>>morning. and welcome to mosaic. i'm ron swisher. it is a real privilege to host mosaic on behalf of hue burrows, our producer and co- host. we are fortunate to have one of the eye cons of oakland. he was once on the school board, once the editor of the religious oakland tribune, the owner of the post. when i met him in the late 60s and early 70s, he was a community organizer working with the oakland black caucus. you might say he was mr. naacp, along with mr. urban league.

always working for justice in our community here in oakland. grew up here and has been in oakland all his life. welcome, paul cobb. >> it is a pleasure to be here today. >> tell us about your background. >> i was born in oakland. my parents come from oklahoma and mississippi, but i was born in oakland. i have attended schools in oakland, and i have had the opportunity to travel all over the country as a journalist and an activist and as a participant in the civil rights struggle and as an advocate for change. >> you told me earlier you had not taken a course in journalism but you are gifted in writing? >> i did not take any courses in journalism. i always got great grades in english and in writing and in composition. and i remember, as a youngster, i was a spelling bee champion.

so i've always. >> nobody could beat new scrabble, you in scrabble, right? >> nobody could beat me in scrabble. >> when you realized you had that gift, what led you to working in the community? >> well i always, my mother used to tell me that i was named after paul lawrence dunbar, the great poet. >> oh the great poet. >> and she read to me all of his poems and so forth, as a child. that left an indelible impression. that is my name. paul lawrence dunbar cobb. i think i was stamped from birth to have a respect for the written word, and a joy and respect for it. that is what got me started. and in 1965, when i was a reporter for the oakland post, i went to selma, and had an opportunity to have 14 hours of

exclusive interview and walk with dr. king, because i doubled as both a reporter a marcher and an usher. in that brave march from selma to montgomery. and that is when i wedded the two, journalism and civil rights activism. >> what did you think of the movie and the recreation? >> i think the movie captured it. i think the movie captured the essence and it was accurate. those scenes where it showed dr. king in a jocular mood, that was real. that is the way it actually went down. so the viewer got a chance. one of the other reasons i say it was accurate because i saw myself in the old film footage, when they showed the eyes on the prize walking with dr. king. and so yeah, the movie was

definitely accurate. >> when i had met you in the late 60s, you were over the oakland black caucus and so involved in the community and i was a community organizer myself and i was immediately drawn to all the work you were doing. what inspired you to continue to work that. >> for the oakland black caucus? >> right. >> we took a unique approach. in 1966, we used to monitor the police. this was long before the black panther party was even organized. so i had done a lot of work with black churches and with civil rights organizations. so we formed a thing called the black caucus. this was prior to the congressional block caucus. we formed a black caucus of all the black organizations, and 147 black churches were members of that caucus. i think the church that you come from, was also won of the

constituent members, taylor memorial united methodist. so i was the chair of the black caucus. and we took on every issue, whether it was unnecessary history respect ms. . for black women at kaiser hospital, or whether -- hysterectomys -- hysterectomies for black women at kaiser hospital or whether it was citywide elections. >> we are going to come back to that and bring us up to the day and see what you are doing. thanks for being with us, paul. please join us in our next segment with paul cobb.

when i introduced paul cobb earlier i was going to say city

council and i said school board. he reminded me he ran for city council way back before anyone and almost won. >> i ran, it was mainly an educational campaign. i ran to expose the district elections. you had to be voted on citywide. and even though i won the district which i wanted to represent, i lost citywide, even though i had 70% plus of the district votes. >> where you are. >> what were some of the issues you wanted to expose? >> the same as they are today, adequate housing, better recognition of our schools, jobs, getting more jobs for minorities, and contracts. for minority contractors. so the issues of equity and fairness stream through every single strata of the society. and those issues remain today.

