"washington journal"

continues. host: on this mlk holiday, we have robert woodson, founder and president of the woodson center. welcome back to "washington journal." guest: delighted to be here. host: remind our viewers why you founded the woodson center. guest: i am a dropout of the civil rights movement. i was leading demonstrations in the 1960's in pennsylvania about

three miles from philadelphia. it was outside of pharmaceutical company. they hired nine phd black chemists but we approach these in and women to ask him to join our movement and they said they got these jobs because they were qualified not because of the sacrifices we had made. this happened a couple of times and i realized i am the wrong movement. that i saw a bait and switch going on. that people were using the general situation of all blacks but when the remedies arrived, it benefits those at the top so i set out to work on behalf of low income people of all races that after the civil rights laws had passed, the biggest challenge we faced was helping people who are disadvantaged because of their income and family circumstance. so the center is kind of a way for me to reach out and help low income

people of all races to develop solutions from within their own community. host: when you founded the woodson center, you felt this was a message not getting out there. did you feel this was an area where martin picking junior himself had actually spoken -- martin luther king jr. himself had spoken and empower the work you wanted to do at the woodson center? >> he was shifting, too. when king said what good does it do to have the right to eat at a restaurant of your choosing or live in a neighborhood that you choose if you don't have any economic means to exercise that right? and so he died in fact supporting the garbage of the trash workers. some he shifted from social agenda to economics and paying special attention to the poor. but the civil rights movement in

general never made that shift. it continued to pursue solutions and seek remedies that helped middle-class and those above. i claim at the expense of those at the bottom. host: quite a range of evolution of use from you from that, from your time also at the national urban league and now as a resident fellow and fairly conservative washington think tank at the american enterprise institute. guest: i described my political philosophy as radical pragmatism. i believe as dr. king also said that black america has no permanent friends or enemies. we should base it on our strategic interests and therefore it was -- if most of the people at the urban league and other civil rights, they are part of what i call a pottery --

poverty industry that america spent $22 trillion in the last 50 years on programs to aid the poor, $.70 of every dollar does not go to the poor but to those who serve the poor. they ask which problems are fundable, not which are solvable. it does not matter how compassionate you are if your career and your reputation depends upon my being dependent on you, then we have strategic interests that are hostile to one another. by contrast, if you are oriented toward business and enterprise, you have no proprietary interest in the maintenance of poverty. therefore, i began to reach out to people who had strategic interests that were compatible with the people i served. host: robert woodson, we welcome your -- is with us. we welcome your comments and questions on this holiday.

where do you think the woodson center, your work there, has made the most inroads in solving some of the problems you have talked about. guest: over the years we have highlighted some dramatic examples of how paid professionals who parachute programs into low-income communities, that approach has failed repeatedly. that is why the poverty programs and all that money has not cured the problem. we take the principles of the market economy and apply to the social economy. only 3% of the people are entrepreneurs on our market economy, but they generate 70% of the jobs. that is where the innovation is. so what we do is we go into low-income, high crime neighborhoods and ask not who is

failing but who is succeeding against the odds so we have been able to go and find some very enterprising, social entrepreneurs. add we have helped support them -- and we have helped to support them and highlight their success in adjusting problems. my own town of philadelphia which used to be the youth gang capital of america, they would report that gang deaths next to the vietnam death. i worked with the woman and her husband whose eldest of six sons was a gang member. she said, i don't know anything about gangs but i know something about families so bring your friends here. host: in a city like philadelphia or chicago where crime nationwide may be plateaued or down in some areas, violent crime, gun crime is up in cities like littlefield.

