See yes let’s please have a seat so we can start our our Program ladies and gentlemen coming towards the front is a man who needs very little introduction other than the fact that he’s been arrested 17 times to come from the 13th porest District in the country regardless our speaker our special guest brother William Barber you got okay so everyone want to welcome you to
Boston alpas Founders Day 2023 I am brother J David dance I am the President of the Edward W Brook the thir Educational Foundation which is our tur arm of our Epsilon gamma Lambda chapter here in the Greater Boston area welcome this is going to be the most fabulous found
Ever okay um I hope that you’ve enjoyed the preprogram where the music and the bar and fellowship that’s what we’re about here we are in 2023 and what’s going on in the world well it gives me pause I’ve been an alpha brother for over 40 years I know I don’t look
But and I think about the aims the aims of alpha manly Deeds scholarship Love For All Mankind but what’s happening with Love For All Mankind in World conflict Ukraine conflict in Israel conflict in Africa like sedan what we can are we going to do Al the man going into 20 through
24 well let’s focus on Love For All Mankind regardless of all the things that are happening in the world and even in our community know we have the basist in government the bisness in the community let Alpha F Alpha Man let us be The Shining Light
For Love For All Mankind if you get nothing else out of this uh event today remember Love For All Mankind it’s so important that we sing it every time we our him so let’s not be twisted about it yeah it’s tough but let us be The Shining Light Forever For Love For All
Mankind you leave here that’s what you want to think of food the speaker and the brotherhood’s Love For All Mankind so thank you very much for being here enjoy the program I want to introduce our chapters president brother Bron p [Applause] good afternoon afternoon good afternoon afternoon how’s everybody doing
Beautiful I’m I’m so happy and gracious to see everybody um here gathered together um for 117th year of alpha alpha has been a beacon uh for so long but what do we do from here where do we go so our guest brother Barber is going
To talk about some of the things that we need to think about going forward but I was just supposed to welcome so I’m not going to get into that bar do that but I welcome all of you to our 117th fraternity anniversary thank you so much so doing things a little bit different
This year as far as the order of of what we do in the program so and we’re doing it to accompany uh brother Barbara and his staff and what he has going on and so not a problem so at this time we want to have the introduction of our keynote speaker brother h
Good afternoon everyone so there is a very comprehensive biographical sketch of our keynote speaker in printed in your programs this evening um and at your free time please read his biographical sketch because it’s quite impressive and he done so much I think for me introducing the keynote speaker comes
From a very personal place and see growing up in Easter North Carolina you couldn’t help but to know who our keino speaker was he done a lot of things in our community not only locally but just Statewide and that entailed transition to be on a national platform um as we
Continue and as he continued to Champion things like social injustices everywhere I also will like to say that as a Young Man growing up in Greenville North Carolina I can tell you that that I I just marveled him and he served as a mentor for me at a distance but it
Wasn’t until I started my freshman year at North Carolina Central University where I had an opportunity to meet him more in depthly and serving in the um in the communities of the spiritual life and the religious life on the campus at that time the Reverend Dr Sir Walter ma
Was the chaplain and he had an opportunity to serve with him and I had an opportunity as a student to serve in that particular capacity and it was just such an honor and I was just very humbled to have learned from his tutelage and more importantly his
Example so without further Ado I would like to introduce and present to you the incomparable the Reverend Dr William J Barber thank you I’m getting older now and I twisted my knee anybody ever Twisted a knee somebody said Lord heaven and uh so I’ve got a kind of mosy around but I’m so
Thankful uh to be here with all of you now I may use my other voice because we’re in this room but I may not hold on to the mic but I’m so thankful to be here thankful to God for God’s graciousness God’s goodness often say whenever God chooses men or women to
Teach or preach or to say anything in God’s name God takes the risk of putting treasure in trash treasure in an earn vessel that the Excellency of the power might be of thee and not of him and not of us um you do know that Adam was an alpha and Jonah was a
Sphinxman and uh they all pledged Alp for that day we’re on the road I want you to know normally I would just hang around we’ve actually driven from uh North Carolina uh all the way up to Boston I just got in from Maine last late last night organizing and traveling and then we’ll
Be leaving today driving back to North Carolina and then supposed to go down to Atlanta to be with Andrew Young and his hope conference but we’ve had bereavement in our family and so I’m not sure I would ask your prayers for our family and uh those in our Circle of
Love I want to thank God for Charles who um pledged in this in this um captive Alpha and uh I told the brothers everything I say y’all can blame it on Charles uh but he is dating my daughter and um I thank God for him and for his
His character and for his commitment and for his tenacity and education his tenacity and his commitment to people brothers and sisters I just want to have a conversation with you on today and uh you know why I’m doing that just make sure I don’t yeah I want to have a conversation
With you and I might um let me ask you a question can you all hear me back there real good okay well I’m just going to use my voice since we don’t have this into a system and I’m here sh man and I want to thank you I want to read for
You a passage of scripture because I don’t apologize for being a cler a pastor and it’s found it’s it’s a passage of scripture honored by Jews Muslims Christians and other faiths that though it was written 20 600 years ago it has implications and applications for right
Now it’s found in the 22nd chapter of Ezekiel and it says that your politicians within your nation are like wolves tearing apart their prey they shed blood and kill K innocent people just to make unjust money but what but in addition to that they have hired prophets false prophets who whitewash their
Deeds and teach the people false visions and lying divinations they tell lies and because they do in Justice is at epidemic proportions the people of the land practice extortion they commit robbery they oppress the poor and the needy they mistreat the farmer Foreigner and they deny them
