Afterwards is a a weekly interw program with relevant guest hosts anything top nonfiction authors about their latest work. All afterwards programs are available as podcasts. Reverend sharpton i dont want to start this conversation about your book by quoting something you wrote towards the end of your book which i think its a great jumping off point for this conversation pick you write i tell everyone the hardest job of being a preacher is to eulogize a life that someone who did nothing. My friends it is hardest to eulogize the lifeblood of the country who did nothing and then political and its a so i beg of you, give me something to work with. When your time comes understand before the family as they prepare to take you to god, let there be Something Worthy come something of merit that you did for your fellow man that helped to lift them. The name of your book as we all know is rise up. Talk more about that. Why it is imperative completely its imperative for people to give folks like you and do for the rest of us something to eulogize, to look up to. Guest i think the definition of ones existence is what they do in life, at the end of life. The only thing that will matter is what you did beyond your own particular just making a living and having a home and having material things. But what was the value of your existence . Did it change anything . It continue anything . What was the significance . I think people really dont think about that. What brought that the mind, i did the eulogy for Michael Jackson was the biggest pop star of this time, and when we were coming out of cemetery that night after i did the final eulogy at his burial, a wellknown artist that i wont name said to me, reverend, you really moved me in your eulogy to michael. If i go first i want you to do one for me like that. I looked at him and said, you have got to give me something to work with. Michael broke records in terms of drawing people to his concerts and records he sold and some humanitarian work he did. This particular artist had a hot record at one time but never really did anything. I think people never really think about all of us at some point is going to die. What statement did our life make . And i think that is all dependent on on the times in wh he lived and the challenges that you faced, whether youve met those challenges in a in a bror societal context or not, and i think people often dont think theres one thing about making a living, theres another thing about making a life that was worth living. Host in reading her book, its several books in in one to my mind. On the one hand, it could be read as may be hes going to run for elected office again because you talk about specific policies and issues that are facing the country and what you think should be done. Then on the other hand, its a memoir. You read your personal story through all of the chapters and we get to find out bits and pieces because youve written of the books were your life factors more prominently but we get to see who you are, where you came from and how it fits with the times were in. Its also a bit of a howto book when it comes to the advice you give activists. Why did you decide in writing rise up to dig your book in that way . We see obama that in many ways continued the tradition of continuing the fight for Civil Liberties and civil rights, and Inclusive Society but it was weather was africanamericans, women or are lgbtq or people ow income levels. And on the trump level we saw the reverse of that, and exclusionary policy when it came to blacks and gain to women come when it came to immigrants, lgbtq. I wanted to challenge people on both rows, which one of this country will choose. And if they decided to choose a road that i chose which was more in the tradition that creator of barack obama, here are some practical ways to do it. I wanted people to know that i came to these conclusions because i have done certain things in life and was instructed to me. I really think we are at a crossroads. I think that this country has got to choose one way or another, and theres been this constant battle since the founding of the country. And i think as we are now in the 21st century we have to make a real hard decision. I want people to know whether they agree with me or not, the road i chose not, how i came to those conclusions. And, therefore, this is the conclusion they need to make, but whatever decision you make, you dont have to do it my way. You may do it and a small context, and be in your home, they been your neighborhood, maybe in your church or bingo club but at what he practically get active. I wanted to do all that in one book because i wanted to make people think, make people committed and then went to make a commitment people always say, what do i do . I cant lead a march. I can do something. Everybody can do something and give them ways of doing that. Host that is the one thing i didnt see coming, when i got to the part i didnt see it coming and in the advice that you give having known you and covered you for 30 years to say oh, actually, yes, i see that. He literally practices what he literally preaches i want to bring you to the beginning of the book. Because you do not spare anyone, not the president , not liberals, not the Republican Party. I want to start with this group of people who you have dubbed latte liberals. Youve been talking about it a lot. Before your book came out, but talk about latte liberals here who are they and why are they so problematic within the Democratic Party, the progressive wing of the Democratic Party . Guest i think that the latte liberals is those that are these armchair kind of that always want to set the tone, set the policy, set what we are going but never get their hands dirty, never get involved. They have assigned themselves to leadership but they are not leaving anyone. They are not on the ground. So in the last decade we had every battle in the Civil Rights Era from Trayvon Martin to george floyd, and we always had latte liberals that would interpret for us what the movement ought to be doing but they were not on the ground trying to deal with how people felt, how people that were angry, how they would react. People that were angry on the other side, how they would react. How you deal with people