there is an inability for african-american men to get jobs. the unemployment rate. and the issue of police brutality. and we didn't call it profiling in those days. we just knew that the police, and so we had a bold group, that literally would follow the police. and we would get out of the car and we would recite what is now considered the miranda rights. we would tell people they should cooperate, but there was a limit to what could happen. i and wound up getting arrested a lot of times myself. >> okay. >> foo interfering with arrests and things like that. >> now the mayor's conference was just held last month. >> yeah. >> i believe you went there. >> i went. >> what did you think of the efforts there? >> i think the mayor's conference in the wake, you know, last month they talked about the charleston incident,

that tragic occurrence. and that was on the minds of mayors all over the country and mayors were talking about how they are instituting race and equity departments to be more sensitive and to have fairness throughout the government. i met with steven benjamin, who is the mayor of columbia, south carolina because i had worked in south carolina with the southern election fund, helping blacks get elected in the 70s. when i talked to him, he is also the national president of black mayors. i told him how we were going to organize with him, to help mobilize voter registration. because i see the wave coming, based upon what a lot of politicians, both republican and democrat are now speaking out on voting rights as of one of the issues that sprang from the nine families or the nine individuals that were killed in

charleston. >> going back to that awful tragedy, some of the things that people are talking about addressing, what are some of the things you think are so important that we need to address? >> well one of the things that immediately came out is the issue of gun control. the other thing that came out of that was the flag. i think that romney, republican. he boxed in a lot of republican legislators and forced them to back down and reverse their position on the flag. same thing with hillary clinton, she was a strong voice. if you look back, it brought race to the table. romney embraced race in a very constructive way and it caused a lot of others to do the same. and as a result of that, some of the things that you are

seeing now, like we are, we have established a dashboard kind of display of the progress of voter registration and removing voter suppression. and the role that churches and faith-based institutions are playing, throughout the south, 11 other states of the old confederacy and others like the new confederacy like ohio and michigan, when it comes to voting, and what they are doing to remove those barriers. charleston, i think it said over the news, is one of the holiest places in the old south. you have such a background in churches and religion and spirituality, what is your perspective on growing up with the emphasis on the spirit and on the bible and how you process that in terms of your community organizing? >> i think that change in this

country has come with the role, especially for, for african- americans, is the church as an institution has been the pivotal point. all of our great leaders come out of the church. the voter registration drive was fed by volunteers generated by congregations, both black and white. when we went to mississippi in the 60s and alabama, a lot of white volunteers were volunteers, spurred by their denominational officer divorce -- desire to reach equity. the church is the fundamental full crum -- point for change. when the church struck at mother emanuel, a principal

church i have attended when in the south. he struck a blow at black freedom. so that is why, when the lds church, the mormon church rolled out, recently the 4 million names of blacks who used to be on plantations, and that the government released their names, when that information is now going throughout the country, and black people will, every black person will have an opportunity to have the alex haley experience. >> the mormon church has done this? >> the mormon church has done this. they bought the names, the registers from the national archives, and they put it on a computer disk. and it is freely distributed.

so you can type in your name, ron swisher, and go all the way back to 1865 when lincoln emancipated the slaves and that will help you then have the journey toward the alex hylism that is the role -- alex haley. >> let's come back to that in the next segment. that is really fascinating and interesting. please join us with paul cobb

welcome back to mosaic. we're talking about the involvement of our churches, african-american churches and churches across the board. you've heard the expression, i'm spiritual but not religious. do you have a definition around that and how spirituality plays

a part in religion? >> yeah. i don't know what you mean by your spiritual but not religious. i think we're all god's children. i try to simplify the notion. we all have cell phones and most of them have a gps requirement. to be religious and spiritual that means you have to be in a tune with the heavenly father or some supreme being or with heavenly self. the cell phone analogy says that you can be tracked anywhere. religion teaches us that his eye is on the sparrow. so if it's e asy for us to understand that a satellite can follow us to the corners of the earth surely a supreme being who

invented and created man could track each and every one of us within a spiritual gps system. i know that i receive signal. just like you and i are sitting here talking now you can get a cell phone message or a call that i couldn't get because they didn't dial my number, even though we're sitting in the same place. >> that's interesting. >> why couldn't god send a message to martin luther king or ron swisher and say go. speak the message and let me people go. i think the spirit is the signal that communicates with us. it's the energy that drives each and every one of our internal gps systems. >> i've never heard that. >> that's my concept of trying to use a modern digital