Justice that’s why God says I’m looking for a man I’m looking for a person that will stand in the Gap tell the truth so that I will not have to allow the nation to destroy itself that written 2600 years ago addition to that in Jeremiah chapter 6 it says everyone’s after dishonest
Game the little people the big people alike the false prophets the priests and the politicians twist words and they doctor the truth my people are broken my people are hurting and instead of healing the wound from the inside out they put Band-Aids on it and declare that things are not
Really that bad but things are not fine and they never will get fine until somebody tells the truth I want to talk a little bit today about it’s time for a truth-telling movement it’s time in America for a truth-telling movement I also want before I move any
Further to sh that I want to give $500 today to your scholarship funds for me directly cuz I don’t believe you should go places and be a taker but you should be a giver and also also uh I want you to know March the 2nd uh I served with president of
Repairs of the breach and now serve as the Director of the brand new center for public Theology and public policy at Yale University but on March the 2nd the Poor People’s campaign it’s going to have 30 simultaneous Gatherings around the country called the mass poor peoples low wage workers
Assembly on state houses and the maral march to the polls so it’s the beginning of a 40-week campaign to mobilize the greatest Sleeping Giant in this country and that is the 87 million poor and low wealth people who make up now 30% of the electorate in Most states
And over 40% in Battleground States now since it’s truth telling time I need to tell you that um I mentioned this to a brother who evidently wasn’t pledged right and he said Alphas can’t participate in the Poor People’s mark because it would be an embarrassment for one of our
Brothers to admit that they’re poor and I said brother folk you have Alphas that are poor because this nation still doesn’t pay a living wage and so I had to straighten him out a little bit because we need to be on the for front of any movement that’s going to to transform
The lives of people truthtellah if y’all find a one of those what they put put a mic they put a stand on it and and that’s true let me give you a little S A little I see some of y’all hugged up that’s true in relationship I didn’t come here to talk
About relationships but if you don’t know it the best thing you can do in your relationship is tell the truth cuz at some point she going to say just tell me the truth you know damn well you ate that cake just tell me the truth lies are
Heavy the text tells us that God said lies can implode a nation it can cause it to fall under the weight of its own lies social lies political lies theological lies that lies are at the heart of every Injustice every Injustice it’s one of the reason we
Struggle with so much today take for instance the reason we struggle with women’s rights is because we started out with a lie we wrote it into our constitution by saying and and the Declaration of Independence we hold these truths that all men right there was the problem all men are created
Equal and once that lie was cified into our papers I found in papers it makes then the possibility for it to be used in all other kinds of ways it should be easy for folk to understand that you can’t tell a woman to do what to do with her own
Body but if you start out with the lie that she’s not equal it translates into a whole lot of other things uh lies about money and intelligence got us in a mess because when we St wrote the Constitution originally it said only white men with land could
Vote women couldn’t vote poor white men couldn’t vote natives couldn’t vote thank you so much they couldn’t vote black people couldn’t vote women couldn’t vote because what’s inherent in that white men with land is that your money determines your intelligence and if you don’t have money and had land then you weren’t
Intelligent enough to vote and look at how that lie has played itself out today the lies about gay brothers and sisters lgbtqi Community it started you know the the the word homosexuality wasn’t even in the Bible till 1946 they inserted it and the lie that God is against
People uh who are in same gender loving relationships that are not harming other people got codified because people bypassed Isaiah 56 you know what Isaiah 56 says Isaiah 56 says actually that the unic that’s the word that was originally used in scripture the unic of those who are sexually
Different must have a privileged place in God’s house and if they don’t have a privileged place in God’s house then God says it’s not my house because my house will be a house of prayer for all people but once you tell the LIE right now we wrestle with all these
Questions around racism and you know Dr ibram kendi who’s up here in that Boston he he keeps reminding us that racism didn’t start because somebody disliked you because of the color of your skin he said that came after he said the first issue was how can we have free
Labor and how can we put it on a certain group of people so that the rest of the people can benefit so we can’t do it to indenture white Ser servants because they can blend in we can’t do it to Native people because they know the countryside they know how to move they
Get away so what was decided was we need the only way our country can catch up and bypass other na that have existed two and 300,000 years before us we have to have free labor and so we’re going to say that those persons who going to provide that
Free Labor is going to be based on color now we got to figure out a way to justify right and so we come up with the category race race is a madeup category calling people white and black and all it’s a made up category it was a category designed legally put in the
Laws in 1600s the the U slave the slave code laws in Virginia to ensure that simply because of the color of the skin a certain group of people would be seen as second class and slave eligible in perpetuity which means if you were a slave even your children would be slaved
Your grandchildren be slave but the the the the hatred based on color didn’t come first what came first was an economic decision an economic decision and then within that economic decision six lies were told that that and it’s the reason why we still wrestle with racism today because lies can
Live and you know that person if somebody tell a lie on you and it’s hard for you to out live it right anybody ever been lied on you want to cuss right now don’t don’t you you so mad don’t you ever since they lied on
You want to Ted natural so and so up cuz you been having to deal with that foolishness ever since so there was six lies Cornel uh uh West our brother who wrote his book and by the way y’all stop Whispering behind his back like he shouldn’t be running for president why
Andrew Jackson ran for President George Wallace ran for president huh uh David who was a KKK ran for president ain’t nothing wrong with running for president whole lot of people ran for president you know Donald Trump ran for president I mean come on but why y’all tripping over one of your own brother
You don’t have to vote for the brother but if you don’t want to vote for him that’s all but let the brother say what he got to say and be in the in the in the he more qualified than what we have you know but he in his book prophet side
