. I needed somebody to be able to talk to him and be able to have hands on experience. And when I was a student here through my matriculation, I was able to go and make meetings and sit down and talk to my college president. He was out on the yard talking to us. So when when we as alumni don't see that. Now with the current administration, and we have an interim president, the second interim president which came wait, yeah, our third interim president which came after Dr Christ So we've had four presidents in just about as many years. We're not accustomed to that. So now we we're here in this situation, and now you have the board of trustees and the schools suing its alumni association, the original alumni association which is over eighty eight years old, which was founded and started by our founder. And then you tell us you're gonna try to dismantle us. It ain't happening. It's we're not going anywhere. We're not going anywhere. UM. All of this could have been avoided by a simple we and and and I know for a fact, I'm not telling you what I heard. I know for a fact that the alumni Association, which is currently called the Mary Capatro National Alumni Association UM, they requested a meeting with at the time Dr Hiram Powell, who was our interim president. And and they requested a meeting, and they asked for um Belvan Perry or a some members of the board of trustees to come to our national convention. We were refused and turned down. UM. There was also a lawyer that was called in so we can meet have a mediation that was refused. So all of this, it seems as though they they pretended like and I'm listening to doctor Drake, it's as though none of this ever happened and everything's gonna be fine. And you you started this with us, and now you're you're making it look like we're the bad guys because we don't like how you're treating us. Alumni have been disregarded, Alumni have been disrespected and they're trying to throw us out like trash. And it's not gonna happen with Wildcat born, wildcat bread. And when I died, be wildcat dead. I'm faithful to the school. I'm faithful to doctor, the throne, the the the president who who so dearly loves. It's my grandfather. I'm the grandson of Dr Cross And I think one of the things that's happening right now is from a historical standpoint, right, y'all, from historical standpoint that alumni feel kind of like burned. You know, we went through a lot with the Jackson administration, correct, right, and so the Jackson administration really hurt because that was what put us into such financial straits. Under we had a surplus when my grandfather retired. We had a surplus when Dr Reid left, so we had money. It was misused. Then what happened was Dr Dr Jackson left, We had Judge Grimes come in as the interim. He led the way for a little bit, no uh, no permanent presidency. Then we had Dr Kriip come in and Dr Kriis he helped right the ship, right. It was a hard right, but he helped right the shop. Now what hurt was that Dr Christ only stayed for a year and a half. Well and in my understanding that he was run off. Yeah, data ord of trustee. So that not no, that that ain't what I heard. No, So it was it was two things that came out. One thing was that he's choosing to leave, and another thing was was something else. Don't don't no, no, no I read because I read two things. I read it. I read no no, no, no, no, no no no, I said, I ain't read it. Don't believe the former he was run off. But so we have so we have Dr Christ who comes in and right the ship. But it was a hard write because what happened was in order to write the ship, a lot of people lost their jobs, a lot of good people. Right. But but but when you're facing a massive death and when yeah, we have to do that, the whole type once again gotta go to a break on the pick up on that we come back. Uh, folks, when you're watching their special town hall here and then the beach Uh community town hall were already but through a couple of university right here and rolling on the black Start network, will be right back hatred on the streets a horrific scene white nationalist rally that descended into deadly violences. White people are losing their damn minds as a mangory approach Trump mob storm to the US capital. We've seen we're about to see the labs or I call white minority resistance. We have seen white folks in this country who simply cannot tolerate black folks voting. I think what we're seeing is the inevitable result of violent denials. This is part of American history. Every time that people of color and progress, whether real were symbolic, there has been. But Carol Anderson at every university calls white rage as a backlash. As the lad of the proud boys in the bogle Boo Boys America. There's going to be more of this, the proud boy of God. This country is getting increasingly racist in its behaviors and its attitudes because of the fear of white people for fee that you're taking our job, they're taking our resources, they're taking our women in white feel I'm jabber Owen's come Erica's Wealth Coach, and my new show Get Wealthy focuses on the things that you're financial advisor and bank isn't telling you what you absolutely need to know. So watch Get Wealthy on the Black Star Network. Kim Whitley, what's up to your boy ice Cube? Your peace World? What's going on to love? King of Barnby? Why he divine? And you're watching rollerd Martin unfiltered? Alright, welcome back the whole fellowship. M gonna beat for hour. I had to make sure everybody was awake, all right before we went to the break. Uh we were. We were laying the foundation in terms of, uh, really how he got to this point and the reality is this year and that is I mean you're talking