My brothers in Alpha this is Brother denian Johnson your senior director of Brotherhood engagement Global Outreach at your corporate headquarters of alpha F Alpha Fraternity Incorporated as you can see I’m coming to you live from the 93rd Southern Regional convention here in Charlotte North Carolina was something very special we had our uh
Regional fraternal luncheon here at the regional convention with featured brother Dr William Barber renowned uh preacher and civil rights leader and activist who brought a mighty mighty word to the Brotherhood and in case you missed it we want to share a snippet for you for so you can capture the moment
That was shared by Brother Dr Dr Barbera please enjoy my father was on the inauguration line at St Augustine college President W and I were talking about that 1947 my father started school at Elizabeth City State University and Dr trig was the president of Elizabeth City State it was a two-year
School they recruited my father for the Navy when my father showed up in Norfolk he had been recruited he was drafted to teach recruits cuz he had two years of college education a white racist Captain said oh you think you one of them up at the
Hella so and so and snatched him out of the line and said what you going to do is empty my pot and to my pee Dr Tri in 1940s used his power called up a southern senator who was not a friend of civil rights made the case for my father got him
Reinstated and then reinstate to the proper things and then brought him to sa all with him and it was after that that my father then was on the inaa line that’s what Alpha do I told this young brother that I’m at Yale and I want to offer something to the region in the
South when they asked me to come to Yale the president asked me what can we do for you I said nothing I’m dangerous now I don’t want nothing I’m old retired I don’t want nothing but try to do what’s right I said it’s not about me I’ve had
Enough time for accolate I said but what you can do is Yale blocked the development of the first HBCU in America it was supposed to be in in in um in U where Yale is in New Haven the founder of Yale was a racist the Divinity School Yale was pro
Slavery I said to him in light of that 200 years later what Yale ought to do is reparations and one way you should do it is create a fund uh and we a fund that gives millions of dollars to students that does two things any student in
Connecticut that wants to go to HBCU especially in the South year a to pay for it and then y to pay for him to come back to Yale free for graduate school and any black student from an HBCU in the South that wants to go the Y for graduate school where higen Botham
And other folk went they can get a free ride they got so today I can’t get them in if they don’t do the work but if they do the work I want to offer to the South Region to be the conduit for undergraduate students
That want to go to year or to get a free ride it ain’t about what I get no more if at 61 you don’t have enough to be satisfied and the rest of your life has to be about what you do for others so bro you told me you want to go
To Yale we going to work on that LE lost school I um don’t want to interrupt you your chicken but I’m not a bumper sticker speaker I don’t do quick cutie um plate C you know just phraseology and get folk fired up and they don’t know what the hell they fired
Up about they just like the Rhymes and stuff I just don’t do that so if other folk do it that’s their thing uh and y’all can see I’m not as large as I want was but I’m a jumbo jet I’m not no little plane I don’t take off
That just like that I have to tax it for W and I got a big head so I got to ruminate I stuff got to roll around in it so I didn’t come here today to do a quickie I came here today to speak to Brothers as men and to take you deeply
Seriously we live in a time when we must have have what one attorney called Legal realism and realize that we have people politicians and forces in this country that do not see Politics as an Avenue or as the Mechanics for fulfilling the Preamble of the Constitution established Justice provide
For the common defense promote the general Fair ensure domestic tranquility they do not see politic as an Avenue for fulfilling the promises of the 14th Amendment ensuring equal protection under the law for all person or the 15th Amendment no no state or government can deny or Bridge the right to vote they see
Politics as something you use with bad intentions extreme forces that that that have bad reasons for wanting to be leaders they take power just to take more power Dr King one time said that there are two elements of this the extremist racist and the moderate who is more
Interested in in in order than Justice he said both were bad ketta Scott King after her husband had been brutely shot with a deer rifle through the neck June of that same year spoke at the Lincoln Memorial and said when somebody asked her about violence she said violence is not just somebody
Shooting your husband with a gun violence is denying education violence is denying housing violence is denying wages violence is denying people’s culture but violence is also having an apathetic attitude and refusing to challenge the other forms of violence bad people with bad intentions like McConnell you know they’re getting ready
