♪ others are designed to leave them behind. ♪ the all-new 2014 lexus is. it's your move. i've seen the promise land. i may not get there with you. but i want you to know tonight, that we as a people will get to the promise land. the words that still propel us forward, toward that dream of fairness and equality. and today, the signs of progress are everywhere. >> i promise, we as people, we will get there. change as come to america. >> but challenges remain. tonight we talk about advancing

the dream for the next 50 years. and beyond. with trailblazers. magic johnson, tyler perry, condoleezza rice, corey booker and stevie wonder. it is a night to celebrate america's promise and look toward its future. >> this is an msnbc special. "advancing the dream." live from the world famous apollo theater. here is your host, the reverend al sharpton. thank you, thank you.

thank you. thank you, very much. thank you. thank you! thank you! it's great to be back here at the apoll jo tonight. and we'll celebrate where we've been and where we're going. and what a better place to talk about advancing the graem than from this stage, the site of so many great moments. i remember hearing the story of ella fitzgerald who came here for amateur night on a wednesday night. she was going to dance and win amateur night. but right before her were two sisters, who came out on this stage and danced and took the prize. she stood there and decided on that moment, at that time, that they was going to sing. and she came out behind those dancers and she sang. and came back the next week and

she won for number one singer. that's how things happen on this stage. people just learn to survive. and learn to use whatever talent and gifts they have to thrive. so tonight, we'll talk about the new achievements and new challenges. my guests were able to succeed because of the dream. but also because they took the risk and disciplined themselves. yes, doors were opened by the dream generation. but it is up to each and every one of us to walk through those doors. just to open those doors and not have people prepared and know the character it takes to deliver and to perform and to excel through those doors means we will never get where dr. king and others have envisioned for us and we must keep them doors open for generations to come.

you know, there is so much magic on the stage over the years, so tonight, we thought we would start with some magic. watch. he's a symbol of hope. irvin johnson's known simply as magic. for the awe-inspiring tricks he pulled off for 13 years in that labelingers uniform. but in 1991, he shocked the sports world. >> because of the hiv virus that i have obtained, i will have to retire from the lakers. >> he became the world's leading advocate for hiv and aids prevention. >> we are all in this. it is not just magic johnson. it is everybody. >> then it was a fast break into the business world. and a focus on rejuvenating urban communities. he updated coffee shops and

restaurants. broke ground becoming the first american owner of a major league baseball team. it happens to be jackie robinson's dodgers. he has lived the drem and spent a lifetime advancing it for others. op a night we celebrate progress here at the apollo, it is only fitting we celebrate with the man who brought us show time. ladies and gentlemen, the one and only, irvin math iblg johnson. good to see you, magic.

>> oh god is so good, man. you are doing this show. bringing here to harlem, apollo, so you are doing great things. we need a show like this to help our people understand where we need to go from here. >> you know, we just, two weeks ago, we commemorated the 50th anniversary of martin luther king, jr.'s we have a dream. a couple hundred thousand of us marched. martin luther king iii and others, urban league, we will do that. but in order do that, we have to be prepare end deal with our individual stories. you have a different kind of story. you came from a household, detroit, mother and daddy there. but you still faced challenges. you still had to make it. tell people how in your younger years you caught on to something

that inspired you. i read about how there was a businessman in the community. and you would go sit behind the desk and dream. >> yes. i drew up in lansing, michigan. my father worked for general motors for 30 years. my mom worked at the school cafeteria. and i didn't know that african-americans could own businesses. so it was two black businessman, joe furgason and greg eaton, who owned buildings and own dealership and oh, i want to be like them. so i got bold one day. i said, look, i want to be like you guys. will you give me a job in will you mentor me? they decided to mentor me. and the first thing they did was gave me a job to clean this office building that had seven floors. and so, i was about 15, 16 years old. so i would go, clean the first six floors but on the seventh floor, that is where the ceo's

office was. so i would bust in, and pretend like i was the ceo. and i would put my feet up on the desk. >> you would play out -- >> oh, play it out. >> in your mind, ceo, you would be the ceo. >> reverend, for hours, yes. yes. so i hit that intercom button. i said, aiesha -- will you bring me some coffee and doughnuts and the daily paper. so i would pretend aiesha would come on in. bring me the day's paper and the doughnuts and everything. and i was pretending like i was bossing people around. and here we are, 35 years later or so. >> and aiesha does bring the coffee. >> yeah, that's right. so you go to school, you're in athletics. and your parents came from the south. >> that's right. you are from the north like i was. you didn't know that much about segregation. but our parent did.

