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CNN Live Today

Interview With Roland Martin

Aired August 28, 2003 - 10:12   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: In the meantime, we want to continue our discussion right now of an event 40 years ago and perhaps look at where we stand today because of it.
Our next guest has said that history has forgotten half of Dr. King's speech that day, the part that was a call for economic parity. And he says today's statistics show not only is the message being overlooked, but the mission has largely been abandoned.

Roland Martin is a nationally syndicated columnist and the author of "Speak Brother: A Black Man's View of America."

He also is the host of America's Black America Web.

We sure do appreciate you coming back in this morning and talking to us.

Good to see you again, Roland.

ROLAND MARTIN, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: Glad to be here, Leon.

HARRIS: Let's talk about, first of all, your thoughts today on this day as we look back 40 years ago. What, how would you assess where we are today versus where we were 40 years ago?

MARTIN: Well, let me first say that this was called the March On Washington for Jobs and Freedom. All too often, this day has been defined based upon a speech and really not even an entire speech, but really a quarter of a speech. There has been significant improvement of, with African-Americans in this country. The poverty rate for black Americans in 1963 was 54 percent. Today it is 22 percent. Yet the problem we still face is 22 percent is still relative -- extremely high.

When it comes to the medium income in households for African- Americans compared to whites, in '63 it was 61 percent of what whites made. Today it is 64 percent. So basically in 30, in 40 years, we have seen an increase of three percent. That is a critical issue. It is about economic parity. King understood that.

HARRIS: You know, is this a situation where you see it as, what, the glass being half full, half empty or what? Because if you look at the different stories that we see in the media and you see images of African-Americans reflected in the media, you don't necessarily get immediately a sense that things are that bad. MARTIN: Well, you don't get that sense because all too often we like to ignore the realities. And unfortunately in America, that is what we do. We don't take into account our history. We have to recognize, Leon, that for 326 years African-Americans were essentially in apartheid in America. If you use the Voting Rights Act of '65 as a benchmark, frankly, we have only been free, free of the shackles of slavery and Jim Crow, for 38 years. So 326 years of apartheid, 38 years of freedom, surely you're going to have some issues as a result of that.

We have seen significant, again, achievements with the issue of affirmative action, with the growing black middle class. But, again, we have to recognize that King talked about you -- he recognized you could not have social freedom without economic freedom.

HARRIS: Let me ask you this, then. If Martin Luther King, Jr. were alive today, what kind of assessment do you think he would be giving the country? And not just the country, Roland. How about, what kind of assessment would he give black America and what kind would he give white America? Wouldn't he give them two separate ones?

MARTIN: Well, it's very difficult for me to assess what he would say. I do not believe that Martin Luther King, though, would be very pleased with our situation right now because, again, when he died, when he was assassinated in '68, he was organizing another march on Washington that dealt with the issue of poverty. So he was still dealing with that issue of poverty, dealing with the imbalance when it comes to economics in this country.

So, frankly, he would be speaking against that, but he would also be holding African-Americans accountable for those issues for what they have to do in terms of dealing with society, whether it comes to single family households, as it relates to education and those kinds of issues.

This is a dual issue. This is not a matter of saying well, white America or America, what are you going to do for African-Americans? It's a matter of what are we going to do to deal with the economic imbalance in this country, to deal with the social imbalance in this country. And I am not laying blame at Democrats or Republicans, conservatives or even liberals. It's an American problem that we must face and be honest about.

HARRIS: You know what strikes me, though, is that today we seem to be such a totally different country and black Americans seem to be a totally different part of this country. It's a much more fractious group. We don't see -- it's not necessarily a monolithic group, as it used to be. Years ago, perhaps African-Americans looked for a particular leader to guide them through things. It's a group now that has myriad different interests, myriad different abilities, myriad different destinies.

How do you see, is it possible, even, that there could be any sort of a cause that would galvanize people to get back on the same page, we as, you know, heard this speech read from? MARTIN: Well, first of all, you, it's very difficult to compare '63 with 2003 because yes, you had Jim Crow that was staring everyone who was black in the face. So that was the galvanizing issue.

You do have certain critical issues going on and we also must not forget, you have voter disenfranchisement. Again, you do have the issue of economic parity as it relates to what African-Americans are making compared to the rest of the country. You do have critical issues there.

But, again, you are not going to have that one issue that everyone can rally around. We also forget, Leon, that you had those same varied voices in the civil rights movement, yet everyone focused on the one issue, OK? We're talking about keying in -- and the March On Washington, with Bayard Rustin, A. Philip Randolph, Whitney Young and Roy Wilkins and John Lewis were also organizers of that very same march. So you had those different views then. You've got the different views now. What we have to do is establish what is the black agenda, what are those critical issues that we're facing and then begin to tackle them in a systematic way.

HARRIS: Of course, we don't have enough time to talk about all of that. I wish we did. We'll have to do that some other time.

Roland Martin, always good to see you.

Glad to have you with us today.

MARTIN: Thank you very much, Leon.

HARRIS: Take care.

We'll talk with you down the road.