Deliverance he said the humanity of black people is a recent consideration by most folk and he talks about how in 16 17th uh Century 18th century a French scientist came up with this lie suggesting that you could determine brain size by skin color and out of that came six lies that
Are the reason why we still wrestle with racism and systemic racism and policy racism and you notice I’ll say systemic racism because for me racism is not about somebody calling you the nword it’s about somebody treating you like the nword and the way they do their economics and the way they do their
Health care cuz to be treated like a nword is to say you can’t have any of this you don’t deserve this here are the six lies the LIE of bad biology that that that biologically speaking you can know that people are different the second lie is sick so
Sociology that people can be around each other but there has to be a hierarchy the third lie is political pathology and that is politics is all right but as soon as politics start making things equal it has to be fought you have to you have to block it the
Fourth one is evil economic theories that is that the mean the end justifies the means that’s evil it means what you can do whatever you want to do you do whatever you want to do to people as long as the end just the means is you get more money for revisionist history
That is you go back and you you change history to to suggest that a People based on a certain color didn’t run civilizations before didn’t lead them you suggest martians built the Pyramid revision is history and then the sixth one is heretical ontology and that is God wants it like
This that all the racism all the division God made it like this it’s a form of manifest destiny and those six lives still have us messed up in America today so we’ve got to have a movement of truthtellah start with even today how we understand past history among our own
Eles you know I think about how we often celebrate King Day Mar King Day or the marchal in Washington is so bad we let people on the stage that wouldn’t even be with the man if he was alive we act like King was a human relations
Director rather than a than a seek of Justice we have celebrations called it we going to remember the March on Washington and we don’t even mention the agenda you know the March on Washington was actually organized by a gay brother named B at Rustin new movie is out if you have to
See it but we have a se you know what the first you know what the first issue of the mar they had an agenda by the way they didn’t just come to hear Dr King say I have a dream and the speech was not I have a dream the title of the
Speech was normany never again the lie that the speech was I have a dream was formulated by the corporate interest in America when Martin died they said we can’t talk about what he said at Riverside about racism militarism and poverty we can’t talk about what he
Talked about the last night he was alive about boycotting economically and we sure can’t talk about the sermon that he sent in that he was going to preach that Sunday if they hadn’t killed him and that was America may very well go to hell so they decided what will we pump
We got to do something what are we going to pump so they went back and grabbed the last few minutes of the speech at the March on Washington and said that’s what we going to pump and we going to pm and pit and pit and pit until the point
Comes that when people talk about Manu the king they think that’s all he ever says and that wasn’t even a speech that was a hoop anybody know about black preacher know when black preachers get to the end and they closeth out there and it wasn’t even his it came
From Pria Hall a black woman whom he heard praying and it came from Langston Hughes who wrote a book on uh uh an America will will be he talks about we must recapture our Mighty dream the first 17 minutes however of that speech he was dealing with the nightmare
He was dealing with it in a context according to Julian Bond’s book where he knew there was somebody the the the administration put somebody by the plug to pull the electricity if anybody at the mic said things that were too too radical so that’s why he was so poetic I
Refused to accept being told that the great vaults of America are bankrupt he’s talking about Labor he’s talking about economics but he was talking about in a very poetic way the actual agenda of the march in Washington was the first item was raising the minimum wage by 75
Cents and indexing it with inflation and if that had happened everybody in America today would make at least $15 an hour the federal minimum wage would be $15 to $16 an hour but if we keep lying to ourselves about what the Maron Washington was really about we end up
Celebrating it without without finishing the work the second agenda item was full employment for every man and woman the third agenda item was expanding the labor standards law the fourth item was Voting Rights and education it was a March for jobs and freedom it wasn’t a black March was a
March for jobs and freedom John Lewis that day told the truth and we don’t even talk about what he said he said that day we marched today for jobs and freedom but we have nothing to be proud about for hundreds of thousands of our brothers are not
Here they have no money for their transportation they are receiving starvation wages or no wages at all in good conscience we cannot support wholeheartedly this Administration Civil Rights bill because it’s too little too late why don’t we hear that because folks want us to believe
The lie that it was just a gathering of Black Folk without Dr the king talked about I have a dream and not really a gathering calling for fundamental change in America not just for Black Folk but for all people the NAACP if we’re not careful we
Miss how we talk the way we talk about it we can actually hurt ourselves see because if you follow a lie and you keep telling it it hurts what you do in the present though the lie was told in the past NAACP is not a black organization uhoh it’s a civil rights
Organization the original call for the establishment of the NAACP was written by four white people Mary Wright Overton a social worker Oswell Garrison vilard who were descendants of William English Walling excuse me of of um of uh of abolition William English Walling and Dr Henry mosovich 60 people signed onto the
Original call and only seven of them were black that’s why when you when you engage in the NAACP and all you having the meeting is Black Folk that’s not the original Vision it was supposed to be a multi-racial civil rights organization black white Jewish Christian people of Faith it’s not a black
Organization it supposed to be where black and white and other folks stood together to deal with equity and Justice it was not supposed to just be about black issues it was supposed to be about civil rights issue in fact after it was founded in 1916
Dubos he kind of kiding to us too in the alphas William deos who wrote the magazine what was the title of it the crisis he why did he want to be named The Crisis not so you could put ads in there about somebody’s homecoming but you keep he wanted everything time you
