 I'm Marcia Joyner and this is Navigating the Journey and today's journey is in Detroit of all places but that's the headline right Detroit and we're gonna visit with my cousin the Reverend Nicholas Hood III and so Nick how are you darling hello cousin Marcia yeah and we come from a huge family and names are used over and over and over again so he's Nicholas the third actually and Nick and I our mothers had the same name Elizabeth Hood so I think the last time I visited with Nick we told you about how far back we go to to the hood plantation but we won't go there today today we are talking about going from the plantation from pick and cotton picking residents and the where we're going with this of course Detroit is in the headlines all over the world about what the Republicans are trying to do to the boat in Detroit and Philadelphia other major cities so as a background let me say this and why those cities there are 20 according to the census according to the 2010 census there are 20 major cities that are more than 53% black so those are the cities that all voted for Biden and so now the GOP is trying to undo those cities so there first was Detroit and now they tried with Philadelphia but the court said no good and so we're going back to Nick and Detroit so tell us Nick about Detroit what it's like and this huge voter turnout and what is going on with joy well first of all let me say cousin Marsha thank you for inviting me to be back on your show and for your guests who may not know it I am a Reverend I pastor a church Plymouth United Church of Christ in Detroit it's in the same United Church of Christ that is all over Hawaii and the congregational church that is also you know prevalent in Hawaii and I used to be on the Detroit City Council so part of the reason why my cousin Marsha has invited me to be on this is because part of my life has been political and still is but Marsha you and I were talking about the significance of coming from a people who once picked cotton and you know not because they chose to pick cotton but they were forced to pick cotton and now we're picking presidents and that's an amazing transition you know over 400 years but you are absolutely right the 20 or so cities that are majority African-American really put Joseph Biden over the top he received more votes than any other person ever in the history of America running for president and even though the current president refuses to formally concede this election is over and the but you know in politics electoral politics it's not just important to amass your vote and get your vote out and and try to win an election but then the next challenge is sometimes greater than getting elected or electing a president which is getting rewards getting some kind of tribute or some benefit from having elected a president and I think that's the real challenge now for the African-American communities around the country it's not just the African-American populations in this election you had Florida which in a major way the Cuban vote and some of the other you know Hispanic Latino votes went for Trump and you know I think the Democratic Party has got to ask itself why you know why did that happen you know why did they resonate more with Trump than with Biden but back to those of us who voted for Biden I think the real challenge now is can can we elicit a urban strategy urban dollars urban programs from the Biden administration commensurate to the vote that put him into office well I was I'm a member of the Democratic Party but in Hawaii what else and I was an elector four times but anyway I'll tell you that story later and what I was upset with the Democratic Party is that Mark Mike at Espey did not get support from the Democratic Party and even though in Mississippi even though Harriston with all that money that he gathered he still didn't get all the votes and I don't know what the party did or and it did not do in South Carolina and in Mississippi it all of the across the south the numbers of blacks are a range rising and rising and rising and yet it seemed like those states just nobody paid attention to them I don't know what that meant I I really don't know but after I found out that we have to support Georgia I decided I'd leave the party alone until it's okay you know now my one one story 19 summer of 64 Bandy Lou Hamer from Mississippi Ruralville Mississippi and they created the not the black but Mississippi freedom delegation to go to the convention in Atlantic City and of course it was totally integrated male female black and white and the delegation that was there of course was all male and all white and so she they worked at this for the summer of 64 they really worked at this of gathering people raising funds to get to Atlantic City from Mississippi and we were stationed my husband was stationed in New Jersey and I had one little girl and I was 99 months pregnant so we decide being activists and in the military my husband was in military and Senator Douglas from Illinois was trying to close the commissaries and my husband made the whole 309 dollars a month and so all we had was the commissary and we didn't have anything well so we decided to go to the convention and pick it Senator Douglas so off I went and my husband said now if you have that baby down there don't even call me don't even call me he said I'd never seen anything like the way you love going after politicians sheer joy so I get to Atlantic City and here are all these people on the boardwalk black white pink green you name it all the place was packed and I did not know what was going on however because of my skin color the police moved me in with the crowd so I get to be part of this whole thing that's going on at the convention simply because of the way I look and so that was when Danny Lou Hamer did this great speech about not accepting two seats even though Martin Luther King said take it she said no no we all came this far and we're all tired and we all want to sit we will not take the two seats so anyway it was a national they televised her speech and LBJ got really upset and he tried to take it off the air and he did some other stuff but anyway it got through on the evening news so everybody got to watch and people from across the country sent in telegrams in those days give her our seats give her our seats with will glad anyway it changed from that day to this it changed the face of the Democratic Party now every delegation has to have male female black white pink green whatever you've got it has to be that way most people have no idea and that's why I was upset with the Democratic Party she's from Mississippi there's no way they should have not