what do you think is driving it in philadelphia and other major cities? guest: several things. first of all, the absence of fathers is one. but also i think this occupation we have with looking at everything through the prism of race has done enormous contributed to the problems. the demonization of police. villain is asian of police over the -- villainizati of policeo over the years. 14n years ago when a young black and was shot by a cop in the civil rights leaders came in and boycotted the city -- the white police said, we are not going to rigorously enforce laws in these communities. the result was the murder rate and low income black neighborhoods went up 800% in the city. the people who lost jobs were cafeteria workers, people who

worked downtown in the stores. but none of the civil rights leaders are these pastors lived in these troubled neighborhoods, so they did not have to suffer the consequences of their advocacy. what the woodson center does by contrast is go into those high crime neighborhoods and find out who is solving the problem from within. philadelphia is an example, what this woman did with her family as a model is she recruited young gang members and converted them from predators to ambassadors of peace. and they began to reach out and after about a year, 100 young men were seeking sanctuary, knocked on the door it she said, look, you have to work, we have to be peaceful. they retired her mortgage in two years. host: you still think programs like this can be successful? guest: i can give you examples

of it right now where a group we have worked with successfully in washington last summer went into one of the most violent neighborhoods, and they did not have a single violent incident in the 400 days because the approach of recruiting young people from within the community that have -- to act as moral mentors and character coaches. they witnessed two others that transformation and redemption is possible. but you would think with that kind of accomplishment, it would be front page news. host: mr. woodson, we have calls waiting and i want to expound a little on the crime and unexpected, certainly horrific crime, that you tweeted about the shooting in virginia of the school teacher, a six year old student you tweeted is in custody after the shooting of a

teacher in virginia elementary school. six years old. we don't wake up and realize we are facing a moral crisis. a policy crisis, we will see more horrifying incidents like this one. expand a little on the moral and non-policy crisis. guest: right now i carry with me pictures of 30 young black children and brown children who have been murdered in the past -- in a year. this has never happened before but there are people who claim, institutional racism and legacy of slavery and jim crow. so all the emphasis is on finding a villain that is external to the community. this has never happened even under slavery and jim crow. we did not have the self annihilation that we are witnessing today. so it is not a race problem, it is a moral and spiritual problem

. because if you have been raised to believe that life has no meaning or content and you devalue your life, you will take yours or someone else's. the highest murder rate -- i mean the highest level of suicide in a silicon valley is six times the national average. two parent households, minimum income $190,000. so money, race is not the answer. if rich white kids are committing suicide in record numbers and what about the recent death of black celebrities who are taking their lives? that is a moral and spiritual crisis that can only be addressed at that level. and the groups the woodson center serves have demonstrated that when you go in with moral authority and you present solutions that appeals to a

person sense of their importance and value, they change. host: robert woodson our guest, the founder of the woodson center. we will hear first from ronald in virginia on the independent line. thank you for waiting. go ahead. caller: good morning. america needs an independent party. what i would say to dr. woodson, a breath of fresh air. your question of that is disrespectful he thinks these programs work. you are very disrespectful. it let me get to the point. this recent shooting of the college basketball player killed the 22-year-old woman is an example that that person had all the privileges and the ability to make money and be successful in america, but he still committed this crime, most likely, right? what should we do? it is not about guns even, it is about violence in america. it is about our politics.

sir, you should run for senate. you should be a senator. god bless you. guest: let me say in defense of my colleague here, i did not find the question disrespectful at all. he was just asking me -- you know. this is an interesting quote about the source of it. i bet you'd no one will guess who made this, they said our children are living -- that are living in the best neighborhoods are on the verge of an ethical collapse. that morally weak people not only inhibit their own personal growth but contribute to the politics of decadence. a generation of people lacking the moral and physical stamina necessary to fight a protracted civilization or crisis is a danger to itself, its neighbors, and future generation. that was reverend jesse jackson, a challenge -- it was in ebony magazine in 1978.