that want to do something that did know what to do, they would sit back sipping lattes having discussions about great thoughts but never put anything into action. Those to me seem to be very much an obstacle, because what they see a rise and what they proselytize a network functionally. Its easy to sit back in a living room or parlor and sip a latte or sit up in an editorial room or in the studio and spout great wisdom. If youre not on the ground dealing with the people who are hurt and angry or dealing with people on the other side of the barricade that are just as adamant in their beliefs, and a lot of things you have to do practically is based on being in action. One of the things ive always been is involved. I talk about some of that involvement. You may think a lot of that is because youre moving and reacting in real time, to invest in real people. Im dealing with, if im dealing with a case of racial violence or police violence, im dealing with the victim, the victim samba, the immediate community, the reaction. These are people who are not activists or politically up to the last situation that we may interpret as this is the politics of the time. They are not in to do with a real matter. Ill deal with that matter is a plot of context was is going on in the social order is what you have to learn how to deal with. A latte liberals doesnt have to deal with that. If im dealing with the mother of the Police Brutality victim, i have got to deal with her pain, i have to deal with the reaction. I have to deal with what she wants done or not done in the name of the victim that they were the mother of. A latte liberals never talks to mother, doesnt know that that mother is as concerned about how am i going to vary my child, the cost of it. They may not of been injured. How am i dealing with a broken family that may not come together . All of that, at a latte liberal would be judgmental but never active. They have become in my judgment just as much as an impediment as those on the other side because they are so intellectual that they are not useful when one of the things you also say is they are more interested in purity, impulsive purity and it actually get anything done. Guest they seem to have that class of people, that group of people, rigid this, that, heres my program. If youre not with those programs then all of a sudden youre in, incorrect. Youre not useful. I might agree with eight of the points but two of the points i dont feel functionally works for the people i tried to work with and im trying to help serve. Then they dismissed anything else and is purity test i think is what has cost a lot of movement forward. Its politics, for example. They would give a purity test to a Hillary Clinton or a joe biden, they may disagree with both of them but i felt the overall direction was worthy of support based on who was opposing them. If you say its my way, you have to check off all of my tin boxes to get to the tenpoint list, if you dont do that then i will oppose you. It is serving the opposition to all of us rather than getting something done. When youre you are dealing wil pain, real issues with people on the ground sometime checked work with people that you may have some disagreement on some points but the overall point is going to help position where you want to position people toward upanddown the right road. Host you write Something Else in your book about the latte liberals that want you to expand on. Youre right, a latte liberal made me well but its lack of empathy understanding of the basic inequalities that go handinhand hand in hand with bigotry, racism and economic disparity make them suspected anyone struggling to get a foothold in the american dream. I would go so far says that latte liberals had a better sense of these issues and their black and brown immigrant brothers, it would be no need for someone like me. I wrote in the margins when i read that, i wrote bernie critique . Talk more about that. Guest i think what i was saying was that the people that are in black and brown communities, and in some workingclass and even poor white communities, and in the lgbtq community, visit people that are living with a lot of latte liberals are reading about. So theyre dealing with how they can analyze the pain without expressing the pain, and expressing the reaction to the pain and expressing the outrage. When i go to a scene like george floyd when the family called me, im standing there on the corner where he literally died, narrating his own death on video, put an e on. Guest . Im thinking about the human suffering this man had put a knee on his neck. The law is applicable but whos going to express the Inhumane Treatment . Who is going to express the outrage of people watching a man dying . They are so caught up in their analysis and fitting it into their part of the time, that they miss the actual facts. This is a human being, somebodys father, somebodys brother, somebodys son that laid there and was killed with eight minutes and 46 seconds. By the time they get through their analysis they are rejected because its like you dont feel my pain. Someone like me expresses the pain and the outrage because when i look at A George Floyd or at trayvon or an eric garner, i say that couldve been the and it crosses my life journey. It was me. Im talking about someone talk about a situation that ive had to live in, and they never get there which is why they appear useless. Those of us that have the courage and ability to express that pain become necessary, because at first and foremost someone in that predicament want someone to understand i am hurting, this is not fair, this is not right, i am being treated wrong. And it emanates very well in expression those three brilliant sisters then, black lives matter first, act like i matter. Im not some object to be analyzed. Im something that ought to be regarded, something that ought to be respected and, therefore, to be treated this way. Now we can get to the social formula that you want or legal kind of analysis that you want to get you, but first you must certify and confirm you understand that i am being violated as a person. Host i want to come back to that in the second because there was something he wrote in the book that surprised me. You mentioned Trayvon