To try to make him a saint that’s what they do when folk get ready to step down or die it’s a it’s a bad thing cuz you somebody ought at least tell the truth at you at your funeral or at your retirement Y at least tell the truth at
Your retirement if you ain’t done they have to say that I mean I’m talking to y’all as men now ain’t no need to lie if you been mean you’ve been mean right just tell the truth you had a whole life to do better this man opposed bills for for his own miners in
His State he wouldn’t fix black he took people’s black loan benefits he said the government ought to cut Social Security Medicare Medicaid and 40 million Americans being crushed by student loan there he blocked the bank for student Emergency Loan refinancing he blocked Obama from he stole an appointment from Obama to the
Supreme Court and from Biden stole it just stole it right in their face bad people bad intentions he United his party against the John Lewis voting rights all folk from Georgia in here that’s McConnell’s work McConnell got all the Republicans and two Democrats moderate Democrat so-called to join him in voting against
The Voting Rights Act and the John leis bill so that a black woman named KLA Harris would not have the opportunity to cast a decide and vote he used his power to block living wages block Universal Health Care he acquitted Trump bad intentions the night that Ru
Think about this the night that Justice Ruth beta Ginsburg died this man called Trump and said I will feel the vacancy in weeks you got to nominate Amy Barnett Barett and and we going to feel it even though he had said that should never happen when there’s a transition in
Power he vowed he he said this the single most important thing we must achieve with our power is for President Obama to be a one-term president and to block everything he tried has to do do not be mistaken we are in a season where bad people want political power for bad [Applause]
Intentions it’s not just him Clarence Thomas Fights all the programs he used to get into Yale to get a white wife I’m Bishop today I ain’t playing he refused to recuse himself cases where he’s got donations from people of an intered conflict when his wife was calling around on the Insurrection
Thomas led the way for the Voting Rights Act to be gutted do you remember Brothers my brothers from Alabama we sitting here today and we’ve got less voting rights than we had August 6 1965 when the Voting Rights Act was first passed Thomas and then he turned around and allowed
Corporations to be able to put to be be seen as people therefore they can put all the money they want in a campaign bad people with bad intentions when Thomas argued against affirmative action he his example was Jim crov yeah if y’all read you Brothers now
You know Alphas read y’all need to read that that that majority opinion he took the justifications for segregation laws and twisted sit them into a legal argument against affirmative action against making sure that students like this brother would get a shot not cuz he didn’t doesn’t have the grades
Cuz never been about us having the grades it’s about us having the opportunity not just them we got a person in this state running for governor he said he ain’t black he goes around celebrating Hitler and is leading in Republican ticket he’s homophobic he’s against union rights against living wages against voting
Rights we live any time it is if you think this is about one man whose name starts with a tea and have his ons you are sadly mistaken this is about an era the crisis of civilization where people want power just to take more more power and they use power with bad intention
And if you don’t use your power to stop them and for us as alas it is our Legacy and if we don’t do it then take the damn Shield [Applause] off take it out you lied when you [Applause] pledge it was in the 1920s and 30s in the middle of the
Depression when a president had played birth of the nation in the Oval Office that celebrated the clu cl’s Clan it was in that environment that Alpha F Alpha said we need a program a voteless people is a hopeless people and brother Logan said even though they the odds are
Against us we must still fight listen to what he said at convention to all Alpha men I propose the following pledge I pledge myself to become a registered voter as soon as I’m eligible to vote in all elections that are open I pledge to work untiringly until
Negroes have helped to break down the fastest one-party system of the South especially by the Supreme Court when it authorized the exclusion of negro from the Democratic party I pledged to register and move everybody I can to the PO and as I know that vote was unanimous
And has not been rescinded since the 1930 it is the order of our of our fraternity and and before the in 1905 brother WB deor founder of the Niagara Movement that became the NAACP he said we claim for ourselves every right that belongs to a Freeborn American political civil and social and
Until we get those rights we will never cease to protest and assale the ears of America about the crisis she is in and the shameful Deeds toward us they do not expect that the free right to vote to enjoy Civic rights and to be educated