about a whole lot of things that have happened, and so uh pass this prolog past lays in terms of I understand the angry thing like that, But here's the question, what now? How do you move forward? Um? You you have an interim president, Uh you, but you still have your board of trustees. US. As I listened to what you laid out, UH, it sounds to me like your fundamental problem is still is with the ultimate leaders, which is the board of trustees. So is is there a is there one trustee who you can communicate, who you can who you're communicating with talking with who can serve as um as someone uh to help with this. I personally, I personally UM over the past several weeks has been in contact with the board member and they have just kind of laid out because my issue was was I felt that this board member was kind of like dismissing what was going on. And but he said from his perspective. From his perspective, he said that my job is to bring in money. I'm not worried about necessarily all the football what's going on with that? Because the people who I'm after aren't concerned with football. I need to show them what it means the Great Bathoon Cooking University. Well so well, but first of all, if anybody, if let us be real clear, if anybody who is a board member makes that statement, UH, that person really should not be a board member because because because the reality is, a member of the border trustee is responsible for the entire university. And so what's what what they said be communicating is that I care about the health and well being of the entire university because the reality is, when you talk about football or basketball or band, that's actually your most visible assets that serves as a recruitment tool, as well, uh and so and and I've been communicating again with administration folks, alumni board folks as well, and I don't know who the entity is. I don't know whether it's the United Methodist Church. I don't know who it is. But uh, because I mean, look, you still look, this university gets funding from the UMC every year. But there's somebody has to be the grown up of all grown ups and say, listen, we don't need all of this drama because I can tell you it's a lot of media folks, and got no problem with lots of drama. As what I've heard describe here. This might be a real Housewives show, a love and hip hop in terms of in terms of all the friction back and forth, and that doesn't move the university forward. We believed to you. To move the university forward, we must get rid of our board chair. Belvin Perry must go. There's there's no options, there's no getting around it. But but the problem you have, though, is that you the board, the board has to do that. And so the question is now people have to do that, and that's why we no no, no, no, no, no, actually no no no, no no, but no, I'm telling you right now. This is the fundamental problem being a private institution. There literally is no entity. It's over your board now. Now again, the people can have leverage and influence, but in terms of who actually has to make the votes has to be the other board members, which raises again, which raises the question, how are how are you are? How are you communicating even public with the other board members to say hey, we need you to speak up and staying with us, because it seems as if you gotta folks who are there who don't really want to say anything. You don't want to get sideways with the chair and look the chair try to come up, you try to come after me. That wasn't wise, he said about five thousand views on YouTube. I'm just saying it wasn't wise. But again, this does not do anything to improve the institution drama. It takes funding to run the university, and is everything that you've heard from the students, the um parents that are outraged about what's taking place with their young people that are at the university. We know, but Thun Cookman must maintain at least about students to stay viable financially. And so it's sad to say that we have to hit them in the pockets before we can make these changes, and I would hate to see the university do that. And so with that, we're gonna keep sounding the alarm and we're gonna try to continue to shine the light. Which is why we're here tonight, because we know that they want to remain in darkness. We've been in darkness. You silence your alumni with the lawsuit, you silence your students with an n d A, and so people have been afraid to come forward. Well, I get a good pension. I don't have to wait for but Thorn Cookman to pay me. So we want to sound the alarm for these young people to let them know that we're gonna continue to shine light where they're darkness. We've asked for transparency. We ask as alumni, where is the money going? That's what our signs say out here. We asked for that information. We give money, we feel we have a right to see where that money is being dispersed. The students have asked where is the money going? And it's just the math. Think math, and that's why we're here tonight. So you talked so in terms of your to your alumni, have you had a meeting with Dr Drake. Yes, yes, well, the Dr Drake had plenty of what they were called to me control fireside checks. You would have to register before you attended the meeting, and once you attended the meeting. I think I was the only one at that time. Unfortunately that for some very hard concerns. His claim to fame was that they are not suing the alumni. They're suing the association or the formal organization. And what I said to him, what I conveyed to him, was so the alumni, the association is made up of chickens. No, the association is made up of hard working alarms who give their moneies to help these students, and