Martin. You mentioned eric garner the been countless of the victims of Fatal Police Violence or for jamaica violence. Ahmaud arbery comes to mind. Money. You wrote in the book that i think was when he went comes to mind. When he went to minneapolis to see the site where george floyd was killed under the knee of Police Officer, thats got to you. Correct me if im wrong, i think you said it broke you. Why of all the things youve done over all of these decades, what was it about that particular circumstance, that particular victim, that particular location or city that moved you or affected you that way . First of all, when i got the call, ben crump, the attorney called and said the family would like to be involved and he said, would you go to minneapolis and kind to stand up on this issue . I told him, absolutely. I called eric garner his mother and said im going to minneapolis. One of our supporters is going to give us a private plane to go. Would you go with the . Because was in the middle of the pandemic. None of us were flying. There were very few flights at that time, and i knew she was concerned as all of us were about going out, particularly traveling during covid19. Covid19. She said im already packed. So we got on this private plane went to minneapolis. We land, we go as at saigon foe last 35 years to the scene. But when we pulled up in the middle of this community and then we walked over, we met with some of the local activists at a church that was diagonal to the corner that george was killed on. When we walked up and i look at this curb where this man blade and a look at the stores that was there, and i thought about this lady who walked by and videotaped this man laying there in the gutter. It was right off the curb. In broad daylight with this knee on his neck. It just hit me, how vicious was of this . And what a way to die. This man was laying in the gutter begging for his life in broad daylight with people walking by. No one could stop this cop and the other two policemen standing there aiding in this mans life being taken. It just overwhelmed me. I said in the book, when you lose the sensitivity of the human life and the value of it, you ought not be an activist because if you dont feel something, if its just another scene and another situation that this is your next speech, then i think you are ineffective. It really bothered me. George floyd brought home to me the viciousness, the insensitivity, the ruthlessness some people have towards human life. At what point in eight minutes and 46 seconds does your humanity came in that this is a human being, even if you thought he was doing something wrong . This is a human being begging for his life. And its the humanity and the officer never kicked in, then something outrageous about that to me. That is why when i did the eulogy at the end of the eulogy and everybody stood up for eight minutes of 46 seconds because i dont think people understood how long a time that was. People told me later, people who watched on television, that after two or three minutes they were tired of standing. Let alone press your knee and somebodys neck. Wait a minute, this is a human being. Somebodys child that im squeezing the life out of, coming facetoface with that at that corn was overwhelming to me. Host the other thing about the eight minutes and 46 seconds is the fact that the Police Officer had his hands in his pockets. It was in broad daylight on a city street and he was seemingly nonchalant about the tragedy guest nonchalant, didnt matter. Later when i found out when he was calling for his mother and i told ben crump what i would come back to minneapolis a few days later to do the funeral, i said, he said the family wants to meet you because i talked to them on the phone and his brother and i talked and he did my television show. I said i want to meet his mother. Ben crump said his mother died to what you mean his mother died . He was calling for his mother. He said that was what was so strange that he was calling for his mother. It almost cheered me up because he was calling for someone that he had to know wasnt there but it was like he didnt have anyone else to call. It was like calling for food probably called for all his life. Life. And as you know of someone who has is company for 30 years, my mother was i came out of a singleparent home. I know that feeling. I think it also brought it all back to me, the emotions and the funeral, because i know what t is to call for a mother. Because nobody else would help, my mother was there and i felt that is what george had. Host as the son of a single mom as well, that was the thing that got me. Thats your pursuit of last resort when youre calling for your mom, theres nowhere else to turn to. As a result of the killing of george floyd, we have seen i cant remember an incident that created this much outrage. National protests almost overnight in cities big and small, protesting the killing of the span and have watched, as you said, for eight minutes and 46 seconds. One of the things that i noticed lots of africanamericans noticed was the complexion of these protests. You have led many protests where it is just you and the africanamericans who are marching behind you. This time in the protests, and a lot of places the majority of the protesters have been white. This is a multipark question, but what do you give me your view about that, about white americans rallying to support africanamericans, something weve been protesting and ringing the bell and screaming about for generations. Guest i was absolutely impressed with the fact that so many whites literally came out, and not just gave some removed sympathy, but became part of e movement, and in many cases as you said there were more of them than us in many cities. And i said, maybe were getting through this time. Maybe this is the spark that will wake up a lot of the country, regardless of their race because of the outrage of this kind of scene. And i think part of this is, in an ironic ironic way, jonathans happened during the pandemic where everyone was locked down and there was no sports come so you watched the news. Most americans watching news hoping it was a something has broken through and we can go out tomorrow. People were housed in and had to watch this ti