To ready to think about there’s a crisis until we deal with racism there’s a crisis till we deal with Healthcare there’s a crisis you know that’s why they put him out too because he wouldn’t back up and they said divorce you too radical and that’s
Why he left du Bo do you realize that du Bo adab Welles um and several other there’s this whole line of people that certain uper the Negroes put out CU they didn’t want to be strong and radical the boys in 1916 the boys gathered something called the Amenia
Conference and said you can never discuss civil rights without talking about economic rights in 196 he said you can’t have a conversation about voting rights and not talk about Labor rights and yet because so many people have not known this truth we live in the lie and we actually have a meeting about
Voting rights and say nothing about economics that’s exactly the opposite of what the founders want but not only that we got to know the truth about our grand AA I don’t know if y’all know this but uh uh I was told I wasn’t Alpha material yeah cuz some young some folk
Wanted to pledge me and uh they want to do stupid stuff I’ve been a man a long time and uh they said I thought it was supposed to be about manly Deeds Love For All Mankind they told me well you can’t be Alpha cuz you don’t have enough
Rhythm to step I said I didn’t know that that what was the essence of being an alpha actually I can Stephan I’m damn good at it but that ain’t that ain’t the I I didn’t know that that was like thing right they called me the Michelin Man
Cuz I was round handsome and always [Applause] Dependable but I didn’t think that was the essence I thought the essence was manly Deeds scholarship and Love For All Mankind so no I’m not going to stay up with you to 3:00 bringing you a a a apple pie for your girlfriend so you can
Feel good claim you pledging me I’m going to be studying and part of it is they they were operating in a li the group that pledged me and then ended up I won’t get into all of that our Visionary leaders were called jewels and every one of them what you
Know about them they were not ordinary Achievers they they founded something in a time when black men were being lynched between 1878 and 1939 black people were being lynched men at an average a of one a day that’s what our founders faced they were they founded our Organization three years
Before the NAACP 10 years before uh uh 10 years after py versus Ferguson they founded this organization in the midst of race riots like Tulsa and Springfield and the Wilmington riots and massacre in 1898 they founded it to tell a truth because they were told a lie the LIE
They were told is they didn’t belong at Coram and they decided that we were not going to allow that lie to live they were truth tellers almost every one of them was a first in their field almost every one of them if you go read it Henry Arthur Callis if you read
It these Jews if you read about them Charles Henry Chapman Eugene kingko Jones George ble Kelly Nathaniel Allison Murray all of them were truth tellers Robert Ogle vertner Woodson Tandy truth tellers and organizers and people who were first you see being an alpha man to them wasn’t even about wearing a symol wasn’t
About who had the biggest ring on or the biggest uh uh shield on Alpha man was about a truth that I’m a particular kind of man and I look at the world and I recognize I’m not just somebody whom the world can act on I’m an actor in the
World I don’t just accept history I challenge history there’s no wonder that that the one of the poems that became a standard for Alpha men because there’s so much truth in it out of the night that covers me black is a pit from pole to pole I thank whatever Gods may be for
My unconquerable soul in the fail CES of circumstances I have not wied nor cried aloud under the bludgeonings of chance my head is bloody but un bow Beyond this place of Wrath and tears Looms but the horrors of the shade and yet the Min of the years finds and shall find me
Unafraid in other words an alpha man ain’t supposed to be no scared negro it matters not it matters not how straight the gate how charged with punishment the scroll I am the master of my faith I am the captain of my soul but that’s a certain kind of Truth certain kind of Truth
And we need to recapture that truth we need to recapture it in all that it means you know Henry Al the callus was a known as a philosopher a leader he was he had a prophetic Vision he was a pathologist a scholar educator but you know he was a truth
Teller let me tell you what he said in 19 I think it was let me see make sure I’m make sure I want to quote this exactly right 1939 he told us this truth he said for Alpha for Alpha this awareness of our opportunity should mean a vigorous criticism of our conceptions
And an examination of our procedures we need wisely to appraise our times this is our Jewel talking we need to be responsive to contemporary thought we need to Bear the burden of disadvantaged people in other words if you’re in Alpha but you don’t deal with disadvantaged people you need to give up the
Shield we’re not supposed to be high futing educated black men that don’t care about the least of these that’s what our founder said he said we are Listen to Stand firmly upon character and principle making no sacrifice for some temporary good in Alpha F Alpha there is the background for ideas vision
And plans for a new order now that’s what he said 19 39 but because he was a truth teller he came back to the National Convention and he said this Alpha F Alpha is now Expendable this is our Jewel this ain’t somebody criticizing us from the outside this is
1960 21 years after he said what he said the other thing about being strong standing with the disadvantage he said alpha alpha is now Expendable we are no longer necessary for the advancement of human rights in this decade indeed I’m not certain we are prepared for the responsibilities of this period this is
1960 he said our interests have become too narrow dancing cocktail parties have replaced discussions of the current problems and active participation in our community and Regional Affairs he said our conventions have become a club and not a place where we be a transar and transformation he said that
1960 5 years after Martin our brother led the mountgomery bus boy car he told the truth not because he hated the organization but because he loved it huh and the reality is we need today A Time For Truth telling you all are exactly right the moments that we’re in is no
Time to be playing brother first thing we got to tell the truth about in this moment is that Donald Trump is not the problem uh oh Bob Donald Trump is not the problem Donald Trump is a result of the problem Donald Trump is not an anomaly Donald Trump has always
Existed when have we ever had a president that wasn’t affected by racism in some form a 100 years before Donald Trump woodro Wilson played Birth of a Nation in the Oval Office a most racist movie that’s ever been created glorified the clan and showed it to his staff a hundred years