>> yes. >> and i read about where you talked about how when y'all would go south, you would pack lunches because you didn't know if a restaurant would stop on the way down, you didn't know if you stopped at a restaurant, whether they would feed you. >> that's right. so we would go from michigan all the way down to north carolina because that was our summer vacations. see you went to work for your cousins on the farms in the summer. so we would pack our lunch and dinner in the car. as we made that 14-hour drive. so when we got down south, this is interesting. so now i'm in the nba and we at like a waffle house. so the guy comes out, boy, what you want? and i -- i started to get up. my dad held me down, like, you don't understand. he just don't know no better. and i said, he can't be calling me no boy, dad. he said, no, son, i can't have you go to jail, now.

so that taught me a valuable lesson, even now today, we have to understand sometimes when we go certain places, they are so used to doing things a certain way, that even with all these advancements that we are talking about, that we have advanced as people, we still -- >> have a long way to go. >> have a long way to go. so my whole thing is this. i grew up poor, but i didn't have poor dreams. so that's what it is all about. and with dr. king, yourself, and everybody who has been, not only stomping around the world for us, and getting us a chance to vote, and own our own businesses, and all the things that we're able to do today, we got to still understand that we got to understand money, build wealth and pass it on to our kids. and also go into the community that we live in and own our business and then put our people

to work. that's what i've been about my whole career. >> let me ask you something. i want to get into that, but i want to ask you this. in athletics, you were magic, championship legend, then you came and had to tell the world you today fight this virus. then some people shunned you. >> right. >> and you fought back. because there are so many people that disproportion in our community, but something comes and knocks them off their stride. how did you deal with that? you are a champion in pro basketball, known all over the world. and now you've got to deal with being knocked down and get up. what gave you the strength to do that? >> reverend, god blessed me, number one. with early detection. so when i found out i was hiv positive, i found out at the right time. so that the medicine could work for me.

then my wife who is my partner in crime and a beautiful, beautiful woman, decided to stay with me. >> you don't commit crimes. >> no. so she could have left. and i told her that. but she decided to stay with me. the first thing they said, we going to pray about this. and sure enough, god just blessed, not only her to be healthy but our son, ej, to be healthy as well. once i found out they were going to be okay, it gave me the strength to carry on and really live and do what i had to do. look, just because you get knocked down, don't mean you have to lay down there. you can get up and still continue your life on and this is what really happened to me. i was upset, i was sad because i was in the prime of my career. and i didn't want to give up basketball. so when i retired, i'm laying on the couch one day. and my wife comes in and said,

get out. so i'm looking around like one of the kids are in back of me or something. they said, get out. and when you come back, be the man that i married. and because what happened is i was feeling so sorry for myself. she said, ear vin, you had dreams to be a businessman. okay, let's start living your dream out. let's start building some strategy so that you have become a businessman. that got me moving, got me going. so i owe a lot of this to cookie. and to god. because both pressed me. >> now you built this business. most athletes and entertainers, many come across this stage be end up broke. what gave you the drive and business -- i mean, everywhere i look, you're in business. you're in all kind of businesses. and now, when my mother and father were coming up, it was big jackie robinson play for the

dodgers. you are part owner of the dodgers. this is amazing to see where we've gone in 50 years. >> thank you. you know, i always wanted to be a businessman and always wanted it affect change in our community. and so, i said, you know what, when i made this money, i didn't want it to be like everybody else blowing their money on material things. i wanted to go into the community and make sure that i make a difference. and so, when i built that theater right down the block here, it was for our people that they could go have a good time, watch a first-run movie, take their family and still be able to make sure that they understand that i am a part of this building, in terms of me. so if i can do it, you can do it, too. so you got to be an example to the young people. we are all about feeling, touching and seeing.