other donors that love withum Cookman. So he kind of danced around all the questions. I asked him about some of the mold and the dorms, and he blamed everything on the hurricanes. Everything gets blamed on the hurricane. So we have a lot of work to do. Go ahead, rolling, Here's here's what I have to say. Number one, UM, we need a leader. We need a president, not an interim president. We need a president. So so hold on on that point. Um, that's supposed to be a search committee. Is there any alumni? Is there any alumni and student participation in this national search? No, the national search is being conducted by the Board of Trustees. Traditionally, when we do it, and we've only had to do it a couple of times we've had a national search, we had a company come in and do the search and then they picked four or five finalists. Alumni will allow you know the process. We are. Alumni were allowed to come and talk to them and ask them questions, and then a president was chosen. But but since Dr Cridis left, we haven't had a leader. So that's one of the main issues. So the alumni has no involvement in that profession whatsoever. I do at least one alumni on the search committee. A Kevin Maynard. He's on the that's that's that's what we're on. At least one I know. So you said, yous A, that's a graduate who's on the search committee. Yes, has he reported back to alumni. But there here's an important part. Hold on, hold on, no and um and and there's been so many alumni meetings have been going on. But in an alumni meeting he said that we could have done a better job in reporting of what is going on as far as the search. Okay, so have they even laid out a timetable in terms of the process, so for you know, for instance, I mean the interim president, uh, you know expires. You know, look June three, have they said, hey, by the fall by you want to have a permanent president in place? They sent out a letter saying that there was a search, But was that to my knowledge it's probably It's been a few months ago. But but to my knowledge, they didn't have a date or a deadline that I remember. But um, that the other problem is we and this is the point I wanted to make too. The other problem that we have is we have so many different factions of alumni. We not everybody agrees with the majority of the people that are in here. So they have had meetings, but they have them with people that agree with their tactics and their process. They meet with people who are patting them on the back for the bad service that they're getting. And I can't help but ask myself the question, um, the other day, what what would have happened if ed Reid had not done what he did, or what would have happened if we wouldn't have been able to get in contact with you, the same stuff would have been going on. So we have we have different alumni and and I want to say this to any alumni is watching this, whether you agree with the administration or not, if we don't come together as alumni, students and parents and also faculty and staff, we're gonna lose is our school. We're gonna lose our school because there are me personally, this is what I believe. I'm not speaking for anybody else, but I believe um there are factions that are out to get not only but throughing Cookman, but a lot of our HBC's They want to see us fail, and we're helping them fail. What we're doing actually is not helping we are. We actually have alumni that are in here right now that and and I know y'all don't want to hear this, but I've been and I've been saying this for years too, and I'm gonna tell you I'm gonna keep it one hundred. We have alumni that are in here right now that won't join the alumni Association, that won't won't give money to the school, and haven't given money to the school since they graduated. Now, part of that is how they retreated while they were students. So we got students that are sitting here that living in molded dorms are they're gonna want to give back when they graduate. They're gonna graduate, get their cap and out, and they're gonna run, and you can't blame them. So we've got we've got to do something alumni as counterintuitive. We've got to give and continue to support to school even though we don't like the conditions, but find a way also to get a new border trustees and turn things around for these current students. I've got to I'm gonna go to a break. We're gonna come back for our final segment here at this community town hall here at a Hope UH Fellowship church in it on the beach. We're talking about from Clipping University, one of the more prominent HBC used in this country and obviously in this state. And so we'll continue this conversation right here on rolland Martin Unfiltered on the Black Star Network again. Download our app and can get this on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and other platforms. But please download Black Start Network app available on Apple phone, Android phone, Apple TV Android TV, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Xbox One, Samsung Smart TV, and of course, our twenty for our streaming channel has launched. We're available on Amazon News. If you have an Amazon Fired simply go to their live news grid and you can actually watch our twenty for our channel there as well. The only black owned Hunter said black owned h News Information Network with it t win for our streaming channel. We'll be right back next on Get Wealthy with Me Deborah Owen's America's wealth Coach. Listen to this. Women of color are starting of the businesses in this country. That's the good news. The bad news, as a rule, we're not making nearly as much as everyone else. But joining us on the next Get Wealthy episode is Betty Kid. She's a