Before Steve banner and told them that this was lightning in a bottle woodro Wilson tried to un uh take back Federal contracts with for Black Folk woodro Wilson over s bloody summer when black men were being hung and run out of cities coming back from World War I
Woodro Wilson lied about a pandemic called it the Spanish Flu tried to blame it on Spanish people rather than saying what it was and 600,000 people died because he lied Trump is not something new Trump is America he’s not all of America but he’s a part of the story Eddie GLA always
Tells us that we’ve got to tell ourselves a better story and stop acting like what we’re seeing today is something new what we’re seeing today is the is is grows out of the lies grows out of the lies everything Trump is doing has been done before it
Was planned this way right and part of the reason he gets here is because people stop hearing even even even uh what our brother King had told us a long time ago let me let me let me show you what I mean Dr King told us in 1965 can y’all hear me in
1965 well 1965 Dr King told us that the greatest fear of the ol gothy in this country he said this at the end of the selon of mountgomery March was for the masses of negroes and the masses of poor white people to form a voting block that could fundamentally shift the economic
Architecture of the country he said the greatest fear was for a third a second reconstruction at the end of the Selma to mountgomery March Dr King was not talking about just black folk he said I did not March for voting rights just for Black Folk I marched so that we could
Build this second reconstruction he said in fact this is why segregation began and this is why every time there is a threat a Poss possibility of uniting and building a great society where no one would pray upon the weakness of the other then we will have an all out
Assault on that possibility so n Paya has said that it is natural in the American way of history that Trump would follow Obama and the fact that people didn’t see that coming is because we have told ourselves too many lies now we’re trying to say oh it’s Trump trump he’s out of
Office and it’s still acting crazy that ought to tell us Trump is like um when you get a cold and your nose runs Trump is the nose run he’s not the he’s not the cold comes from the germs inside and that’s why if you have a cold and all you do is keep
Wiping your nose it’s not going to get any better you have to treat the inside to treat the inside side it was in N this Trump comes out of what was planned in 1965 66 when um Kevin Phillips who advised Richard Nixon and the Republican
Party he said he said I know how we can win without the Negro vote this is what they told Nixon it’s in a book called The the illusion the time of Illusion he says we got to paint Democrats as a black party and then we can build an
American Revolution coming out of the South and the Southwest we going to implement it from Maryland to Arizona but then we can spread it up north and use the ethnic divisions of the north as well Buchanan was Nixon’s Aid and he said what we have to do listen to this
What we have to do is is is engage in po positive polarization we must intentionally divide the country now listen to what they said it may get out of hand and if it does we’ll lie and say we didn’t do it but in order for us to win if we if we strategically
Divide the country divide the country over issues of racial Equity divide the country over women’s issue divide the country over LGBT issue if we engage in in in micro deflections we can keep folk from focusing on the macro problems wish I had a amen and and and and he said and if we
Do this we can split the country in half and we can win for the next 60 years now they said that in 1965 here we are 60 years later what do we see January 6 grew out of that and so what we see today is is is is a part of
What was intended Le Atwater talked about it he said we even got to come up with code language so we don’t sound racist so we talk about things like uh uh Force busing or we talk about uh uh uh Ina uh um tax cuts he said it doesn’t
Sound like there’s any racism in that but we have to come up with code language in order to talk division without sounding divisive so anytime somebody says we’ve never seen this before the fact of the matter is that’s a lie we’ve seen it before the tactics
That we are seeing today the truth is they have their roots in the states rights movement that began before the Civil War the KKK uh added violence pley versus Ferguson legalized it it was picked up by strong Thurman bar Goldwater George Wallace it became the Republican southern strategy it was developed by
Kevin Phillips and leat waterer it was picked up by Ronald Reagan who opened his campaign in Philadelphia Mississippi where swana chain and Goodman were killed it was it was Contin by Pat Buchanan and George Bush I’m not talking partisan is I’m talking the truth the fact and all Donald Trump did was
That will address five issues simultaneously systemic racism poverty ecological Devastation denial of Health Care the war economy and the false Mar Narrative of religious nationalism those are the five interlocking injustices that are breaking the heart of this democracy it is not new it’s regurgitated there another truth we got to tell the
Truth about what happened in co co did not create poverty it exposed it co exposed the problems that we already had with poverty with racism and with our Public Health Systems you know why it’s covid-19 cuz there was 18 the 17 my daughter’s a public health special she said Daddy we
Saw this coming any doctors in here and Public Health they knew this was coming it was coming we could we could saw it a mile away and if you understand what happened during Co you’ll understand why some people let it come because if you notice 350,000 people died during covid from
The lack of healthcare not from The Germ 350,000 people during Co we quickly changed service workers to essential workers before Co they were service worker we changed the language to intial worker which forced them to go to work but we forced them to go to work without Health Care without living wages without
Paid Family lead without access to doctors 68% of the covid money went to corporations during Co billionaires have made so far $2 trillion inflation was not was create not but not because folk got a little bit more money and they began to spend but because of price gouging because of
Co and because of the war and because the first couple of years we had a president and a whole group of people lying do you remember when the Black Surgeon General under under Trump went on TV and said black folk were more susceptible to co because of they
Smoked did you know he was investing in the tobacco industry he was lying he lying do you know that during Co the government created a way to give churches money and a lot of black congregations took that money not realizing that that money mostly was going to White Evangelical churches they got big
Dollars to boost their Ministries these are the same Ministries that are promoting anti-gay anti voting rights anti- living right living they they are these are the same Ministries that are declaring to serve God is to be about God be about a God Guns tax cuts and a particular
