♪ this week on "our world with black enterprise" -- with recent headlines highlighting the injustices in our community, do we still have the fire to ignite a difference? >> we want justice! rightfully so when a police officer calls, we want justice when a black man falls. >> that's going on in "our world" up next. [ stevie wonder's "i just called to say i love you" plays ] ♪ ♪ i just called ♪ to say i love you

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recent headlines reveal an array of injustices impacting our community. questions about the fairness of the economy and the criminal justice system has sparked a rise of social media driven abili activism. and the killing of trayvon martin caused such an uproar that even president obama had to comment. >> my main message is to the parents of trayvon martin.

you know, if i had a son he'd look like trayvon. >> occupy wall street, voter i.d. requirements and stand your ground laws which more than half of the united states still has on the books. to some, these are reasons to resurrect the movement of protest against social injustices. the civil rights movement of the 1960s is considered one of the greatest movements in american history. but many of the issues that dr. king marched for are the same issues plaguing us today. has anything really changed? have african-americans become too complacent? is it time to resurrect the movement? >> we will not rest, we will not stop. we will not forget. >> we brought together a panel of leaders. the president and ceo of the national urban league. dr. jamal bryant, pastor of the empowerment temple in baltimore, and dr. eric dyson, sociology

professor. we asked the question -- are we in the midst of a moment or a movement? >> i hope it's a movement, i hope it will ignite a greater degree, whether it's voter i.d., whether it's racial profiling and sometimes unfair police tactics. all the way across the board. we are up against a right wing resurgence in this nation. we have got to recognize that there's an element there that wants to repeal the 20th century, turn the nation back to the 1890s and i think we have a duty and a responsibility to educate and inspire and motivate people to push back and resist this yesterday vision of america and i think we have to replace it with a future vision. >> do we have the strength, dr. dyson, though to turn into a full fledged movement? we have seen troy davis, tooky williams, we have seen black people executed by the state without a full-fledged response.

is this a different time? >> well, i think it is the potential to be as the mayor just indicated. the moment is luminous, but the movement has to be extended. it's based z on a couple of things. it's not just an isolated and extraordinary event. it's extraordinary in the sense that it was brought to our attention by means of trayvon martin, but there are so many other trayvon martins out there. >> you're part of the greater project. resurrecting the movement and tell us what you're doing there. >> we are understanding the genius of the civil rights movement was not just marching and sitting at lunch counters. we want the laws to be repealed, we want a greater sense of justice in our community and the second step of voter registration, we have to educate why we're going to the polls in november because stand your ground has been on the books for seven years unaddressed, unprotested and unchallenged. so now we are at a critical moment. >> the third thing about education i get that.

but first two points are not just us, but how the government responds to us. how do we create the kind of context where the government will be responsive to our needs? >> they have not been -- there has not been a time where black people have not asked for something collectively where they have not been an immediate response to. we wouldn't have had the voting rights act, the civil rights act, trayvon martin case would have never seen the light of day. so many people are saying protesting is old and it's from the previous generation. they haven't protested, they haven't marched. pause we lifted up our -- because we lifted up our voices collectively is why it's become an international issue. >> i think we need more voices. i think we have too many people stand on the side in@(he comfort of their own existence. in the comfort of their own consumption and in the comfort of their own lifestyle and not recognize at this point there's a deliberate effort to try to turn the hands of time backwards and it's our time to say no and articulate a different vision.

>> yes. >> trayvon martin highlighted a set of injustices, but it's one example of injustices that take place across the nation. >> hold on, i have to take a break. we'll talk about what some of the injustices are and what we can do to engage in the new type of leadership in the 21st century. stay right there. more "our world with black enterprise." >> the thing that you said before it was about legislation. you can march and march and unless you change the law that govern the existence of black people ain't much happening. [ benny ] alright, so me and mark were in the rav4, it was a rough day. got into a scuffle with the poodle across the street. it's a dog thing. anyway, mark decided we should flip the script and go on a road trip. so we picked up nina and headed north. as always the rav handled the journey like a dream.