business strategist and she's showing women how to elevate other women. I don't like to say this openly, but we're getting better at it. Women struggle with collaborating with each other, and for that reason, one of the things that I demonstrate in the sessions that I have is that you can go further together if you collaborate. That's right here on Get Wealthy, only on Black Star Network, we talk about blackness and what happens in black culture. We're about covering these things that matter to us, speaking to our issues and concerns. This is a genuine people power movement. A lot of stuff that we're not getting. You get it. You spent the word. We wish to plead our own cause to long have others spoken for us. We cannot tell our own story if we can't pay for it. This is about covering us invest in black owned media. Your dollars matter. We don't have to keep asking them to cover ours, so please support us in what we do. Folks. We want to hit two thousand people fifty dollars this month. Waits a hundred thousand dollars. We're behind a hundred thousands, so we want to hit that. Y'all. Money makes this possible. Kicks some money boarders go to peel box files in the one nine six Washington d C two was here a three seven dash zero one nine cash apples dollar signed, r M unfiltered. Paypals are Martin unfiltered, Vin Mos, r M unfiltered, zell Is rolling at rolling sque Martin dot com, him Israel Holton. Apparently the other message I did was not fun enough, so this is fun. You are watching Roland Martin my man unfiltered. Look yeah, all right, control room. Your feet is frozen, so let me know what's going on. Yes, I'm seeing Israel Houghton frozen. All right, all right, folks, welcome back to the whole fellowship, our final segment. Um. You you mentioned you talked about different different different groups here, and I'm gonna put the questions you did, which I say to the students as well. You can't have twenty or thirty or fifty freshmen showing up to a meeting with the president. You got a thousand. So when it comes to your alumni, you can't move. You think about the phrases the band one band one sound um, you can't move in that direction if you got to folks all over the place. So how are y'all trying to resolve your alumni differences moving forward? Because if you've got a faction over here, they are not financially carrying what everybody else can do. And so if you're moving forward and you don't have even a majority of your alumni on board, you're not going to be successful. So how so how are you trying to fix that? Before you make demands of the university dealing with your alumni, and I mean again, who is that person? Who is that group saying hey, we got to set our differences society. Well, we we have a group that started called the Black Rose Project UM. Mary mclaud Bethune called all of her students black Roses. UM. We started the Black Rose Project because during the litigation, the Alumni Association UM was limited at what they could do or say, so the Black Roles Project came together to inform and educate other alumni of what was happening and what was going on. A matter of fact, they can go to the Black Roles Project right now on YouTube. UM. We have like a to our presentation to to educate and inform people of what exactly what's going on. We also are encouraging people to continue to raise money. But the school, when it comes to the Mary macabathun National Alumni Association, they won't even affiliate themselves at all, even to take money from us. We there there have been a couple of times that I know that they've tried to turn money in for the students and they say, we don't want it. So the school is going to have the administration is going to have to do their part. I believe that this is galvanizing the alumni. It's it's awakening a lot of alumni who haven't been acting and and we're gonna come together, but the school has to do their part too. UM. I think one of the ways that we can bridge that gap is to be able to engage the students. I think there is is a breach between alumni and our undergraduates, and to be able to come alongside of our students and say, hey, we have your backs. We understand that there's a lot of different things happening around you, and we've walked through a lot of what you have walked through. But we want to come alongside you, want to help you when we want to be able to hear your voices right, And we need to be able as alumni to come back and and you know, gird these young people up and walk with them through this time. And I think with that, uh, when it comes to our younger alumni who are uh, we are wanting to give that will help and now be in their memory saying you know what I remember when. But here's the deal though, if I want to Okay, here's deal. If I want to give, I don't know who to give to. So if you don't have if you don't have an establish anthony, I need eyes. If you don't have an established con do it. Who do you give to? Like? Where do you If somebody, if gradual wants to give right now? He called you you if you're a part of alumni, well, Mary mcrathun Alumni Association, you can give through that organization. But if you want to give as an individual, you can call Miss Sherry Paramore in the Office of Institutional Advancement and you can tell them what how much you want to give, but also where you want that money to go. Now what happens after that, I don't know, but we can. We can still give. But we have a lot of work to do. And I keep saying that we gotta come together as alumni so we can get this resolved. We need to do Board of Trustee. I think that was part of the school's um plan, was to divide and conquer. So they're well aware of the fact that when they came up