so back then, leaders and it da silva rights movement understood --civil rights movement understood it was in moral and spiritual in nature and not social. we departed from that and became instead a race grievance industry. host: what year did you start the woodson center? guest: 1977. with the american enterprise institute for five years and fivers prior to that with the urban league. but i realized the people who were suffering the problem, these grassroots leaders, they need an independent voice. the problem is not left or right will stop because if you go into any low income, high crumb neighborhood, you can't tell me which political party is in power. both parties have ignored this

and continue to ignore the reality that the solutions are found internal that we must make investments not in professionals who parachute in their failed solutions, but we must invest in institutions that are indigenous to those communities. institutions that are trusted by the people living there. host: let's go to earl from washington state on the democrats line. caller: thank you. mr. woodson, when i graduated high school, four scholarship offers to play football at small black colleges and i had one scholarship for a full ride, tuition, books, the whole nine, but it was from the italian mafia in my town. organized crime has had a profound -- it is the other government in this country. how can we address issues

related to all the different factions? you have every kind of mafia it is except black mafia and it is country. how can we address that? guest: that is just part of those who are vile, those who are lawless. but i can tell you when you equip young men in these communities to help themselves -- let me give you a quick example. when i talked about philadelphia, they took 100 gang members that have been living in the city and had a citywide summit where they said they were going to bring all the warring gang leaders together. and they did and they could not even find a venue to have that meeting. and finally, the quakers opened their churches. and on new year's day, they had this gang summit in 1974.

as a result of that, the gang deaths went down from 48 to two and remained there for a long time. until 1983 when there was an outbreak of small groups of young blacks attacking shoppers, robbing them, knocking them down. it spread like wildfire. the press called him wolfpack attacks. four men of this city went to the local prison and recruited 125 inmates to a crime prevention task force. they sent the names they -- they gathered the names of 100 50 young men and said, bring them here to us. i was in that meeting in the present. as a result, we brought the young people into the prison. at least these older inmates counseled them against these continued attacks, and the wolfpack attacks stopped overnight. so you have a moral force in these cities that are even more

powerful than the mafia. the mafia could not stop that. i was blessed to follow this around and write a book about it where i chronicle the power of grassroots leaders to summon young people to responsibility if we just give them the tools to do so. we should look to the communities suffering a problem for the solution. host: the tear from sabrina in texas on the republican line. -- let's hear from sabrina in texas on the republican line. caller: i wanted to first of all say, mr. woodson, you are an absolute treasure to this country. i have followed you for a very long time. i am also a great fan of thomas soul. i just really wish that people took the time to sit down and read your books.

and really listen with their hearts. guest: thank you. caller: -- in our country at this time. that is about it. i just wanted to say that i send all of my love and prayers to people everywhere in america, but especially those people that have a mind of their own that they can speak. i bless you. thank you so much. guest: thank you so much. the message that is being sent to the young people, particularly the black young people, is that you are a victim. if you are robbing and killing one another, is not your fault. if you're having babies and not being responsible, it is not your fault. that it is racist even discuss personal responsibility. dr. king said we all must reach down until the deep dark regions of our own soul and find our own

emancipation proclamation. external circumstances never defines who we are. but what we are saying to young blacks is that you are not responsible for your life, that you live in a racist country who hates you, which means that perhaps they are -- they deserve to be despised. it is most important to understand that people are motivated to change and improve when they see examples of victories to be accomplished and not injuries to be avoided. can you imagine a football team sitting down watching reruns of the games they lost and then saying to the team, get out there and let's win? this is the message we are sending to young urban blacks. here you are exempt from any personal responsibility. nothing is more lethal than

giving people a good excuse for their own failures. host: let's hear from gloria on the democrats line in tennessee. go ahead. caller: good morning. i would like to say i have listened to your program for years. i am a mature over 70 great-grandmother. i think that everyone should realize there is only one race, it is the human race. hindu, muslim, christian, jew, there is one creator for all of you. in the eyes of our father, we are sister and brother. get on with your life. accept one another. i think people should not be judged by their color of their skin. i truly believe in the words of the great martin luther king. it is the content of that character. i knew i had done my job right as a mother when my son at 16

was stabbed, had a punctured lung, but it was a black person who did it and what we were to court -- i told him, david, it is not the color of the scan, honey, it is the person. he grew up, is happily married to a woman who is half black, half jewish, and the most delightful person you could find. host: all right. robert woodson? guest: you are sending him the right message. unfortunately, there are too few people doing it. but we need to point to resilience. we need to be telling our young people about not just oppression in the past, but what has been the response to oppression. you are right to tell your son that message. host: can tell us about the 7076 unites movement -- 1779 unites movement. we acknowledge racism exists and