Will come in a moment no we do not expect to see the bias and Prejudice of years disappear at the blast of a trumpet but we are absolutely certain that the way for a people to gain their reasonable rights is not by voluntarily giving them up that people must fight that people must
Gain respect that people must resist the belittling and the ridiculing and the Negro must insist continually in seasons and out of season that voting is necessary to modern man that color discrimination is barbarism and that the black boy needs an education as well as the white boy and that the power of the
Ballot we needed in sheer defense L we fall into a second slavery in other words the bo said if you ain’t securing the vote and pushing the vote stop calling yourself a man our national program of voteless people is a hopeless people is what all the other fights came from
Us the voted Rights Act fight who led Salma us Dr raford wion Logan 15th General president he organized uh um the educational adjustment movement General convention New Orleans December 1937 it was Alpha that United 27 National organizations in the 30s we did that but living on your laws ain’t worth a
Damn and telling pledges what happened 50 years ago rather than talking about what we doing [Applause] today and at that time because of the obstacles to voting only 3% of Eld African-Americans in the South were even registered but we kept the fight alive and said we going to do the best
We going to mobilize that 3% and get 4% and but what we’re not going to do and I know I’m I said we men today we not going to let people piss on us and tell us it’s raining so here are three things not voting our strength and by
Our strength I don’t just mean Alpha men I mean the strength of our community strength of our Collective possibility in organizing number one allows write this down or memorize it bad people to control our government we are an accessory to the crime of Donald Trump woo you say what
Yep look at your brother and say if you didn’t work as hard as you could you’re an accessory access now there’s some gra in here there’s some Grace in here we can get it right now you said bra that’s hard well let me listen what Dr King said during the
Sement of mountgomery movement when James Reed a white Minister was shot in the stomach beaten and killed Dr King said James Reed he he he laid out how bad people had caused this but listen who he lists as the bad people James Reed was murdered by the indifference of every minister of the
Gospel who has remained silent behind the safe security of stained glass windows wow he was murdered by the irrelevancy of of the church that will stand amidst social evils and serve as a tail light rather than a headlight as an echo rather than a voice he was murdered by
The irresponsibility of every politician who has moved down the path of demagog who has fed his constituents to stale bread of hatred and the small meat of racism he was murdered by the brutality of every sheriff and law enforcement agency he was murdered by every black Civic organization that does not Step Up
Thank you he was murdered by the timidity of the federal government that will spend millions of dollars a day to keep troops in South Vietnam but can’t protect the lives of his own citizens right here he was even murdered by the cowardice of every negro who tacitly accepts the evil system of segregation
And stands on the sidelines with their money in the midst of a mighty struggle for justice wow that’s why they don’t play that during the mtin Luther King holiday and all you hear is the the hoop I have a dream which wasn’t even the speech the speech was normal said never
Again James carve last night on CNN reminded us that we’re in a mess not because of one man because bad people many got into office because people didn’t vote their strength and they used their power starting in 2000 to steal an election then after they stole the election they put citizen
United in place so the corporations could take over the election with money and then they did holder versus Shelby in Alabama to gut the voting rights at it’s not one man it’s a system this is what it is when you get sick and go the ain’t the sickness that’s the symptom Trump is
[Applause] the second thing can I talk to us as men when we don’t vote our strength and organize we can be hopeless against bad policies not only bad people get but we hope because people with bad unjust intent in office create bad policy policy doesn’t just happen it’s
Planned tomorrow in 33 States in DC we’re launching a 42-week campaign the mass poor pe’s low wage workers Mar march on state assemblies and to the poll we’re launching we’re not having a March a day it’s a launch to do 42 weeks to mobilize 15 million poor and low-wage
Infrequent voters because the of the state of policy in this nation we’re not doing it for a personality because personality will benefit but you can’t move people to vote over personality you got to move them to vote until they understand they’re voting for their lives Alabama we mobilizing because in Alabama
Between 2018 and 2020 there’s 1.9 million poor and lowincome people in Alabama poor and low people make up 39% of the population in Alabama in Alabama you have to make 22 hours and $22 an hour two two adults two children and a family and the current minimum