Party do you know that while this was going on billionaires like Elon Musk Jeff basos and Richard Branson were doing Joy rising out of space buying $500 million yachts and living in mansions with 25 bathroom while essential workers were taking care of the rest of us and dying I met with
Those essential workers one family in Mississippi lost 25 members of her family in a 30 mile radius because Mississippi refused to expand Medicaid and my own family I got a cousin that lost 38 members of her family because because North Carolina refused to accept Medicaid they shut
Down all of the hospitals within a 30 mile radius my brothers and sisters if we don’t tell the truth about what really happened in Co it will happen again Co was and what happened was unnecessary Co and what happened was policy murder straight up policy murder that’s
What happened not only that we’ve got to tell the truth about poverty did you know that right now in this country the government tells us if you make $133,000 a year you’re not poor they do they use a old formula from the 1960s the truth of the matter is we did
Some work with Harvard and and and and Colombia and Howard University and others and put a study together and we found out there are 140 million poor and low wealth people in this country right now 53% of all our children are poor and low weal 43% of all of our adults are
Poor and low well 52 million people make less a living wage when when we got two votes mansion and Cinema blocked the living wage KLA Harris would have signed living wage that’s why they blocked it because the black woman would have signed the bill we got two votes there were two
Democrats that blocked living wages for 55 million people do you know that if that Bill had passed 43% of Black Folk would have come out of poverty but do you know even civil rights organizations never call passing of living wages a civil rights issue and the US Chamber of Commerce told mansion
And others don’t y’all vote for living wages and voting rights do you realize that there are 87 million people in America now that either are uninsured or underinsured that America is the only of the 25 wealthiest countries in the world that doesn’t offer some form of Health
Care well health care is determined by your job and not your Humanity did you know that as we sit here in this room 250,000 people die every year from poverty poverty is the fourth leading cause of death 800 people die every day from just poverty and 60% of black people are poor
And low wealth and yet poverty is not considered the a major agenda item on what people call the Black Agenda if you get in the room with most black folk and start talking about economic first thing they well let’s get more money for black businesses how the business going to survive if black
People don’t have any money and remember what king and and and Martin and Washington said the first thing we got to do if we going to address poverty is address the minimum wage it must be ra you the minimum wage has been $725 since 2009 we’ve not raised it in 14 years it
Took us 400 years to get to 725 400 years to get to 725 it’s not and and people who go to the restaurants I was with a group of folk one day and they were mistreating the waitresses and I got Holy Ghost mad first of all and I’m almost through
First of all cuz they were church folks and you know they had just been in church holling about Jesus and then the lady came up and they were where’s our R where’s our stuff and so I finally said you know y’all are ignorant I don’t like to call folk that
But they had made me hot and the point is do you know that girl is making $23 an hour by law she can’t make anymore $23 C plus tips that’s a law y’all and where does the tips come from it came from when white men after slavery didn’t
Want to play black women when black women started restaurants and they were cleaning houses they didn’t want to pay them a wage so they came up with a tip system we’ve got to know the truth we have to know the truth three people in America now make more than 165 million
People Pope Francis has said that that trickle down economics and uh is a form of Witchcraft an evil in our in our in our economic system the the claim that all we got to do is focus on the middle class and everybody else will rise these are
Things Brothers we have to challenge the average worker today is making $54 a week less than they made 50 years ago we have to know the truth that’s why there ought not be ever an alpha convention that we’re not talking about poverty and low wealth and low wages and
What our roles are and where we’re positioned politically to challenge these realities 43% of everybody in this country p and and you know what the numbers are 60% of black people is 26 million people but 30% of white people are pooring no wealth that’s 66 million
People so there are 40 million more poor white people than there are poor black people poor and low wealth black people but black people are 40% higher we have to tell that whole truth because if we don’t whenever people talk about poverty they would say it’s just a black issue
Or Latino issue and what that does is marginalizes the conversation and what we have to I I just wrote a book it’s coming it’s coming out called White poverty the mythology around white poverty the lies and how that’s all right the lies and that’s all right and how it continues to
Exacerbate the lies of r race in class and somebody said why would you write a book on white poverty and you black I said first of all I’m black I’m white and I’m tuscaro indan now I’m black when the cop stop me I have no I’m clear about that huh but I also
Recognize that when somebody’s lights be lights go off because they can’t pay their light bill we all black in the dark I also know that when a child cries because they can’t eat that hunger doesn’t sound black or white it sounds pain and what I know is if we don’t deal
With the whole whole issue it will marginalize it and if you get in the margins in this political season system they will never pay attention to you my brothers and sisters it’s time for a truth telling movement and finally voting rights we got to tell the truth
About voting rights we have less voting rights today than we had August 6 1965 the Voting Rights Act was gutted June 25th 2013 neither Democrats nor Republicans have fixed it we had Democrats had the had the presidency and both houses of Congress and did not get living wages passed or
Voting Rights passed in 2022 voting right suppression John Lewis died trying to get us to pass a a bill that will restore the Voting Rights Act and would expand voting rights some people are now saying well you don’t need voting rights you don’t need to worry about District
You just need to vote no redistricting is a tool it was actually started here in Massachusetts right here in Boston jerem Mander that came from y’all that didn’t come from down south y’all ought be shaming yourself the guy was named Jerry and he created Jerry mandering and that’s when
You draw districts that look like this the point of gerrymandering is so that even if a group of people have the masses of the vote they lose because you isolate their votes it’s called stacking packing bleaching and blocking now we haven’t had a Voting Rights Act since June 25th the Voting