supported Mississippi better than they did now that you know my whole story let's get back to Detroit so I think make you gotta help me with this one I think the reason the GOP picked Detroit not all of Michigan just Detroit not the county the cities and around it just Detroit and Philadelphia because those are major black cities and Trump has been anti-black forever so that's my theory on that so help me tell me well it's I think Trump is just a sore sour loser he's lost the election fair and square so and you know he's just grasping at straws right now but the New York Times today on the front page had a article about these the people who supported Biden and that by and large all across the country and I presume this is all the way to Hawaii as well the counties that lost the most economically in the last four years are the ones that went the most for Biden and you know as was it Bill Clinton who said it's the economy stupid you know and that's not a white or black issue no that's not an Asian that's not an African issue it's you either have money or you don't and the reality is that under Donald Trump the rich got richer and the poor got poor and matter of fact the income divide has even expanded and so the last time I think I was talking with you we were talking about the impact of the black lives matter yes and how for the first time in my life which is really not true because during the freedom rides of the civil rights movement there were a lot of young white people whether together with young black people and helped to bring about the civil rights legislation of 1964-65 and I don't know if you know this but Andrew Young who he's the last of the living original group with Dr. King he was ordained by my father oh and we I don't know if I mentioned that the last time but no I mean he was so young but okay anyway let me just share with you something that Andrew Young said which is that if it were not for the white in particular young white freedom riders who took the buses down with John Lewis he said we would not have the civil rights legislation that we have right now because the Congress the Senate LBJ they all resonated with seeing young white people they look like they could be their own children and this past election was not just turned on the the backs of black people and the black vote was also the white vote and the thing I worry about in the years ahead these next four years is that the coalition that came together to defeat Donald Trump and I think it was a stronger coalition to defeat Trump than to elect Biden that coalition is a very fragile coalition we have people on the very very far left the progressives and you know the so-called progressives and liberal wing the left wing of the Democratic Party but you also have a whole lot of other people who they you know they just want to live good lives and and take advantage of this great country that is here for all of us and so I really pray for that fragile union I think the numbers are showing throughout the country that more and more people are dissatisfied with the Republican Party and it's it's not just the name of the Republican Party because that's not it I mean the Republican Party for years was the party for black people you know because that was the party of Abraham Lincoln that emancipated the slaves but nowadays you know it seems to be the party of the super rich and with our economic scale that we have in America today there are fewer super rich people than there are just people who are barely getting by what you mentioned in Hawaii uh there first of all let me say all of our electoral electoral votes went to Biden but we only have four anyway however 39 percent of the population voted for Trump 39 percent and since I'm an old-time Democrat I count numbers and I know the districts and all I shouldn't say all most of those 39 percent are in very wealthy neighborhoods so that 99 percent that voted for him yeah yeah well that's exactly what you're saying yeah right and that was the point of the New York Times article today you know when we think about the people who support Trump uh yes they're the white supremacists uh yes you know they're the people who are on the some of them are on the bottom rung a society many of them are young white males without higher education but frankly education and a lag there of doesn't know party what people really want to know is if I vote for you is it going to benefit my bottom line now one of the surprises in this election was that Hispanic males and and and black males to some extent uh voted more for Trump than for Biden and you know we saw that in some of the young hip-hop artists uh is it Lil Wayne I think iced tea and you had Kanye West who ran a uh divisive campaign to really I think undercut the black vote and you know they they picked up some young some black men but they were not just young black men there was some older yes black men who were voting according to what they thought would benefit their pension well I thought also about the entertainers that they make millions of dollars and Trump benefits them in the tax bracket correct yeah that's what that's what I thought about them this is about their taxes yeah so this election was not just about black people voting against Trump it was also people voting with their pocket books there were people voting with their heads uh and voting with their hearts uh there are a lot of white people in America who really have been touched by you know the killings of George Floyd and others at the hands of the police and and many of these people are asking hard questions and some of them are not just um you know people of who you think would normally vote Democratic of it is really touched America and I'm on a board in Detroit for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and one of the things that we've been talking about for the last six months is diversity equity and inclusion and it's amazing to me because the people who are pushing the most to make sure that the symphony uh which you know when you think of symphonic music and symphonic organizations that's predominantly white but the people who are really pushing for it are the super rich uh board members and when I talk about super rich these are people who may give at least a million dollars a year to keep the symphony afloat you know and and it's a small group of people you know who can do that but the point that I'm making is that I think the nation is really revisiting the whole question of going back to slavery and the aftermath of slavery what is the appropriate response for America and I think I was sharing with you when we were talking offline the other