Wage is 725 has not been raised since 209 and if you work in the restaurant industry your minimum wage is $2.13 plus tips so in Alabama you got to work 90 hours a week just to afford a basic one-bedroom apartment in Alabama 8 96,000 people 40% of the workforce earn
Less than $15 an hour in Alabama and that and that means and that includes uh 34% of Asians and Native workers 58% of black workers uh six excuse me 58% of native workers 61% of black workers and and and and % of Hispanic workers and 32% of white workers and 50% of working
Women and 64% of working women of color in Alabama make less than a living wage in Alabama in Alabama over 400,000 people were without insurance during the worst days of the pandemic in Alabama 1.8 million workers 80% of the workers work force doesn’t have paid leave in Alabama your state
Legislature has filed 20 voter restriction bills since 2020 in Alabama there were 1.9 million poor and lowincome eligible voters 1.3 million white 1.7 million Latino 6 million of Asian 569 black voter and the margin of Victory wasn’t but 500,000 votes and 900,000 of them didn’t vote in Florida Florida here in Florida there
9,539 th000 poor and low income people in your state 44% of your state is poor and low wage in Florida you know you got to make $25 an hour to have basic needs met your current minimum wage is $1 an hour and the governor and others blocked
It from being raised even though you voted for it at the poll you got to work 111 hours a week in Florida just to possibly rent a modest two-bedroom apartment there are 4 million 400,000 people or 41% of the workforce in Florida that makes less than $15 an
Hour 36% of Asians and Native 57% of all black workers 51% of Hispanic workers 32% of white workers 49% of working women 59% of women of color the majority of those making less than living wage are white but the highest percentage of those is black in Florida during the
Worst days of the pandemic 2.5 million people were uninsured in Florida 8.4 million workers 78% don’t have paid family leave in Florida they have pushed nine voter restricted bills since 2020 in Florida there are 7, 617,000 poor and lowincome eligible voters but in Florida that that’s that’s
4 million white 1 million Latino 100,000 Asian 1.1 million black 20,000 indigenous 43% of the electorate the marginal victory in Florida was 371,000 vote 2.8 million didn’t vote 1 million black folk didn’t vote even though the marginal Victory is only 300,000 in Georgia there are 4.4 million poor low
Income low low wage people 42% of Georgians are poor and low income get get away from thinking it’s just somebody living on the street or just somebody in inner city that’s not this is a different analysis in Georgia you got to make $23 an hour family of two minimum wage is$
725 you have to work 118 hours a week there are 1.8 million people or 36% of the workforce that makes less than $15 an hour 1 million uh 1.6 million adults uh 26% of Asians 47% of black 54% of Hispanic 27% of white worker 44% of working women
54% of working women of color in Georgia during the worst days of the pandemic 1.3 million people were uninsured 4.1 million workers or 78% of the workforce in the state do not have access to paid lead in Georgia there have been 42 voter restriction bills introduced since 2020
42 in Georgia there were 2.4 million poor and low wage eligible voters including 1.3 million white 84,000 Latino 32,000 asan and 860,000 black voters 1 million didn’t vote and the margin of victory was 11,000 votes Mississippi they’re 1.3 million poor lwi income people you need $21 an hour family four minimum wage
725 500,000 people in Mississippi 45% of the workforce make less than $15 an hour during the most intense days of the pandemic 339 people 39,000 people were not ured because Mississippi did not expand Medicaid 1 million workers 80% of the workforce do not have paid access to
To pay Paid Family Leave Mississippi has introduced 36 voter restriction bills in Mississippi there are 1 million poor and low income voters 636,000 white 3,000 Latino 1 M 1,000 Asian 300,000 black voters 43% of the electorate 461000 didn’t vote and the margin of victory was only 200,000
Votes in South Carol Carina y’all here in South Carolina there are 2 million South Carolinians that are poor in low income 38% of the population 38% of the population and when you look at the numbers the numbers tell us in that in that state that somewhere in the
Neighborhood of of of that that if just about 20% of the black vot of the voters that did not vote were to vote they could fundamentally shift the elector in North Carolina nearly 40% of the electric is poor Andor low wealth nearly 40% of the workforce makes less than $15 an
Hour in the last election the marginal victory was 160,000 votes a million folk did not vote who were ping low weage in this state and over a half million Black Folk in addition to that Brothers 75% of all Americans between 20 and 75 years of age will be among the poor or
Near poverty for at least one year of their life bad people make bad policy all that I’m just talking about that’s policy somebody’s doing that it’s not accidental University of California Riverside paper was done April 17th Journal of American Medical Association said that in 2019 before covid 183,000
People died in the United States from poverty pover just poverty and low wages killing people now poverty is the fourth leading cause of death in America long-term poverty claims 295,000 lives a year over 800 people a day it would take you 600 years going to