Rights Act for those places that was covered said if you pass a bill it first has to be scrutinized by the justice department and it and then if it meets the mustard you can have it but if it’s racist you can’t implement it now the bill can be implemented you can use it
For 10 years then go to court and find out was racist and and know that you have elected unconstitutionally constituted legislators and Congress person but you can’t undo the bills they passed while they while they were in office and now just the other day a court said no longer can Alpha F Alpha
Bring a case no longer can Omega SII bring a case or the AKA or the or the NAACP from now on in order to bring a case it has to come from the US attorney general so now our voting rights would be determined if it upholds in the
Supreme Court and the Congress doesn’t fix it by the whims of one man an appointed person my brothers and sisters we are almost in that place our Founders were there have been in 19 states there have been a thousand voter suppression bills passed or pushed since since
2013 and voter oppression today is not just about black people it’s about white people 55 million people are affected by these bad laws today the goal of voter suppression is is to keep black white brown native people women and men from forming Fusion Coalition say Fusion Coalition Fusion coalitions is what
Happened after the Civil War when poor whites and black former slaves came together and formed political blocks to take over the southern legislature and less than three years after the Civil War they had done it black votes combined with poor white vote combined with with religious folk
Took over every legislature in the South and three years after slavery and ever since then there’s been an a all out attempt every chance that happened to block that from happening again when Obama won it wasn’t Obama that scared the power structure it was the electorate see Obama won in Florida he
Won in North Carolina he lost in North Carolina on the election day but he won because of same day registration early voting that we fought and put into place he won in South North Carolina he won in Virginia that was a signal that the southern strategy was vulnerable it
Wasn’t him y’all it was this electorate black and white and brown and Asian and Native and young and old and gay and straight and trans coming together and ever since then that’s where all this mess come about voter ID before then nobody talk about voter ID but as soon
As black and white folk come together somebody must be lying somebody must be cheating and this wasn’t supposed do you remember when that guy stood on the floor of the House of representa pointed at Obama and said what he said what you now watch this he didn’t say you were
Lying he said you lie no what you are a lie you cuz you ain’t supposed to be here not not you lying you your presence how you got here you are alive this not supposed to happen we are supposed to have this system fixed how did you get past the Electoral
College you are a lie your existence is a lie not you as a person but you and what you represent you represent the possibility of a multi cultural America and a third reconstruction and we ain’t having it and that’s why n gend had a meeting
And said our number one goal is to stop everything but we’re not without hope because the 140 million people that are ping low wealth and 43% of them are dult those are votes 87 million people without Healthcare those are votes in fact there’s not a state now where poor
People don’t make up 30% of the electorate there’s not a state where poor and low wealth people don’t make up 40% of the electorate and there’s not a state in this country where if 20% of poor and low wealth voters that did not vote in the last two election were
Mobilized around an agenda to vote that we couldn’t control who gets elected Alpha said a voteless for a voteless people the Hopeless people but Alpha you got to sharpen that now you’ve got to go in poor and low wealth communities and you don’t go in that
Running them down you go in there and you let tell them what’s at stake that their health care is at stake their living wages is at stake and you show them the power you show them it doesn’t even take 80% it doesn’t even take 60% it doesn’t even take
50% in in in Michigan it’s 1% I was telling Black Folk down in Florida why y’all so upset with with what’s his name or the Govern down there look stop stop fussing at him and getting mad because he wants to take his black history out of books you ought to
Be mad with that he’s blocking living Wages that’s what y’all be mad about you ought to be mad that he’s blocking health care but then you also ought to know all you got to get is 3% a poor and low weal voters didn’t vote he’s he’s history
God has fixed it so my brothers and sisters that now the stones that the builders have rejected can become the Chief Cornerstone of a brand new R see we need the attitude of our Jewels now their attitude was if it ain’t here build it when folk tell you you’re not supposed
To be prove that you’re supposed to be they didn’t start alpha alpha because they had a model we’re the beginners they had a vision they didn’t have a model they didn’t know if it would work but they knew one thing they weren’t going to just sit there and die they
Weren’t going to just sit there and be walked over they weren’t going to sit there they figured out that they had power and they had power if they organized power if they came together and right in the face of some of the most atrocious reality they told the truth first to
Themselves we got to have a truth telling move we got to tell the truth about this power that we have we this next year we don’t need a political vote cuz a political vote you can determine who wins before the election ever happen we need a movement vote so many people
Coming out from places they never expected and when it’s over and the dust clear say how did that happen well it’s because Alpha F Alpha in Boston decided to organize all of the low-income housing project it’s because Alpha 5 Alpha in boster decided to go get all the folk
That make less than a living wage and organized and they got all that’s how it happened they didn’t tell you what they were doing they just started doing my mama said that comes a time you got to let other folk do the talking and you do the walking and how did they organize
Them they tell them they said look you got to decide your vote is not for a person it’s a demand your vote is the demand and so if you want to change how we measure poverty if you want living wages and union rights and a job guarantee and affordable housing and
Student debt relief and universal access to health care and paid family leave and expansion protection of voting rights then you’ve got to vote you want just immigration you want folk to take their hands off of you your women’s rights and take their hands off of immigrant right