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welcome back to "our world with black enterprise." we're talking about how to resurrect a movement. jamal, i want to talk to you about what this new leadership model looks like. you have talked about needing a new model for leadership for the 21st century. >> history going to record for the 21st century that the black churches is finding the disintegration of denominations. they're not looking to the civil rights organization, so you're finding our generation are joining organizations online and so as a consequence, we had 2.5 million people sign a petition not led by the urban league or the naacp or nan or an organization most of us out of civil rights had no idea existed until this moment. >> yeah. >> when you think of the moment that you have a digital generation, when you've got facebook and you've got twitter and all the kind of other social

media it is incredibly important. the problem is on the one hand it's the idealization of what that leaderless generation was about. john louis and julian bond and working with all those great figures but the problem is when it comes time to dole out responsibility or to take the charge and to be able to focus, because what you mentioned before was it was about legislation. you can go to the march and you can march and march but unless you change the laws that govern the existence of black people ain't much happening. >> dr. dyson was able to echo this, when the moment of the civil rights movement began to wane, it was sncc that pushed it. what's critical is how do we mobilize and galvanize young people to be a part of it. and what has been the missing interjer of civil rights has been in the church. we have old people and babies. but they're -- >> and men. >> and men. 18 to 45 and men. if we add those into when you

study the model of what happened to leaderless models it's happened through young people and men on the forefront and what's critical for the church, the civil rights community and the academy. how do we get young people and men -- when i say men, they have been leading the charge. can we imagine -- this is an interesting point. like the church is it possible that we could re-imagen the movement in such a way that young people lead it and that women are often leading it. then we have a different set -- >> i think we have to, because the community has changed but the most important thing is inside so many churches, men have not been present in a very big way. but i do think that reverend bryant makes a very important point and that is the point of young people. dr. king, whitney young, john lewis, julian bond were all young men when they were at the forefront of the civil rights movement and i think we need young people not only doing

that, but keeping pressure, keeping people grounded and keeping us all focused on a future. we do need i think a new resurgence among young people. >> that creates different parts of accountability as well. living in the 24-hour news cycle, stuff that used to get swept under the rug isn't getting swept under the rug anymore. you have tmz, cnn, every other network that's focused on it, but you have to leverage that and join the young people. that's why i pay attention to the hip-hop generation, because they have the men involved. on the other hand, at least having an imagination to reaching out to the young people. what dr. king, when he talked about the war in vietnam, he said i'm not speaking out against the war in vietnam unless i speak about the violence against the young people. >> the critical point of how you

opened up is it a moment or a movement and the movement has to have direction. and so the critical point in this trayvon martin movement is where we are we going. and it's so critical and i cannot hear in any consistency talk about trayvon martin and we not have civil rights organizations as the church, as the academy, not raised robert champion from florida a&m. so if we're going to become up in arms about -- if we get up in arms about trayvon martin, we cannot excuse black on black crime. >> absolutely. >> it's got to be incumbent on us to be consistent across the board that we are not just holding candle light vigils and having a funeral at the church and there's got to be the same kind of consistency for the movement. >> because white supremacy's genius is to convince black people to hate each other. to convince us that we go around hurting and murdering each

other. >> the trayvon martin incident also revealed the existence of groups like the american legislative exchange council and those that work behind the doors and spread the model legislation. the shoot to kill or kill at will or stand your ground legislation, and the voter i.d. registration, mining certainly the initiatives of conservative state legislators across the nation. what we did was we found that there are these ghost writers who are writing this anti-legislation, they're doing wit great effect. so we're able to expose that, but we have got to keep the pressure on. >> i have to take a break. stay right there. we'll be right back with more "our world with black enterprise." the average black person in the hood is not saying my issue or priority is gay rights. it's about what it is that the urban league to say what's going to happen to the 100 places getting ready to close, me not getting a job? what is our agenda?

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welcome back to "our world with black enterprise." one of the things we have asked about prioritization. there's a million issues we could be talking at once, but at the same time, we have to make

some changes about what's the priority. trayvon martin is a priority. voter i.d. is a priority. what happens when we start talking about gay and lesbian rights, how about when we talk about the environment? >> i think that the test of this movement is understanding can we have the longevity of the justice system? will we remain consistent, hot an heavy so even outside of our parameters of the movement of apartheid in south africa was able to keep bringing the hammer. >> there was a clear enemy and it was apartheid. here in the united states it's more complicated, right? we have white supremacy but then we have the mass class inequality and homophobia and environment -- we have all this stuff. >> when you talk about lgbt and as dr. bryant said earlier, no sense dealing with trayvon martin without dealing with black on black crime. and homosexuality is an interesting contradiction.