with the they say they're not ds so they use a DSO model. And I think it was part of the plan to divide and conquer and with that being said, then now you don't have people just don't want to give. Although I give, I said my money was earmarked for the ban and for the Gospel choir. I only found out like two years later. I thought I was given all that time, the gospel choir said they had not seen one down of the money. So although I said I wanted and I had an earmark for a specific cause, it was not. But guess what, In spite of that, I've continued to give to the university I love. That was so instrumental in making me who I am today. So I think we can continue to give to our local chapters, or we can follow through like I do every so often, to make sure my funds are going to where it's earmarked to be well. And look, the reality is there people are all around the country who make donations to charities and they follow up. They they follow up to make sure that Hey, this is where I said I wanted to go and this is where it needs to go. Uh final comments, go ahead. We gotta come together, point blank. Period. We are but film Cookman. We carried Dr Mary McCloud, but through legacy we are her Black Roses. We are her beautiful Black children. We do not let her legacy fall to the ground. I don't care. I don't care how much you don't like whoever at the top, It don't matter. We carry the legacy no matter what. My final comment is joined the m M B n a A continue to support but Throom Cookman because the students and our school needs it and we need to continue this. This is this is a good start. Thank you Rolling for coming. Shout out to Bishop Triplet for having us here, and I gotta be sleep Rolling and give a shout out to him making out our fraternity incorporated. We don't we don't mind youth groups. Thank you so much, Mr rolland I sent you about four hundred in boxes, d MS texts all that, So thank you so much for allowing us to come and to be heard. Um, I'm so thankful for every facis in the place because that means you care about the well being over Thune Cookman. Find a student and pouring too that student, and then that student pours into the next student so that we can keep this legacy alive. And shout out to the members of Delta Sigma THETAS Award for free So so let me UM, let me first of all me thank you anythink your students as well. A bishop, thank you very much as well. I Uh. When the other church canceled on they took a vote, I hit my man, passagermal Bryant, and he said, called bishop. Uh. And I was in Denver last Friday getting an award that I called him and he said, absolutely will be glad to host this, and so I appreciate doing so. Let me say this as a final word, UM, you can be present or you can have presence. And as I listened to the students and alumni, as I've talked to folks administration as well, UH, this is a moment when leaders are supposed to lead. I sat down with President Drake earlier. He's the interim president. But let me be perfectly clear who I'm speaking to right now. I'm speaking specifically to you, Board President, Belvin Perry Jr. You are the board chair. You are supposed to leave. You are a retired judge. Your job is to bring folks together. If that was a jewelry that was deadlocked, you would tell them to go back and keep deliberating. You cannot be the leader of a board of trustees and have this level of dissension within this university. You cannot have students and alumni and folks saying you are the problems. If that many people are saying you are the problem, then you need to look into a mirror and ask yourself why am I the problem? This is a moment when leaders can't just be president but must have presents. You can't be scared to come in here. You can't be scared to talk to faculty and alumni. You can't be scared to talk to students and paarents because these are constituents. You are not a dictator. Now. Somebody told me, they said, oh man, you're going hard on the president. Here's your alphred brother. Let me be real clear. That means nothing to me. This is about saving an institution. So what is needed or for folks to put egos aside, to put petty personal differences aside, and to actually say, how can we stand together to save an institution? Because it would be a shame for Dr. Dr mclaud Tune and all these black folks who have had blood squad and tears to keep the university open to be having these problems in two thousand and twenty three. So I challenge you board President, Board Chair Perry, have the guts to have some presidents and to lead and don't hide, don't run, but actually take some accountability and lead. And if you can't lead, get out of the way unless somebody else lead. Both of my final comments, y'all gonna close that with your school song go m H and it is a stream r all and all for us. I pray, oh, cree, oh God, sasy and well pass has to be yeah, yeah, He's Black Start Network is deep, fun, a real old revolutionary right now around work just saying black medium. He makes sure that our stories are told. I thank you for being the boys of Black America rollers like hell you all moments that we have now we had to keep it is going. The video looks phenomenal. Dif between Black Star Network and Black owned media and something like CNN. You can't bring black owned media and be scape. It's time to be smart. Bring your eyeballs, hole your dig, pull up a chair, take your seats. The black Tape with me, Dr Greg car here on the Black Star Network. Every week we'll take a deeper dive into the world we're living in. Join the conversation. Only on the black Star Network. Hi am Dr Jackie and Martin and I have a question for you. 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