Then we must mobilize then you say look look look here Trump only won by 100,000 votes but guess what there there there two three four million poor low wealth votes in in in Boston and and look a half million of them didn’t vote so if we can just get
10% of that to vote then we out distance any margin of Victory and if you show people the power they have and mobilize we don’t have to take this anymore we don’t have to take it anymore that’s what happened in 1857 Frederick Douglas who ought to be our brother he
He would have pledged I’m sure if he turned it B around pleasy versus the the dread The Dread Scott decision was passed right 1857 it said a black man had no rights that a white person ever had to pay attention to the story is told that Frederick Douglas and William Lord
Garrison and the Abolitionist got depressed they went and Harriet Tubman saw Frederick Douglas one day with his head in his hand crying depressed greatest oror of of this world at that particular time and he didn’t want to say another word he said it’s over say she looked at him and saw him
Across the hall and she said Frederick Is God dead and Fredy Doug said it shook his soul he shook him to the core he got up got his hands out of his head he he sent a t sent a note to to the abolitionist said I want to speak in
Two months he spoke in May of 1857 and he said listen he said as monstrous as this decision is it’s bad but the Supreme Court of man does not override the Supreme Court of God he said a man may be a liar but God will be true and
He said as monstrous as this decision is I meet it now with a cheerful heart because I know that every attempt to Forever blot out the hopes of an enslaved people may be one necessary Link in the chain of events Preparatory to the downfall of the entire system and
So rather than stop fighting I want you to know that the whole history of the anti-slavery movement is studied with proof that every measure devised and executed with the view to stop us has only emboldened our agitation increased and intensifi our ability to fight and he didn’t stop the Abolitionist
Won and slavery die third Good Marshall before he died he said in a democracy you can’t be like an ostrich it comes a time you got to tell the truth this is this third good you got to organize a movement against Injustice democracy cannot flourish amid fear Liberty cannot
Bloom amid hate you must desent from indifference you must desent from apathy you must desent from Fear you must do it the truth is you must seek the organize the poor the elderly the sick you can’t just allow them to be pushed away the legal systems can force
Open doors and sometimes even knock down walls but they cannot build Bridges we have to do that we have to tell that truth th Good Marshall said and if we do it then Generations yet unborn will say that there came a Time when another generation proved that lies can’t live
Forever and that the truth is stronger than the lie and finally I know we got to do it because I had a cousin and her husband was a grand athlete strong fell out one day in the house she called the EMTs they came two guys came in the house they had a
Defibrillator they hit him with that defibrillator they shocked him twice then they started picking up picking it up putting it back together they turned to my cousin and said her cousin actually your cousin and said he’s dead she put her hand on his chest she grabbed him by the wrist she said that’s
A lie hit him again they said ma’am he’s dead she said that’s a lie hit him again they took the paddles back out they hit him again he didn’t come up they said we told you she said that’s a lie I got my hand on his wrist it’s a
Lie hit him again and the third time they hit him he woke up because you got to keep telling the truth if there’s ever been a time we got to hit Injustice again if there’s ever been a time we got to hit inquality again if there’s ever been a time we’ve
Got to hit lies with the truth again and again and again and again it’s right now and Alpha men we are built for this we are born for this we are created for this if anybody going to tell the truth we ought to tell the truth Martin told
The truth we ought to tell the truth th good Mara told the truth we ought to tell the truth all of our brothers is down through the history our Jewels they told the truth and the truth is the most Revolution thing you can do in a time of Lies I wonder
Symbolically if there any Alphas that would stand up with me right now if you’re Alpha Man stand up with me and I wonder symbolically if you just take off your coat hang it on the back of your chair look at your brother tell your brother the reason I took off my coat
Cuz it’s fighting [Applause] time it’s truth telling time it’s time for us to stand up go to work go to work cuz the power is yet in our hands God has fixed it so that the stones that the builders rejected can now be the chief cornerstones of truth
And the building of a whole new democracy and I want it to be written when we’re dead and gone and in our grave somebody has to say there was a generation of alpha men in the n in 2021 who said to the lies you will not have the final word God bless [Applause]
You [Applause] know I got in the bathroom bro so if if that didn’t motivate you then I don’t know what going to motivate you uh let’s let’s give another Applause while so um what we’re going to do with the agenda here we’re going to make a little change okay brother tman where are
You we want to I’m going to do the ly okay the occasion and while that’s going on I’m going to check on the food and then we’re going to have the we’re going to have the food we’re going to go ahead and get our food and E dinner and then
We after we have the dinner we’ll we’ll do the lighting of the the candles and the Jewel okay it’s later in the day okay so we will um take this opportunity uh founders day was actually December 4th but for this celebration it’s an opportunity for us to remember uh why we join the
Organization it’s an opportunity for us to get together family reunion um but at this time we want to make sure that we remember what we need to do going forward so all brothers please rise and if you turn to page three in the program you’ll see the the bolded
Sections where where we are speaking together page three to him who was Alpha and Omega first and the last we thank you for the fraternity Jews and all who have initiated into to the concept of Brotherhood and Service as represented in our fraternity We R ourselves to Courageous leadership in
Addressing and redressing racism we rededicate ourselves to securing the advances of the past and obtainment of new freedoms new levels of human dignity and New Horizons and The Human Experience of living loving and learning free from the eroding effects of racism and hate we ourselves to the day when
There will be no double standards in housing in education and in the use of public facilities we dedicate ourselves to the day when men women and children of whatever race religion or national origin will receive a full share of dignity and recognition of their Creation in the image of God we dedicate
Our fraternity his resources and his leadership to Thea of Deeds scholarship love for all first of all we are Servants of all and because we are shall all you may be seated
source