we are tired of everybody talking. you go into the bar barbershop and hair salon, everybody run their mouth about what they want to do, how they want it do it, but nothing gets done. i'm not one of those people. i'm a guy of action. i want to understand that we can do this. so when i built these businesses, it was more for not just myself, i wanted to open the door for a lot of african-americans so they can follow me down the same path. then the athletes and entertainers, they got to understand, you know, somebody helped me get here. i didn't get here by myself. somebody tell me, boy, you can't good down that row or, if you do something wrong, i'm going to call your parent. so the village raised me. so i got to go back now and give back because somebody helped me. then these athletes and entertainers, they got to understand that look, you're not going to do this forever. so you got to take care of your money and then hopefully you'll go back and invest it in the

same community that helped you to get to where you are. >> let me say, you also give a lot of bragging rights. have you two daughters, dominique and ashley, they are here somewhere. i took them out some night to magic johnson theater. magic on starbucks out in california. i took them somewhere else. you owned something. i said, i know, i grab my telephone and he dialed you but i got voice mail. magic, we going to bring you back in a minute. don't go into where. thank you so much. magic johnson. >> condoleezza rice on her own amazing journey. >> my parents couldn't take me to have a hamburger at the woolworth's lunch counter but had me convinced i could be president of the united states if i wanted to. >> that's coming up.

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♪ ♪ welcome back to "advancing

the dream" live from the apollo. here's your host, the reverend al sharpton. >> welcome back, welcome back. our next guest went from living in his car to living the american dream. hollywood titan, tyler perry. tyler perry is one of hollywood's leading men. and i guess you can say, women. >> i'm madea. >> hallelujah. >> yes, perry's portrayalal of madea, outspoken and loveable senior citizen, exploded on to the national scene in "diary of a mad black woman ". the movie was a hit. and opened new doors to americans in show business. from there, tyler blazed the trail for black entertainers, becoming the first african-american to launch his own major tv and film studio.

and an exclusive production partnership with oprah winfrey. but really his own miracle story of hope and determination that's the stuff of hollywood. he went from being homeless to being the highest paid man in entertainment. but he never forgets where he came from. >> i just really believe that to whom much is given much is required so we all have to have a legal of responsibility for what we did for ourselves and what we do for others. >> ladies and gentlemen, please help me welcome, tyler perry. >> good to see you. >> good to see you. >> awesome. >> if anybody really --

>> wait, let me rub the log. >> now for people that don't know -- >> yeah. >> -- and obviously, do you, buzz you work theaters and everything. and you know all of these things. this is where when people come on amateur night, they rub this for good luck and he rubbed this before we started the interview. >> yes. because i need some good luck sitting next to you talking to me right now. >> we have a small one downtown, that phil griffin gives chris matthews and i, we do it every night. >> tyler, you really represent the dream. but you also represent one that didn't forget how to come back and help others dream. you started in louisiana. >> yes. >> and you had a, like many of us, a difficult childhood. issues with your father. all of us -- well, some of us have. i have. and yet somehow you was able to

discipline yourself and insulate yourself. tell us how you dealt with this childhood. maybe certain people watching think you have to have a certain pedigree and certain background to do something. and you went past all of them. dealing with not only the race but class inside of our race and you still busted through. >> well, i appreciate that, reverend. i tell you, for me, you talk about where you come from. i was talking to my sister earlier before i came, i told her i was going to do this "advancing the dream." we were talking about my grandfather. he was very old at the time, laying in the bed. i would visit my grandmother in rural louisiana. he was either born right at the emancipation proclamation or born a slave. we don't know because of birth records. but knowing the history of where he's come from, understanding that both my parents grew up in rural louisiana, in the center

of jim crow, and having the pathology of what that is and having that passed on, i understood the history of it. i remember watching "mississippi burning" with my mother. i was about 16 or 17 years old. she jumped up from the soviets why screaming and yelling and leaving the room an i doesn't understand it. so i understand that history and when you understand that history, i think that's the problem with a lot of our young people. we are so busy trying to get away from where we come from that we don't know who we are. so it is so -- it is so important to understand where we come if. as i think about her and the struggles and everything that i've been through, none of it compares to what our ancestors endured for us to just be able to sit at the table. i live in a house in georgia -- i will tell you the story really quick. i was sued a few years ago by this gentleman who i bought this