A funeral every day of the week to go to the funerals of the number of people that die from poverty in one year that’s political genocide the analysis found out that only heart disease cancer and smoker smoking had a greater number of deaths and most of those things a lot of those
Are caused by the ravages of poverty obesity diabetes drug overdoses suicides firearms and homicide are less lethal than poverty but if the homicide rate goes up 1% it’s national news it’s presidential it’s in the white house but when 800 people die from poverty you don’t hear anything about
It poverty kills more people than dementia accidents Strokes Alzheimer’s and diabetes and it’s all abolish about seven bills that 7% of Americans agree with could abolish poverty and low wages when we don’t vote we risk political hopelessness because it allows bad people with unjust bad intent to produce bad
Policies that murder people but the murder is called political violence that was a term that came up by an 18th century sociologist in England that’s now making it way back in the academy we’ve got to talk about policy murder and policy violence and did you know brothers and sisters that policy
Violence not making sure that people have a living wage not making sure that people have a health care is not just bad policy is sin I said to preachers all time time if you in the pull pit worrying about your church and pastor’s anniversary but you ain’t in the street fighting for your
Folk that have healthc care you engaged in pastoral malpractice amen Proverbs 22 says do not abuse the poor because they are poor Isaiah 10 says woe unto those who legislate evil and Rob the poor of their rights and make women and children pray p r y not p r a
Y Jeremiah says go down to the king’s Palace don’t send a text message don’t sign a petition go down to the king’s Palace and tell them stop killing people Matthew 25 says you can do all you want to get all the Rob do all the ties do everything you want to but at
The end of the day when I was hungry and and and and he says and and he and he he will say to the nation not the individual to the nation and so if I allow the nation then I become an accessory to the crime Deuteronomy and I’m so sick of
Folk that think they know the Bible and don’t know it amen you start talking about poverty and low wage where B you know Jesus said that PO will be with you always that ain’t what he said Jesus was a brown-skinned Palestinian Jew when Palestinian Jews uh quoted a scripture
Of a text they were quoting the whole paropy they just didn’t say the whole paropy because the culture would know that the the scripture he was quoting for actually begins like this there need be no poor among you if you do what I tell you to do if
You treat them right if you don’t steal from them then it says the poor will be with you always which is an indictment sir on society it that scripture was never [Applause] meant for you to become halfway middle class ain’t two ass fools from poverty and then act like you can’t see your
Brothers and [Applause] sisters I’m talking to men right yes sir sir not only does not voting allow bad people and bad policies not voting is a bad use of power when Dr King stood on the steps of the Alabama state house which I believe was his greatest
Speech I think I have a dream was his greatest closing and vision but his greatest speech was after that March under the threat of being killed he launches into this sermon he talks about Truth uh uh um keep keeps marching on but in the middle of it he starts talking about the first
Reconstruction he identifies the movement as being a part of the second reconstruction and he starts talking about how Voting Rights was not even just about black people and in that sermon speech he says the reason we have segregation the reason we have so much division is because the greatest fear of
The racist aristocracy in this country is for the masses of negroes and the masses of poor white people to join together and form a massive voting block particularly in the South that will fundamentally shift the economic architecture of the nation he said and it’s possible and folk know it’s possible cuz it had
Already happened that’s what happened right after slavery the fusion poit politician were black and white that’s why in North Carolina you had the Wilmington riots they wanted to destroy black and white folk working together for political power to pass good policy it was a black Minister and a white
Minister that got together and wrote the preamble to the North Carolina Constitution in 1868 which says we hold these truth to be self-evident that all persons not men all persons are created equally endowed by their creator with certain inable rights among which a life liberty the enjoyment of the fruit of
Their own labor and the pursuit of happiness it was black and white together Fusion that guaranteed public education in in the article one of the north Carina Constitution we don’t even have a guarantee of of Education public education in the United States Constitution but when black and white