work toward dimishing it but we dissent from contemporary group abouthetoric about race, clnd american history that defames our national heritage, divides our people and instead instills helplessness among those who are already whole within themselves the grit and resilience to better their lot in life. guest: in 2019, nickel had a jones in "the new york times" -- nicole had a jones in "the new york times goes what road this essay individually gathered some of her colleagues together and published 1619, which talks about america should be -- the birthday should be defined when the first african slaves came -- actually, they were indentured servants. all of them were eventually freed. but nevertheless, she said because america should be defined by slavery and because of its birth defect, which is slavery, that america is almost

like a perpetual criminal organization. and therefore because it is founded on the slavery and the half of the founders of the country were slave owners, therefore the institutions that we establish are false and therefore thrive on racism and that all white people are victims to be punished and all blacks -- i mean all whites are villains and all blacks are victims. this is a sad state. when you say racism is in the dna of something, that means it cannot be changed. but yet she won a pulitzer prize for condemning america for saying we are not worthy to exist as a country. what we wanted to do since the messengers were black, we felt

the message to capture that should be black as was we brought together 23 black scholars and activists and we wanted to offer not an alternative debate but an inspirational and aspirational alternative narratives. so we said, yes, we have underreported and under taught about slavery. we agree with them on that. but what we also talked about is that america is defined by redemption. so we talked about in our essays that black america should not be defined by slavery but we should be defined by what our response to slavery was. we talked in our essays about how the study of six plantations about the state of marriage. 75% of slave hammers had a man

and woman raising children. -- slave families had a man and woman raising children. in 40 years that went up to 70%. host: what he think is still not fully addressed? guest: i don't know of any incident that is not fully addressed. it has been addressed. what we spend too much time looking for examples of failure as opposed to, you know, frederick douglass said something that again dealing with whether or not your external circumstance should define who you are. he said the worst time on the plantation was at christmas because the slave masters gave blacks off for six days but the master wanted blacks to interpret freedom with dissipation and self-indulgence. so he gave them a lot of room

and even had drinking contests between plantations. because he wanted them to define freedom as irresponsibility, so they would get sick and welcome going back into the fields. better to be a slave to man than a slave to rum. but he says some blacks became enticed and gave in, but others used that time to visit family members, others used that time to hire themselves out to work so they could earn their freedom. same circumstance. and so same circumstance and so that is what we are trying to encourage. there are many blacks today, and we chronicle in our 1776 unite, we talked about when blacks were denied access to hotels, --

every major city had a hotel. we built over 100 colleges and universities. the bronze will section in 1929 in chicago that today is destroyed with violence but in 1929, the black community had 731 black businesses, 100 million in military assets. almost every major city, the greenwood section of tulsa, we had our own black wall street. because we understood self-sufficient. but all this history of achievement against the odds in the presence of oppression, it is important for people in america, not just black, for others to realize -- we have 20 blacks born slaves who died millionaires. host: minneapolis, patricia, republican line. caller: thank you for being on,

mr. woodson. i don't know if you caught it, but c-span had a woman on, a white house correspondent april ryan. i don't know how many times she said it, how many times she thought this was so important that people "looked like her." that was her message. totally turning upside down martin luther king's message about the content of the character and not the color of their skin. i was really ashamed of c-span for letting her go on and on with the race baiting and how important it is that people look like her. but you better think like her, too, because if you noticed recently when donald's was put up for speaker, cori bush attacked him, calling him a --

supporting white supremacy. so they don't think that this black man has a right to choose his own political beliefs. i mean, how dehumanizing. our politicians, journalists, they are dividing america to the detriment of all of america but especially people of color. the other thing i would like to mention, planned parenthood. how many black babies have been murdered? they put the planned parenthood offices in minority neighborhoods. so what is the message? those black lives don't matter, do they." host: patricia, we will hear from robert woodson. guest: you are right, they talk about black family life and as

you say, anytime you generalize about a group of people to say i'm representing women, then you try to apply remedies, it always helps those at the top as opposed -- in other words, the whole #metoo movement started when a young black woman wanted to give voice to other black low income women who are being abused, so she started it and then lead progressives got a hold of the #metoo movement and when you generalize about women, what were the women teased -- remedies? people need to be on board of directors, women need to be higher up in corporate america, jobs? and so up her income black and white women benefited from generalizing about women. but who suffered?