property in georgia, tore down the house, and i find out i'm being sued. i show up to court and it is a guy 90 years old. he was suing me for tearing down the house. he lost the house in a malpractice lawsuit. so i owned the property free and clear. the judge told him that. but as i did history on him, i found out that he argued the merits of segregation all the way up to the supreme court against thurgood marshall. >> the man that sued you? >> the man that sued me. the man that owned the property that i now own. i'm sitting there having the conversation and oprah is there, congressman lewis is there. and he has tears in his eyes. he said, i'm one of the people that sat in at the count irat one of his hotels that he did not want to integrate. so here we are, standing on the land that he used to own, the significance of that every morning, i get chills thinking about it, when i wake up, open the curtains and look out at the

property, i realize the shift of what god has done for so many of us. for so many of us. >> you had to endure child abuse. you then tried to go into plays, you got the idea, watching oprah, i think, of starting to write down things. >> yeah. >> >> tell us how the seed was planted. i think oprah doesn't get a lot of credit for inspiring things she has done. >> first of all, i saw this woman on television everyday. who looked like me. looked like my aunt or my cousins, for the first time. she said it was ka art thattic to write things down. i had to go look up the word co toic to know what it meant.

you laugh but i did. i use those characters over and over again in my stories. couldn't afford to go to theaters. so i would wait until intermission when a show would be in town. sneak in when the smokers would come out at intermission, i would go back in and see the show. >> we do that at the apollo. >> that's why so many people think my movies are incomplete. i only saw the second acts of most shows. but having all of that, having inspiration from her, then having the opportunity and wherewithal to just go for it and just believe that it's going to be okay. for me, it's my faith. i'm so grateful to my mother for it. she didn't have millions of dollars or a legacy to leave. she took me to church. she taught me about god. she taught me about faith and that sustained me, through even the thing that sustained me through her death. >> now you feel that it is that wab that kept you from going down the bad road?

because you could have easily just surrendered to the temptations of just, i'm not going to be anything. i'm going through these difficulties and challenges. what made you choose to be something rather than be nothing? >> if you look at hurricane katrina, i think it blew the roof off, literally, of the poverty in new orleans. i grew up with that kind of life. it was my mother and the madeas on the block and corner who kept all the kids straight. and what i do is in such celebration, i promise you. buzz they were so strong and so powerful and they didn't have -- my mother didn't have to worry about what i was doing in the afternoon. she didn't have to keep an eye on me everyday because the lady across the street would tell her what was going on as soon as she got home. so it was the strength of all of those people. the prayers of my mother and grandmother and great grandmother and great

grandfather. it was the prayers of those people that brought me to this place. so i have a responsibility, rev, i think we all do, have a responsibility when you have been given this and you have stood on people's shoulders to be at a higher level. you have the responsibility to reach back and a responsibility to share what you learned. i would be a fool to walk around with my pant hanging around ankles -- i'm not judging anybody. i'm not judging anybody. but i understand what is behind me. and i can't look that amount of pain. i can't look at that amount of service. i can't look at the debt they paid and turn around and slap them in the face talking about yb yo, yo, yo, i'm a thug, let's talk about what is happening. conjugate a verb. you want to impress me? say that. i say that to say, not in judgment, i say that to say, if we knew where we've come from and what we've endured, i think it would change us all a great deal.

let me just asking with you this quickly, when you went to hollywood, i mean, already, superstar with us, but you said when you first went out there, they didn't even know who you were. >> yeah, who are you in what do you do? listen, i didn't go in -- i may have came with one but they didn't know i had one standing with me. i was a huge superstar among black people. could not walk down the street. i could send an e-mail and sell out from the beacon to this place, to the kodak in l.a. and got to hollywood. and they said, who are you? what have you done? because it is such a -- such a small world. listen, it is a -- a great machine. but it is a small machine. which is a huge machine. with so much power. so i didn't -- i wasn't offended by it when i heard it. i said, okay, i'll just do this dvd the way i've done everything else and it'll be okay. then i got a a call from mike at lions gate and he said, let's have a conversation about it.