Fusionist came together poor whites and former slaves and freed men and foreign political power they wrote the most transformative state constitution in the South and the deconstructors said we got to shut it down that’s why they killed Martin he was dead when he said that in’ 65 when he said my work from
Here is going to be to mobilize the masses of negroes the masses of poor whites into a voting block that fundamentally shifts the economic oate I got my last threat last week to my house I don’t know when to talk about it but since I’m talking on Brothers they
Want me to know they know where I live onethird of the electorate in this country is poor 85 million people in 2020 58 million of this group cast bance in the states Battleground states that they say are red and we really don’t know what states are red and blue cuz
We’ve never voted our power cuz in those States 34 to 46% of the of Voters in Battleground states are poor and low wealth if just 20% of poor and low wealth not 30 40 50 60 80 20% in Battleground states where the mobilizing around an agenda they could change all political
Outcomes and mess up political calculation but you got to have a movement vote not a political vote and it has to be about their lives and issues and not just about personality and party in most of the Battleground States it only take 5% let me give you a number in Arizona Georgia Florida
Michigan North Carolina Nevada Pennsylvania Texas Westcon all had tight presidential races in all but Texas the margin of Victory wasn’t but 3% but the but but poor low wealth voters made up 34% of the elector only in Texas was the marginal Victory 5% in in Michigan the margin of victory was 10,000 votes
1 million poor low weal voters didn’t vote in Wisconsin the B the B victory was 20,000 1.1 million poor low we voters did not vote in Pennsylvania the marginal victory was um uh 40,000 1.8 1.5 million poor low wage voters did not vote in North Carolina the margin of
Victory was was 160,000 um almost a million voters did not vote if you add up those States the total margin of Victory is 270,000 votes but in those same States 4.1 million people did not vote or poor in low way and the number one reason they don’t vote nobody talks to
Them politicians don’t talk to them we had 15 presidential debates poverty 43% of this country is in poverty and low wage 51% of our children 15 presidential dates 135 million poor and low wage people in this country and not one presidential debate asked the question what’s your plan for poverty and low
Wage that’s kill poverty is the four fleeing cause of death 72% of Americans say they want a government run Health Care System 70% of Americans want to raise the minimum wage including 62% of Republicans but the corporate structure holds back and we participate when we don’t vote our power is close y’all
God fixes it so and there’s always a star in the midnight amen and if you flip these numbers over 135 million people in poverty but that also means over 100 million people who can vote and if the number one reason that they don’t vote is is the politicians
Don’t talk to them we should be talking to them I went out to Eastern Kentucky do they told me not to go out there I went to Hazard County harl County they said Bob them Hatfields mcco is going to kill you I said no no they said that’s
Trump country I said no it isn’t I said the last time a Democrat president went out there was when Linda Bain Johnson announced the war on PO we went out there 500 people showed up I showed them how their state legislators who were getting them to vote against gay people
And vote against voting rights were also voting against their healthare voting against their living wages voting against their Union F four of those Seven Counties flipped in 218 and they sent an incumbent extremist home and put in a more Progressive Democrat in Kentucky so on June 15th this is what I
Came to say brothers of alpha we’re going first of all in order to reach 15 million people four times in 42 weeks we need 200 people in every state 33 states with this of lumber that will be trained in the technology of how using social media and the old form of
Walking the turf and knocking doors you get 200 people in 34 states times working five six days a week touching 50 people a day over 9 weeks you touch 19 million people 200 people a day in 200 people a state in 34 states in District of Columbia
Would they use the technology to touch 50 people five or 6 days a week for 9 weeks you touch 19 million people in less than 9 weeks which means over 40 week you can touch at least four times and the average posters say you got to
Touch people at least two times to get them to vote if they haven’t been voting you know alpam men are smart y’all know that right we do science this is a science y’all and you don’t do this with just a r rout speech you got to
Have some you got got some chapters and some brothers that’ll say we’ll we’ll find we’ll do 200 we’ll do 200 our state will do 200 and learn how to do it on June 15th we’re calling for a mass moral March on Washington DC on the Congress by poor and low wage people religious
Leaders and Advocates and to the polls this is the 60th anniversary of Freedom Summer this democracy will not survive with a political vote we must have a movement vote that shakes up everything we call the unions are in and the only folk going to be able to do it are the