day when I learned that you had been raised in Baltimore and I was asking you questions about Frederick Douglass who lived for a long time in Baltimore one of the points that Frederick Douglass makes and you know he's the most photographed person black or white in the 1800s in America but one of the points he makes is that white people seem to be um seemed to like blacks more when they were enslaved and in poverty than when black people climbed out of poverty uh and were just trying to make it you know in the American economy and the the reality that Frederick Douglass was talking about back in the 1800s is still true today which is America in my opinion has not come to grips with the aftermath of slavery we don't as a nation the nation doesn't know what to do with it and actually sometimes it becomes very uncomfortable when a black man black woman come of financial means and that just means I don't think it's an impossible challenge I don't think it's an impossible hurdle but what I think it means is that the nation has a long way to go we've come a long way and the fact that the nation turned away from Donald Trump this year is a huge statement it to me what it says is the people want to move on to a mindset that's more productive more positive and more meaningful and frankly that doesn't have anything to do with being a white or black it's just you know how do you how do you improve the quality of life for everybody well I I I agree with you and I think that while we are basically a Christian nation even though we're not supposed to be but we are or I shouldn't say Christian because there's an awful lot of Jewish people and Baha'i and Buddhist and Islamic and and that is that basic tenant that very basic and it doesn't matter whether you're using the Jewish Torah or the Christian Bible the basic is the Beatitudes how you care for people and I think people and that's why they like Joe Biden because he comes from that Christian belief that you care for people the empathy the telling the truth uh wanting to feed the hungry all of that that we all somehow grow up with and I think people wanted that again they liked that uh that caring for people by the government and everybody and I think that's what we voted for that we want to go want to do that again well because of Marcia I would say you're very idealistic I think that I don't think this was a vote about Biden at all this was a vote against Trump well that's what I meant that we wanted to get rid of that lying and deceit and all of that yeah yeah this was clearly in my mind a vote against oh yes and it was against Donald Trump yes it's a man who said that uh he could shoot a person in the middle of Fifth Avenue and you know uh his people would still support him a man who you know sell it was celebrated for groping women in their private parts uh it making you know just disgusting humiliating uh derogatory comments about people who he felt were outside of the norm and I think the basic uh person in America just was turned off by that well and uh so the real question in my mind that Joseph Biden has now is how does he build upon this coalition that he that he benefited from uh I don't I don't think a lot of people were crazy about voting for Joseph Biden but they were resolute in voting against Donald Trump on election day you should have seen my polling place I was there seven in the morning and uh with my wife and we were number 20 in line I was disappointed I thought we should have been number 100 or 300 in line but we were number 20 in line but the and it was cold out you know the weather was bad but the people had a resolute face it was like we are not going to tolerate Donald Trump for another four years and so I think the American democracy really uh showed itself for what it is this past election contrary to what Donald Trump has said the election was fair he's tried to chip away at that in several states but the reality is is uh it was a fair election and so fair go ahead I agree with you I absolutely agree so I was starting to tell you before we went on air that uh a young woman that I supported who ran for judge thought on election night she thought she lost the election but to date because of the slow thorough counting in Detroit she was she was running for one of two seats and the two top vote getters she thought were white but she ended up winning the election by a surprise by about you know less than one percent and she beat a white candidate with a very strong political name in Detroit Hathaway and uh the guy that changed his name to Hathaway and she beat him and and what Trump is going to find out is if he actually goes through a recount or all across America I think Biden's vote tally is just going to increase I agree totally agree and um even though uh after all he did ugly about in McCain in Arizona why he thought he could win when McCain was a patron saint of Arizona beats the dog crap out of me this and darling we have just another minute or so to go tell me the future of of your city where you after the election the people that won the people that didn't win where are we going with your city since you're one of the major major cities well cousin marsha again I want to thank you for the opportunity to be on your show and uh Detroit will be all right Detroit uh is by 80 black we have 140 square miles of land in Detroit we sit on the freshest water in the world believe it or not you know we aqua fena do you ever drink aqua fena water I have yes they bottle it in Detroit Pepsi bottles it straight out of the Detroit River the Detroit River is a fast river matter of fact what Detroit detroit means is the city of the streets the water is fast and because it's fast the algae doesn't get to stick uh to the water and so Detroit will be fine the big three are working on artificial intelligence and electric vehicles the city will do just fine but the city is a microcosm of the rest of America and you know what America is trying to figure out is how can we live better and uh Detroit is right in that mix so I thank you for the opportunity to be on your show and maybe if I'm lucky you'll have me back I of course I will and for anybody that's everybody that's watching the good reverend sends me his sermon every Sunday so I feel honored to be on your email list thank you very much yeah so anybody that wants to be on his email list it's Reverend Nicholas hood Plymouth Plymouth what Nicholas hood the third just google Nicholas hood the third and they'll be able to figure it out but we want them to enjoy you as much as I do and thank you so much for being my guest and we will do this again all right thank you so much god bless aloha