and then i had such an attitude, i said, we'll have this and that and i won't do this or that and then at the end of the conversation, i heard, okay. and so i said, okay, we'll do that then. >> we'll bring you back -- >> that's it? up that quick? >> no, you're not finished. i'll bring you back. and i have movie ideas for you. tamron hall, melissa, you know, we got a thing. we can do this. tyler perry, we'll be right back. thank you. coming up, stefy wu stefy wonder, back on stage at the apollo. and corey booker, how he is advancing the dream. and condoleezza rice, on the day that may have changed her life. >> someone called the church to say a bomb went off at 16th street. we felt the explosion. >> this is an msnbc special. "advancing the dream" live from the apollo. [ male announcer ] at hebrew national,

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here on this stage in a legendary performance in 1968. you know this building is not only historic, it. the memory i have of my father, before he left, was he used to bring us to the apollo. we used to sit right about there where the lady with the green dress. we would have is it stand in long lines. and would he bring me to see james brown. little did i know that i would grow into my teens working in the civil rights, and i would meet a young man named teddy brown who was killed in a car accident. his father came to new york to do a memorial for him. his name was james brown. james brown adopted me after my father left me. i spent many nights standing in the wings watching him do magic on the stage. i know the night that my physical father somewhere watching the show and my

godfather smiling, i brought you to the apollo. ♪ ♪ with centurylink as your trusted it partner, you'll experience reliable uptime for the network and services you depend on. multi-layered security solutions keep your information safe, and secure. and responsive dedicated support meets your needs, and eases your mind. centurylink. your link to what's next.

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i just served my mother-in-law your chicken noodle soup but she loved it so much... i told her it was homemade. everyone tells a little white lie now and then. but now she wants my recipe [ clears his throat ] [ softly ] she's right behind me isn't she? [ male announcer ] progresso. you gotta taste this soup. the dream and those that fought for the dream, fought for everybody, whether we agree or disagree politically, we all were recipients of the dream and must move it forward. recently i went and talked with condoleezza rice, former secretary of state. we don't agree on much. but we found out we had a lot in common. we were born about a m apart, and we talked about things that she and i certainly never talked before, and i never heard of say a lot of this before. condoleezza rice and i. the world knows you as condoleezza rice, former secretary of state.

first black woman to be in national security adviceor. but you were born and raised in alabama. in birmingham. and you grew up in a segregated south. tell us about how it was growing up in birmingham. >> well growing up in birmingham, clearly the most segregated big city in america, and a place in 1962 and 1963 would be called bombing-ham because it was so violent. >> right. >> you will remember that. it was like being in a parallel world. you were always aware that you couldn't go to a movie theater. couldn't go to a restaurant. i said sometimes very often that my parents couldn't take me to have a hamburger at the woolworth's lunch counter, but had me absolutely convinced i could be president of the united states if i wanted to be. >> i was fascinated i read the story about how your father became a republican. in all of the politics i thought i knew, i never knew that story. >> in 1952 he went down to

register to vote in birmingham. young minister, high school athletic director. and they said to him, he went down with my mother, who he was dating. they weren't yet married. and my mom, beautiful woman, and the poll tester, you will remember poll testers, said to her, so what do you teach. she said american history. actually she taught english. he said you probably know who the first president of the united states was. she said george washington. he said, you pass. then my father, big tall dark-skinned man, rather imposing. the poll tester said to him, pointing to a jar about this high, how many beans are in this jar. now when my dad couldn't answer, of course, he failed the poll test. so he was very disrespondent about this. went around his church. this elder of his, a man who named frank hunter said, reverend, don't you worry about it. i will tell you how you register to vote. we will go back down there.