Unions Civic organization fraternal ins sorority um Poor People’s campaign and and um and and and churches and religious bodies progress coming together for a mass Consciousness rally that that says we what what what you mean everybody’s voting such and such a way what you mean people are apathetic and launch a summer intensive
A summer intensive to to touch 15 million poor and low-wage voters in 35 States especially in the Battleground states where the margin of Victory is within 2% 5% 10% 18% of the number of people who didn’t vote in the last election now we can come every year on
King Day talking about we love Martin but if we don’t finish what he started that ain’t nothing but just playing King we don’t need no more celebrations y’all we need consecration reconsecration recommitment if that was if that’s our brother God put it on his heart you the
Only way you honor prophets is when they fall and they will fall Prophets don’t make it they either get too tired they get too sick they die young they they get cynical you just you don’t make but when they fall the only way you honor them is pick up the Baton and
Finish the work now I also have to come here honestly I come here because in 2022 and I’m almost through when we had the first mass Mar March on Washington and to the polls we mobilized 2.7 million voters um we touched them in in um um 13 states and
We have the data to show that if you pull the voters that we move to the poll out people lose our brother R Wana when he ran against herel if you pull out the number of poor and low we voters that voted for him the voters that we move were three
Times more than his margin of Victory cuz the race was that close you know but I got hurt well I really didn’t get hurt I just it was sad to me that one day we was talking to a brother and he said to me Doc Poor
People’s thing is all right but an alpha can’t come on the stage and testify that he’s poor low wage that’ll embarrass the fraternity to say he’s poor and low wage out of an alpha man I said well is he greater than Jesus you mean tell me
You you you you Alpha and you can’t be in the ghetto where Jesus was born he was born in you Alpha and most of y’all most of us me included ain’t that far away from being poor low age and in this room if any of us get six six six months with no
Money come on y’all but I said if our fraternity can’t be so aloof if anybody ought to be bringing together all the fraternities and the sororities to meet in the street and move to The Ballot Box and finish the work of brother Lofton and M it should be Alpha right now right [Applause]
Here saving this democracy and more important having a democracy worth saving meeting this crisis of civilization is and I declare unto you I don’t want to die and it be said on my watch that I didn’t try and my brothers and sisters if we come together on an agenda we can
Unite churches and labor maternal groups and it’s not even a hard LIF 20% is all we need 20% not 30 not 40 20% God has fixed it oh I feel something now that the stones that the builders reject now have the power to become the Chief Cornerstone of a brand new reality God
Has fixed it so there there there are some dry bones in in the valley but if you go down there and organize them and preach to them they’ll stand up and when they stand up God will put his Spirit on it and the Bible say they become a
Mighty Army God has fixed it and God fixes it in every moment that there’s always a way out oh have mercy have mercy have mercy and one of the things we can’t do is let our foreparents do more with less and we do less with more they didn’t have no cell phone they
Didn’t have Google they didn’t have Tik Tok they didn’t have Instagram they didn’t have Facebook they didn’t have iPhone they didn’t have a car they didn’t have a bank account they didn’t have a college degree they didn’t have fraternity they didn’t have sority they didn’t have computer but they did more
With less with less they beat slavery somebody help me in here with less they beat Jim Crow with less they beat lynchin with less they beat the KKK with less Harriet Tubman got 500 slaves out of slavery and prject douas got himself and trained himself to be an
International a they didn’t have email they they didn’t have texting they didn’t know what Twitter was they had faith in God they had MOS on the north side of a tree they had a star in the middle of the night and they had a madeup mind that I’m not going to let
People just walk over me and take my freedom freedom oh freedom and before I be a slave in any generation I’ll be buried in my grave and go home to my Lord and whenever we stand up Faith is not what you believe about God is what
You do because of what you believe about God and when you do something won’t God show up if you do your part won’t God show up faith without works is dead but Faith with works is powerful we ought to stand until and and and have a testimony
We need a testimony touch your neighbor say we need a testimony somebody we need a real testimony that in our lifetime we did something now can I talk to y’all five minutes and I’m through during Co I wrestled with death because my doctors told me that if I got Co I’d probably
Die before the infe because I have immune deficiencies and so I was real careful but I kept watching people die one family lost 25 members in a 30 mile radius another family 12 brother down and one night it got on me bad like why are you still alive you’re not better