Now, for a closer look at the 40 year anniversary of the March On Washington, including an interactive feature on the missions and the movers, just visit our Web site. The address there is cnn.com, the AOL keyword, of course, is CNN.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired August 28, 2003 - 10:12   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: In the meantime, we want to continue our discussion right now of an event 40 years ago and perhaps look at where we stand today because of it.
Our next guest has said that history has forgotten half of Dr. King's speech that day, the part that was a call for economic parity. And he says today's statistics show not only is the message being overlooked, but the mission has largely been abandoned.

Roland Martin is a nationally syndicated columnist and the author of "Speak Brother: A Black Man's View of America."

He also is the host of America's Black America Web.

We sure do appreciate you coming back in this morning and talking to us.

Good to see you again, Roland.

ROLAND MARTIN, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: Glad to be here, Leon.

HARRIS: Let's talk about, first of all, your thoughts today on this day as we look back 40 years ago. What, how would you assess where we are today versus where we were 40 years ago?

MARTIN: Well, let me first say that this was called the March On Washington for Jobs and Freedom. All too often, this day has been defined based upon a speech and really not even an entire speech, but really a quarter of a speech. There has been significant improvement of, with African-Americans in this country. The poverty rate for black Americans in 1963 was 54 percent. Today it is 22 percent. Yet the problem we still face is 22 percent is still relative -- extremely high.

When it comes to the medium income in households for African- Americans compared to whites, in '63 it was 61 percent of what whites made. Today it is 64 percent. So basically in 30, in 40 years, we have seen an increase of three percent. That is a critical issue. It is about economic parity. King understood that.

HARRIS: You know, is this a situation where you see it as, what, the glass being half full, half empty or what? Because if you look at the different stories that we see in the media and you see images of African-Americans reflected in the media, you don't necessarily get immediately a sense that things are that bad. MARTIN: Well, you don't get that sense because all too often we like to ignore the realities. And unfortunately in America, that is what we do. We don't take into account our history. We have to recognize, Leon, that for 326 years African-Americans were essentially in apartheid in America. If you use the Voting Rights Act of '65 as a benchmark, frankly, we have only been free, free of the shackles of slavery and Jim Crow, for 38 years. So 326 years of apartheid, 38 years of freedom, surely you're going to have some issues as a result of that.

We have seen significant, again, achievements with the issue of affirmative action, with the growing black middle class. But, again, we have to recognize that King talked about you -- he recognized you could not have social freedom without economic freedom.

HARRIS: Let me ask you this, then. If Martin Luther King, Jr. were alive today, what kind of assessment do you think he would be giving the country? And not just the country, Roland. How about, what kind of assessment would he give black America and what kind would he give white America? Wouldn't he give them two separate ones?

MARTIN: Well, it's very difficult for me to assess what he would say. I do not believe that Martin Luther King, though, would be very pleased with our situation right now because, again, when he died, when he was assassinated in '68, he was organizing another march on Washington that dealt with the issue of poverty. So he was still dealing with that issue of poverty, dealing with the imbalance when it comes to economics in this country.

So, frankly, he would be speaking against that, but he would also be holding African-Americans accountable for those issues for what they have to do in terms of dealing with society, whether it comes to single family households, as it relates to education and those kinds of issues.

This is a dual issue. This is not a matter of saying well, white America or America, what are you going to do for African-Americans? It's a matter of what are we going to do to deal with the economic imbalance in this country, to deal with the social imbalance in this country. And I am not laying blame at Democrats or Republicans, conservatives or even liberals. It's an American problem that we must face and be honest about.

HARRIS: You know what strikes me, though, is that today we seem to be such a totally different country and black Americans seem to be a totally different part of this country. It's a much more fractious group. We don't see -- it's not necessarily a monolithic group, as it used to be. Years ago, perhaps African-Americans looked for a particular leader to guide them through things. It's a group now that has myriad different interests, myriad different abilities, myriad different destinies.

How do you see, is it possible, even, that there could be any sort of a cause that would galvanize people to get back on the same page, we as, you know, heard this speech read from? MARTIN: Well, first of all, you, it's very difficult to compare '63 with 2003 because yes, you had Jim Crow that was staring everyone who was black in the face. So that was the galvanizing issue.

You do have certain critical issues going on and we also must not forget, you have voter disenfranchisement. Again, you do have the issue of economic parity as it relates to what African-Americans are making compared to the rest of the country. You do have critical issues there.

But, again, you are not going to have that one issue that everyone can rally around. We also forget, Leon, that you had those same varied voices in the civil rights movement, yet everyone focused on the one issue, OK? We're talking about keying in -- and the March On Washington, with Bayard Rustin, A. Philip Randolph, Whitney Young and Roy Wilkins and John Lewis were also organizers of that very same march. So you had those different views then. You've got the different views now. What we have to do is establish what is the black agenda, what are those critical issues that we're facing and then begin to tackle them in a systematic way.

HARRIS: Of course, we don't have enough time to talk about all of that. I wish we did. We'll have to do that some other time.

Roland Martin, always good to see you.

Glad to have you with us today.

MARTIN: Thank you very much, Leon.

HARRIS: Take care.

We'll talk with you down the road.

Now, for a closer look at the 40 year anniversary of the March On Washington, including an interactive feature on the missions and the movers, just visit our Web site. The address there is cnn.com, the AOL keyword, of course, is CNN.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com