there is a clerk down there and she is actually a republican. and if you will just say you're a republican, she'll register you because she want to get as many republicans as she can. so he went down, said he was republican. she registered him. he stayed true to his word and he was a republican the rest of his life. >> a lot of people don't know, that generation, our parent were all -- my mother and father were republicans. i think they changed to democrat with kennedy -- and that was the norm. >> it was the norm. because democratic party in the south -- >> were the dixie cras. >> were the dixie crats. >> you actually knew some of the four girls bombed at 16th street -- >> i knew denise very well. denise's family was in our neighborhood. her dad was the photographer at everybody's birthday party and everybody's wedding. and i will never forget that

awful day in september when 16th straight baptist church was bombed. somebody called the church to say this a bomb had gone off at 16th street. we felt the explosion. >> oh really? at your church? >> my dad's church was only about two miles from 16th street baptist church. it was like the ground shook. and i remember pretty soon we were starting to hear that these little girls had been killed and then the names started to come out. and of course, everybody knew one of those little girls. and for kids in birmingham, my age, i was eight, it was, how could these people hate us so much. what is this? >> your dad actually add watchman group on the block. >> my father and his friends formed a brigade to keep the community safe. they had their shifts with their weapons out there to keep night

riders out of the community. i don't think they ever actually shot at everybody. but they shot their guns in the air once in a while. but that was how they protected us. but the police couldn't protect you. coming home one day from my grandparents' house, a bomb -- we felt a bomb go off. we heard an explosion. and my father put us back in the car and started to drive away. and my mother said, where are you going? he said, i'm going to the police. and she said, they probably set the bomb. what do you mean you're going to the police? and we turned around and went back to my grandparents' house. >> now, one of the things that your parents pushed you and encouraged you and gave you a mentality. and one of the most touching things i've heard lately was when you were asked by president bush to serve in washington and you said you wanted to stay and take care of your father. >> that's right. >> and your father passed. and you always wondered, was that his message for to you go on to washington. >> my dad, who i just loved

dearly. he was not very well from february of 2000 until november, december. and you would note that was the period of the election. i was working for george w. bush, organizing his foreign policy. and my dad, i think kind of waited until bush v gore was decided. and knew in his own rather diminished, rather diminished way, that i was going to washington. but i said to president bush when he called me to say, i want you to come and be my national security adviser, i said, i can't do it. i can't leave any father in this state. he's all i have and i'm all he has. and he said, we'll work it out. you can come back every week or he was trying to work it out. a couple days later, my father died. and i thought to myself, daddy, you didn't do that so i could go

to washington, did you? but it would have been just like him. >> once you got out of alabama, were there people you look up to that mentored you or that you used as role models? >> all along wait there were people who advocated for me. this idea that you get there on your own, none of us got there on our own. somebody was there for us. and so, i say, to young people, look for those people and i say to those of us who are old enough to have made it, look back and find somebody to help. the only other thing i'll say is, we love it when our role models look like us. but if i had been waiting for a black female soviet specialist role model, i would still be waiting. >> against the odds of thor is

ga er is gate ed /* /- segregated south, what do you say to young people who will watch this? >> the first thing is you may not be able to control your circumstances but you can control your response to your circumstances. dent say barriers. just don't see them. but in order not to see barriers, you have got to be well-educated. not everybody is as fortunate as i was to have parents who understood the system and cared. and so somebody's god to advocate for every child out there. i don't care if it's a minister or teacher or somebody at boys and girls club, we have a responsibility. the kids have a responsibility to work hard and not see barriers. but we have a responsibility to advocate for those children. what's important to me is that when i am delivered home by my lord, that there are people who remember me for what i was able to do, to bring somebody else along. people's lives, i touched. one of the great things about being a professor is that you have generations of students who come back and say, you know, you may not know what an impact you

had on my life. it is all about the people that you touch. nothing else. in the final analysis will matter very much. >> thank you, dr. rice. >> thank you. >> that was my interview with former secretary of state, condoleezza rice. i would like to thank her for taking time and being open and talking about race. about three and half years ago, i talked -- i was having a cup of coffee with phil griffin. we started talking about doing something on television, to show how far we've come as a country, with race and then what lays ahead. and i said, i would like to do something up town and tape something with prominent people. he said, no, live. i said, live? he said, big people, think big, think huge. so, he said, msnbc is the place you've got to do it.