>> you're going to shake up the movement when you have that conversation. >> either we're going to be open to all peoples, lesbians, gays, as well as poor people or women or we're faking it. >> gay and lesbian movement, bisexual, transgender -- >> right. right. >> and the women agenda movement are clear on their lobbying. they're clear on their goals. it is only when we come to the black movement that we feel like we need to be encompassing to everybody else's issue. >> you made eloquently the argument earlier as dr. king said justice is indy visible. ain't no such thing as compartmentalizing it. either we're about justice or we're not. we can't say they as if no black people are gay or no women are gay. >> it seems as if we're going to resurrect the movement we have to work through this. >> that's the whole thing that's the old preacher's attitude. >> what should our priorities

be? black people say in market surveys and polling, it's about jobs, economics and education. black people universally assign those as having the highest priority. i agree with both the mayor and dr. bryant. but gay and lesbian people go, we're interested in the universal concerns of black people as well. we get cut out. women get cut out, we're segregated. we talk about the necessity for us coming together and yet we're the very ones who split those people off. let's just be concerned about justice and oppression wherever it falls and whoever it affects. >> dr. dyson is representing a middle class intellectual conversation that does not speak to the bread and butter issue that african-american community. the average black person in the hood is not saying that my issue or my priority is gay rights. it's about what it is that the urban league to say what's going to happen to these 100 hbcus getting ready to close? my son can't walk down the

street, i can't get a job. what is our agenda? our immediate agenda is not the gay rights coalition. >> but the responsibility of leadership though. >> it's a craft of what's the priority? what is our priority? and our priority is education, economics and the family. and i think those need to be the issues. >> i will say this. you asked for moral -- this is where i sort of come down where dr. dyson is. we have to maintain the very essence that justice is indivisible. when we stand and we speak, we don't just stand and speak with a political argument or an economic argument that there's a moral argument to what we do. the strength of the civil rights movement in this nation has always been the sense of what we wanted and what we fought for was right. >> one thing i have been wanting to ask you all for the first time trayvon martin presents an opportunity for this generation to get mobilized politically. and i think their hopes got

bolstered when they saw their activism turn to something concrete. george zimmerman was arrested. what happens if he's found not guilty? how will the generation respond -- >> i don't want to entertain that prospect because i think predicting an outcome of a trial, i want to say to people, george zimmerman has been arrested, he's been charged. we must be vigilant. we must follow the proceedings all the way the end until he's convicted. >> i'm not asking a legal question so much how will this generation respond to first law? because we saw 20 years ago rodney king. >> let me speak to that. and the civil rights movement in its height. when they were going to do the protests of nonviolence and sit in at the wool worths lunch counters, but before you had to march you had to go through training in nashville. they had to take you through a process and i think tremendous accommodation needs to be given

from the old guard to the hip-hop generation. for we went 40 days of marching with no arrests, with no looting. a leadership motif, in inner cities without there ever being an outbreak. when people were upset and they were angry. so i have tremendous confidence in the maturity of this generation. >> we've got to teach our young people that the outcome must not be judged by whether or not this man is actually charged. i understand what mayor mario is saying, we don't want to predict it in the way that we reinforce the negative event. but should that event occur, we can't stop fighting. it's the movement, not a moment. >> the thing that we were discussing before is that black people, whether good or bad, respond to crisis. pell grants are under assault. the job training -- black unemployment is critical. people who are neophytes they get involved in the movement, oh, i'm upset. no, this is part of the long

haul. >> and that's my point. in the civil rights struggle there were always losses. we can remember '64, '65 the big victories but we don't think of the losses. we don't think of the long period of time, i mean, the effort to pass the civil rights act began many, many years -- a decade before it actually passed. so it takes a lot of time to push change. but here right here in 2012 i want to reaffirm, we have to occupy the vote, we have to vote. we can't go to sleep this year. the most important way to express our activism is go out and vote. >> we have to leave it there. i know you can go on and on. thank you so much for being here. >> thanks a lot. >> stay right there, we'll be back with more "our world with black enterprise." ♪ hey lolo, pull that trail leg through.

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that wraps it up for this edition of "our world with black enterprise." be sure to visit us on the web. also, you can find us on facebook or twitter. thanks for watching. see you next week.