technology terminology to explain a complicated as you would say conflict. >> that's was neat. >> maybe i should start -- but you know, to get back to your earlier question, i'm going to call romney on his cell phone and thank him for his spirit, for making that call to america that they aught to remove the flag. i'm going to interview him and ask him what does he now think about removing voter suppression. i think just like in the bible where balem thought he was going to go and curse somebody and god sent a message that touched his tongue and he wound up blessing, i think romney could trigger a flood of positive reaction around voter suppression ideas. >> that's great. >> i use

d to be the religion editor of the oakland tribune. in 1998 i wrote a feature article about your coming back home to the church that you grew up in and becoming the pastor. they always used to say this a profit is without honor in his own land. you proved that can be an honorable man and come back home and be honored by your congregation. >> it was an honor. it feels great. on you know -- you know that whole history. you live down the street from the church. >> i've been there. >> how long ? >> where i live now? >> yeah. >> i live two blocks from where i went to kindergarten and i'm 71 years old now. i'm still there. >> the city of oakland gave you

applause and kudos. tell us about that. >> i was honored to receive the city of oakland honorable mention. my wife was one of the original freedom writers. >> 45 years now. >> yes. she was -- she went to dc. i met the mayor from baltimore and told her about how my wife had been a civil rights pioneer and my wife also went to the march on washington while i was at is selma. >> great history.

great involvement. again i think people hearing you are inspired, are challenged. where would you say people need to start to have that kind of commitment and have that kind of legacy you are leaving? >> you remember earlier i mentioned the names of a friedman bank record that the mormon church laid out i think people should do a search of their family history and family roots. it's an appreciation of how far we've done, how we have come this far by faith. i think that we should have the -- every individual can and should have the alex haley experience. i think that will be like the road to demascus experience. it's

like the burning bush experience. it opens our eyes. that database that the mormon church laid out is that we are going to be all over the country in a weekly tabloid to show black people how to search their roots and take the inspiration from the love of their family to convert it into positive action. >> the roots? >> the roots is key to building the tree. by the fruits of the tree you shall know them. you have to know your roots and water your roots. that database a friedman's data man is paramount to the rosetta stone and it will be the key to make you -- once you know your history and know who you are

you develop pride dignity and unity with your own people. in this last segment let's talk about the oakland post, your paper. >> thank you. >> you can see why we invited paul cob to be with us. join us in our last segment after this.

i hope you've been with us. we have been really inspired and enlightened by paul cob the icon local. i'm not alone in saying that. he's the owner of the oakland post. tell us about your paper. >> well, i'm the owner of the oakland post, which is 52 years old. we have nine newspapers. oakland berkeley, rich manned mond san francisco, stockton and so forth. we have a spanish language newspaper that's also 52 years old. >> wow. >> so where he we are also going national with an insert that

will be distributed in every african-american congregation throughout the country that will lay out issues like the friedman's bank, black history accomplishments and we'll deal with the how-tos of what the african-american community can do about policing issues, economic development, jobs and education, the principal concerns of our community. >> when i was in oakland the paper was always delivered to our church. i don't remember paying anything. >> 75% of our 100,000 circulation is distributed to houses of worship. we give it away freely. we solicit and gain advertising because of the reach. usually in the newspaper business you're allowed to calculate for every person that picks up the paper they usually

give you a number of one to five how many it touches in the pass on rate. you can see that we have a pass on rate of a quarter of a million to 300,000 readers. >> i love newspapers and i love books. they have been in trouble. >> yes. the printed word will never vanish. the printed word will always be there. we are also recognizing the emergent of technology. we've expanded to a website. we will be using the innovations of technology as a link for a multiplatform performance and presentation of the news that's a part of the newspaper. >> you continue to write an editorial? >> yes i do. >> i know you're a great writer and great great editorials. that's one of the highlights of the paper. >> i will be writing about this

program. i'm going to tell everybody to get up and look at mosaic. sometimes we're on you tube. look us up there also. >> thank you paul. >> it was a pleasure. >> that was great. >> take care . >> thank you. >> thank you for joining us. i'm ron swish er er. see you next month.

our pitch....if you have a show idea......we would love to hear from you. go to facebook dot com slash bay sunday and comment to the page. with me today, i have three authors and an artist. let's kick things off by welcoming dr. bartley kerr, a physician, as well as an author. for more information about rejuvenation log onto national rejuvenation centers dot com welcome. doctor bartly kerp is with us here. >> thank you. >> i heard