this is way before "politicsnation." so i'm not sure if tonight was my idea or phil's idea, but i am sure that we are here, we're thinking big. msnbc is showing the world where we've come in 50 years and where we're on our way. we'll be right back. my asthma's under control. i don't miss out... you sat out most of our game yesterday! asthma doesn't affect my job... you were out sick last week. my asthma doesn't bother my family... you coughed all through our date night! i hardly use my rescue inhaler at all. what did you say? how about - every day? coping with asthma isn't controlling it. test your level of control at asthma.com, then talk to your doctor. there may be more you could do for your asthma.

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♪ same old song ♪ but with a different meaning >> welcome back, welcome back. it's about time for all the way forward must be broad and inclusive. joining me now are two leaders who broke down the barriers in the business world. sally crawcheck who went from a junior banker to a wall street

powerhouse. and lisa price, who started out as an assistant on the cosby show and is now the owner of her own beauty and cosmetic company with sales topping $50 million. thank you both for joining me. now, we, as we talk about the dream moving forward, have to also deal with the fact that we've had gender inequality in this country. and you've broken barriers and you've had to deal with the gender inequality and gender bias, and even today women still only make 77 cents for every dollar men make. how did you break through, lisa, and get from where you were doing the assistant's work on the cosby show into. >> a lot comes from being from a

very strong family and being told from a very early age that nothing is impossible, being open and listening and pursuing your dreams and really learning not to listen to no. you know, no sometimes is just a temporary setback and you have to go back and learn something different to turn the no into a yes. >> so you now -- salliy, you came up business world, cover of "fortune" magazine, you were called one of the eight most prominent power brokers on wall street, and then what happened? tell your story and how you -- >> i got fired. >> we know about that now. >> i shared it with everyone. yeah, you know, look, what i would say is that women you talked about have been moving sideways for a period of time. unfortunately on wall street, we've been moving backwards. despite the fact that gender diversity has been shown to

reduce risk, increase returns, increase client focus, increase long-term focus, increase innovation, all which i think wall street could use, what we've seen is we've actually seen a step back, which is not unusual in a downturn that people sort of circle the wagons, not because they're bad people, but because we're under a lot of stress, we like being with people like ourselves. >> so what you saw was a retreat in terms of the forward movement on gender equality? >> 100%. >> and where do you see it now and what do you think needs to be done? >> well, you know, i'd love to say that, you know, here we go. what i am happy to say is a discussion we're having here about advancing the dream and the discussion we're having about gender diversity, sheryl sandberg, hillary clinton, condoleezza rice, ann marie slaughter, that we are having a moment here. i've never seen a national conversation like what we're having to really make people aware of these issues. so i have hope. but none of it happens without

hard work -- >> right. >> meritocracy, believing you can do it. it's got to be personal, then the institutions need to -- the leaders of the institutions need to be embracing of it. >> lisa, you built from the bottom up. it wasn't wall street for you, it wasn't the skyscrapers. how did you get men and women in your community to believe in your dream? >> well, i was in my kitchen cooking and making beauty products in my kitchen, selling in craft fairs and flea markets in my neighborhood, hiring young people from my neighborhood to come and work with me in my house. so it's something that has always been a part of the community and a part of my family. i'm still in brooklyn, still in the same house where i started cooking my products. and that attachment is always going to be there. and it's really about showing someone else. i don't have it all figured out. i'm a constant work in progress. i'm constantly learning, i'm constantly developing because i wasn't born a beauty executive. i used to work in television

production. that has nothing to do with beauty. and except for long hours. but you let other people know you have a dream, you can pursue it. you have to read, you have to research, you have to stay on the top of your game. people will ask what obstacles did you face as an af a can american or a woman. the biggest obstacles i faced was right here. the doubts, should i, could i. it's a lot of faith, a lot of prayer and other people praying for you when you can't find the words themselves. >> sally, we'll bring you all back, lisa, a lot nor talk about. right now we'll take a break. more coming up. in our next hour, stevie wonder, cory booker and more. we'll be back live in a moment.

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