black women in prison. black women in low income neighborhoods. geraldo rivera did a two hour special on sexual assault of women in prisons. every one of the perpetrators was black. every one of the victims was black, but it did not generate any response or discussion or outrage at all because it did not fit the racial narrative. unfortunately, as long as blacks are destroying other blacks, then it is all most sanctioned. and yet harvey weinstein, the women who were on the casting couch, they are the ones who are filing suits and everyone is reporting on but not black women in prison. in fact, the most ridiculous example of how we have ascended, there was a video two summers ago a white woman with black

lives matter t-shirt on beating a black woman who was pushing a toddler in a stroller because she was in a -- at a trump rally. she had to be restrained. yet again, there was no outrage about that because it did not fit the racial narrative. host: our guest is the author and editor of a number of books. robert woodson's latest, "red, white, black." a couple of more calls. we go to maryland. jeffrey is on the democrat line. caller: hello, dr. woodson. i have been a huge fan and supporter of your work. i have been teaching for over 20 years, but the message you are preaching needs to get out to the masses of people. i am frustrated that it is not being done more.

i am working on a project now to try to get information to the people who need it. so my question is, how can we disseminate the information to the very vulnerable population of inner-city blacks who desperately need to hear your message? i post a question to my dad yesterday i said, did the civil rights movement pick in existing's gab or cleanse a festering wound? this race baiting, this has got to the point where it is really bad. i love your work and i will take your answer -- i have more to share but i don't want to go over my time. i love this show. host: thank you. guest: thank you so much. what has happened, unfortunately, over the past 50 years is that the civil rights

movement has been taken over by i think white elites who use the suffering of blacks and only blacks were the crown of thorns of slavery and discrimination. at other groups are now coming in and climbing its moral authority and applying it to all other kinds of so-called marginalized groups. and in doing so, they are attacking three of the pillars of black success in the face of oppression. and that is the belief in country, believe in god, and believe in self-determination. in 1930's and 1940's, during the years of depression when racism was enshrined in law, black america had the highest marriage rate of any other group. elderly people could walk safely without fear of being assaulted

by their grandchildren. it was unheard of for a child to be shot. so we have to go back and learn from the past how we were able to accomplish these things when racism was the rule of law. what we're trying to do is learn from these, report on them, and doing everything we can to get this message around the gatekeepers. both democrats and republicans, people who love this country and believe in self-determination, we must come together and not allow people to separate us by race. but we must come together. that is what the woodson center is trying to do, bring us together because the crisis is a moral and spiritual one that is destroying children up and down from class, from all over the

country. we must come together. that is with the center is trying to do. host: quick call from david in louisiana. caller: good morning, mr. woodson. i am a little nervous. i did not call up here to be disrespectful, belligerent, or especially to get cut off. but you are talking about race and it is a real touchy situation in some arenas. i admire you so much, sir. just like all the colors you've had this morning, seem like they were all white, but that is just my racist problem. but they love you. i would like to hear your opinion, sir, on west point and other institutions taking down robert e. lee and other come as

you said, slaveowners. and statues of people in the confederacy and such. host: got your point there. we are little short on time. guest: i think it is such a waste. the danger of taking down these statues is that 25 years from now, people can deny that slavery existed because we don't have anything to remind us. in fact, some of these progressives took down the statue of frederick douglass, and don't be surprised if they're coming after the statue of martin luther king as they migrate with is anti-christian, anti-american theme using the civil rights movement as the moral bludgeon to destroy this country. but they are using it and we must push back against it. host: robert woodson, more information for our viewers and listeners at the woodson center