Than them you’re not more special than them why are you still here and and over in the night the Holy Ghost kind of like he used to come to Howard Thurman mystically said Bara that’s the wrong question every time the question is not not why you here but what you going to
Do since you’re still here cuz the truth of the matter is you don’t have a 6 minutes any day 6 minutes without breath most of us gone 6 minutes so the question is what are you going to do with your 6 minutes your 6 hours your 6
Days your 6 weeks your 6 months or your six years and I stop by to tell my brothers in Alpha you’re going to die one one day it’s going to all be over and on that day the question will be while you lived did you make a
Difference did you have a title or a testimony did you have a title of Destruction or a testimony of deliver one day you going to be gone and I don’t mean to be mean I don’t mean to be morbid but you going to be just dead and
If the funeral is at a black church I’m going to tell you how it’s going to go the choir going sing real good that day and the preacher going to preach like heaven cuz some of them negro he ain’t going to see till the next funeral or church anniversary and the cook going
To cook that day you know what they going to serve chicken fried and barbecue tum salad warmed over green me some yams cornbread roll and some iced tea to give you diabetes y’all know what I’m talking about huh and they going to tell them Don’t Preach too long Reverend
And your family members that don’t even come to see you while you alive them going to get in the limousine that day they never had no ride in a limousine no other time but on that day they driveing the hoop they going to try everything they can to get in the
Limousine they’re going to dress up and afterwards they going to take you out the church now it doesn’t matter how fancy you leave the church you going to leave I don’t care if a saxophone is in front of you I don’t care if the funeral director is high stepping I don’t care
If they put on a top hat your H pots going to leave that sanctuary they going to put you in a hearse they going to take you to the Grave you can call it what you want they going to throw you in a hole and black folk don’t stay around
That whole long they do not do long committ Services it’s going to hurt ashes to ashes dust to dust sorry you ain’t here with us and then they going to start talking to each other man it’s bad to me like this we should get together more often and they going to
Come back and have a banquet in your honor never had a banquet for you all the days of your life but when you die they going to have a banquet in your honor and on that day all is going to matter is do you have a testimony or a
Title where you are hurtful somebody were you a mean somebody were you an unjust somebody or were you a loving somebody were you a just somebody did you care for somebody and you know the record is clear Pharaoh had the title but Moses had the testimony I wish I had
A witness Goliath had the title but David had the testimony uh Nebuchadnezzar had the title but shedrach mesach and a bad negro had the testimony Jero had the title but Joshua had the testimony the Jailer had the title but Paul had the testimony slavery had the title but Harriet Tubman and
William Lord Garrison and Frederick Douglas they had the testimony Jim Crow had the title but Rosa pars and Miss Boon and Fanny L hmer and Martin Luther King they had to testimony a had the title but Nelson Mandela and Bishop tutu and the mothers of South Africa they had
The testimony one Friday cesa had the title good God I feel like preaching one Friday the Pharisees had the title one Friday the Sadducees had the title they had it all night Friday they had it all day Saturday they had it all night Saturday but early Sunday morning God
Got up with his testimony and my testimony all power in his hand let’s have hope and have a testimony until poverty is abolished let’s have hope and have a testimony until everybody has a living wage let’s have hope and have a testimony until we have full voting
Rights let’s have hope and have a testimony until we have working rights and labor rights and health care for all and affordable housing and end gun violence and clean up the air and environmental justice and fully funded public education and just Immigrant Law until the hate and the lies and the
Homophobia and the anti-Semitism as the islamophobia no longer have the latest loudest mic let’s have hope and cast our Vats until we take back the might let’s send the extremist home let’s have hope until Justice comes let’s have hope Hallelujah let’s have hope and a testimony I want a testimony so when
It’s all over when it’s all over yeah when it’s all over I’ll hear God said well done I got a question for Alpha do you want a revolution do you want a revolution are you Brothers of Hope are you brothers that vote let’s shake this nation up so
That when the history book is written it will say in our generation we had a testimony and did not surrender thank you for watching Sphinx TV be sure to like comment and subscribe now for more content from the brothers of alpha fi Alpha 06
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